#goddamn was my brush always this pixelated

[danothan]

i check out your blog because of psych art as well :)

oh man i have NOT been treating the psych enjoyers well

um uh

take this one year old shawngus

edit: new art blog is @toytle

[wicked--loving--lies]

A pointless snippet

because I cannot seem to get this pixel person out of my head. Anyway, pointless Tommy and Maria at the end of a long day fluff…

Maria sheds her coat, the fabric dampened with melting snow. “Sorry I’m a little late, babe,” she calls over her shoulder as she lines up her wet boots by the door. “We ran into some issues at the dam.”

It’s been a long day, and she’s more than ready to eat something and go to bed, especially now that Tommy’s finally home.

He’s sprawled on the couch when she comes into the living room. A lumpy knit blanket obscures most of his lower half, although she can see the tip of one of his boots poking out from underneath. If it was any other day, she’d be annoyed, but she doesn’t have it in her now. He rubs sleep from his bleary eyes, no doubt exhausted after an unexpectedly lengthy patrol.

“Hey,” he murmurs, soft and hoarse.

Maria arches an eyebrow and taps his booted foot, coaxing it off her couch and to the floor. “Patrol went well, huh?”

“Shit.” With a self-deprecating half-smile, he kicks the boots off, then sits up and clears his throat. “Wasn’t an easy one.”

“Infected?” she guesses, slotting herself in behind him on the couch and enveloping him in a tight hug.

“Among other things.” He fills her in on the last several days while her fingers seek out the knotted muscles along his spine. A horde, several bandit camps, and a long night freezing his ass off in a cabin in the foothills.

Maria had been ready to complain as well, her night at home having been spent awake worrying, but she decides to let him have this one. “Sounds miserable.”

“Mhmm,” he affirms.

She kneads her thumbs into his shoulders, easing out some of the tension the days outside the walls had left behind. He relaxes into her touch, emitting a contented groan followed by a rough sniffle.

“Worst part, though,” Tommy rasps, grinning over his shoulder at her, “was missing you so goddamn much.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She smiles, wrapping her arms around him once again and resting her cheek on his shoulder. He still smells like the woods, like horses and sweat and smoke. His fingers, rough and calloused, cover hers. “I missed you too.”

She hugs him a little tighter until he pulls away, leaning forward to smother a sneeze in the crook of his arm.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks, resting a gentle hand on his back. “You’re a little warm.”

“Well,” he says, sniffling, “you do tend to have that effect on me.” He pivots, pulling her onto his lap, and presses a scruffy, tickling kiss to her throat.

“Stop it,” she says with a laugh. But she leans into him, reaching up to gently brush loose strands of hair behind his ear. “You know what I meant.”

“Just a little run down is all.” He looks pale, tired, but he gives her that crooked grin that always makes her heart beat a little faster and holds her closer against his chest. “I was too cold without you last night. Couldn't sleep.”

Maria snorts, pressing her face against his neck to hide her grin. “You’re so corny.”

“You love it.”

She does. “Tell you what,” she says. “We’ve got some leftovers in the fridge if you want to lie low for the night. We could eat here, turn in early.”

There’s that smile again. “Might take you up on that.”

[shares-a-vest]

For @batboysxprompts 'Bat to the Bone' Steddie Flash Event

Expanding on THIS drawing I did ages ago (don't look at it, it is the first digital thing I've ever drawn and I did the pixel thingy wrong). I really only have three different ideas turning like a rotisserie in my head.

"Aw, come on, Steve, they are so cute!" Robin chimes as she scratches a small, fluffy bat behind the ear with sickly affection.

She is sitting on the floor by the coffee table, hand-feeding the thing from an upturned ziplock bag of mixed nuts and dried fruit, the pile spreading every time she goes to it. Meanwhile, Nancy spins around, watching as three more critters circle her, chirping away in unison and periodically dipping to rest delicately on her hand like she's a goddamn woodland-dwelling Disney princess.

"Why don't you like them?" Nancy adds, like she hasn't made this argument each time Steve has complained about the flying nightmares over the past two months.

He folds his arms, watching on from the archway into the living room.

But he doesn't stay standing in dramatic defiance for long because he is soon moving to slap away one bat coming for his arm, the one that always goes straight for a nibble on his biceps.

He can't tell any of them apart physically, even though everyone else can. Including the girls who have a rotation of names for the dozen or so bats that Eddie has "doing his bidding" or sends out "for protection" or whatever other excuse he has for them living in Steve's house 24/7.

At least they had enough sense to stay up in amongst the exposed wood beams when his parents were home a few weeks back.

"What the - "

Steve babbles incoherently as another (which Dustin so unhelpfully named Bat Steve due to his predilection for hair) comes swooping, landing directly in his hair. He knows better than to remove him because Bat Steve will hold on for dear life and tangle himself up to nest there.

He ignores him - as best he can ignore a literal bat brushing away at his hair like he's combing it - to continue, "So what happened at work today was perfectly fine, then? How are we supposed to explain that to Keith?"

"Just tell him a pigeon flew in through the door with a customer when the door opened and pooped everywhere," Nancy shrugs, ever the one to come up with a lie on the fly.

Robin clicks her fingers in agreement and points a finger at Nancy, "That's a good one."

Steve rolls his eyes, "Yeah a pigeon shitting red berries everywhere makes a whole lotta sense!"

He swats away Bicep Chomper again as Robin offers up more berries.

"Here you go," she coos, leaning in close.

"Maybe you should stop feeding them!" he snaps, turning heel into the entryway so he can use the hall mirror and figure out how to detangle Bat Steve.

Three others follow along, hovering around him in a flapping halo as he looks in the mirror.

"God damn it!"

He gesticulates wildly at his reflection, huffing and whining at the sight of a red smear on the collar of his predominantly white polo. He turns to look over his shoulder and, sure enough, there are more drip marks down the back of his work vest too.

"I need Eddie to wake up so he can take them while I shower," he whines, speaking more to himself than the girls who are now cooing in baby-talk to the bats still in the living room.

He is about to continue extracting Bat Steve when a laugh drifts down the staircase.

The bats go flying upwards. Except for Bat Steve, who merely attempts to do so but gets a claw caught up in a lock of Steve's fringe, giving an eye-watering tug as he goes. Steve grabs him and yanks him clean out, along with a few precious stands. At this rate, Bat Steve is going to send Human Steve bald.

"Come to your Vampir Master," Eddie commands in his Dungeon Master voice as he throws his arms wide.

He cackles when they each land along his right arm.

Steve rolls his eyes at the supposed Master. A joke everyone around him, all being nerds, ran into the ground. It honestly wasn't that funny anyway, considering the only real differences between Eddie before and after coming back from the Upside Down as a vampire are 1) no sunlight, 2) drinking blood, and 3) a bunch of unruly bats flapping about.

He opens his mouth to start up the laundry list of complaints he had been reciting since the bats pooped their way through his place of employment just after lunchtime. But Eddie smirks at him and winks.

Okay so maybe Steve enjoys the whole Master-Vampire boyfriend thing on occasion. He shakes his head. It just cannot be right now...

Eddie bounces down the stairs, lowering his arm and Bat Steve comes straight back.

"Eds, tell them to stop!" Steve dry sobs, sounding utterly childish as Eddie descends the stairs.

Showing Eddie-level dramatics wasn't exactly the game plan here but, with Bat Steve burrowing back into his hair, he can't help it.

His hair!

"Come here, Cordelia," Eddie coos, gently lifting Cordelia out of his hair.

But the relief is short-lived because now Steve can feel a critter crawling up his back to rest on his left shoulder. Oh no.

The others are very annoying and, in Cordelia's case, painful. And overall yeah, being followed around constantly by your vampire boyfriend's bat squadron is potentially life-ruining considering the carpet in Family Video is now covered in bat poop stains.

But this one (aka, Bitey) bites.

He points to his shoulder where he can hear Bitey chirping away, readying itself to attack, "At least stop this one!"

"Samwise, come with me, darling," Eddie instructs, reaching forward and flattening his palm.

Bitey (there's no way Steve is calling him anything other than that for now) retreats behind his neck, hiding. He does this a lot, the little shit.

"Sam," Eddie warns sternly.

The bat inches forward, clearly reluctant as Eddie plucks him off Steve's shoulder, a claw catching on the fabric of his polo. Eddie raises his hand so Bitey is at eye level.

"Stop biting. Only I get to bite Steve."

[the-blind-assassin-12]

🎁🎁🎁 Make Good Ones

A SNEAKRET SANTA GIFT DRABBLE

A/N: Merry December and Happy Holidays, everyone! Don’t mind me, I’m just here to leave another gift under the tree. These are my way of giving back to some of the lovely content creators here whose work brings me joy. I tried to personalize them a little bit for each person they’re dedicated to, but they’re just as much my gift to anyone who has ever shared their work or who has ever read mine. Thank you for being lovely <3 

Gift Tag: @something-tofightfor​ - Who gave this response when I asked her “Joel or Jack” -  “I hate you for making me choose.” - I know, it was rude of me. But I was preeeeeeetty sure which way she was going to lean, so when the answer was Joel this basically started writing itself. The prompts I chose to work in for this one were ornaments, wrapping paper, & Christmas tree. Rachael, your Joel is so incredibly special, and the way that you write him - and all of your characters - is a huge inspiration to me as a writer. I have you to thank for introducing me to this fictional (pixel) man in the first place, so I truly hope you enjoy these few thousand words about him at the holidays. Thank you for being so goddamn wonderful. I frickin love you! 

WC: 3,198 

Warnings: canon typical angst, discussion about loss, no actual spoilers though, and it’s overall a fluff. This is stand alone and is not connected to Survivor Blues or anything else I have written for Joel. 

It had started off as a simple question one night at the end of November - you asking Joel what his and Ellie’s plans for Christmas were that year. He’d told you that they were going to have dinner with Tommy and Maria on Christmas Eve, but that the following day they had no plans, so you had invited them to your place, telling him that the holiday was your favorite and that you would love to spend it with the two of them. 

It had turned into something more when he’d surprised you by asking you why it was your favorite holiday.

That was a story that revealed far more than the actual answer to his innocuous question, but as the two of you lay together on your couch one night, a fire that he’d built warming the space and soft music coming from the record player in the corner, you decided that there was no one else that you’d rather tell it to. “It’s a long story,” you said with a sigh, leaning into him. “You sure you want me to-” 

He answered by kissing the crown of your head and mumbling, “I’ve got time.” Alright. You relaxed into him as he shifted his legs so that you could fit between them. He asked, so… so here goes.  

“So, my grandparents had one of those old bottle brush looking things from the 70’s.” You scoffed, shaking your head. “You know, those silver ones that looked more like pipe-cleaners than pine trees?”

You felt the rumble of his chuckle against your back as it left his chest. “Yeah, I remember those.” His work-worn fingers slid over your knuckles and you spread yours to accommodate them, letting him drag you closer as he tightened his grip. “Pretty sure our Grandma had one, too.”  

He kissed your temple, the bristle of his facial hair gently scraping your skin, his warm breath fanning over it. You closed your eyes at the sensation like you always did, focusing on the way you felt the rise and fall of his lungs, the steady thrum of his heartbeat at your spine. We’re alive. We’re here. We have this. You swept your thumb over his pinky finger and let out a hum. “Did she?” You laughed. “I think everyone’s did.”  

He snorted. “Probably. It was what was popular then, right?” 

“It was,” you agreed. “Though I really don’t know why. They were so… goddamn awful, Joel.”

You could still picture it standing in front of the window, your grandpa’s recliner moved into the corner so the tree could take center stage in the small living room. All the ornaments your mom, your aunts and your uncle crafted and collected as kids were mixed with antique baubles and retro style glass starbursts, and keepsake frames with old photos secured to the faux branches with red ribbons. Combined with the hundreds of brightly colored lights that used to captivate you every time you saw them, the tree - despite being a hideous thing on its own - always seemed beautiful and magical to you in your memory. 

As his gravelly laughter settled down, you opened your eyes and sighed. “But my cousins and I loved going over there around the holidays. We were all pretty close in age and for the most part we got along and…” Your throat suddenly became tight, but you swallowed and kept going. Because I want him to know this. Want him to know me. “And we loved looking at all the old ornaments. Some of them we’d even take off the tree and play with.” 

Joel let out a burst of air through his nose that you felt against your scalp. “Oh, I bet your grandma loved that.” 

The visual of the woman raising her arms and her voice in utter disapproval from the kitchen doorway while the eight of you scattered away from the tree in a fit of giggles was one that you were happy you could still so easily recall. We were trouble. Sorry, Nana. 

Deep down - even then, as she shook a wooden spoon in the air - you knew she loved the trouble you all caused. 

“To be fair, she just didn’t want anything to get broken or for any of us to cut ourselves on shards of glass that was probably decorated with toxic paint.”  

The tip of his nose trailed over the side of your head, and then he dropped his lips there as he spoke. “Sounds about right.” 

You hummed at the way his words vibrated through you, adding to the warmth of his body wrapped around yours, and though you would have liked to stay in that position - and in Joel’s arms - indefinitely, the next part of the story you were telling was the most important, and you wanted to look at him as you told it. Squeezing his hand before you loosened your fingers, you turned in his hold. Early on in your relationship, and before you could even call it one, if you would have moved or shifted away from him the same way that you just did, he would have pulled away. He would have taken his hands off of you, possibly would have even left the bed or the couch under either under the assumption that you wanted to get away from him, or that he shouldn’t want to be so close. Now though, after almost a full year of being with him, he hardly ever pulled away. And I never want him to. 

You settled yourself so that your back was against the couch cushion and your side was pressed to his chest, and you waited for his arms to fold around you before continuing. “We weren’t really interested in the fragile ones though. She had this set of little… they were Santa’s reindeer, and they were all wearing knit sweaters with their names on them. You know, Dasher and Prancer and…” You trailed off, circling one wrist to imply the rest of the reindeer and Joel nodded. “Since there were the same number of them as there were of us, we used to all claim our favorite one and-” You laughed, even as the memory began to stir something bittersweet in your heart, shrugging away the thickness in your throat. “I don’t know what we did, really, just… played with them.” 

Joel’s dark eyes, brightened by the orange glow of the fire light, never left your face even as you took a pause to wet your lips and blink back the tears that you knew would eventually end up falling. Even though it’s a funny story it’s… I miss them. But it was one that you wanted and needed to tell. The point of making memories is to keep them alive. The motion of Joel’s roughened thumb sweeping across the strip of your waist that was visible between the hem of your shirt and the top of your sweatpants grounded you enough to keep going. 

“One year, I think I was nine or ten maybe? My grandma noticed that Dasher was missing. She had all of us turn the house upside down looking for it. Then she had us all turn out our pockets and-” You laughed again, but this time a stray tear did make it past your lashes, rolling slowly down your cheek. I’m not sad though. “Well, long story short, one of us stole him.” 

Moving his hand from your hip to your face, Joel used his knuckle to wipe under your eye. “Lemme guess,” his expression was softer than it usually was, even as he narrowed his eyes. “No one ever fessed up.” 

You pressed your lips together and shook your head, even as his palm curved around your cheek. “Never. We never found out who took him. But-” You raised one eyebrow. “It’s a good thing one of us did, because about three years later my grandparents’ basement flooded, and all their decorations got ruined.” 

Although you were all happy and relieved that your grandparents had been able to get to safety before the storm had gotten too bad, it was a sad time for your family because of the loss of so many heirlooms and keepsakes. “That’s shitty,” Joel mumbled apologetically, lips dipping into a frown. 

“Yeah, it was.” You sighed. “But then that next Christmas, Dasher showed up on their new tree.” 

Blinking away another few tears, you broke into a smile as you recalled what it meant to everyone - your aunts and uncles, your mom and grandparents, you and all your cousins - to see that silly little deer, his sweater slightly pulled and one hoof a little dinged up - amidst all of the new filler ornaments your grandma had gotten until they could replenish their collection. That was such a good day. 

Joel gave you a small grin, the lines and shadows on his face seeming to fade as he did. “I’m glad it made its way back.” Oh, just wait, I haven’t even… “You ever find out who took him in the first place?”

You shook your head. “Nope. No clue. No one ever confessed, and if anyone knew who did it, they didn’t rat them out.” 

He hummed. “Somthin’ to be said for that.” 

There is. You agreed. We always had each other’s backs. “When we all got older, after…” You took a breath. “After our grandparents passed away, we decided that every Christmas we should take turns putting Dasher on our tree. We’d pass him off at Thanksgiving on years that we all got together, or else we’d mail him to each other a few weeks before Christmas.” 

“That’s a nice tradition.” 

“It is, Joel. It’s…” You turned your face away, just for a second, to pull yourself together. I should just… show him. When you turned back towards him, you saw the question in his eyes. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” You leaned in and dropped your lips to his cheek, just above the line of his beard, and then you stood from the couch.

He didn’t say anything as you padded over to the hall closet, the only sound in the room coming from the shifting logs in the fireplace and your socked footsteps on the hardwood, but you felt his eyes still on you even as you opened the closet door. Reaching up for the highest shelf, you pulled down the cardboard box that was there and took the small reindeer from it. You turned it over in your hand, feeling the stitching that read the animal’s name, poking at one of the points of its antlers, and then you closed the closet and brought the figurine out. 

“Well, shit, is that…” He nodded at the anthropomorphic reindeer that you held, one arm over the back of the couch as he watched you reenter the room. 

“Yeah,” you confirmed, your voice catching as you came back to sit next to him. Bending one knee, you drew that leg up under you and handed the ornament over. 

As soon as it was in his hands, you realized that while you’d displayed the ornament on your tree every year since you’d arrived in Jackson, Joel was the first person that you actually shared its story with. As he looked more closely at it, turning it in his hand, the firelight glinted off the broken face of his watch, and you were reminded of the night that Joel had shared the item’s importance and meaning with you. Seeing both his watch and your ornament, relics of your former lives side by side like that, hit you hard - but like the memories connected to Dasher, the wave of emotion wasn’t painful or sad. It was deep, and it swelled in your chest, but it wasn’t trying to drag you down. It just means… You swallowed, looking up at him as he continued to stare at what he held. It means we know each other and that’s… He finally blinked, his focus shifting up to your face. That’s everything. 

You cleared your throat and Joel leaned forward to gently place the ornament on the coffee table. His newly emptied hand came to rest on your knee, and you glanced down before placing yours on top of it and continuing on. “It um… 2013 was supposed to be my turn to have him.” You sniffed, took a breath and let it out slowly. “Wasn’t expecting to get anything in the mail until closer to Christmas, but then the first week of September I got a package from my cousin Devon.” You could still see the swirling letters of her handwriting on the note that accompanied the small box on your doorstep. “She had just taken a job offer in Toronto and she was moving up there at the end of the month, but-” 

You didn’t have to finish your sentence. You both knew how September had ended that year. 

So you didn’t. At least, you didn’t finish it the way Joel expected you to. “But she didn’t want to pay international shipping rates to get it to me if she waited until Thanksgiving.” 

That was what her note had said - a joke, but also the truth - along with the phrase they all always included when Dasher got passed around. Make good ones this year. 

“So that’s… this little guy is my thing. My thing from before. My…” 

“It's the thing that reminds you.” He cut in, saving you from having to find the words to describe how much this inherently worthless ornament made from plastic and yarn actually meant to you. “Reminds you why you keep fighting. Reminds you of… of things worth thinkin’ about.” 

“Yeah,” you nodded, swiping the heel of your palm under your eyes. 

Joel reached for you then, drawing you close to his chest and wrapping you in his arms again, and you let him. You laid your cheek on his shoulder and felt his large hand cradle the back of your head, and then you felt his lips at your ear, your name coming from them. “Thank you for tellin’ me all that.” You kissed his neck in response, targeting one of the freckles there. “So Christmas is big for you, huh?”

You gave a small laugh that you knew he both felt and heard. “Christmas memories are big for me, Joel, but…” Picking your head up, you looked at the man that you had fallen in love with over the past year, hoping that you got to spend countless more holidays with him. “But yeah, you could say that.” The story finished, your history shared, you turned your body and took the same position that you were in when you started the conversation, Joel following your lead and tucking your spine to his sternum. “That’s why I conserve Christmas lights. I’ve found a few strings of ‘em that still work while out on sweeps and supply runs but I know eventually I won’t be able to find functioning ones anymore so… I only use one or two strands on my tree every year so I can make them last longer.” 

Joel let out a breath in an amused huff. “Can’t have a tree with no lights, right?” 

“Right.” 

That had been the end of that conversation, and shortly after, that night. Both of you had fallen asleep on your couch in front of the fire, only making it into the bedroom when Joel woke you up in the middle of the night. 

So when he brought it up again with just two weeks to go until Christmas, pulling a small oddly shaped and crudely wrapped package from his pocket after shedding his jacket and hanging it next to yours on the hook, you titled your head to the side in question. “Joel? What’s…” 

“I know it’s not Christmas yet, but this is… this is part’a your gift and it’s…” He handed you the package, the paper crinkling as it passed from his grasp to yours. “I wanted you to have it now.” 

His eyes darted to the tree that you’d set up in the living room. It was just the top few feet of a tree, really, since you only had a handful of things to hang on it - a few photos you’d managed to save through everything, some pinecones and cinnamon sticks you’d bundled together with ribbons and string, strands of buttons you’d found, one string of multicolored lights, and of course, Dasher the reindeer. 

You glanced down at the wrapping and immediately had to laugh. “Let me guess. Ellie helped with this?” 

Joel shrugged somewhat sheepishly. “Well I wasn’t able to find any Christmas wrapping paper and Maria didn’t have any so I asked her if we could make this work and…” He trailed off as you ran your fingers over the drawn on Santa hats and holly wreaths that Ellie had used markers to add to dinosaur themed birthday wrap. “We had to make do.” 

You felt your heart flip as you laughed, shaking your head and taking your bottom lip between your teeth. “It’s perfect. Very festive.” 

“Well, aren’t you gonna open it?” He crossed his arms and stuck his chin out at the package you held.

“Alright.” You carefully slipped your finger under the paper and lifted it, not wanting to rip it and ruin Ellie’s work. I can definitely add this to the tree somehow. You thought of Devon’s message and the instruction to “make good ones”, and you couldn’t think of a better memory to add than one that would mark the addition of Ellie and Joel in your life. 

But that thought was quickly paused when you pulled the gift from the paper and saw what it was. Oh, Joel. You sucked in a breath as the pieces of wood in your hand clanked together. Oh, he… he- “Did you make this?” The words were barely a whisper, but even if he hadn’t heard the question you already knew the answer. He did. He carved these. He- 

“Yeah. They’re… Can you tell what they are? Ellie said she could, but I don’t know if-“

“Lights.” The breath you sucked in shuddered as you stared at the string of small hand-carved and painted wooden bulbs in your hand. He’d shaped them to look just like the old fashioned ones that your grandparents had and attached five of them together to mimic a whole strand, knotting them off so that they stayed in place and didn’t slide along the “wire”. Oh, Joel, you… 

“They are.” Tears spilled over your bottom lashes as he brought one hand up to rub at the back of his neck like he did when he was uncertain. “I wanted to make sure your tree always had lights on it, even if you couldn’t replace the real ones anymore. I know it ain’t the same, but I-“ 

“Joel.” He stopped talking and stepped closer to you, hands going to your waist. This. This is a good one. “They’re not the same.” You raised onto your toes to nudge the tip of his nose with yours, and then you left a kiss to the scar that crossed the bridge of it. “They’re better.” 

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tags:  @something-tofightfor​ @littlemisspascal​ @mishasminion360​ @nyctophiliiiiaaa​ @practicalghost​ @amb11​ @mindidjarin​ @tentacruels​ @harriedandharassed​ @joelmillerscoffee​ @woodlandmouth​ @swtaura​  @thescarletfang​ @sleepylunarwolf​ @trickstersp8​ @princessxkenobi​ @imtryingmybeskar​ @wildmoonflower​ @mswarriorbabe80​ @theredwritingwitch​ @silverstarsandsuns​ @competentpotato​

[geryuthespacesquid]

Hi I'm a nobody asked digital artist, here's my thoughts on all the digital art programs I've tried. These are based entirely off my own memory, and I'm not picking up any of these programs again to test them. Just going off vibes.

Autodesk Sketchbook - Mobile:

This is more or less the definitive Draw You In To Art program. No exaggeration, I think if you asked maybe 50 digital artists in the modern day, most of them would've tried this one at least once. It projects an illusion of polish to distract you from a number of critical missing features, but overall, it's not even remotely bad to start out with. I think if my mobile tablet had a halfway decent degree of pressure sensitivity I could make something okay with it.

A more detailed explanation of my thoughts is hard, but to sum it up, this program bombards you with a million brushes for free, something rarely done by digital art programs, but, it also has extremely limited layer behaviors, you can't change canvas size anymore, and the stablizer is pits. I won't say it's bad. It's not. It's just not good. 5.8 out of 10.

Ibis Paint X - Mobile:

Comedically simple, this is the program you pick up when you're doing digital art a little better, and want to actually have fun. Bread and butter of the mobile digital artist. It has literally everything you need, it's just not fancy in any way. Getting every brush isn't worth paying for, but you'll live. They recently tried to step into AI and got punched in the gut so hard they stopped, which I like.

In general, this program doesn't do anything in particular extremely well, but it also doesn't do anything poorly. It's well rounded. I'd say if you're gonna do digital art on mobile, you'll always find yourself coming back around to this. It's just too solid. 7.8 out of 10.

Medibang Paint - Mobile:

I am biased against this program. I just don't like it. Maybe I was using it wrong, or maybe the mobile version is just worse, but it felt like drawing with mashed potatoes and gravy. Also it seems to be no longer available on my tablet, so fuck it.

In truth, my memory on this program is hazy despite me using it probably the second most out of all of these. No clipping mask, limited layer styles, an extremely limited number of brushes, no way to get more on mobile, anti aliasing made everything pixelated, and I don't think it can change canvas sizes, or if it can, I never figured out how. I just don't like anything about how the program feels. 3 out of 10.

Clip Studio Paint - Desktop:

Goddamn. I wanna recommend it. I really do. But. You have to know things.

First and foremost, the new subscription model for CSP essentially means that after a year, whatever version you have is obsolete, and won't even get updates while you have it. You have to pay a yearly subscription to get the updates for your current version. if you pay for the 3.0 version when it drops in march, it will be 10 dollars extra to get any of the updates to the 3.x version until 4.0 drops, when you can pay 25 dollars to upgrade to that and get all the 3.x updates, plus whatever came in 4.0. On top of that, it can cost anywhere from 25 to 200 dollars depending on which version you get, and if it's on sale.

But goddamn. It's pretty worth it. The brush engine is fluid, works great for making your own, I've never seen the program fail to do something. It has limits, but I've never hit them. 8 out of 10.

Rebelle 5 - Desktop:

Listen to me carefully. This one is extremely specific. You have to WANT a digital art program that replicates IRL media PRECISELY. If you don't care about that, this program is not worth it. I got it on sale for 10 dollars. Can I reccomend it at that price? Heartily. But at the near 200 dollar price point it usually goes for? FUCK NO. Rebelle caters to a specific demographic. Nothing else matters.

That said. When it works, it works well. I do like how rebelle feels and works. But not enough for me to ever tell someone to get it for full price. 4 out of 10, but if you really want to replicate traditional media, 9 out of 10.

Corel Painter - Desktop:

Never before has a program sent me on such an emotional rollercoaster as this one. It's just so much. It's a midpoint between Rebelle and Clip Studio, but for the worst. It's expensive beyond comprehension, you can't make your own brushes, only pay for new ones, it's a yearly format meaning a new, barely distinguishable version goes on sale every year for another 300+ dollars, and I only got it as part of a Humble Bundle for 25 dollars, and I still feel like I wasted my money.

And you know what? I didn't just dick around in this program. No, I made a full drawing in it. Nothing spectactular. Just a simple drawing. And I felt accomplished. and I went to export it, to share. Only to find out you can only email images to the email associated with your account to get a regular image version. Now. This made me irrationally angry, but, I calmed down, and tried it.

It only works with microsoft emails, and I have a gmail account associated with my Corel account.

This program is 300 dollars, and lacks the functionality to simply export a png to your computer. 2 out of 10.

[scarawayfromfallingapart]

but The (After)life of the Party is one of THOSE songs to me that’s like… to be cliche… a kick drum beating in my chest (again) like idk. This is one of those songs where I think they succeeded in writing it better than I’ve ever felt it but here I go trying to analyze it anyway… I realize I am taking your shtick @petewentzisblack1312 … but this song NEEDS to be analyzed and I am going to try and make you like it :) I have been lurking in ur asks as an anon for a couple weeks and I HAVe to say this off anon… I’m sorry to bother u. My greatest hits include my autotune does not equal bad/talentless rant and my Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) mini-analysis 🤪 but also I learn SO MUCH from ur blog I love it. Anyway!!! Analysis of this song:

Tw : mania, depression, anxiety, substance use

To me this song is about coming down from a manic episode, maybe not even necessarily transitioning right into depression but like. Just coming down from it and kinda seeing the world as it is again, and feeling that kind of mellowed out, where your body allows itself to feel tired again. The title makes it more obvious - he’s no longer the life of the party - it’s over, everyone’s gone home, but he’s still there trying in vain to carry it on.

“I’m a stitch away from making it and a scar away from falling apart” is my FAVORITE line (hence my URL lol)… but the fact that this song opens with that and the narrator is oscillating between feeling 100% and feeling like they’re going to breakdown like THAT is what these transitions feel like to me (ok also I generally feel like this on a daily basis). But this line also gives you a hint of how well it is going… like he’s a stitch away from getting there - the cut hasn’t completely healed so he’s not getting there any time soon : but a scar away from falling apart - like a scar has already healed so it’s old hurt that is threatening to tear him apart —> “my old aches become new again”.

Then we get “blood cells pixelate” which I personally find hilarious since this song has been likened to the sims 3 soundtrack 💀 (I played the sims but I refused to have the music on so I have no idea cannot confirm or deny). Butttt this is obviously like a nod to everything being on film like even everything down to the blood coursing through his veins is made into an image, poster boys for your scene am I right? Also has to do with the scar/stitch - his breakdown is there for everyone to see, immortalized on magazine covers and interviews and E!News segments. But like only the blood cells, like no one gives a damn if he heals from this, thats not newsworthy. Eyes dilate (drugs and/or sex but maybe drugs Bc of the next line - full moon pills got him out on the street at night) butttt mania often comes with insomnia as we well know so. Maybe the pills are metaphorical idk

THEN the narrator becomes an observer - it’s no longer introspective, he’s watching someone else work the room, he’s cutting all ties to them loose, just sitting back and relaxing and watching and I always had this vision of Pete and/or patrick watching some girl flit around the room while he sat there with a lazy smile and drank a beer and leaned back in his chair. BUT on thinking on this more… I think- bear with me - maybe… just maybe… he’s watching himself outside of himself like some kind of dissociative thing (I personally experience that but it’s due to anxiety but it is common among just the general population so who knows) and it’s like you’re feeling that irritable high from the manic phase still and you’re trying to push through and just be part of this party right (or just part of life in general right, like the party is metaphorical IMO) and you separate form yourself in order to get through - your mind and body are not one. You have to watch yourself from the inside out, rely on muscle memory to get you through the party or your job or the tour or whatever it was in his case.

also tying back to I’m a stitch away - right like some part of you is cut in half and I’m a scar away - again, you were cut somewhere, something was severed, mind and body maybe… big brain hours (but also I’m probably reaching for that one)

Anyway then we have the “put love on hold” bc fuck if he’s ready for a relationship - he’s watching this girl desperate for stardom, maybe it’s the girl he’s watching work the room (if it’s not a dissociative thing, or maybe it’s both tbh). Her nose runs ruby red (cocaine is probably the cause I’m thinking, she’s doing lines at this party to be working the room). Death’s in a double bed (orgasms… nice one Pete) but really it’s a classic tale of a girl desperate for roles that she’s willing to sleep around to get there, she’s singing songs that could only catch the ear of other desperate people like her… but… Pete is writing THIS song and Patrick is singing it and they are just as desperate, right, like he’s helplessly watching someone enjoy a party and he’s verging on miserable (or he’s watching himself try to enjoy the party while he’s actually miserable) and they’re trying to catch our ears… we are the desperate… —> “I’m here to collect your hearts/it’s the only reason that I sing”

Then the bridge is where he starts to actually breakdown, the vocals get more intense and strained and chaotic, the sims 3 soundtrack music swells, and he repeats the beginning, reiterating that but adding on “kiss away young thrills and kills on the mouths of all of my friends” - to me he wants to take away all their joy and pain (kills could also = orgasm if u want to be nasty lol and tie it into the death in a double bed) and he wants to feel it for himself because right now he feels NOTHING like he’s right in the goddamn middle of feeling great and feeling like shit and again, to me that exemplifies the transition between mania and depression and we are back to square 1 (to me also thrills = mania and kills= depression but that’s just probably dumb lol).

Also he’s kissing it all away - it’s gentle, it’s loving, like brushing someone’s tears away, he’s not trying to be forceful about it, but he feels like HE should be experiencing all the highs and lows not his friends… or he doesn’t want his friends to suffer… both probably and the chorus is unhinged this time, patrick gives it his all, loses it, signifying hey wait, the narrator DID lose it… but then the song ends with the music coming off that swell, slowing down, relaxing, the narrator resignedly signing off “I’m a stitch away”… giving us maybe an etch of hope, that maybe his stitches healed after all and he did make it through (with hearts and wrists intact I am so corny sorry)

ANYWAY tldr I love this song and it means so much to me and like when I was 15 and found it the first time I was always like “why does this one hurt me so bad, like I don’t get it” but like. Now that I know what bipolar disorder is and that I suffer from it I understand lol. I don’t know if this is how Pete intended this idk I feel like I got some lines right but to ME this is what it feels like. Also it is v fun to play on the violin :)

[ramblingsfromthecrypt]

Color of a Similar Shade

Pairing: m!V/Johnny Silverhand

Just a short fluff piece I had an idea for and wanted to write down. It’s been a long while since I’ve written proper fanfic but I had a lot of fun putting this idea on paper. Enjoy!

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

V sat at his desk, head leaning lazily on his hand, and staring blankly at his monitor. The only sound in his apartment was the buzz of his computer and the rumble of traffic outside. Opening his email, V saw another notification from the megabuilding management. ‘LATE RENT. EVICTION NOTICE IMMINENT’ the subject line read. V deleted the email without even opening it. There wasn’t much reason to worry about late rent when he was already on his way out. 

It had been a few weeks since V woke up in Viktor’s clinic. A few weeks since he woke up in the middle of the night face to face with Johnny Silverhand. The man’s fingers wrapping around his throat still felt like it was only yesterday. V traced his finger tips over his neck and let out a small shiver at the memory.

Despite the initial attempt on his life, Johnny claimed to have a change of heart. Wanting to help get them out of this morose situation they both fell into. Though the rocker boys idea of help was strange, and sometimes frustrating, to say the least.

“The fuck you doin’, V?” Johnny’s voice rang out and V jumped out of surprise in his chair. The smell of cigarettes filled his nose as he turned to the flickering form of Johnny Silverhand sitting on the end of his desk.

“Christ, you scared the shit out of me Johnny.” V breathed and placed a hand on his chest as he felt his pounding heart calm. Johnny let out a hearty laugh at V’s startled reaction and he swung his legs to jump off of the desk. 

The engram took a few steps around the apartment before stopping at a painting on the wall. It was one of the few things V managed to snag from his old apartment after Arasaka cut him off to every luxury his position provided him. He and Jackie busted into the place and took what they could carry before the corporation had the chance to pawn it all off. 

Johnny took off his aviator glasses and squinted closely at the piece of art. “This looks like shit. The place would look better if you threw this proto-modernist corpo garbage in the trash.” He commented and took another puff of his cigarette. 

“Well then it’s a good thing this isn’t your apartment.” V responded in an agitated tone before turning his attention back to the desk and doing his best to block out Johnny’s voice. He reached for a small container and popped it open. Inside sat various jars of polish, templates, files, and just about any other tool you need for proper nail care. 

V thought to himself for a moment before pulling out a few bottles from the box. He moved mess of papers and bottles on his desk out of the way to make more room and reached for the bottle of bottom coat. 

“Why do you even bother painting your nails? They just end up chipping anyway.” Johnny suddenly said practically in V’s ear. He turned to Johnny who had returned to the perch on the end of his desk. 

“Your creative outlet was music, mine is painting my nails.” V responded truthfully as he gave the bottle a few shakes. Johnny responded with a pouting ‘hmph’ but, as he took another drag of his cigarette, his eyes didn't leave what V was doing. His curiosity was almost palpable even if he didn’t want to admit it. 

V twisted the top off of the bottle and wiped the end of the brush around the rim to get the excess liquid off. He placed his left hand on the table and, as he placed the brush to his thumb nail, Johnny once again interrupted V’s concentration. 

“This shit always takes too long. I say just put the color on and call it a day.” Johnny said as he took a final drag of his cigarette and flicked it onto the floor. As it was about to hit the carpet, the cigarette digitized and disappeared. 

V let out a small sigh as he continued to paint his thumb nail. “If I did that it’d chip even faster.” He explained and dipped the brush in the bottle once more. “You at least have to put a bottom coat, then color, then a top coat. It makes like...a little shield for the color.” V added and trailed off for a moment as he thought of how to explain it. 

As V continued Johnny actually stayed silent for once. The man watched intently as V worked, his face scrunching in thought every few moments. “Last time I painted my nails it was ‘cause Kerry wouldn’t shut the fuck up about wanting to see what i’d look like with polish on.” Johnny finally said and broke the silence before lighting another cigarette. 

“I can paint yours if you’d like.” V offered without thinking as he waved his hand in the air to dry the first layer. “Though I’m not sure if I actually can…” He added with a small frown as he looked at Johnny’s flickering hand. 

Johnny lifted his hand to his face and inspected it closer. “Hmmm. Good question. ‘Suppose we could always try.” He finally said and shifted his body to put one leg on the desk and get into a more comfortable position. Johnny then placed his hand closer to V’s workstation with a prodding smirk. 

V returned Johnny’s teasing expression and reached for the bottle of black nail polish. “Just color, right? I guess you don’t have to worry about it chipping.” He teased and Johnny rolled his eyes. 

“Oh, shut up.” Johnny replied in an irritated tone but the sweet smile on his face suggested otherwise. V couldn’t help but chuckle as he shook the bottle of polish a few times before unscrewing the top. 

V gently placed his hand on Johnny’s to steady it and get a better angle. Every time they touched skin to skin, V still couldn’t believe just how real it felt. He knew Johnny was an engram. Simply a hologram projected from his mind. But at times it was easy to forget that fact and believe that Johnny was a flesh and blood human being. 

“You gonna start paintin’ or what?” Johnny said impatiently and the sound of his smooth deep voice brought V out of his thoughts.

“Y-Yeah sorry. Got distracted.” V said and gave Johnny an apologetic smile before placing the brush to his index fingernail. As he made a stroke, the black polish began to pixelate and fluctuated before disappearing entirely. 

“Well, shit. That’s disappointing.” Johnny said with a frown and took a long drag from his cigarette. V briefly rubbed at Johnny’s nail then rubbed his index finger against his thumb. “Hmmm….” He muttered in thought before looking back up at the engram. 

“I guess when Arasaka put you into the relic, they programmed you to look like how you did back in 2023. I don’t think we can make any aesthetic changes.” V bluntly said before realizing what came out of his mouth. Johnny responded to the statement with a scowl. The pain of his current situation was clear and plain on his face. 

“Fuck, V. The least you could do is talk about me like I’m a goddamn person.” Johnny responded with a growl and pulled his hand away from V’s and off of the desk. 

“Sorry Johnny. I didn’t mean it like that…” V muttered and looked away from Johnny. His own chest tightening at the sorrowful frustration in the rocker boy’s voice. 

V would have thought that he’d resent Johnny after the man literally told him to put a gun to his mouth and pull the trigger. But, despite everything, being together 24/7 had given V an understanding of where Johnny’s anger stemmed from and why he acted like such a dick. Pushing people away was easier than dealing with the pain and disappointment those you care about can inflict upon you. 

That vulnerability was perceived as a weakness. The more vulnerable you were around another only gave them more opportunities to use that fragility against you. It was something V practiced religiously back in his Arasaka days. The more time Johnny spent inside of his head, the more alike V really realized they were. 

“Hey! I have an idea.” V said as he perked up from his own anxious thoughts. Johnny took a drag of his cigarette and looked back to V not bothering with a response to the other man’s sudden revelation. 

“I mean, my hands are pretty much your hands too right?” V added before reaching back into the box of nail supplies. Johnny arched an inquisitive eyebrow at V’s statement and wondered just exactly where he was going with this. After a few moments, V procured a bottle of dark red nail polish and gave Johnny an excited grin. 

“And? What’s your point?” Johnny responded the previous agitation in his voice replaced with a sense of curiosity. 

“My point is if I paint my nails it’s kind of like me painting your nails too.” V said with a small smile as he began to shake the bottle of nail polish. “Samurai colors?” He added with a teasing smirk and Johnny couldn’t help but return it with a smirk of his own. 

“Samurai colors?” Johnny repeated the statement and his smirk melted into a genuine smile. “Shit, V. You sound like a groupie stereotype.” He added before letting out a laugh. A genuine laugh. A happy laugh. The sound sent a swarm of butterflies through V’s stomach. It was like music to his ears. 

“Then I’ll take that as a yes.” V responded and his own smile grew as he unscrewed the top of the bottle. “But, I already put the bottom coat on so we’re doing this right.” He added in a faux chiding tone. 

“Fine, fine. But I still bet you this time tomorrow you’ll already have chips in it.” Johnny said as he shifted his position on the desk to watch V paint. That genuine smile never once leaving his face. 

[langdxn]

Hello darling! I was wanting to request a Jim smut where the reader worships his body, kisses him all over, and just gives him all the love and attention he deserves. Like really soft smut! 😩♥️

Nawww soft!Jim needs some love! Thank you for this, anon, I’ve missed writing for Jim so badly ♥️♥️♥️

Rehab changed Jim. 

The ocean hadn’t changed. The waves hadn’t changed. The rocks hadn’t changed. But the boy — the man — perched on them watching the ocean and the waves had developed.

Somehow he accepted the transformation of his personality as an unavoidable part of the process, an altered direction he needed to endure in order to survive.

You were there to show him some normality, show him that not everybody was mad at him for going on the self-destructive path he found himself spiralling down.

You hadn’t volunteered to drive him home from the rehab centre, Jim insisted. His first night away from the clinical insanity, he needed his long term girlfriend by his side. Sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his own, not full of bad memories and temptations, anything that could set him back.

Jim dragged himself weakly through the front door behind you, bracing himself against the walls should the earth crumble beneath him. The beachy blonde slumped his way to your bedroom, bypassing the food and drink you’d laid out for him, his favourite snacks and a collection of surfing magazines if he needed relief. You weren’t to know that said surfing magazines had kept him alive in the clinic, reading them cover to cover, inspecting every pixel of every photo.

His limp body tumbled onto your sheets like a sack of potatoes, limbs sprawled out in the same place they landed. Wandering to the other side of the bed, you perched on the edge to gaze down at him. A few moments of stony silence fell until Jim curled into a foetal position, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, desperately praising their presence.

“Do… do you still love me?” Jim stuttered, pain lacing every syllable that rolled off his tongue. “I’ve been away a long time, you might’ve moved on.”

“Jim, you don’t leave behind the people you love just because they’re going through a tough time.” You reached down to brush an errant curl from his face. “I’ll always love you, surfer boy.”

Straightening his legs and shuffling his hips to make room for you beside him, you led down and mirrored his position, gazing into his oceanic blue eyes just like the first time you saw them.

“I’ll always love you too,” he sighed, raising a trembling arm to ghost a fingertip over your bare arm, tracing the curve of your skin, the outline of your figure highlighted by the sun beaming through your window. Your existence was all he needed when he was in rehab, knowing you were still there and still cared about him kept him going through every monotonous day, every infuriating counselling session, every heartbreaking night sleeping alone.

Jim leaned over to kiss you, tenderly at first, letting out a yearning whimper against your mouth as you melted into him.

“Are you sure, Jim?” You questioned with a palm to his chest. “Isn’t it too soon?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

He cupped your cheek and pulled you in to kiss you again, nudging his nose against yours as he closed the gap between you and pressed his chest flush against yours.

“You’re everything to me,” Jim moaned into your mouth, falling into your touch as you hooked a thigh over his and pulled yourself up to straddle his waist without breaking your kiss. Hands passionately weaving through his hair, you lowered your hips onto his, noticing the growing bulge beneath his jeans causing him to whine as you moved.

“Shh, Jim,” you whispered softly. “Let me show you how much you mean to me. Please?”

He nodded weakly, a resigned smile curling his mouth as you traced your lips over his cheek towards his neck, fluttering butterfly kisses wherever you touched. Nibbling his earlobe and painting gentle breaths over his skin, your touch earned a soft hiss from Jim, his hips bucking up against you desperate for friction.

“I need you,” he pleaded in a whisper, both of his hands wandering to pull your shirt over your head and then his own. “I need you so fucking badly.”

“I’m right here, baby boy,” you hummed, lightly raking your nails down his sides as you trailed your lips to his collarbone, pecking into the valley of his sternum while his back arched into you.

“I can’t believe I nearly threw all this away,” Jim shook his head in disbelief, rinsing his face with his hands before entwining his fingers with your hair as you neared his abdomen. “I was such a fucking idiot.”

“Baby,” you halted your light kisses to look up at him, his baby blues blown with lust. “You’re my idiot.”

Jim chuckled and threw his head back into the pillow as your lips dipped into his pelvis, leaving you unsupervised long enough to start sucking at his skin, marking him ever so slightly with the gentlest of blooming red marks.

Reaching the waistband of his jeans, you planted a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on the denim above his straining erection before sweeping down his zipper, parting the fabric and setting his flushed cock free to flick against his abdomen. Both moaning softly in unison, you quickly licked a flat stripe from his base to his tip, eliciting heavy breaths from the boy beneath you.

“Oh Jesus fuck, baby girl,” he husked between gasps. “That feels… that feels…”

He barely had chance to finish his sentence before you wrapped your lips around his length and licked featherlight circles around his tip. Moaning greedily, he pressed his hand down on your head as you dipped down to take his cock down the back of your throat in one smooth motion, letting Jim’s hips buck wildly beneath you as you nuzzled into his pelvis.

“How the hell did I last two months without this?” Jim grunted, keening frantically as you flattened your tongue to take his twitching cock even deeper. “I’ve dreamt about you going down on me every goddamn night.”

“That’s a lot of dreams to live up to, Mason,” you hummed as you left his tip to draw breath before bobbing back down so hard, Jim cried out with all the breath left in his lungs.

“Fuck me,” he shouted, his hand idly caressing your hair. “It’s been so long, I won’t be able to last much longer, baby.”

With that, you drew back from his length with a pop and shuffled up to straddle his waist, sliding aside your panties and lining his spit-slicked head with your dampened folds.

“Then I better show you what else you’ve been missing, hadn’t I?”

Sinking down onto his cock with a steady rock of your hips, you pressed both flat palms onto his chest and revelled in his eyes squeezing firmly shut with every twitch of your walls around him.

“You’re so tight for me,” Jim muttered under his breath, curling his hips up into you to crash his tip against your sweet spot. “I’ve missed stretching you out like this.”

“Stay off the drugs and you can have this every damn day, baby.”

Blissed-out with his head plunged into the pillow, Jim couldn’t reply until you tested him with a sharp plummet down onto his length, burying every inch of him between your folds.

“You got me there, doll, no drug could beat being this deep inside you.”

Jim’s hands gripped your hips intently, digging crescents into your pubic curves to punctuate every time you grind down onto him, setting an agonisingly slow pace to slide his length into you. The pressure building within your walls only helped you slow your rocking motion, drawing out every thrust as Jim’s breaths sharpened beneath you.

“I—I can’t—I need… I need to,” he stuttered, hips keening manically to chase the fast friction he so desperately needed from you.

“What was that, baby?”

You weren’t trying to tease him, you were just determined to let him enjoy the moment, but Jim had other ideas. Wrapping his arms around your waist, he lunged forwards until you fell back on the bed beneath him.

“I’m so sorry,” Jim leaned down to whisper into the shell of your ear, peppering kisses in the exact same pattern you traced earlier as his hips snapped into you. “I wanted to let you carry on but after all that teasing, I really, really need to pound you into the mattress right now.”

[meme-loving-stuck]

if youre a creator and youre strugglin rn i have one tip and that is i am BEGGING you to just make something BAD

if youre a vocalist and you don't want to edit or retouch that big project. just. go record something on your phone mic. do you have a new character? work on their accent, their cadence. a shitpost youve been meaning to record? do it! doesnt matter if you pause or have to cut a lot just record SOMETHING and come back to it when youre feeling better even if not big-project-y

if youre a dry media artist go get some goddamn printer paper and a goddamn mechanical pencil and just DRAW SOMETHING dont even use reference dont even plan it. cut the paper smaller of you need to or put down a grey background so its less intimidating and dont just sketch fucking draw, do some hard lines and some details and whatever. just DRAW does it look like a five year old did it? GOOD cause you still DID it and its done. do another one! shit, do three of you have the energy.

if youre a painter?? paint on something!! you dont have to bust out the fancy paper and brushes just paint on ANYTHING. even not-meant-for-paint paper! the back of a notebook! tape down a postcard and put a new design on it! a cd! whatever the instagram artists are painting on do it! dont worry about being messy dont worry about the composition too much just PAINT something you have in your head. use the wrong color palette. hell do a FINGER-PAINTING its fun as hell. make it BAD. make it upsetting to look at! just fill a space. look at you go, you crazy artist.

but ross, you might be saying, what about me, the digital artist? cant be assed to use a huge application and file space? open up ms paint YEAH YOU HEARD ME MS PAINT. now paint something with those shitty little tools. dont worry about dithering or pixel textures or anything just get an idea on CANVAS it might seem irritating to not have your fancy brush engines and layers but it will be freeing later. and dont just do a bust or a pixel sketch give it DEPTH, give it DIMENSION with those shitty pixels. hell try some realism! do a fucking bob ross painting in MS paint that was a huge trend a while back. who cares if it looks bad! youre creating. and now you may or may not have a good thumbnail or underpainting to work off of when you wanna fire up PS or procreate or whatever bougie software everyones using lmao

just keep creating. make things that you dont post, that you arent proud of, that you don't share or get opinions on. i have THOUSANDS of files and HUNDREDS of physical pages of my bad work that never sees the light of day. you wont always wanna go back to it! but just create it. its okay to take a break at a time like this, but dont stop for too long. create something bad

[happyminyards]

Hey there. I'm one of those folks reposting your break-up-wait-why-did-we-break-up posts. Because they are SO GREAT! Part of what draws me in is how this/your Andrew finds another way to respect Neil's boundaries + agency. You said you're primarily writing academic work now. Well, IF you are so inclined/have time to make room, would you consider writing more in this vein? Maybe what happens next when they *are* calling + visiting? Maybe they try sexting? Don't care WHAT, but I do care for MORE❤

arrives seven months late with whatever this is, part 1 here but not really needed, this is just long distance shmoop and feelings

hello yes one order of long-distance communication coming up. thank you SO MUCH for your kind words!! 

“You know Aaron actually send me a meme yesterday, you think he’s forgiven me?” Neil asked, curled up at the end of the couch, his laptop on the coffee table showing Andrew’s somewhat pixellated face. 

“Aaron said he’d steal my knives and stab you himself if you, and I quote, ‘mess this shit up again’,” Andrew replied, leaning back against his pillow, “I told him that I called dibs on that five years ago.” he shifted again, probably trying to get the blanket wrapped around his feet like he refused to admit he liked, and Neil ached to brush his fingers over the skin behind his knees

“I’m still putting memes down as progress, and according to Robin it was a good one at that.”

“There’s a ranking?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m just a lowly exy captain with no taste in internet humour, apparently” Neil smirked when he hears Andrew huff a laugh, but looked down, swallowing to build up the courage to ask “Hey, Drew?” 

“Hmm?”

“Can I keep the phone on again tonight? Just. It’s been a weird week.”

Maybe Neil imagined it, but the corners of Andrew’s eyes seemed to soften the tiniest bit, “Yes, you can. I don’t mind.”

Neil had left Andrew’s place with a new stolen jersey, two worn soft hoodies that he didn’t plan to put into the wash, and his emotions in a swirling mess 

They had spent the weekend talking, slowly rekindling themselves, Neil doing his best to skirt around the issue of basically no sleep and trying to keep the rest of the Foxes from figuring out his slow collapse. But Andrew could still see through his smoke and mirrors, could draw out a sigh and an honest answer with the touch of his thumb to Neil's cheekbone

So they talked about the future, where they’d go from here. 

“It’s simple. every time you thought about telling me something, sending me a message or a picture, you do that. You don’t ignore it, you just send me a picture of that stupid sign at the coffee shop.” Andrew had summed it up, the way he stared at his cup for a few seconds before the only indicator of his unease with the open talk. He had gotten better at it over the years, but Neil suspected that the break hadn’t exactly helped in healing old wounds.

“I just don’t want to annoy you. Or distract you.”

“Neil. as much as you annoy me sometimes, I much prefer that over not knowing whether you’re about to keel over from sleep deprivation.”

Neil blew out a huffed breath “That’s not what I want it to be about. We’re not doing this because I apparently function better with you around. If I send you something or call you I want it to be because we both enjoy it.” he shifted uneasily, keeping his toes tucked under Andrew's thighs, trying to ignore the way Andrew kept drawing small circles on his ankle almost unconsciously, “I don’t want you back just so I can sleep. I could have figured that out. I want you back because having you there makes everything easier, yes, but it also makes everything better. I love having you around, I want to talk to you just because it’s you and you’re, well, you’re my favourite person.” 

He knew his head must have been fire engine red at this point, and his eyes kept flickering over to the book on the shelf, the cat dish by the door, the picture of the twins at graduation day on the wall 

(He remembered Nicky beaming at finally getting a picture of the two of them, how he kept calling out obscene things to try and get them to smile until Aaron finally cracked and started laughing, leading to Andrew throwing his brother a look that could be called slightly bemused, the corners of his mouth twitching. He also knew Nicky had his own copy of the picture at his house in Germany, and according to Erik kept showing it off as “My cousins, the doctor-to-be and the exy star”) 

Andrew looked at him, his hand closing around his ankle, biting his lip before letting out a slow breath: “I have pictures on my phone. Of the cat, and some random Exy magazine with Boyd’s badly photoshopped face on it that I wanted to send to you. It could fill a whole wing at the damn MOMA at this point. I told you yesterday that I would have driven down to see you. I’m not here to be your sleeping pill, and I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.”

And Neil had inched forwards, dropping his head on Andrew’s shoulder and pressing a kiss against the hinge of his jaw. “It’ll work this time, right?”, he whispered against Andrew’s skin, slightly timid in the face of his own vulnerability. 

“We want it to,” Andrew replied, pushing his nose into Neil’s hair, “We’ll make it work.”

[n] - “i hate this.”

“i’ll be home in ten, i’ll call you.”

[n] - “no, don’t. it’s fine. i’m fine. i just.”

[n] - “i miss you so goddamn much.”

[n] - “i just want to see you. no pixels no phone no anything. just see you”

[n] - “sometimes i wake up and i think you’re there because the blankets you left when you moved out are all bunched up behind me and i can feel them at my back and i go to touch you and there’s nothing.”

[n] - “and it just hurts.” [n] - “but it’s almost worth it because for that split second i think you’re there. i dream about you and then i wake up and for a second you’re actually here.”

[n] - “but you’re not.”

[n] - “i’m sorry. i know you’re busy and this isn’t the right place. and it isn’t your fault. this is all just screwed up.”

“i miss you too”

[n] - “andrew”

“i’ll call you, okay? i’m almost home.” 

“I can’t believe you actually send me a care package.” Andrew drawled, but Neil could hear the undercurrent of amusement and found himself squishing the phone closer to his ear

“I have half your closet in my drawer at this point. Figured it was time to even the score a bit,” he replied, lazily stirring his pasta around and watching the bubbles break at the surface.

“That explains the jersey and the hoodie, but not the rest.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been missing those bars, the café basically went bankrupt without you buying up their stock.”

 Andrew had gotten weirdly obsessed with the chocolate oat bars the small coffee shop just off campus sold in his fourth year, and Neil blamed Renee entirely. She had dragged him there the first time, after all. Neil still found the occasional crumb in some of his jackets from Andrew smuggling those things, “And the book looked like something you’d be interested in, that’s all.” 

“It is,” Andrew answered after a small pause, and Neil considered how he could manoeuvre around draining his pasta one-handed before he decided to just drag it off the heat. Let it be soggy. The speaker on his phone was rubbish anyway.

Neil leaned back against the counter, absentmindedly rubbing at a stain with his thumb. “Do you like it? Not just the book, the whole thing. I just thought it’s one of those things, right?. I wanted to send you some of my clothes. And I wanted you to have those bars and the book. Just like the pictures.”

Andrew huffed a small breath, his voice quiet, and Neil wanted so badly to just see his face, “Yeah Neil, I liked it.”

They stayed silent. Neil in his shoddy dorm kitchen, his pasta slowly turning cold and mushy, his roommates discarded plate in the sink. He could imagine Andrew in his house, on the couch or just out the back door, twirling a cigarette between his fingers. He had given up smoking before graduating, but his hands still needed something to hold on sometimes. Or maybe he was in his bedroom, the unpacked contents of the package around him. Neil wanted to be there, regardless. 

“The cat toy was unneeded though.” 

“That cat needs something to play with, even I know that.”

“She’s not my cat, Josten.”

“You sent me a picture of her sleeping on your chest literally a week ago.”

“That was confidential.”

“That was adorable, Andrew. I made it my home screen. She’s your cat. Take the damn toy.”

Neil woke up with a start, only realizing his phone vibrating on the bedside table had woken him up after a second of startled panic, picking it up and squinting at the brightness of the screen

[andrew] - “can i call you?”

He hit call on Andrew’s number before he could even think about it, dread rising back up at the back of his throat. 

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was low, and it took Neil a moment to place the forced calm in it. 

“Hey,” he replied softly, scooting out of bed quietly and making his way to the couch in the living room. There was a blanket on there that Nicky had left behind when he went back to Germany that always reminded Neil of him, and he wrapped his legs in it now, “Hey, I’m here.”

There was nothing on the line apart from Andrew’s shallow, fast breathing, so familiar to Neil after years of sleeping in the same bed and waking up to nightmares creeping at the edge of the window. 

“D’you want me to talk?”, he asked, voice soft and quiet both for the sake of his roommates and Andrew.

Neil could hear Andrew shifting, the almost-not-there sound of his feet on the wooden floor of his bedroom as he went over to the window, the slight creak in the handle as he turned it to let some air in. 

“Yeah. Talk.”

“Dan stopped by today, she was on her way to a conference,” Neil knew this game from too much practice, knew the exact sort of topics and tone to use, “Some of the freshmen wanted to pin her down and force her to be our new coach, but I guess that’s what happens if you don’t know her drills” 

He could hear Andrew huffing and felt himself relax the tiniest bit. Reactions were good, and he didn’t know if he could live with himself if his voice wasn’t enough tonight. 

So he kept talking, about Dan’s commentary on the team’s form, about her ruffling his hair when she hugged him goodbye, about the pictures Allison had sent him from her trip to Portugal. 

Nothing too complicated, nothing too emotional. Nothing about how he’d had a nagging worry at the back of his head all day when Andrew didn’t reply to his messages, or the fact that he had once again found himself staring at the prices for last minute plane tickets, toying with the idea, the team and school be damned. Neil could see the clock in the corner lazily shifting from 2 to 3 am, and settled in deeper into the couch cushions. 

“Oh, and Dan brought me something, actually,” he found himself saying, the end of the sentence trailing off into the darkness of the room.

“What did she bring you?” Andrew asked, his voice rough but had lost the tension that was all over it just 15 minutes ago. 

“Some pictures, of your graduation party.” Neil could basically feel the slight hitch on Andrew’s next breath and leaned his forehead on his drawn up knees. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but the night apparently made him lose his head just a little bit. “She hadn’t sorted through them yet when she was here the last time, but she found a few she thought we might want. She’ll send the rest to Nicky and Aaron.” 

Dan had mentioned the rest of the pictures, of Nicky in his sparkly graduation cap chugging a bottle of champagne at 3am and Aaron falling asleep on the couch next to his twin, snuggling an oversized plush toy bear dressed as a doctor that the cheerleaders had gifted him. But Neil had only nodded, staring at the pieces off glossy photo picture she had stuffed into his hands. 

“There’s a few of us,” he started, clearing his throat slightly, “On the armchair. I don’t really remember it, it must have been late.”

“During the karaoke.” Neil could basically see him, the faint light from the streetlights spilling on his hair, the cowlick near his ear that always appeared after sleeping, the crinkles in his old faintly blue sleep shirt and he closed his eyes, willing to keep the longing at bay. 

“Probably,” he replied, shifting his head on his knees so he wouldn’t muffle the phone, “they’re not perfect, some of them are out of focus and the colours are all weird from the lights the girls dragged in but,” he cut himself off, pressing his mouth closed. This had never been supposed to be so hard. 

He could hear Andrew breathing out again before his voice came through the phone, “You were in my lap, sideways. You had been wound up all day, but you were relaxed then. Laughing at Boyd murdering Holding Out For A Hero. There was glitter in your hair from all the horrid party hats. Your shirt kept slipping off your shoulder because you mixed them up and put on the bigger one that morning.”

“You kissed me,” Neil whispered, not wanting to interrupt Andrew but the words slipping out anyway, “When Nicky and Katelyn were doing Summer Nights. Dan got it in the background. Everyone’s looking at the two of them, but we’re just. There. Together. Your hands are under my shirt”

“I didn’t want to leave,” Andrew said, and the words seemed to crackle in hundreds of miles between them. 

“I didn’t want you to leave either,” Neil replied, feeling his heart clench, “I thought about that night a lot, you know. When we were,” he paused, biting his lower lip, “Not us.”

“Me too.” There was a pause before Andrew spoke again, his voice just a bit less vulnerable than a minute ago. Neil admired his ability to try and dredge them up from below, “Give some of them to me, when I’m coming down.”

“Two weeks,” Neil smiled slightly, half bitter half happy, at the mention of Andrew’s nearing visit. There was a countdown on his phone, but hearing it made it seem more real. 

“Two weeks.” 

Neil sat up, trying to blow the hair off his forehead. It was almost 3:30 am, but he knew he couldn’t just go back to sleep now, and he knew Andrew would be feeling the same way. 

“Hey, you wanna watch a movie?” he asked, already pushing the blanket off his legs, “I just need to get my laptop.”

Andrew huffed, “Yeah, I do. My choice, though. I’m not watching another Mission Impossible.”

“Admit it, you like them,” Neil said, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth while he got up and padded to the desk to retrieve his laptop. 

“Lies and slander,” 

A few minutes later Neil was curled up again, his laptop on his legs and the phone on speaker on his shoulder, the world not looking quite as blurry with the shine of the laptop screen and the sound of Andrew navigating the Netflix menu through the speaker. 

“Hey, Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re trying. We’re making it work.”

“I know. And just two more weeks. I don’t think I’ll let you leave the room.”

“And what if I want to say hello to our darling coach?”

“I think you’ll be quite happy here, with me.”

There was a pause before Andrew’s reply came back, sending a river of molten sunshine through Neil’s core, “Yeah, I guess I will be.”

[mollymauk-teafleak]

my heart is hitting the ground (Chapter One)

An urban fantasy/college Widomauk AU! Many many many thanks to the wonderful @minky-for-short for getting me into this podcast in the first place and workshopping this fic with me. Also enormous thanks to the amazingly talented @rabdoidal whose fantastic art this fic is based on but I could honestly write a multi-chapter fic on every bit of fan art he’s ever done, it’s all that great. 

Please consider reblogging and leaving me some feedback!

Ao3 | Ko-fi

Caleb Widoghast isn't the kind of guy who blows off studying and goes out a lot. He isn't the kind of guy to get too drunk at the gig for some college band he's never heard of. He isn't the kind of guy to fall hopelessly in love with the tiefling singer of said band and flirt with him after way too much whiskey.

Caleb Widoghast wakes up to find that, last night, he did exactly that. And now he has to deal with the fallout.

The night before came back to Caleb in pieces, each one worse than the last.

The dry mouth. The pounding headache. The fact that he was still wearing jeans under the covers but no shirt at all. The ringing ears.

He moaned and pushed the hair back from his forehead, wrinkling his nose at the almost immediate reek of whiskey. Why the hell was he drinking whiskey, he never…

And then the last piece fell into place. And Caleb seriously considered diving back down underneath his blankets and never emerging again.

“Good morning!”

Of course, no knock preceded his bedroom door flinging open with a bang that made his eardrums throb, the only person it could be was Nott and courtesy wasn’t her strong suit. They’d known each other too long for that.

“I am…struggling to see what’s good about it,” Caleb groaned, pulling a face as the sound that came out of him sounded more like the last gasps of a dying squeaky toy.

Nott smirked at him from the cavernous hood of her sweatshirt, “M’kay, before you ask, let’s just do this all in one. Yes, you did get horrendously drunk. Yes, it was bad. And yes, Beau has video.”

Caleb slumped back into the tangled mess of his bedding, whimpering pathetically, “That’s it. I’m done with civilisation. I’m going to live in the woods and be a hermit and never speak to another person ever again. They will tell tales of me…”

Nott snorted, scrambling up on the end of his bed, “Aw, don’t be so dramatic. Beau had a few herself, it’s all shaky, you can barely see anything,” she took a sip of her tea, “Jester’s the one that got the really good shot…”

Caleb moaned again, louder as if making a point, dragging one of the pillows over his head.

His roommate couldn’t contain her giggles, though she tried to discreetly direct it into her mug, “The night wasn’t a total waste. You really seemed like you were having fun after about the third whiskey and coke. And you were really digging the band…”

Caleb threw his arm from his protective nest of blankets, accusatorily, “No! No, we are not talking about that!”

Nott held up her hands, “Hey, we all thought it was adorable! The way you kept ordering drinks so you could stand closer to the stage, I don’t think you ever heard a word anyone said…we knew you liked that kinda grungy, indie shit but we didn’t know you liked it that much!”

“Nott, I swear, I will kick you off this bed,” Caleb tried to snarl but it came out as more of a whimper, “Can you please take pity on me and make me some coffee?”

“Wish I could, big guy, but we’re all out,” the young goblin shrugged regretfully, “I think you used the last of it to get you through your last deadline.”

Caleb gave another miserable, frustrated groan, now at the world at large rather than Nott. That was just typical.

“Fine…fine, I’ll go get some,” he mumbled, trying to make his head stop throbbing long enough for him to tell up from down and roll out of bed, “Fresh air. it’ll be good for me. I think.”  

“There ya go, positive attitude,” Nott grinned her ear to ear smile, hopping lightly back to the floor, somehow not spilling a single drop of tea to the carpet or, at least, what of it was visible beneath the piles of clothes and notebooks.

Her large ears pricked up as Caleb’s phone gave an annoyingly bright chirp, her smile turning playful and crooked, “If you need a refresher on what happened that night, I bet that’s it.”

Caleb frowned, pawing on his dresser until he found his phone, squinting blearily at it. Sure enough, there was a flurry of messages from his friends, a few pictures that seemed to show nothing but blurs and vague shapes that maybe could be him twirling around lampposts and trying to climb up onto a table. And a video. A few videos actually.

He felt his heart twist with that familiar and unpleasant acid of embarrassment as he studied the thumbnail of the first one. The purple tiefling, the singer, in all his colourful and coiffed glory, somehow still looking as drop dead gorgeous as he had the night before, even when recreated in blocky pixels. He was leaning against a large stacked speaker, an unmistakeably bemused expression on his face while some bedraggled, stooped hobo looking guy clung to a table for balance beside him. Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose and tossed the phone over his shoulder (though he was tempted to aim for the window) as it sunk in that it was him.

He hadn’t meant to go over and actually talk to the guy. He’d been perfectly content staying squeezed in between Fjord and Beau, subtly drooling and moony eyed over the front man who alternated between yelling his expletive filled song titles over the clamour of the close, smoky darkness of the bar and singing in a rough, low growl that had done things to Caleb that he really wasn’t ready to admit to. That would have been a perfect plan, maybe he’d daydream about him for a few weeks and months after before accepting that the tiefling was so far out of his league that it wasn’t even funny and sinking back into school work and vague loneliness.

But Caleb had found himself drifting back to the bar, where the view of the singer (Mollymauk, that was his name, Caleb wasn’t likely to forget it any time soon) with the spotlight hitting his exquisitely tattooed chest just right, looked like something from a goddamn renaissance painting. Instead of his usual half pints of what his friends insisted were pretentious hipster beers, Caleb had found himself ordering jack and cokes, eventually graduating to straight whiskeys after a while, hoping that the singer might notice and think him some cool cowboy type rather than the nervous exchange student in rumpled flannel that he was, who could launch into a full-on lecture about the benefits of different brewing techniques if given the slightest nudge.

Caleb blamed the whiskeys and the urging of his friends for the incredibly bad decision that followed the end of the set. He didn’t remember his words exactly, he just remembered a powerful need to go and tell this Mollymauk of the beautiful voice and extravagant dress sense just how much he’d loved his music. And he really had. He’d loved the rawness of it, the clever twists in the lyrics that sent the song suddenly careening in a direction no one would have guessed. He loved its simplicity, just that voice echoing through the underground bar and a simple guitar accompaniment from a very tall woman who’d had Beau staring in a very similar way to Caleb (he wondered why she wasn’t getting any shit for that…and then quickly realised it was probably because she hadn’t made a colossal ass of herself afterwards and because Beau getting heart eyes over a woman she’d only just met was nothing new). Caleb had never, ever found any music that had spoken to him like this stuff did; it make him feel less alone, less broken, less of an outsider. It had been a stronger magic to him than anything he read about in his schoolbooks and he’d fallen for it, hard and devastatingly.

All that would have been a great thing to tell Mollymauk, when Caleb had come staggering over from his table to where the tiefling was packing away his microphone. Unfortunately, what had come tumbling out of his mouth, as far as he could remember, was something about his music being so good that it had ‘given him a boner in his heart’.

Caleb thanked every god he’d ever heard of that he didn’t remember Mollymauk’s reaction, feeling a sickness in his stomach that had nothing to do with his hangover.

“Did you get the one of you doing Singing in the Rain in German?” Nott chirped happily, still in the doorway, swaying in her sweatshirt so long it brushed her knees, the one she always wore, “I never knew you had such a good voice.”

Caleb grumbled at her, glaring with bleary eyes, waving his hand dismissively, “Go. I need to shower…why do I need to shower so bad?”

“Oh,” Nott shrugged, “Probably because you climbed into the dumpster thinking it was the cab.”

Caleb dragged his hand through his long hair, which had taken on the consistency of a reddish brown, greasy birds nest, “Do us all a favour, Nott, and just leave me in the gutter next time. This was an absolute disaster.”

His roommate gave him a look he didn’t understand before disappearing around the corner, “Are you sure?” she called behind her.

That look and those words continued to confuse Caleb until he was in the bathroom, wondering if he should just burn his clothes and have done with it, when he caught sight of his own reflection above the sink. Not a pretty sight on any day and even less now in Caleb’s opinion, but his aching eyes were distracted. By the series of numbers written on his forehead in a flourishing hand, in thick black Sharpie.

Ah. Now Caleb remembered pressing the pen into Mollymauk’s hand, asking him to write his number on his head so he wouldn’t forget it. The wizard slumped, letting his head knock against the cold porcelain of the sink.

Being a forest hermit was sounding more and more tempting every second.

[flyswhumpcenter]

One Vanilla Frappé, Please [Fever February Day 20 - I Can’t Read The Numbers]

FEVER FEBRUARY INDEX

Summary: It's a normal day at the coffee shop. Or, at least, it would be if he wasn't sick as a dog and trying to earn the money needed to pay his student loans. Despite his awful condition, Shuichi sure is lucky to have a bro and his girlfriend by his side no matter what.

Fandom: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Ships: Saimatsu (Kaede/Shuichi)

Word Count: 2.2K words

Notes: God, Fever February is done at last, hahaha yada yada yada another Saimatsu sickfic where Shuichi is the sick one It's short and rather self-indulgent, but does anybody mind some Saimatsu H/C sometimes? I sure don't. 

Special mention to @sf-trash-tm​ and @feverish-and-delirious​, since they both said they wanted to see more Danganronpa whump around! Here ya go, peeps!

AO3 version available here.

He should have known better than coming to work sick, but… There he is. At work. Sick.

 Shuichi knows for a fact he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here serving stuff to people when he has a terrible headache and probably a huge fever. But he also has two reasons why he just can’t skip work: he desperately needs the money for his student loans and the shop has a lot of customers on weekends like this one.

Kaito didn’t want him to come to work, that’s for sure: his manager is staring at him with eyes stuck between anger and worry, crossing his arms as he regularly tells him to go back to his goddamn bed. Well, it’s not that he doesn’t want: truly, if he listened to his instincts, Shuichi would already be sleeping his fever off.

 And yet, he gave the clients his best smile because that’s just his job. He’s here to serve coffee and smile at people no matter how bad he feels. To be honest, he prefers to stay focused on his job because it makes him forget about his clothes clogging to his skin and the constant chills plaguing his body.

Sometimes, people ask him if he feels all right. It’s obvious he doesn’t, but he stills replies he’ll be fine. His body gives it away immediately: when he looked at himself in the mirror this morning, his skin was deadly pale, his reddened eyes were empty and had deep dark circles under them, his entire face was flushed, and his body hair was rising en masse. There was no way he could hide the fact he didn’t feel right at all: at best, he could just wear a mask over his nose and mouth and put on some makeup under his eyes, which he did.

One of his profs, he’d say his Foreign Literature prof, enters the shop. He forgot until then that the latter was a fellow client of the place: he comes there every morning to take his coffee before his classes start. He apparently has classes on Saturdays too but one thing’s sure: Shuichi doesn’t have classes on Saturdays, so it’s probably not a class with his course.

He gets his usual dose of “how are you” questions from an oblivious younger-than-he-would-like-to-be man, but this time around, he does notice something wrong with his student. Truly, the way Shuichi’s out of breath gives his condition away easily: he may be asthmatic, he’s usually not that desperate for oxygen.

 “Bro,” Kaito tells him as he takes off his apron, “ya should go back home. Kaede’ll be here shortly and I’m gonna call Rantaro in so he can take ya place.”

“I’m okay, I’m just…” he rubs his eyes as a perfect way to destroy his credibility. “I’m just a bit sick, nothing too bad. You know I need that salary…”

“Yeah, I know that, but everyone keeps asking ya if ya alright! Nobody wants ya nasty virus in their latte bro! I know ya careful and all, but ya really gotta go back home and rest!”

Shuichi swoons a little but decides to stay up. He’s starting feel a bit too dizzy for this job.

“Rantaro has something very important with his sisters, I can’t disturb him because of some virus… Really, we should leave him alone… I’ll deal with it for the rest of my shift and go back to sleep…”

 Kaito seems doubtful, staring at him with quirked eyebrows, then sighs as he sends a text. Shuichi wishes he could read the name of the contact he’s sending this to, or what the message is about, but the phone is too far from him and his vision is already swimming as it is.

“It’s not like Kaede won’t notice anythin’ either, y’know… I have to visit Maki Roll at the hospital, I’ll have to leave ya alone for a few minutes. Ya sure ya really don’t need a ride home?”

“I’m sure. Please tell Maki I wish her a sound recovery from her appendicitis.”

“Will do! Good luck, bro, and don’t hesitate to go back home if ya really don’t feel good, ‘kay?”

“I’ll do that…”

 The shop’s activity considerably slows down between two and four in the afternoon. It’s the ideal time for him to take it easy and, most of all, treat to himself for a bit: he grabs the fever reducers hidden in his apron’s pouch, serves himself a coffee (his third of the day, if he’s not mistaken) and gulps down the medicine with his cup of the steaming black liquid.

Usually, Shuichi would have tried cleaning some stuff around while customers didn’t come in, but he feels way too tired to do that. Instead, he decides to sit down on a stool behind the counter and rest for a bit.

 While nobody is here, he takes the chance to cough a lung out. He’s been keeping that fit inside for an hour or so by now, it’s only natural of him to finally make that urge exit his system by the only true way he can think of. His chest hurts as if knives teased to stab it from the inside. He’s now sure he has something akin to a bronchitis because God does it starts to hurt in there.

For a while, things seem to calm down, until he feels one particularly violent wave of chills going down his spine. There is a disgusting, strong surge of sweat flowing down his back. It can’t mean much other than him having a fever spike. This isn’t the moment for that, goddammit! Kaede isn’t here yet!

His breathing gets faster and faster as in an attempt to make his condition feel any better than absolute hell. He’s trapped behind the counter, on a chair, because he’ll only fall, if not faint, if he gets up from it. He’s lucky there isn’t a single customer right now, otherwise he’d be beyond screwed. As such, he just hopes for the best and for Kaede to come in soon. His reducers haven’t kicked in yet, but he sure knows he’s not doing well.

 His phone vibrates in his pants’ pocket. Shuichi, desperately trying to find something to divert his attention from how bad he’s feeling, takes it out with a shaking hand and looks at the screen… only to notice he can’t even read it. It’s all a juggled mess of pixels.

He realizes how bad this is when, no matter how much he rubs his eyes, the blur stays. This isn’t the LSD screen’s fault: it’s his eyes. They’re unfocused and can’t seem to be able to focus anymore. In fact, he can barely see in front of him. Yet, he gets to reach the thermometer he’s buried inside his bag: perhaps, just perhaps he’ll be able to make out the number on it if he stares at it for long enough.

 He hears the entrance’s doorbell ring. Fuck. There’s a customer at the worst moment possible. He gets up from the chair as soon as possible, not caring about the blood rushing to his ears (or, at least, ignoring the discomfort of such a thing as much as possible). He knows the pumps and drawers by heart: he can do this until Kaede arrives and before he can at least go lie down in the staff room.

Shuichi can’t distinguish anything on the customer’s face – at that point it could even be an animal and he wouldn’t know the difference – but the voice makes it clear: they’re a woman with a gentle, muffled voice.

 “One medium vanilla frappe, please,” she orders.

“Consider it done…”

He clumsily tries to reach the ice and vanilla ice to make her the drink she’s wanting, but all he ends up doing is finding the actual coffee instead. He tries again, finds the plastic cups and the ice. He smiles a little because this is his special someone’s favourite drink: in fact, it was one of the things he learnt before their first date.

 In the end, someone else comes behind him and finishes the drink for him… before drinking it themselves. He recognizes this apron and this method of stealing a drink from his hands: it’s Kaede who has finally arrived. He wishes he could distinguish the expression of her face more clearly than “she doesn’t look happy, I guess?”.

“God, Kaito was right! You’re completely out of it!” she exclaims, a hand on her hip and the other sipping on her frappe. “You didn’t even recognize a workmate!”

“S-sorry… I’m…” he rubs his eyes again. “A bit tired…”

“Yeah, sure, like I’ll believe you. Go lie down, I’ll take care of the orders.”

“My shift hasn’t ended yet, though…”

 Shuichi knows very well that, at that point, whatever he’ll tell her will be useless: she just doesn’t care about his weak lies because she sees right through them. Everyone could right this moment, really, but Kaede can read in him like in an open picture book. That’s why he trusts her: she knows what he feels like, so she always tells him what she feels like when he can’t guess it by himself.

But he also knows she hates his little white lies, especially when she can completely see how bad they truly are. She hates it when he doesn’t admit to feeling ill because it happens so frequently: honestly, his health is terrible and he knows it, so he just likes to brush everything under the rug with little to no success.

 He can barely tumble back to his chair, so he just sits down there as to wait for the time he’ll feel better. The reducers still haven’t kicked in: he’s probably too far gone. He’ll have to resort to something else to feel better and not completely crumble away at his workplace.

He goes to get the thermometer from the bag he left next to the chair and in the back of counter area. He can barely see Kaede move around as she prepares herself for her own shift. Alone. She should call Rantaro if she needs help, because he clearly won’t be able to do anything better than spill coffee on the ground and maybe himself with it.

 As such, he inserts the thermometer in his mouth and waits, for a very short amount of time, for it to beep. He looks at it, stares into the small screen, but he can’t read the numbers. It’s all a mess. Rubbing anything won’t save him: in fact, his vision swims so badly he has no hope of ever knowing what it’s about. As such, he just calls for her with a timid voice. She can read it.

“Kaede…? Can I ask you something…?”

 He guesses she turns to him because there is a noticeable pink blur in his field of vision now.

“What’s wrong?” she asks back.

“Can you read the number on there for me…?” he says as he shows her the thermometer in his hands. “I can’t read it…”

A short silence follows. He hears something falling to the ground.

“Oh God.”

 Kaede rushes to him and takes the small stick of plastic in her hands. She gasps.

“Shuichi, your fever…! It’s over forty degrees!”

She puts a hand on his forehead, making a notice of how hot it is under her fingers and under his skin.

“I’m calling you an ambulance, you can’t stay at work like that! Why haven’t you told me anything about it?”

“You have a shift and you need money… I couldn’t prevent you from being here…”

She leaves a kiss on his forehead as her phone makes a dial sound. He’s that close to passing out.

“Oh, I’ve told you before to take care of yourself first… Relax now, I’m calling help, you’ll feel better soon…”

He gives her the smallest smile before everything turns black.

  When he comes to, Shuichi definitely sees clearer than he did before. That’s a good thing. He also recognizes he’s nowhere near his workplace nor his flat: he has to be at the hospital. Great, he truly needed to be in there for a couple days. This isn’t even sarcasm: he needed someone to bring his ass in a place where his health would actually get taken care of.

At his side, a visibly relieved Kaede. She’s holding his hand: the small squeeze she gives it when she realizes he’s opened her eyes is warm and makes him feel better. She’s here, by this side, even if he essentially worried her beyond her reason.

 “You scared us so much…” she whispers as she leaves a kiss on his cheek.

“I’m sick, though, you shouldn’t be kissing me…”

“Who cares! I’m never sick anyway. The doctors have told me it’s not contagious,” she winks.

“And, your shift…?”

“It ended an hour ago. Rantaro and Kaito were watching over you before I arrived. Don’t worry for me.”

 Kaede sighs, then pouts. She doesn’t cross her arms: instead, she puts a second hand on his.

“I’ve told you to be careful, geez! You never listen to any of us when it’s about your well-being…”

Her eyes soften. Her glaze is comparable to an angel’s in his eyes.

“But I’ll take care of you anyway. I know you’re easily sick and it’s okay, but don’t overdo it, okay? You work hard already.”

 He’ll never get enough of her warm kisses on his forehead.

[biolacis-blog]

[S] Jailbreak

| Nepeta Maryam |

Eridan Pyrope's guards run their routes once every thirty minutes. He has them work in pairs: if one is incapacitated, the other can call for backup. Both carry a state-of-the-art communication device, hooked into a network that can sound an alarm through the entire complex. In under a minute, the closest reinforcements can arrive and overpower any infiltrators, while the others lock down each building, starting with the most sensitive centers first. There's a hierarchy, a numerical list, there are drills and alarms and routines and computers... Pyrope's base is the best-secured building on the planet. Anyone would be impressed. 

It's really too bad, you think, that their boss is the proudest blabbermouth you've ever met. 

It's a matter of timing: when you enter from an escape hatch in the west wing, you're about ten minutes ahead of the closest passing guards. If you put down a signal jammer, you have about thirty seconds before they notice it. They'll be twenty-five seconds too slow to react. If you're really lucky, you have five minutes before those guards fail to report in - they're getting some much-needed rest, unfortunately - and that's just enough time to get down the hall, around the corner, in and out of the room's alarms and right through the single, heavily-armored door. 

You cut through plating, undo hinges, hook your climbing rope into an exposed side of the door and rig up enough leverage to sent it to the floor with a SLAM. Admittedly not your best work, but it's not like you're known for your physical strength. You collect your tools in three precious seconds and lift your eye-covering mask just long enough to peer into the room. Most people don't react well to masked intruders. The least you can do is give him a semi-friendly face, if you're going to be wrecking the room he's apparently called home for the past three sweeps. 

"Are you coming or what?"

| Sollux Peixes |

You've been told that you have a bad habit of staying up too late. It's not something that you can help -- there's always too much going on in your mind, too many thoughts racing to be the one at the forefront of your attention. As a wriggler, you remember watching Trollian handles blink out like snuffed flames as one by one, your distant friends logged offline for the day, until you were the only one left. 

You've barely touched a physical keyboard in sweeps. Not to say you haven't tried -- you've been reprimanded many a time for breaking into Eridan's office and trying to hack into his grubtop. At some point they learned not to leave you unsupervised so often, and added a few stronger locks to the outside of your door to boot. 

Safe to say, these days, when the light of the sun just starts to glint off the grime-streaked skyscraper windows that tile the view outside your own barred window, you don't spend much of your time watching pixels blink out to a faded grey. You've found better ways to spend your alone time up until recently, but for now? 

You spend your time waiting. 

Waiting and listening, so it's no coincidence that hear the pitter patter of unusually light footsteps right outside your door in the moments before you hear metallic scraping, like a really pissed purrbeast trying to claw it's way in.

You furrow your eyebrows, turning around in the desk chair you had been perched in. Quickly, you scramble to rip the thin screwdriver you had lifted from one of the rebels and taped to the underside of the desk, readying yourself beside the door. To your utter surprise, the door opens outwards -- falling directly off it's hinges like an oversized domino with a cringing thump, dim light drifting into the room from the empty frame left behind. One hand raised, you take a deep breath -- 

A head pops in, and a pair of jade green eyes glint in your direction. You drop your hand, brows furrowed even further. 

"Who the fuck are you?"

| Nepeta Maryam |

"The person who's getting your ass out of here?" 

Subject: Sollux Peixes. 5'7", double horns, heir apparent to the throne of Alternia and, to boot, the only surviving heir since His Tyrannical Technopath issued the order for all future heirs to be killed. Rescued by the treachery of a royal, saved by the mercy of a jade. He is more than a troll, more than himself: he is the hope for your people, your planet, your empire and everyone in it. 

And he's a fucking idiot, apparently. 

You don't have time for this. There's a clock ticking in the back of your brain and every muscle in your body wants to move. You answer one question and he'll have five more, he'll hold you here until he gets what he wants because he thinks it's what he needs and it's not. But if you say that, what then? Will he throw a royal shitfit? 

"Listen, I know this isn't routine, but somebody heard that door and we have four -" you scowl "- three minutes before someone gets here to kill me and take you, so can we like? Walk and talk? Please?"

| Sollux Peixes |

You stare at her flatly, then down at the screwdriver in your hand, then back up at her. 

What the hell. This is the moment you've been waiting for, apparently, and your curiosity can wait. 

You pocket the screwdriver, brushing by her and out into the hallway. "Three minutes? Sounds like an overestimate, these jackasses run a tight ship around here. You can't so much as take a piss without someone interrogating you as to the force and viscosity of your own piss stream." You look up and down the hall, fins perked as they strain for the sounds of clattering boots, mind racing as you try to remember hallways and locked doors. "Which way are we going? I'm assuming you have a specific escape route in mind."

| Nepeta Maryam |

You almost laugh. Wow, that was a close call. Nepeta Maryam, laughing? You haven't laughed in three sweeps, you're not about to start now. 

You lower your mask as you leave the room, keeping him in your peripheral vision. "Trust me - I know this place like the back of my hands. Three minutes is just slightly an underestimate. And now it's wrong, because time has passed." You walk briskly, as fast as your long, honed legs can carry you, your eyes and ears swiveling to scan every inch of the surrounding area. Two doors down, there's a gym, with doors to the other side - no one will check there. You can cut across and miss the incoming guard patrols, who will either find the guard duo you dispatched, or the wrecked door, whichever comes first. 

You're going to get an earful about that damn door. God. You are not looking forward to that. 

"The systems are effective, but they do have defects. You're a smart guy, I'm sure you've figured that out by now. I just have a little more means to exploit those defects, and a couple less eyes on me." 

You push open the door, taking him into the tall, open space, and point across the shining gym floor to the opposite side. "Run there, wait for me." As soon as he's out of range, you throw a smokebomb into the hall, and dash after him.

| Sollux Peixes |

You catch yourself wondering how this perfect stranger apparently knows so much about the place, despite the fact that you've never seen hide nor hair of her before. After the mask falls, you catch glimpses of her profile as you jog to keep up with her; a heart-shaped face, flushed lightly viridian, two pointed horns curving slightly in a feline-esque silhouette to match the pair of dangerous looking fangs protruding over her bottom lip. The side of her head is shaved, and you catch a few strips of faintly-glowing tech starting at the temple and getting lost as they trail underneath the short, thick locks of her hair. She has such a distinct visage, and yet you can't place her anywhere -- if you weren't so busy trying to high-tail your ass out of here, you would stop to get a better look, but as it is, you're already booking it across the newly-waxed floor. 

You wait for her on the other side, ear pressed up to the door to listen for voices. You don't hear anything, and you cautiously take a peak outside.

"Hallway's all clear." You step on out, letting her take the lead. You lower your voice. "We're still in the residential area, but there's a set of stairs around here somewhere that should get us a straight shot to ground level. If I'm remembering right, most people take the elevator, so it should be pretty clear."

| Nepeta Maryam |

You open your mouth to speak, but you're both so rudely interrupted by the sound of alarms going off. You mutter "shit," just loud enough to be heard over the blaring wail, and point him to the stairwell, with a very clear look of "Move." It's a risk, but it's a risk you'll have to take: He is right, you know this, and it's the most direct route out of this hellhole. 

"The most important thing is getting you out of here alive and unharmed. I can fend for myself. These staff aren't trained in a few of the kinds of combat I know, so I can keep them at bay and, ideally, get them to a point where they won't bother us. I don't want to kill anyone if I can help it. I just may not be able to help it." 

You leap over the end of a railing to shave a few seconds off your running time - and because it looks cool, obviously. "There's a lot to explain. I know you have questions. You'll get answers, just not -" 

You skid to a stop, looking straight ahead. 

"... Now." 

Eridan Pyrope: The man himself. It seems that your luck just ran out.

| Eridan Pyrope |

Today was supposed to be your day off. Today was supposed to be your goddamn day off and yet it seems like everything has to go to shit the second you take a break. Only proves to you further that you were right about everyone being completely and utterly helpless without you. For now you give your security the benefit of the doubt - maybe it was just a false alarm. 

Either way you give up on having a calm evening for now, because it won't take long until at least somebody of these useless idiots comes crawling to you to make a report and update you on the situation and just beg for you to not let them get executed on the spot. Guess you won't even have the time to change into something that isn't just your bathrobe and even if you did you wouldn't, just to signal once again you did not want to be bothered today. 

With the alarm going off the elevators stopped working too so you suppose you'll even have to use the stairs and so you start walking towards them with a sigh, bracing yourself for a sleepless night. And as if all of that wasn't already enough to ruin your mood, you have to discover that the alarm definitely was justified after all, as you catch sight of two familiar faces in front of you.  Except what isn't familiar to you is seeing them together. 

And no really, they really seem to be having their lucky day, because as you quickly assess the situation you come to the conclusion there's nothing you can do about your loss as of now. You're alone and unarmed, except for a hidden knife you have on your body at all times but you know Maryam's excessive know-how in fighting all too well, having experienced it a few times firsthand. The fact she would be the one insidious enough to free your most prized possession sends a grin to your face. What a fucking bitch.

"Well then," You start off and extend your arms to show you're without any weapons, "Guess I should've seen it coming." You scoff and give a short laugh and really all the laugh does is hide how you're boiling with rage, already quietly plotting revenge. 

You look around with a little sigh, while that disgusting smirk of yours is still plastered across your face. "Looks like it's only a matter of seconds until my people find you so if I were you I'd hurry. But don't worry-" Your gaze is now locked onto your favourite toy, Sollux Peixes, "even if you do manage to make it out here alive, this isn't the last time we see each other. You could say I'm even looking forward to it."

| Sollux Peixes |

You look from Eridan to your new acquaintance, and then back at Eridan.

You deck him full-force, grab her hand, and run past Eridan down the stairwell.

| Nepeta Maryam |

You have never wanted to straight-up disappear more than this exact moment. 

It takes a couple quick redirections to dodge guards and make it out of Eridan's hell maze. You know it all by heart. And the minute you do get out, you head for the most forested area on the property, jump down into the bed of the creek, and rip off your mask, emitting a low, threatening growl at no one in particular as you begin your trudge through the creek. 

Your hair is curly, and it would be much worse if it were longer. You don't let it get that far. You keep it in a neat undercut, your shaved side exposing glowing, jade lines of tech in the side of your head. At 11 sweeps old, your face has seen more sun than most jadebloods see in their lives, but your blood grants you blessedly few sunburns to show for it. Your ears come to sharp points, but your protruding fangs do them one better, hanging over your lip and glinting in the low, dappled light like something out of a cheesy vampire novel - which you wouldn't know, because you have absolutely never read them, no matter what anyone says. 

 "Maryam," you say, by way of introduction. It's so curt and so brief it might have been mistaken for a curse, and you can't quite keep the bite out of your voice. You gesture down the creek. "Start moving. He's not going easy on us.”

| Sollux Peixes |

You don't think you've ever run this fast in your life. Adrenaline courses through you as you sprint into the woods, not even hesitating to jump in up to your shins in freezing cold water -- not that it bothers you much, considering that you spent the majority of your life breathing the stuff. 

"Peixes, but you already knew that." You keep your voice low as you wade after her, looking over your shoulder every couple of seconds for the first signs of voices, waiting tensely for flashlights to start cutting up trees behind you. In the distance, you can hear the alarm still going off; it creates a foreboding ambiance as it grows more and more faint. 

 "Where are we heading to? We're not going to get anywhere fast if we stay on foot, not with Douche Canoe's Dick Parade running around." As you're walking, you take off your glasses, fiddling with them as you trudge through the water. "Not to mention, it's going to be light soon. We're going to need to get under cover."

| Nepeta Maryam |

There's only a moment's hesitation to give away your thoughts. Your face remains largely expressionless, jaw set, facing forwards. 

"They can't track us in the water, so we follow this until we get outside his boundaries. After that, his guards are going to need a lot more help to find us. I have a stash hidden outside his property - We're going there first, then we're visiting someone who owes me a favor. We're getting you a disguise, and then we can move. It won't be long before something gets out about your escape, so every moment you remain in plain sight is another day's travel for us." 

You pause. That sounds a little too mean. "... I have clothing to protect you from the sun. It may be a little loose, though. I wasn't exactly expecting an heir this... scrawny."

| Sollux Peixes |

You quirk an eyebrow her way. "Something tells me you must be a real delight at parties." She's right, of course -- you are pretty scrawny, barely gracing five-foot-seven and thin enough to snap like a twig under the foot of a really determined grubling. The last few sweeps in captivity have softened what used to be toughened, lean muscle from all the time spent swimming, but neither state has ever done to hide how much of a scrawny nerd you are.

Rolling your eyes, you settle your glasses back on your face. "Anyways, I've got part of all that covered." The lenses of your glasses are now glowing ever so slightly, one lens a light translucent blue -- the other, a bright green. "I haven't been able to try it out yet, but if I did everything right..." 

You scroll through prompt commands, trying not to losing your footing on the slippery creek bed as you do so. You take a deep breath. "Alright, check this shit out." 

You select a prompt, and in the blink of an eye, your image stutters. Where once you stood a huge pink target for anyone giving you even a cursory glance over, the conspicuous color scheme has been washed out with a dull teal. Your smaller horns, as well the smaller set of your double fangs, have disappeared entirely; your fins have been replaced with long, land-dwelling ears, magenta freckles scrubbed clean from your face. Your skin is now an unassuming cool-toned grey to match the lake-water viridity of your eyes; all in all, to someone who's never met you, you could be an entirely different troll. 

Holding out your arms, you gesture at yourself. "What do you think?"

| Nepeta Maryam |

You actually emote. For a moment, your face is pure confusion and shock. Your brows furrow, your pretty lips part, your eyes widen, aaaaaaand it's gone. 

"Impressive," you say, the last of those emotions tainting the word. And then you give him a nudge, urging him to keep walking. 

“Is this an illusion, then? Or have you actually changed your form? I need to know how daring we can get. We're going to be covering a lot of ground and if I need to reroute us to avoid certain places, knowing now is preferable to finding out later." 

You cast your eyes behind you every once in a while, watching as bright white beams cast menacing shadows on the trees you just left. You took too many risks. You almost got him hurt. Something could have happened. You were just slightly too slow, just a little too talkative... 

You duck under a stone bridge, and try not to feel like you're praying. You're not scared. Being scared is a luxury you can no longer afford.

| Sollux Peixes |

You reach up and grab onto the nothingness where your smaller horn had disappeared, giving your skull a shake to make your point. "Cullmeleon technology. You can find this shit all over the black market from what I've seen; it can't change your biology, but it can put up a pretty good mask depending on the quality." 

Ducking in front of her, you keep up the pace. "Unfortunately, my shit is pretty bootleg, and I had to recreate it in a guarded broom closet from half-finished, half-remembered schematics I saw on the Internet sweeps ago, so I couldn't really go all out with facial reconstruction. Shit would glitch out all to hell the second I tried to move my jaw. Couldn't do much about the clothes, either."

You scowl as you look down, tugging at the pink in your clothes. Pyrope really tried to hammer it hive to everyone by having you dress up as a "proper" successor to the throne, decked out in pink, white, and fake gold. You drew the line at the fake tiara he probably bought from Troll Claire's. 

You're talking a mile a minute, you realize, but that could be attributed to the nerves -- the farther you get away, the more time there is to sink in what's happening. You're breaking out. You're breaking free. You have no idea where you're going, what's going to happen next, and you're with a complete stranger with unknown intentions.

| Nepeta Maryam |

You don't mind - if anything, it helps you keep an eye on him. The sound of his voice keeps him a constant presence in your mental lay of the land. You'll commit to memorizing it later. You let him talk, paying attention to everything he says, until you suddenly stop, grabbing him, silencing him and moving with your back flat to the steep, root-ridden side of the creek. 

 Lights pass first, then footsteps. Twigs snap. Leaves crunch. Heavy boots: Either Eridan's got them wearing steel-toed shoes, or this guard is rather large. Possibly both. You hold your breath... 

"No sign of 'em." "Commander Pyrope isn't going to be happy." "He's never happy. Call back the guard. I'll break the news..." 

 You can hear them turning back. Their flashlight beams swivel, cutting across trunk after trunk until they lay on the ground above, reflecting a soft blue-white glow into the tops of the trees. You let out a breath in the garbled sound of the guards radioing in, and motion silently for Sollux to follow you. 

You lead him to the mouth of a drainage pipe. You duck inside, then re-emerge with a pack in hand, from which you produce a grey-white scarf and cape. "We're safe, but let's keep going. Put these on. Sun-up is in..." You check the shadows on the side of the creek. "One hour. Is there any way we can get rid of the most obvious signifiers of your color?"

| Sollux Peixes |

There's an awful moment where you're pressed up against the dirt wall, damp soil chilling you through the thin cotton of your shirt as Maryam keeps one hand clapped firmly over your mouth in bated silence. As you quickly order your glasses to shut down --  your disguise disappearing with the glow of the lenses -- you can feel your pumpbiscuit beating as loud as drums in your ears. 

Seconds pass, they leave, and Maryam is urging you forward again. 

You take the cape and scarf from her, setting them aside as you strip off your shirt to turn it inside out. "I'll look stupid, but it's better than nothing." You slip the shirt back on, content enough that no will look past the black material to view the dull fuchsia stitching. You secretly thank god that your pants happen to be black -- you don't think your compatriot has the light-hearted attitude to find humor in you suggesting to continue this journey in your wriggling day suit. 

Throwing on the cape, you take a look at the sky, then at her. As your disguise blinks back into existence, you pause to ask, "Who really are you?"

| Nepeta Maryam |

Another hesitation. Another moment of silence. You don't look at him. The pattern of your pulse runs through the dull, slumbering glow of the implants in your head. 

What do you say? Do you tell him your name? With only the whispered tale of a shadow attached to your sign, does that name mean anything at all? When your whole life has been devoted to someone and something else, so much bigger than you, do you mean anything at all? 

"... No one important," you say, very quietly. It's the closest thing to the truth. You swing your pack over your shoulders, grip the sides of the creek, and pull yourself up. "All you need to know is that I want you alive, and out of the hands of anyone like Dan for as long as you live. If you ran away from me now, I wouldn't try to keep you here, but you and I both know you're a hot target. I'm untrackable, and I've trained and tracked you for five sweeps, specifically to help you do what you need to do." 

When you reach the top, you lay on your stomach, offering your hands down to him. 

"Danny would love to have you back, but you and I both know you don't want to go. You wanted out. I got you out. I'm asking you to trust me. Are you in?"

| Sollux Peixes |

You look up at her from below, the offered hands reaching in wait between you. Behind her, you can see the sky beginning to lighten, and it casts her entire frame in shadow from where you stand. 

There are so many questions that have been raised that you don't even know where to start in looking for answers. Who the hell is she? Why did she save you? What's her apparent deal with Eridan? What's in this for her that she's willing to go through all this trouble to protect you?  You mull it over, meeting her gaze. 

Finally, you settle on, "If you've gone through all of that work to save my ass, you're definitely not 'no one important'." You clasp her hands in yours, brace one foot against the wall, and let her help you climb up beside her. "Everybody's got a story, and if you apparently already know all about mine, there has to be a reason for that. For god's sake, you just saved me from a god damn hostage situation, I think that warrants us getting to know each other a little better."

| Nepeta Maryam |

"My story isn't really mine." 

You say it so casually, as if you're speculating on the weather. Maybe it will rain soon, maybe there will be thunder, maybe you'll have an existential crisis... Meteorology! It works in strange ways. 

As you walk, you tell him what you mean: the story of his ancestor, Karkat's ancestor, and yours. You tell him of the mission she was given, a careful plan from the turncoat Stalwart. How, silent and safe as the night, she left the only home she'd known for the wild unknown to commit high treason, and save the future heir. You tell him that when she died, she left you three things: A knife, a letter, and a destiny, charging you with protecting the heir - or, if you failed, to ensure the next one escaped the caverns alive. 

"You won't find any records on her." You wrap a black scarf over your shoulders, pulling it up to cover your head and horns. "No one ever knew her name, and they won't know mine, if I do my job. I started training at five sweeps, dropped off the radar at eight, and searched for you from the moment you disappeared. You bought me time to hone my skills... I'm just sorry I didn't find you sooner. It seemed like every time I thought I had a lead, Dan was always one step ahead of me."

| Sollux Peixes |

You listen to her story carefully, hanging on her every word with brow furrowed as you begin to fill in the gaps of your beginnings. Of course you knew about the Stalwart-- Karkat used to go on hours-long rants about the disgrace of his bloodline to the point where you almost got sick of hearing the name (there's a surprised softening in your features at first when the Ampora name is mentioned, a long-sustained ache in your chest for the old friend you haven't seen in sweeps.) The Proditor you knew about, but Maryam's ancestor? You never knew. You had no idea how it was you came to live past larval stage, only ever quietly thanked some power above that it happened.

It's a lot to take in. You find yourself watching her as she speaks, taking in the controlled inflection of her voice, the resolve with which she speaks -- the odd finality to her tone. There's something else there, too, but you can't quite put your finger on it. When she's done, you stare on straight ahead, pushing forward as you hear the distant din of the city somewhere beyond the brush.

"That's. I'm not going to lie, that's a lot." A deep breath. "You've been training your entire life just to keep me safe, and here I was, running around like a cluckbeast with it's head cut off right into a sociopathic status climber's den. I don't fucking blame you for not being able to find me." You rub at your face, adjusting your hood a little more to block out the risen sun. "I can't believe you've been tracking me for five sweeps, either. I would have thought I did a better job at hiding my identity before, but I guess that wasn't really my strong suit." 

You come upon a break in the forest, and you can start to see buildings from here. Needlepoint buildings tall enough to pierce the sky, looking illuminated and rather lonely as dawn has set over the city. Before you go any further though, you stop and turn to your partner. You open your mouth to say something, but quickly snap it shut as you're unsure how to proceed. 

"Listen, I don't...really know what to say," You look up to meet her in the eye in earnest. "Thanks. For getting me out of there, I mean, and. Apparently everything else you've gone through."

| Nepeta Maryam |

Now here's the thing about training to make your body into a finely-tuned, stealthy weapon: You don't talk to a lot of people. You spend a lot of time on your own or in rigorous training sessions with masters of your craft, who would rather give instruction and bark orders than actually converse. You knew enough to give and get information, but you didn't know much beyond that, and it showed: Your lack of expression, your blunt, grim manner, and so on, and so forth. 

 All of this means that when he looks you in the eye and expresses genuine thanks, you are, for once in a very long time, genuinely shaken. 

You don't say anything at first. You're trying to think of what to say, scrabbling at any words that come to mind. How do you respond to this? "You're welcome?" "Thank you?" "Don't mention it?" It's kind of a big deal, mentioning it is pretty warranted. 

"It's okay," is what you settle on. Again, very quiet. Then, at normal volume: "It's my job. Let's... keep moving." 

Another pause. "You'll get sunburned." 

Not that you care about him or anything.

| Sollux Peixes |

She walks ahead of you, and you spend a moment looking after her before you follow. You're not sure what the fuck that's all about, but hey. Who are you to be picky about the disposition of your...body guard? Wow, no, absolutely not, you already hate the sound of that. Scrap that. 

You follow your acquaintance out of the forested area, saying so long to the property you've been kept captive in for three entire sweeps and hello as you traipse back into city limits. You peer up at the glowing towers rising above you, and wonder where you both go from here.

[dreadhaus-literature]

{A/N}

I’ve already talked about this before but I have more to say, so.

I don’t often cite “being old” or “getting old” or whatever. I don’t care about changing trends or hating on what’s become popular “with the kids” like some Boomer. Idc what everyone else is doing, that’s pretty much been a staple for me my whole life. I do me, you do you, we’re good.

But one thing that just continues to confuse me and my bitter old ass, and has my whole life is this concept of romance and what’s considered “romantic” or I guess, idk, “acceptable” to put into romance.

Now, let me preface my post with a couple things:

I grew up reading romance novels. Damn good ones, thank you Miss Christine. So I’m used to not only real sappy, happily ever after stories, but also the idealistic way someone ought to treat you.

A lot of what I say can be taken lightly or as a joke. For some reason this seems to be lost a lot in translation with me so let me just be clear. A lot of my points aren’t serious and are mostly just light-hearted jabs at what I’m talking about.

I’m not a complainer. I’m typically happy with anything and if not I ignore it and move on, so keep that in mind, too.

I’m not gonna waste my time with the whole “romance is different for everyone” because we all fucking know that already. This is just me talking about me.

So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s sample the tea.

A lot of people are fucking awful at romance.

And I’m saying this having sampled a plethora of media on the subject. Bear in mind, I don’t consume media that doesn’t have some form of romance in it. I don’t read novels that aren’t romance or have SOME aspect of romance in it, I prefer ASMR videos that have personal attention triggers or are affection roleplays, I sample a fuckton of otome/dating simulation games, I consume x you/x reader headcanons and fanfiction constantly, I unironically watch rom-coms--I’m a sappy bitch. Love and affection are really the only thing that matter to me and it’s ironic as fuck considering how often I’m single, but whatever.

We already know fantasy > reality so we’re not gonna rehash that.

But that is my point. I don’t understand this sweeping trend of needing realism and shit in our escapism. That just...doesn’t work for me? It never has. I have a wild, vivid ass imagination and I know not everyone does, but it’s so fucking tedious for me to consume media and see people constraining themselves by reality because “this wouldn’t make sense in every day life”.

Bitch why do you think I’m here.

I’m a 6′2 lesbian of color with a hormone imbalance and a terrible family. I don’t fucking need reality for a goddamn thing. That’s the whole reason I’m here, to escape it.

And I’ve asked this question before, multiple times, but what is the fucking appeal of making characters mean to your audience? I know I’m probably in a minority here, but I will immediately lose interest in a character if they treat me like shit, even slightly. I am never and have never been one of those people who is all, “they could do whatever they wanted with me and I wouldn’t care,” like, nah. I’ve been treated like shit enough in my life, I come to a relationship to be treated well so you can fuck right off treating me like I don’t matter.

It’s so bizarre. Because I see it across the board. Like, all forms of romantic media is guilty of doing this, of creating these tropes of asshole types who are like, “I’m barely going to look at you. Date me,” and it’s like, my guy, you’d be talking to thin fucking air. That shit ain’t cute.

I ain’t a 1950′s housewife. You act right or you get to steppin’.

And I’m aware my independence likely has a lot to do with it. I’m 100% fine on my own so I don’t put up with foolishness, generally. Don’t have a need to, not scared to be by myself.

I very rarely get seriously invested in a lot of these otome/dating simulator games because the story is so flimsy or it’s very obviously just a ploy to “look at these pretty characters who’ll mildly ignore you” and that just ain’t for me. Looks are very much secondary in my book and if someone is attractive but they act like garbage they immediately become unattractive. If Tom Hiddleston was revealed to be some douche canoe that’d be it. I feel myself souring to characters when they act a certain way, and their appearance changes, to me. They become unattractive to me. Personality’s much more important, so the pretty pictures just aren’t enough to reel me in or keep my attention.

Monster Prom was the first one I can genuinely say I was wholly invested in. One, because I’m a monster fucker (thank you, Silent Hill during my formative years) and two, there was genuine care taken into the story. As a writer, especially a romance writer, I can be super particular about story-telling. It’s very easy to lose me to a bad story. But I loved the character concepts and designs in MP, a lot. I still do--but I will admit, the more I played, the more I got a little turned off because I started to uncover it was less about making the characters love you and more about “look how witty our banter is” or “watch how many times this character can give you the brush off or insult you, isn’t it funny?”

No. No...it isn’t.

Escapism, remember? But I’d have to be careful when I played MP because if I was having a bad day, it stung to be insulted or dumped/literally laughed at when I’m trying to feel better by escaping to a fantasy world with characters I love and who are supposed to love me.

I know I’m sensitive. And being emotionally abused my whole life has also left me with some pretty...well. Idk the right wording, but there are some things I don’t want to hear or be told because it puts me in a really messed up headspace. And so I take my opinion on what’s “mean” or “rude” with that in mind. I know these things about myself and there are times I’ll catch myself side-eying a response I get in these games, then laugh and be all, “Nah, that wasn’t a big deal.”

I have to do that in real life, too, so.

But that’s my whole point. I shouldn’t have to take myself out of the fantasy to remind myself that I’m not stupid just because some pixels on a screen are trying to be cutesy “mean” to me. No one likes to be called names or made to feel dumb or ugly or...idk, I just, that’s never been my style of writing romance and I don’t understand the appeal of it.

I always write to make my reader feel the best they’ve ever felt. No one in real life can adore and love you in the perfect way a fantasy character can. I learned that a long, long time ago. That shit really is only in fairy tales. So if you’re escaping a reality where people treat you shitty or make you feel unimportant why the hell would you choose to go to a fantasy life where characters you love are going to do the same thing?

I don’t understand writing characters, ANY CHARACTER, as being cold or aloof or mean to your reader. I don’t give a fuck who it is or what their character type is. I’ve said it before but love changes who you are, so whose to say a character who is cold and aloof and mean to everyone else wouldn’t be warm and affectionate with their lover? But that isn’t generally what I see, what I see are characters who remain exactly the same with their partner as they are with everyone else and so much for feeling special.

I can genuinely say there’s not a single character I’ve come across that I couldn’t write any way I wanted to, most especially romantically. Hell, if DC can write Bruce fucking Wayne initiating “I love you,” then you can write a character not being a bag of limp dicks to me.

The other otome game/DS I’ve gotten into is Obey Me! Been playing that for a while, and same with MP I love the character designs and the story. It’s engaging, it’s funny, the brothers are all diverse and adorable and I love them all ♥, but the same issue with MP I’m seeing with OM, too. There are times when the brothers are downright mean to you and I turn the game off for a while because I didn’t open it up to be insulted.

I can’t tell if it’s bad writing or if there’s actually people out there who enjoy that sorta stuff. I don’t talk to enough people to know who the hell this is for--and I’ve seen community comments along media where the readers just laugh it off and I generally do that, like in OM when Levi gets all tsundere or Mammon IS ON HIS BULLSHIT AGAIN (I love that idiot boy) but other times I’m straight up shut down by them and if that were me, IRL, that would be the end of a relationship.

Again, might just be preference. I don’t do hot/cold people, I spent my childhood dealing with an unpredictable household where one moment it would be okay to be in the same room or even look at my parents and the next I’d literally be shut up in my bathroom to have two sets of doors between me and them because it was safer.

Case in point? Earlier tonight I was spending time with Asmo in-game, who is just...an absolute flower and I love him so much, he’s so cute, but every single alone/personal time I spend with him he’s been fine to be touched, does that whole super cute, “More, more!” beg. So I went to touch him like always and he rejected me. Out of nowhere, after being thrilled with everything else we’d done together. And I immediately felt myself turn cold to him and had to stop myself--which is something I do IRL, too.

If you immediately switch up on me like that, don’t expect me to stick around. I can’t/won’t do it. Grew up with it, have no tolerance for it now.

And again, after I closed the game down, I was sitting there like, who is this for? Why is that even a thing? If I designed otome/dating sim games, the characters would all be receptive of MC because that’s the fucking point. If I wanted to be rejected I’d just fucking date IRL, I’m here to see pixels because I like feeling wanted, not insulted and told to go away--especially out of nowhere. That’s just...idk, mean to be mean?

It’s not that I get my feelings hurt, lol, I’m 30 years old and I know the characters aren’t real. It’s more that I’m just baffled by it. It’s illogical and leaves me scratching my head. I don’t understand what is so hard about making things perfect or why that’s so unappealing for so many people. The argument, “It’s unrealistic,” shouldn’t even be a fucking argument. None of this is real.

It’s like Joker, and how up in arms people get about seeing him written obsessive but still able to not be abusive to Reader. Like, writing him with his craziness intact, but making him obsessively in-love rather than abusive and people lose their goddamn minds.

“It’s unrealistic! He’s a psychopath, he’d never really be able to love you! He’s supposed to be abusive! This is OOC!”

Right okay but he isn’t fucking real? And your imagination is pathetic.

Going the opposite end of the spectrum, and you get a cold, aloof character like Crocodile and authors have zero issue with telling you he would never love you and he’d likely be mean to you a lot.

Cool, get away from me then. Also, why? You don’t treat the person you love the same as everyone else, otherwise...that’s not the person you love.

You wanna be realistic, let’s be realistic.

I’ve always considered my relationships like ripples in water. The people closest to me get the best of me, then further out will get some warmth and kindness but they’re not #1. Beyond that will get politeness and beyond that? Acquaintance-level. It’s like how ripples start out large and get smaller the further out they go. That’s how my heart works. I’m not going to greet my best friend the same way I greet a friend, because she’s more important and should know it.

And I wouldn’t treat my partner the same way I’d treat some rando on the street, but so many authors are guilty of writing characters so poorly there’s no discernible difference between me and some random.

And I hate it. ಠ_ಠ

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you struggle writing any character in-character and still able to be in a loving relationship, you’re a bad writer.

And I’ll say it louder for the chuckleheads in the back.

If you struggle writing any character in-character and still able to be in a loving relationship, you’re a bad writer.

And to be honest, I wouldn’t be...idk, 100% surprised that there’s someone out there who is actually fine with this sort of thing? Like, I know some people are fine with being denied/rejected, given the brush-off, etc, but my childhood has taken that off the table for me. It goes really south for me, really fast. It’s to the point I have physical reactions to it, I wind up feeling so bad.

But I mean, they have to be writing it for someone, right?

Let me give you two examples, though. Picture your favorite character (FC).

Example A:

FC comes up to you before you could react to their arrival, home at last, and greets you with a chaste but soft kiss. “I missed you,” is said quietly, almost secretly, against your mouth--an admission you knew no one else had heard from those same lips. The words are backed up with action, an arm swept around the small of your back, fingers cinched against your hip to keep you locked to their side so when they straightened up, they took you with them. Tethered together as you’d been apart long enough.

Example B:

FC was home, had arrived home hours ago, but had made no attempt to come see you or speak to you. Finally, you’d figured enough time had passed they’d be all right with a small interruption, but the knock on the door goes unanswered. After a second try, a brisk, “Come in,” is your welcome. Once inside, a glance is spared for you but no more words exchanged. “I missed you,” is your attempt for more attention, met with a silent nod to show it was heard, and a gesture you could be on your way. They were busy.

I would argue that, given the choice, most would go with Example A. Which is insane, considering the majority of fanfiction and game play I see tends to lean toward B.

And the wording is super particular, too. In B, the wording “be all right with a small interruption,” implies the Reader is actively bothering their lover. The brisk greeting could be said to anyone, but shouldn’t be said to Reader if they’re meant to be someone special. And the lack of reciprocation speaks volumes. You missed them? Who knows if they missed you.

And again, if you’re really into defending realism, a relationship where a character wouldn’t speak to you or if they do, they’re treating you like shit? You’re not going to form a relationship to begin with. It’s almost like how we, now, look back at those old time housewives who put up with/made excuses for their husbands who barely paid attention to them and ignored their kids altogether because “that’s just how men are”. We’re repeating it, just modernizing it.

Well, y’all are. I’m not.

Because I am of this wild idea that escapism should live up to it’s name. That I should be able to disconnect from my depressing ass reality to go somewhere that people are always happy to see me and then treat me like they are.

Reality is often disappointing and I am of the belief fantasy shouldn’t be.

And like I’ve said before, you can write any character in a loving relationship without making them OOC. It’s about the way you make the character show their affectionate side, their loving side, that matters--making a cold character a fucking frigid cockthistle isn’t the right way to do it.

Using Example B, a cold character who may not express themselves as openly, when written properly, might not say, “I missed you too,” but they might put their work aside, set their pen down, and hold out their hand for you. The attention they pay you there is how they show you they missed you, too.

An aloof/busy character who came home and couldn’t immediately come to see you, who still had work to do, might text you from their office and tell you--

“I’m home. Come here.”

No flowery language needed, you know they missed you. And idk about you but I’d get all tingly from that text. (♡´艸`)

And that’s what I’m talking about! How hard is that? Apparently very! I see glimpses of it in media, from the games to shows to movies (fanfiction leaves much to be desired but good writers are few and far between) but they always chase it with some unnecessary rude bullshit and then I’m like, well here we are again, me ignoring lines of dialogue because you cain’t act right.

But I digress. Getting into certain things at least allows me to cherry pick characters out of it and then rewrite them in my own head--hell, I’m a comic book fan. I’ve been doing that shit for decades, lmao.

Canon? Nah son.

So yeah. That’s just been tumbling around in my head for a while and I wanted to talk about it proper.

OM was the reason I finally decided to sit down and write this all down, and I have been seriously restraining myself from gushing in the midst of all my commentary--because I really do love the Demon Brothers something awful ♥ they’ve taken over in a big way. But this isn’t the place, unless I start analyzing the stuff OM does right--and that’s partly why it kept my attention where other otome/DS games can’t. Despite running into the same blocks as the other, similar media out there, OM does a lot of things right.

I won’t go into everything, just a handful of examples, because there’s a lot of subtlety that I think is masterfully done:

The way Lucifer is first to defend you and check up on you

The way Mammon turns from calling you “human” to “my human”

The way Levi shares his personal collector’s items with you

The way Satan invites you to events that mean something to him

The way Asmo values your compliments over anyone else’s

The way Beel shares his food with you

The way Belphie actually smiles at you

Out of context some of those could sound super unimportant, but the game does an excellent job setting it up so that you know all of those things? Mean that you mean something to the demon it’s coming from.

Lucifer has a million things to worry about but he leapt to my defense (before Mammon, who is technically in charge of me) and he goes out of his way to walk by my room and then texts me if I’m too quiet to make sure I’m okay--and offers to accompany me if I happen to leave my room for any reason. Lucifer is a super great mix of, “Come here. It’s lonely without you. Spend time with me,” and “I’m only asking where you are because I should be with you...for protection.” Like, okay. I’m onto you, old man. ♥

Mammon has little respect for humans and initially begins calling me “Human” rather than my name (despite being told to call me by name because yes, I did tell that ill-mannered boy to call me Dot) but then it gradually changes to “My human” and now I’m annoyed my heart skips when he does it. Him going so far as to say as “his human” I should only let him protect me because “It’s me or no one, understand?!” I hate you made me love you??? Plus he’s a masochist and I could obliterate him for it.

Levi is gonna get enough of calling me a fucking “normie”, aight. I’m not an otaku like you, kiddo, but I’m a fucking comic nerd so could you maybe chill--but the more you progress with him, the more he waits for you because he wants to show you his new manga or show or game. Someone wanting to share something personal with you is everything--god and he’s so tsundere he’s so easy to fluster. “It’s not what it looks like! I wasn’t waiting for you!” Outside my door? Right. Okay. “What, is that supposed to make me happy...? I-I’m sorry, don’t stop!” I love it.

Satan was one I wasn’t initially sure of. He’s very obviously hiding something beneath that cool, collected exterior (haha probably a lot of rage if you’ll ignore my Wrath pun), but he won me over pretty fast by inviting me to multiple events because, like Levi, he wants to experience things with me. Plus, when I get excited he appreciates it rather than making me feel silly. “That’s the answer I was looking for.” ♥ And he invited me moon-gazing so like, psh, yeah let’s get married.

Asmo I knew, immediately, I would have zero issue with. He’s the Avatar of Lust, which is one sin I’m real into. So while I wasn’t worried about him, finding out he had so many fans and lovers and the like, that I was worried would bother me. I’m possessive~♫ But the game did a huge service to me by showing Asmo wants my compliments more than anyone else’s. Him saying that to me made me coo, out loud. I’m typically not into narcissistic folks, but when it’s done a certain way? Like Tony. You can be important to a million people but if you show me I still come first? I’m smitten. With Asmo, the adorable way he’s almost like a puppy in wanting, “More! I want more! Just from you!” It’s so fucking cute.

Beel is best boy. Like, hands down, immediately crowned Best Brother. He is adorable, like the total giant teddy bear trope. And being the Avatar of Gluttony, food is everything to him. So when he started offering to share his food with me? Like boy oh my god. Freaking Sam hugging gif x100. I CAN’T EVEN EAT ALL THAT MUCH BUT YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES. It never fails to make me smile when I give him his favorite food and he goes, “You’re going to eat with me, right?” NOW I AM. Sobbing. While he tells me being hungry around me “isn’t so bad.” I’m not going to touch on the vore fetish he’s feeding in me every time he starts drooling and calling me a dumpling.

Belphie. Oh, Belphie. My difficult boy. Like Damian from MP I fucking knew you’d be a problem--WHICH IS DUMB YOU’RE A SLOTH, I’M A SLOTH. YOU LIKE NAPS, I LIKE NAPS. But he’s so aloof, he’s hard to pin down initially--but I was gonna get ‘im. I love how the game makes you glean Belphie’s caring for you from the things he says. “You’re late,” when you show up, because he was waiting for you. Or, “What were you doing?” because he wants to know what you’re up to and who with and why it wasn’t him. I adored his line, “I want to sleep but...come see me in my dreams or I’ll get mad.” Like baby I will live there. That and my other favorite is when he smiles and simply says, “Welcome back,” because he missed you and is happy you’re here.

That ^ is all quality. It shows that different character types can love and love well in their own way, without having to be assholes. Belphie loves differently than Asmo but you still know he loves you. The game falls into the same traps as others do, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it definitely has my attention and I love the brothers now the same as all my other characters--where other games I’ve set aside and given up on.

I think I’ve rambled on about all this enough, it was just buzzing about in my skull and while I guess this is discourse? Really I wouldn’t even say it’s a hot take, it’s just confusing why this isn’t talked about more or why so many characters and games and stories and media are ruined by badly written attempts at romance.

My rule of thumb, or one of them, has always been similar to the golden rule:

Write your romance the way you’d want your favorite character to treat you.

I feel like, most of the time, you can’t go wrong with that. I certainly haven’t had any complaints, at least.

[apathetic-revenant]

Y’know, I went through four and a half years of college being inundated with emails and posters and flyers and whatnot for clubs/talks/meetings/groups/events/just general information promoting the importance of Taking Care of Yourself and Eating Right and Exercising and Getting Enough Sleep and not a single goddamn one of them inspired me to do anything of the sort, but somehow this insane TV show about a ridiculous begoggled sports elf and his puppet friends will get me to eat breakfast and take a walk when I feel bad.

I’ve really been surprised by how much this show actually helps with my anxiety (which has been through the roof lately so this was some quite fortuitous timing). I mean initially I just thought, well it kinda cheers me up to watch it because it’s cheerful and bright and there’s some remarkably solid comedy and adorkable Icelandic accents, but at some point I realized it was actively encouraging me to take better care of myself. Which felt rather odd since it’s not aimed at anything remotely near me demographically, it never remotely touches on mental illness (hell, it doesn’t even touch on physical illness), and most of the messages in the show aren’t even all that applicable to me. I mean, I can go to bed early but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get a good night’s sleep, and I’m not going to feel less tired and wrung-out no matter how many apples I eat. 

Honestly, I thought I was just being weird. By this point I’ve more or less gotten used to the fact that my coping techniques can get a little strange, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense because after all the things that make me feel bad make little enough sense to begin with it kind of follows that the things that make me feel better might not make a lot of sense either. 

But then I started noticing how many other people were saying LazyTown helps them deal with mental illness in some way or another, which really struck me. It made me kinda wonder why this is, how a show that seems like it should be really obnoxious and overbearing and generally not helpful can pull off what so many messages about self-care that were aimed directly at me completely failed to do.

I’m not sure I have a good answer to that, but watching the show with that question in mind, I’ve noticed some things:

-Although it never makes a big point out of it, there’s a recognition in the show that what works for one person is not necessarily going to work for someone else. Sportacus can’t have sugar, but he never tells the kids that they should never eat sugar. He says hey, it’s perfectly fine to eat candy or ice cream sometimes, just maybe don’t eat too much and eat something healthy as well, okay? When it’s his birthday they make regular sugary birthday cake for everyone else to eat, and a fruit cake (not a fruitcake) for him to eat. (Which he then proceeds to use as a prop in a dance number, but whatever.) And the kids all have different interests, and are good at different things, and while they have plenty of group games the message about exercising is never “do this one specific thing” but “do what you like to do”. Hell, in one episode they figure out a way for Ms. Busybody to exercise by answering the phone, because that’s what she’s good at. 

-Following that, no one’s ever forced or required to fundamentally change who they are. Pixel’s never told he has to stop playing video games and spend all his time outside, just maybe don’t play video games so much you neglect to take care of yourself. Ziggy’s not told he has to stop eating sweets entirely, just encouraged to eat some fruit as well. Trixie’s never told she’s too bossy or bold, just, y’know, try not to prank people in a mean way. Stingy is...well, Stingy. But I mean, look at how the show treats Stingy. The kids won’t let him run over them; they’ll call him out if he goes too far, like in the treehouse episode, and when he’s being annoying they’ll tease him right back, but by and large they just accept that Stingy is how he is and that’s fine as long as he’s not being a real jerk about it. 

-Sportacus’ crystal doesn’t just register physical danger, it registers emotional trouble as well. And he treats everything equally as serious and always responds to it urgently. At most, if it’s something especially ridiculous, you might get a somewhat-exasperated-but-mostly-amused headshake, but he never says anything like “That’s it? I was expecting something serious” or “I came all the way over here for this?” He never minimizes anyone’s problems or makes anything out to be unworthy of his time.

-Sportacus also never chides anyone for getting into trouble in the first place, or expresses any annoyance over having to save them, even if it’s something they got themselves into. At most he’ll gently ask them to be a bit more careful next time. And he makes it very clear that he will always be there for the kids if they need him, no matter the reason. He never brushes them off or tells the kids he doesn’t have time to play with them or listen to them or anything like that.

-One of the recurring messages in the show is that there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, the important thing is that you learn from them. Everyone in this show makes mistakes at some point and that’s okay. No one holds grudges (except Robbie). Sportacus never gets angry at the kids even if they do things that wind up causing him some serious trouble. Hell, he came down on his birthday to find that there was a giant wall built across town and everyone was throwing cake at each other and his immediate thought was for everyone else’s wellbeing. 

-Sportacus always asks people if they’re okay after he saves them. I dunno, it’s a really really small thing, but like. He doesn’t assume that everything’s automatically fine because he swooped in and saved the day. He makes sure everything’s alright before he does anything else. He’s obviously not just showing off or saving people because that’s his job, he’s always genuinely concerned for them. 

-If Robbie’s being duplicitous people might be suspicious of him, but any time he makes anything like a sincere attempt to be friendly or join in a social activity he’s immediately accepted. There’s no plot where he tries to do something good and everyone hilariously misunderstands and thinks he’s doing something wrong. And they don’t tease him or show any impatience when he’s awkward or uncertain about how to actually function in a social setting, they just gently help him out.

-The characters never try to get revenge on Robbie. The universe might enact some weird karmic punishment on him, or his schemes might backfire on him, but the most the characters ever do is troll him a little or let him take a mild pratfall. And Sportacus will save him every time, even when the entire reason he’s in trouble is because of some villainy he was doing (which is almost all the time). Even when he’s trying to crash the airship with Sportacus in it, Sportacus will still save him. There’s no “he has it coming” or “he deserves what he gets”, and no one ever intentionally initiates trouble with him. 

-Sportacus never brags or boasts. Yes he’s ridiculous with his stunts, but he obviously does all that because he enjoys it and he thinks it’s cool, not because he wants people to admire and praise him. And he’s always quick to tell the kids that they can do cool stunts too if they just practice and work at it, and he’s incredibly supportive of everything they try. This is a guy who can do gymnastics the rest of us could only dream of but he’ll cheer on a six-year-old trying to do pushups like it’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen. And I mean, you really believe that to him that is the greatest thing he’s ever seen. 

-The show’s really open about gender roles. Robbie is totally down with crossdressing all the time and no one ever comments on this or laughs at it or finds it weird. I mean they might react to him being in disguise but the nature of the disguise is pretty irrelevant. Stephanie has a lot of stereotypically girly characteristics and Trixie has a lot of stereotypically tomboyish characteristics and this matters not one little bit to anyone. The Mayor happily wears a pink bobble hat, Trixie will be the knight or the pirate captain or Robin Hood in a game, Sportacus and the Mayor can knit and Robbie can sew, Stingy at one point declares himself a princess because hey, royalty is royalty...whatever. It’s all good. 

-Everyone cares for each other so much on this show. Like Robbie once went around sabotaging Sportacus thinking he was going to make him look like a fool and embarrass him and instead all the kids just got super concerned that he might not be taking care of himself properly. When Robbie had no gifts for Christmas they came to his door caroling (well, kind of) and gave him some of theirs even though the whole reason he had no gifts was because he was on the naughty list for being a jerk to them all the time. The kids might disagree or get into fights sometimes but they always make up quickly, and they’re always helping take care of each other and looking out for each other. 

I think maybe, at least in part, this show works as well as it does because while individual episodes might have specific messages about brushing your teeth or getting enough sleep or whatever, the overall message isn’t about any specific way to live. It’s just...take care of yourself. Help others take care of themselves. Feel good and enjoy life because you’re worth it.

I know that might sound really simple and not worth making a fuss about, but ...well, it’s not real easy for me. What’s easy for me is thinking I’m not worth much, or that the tiniest mistake is a huge disaster, or that my stupid problems and I are a burden on people around me. When you hear that coming from the inside of your head all the time, well...you kinda need all the help you can get to think otherwise. I personally did not expect that help to come from a flippy blue elf with a Salvador Dali mustache, but hey, who am I to argue.