#honestly just gotta figure out his proportions

[daily-smol-silm]

Day #55 - More Goth designs

Some bugs I found C:

[evilminji]

Oh god :Dc a Danny Summons Contract

No you guys DON'T UNDERSTAND-!

Just. Danny! Only Danny! He fucked up. Some ancient Warring States Ninja fucked up. They BOTH agreed to NEVER talk about it again.

Cause like? That ninja? Was a GROWN ASS MAN. A qualified BAMF of the highest order. He WAS the Danger, thank you very much. So, he? Will NEVER live down being saved by...well...

*holds up wildly struggling, noodle limbed, sad wet raccoon havin a terrible day lookin, meat thresher on legs*

THIS.

It's a BABY. Honestly, his Clan's TODDLERS know how to throw better punch. This scrawny infant baby child is both? His new son. AND an embarrassing trainwreck in motion. FFS kid, that's not how you- No! NO! Don't you DARE bite that opponent! You don't know where they've B-!

Kid they could have BEEN POISONED!!! Spit um OUT! DROP UM! Drop that RIGHT NOW! What are you? A dead Inuzuka? A god forsaken Hatake!? DROP IT!!!

It...sure is An Adventure™.

One of many early "here's how you DON'T make a Summoning contract" experiments, that Clans without seal masters were attempting. He's honestly lucky HIS attempt ended with him still... you know... ALIVE. Problem, though? After bunking for like... a few months? A year? In the command center?

And you know, terrorizing the GIW into complete collapse. Parenting him through some pretty serious life changes. Somehow making Sam MORE terrifying. And a whole host of off screen ninja shenanigans? They figure out? Oh. Only way to send him HOME is to either accept or refuse a Contract.

They gotta make one.

First they head to Frostbite for a recommendation, then? Off to a reputable Ghost Lawyer they go! They have to camp in the waiting room for like... a week. But? Worth it! The contract is AMAZING. And terrifying! Protects them both. Can't be used against EITHER. And that loophole you're thinking off? Ten pages worth of point 4 script, twenty three yards down, for why it's a BAD IDEA and breaks contract~!

Neither of them can make the other do SHIT! Only fully consensual, mutually beneficial, ass kicking here! If we FEEL LIKE IT!

Ninja dad insisted. Never sign a contract with anything less then extreme paranoia, kid! Leave no "implied" or "spirit of the rules"! Loopholes are holes in your armor, with which your enemy stabs you in the back!

Danny, tearfully, sends ninja dad home.

Gross. Emotions all over his armor. If only there wasn't all this sand in his eyes, he'd definitely complain about it. *stoic ninja hug*

Danny? Become a king. One of many. An Ancient. Becomes FUCKING HUUUUUUUUGE. Like? "Aw, your city is so pwecious~☆ n smol~♡! Whats it called again? New York?" Huge. A fuckin LEVIATHAN made of void, stars, and space ice. A Winter corpse, marked by lightning, that became the night sky itself. With a crown of aurora borealis, ever shifting, like flame.

Proportional, in a way, to Summon Bosses. Just as a normal human is to a normal toad, a normal cat, a normal slug. So too, is Danny LARGER then them.

You know... when he feels like it.

The contract? Passes down. Ninja dad does warn his kin. Prooooobably not gonna answer you. He only answers ME cause I'm, well, ME.

Fuckin BET. They declare. And lose. Repeatedly.

Time marches on. The Senju and Uchiha has their Drama. Dear KAMI do they Have Their Drama. Please Stop, says everyone. They... do not. The contract? Fuckin STOLEN. Because of course it is.

It's a HUGE, glowing, death radiating Summons Contract kept in a shrine behind like... SO MANY seals. It makes anyone less then a full grown JOUNIN physically SICK to even touch! Prolonged exposure kills people! Of COURSE it gets fuckin stolen. It's obviously a super, mega, ultra rare AMAZEBALLS Summon Contract... right?

Eeeeeeeeeeeh *so-so hand motion* KINDA!

It IS technically that.

They ain't wrong. Cause Danny IS an Adult now. A King. Connected to the Zone. An ANCIENT. Beyond and Above his mortal origins, even as, by being a Halfa, he is utterly the same. That contract is as close as one could GET to having a contract with the Sage himself.

You know... if he answered you.

Felt like your petty bullshit was worth getting up off the couch for.

Not to MENTION? He can make clones! Like.... billions of them now. Has a skeleton army. Is kinda one of the stronger Ancients. But that's not the point. The POINT? Clones. Don't have to be EQUAL facets of self.

You CAN make a .00001% clone of yourself!

Behold *summons poof noise* Lil Baby Man!

The harbinger of Danny! Here to Test Your VIBEZ™. He sends them each time. To be an adorable menace. Cause problems on purpose. Be gremlins, chew on table legs, maybe. You know, the works! They RADIATE his " I Am Death." Energy. But also his "winter, protection, and starlight" vibes... if you're brave enough to LOOK.

If you don't flinch away from a spirit of the dead. Can embrace the chaotic nature of a Zone ghost. Are kind to something that isn't what you expected, that you can USE, that appears weaker then you. Something that seems dumb. Distractable. Useless in battle.

Can you be kind? Do you immediately give up? To recognize a test when you see one? Is your first impulse cruelty? Distain? It tells Danny a lot. Saves him time.

Which? Is how a young Itachi, freshly Jounin'd, gets thrown through an old and rotting wooden gate into what LOOKS like a vaguely demonic death shrine. Hmmm, concerning. Baby 'tachi has been separated from his teammates. Is having a Bad Time™. The crows can't really help much here.

And, well, that IS a Summoning contract...

He's outnumbered. Low on both weapons and Chakra. Refuses to do anything BUT return home to his family. His baby brother. Is it WISE? No. It is in fact, incredibly, incredibly UNWISE. He has no idea what he'll be agreeing too. But... so long as he live just a bit longer...

He slams an earth wall against the entrance.

Falls back to the Glowing Contract.

Stumbles, as even landing near it makes his insides revolt. His skin prickle and burn. Colder then the nine tails Chakra, emptier, yet somehow endlessly more ABSOLUTE.

It's like the very Chakra in his body screams against it. Rejects it's mere presence. As though all thing alive REFUSE it with desperation and fear. He has no time to muse upon this. It hurt his hand to touch. He does so anyway. Struggling to hold the earthwall against enemy attacks.

He doesn't bother to read the contract. Flings it from the pedestal, to unravel, so he may sign quickly. There. With a practiced motion, he nicks his finger, and scrawls his future away. Whatever demons may come. Whatever monsters this brings. Please... let him live long enough to say goodbye.

The world CRACKS as he summons.

Death and the Shinigami are not the same.

Even those without the ability to sense are battered by the tsunami of... not killing intent. No. There is no intent. No killing. Just... knowing. Heraldry. That Death comes for us all. You can not escape. Foolish and small, is this what you waste your existence on? Ants before a god. Dust before the heavens. He... he can not... breathe...

Frozen. Eyes wide. Sharigan spinning, spinning, spinning. Capturing the delicate lace of nothingness, absence of life, as it drifts by. Unable to move from where he kneels, bloody hand pressed to the ground, in a Summoning.

What Has He Done?

Outside there is panic. Screaming. They flee. He... he wishes he could flee. W...why can't he-? *THHHWAP!* Mmmmph?! Something small and almost bird shaped smacks into his face like a flung ration. Tiny arms spread wide to cling to his bangs and dangle. The deathy power fades... almost... almost as though it were... a threat display?

He focuses on the tiny creature whining and hugging his face. It... is a floating snake toddler? Or is it dragon? They have sharp little claws and stars along their face, a tiny whispy mane of white. Likely a dragon child then. They stick their small tounge out slightly, eyes the blankly trusting stare of small children everywhere.

He clearly want to be carried. Ah. Of course, little one.

Did... did he agree to raise a dragon?

Just?

Itachi, smol. Serious. With lil baby man floped on his head or tucked lovingly in his arms. The TEXTBOOK definition of "he don't bite" "YES HE DO!!!" For everyone but Itachi and Sasuke. To whom he is, of course, an INNOCENT BABY who has NEVER done anything wrong EVER. An angel! Why is everyone being so MEAN to poor innocent baby man? Boo hoo~!

It fucks up SO MANY plans.

Because Itachi. A smol child. INSISTS he is a Father now. What are you going to do? Say he can be? Why? Because he's a CHILD? Which is it? Is he a Jounin or a Dependant? An adult in the eyes of the law or a child to be protected by said law from pushing him off to war? Old enough to die, old enough to parent his dragon son!

And SORRY Father, he CANT join Anbu. Who would be there for his child? Ah, he should join a parenting group. *various competent parent instincts go haywire over this tiny Uchiha child in need of parenting* Danzo? For some reason his son seems to really, REALLY hate him. Better avoid him. His child doesn't know yet not to bite respected elders.

Sasuke? Gets to be an UNCLE! To a DRAGON! He takes his job very seriously.

It's the best PR the clan has ever had.

@hdgnj @babbling-babull @hypewinter @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter @legitimatesatanspawn @lolottes @mutable-manifestation

[justhereforeskel]

Christmas Dino V1

Part 1

I'm still chugging along so it's time for updates!

Day 2

Found some old newsprint sheets in the craft room. Laid them out in a 2 x 4 foot group for some pattern layouts. The spine and tail weren't going to fit on anything smaller.

Figure 1 - the GIANT table I could have used on day 1 but didn't and now my spine STILL hates me

I then popped a line in to make to 2 x 2 sheets to see if I could get away with smaller boards for the rest of the pattern. The smaller the board is the less wrestling I have to do with the laser engraver.

Success! With a little left over to spare if I need counter weights or anything. I honestly do not know if this thing will be balance properly and I'm not gonna do the maths to find out (or simulate it in a CAD program like I've seen some others do) TRIAL AND ERROR BABY!

One trip to Home Depot later and I've secured my wood! heh

Also some gloves for preventative maintenance on my hands because we all know splinters are a thing and I cannot be trusted not to hurt myself. Next step is remembering to actually use the gloves tho. We'll see how that goes...

Anyway, off to do some fiddling with how Tyreal is gonna fit on this whole thing.

I had to decapitate my poor cardboard boi at this point, because there was just no way I was gonna try to do this with an entire limp skeleton attached.

Okay so I've got one dino skull and one Tyreal. Hmmmm...

So my first thought was just, make it super duper easy. I'll cut a notch in the middle piece and Tyreal can sort of ride it like a horse (with maybe a saddle down the road). Like this:

Okay, not bad.

BUT

sigh He's got the whole tabard of righteousness and it's made of rubber so it's not super flexible. And while it will sort of smush out of the way, it's gonna end up stuck like that and that'll just annoy me to no end.

I could get really fancy and like...cut a slit for the front and back of his tabard but that just feels waaaaaay too fiddly and prone to fucking up.

Thinking.....thinking....

What if...okay so Tyreal has a battery box to make the lights light and I'll need to make some sort of holder for it.

I did kind of want him standing too, you get more visual out of it. So what if I went, like, chariot style? I can get fancy with the sides, and create a double layer base to tuck the battery box in.

Some swearing, a few close encounters with cardboard cuts and volia! (ish)

Okay the basic idea is there but I measured nothing and it shows.

Alright, the concept works let's just try with a little more...effort.

And....

Actual volia!

The battery box fits lovely, the sides aren't too out of proportion and he's still nicely visible! Hurrah!

Tyreal also has the balance of a drunken college kid, so I've traced his feet and I'm going to try to engrave little recessed holes for them in attempt to make him a wee bit more stable.

Additional thoughts that came to me while crafting this:

I can get fancy with cut outs on the chariot sides if I want, which could be fun

Since I want the battery box to be hidden but easily accessible, I'm thinking some kind of leather wrap or tassels around the base of the chariot to obscure it but not make it a pain to get at

Since this is a chariot, he's gonna need some reins. For this year I'll probably do some sort of ribbon dealy BUT this means it's not unreasonable to make a full leather bridle for him next year. And give him a little metal nameplate across the nose band. yes yes yes

This whole contraption might just unbalance the whole t-rex but we'll deal with that later. Maybe. Shush. Bolting him to the table will totally be a reasonable solution.

Okay, that feels productive enough for the day! Now I've really gotta knuckle down and get the original pattern and the new pieces all created in Lightburn....weeeeeeeee -.-

ONWARD!

[nomsfaultau]

well i had a tumblr error so I'm going to copy and paste the ask

wlwdwtys asked:

(Potentially) Daily ask №4

Tommy edition!

How did he become a collected? You don't gotta say if it's way too major spoilers

If he was given the opportunity to get rid of the Red permanently, would he? What if that meant that some random child in the world got the Red instead? Would his choice change?

How old is he?

His opinion on SCP 053? That one 3 year old girl physical contact with whom causes the person to become aggressive towards her but die moments after harming her, from a heart attack? She's kind of the opposite to his powers, isn't she?

BOOM I have brought a golden bracelet that allows to turn the red on and off at will. With just the intention to, basically. Now he can hug whoever he wants with little repercussions. Also, eat your vegetables, Tommy Innit.

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

Not spoilers at all. Tommy and Philza’s first encounter consisted initially of Philza threatening to caramelize him till he was but naught a stain upon the earth all shuddered to remember etc etc. In Phil’s defense he thought the phone call was a hostage negotiation for his teleported mentee. After reunion with The Blade, Philza’s opinion about the summoning thing was that it was a power not in good hands, given teen Tommy was a twit, but at least non malicious ones. He figured it was best to be on good terms with Tommy given The Blade’s safety was on the line. Tommy naturally had a whole normal life going on and wasn’t exactly going to drop it to be with them 24/7, which Phil thought reasonable despite his security problem. Tommy started visiting them and bringing food (and his mum at first, who wasn’t pleased her kid was hanging around with homeless men but also recognized they had experience with powers that she couldn’t help Tommy with). Tommy was in desperate need of any sort of guidance given he was grappling with suddenly not being human anymore. Poor idiot thought he was in a different genre and mistook the anomalies for a band of superpowered vigilantes. The trio tried to tone everything down for him, make life on the run seem thrilling and not deadly, hide the bodies before he came to visit, etc. Everything just seems safer and lighter when Tommy was around. Philza became fond of the bright eyed ball of energy, and after months realized ‘oh muffin I want to Collect him.’ At which point Wilbur and The Blade traded money in the background. It was more efficient that way anyway, since The Blade wouldn’t be summoned if Tommy was safe so might as well protect him. Not sure what his long term plan was since mother innit would’ve had his hide if he suggested Tommy take up being a homeless nomad instead of going to college, but the Foundation captured Tommy before anything so I suppose it doesn’t matter much. Tommy’s initial reaction to being asked about Collection was “huh? But I already have a dad.”

Tommy would get rid of his Red in a heartbeat. It’s a curse to him, a large source of his trauma, and the reason the Foundation oppresses him. If someone else would get it… he’d still give it up. He’s not above selfishness. And honestly it still might be a better outcome since the new person wouldn’t be traumatized by their own power in a way that makes it far more dangerous and difficult to live with. Frankly if it wasn’t a trigger for him Tommy could very well touch people just fine since its effects are proportional to his panic.

Now that is a spoiler. But he was captured when in the late 15 area, and had a party with Tubbo and Rosalind for his 17th while in the Foundation. They were guessing tho, since it’s hard to keep track of time and so it didn’t really take place on the 10th of April, if I’m remembering Tommy’s birthday right. And since the clues are in Fault and at least a few commenters have figured it out: Tommy is actually 21, and everyone was in the Foundation for 5 years. The Blade is the only one who knows this due to his infrequent escapes. Due to a lack of typical developmental milestones such as graduation, moving out of his parents house (in a normal and safe way), etc Tommy still acts like a teenager. People well into adult hood like Rosalind, Rhodes, etc register him as a kid because of that immaturity. Philza doesn’t judge mortal ages well, Wilbur has no frame of reference and is always taller even when Tommy grows, and everyone is teeny tiny to The Blade. Tubbo was initially pretty shocked given how tall Tommy is, but Rhodes skewed the frame of reference. Plus, then Tommy opened his mouth.

In his role as a research tool, it’s possible Tommy’s encountered her, since the Foundation would want to know if she has powers outside of the touch thing. When ordered not to touch the kid, he laughed humorously. Likely he dripped some Red on her and then sat in the corner while the kid attacked the D-class. He was grateful about the heart attack part, far easier for them to just drop dead rather than watch a baby try to rip em apart. He’d probably try to comfort her after, and would have some degree of success given a scene where he calmed a hysterical Jasmine (5) and the number of instances helping Tubbo through the trauma of the Foundation. It’s helped but the fact 053 isn’t really affected by the attacks, but he would lose points for inadvertently suggesting some of his own ill advised coping mechanisms or convictions. I don’t think her anomalous affect would target him while the Red was active, so he might draw little pictures on the floor for her with Red while janitors took care of the body.

Tubbo has to carry around Tommy for days since he’s in full koala bear mode. They don’t mind but also they don’t have very high stamina due to how many bees they’ve lost. Wilbur would also get a lot of physical affection, and for once wouldn’t be a cagey tsundere about it. There’d be hesitation at first, of course, still instinctively demuring from contact and holding himself back, but that would fade into only subconscious, infrequent moments Tommy would be almost always touching someone, an arm slung over shoulders, a hand hooked in the crook of an elbow, leaning and pressing and starving.

He’d never turn it back on.

[tokuvivor]

Duckverse June Week 2: Happy Birthday Day Daisy, Della, and Donald

Okay, now I think I kinda got the hang of this. Anyway, I give you…

Surprise and…Surprise Again!

“So, Mom, Uncle Donald, why exactly did you want us to have a super-exclusive family meeting on the houseboat with just the five of us?” Huey asked.

“I mean, I’m all for exclusivity, but what gives?” Louie questioned.

“I’m so glad you asked, boys,” Donald answered. “Well, Daisy’s birthday is in a few days, and we were thinking of putting together a surprise party for her.”

“There’s no way in he-I mean, heck we can pull it off on our own,” Della added. “So we figured we’d ask you three.”

“We’d love to!” Huey replied cheerfully.

“Between the five of us, I’m sure we could put together something great for Aunt Daisy,” Dewey added.

“Yeah, let’s get the ball rolling on it!” Louie finished.

“Okay, good,” Donald continued. “Thanks, boys. So, who should do what?”

“I’ll try and figure out what the party should be like,” Huey suggested. “I can write out a list of things Aunt Daisy likes, and then go from there.”

“I call music!” Dewey called out. “I can bring back DJ Daft Duck for this one!”

Huey and Louie grimaced, remembering the last time Dewey pulled out his DJ Daft Duck persona at a relative’s birthday party.

“Okay, fine,” Dewey groaned. “I can just as well put something together music-wise just as myself.”

“I’ll do decorations,” Louie added. “Because the party has to look worthy of a fashion designer’s tastes.”

“I’ll work on inviting people!” Della exclaimed. “My sister-in-law is going to have the best da-uh, dang birthday party ever!”

“Honestly, I don’t want it blown too out of proportion, though,” Donald commented. “Maybe just try for semi-immediate family?”

“Semi-immediate family. Got it,” Della reported back.

“Good. And I’ll work on the food and keep track of the gifts,” Donald finished.

“Uncle Donald, don’t you think Aunt Daisy would notice you cooking a lot in your kitchen?” Louie questioned.

“Phooey. Right. I’ll ask Mrs. B if I can use the kitchen here,” Donald reasoned.

“Alright, I think that’s everything,” said Huey, tapping his pen against his notebook. “Oh, this is going to be awesome! Aunt Daisy will love this!”

“Mom, what’s so important that we have to meet in your office to discuss it?” questioned May.

“Well, as you know,” Daisy began, addressing the three girls in front of her, “your dad and Aunt Della’s birthday is next week. So I figured it might be nice to do a surprise party for them.”

“Yes! Absolutely!” Webby burst out. “This is going to be so fun.”

“But how exactly will we pull it off in just a few days?” June wondered.

“We’ll definitely have to put our heads together on this,” reasoned Daisy. “Webby, do you have your notebook?”

“Of course!” Webby replied, rummaging around in her backpack and pulling the sparkly notebook out. “Gotta be ready for anything.” She turned to a blank page.

“Fantastic,” Daisy replied. “So, what can the three of you work on?”

“Ooh, I think I have a general idea of what the party should be like!“ volunteered Webby. “Considering I’ve been researching their family my whole life, I can probably come up with something good. That, and the fact that I’ve gotten to know them fairly well over the past few years.”

“Impressive,” Daisy glowed. “May, June, what about you?”

“I can figure out the decorations,” replied June. “I’m pretty good at making stuff on my own thanks to Junior Woodchucks, and for whatever I can’t do on my own, I can probably find stuff in colors that Dad and Aunt Della would both like.”

“I’ll figure out some of the logistics, like who to invite and where we should have the party,” May added.

“I can figure out what foods they would both want, and go from there,” Daisy finished.

“If you’re thinking some kind of seafood for Uncle Donald, you should probably keep it away from Aunt Della’s array of food,” noted Webby.

“Ooh! Right,” Daisy exclaimed. “May or may not have to end up as sort of a Venn diagram of food, when all is said and done.”

“We can figure it out, though,” May added.

“Oh, I can’t wait for this!” June squealed. “They’re going to love it.”

Huey, Dewey, and Louie were in the dining room, making preparations for Daisy’s surprise party, when Webby, May, and June bustled in.

“Uh, what are you three doing here?” Louie asked.

“What are you doing here?” May shot back.

“I asked you first.”

“Fine,” May grumbled. “We’re putting together a surprise party for Dad and Aunt Della.”

Huey’s face went blank. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh, phooey.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Webby asked.

“It’s just that, uh, we were actually working on a surprise party of our own,” Huey replied. “For Aunt Daisy.”

“Yeah, we kinda figured,” June put in.

“What?” Dewey gasped. “But how-“

“Aunt Della already invited us to your party for Mom,” June explained.

“Oh, no,” fretted Huey. “This is not good. If they know we’re having a party, and we know they’re having a party, that means…that means-“

“We could put the two together!” Webby finished.

“Right! Yeah, of course,” resigned Huey.

“Huey,” Webby continued, facing the red triplet directly, her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We can totally merge these two parties together. We’d just have to keep all three of them in the dark to an extent.”

“And we can pull that off,” May agreed. “Right?”

Louie shot a look at Dewey.

“If Dewey can, we all can,” he added.

“Oh, come on,” Dewey argued. “If it’s for the three of them, of course I’ll try and keep mum. With the six of us together, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.”

“Exactly,” agreed June, extending her hand out. “We’ve got this.”

The other five triplets piled their hands on top of hers. “Then let’s do this thing!” Louie exclaimed.

It was finally the day of the party. Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, May, and June had figured out a way to combine elements from each of their parties into one, bigger party for Daisy, Della, and Donald, all the while working with their designated guardians separately so none of the three would know something was up.

Each set of triplets would set up on their own, and then they would convene. Eventually, everyone began showing up. Uncle Scrooge, Beakley, Gladstone, Fethry, even a couple of Daisy’s relatives.

“Okay, I just texted Mom,” Huey whispered.

“And…there. I’ve texted Aunt Daisy, too,” Webby replied. “The three of them are due soon.”

Louie turned off the lights in the mansion. It got very quiet. Eventually, the front door opened, and they all heard the birthday people approaching.

“Okay, we’re here,” confirmed Della.

Daisy was confused. “What’s going on, anyway? Why are all the lights out?”

“Well, you see-“ Donald began.

“SURPRISE!”

All at once, the lights came on. Daisy, Della, and Donald were absolutely floored. The entire room was covered in pink and various shades of blue. All of their loved ones were there. There was a long table laid out with food, including a massive cake in the center. The left half was covered with pink frosting, while the right half was decorated with swirls of light and dark blue frosting.

“What in Selene’s name is this?!” Della exclaimed.

“Well, we actually planned a party for you and Uncle Donald, too,” Webby admitted.

“But then we realized our plans conflicted somewhat,” Huey added.

“So we decided to work together and plan a party for all three of you!” Dewey finished, throwing a bit of jazz hands in.

“What do you think?” May asked.

“I-I don’t even know where to start,” Daisy admitted.

“I’m amazed, kids,” Donald said to his niblings and daughters. “You did all this for us?”

“Of course,” June replied. “All three of you deserve this.”

“Shoot, I think this might be the greatest thing ever,” Della concluded.

Donald and Daisy kissed, and then Della squeezed them both into a hug.

“Happy birthday, you two,” Daisy sputtered out.

“Happy birthday, Daisy,” the twins said in unison.

The three adults went over to the kids and hugged them, too.

“Thank you,” said Donald. “Seriously, this might just be the best birthday ever.”

“You’re welcome, Uncle Donald,” replied Louie.

“Now what are we waiting for?” Dewey questioned. “Let’s get our party on!”

And so the celebration commenced. It made Donald and Della realize just how thankful they were that they were together again, so they didn’t have to celebrate their birthdays apart anymore. And it made Daisy realize just how glad she was to be a part of this big, crazy, loving family.

And the way the celebration wound up happening, the three of them wouldn’t trade it for the world.

[doodle-do-wop]

hii do u have any advice on drawing or learning anatomy? ii love ur art btw all ur designs r my fave !!

Honestly, my best advice is failure. Failure is how you learn anatomy.

I started out drawing noodle people with long arms and necks and avoiding drawing hands at all times

(This is from 2018 mind you, which isn't a super long time ago)

I started breaking things down into funny shapes and looking at many references (Disney's Hercules was something I looked very closely at as well as a lot of artists online I looked up to)

Obviously not everything I drew was perfect or well proportioned but I kept going forward and exploring what I wanted from my art and finding my own art style with heavy inspiration coming from many artists

A strange thing I found on my journey was when I used to admire a pretty big artist in a big fandom, I wanted my art to be as good and as popular as theirs but looking back very recently I had realized I surpassed them and I stopped idolizing their art. It was a little sad to see my once favorite artist turn into someone who I had passed on my journey and grew out of their art style but that's just how things go sometimes and that's okay

The best advice is one tried and true: just keep drawing

Anatomy is hard but it gets easier the more you look at references and pause drawing to step back and check the drawing so far to make sure it looks right

Asking for help is never wrong but being a mega jerk about it is. You can't demand people love your every artwork, you can't force people to like and reblog everything you make, art should always be about enjoying yourself. Make something you like, not what people demand

But with great power comes great responsibility, just because you can draw whatever you want doesn't mean you should.

Back to anatomy though; it feels silly but you can't learn to draw abs without looking at a ton of shirtless dudes. It feels embarrassing and silly when one screen just has some hunky dude giving you eyes but you just gotta figure out how his torso looks normal so your drawing can too

Figure drawing is how you can learn but try to experiment with different body types. It's okay if you struggle and it still doesn't look right, it's how you keep going

At this point I'm rambling so I'm stopping here but thanks for the ask and I hope this answered your question

[sillytallguyette]

anyone wanna see darth plagueis book fanart i did in 2019? no? well me neither! horrid anime eyes, no bodily proportions, facial expressions WHACK but eh to save the eyeballs of you mindless, innocent scrollers, they are under the cut :)

so, in no particular order and with white scribbles covering my old signature, here we go!

first off, plagueis, i think sidious was originally next to him but it must have turned out terribly so i tore him out lmao. what are those eyes. and my horrendous spelling, but in my defense, until friday i only ever had the audiobook version (i now have the novel and am annotating it for fun?) btw the audiobook slays??? the voices are so good!

yippee! 11-4D! honestly this gets a solid 10/10 i have no idea what 4D looks like but for my 2019 art this is very good!! also i swear 11-4D is referred to with it/he pronouns!! so cool :)) my guy has more personality than all those 'other muuns' that just follow plagueis and hill around lmao

plagueis is so cool here! yeah ik he's killing someone idc he's my favourite guy. fun fact i had a crush on him at the same time these drawings were made (and you can see when the drawings were bc i actually put the date on this one!). also what the hell is that veruna monstrosity. ew.

palpatine!! look at his ugly-ly drawn face, and tell me he's not a natural born schemer. i love him so much now. dude i didn't do him justice :(( but yeah he's so cool!!

but here!! here i did him more justice!! yeah yeah he's got the typical anime emo over-eye shadow but look at him and tell me he's not about to murder his entire family and call a guy he barely knows for help. yeah? you can't. i even quite like the hair ngl!!

and last, but certainly not least, larsh hill!! HE'S SO UGLY WHAT?? ehmm anyway, apparently 2019 me didn't dismiss him as irrelevant, like i did until recently, and drew him <33 i love him now btw, plagueis' partner in crime, or just partner?? or father figure??? don't they kinda co parent san?? huh?? anyways im about 100 pages into annotating my copy of plagueis and so far only 3 people have called hego 'hego' - his parents, and larsh (twice!!). thats gotta mean something man...

ermm now i've gotta do some proper fanart so people don't doubt my artistic abilities. I'll probably redraw some of these and redesign characters, now that i have the time to do it!!

if you've gotten this far without pissing yourself laughing at my art thank you <3 /lh (it's not that bad, right?!! RIGHT?!! oh well who actually cares. i love most of it)

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[wrenhyperfixates]

Don’t Gotta Work it Out

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: A particularly nasty fight rattles your relationship with Loki. Even as both of you wonder if you’re not meant to work things out, you long to be in each other’s arms. But can you make amenjds before your hope is gone? Warnings: mentions of depression; angst, some more angst, then a lot more angst, and finally a fluffy ending A/N: inspired by the song Don’t Gotta Work it Out by Fitz and the Tantrums. I’m experimenting with a new style, so flashbacks in italics! Hope you enjoy :)

Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8​ @twhiddlestonsstuff​ @lokistan​ @lowkeyorlokificrecs​ @gaitwae​ @whatafuckingdumbass​ @castiels-majestic-wings​ @kozkaboi​ @cozy-the-overlord​ @birdgirl90​ @myraiswack​

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

Loki had signed himself up for the mission before the words even left Tony’s mouth. He didn’t care where he was going or what he was doing, just so long as he was away from you. You’d gotten into a fight—a bad one. Somehow, Loki’s way of dealing with it was running away. Whether that was because of pride, pettiness, or cowardice, he wasn’t really sure. Then again, he was avoiding thinking about it as much as possible.

“I have volunteered for a mission,” he told you, the sentence short and clipped as he entered your shared quarters. “I leave at midnight.”

“Oh,” you replied, rolling over on your bed so you were facing your boyfriend. He’d already grabbed his bag and started packing. “That’s nice.”

A small hum of acknowledgement was all he made in the way of a response. He perched on the edge of the bed as he tugged on his boots. Right as he finished with the last buckle and was making ready to stand, your arms suddenly encircled his waist. For a minute, the room was filled with hesitation and quiet breathing, a spell of tension only broken when Loki’s hand alighted on top of yours. Not to say everything was fixed between you two, but the anxious energy in the room calmed a bit.

“Just... Come back safe, ok?” you said, your voice so soft, it just barely registered in his mind.

“Alright,” he whispered back. Your forehead rested in between his shoulder blades, and his thumb involuntarily began rubbing small circles on your skin. “I will.”

How Loki wished for more, for the passionate kisses that you usually shared before a mission. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen now. It might even be wrong considering how mad you were at each other, everything you’d said. Though, if it really was wrong, Loki didn’t think he much would have minded; it still would have felt good. Felt normal. Not like whatever messed up situation you were in right now.

You and the trickster god had been dating for over a year and, as any couple would, had a few squabbles. But nothing like what you’d gone through the other day. Loki shuddered now, just thinking about it. It started out stupid, as these things tend to, but turned into something much more serious. He tried to push it from his mind as you placed a featherlight kiss to the base of his neck. Then you pulled away, hugging your knees to your chest. Now it was Loki’s turn to look at you. His hand hovered above your knee for a second before he lost his nerve and let it fall to the mattress.

“I have to go now,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

You nodded, and Loki walked to the door, looking back at you one last time. You’d already rolled over so your back was to him again, but he could tell you were crying from the way you were breathing. It made his heart break, but all he could do was whisper a small “I love you” and hope you heard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh. You’re awake,” you said, entering your quarters.

“I am,” Loki replied, staring at the fire crackling in the hearth. There was an open book in his lap, and you couldn’t help but wonder how long ago he’d given up on reading in favor of a contemplative trance, looking at the flames. “And you are home now. Are we all caught up?”

“Ok, it’s past someone’s bedtime,” you answered him, catching on to the ice in his voice. “And no, we’re not all caught up. What’s wrong?”

“You could have invited me.”

You’d gone bowling with roughly half the team, only leaving a note for Loki so he knew where you were. You huffed as you tossed your keys onto the dresser. Leaning back on it, you surveyed his face, set in a harsh manner.

“Sorry,” you shrugged. “You were in the shower, and I knew you wouldn’t want to come, anyway.”

“And what if I did?”

“Then, sorry again. You can come next time.”

“Oh, can I now?”

You pushed off the dresser and walked over to him, rubbing his shoulders a little. He didn’t shake you off, but he didn’t relax at all either. You frowned and walked around to the front of the chair, planting yourself in his lap. His arms instinctively wrapped around you, but his face was still stuck in a scowl.

“What’s this really about?” you asked, resting your head on his shoulder.

“It hardly matters.”

You clenched your jaw a bit. You love Loki, but it’s hard to deal with him when he gets like this.

“If you’re going to brush it off,” you said, forcing a smile, “then don’t act so obviously upset and angry. I’m always here to talk, but if you’re not going to, then don’t pick a fight.”

“It seems to me you are the one picking a fight.”

“Yeah, ok. Whatever,” you snapped, standing up. You waited for him to clench his fists or give some sign he was feeling something, but he was as unreadable as ever. “I’ll just never have fun without you. Sound good?”

“You are blowing this out of proportion, darling,” he drawled. “You can calm down.”

“Oh, can I now?” you answered with a smug smile, the petty parts of you egging you on to parrot back his words from earlier.

He sprung up from his chair and approached you fast as lightning. It startled you, and you gasped, walking until your back was against the wall. Loki menaced over you, placing one hand next to your head. He made sure to leave the other side open so you could get away if you really wanted to. You didn’t, instead staring defiantly into his eyes.

“You should,” he growled. “Just invite me next time and drop this nonsense.”

“Wow,” you scoffed, crossing your arms as he made to spin away from you. “Just because no one’s ever cared to listen to you before doesn’t mean you get to make yourself a martyr.”

Your hands immediately flew to your mouth. Loki had shared everything about his past with you. Really and truly, every painful memory. Every ugly, gritty moment. You knew how much stuff like that damaged him. He spun back around, rage plain on his face, and a deep hurt lurking behind his eyes.

“Loki, I’m so sorry,” you said, rushing toward him. “I didn’t mean-”

He put up a hand to stop both your words and approach. “No. I think you did. It is my fault for believing a mortal of all beings could have any depth of understanding, of feeling. For thinking you could love me. The joke is on me, I suppose, hmm?”

He scoffed and stalked toward the door, refusing to let you see the tears in his eyes. He was yanking on the knob before you could even say his name again. The last thing he saw before slamming the door behind him was you crumpling on the ground in a sobbing mess. As he stomped down the hall, his own tears began to pour.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Loki, are you even trying to sleep?” Bruce asked from across the hotel room.

Tony had taken a room for himself and stuck Bruce and Loki together in an adjoining one. Thankfully, it had two beds, but Loki was still a little pissed. Honestly, he’d considered just skipping the hotel and going on a walk, a long walk. Instead, he was laying with his eyes open and glued to the ceiling, reliving the fight in his mind over and over again.

“Yes, Banner, I am,” the god huffed. “I am just not having any success.”

“Is there... something on your mind?” Bruce hesitantly asked. He and Loki were far from best friends, but he figured it would be considerate to ask.

“Actually, there is,” he sighed.

“Do you, uh, want to... talk about it?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I suppose you are a doctor, after all.”

“Not that kind but-”

“My beloved and I have gotten into an argument, and now I am on this mission. So, we have not made up. I fear we never will.”

“Oh, come one. I’ve seen you two. How bad could it be?”

Loki sighed and sat up on the bed, recounting the story. He did his best to keep the tears out of his eyes and emotion out of his voice, and was met with far more success on the first front than the second.

“Yikes,” Bruce said when he finished. “I mean, they tried to say they didn’t mean it. And I’m sure you didn’t either. So maybe just try to talk?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe we are not supposed to work it out.”

“That’s crazy. Look at you right now; you can’t stop thinking about them.”

“And do you think they are thinking of me?”

“You know what, yeah. I do.”

Loki just mumbled his thanks and flipped onto his side so he was facing the wall now. Bruce went back to sleep, and Loki prayed that slumber would claim him. It did not, and he spent the whole night wishing for you. That he had never said those awful things. That he had never even been given the opportunity to know you, for if he didn’t, he never would have hurt you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You laid on the floor crying for hours. The notion that Loki would come back and wrap you in a hug and talk about what happened didn’t leave you be for hours. And then, all of a sudden, it did. Then you just felt empty and tired. Somehow, you managed to pick yourself up and drag yourself into bed, still in your clothes from the day. You waited another hour, still believing Loki would come back, if even just to lay beside you in the bed you shared and say nothing. When it became clear he wouldn’t, you submit to the tears still stinging the back of your eyes, and cried yourself to sleep.

Waking up the next morning, you didn’t immediately remember what had happened. You felt the empty space next to you where your boyfriend usually was. You listened for the running water of the shower that you could always hear on the mornings he wasn’t beside you. The silence was deafening.

“Loki?” you called out to the vacant room.

Only the echo of your voice answered you. Suddenly, the memory of the night before came crashing back into your mind. A strangled sob escaped your lips. You desperately looked around, frantically searching, begging, for some sort of sign that he’d returned in the night and had just left before you awakened. There was no indication that such a thing had happened.

Moving on autopilot, you found yourself in the shower. You tried to wash, but mainly just stood there and let the scalding spray run over you. Eventually, the stream turned cold as you used up the last of the warm water. You always enjoyed how plushy the towels in the Tower were, but you hardly noticed it as you dried off. Some water still dripping off you, you pulled on your robe. The mirror revealed that your eyes were still a little puffy from crying. Your pruny fingers touched the reddened skin, but you couldn’t be bothered to do anything to cover it up.

“You’re back,” you gasped, walking back out into the bedroom.

He was sitting in a chair, different from the one last night, this time actually reading the book he had. He looked so composed that it made you embarrassed by your appearance. You were sure he was just as much a mess on the inside as you were, though. At least you hoped he was.

“Mhm,” he replied. “And you are dripping on the carpet.”

You looked down where, surely enough, a small wet spot was gathering from the droplets rolling off your body. Everything was moving at half speed in your mind because of how drained you were, both physically and emotionally.

“Sorry,” you mumbled.

He didn’t even really acknowledge it as he sidestepped around you and into the bathroom. A few seconds later, you heard the shower turn on. Summoning all your strength, you managed to get dressed for the day, encasing yourself in your most comfortable clothes. You looked at the door and considered getting something to eat, but the pull of your warm blankets was too great. The bed, devoid of your lover, reminded you too much of last night, though. You grabbed the blankets off and swaddled yourself in them on the couch. You tried to shut out the world and go back to sleep. It didn’t work.

“Darling?” Loki softly called as the bathroom door opened.

You wanted to reply, you really did, but it felt like too much effort to peel your eyes open and will your voice to work. So, you listened as he padded over to where you were. He sighed and left, leaving your quarters silent once more. You didn’t even have the energy left to cry.

Roughly ten minutes later, you heard the god come back in and set something on the coffee table. The aroma of pancakes, bacon, and tea flooded your senses seconds after, and you felt your heart somehow swell and break at the same moment. Loki’s hand softly touched your cheek and caressed it so gently, it seemed he was afraid you might break.

“Sleep well, my darling,” he whispered.

Loki kissed the top of your head as gently as he had touched your cheek, his damp hair tickling your skin. He stood up and, though you couldn’t see, felt him turn and look at you once more. Then the door closed, and the strength to cry returned to your body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Please, Steve,” you beseeched. “Just tell me where he is.”

“I’m sorry, you know I can’t.” He truly did look hurt that he had to keep this from you, especially when he noticed the tears welling in your eyes. “It’s top secret.”

You were trying to figure out where Loki was, if he was ok. You should have asked him more about the mission; he would have told you where he was going, rules be damned. But you hadn’t, so he hadn’t, and now he’d been gone for three days with no word on when he’d return. You tried his cell phone, but Steve had at least informed you that they had to turn off anything that could be tracked for the mission.

You felt so awful about what you’d said, the guilt gnawing at your heart every minute of every day, every dream of every night. If he were to die before you could work it out... you just didn’t know what you would do. Even if you never made up, you just needed him to make it back safely. Maybe you didn’t have to work it out, shouldn’t. Maybe you were a toxic poison ruining his life. Refusing to cry in front of Steve, you pushed the thought from your mind.

“But he’s my boyfriend. Doesn’t that count for something more than the rules?” you pleaded, the look of desperation in your eyes only growing.

“Sorry, but it doesn’t. Look, it would be different if you were married. What I can tell you,” he said with a sigh, and a quick glance over his shoulder, “is that he’s alive and safe.”

“Thank you,” you sniffled. “I guess that’s something, at least. When will he be back?”

“Soon, ok?”

“Ok,” you sniffled again.

You trudged over to the couch in the common room, trying to spend time someplace other than your room for the first time since the fight. Besides quick meals, you’d just been moping in your quarters. The thought crossed your mind that you were probably depressed, that you should get up and exercise or move about. Despite the knowledge of that, you couldn’t actually muster up the willpower to act on it. Instead, you flipped on the TV and pulled the blanket hanging over the back of the sofa snugly around your shoulders. The voice of Gordon Ramsey faded into background noise as you stared out the window, foolishly and fruitlessly hoping that you’d see Loki’s ship flying in.

“Monday,” Steve sighed, setting a mug of hot chocolate on a coaster for you.

“What?” you asked, slightly bewildered after abruptly being pulled from your trance.

“Don’t tell anyone I told you, but Loki’s coming back on Monday.” Steve sat beside you and comfortingly pat your back as you expressed your gratitude. “Can I give you some advice, though?”

“Please.”

“Whatever happened between you two, you can work it out. I promise.”

“I just feel so bad, Steve. I said something horrible that I never should have.” You bit your lip before continuing, nervous you were oversharing. The way your companion was sympathetically nodding his head, however, urged you on. “And then he said something awful too. And now he’s gone, and no one will even tell me where to find him. Maybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t work it out. That we’re not right for each other.”

“Come on, that’s just the fear talking. I know sometimes the team grumbles about you guys, but it’s only because you’re so sweet together.” He waited for some sign of recognition that what he was saying was true to click on your face before continuing. “Take it from me, you don’t want to let an opportunity to pass you by; even more so when it comes to being with someone you love. You have to make the most of every moment. But you also have to be willing to work through your disagreements, even if they’re particularly bad. Heck, especially then.”

“Thanks, Steve.” You managed a smile. It was small, but it was also the first one that had made its way onto your face in nearly a week. Not only did you realize you had great friends surrounding you, but you felt a spark of hope that you could repair things with Loki. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. Now, want to come for a training session? Take your mind off things for a bit?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m still not really feeling up to it. But soon, I promise,” you added when a flash of worry danced across his face.

He gave a nod and one final friendly pat on the shoulder, then was off. You went back to staring out the window, now gently sipping on your cocoa. It was still a bit too hot, and it burnt your tongue a little. You knew you should wait until it cooled, but the pain kept you tethered to the earth instead of floating away. You also knew what Loki would say to that so, after a few more sips, you set it down to let it become a more drinkable temperature. As you waited, you let your mind be filled with thoughts of Loki, wondering if he was thinking of you too. Soon, your eyes were drooping shut, and you succumbed to dreams of happier times with your beloved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the day passed much the same, with you pretending to be asleep. Loki knew you were awake at some point, at least, to eat the food he’d brought. Otherwise, he would have flown into a panic that his little mortal was unwell. Or, more unwell than just in an emotional sense, anyway. There was one point where he saw your eyes crack open and look at him as he sat nearby, switching between reading and thinking. You didn’t say anything, though, so neither did he.

“Brother?” Thor said, knocking at the door. “Are you two in there?”

Loki rushed to the door and, opening it, shushed the God of Thunder. He gently closed the door behind him as not to wake you, thinking you may really be asleep now.

“We are, brother,” he whispered. “Why?”

“The team has not seen either of you all day. Is everything alright? Are either of you ill? Or perhaps you’re just having fun in there?” Thor playfully elbowed his brother in the ribs and suggestively wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, and why are we whispering?”

“Because my beloved is sleeping.” Loki felt a prick of fear in his heart. Maybe he had lost the privilege of calling you his beloved. “We are ok. Relatively.”

“Relatively?”

“Yes. We... We had a fight,” Loki exhaled. “It was not pretty.”

“But you are going to work it out, right?” Thor sighed when Loki said nothing. “Oh, come on, brother. You must talk to them.”

“I will. At some point.”

With some final words of encouragement, Thor let his brother be. Loki took a deep breath and reentered his room. You were sitting up on the couch, twiddling with your thumbs, eyes cast down. He tentatively sat at the end by your feet. Elbows on his knees, he buried his head in his hands.

“Well,” he said to the floor, “are we going to talk about it?”

He felt you flinch at how angry he sounded, while he mentally kicked himself for the same reason. He peeked out from behind his hands, trying to compose himself so he could speak to you in a calm voice.

“I mean,” you said, “if that’s what you want.”

“Oh, and you do not want it?” he snapped, silently cursing himself again.

“Please,” you scoffed, “don’t do anything for my sake.”

Now you were both angry at yourselves, and completely honestly, the other too. When it became clear neither of you was going to say anything else, Loki stood to leave. He spun back around when he heard you mumble something under your breath.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said in a too-sweet voice, making the pet name sound more like a threat or a mockery than anything else. “I did not quite get that. Would you like to speak up?”

“Yeah,” you snarled, this time loud enough for him to hear. “I said, ‘so you’re really just gonna walk out again, huh?’”

“Oh, allow me to apologize. I must have been making myself a martyr again, hmm? Was that not what you said last night? Or perhaps that was just me blowing things out of proportion again?” He looked down at you as a panic flooded every inch of your body. Loki wanted to stop, but his floodgates had been opened. “But I thought that no one cared to listen to me. Again, I do believe those are your words, not mine.”

“That’s not- I didn’t- I’m not-” you struggled to form a coherent sentence. “I didn’t mean that!”

“No? But it is what you said. Perhaps it was that ever condemning Freudian slip of the tongue? Or do you think yourself so special, mortal, that you care? For I know no one else ever has; I did not need you to tell me that,” he spat.

“You know what?” you laughed without mirth. “You’re right, this isn’t what I want.”

Loki knew he’d pushed too far. His voice grew immensely softer as he spoke again. Not in a kind way, but in a way that showed he was afraid.

“And what exactly, do you mean by ‘this’?”

“This, what we’re doing now. I don’t know what it is, but if it’s your way of talking about what’s wrong and working it out, it’s not what I want. I guess you should just go, Loki.”

Loki hated himself. No, that wasn’t strong enough. He loathed himself, utterly and completely. He slammed the door behind him, and immediately sank back against it, falling to the floor. Neither of you heard the other’s sobs over your the sound of your own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Though Monday was only two days after Steve told you it would be the date of Loki’s arrival, it felt like years elapsed in those forty-eight hours. By some miracle that, you thought with a tiny laugh, Loki would have said was thanks to the Norns, you managed to get yourself into a presentable state. Shower? Check. Teeth brushed? Check. Eyes normal and not red from crying? As checked as it could be.

Steve had promised that he’d get Loki to go to your room straight away. You figured if you two were going to have it out again, it should be in private. Though, you were hoping it would go a great deal better than last time. You could only hope that some time and space was all the two of you would need to finally work through this.

Your breath hitched in your throat as the doorknob turned and Loki shuffled in. The door softly clicked shut behind him, and you tried to quell your worry that your conversation would end with him slamming it again. He dropped his bag at his feet, and for a second, the world stopped. You just looked at each other, both too afraid to end the moment of peace.

“I am back,” he gently said, opening his arms to you.

You took a single hesitant step forward before fully launching yourself into his arms. He caught you with surprising grace, and though he seemed unsure of himself, calmly rubbed your back.

“Can we... Can we try again?” you asked, pulling back enough so you could look into his beautiful, blue-green eyes. “The working things out, I mean. Can we try that again?”

“Yes, my darling.” The pet name had returned to something more gentle, holding the usual care and affection it did. “I’d love nothing more.”

Hand in hand, you walked toward the couch. This time you sat with bodies angling towards each other, already starting off on a high note. It made both of you feel the other was much more willing to listen to what you had to say.

“Shall I start?” he asked, cupping your cheek.

“No, I want to go first.” Your hand rested on top of his and you leaned into his touch. “If that’s alright with you?”

“It is. Please, speak your mind, my sweet.”

You took a steadying breath before you began. “Look, I’m so sorry for what I said. I was frustrated, and I lashed out. But that’s no excuse for it. I never in a million years should have said what I did. It was wrong and insensitive. And I do care for you so, so much on so, so many different levels. I’m sorry I ever made you doubt that. I will spend every day of the rest of my life reassuring you that I love you, Loki. I love you.”

“I accept your apology, and I love you, too.” A single tear rolled down his cheek, but you knew it was from happiness. After all, several tears of the same emotion had fallen down your own cheeks. “Now, it is my turn to say I am sorry. I was unreceptive, pushy, snappy, and cruel. I should not have responded in that manner, and I should have been more open to working through the problem. My insecurities got the better of me, but I promise I will try to keep them at bay. Because I have you, darling, and I love you. And I have no doubt that you do feel the same.”

“I forgive you, too, Loki. I’m ready to put this behind us if you are.”

“Absolutely I am,” he replied, smiling—really smiling—for what felt like the first time in a century. “And, if I may be so bold, I do believe we have a week’s worth of kisses to make up for.”

“The math checks out,” you giggled, leaning in. “I certainly wouldn’t be opposed if you wanted to start playing catch up now.”

“It is like you have read my mind.”

You gave him one quick peck on the lips before he pulled you flush against him and kissed you like there was no tomorrow. Maybe it was because he’d been so worried that there wouldn’t be. But, in the end, there was. Because you worked it out. Because you loved each other. Because you were two hearts connected as one in the crazy journey called life. And you’d always find a way to work through your differences. For, deep down, you both knew you were meant to be together, would always find your way back to each other. There was nothing either of you believed more, and you’d never doubt it again.

[copias-thrall]

How would Mary goore react to hurting someone he genuinely cares about? I absolutely Love your writing!💕

Hello, nonny! Thank you, I love this ask!

This was going to be  alist, but it got away from me! 😅 

Enjoy 😘 

It wasn’t anything big.

Just a few of Mary’s favorite beers (the craft kind—not the shitty beer he drank on his shoestring budget), some of that chronic shit you’d scored and have been saving for a special occasion, and a VHS box set of horror movie classics.

***

Mary comes in and out of your life at will, and that was something you accepted—knowing he was As Is or not at all. And honestly—no, really—you liked that. You had your own shit going on, and being Mary’s expected caregiver was NOT something you wanted to add to that list.

(If someone else wanted to try to tame him and pick up after him, well…kudos to them. Less work for you.)

Mary showed up on your pivotal days and he rubbed your feet and always invited you out to trivia. You'd held him when he was coming down from a bad trip and listened to his grievances and gave him a place to stay when he was persona non grata at his own. And in a way, that made you always feel like #1 in Mary’s world…and that was good enough for you.

***

A few months ago, Mary had been lying on your couch, picking the label off his beer bottle.

“I’m gonna be away for a bit,” he’d said.

“Oh?” you’d responded as you’d mashed the controls on your gaming controller.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll be around…but I got some shit going on.”

You’d paused your game.

“Bad shit?”

He’d waved you off.

“Neg. Just tryna get myself out there. Signed up for open mics and shit.”

He’d shifted, his long legs receding from around you and folding under him.

“So, like…I got my job at the bowling alley…but nights and weekends are kinda shot.”

You’d tried not to let the disappointment show on your face. You supported Mary’s dreams, and that meant not making an issue that he was finally trying to do something about them.

This wasn’t against you. It was for him.

When you’d taken too long to respond, his face had scrunched.

“But if you want—”

“It’s fine, Mare,” you’d said as you’d made yourself smile. “This is important to you, so it’s important to me.”

You’d unpaused your game.

“Just don’t expect me to not beat this game without you.”

He’d grabbed the controller out of your hands with a snarl, causing you to cry out when you died.

“Fuck the game.” His hand had fisted your shirt. “Give me a night to remember.”

You had. Twice.

***

Mary had texted you occasionally over the next few weeks—a few memes, a few drunken key-smashes, a dick pic, and 2 grainy videos of his performances for critique—but such contact was sporadic, and you’d never seen him in real-time. 

He’d blown in one night, five weeks in, with a box of pizza just as you'd been heading out to meet your crew. When you’d told him you’d made plans, he’d looked so crestfallen that you’d caved and canceled on them.

While he’d been there, he’d given you a date in 3 weeks.

“That Saturday I have nowhere to be,” he’d said as he’d chewed. “I can spend the whole day with you.”

You’d been careful not to seem too eager.

“Oh yeah? Should I plan shit?”

He’d crammed the whole crust into his mouth and had given you a doughy grin.

“Why ’’ya think I told you?”

You didn’t know what you’d expected, but when he’d had to bounce 90min later, you were still surprised. (That was hardly enough time to digest!)

“Sorry,” he’d winced. “I gotta be on a bus in 45min.”

He’d left, and you’d been too embarrassed to join your friends who were only just going to the second bar.

Having fun with your man ;) ? one of your friends had texted.

What do you think? You’d texted back before changing into your pjs and turning on Netflix.

***

So maybe you were low-key excited about your day with Mary.

Perhaps you’d spent those 3 weeks figuring out the perfect date—something that said, “I missed you,” without saying “But in a clingy way.”

Beer and horror were two things the both of you were totally into, and you knew he’d be exhausted, so it seemed perfect. You’d bought the boxed set off of eBay and splurged for expedited shipping; you’d borrowed your brother’s old dual TV/VCR from his college days; and you’d forgone your weekly Chinese takeout for the craft beer funds. (And if things got steamy, well…even better.) 

***

A few days before The Date, you’d run into Mary on the bus. You were coming home from a shift, and he was going to his.

He’d brightened and waved you over—as if you weren’t already on your way—and you’d plopped down beside him with a tired grin. You’d told him of the latest entitled asshole, and he’d showed you another clip of him on guitar.

Before your stop had come up, you’d tentatively placed your hand over his.

“We still on for Saturday?”

He’d blinked at you a few moments before grinning.

“Yeah.”

“Should I plan a whole day for us, then?”

His arm had crept around your shoulders before pulling you into him to kiss your temple.

“Yeah, why not.”

***

That morning, you wake up happy. 

Mary will be over soon.

You roll over and grab your phone.

When should I expect you? :-* 

It takes him an hour to respond. You aren’t surprised—Mary isn’t known for being a morning person—so when your phone dings, you grab it up excitedly.

An excitement that dies when you read his text. And reread. And re-reread.

not 2day 

goin upste 2 show 

You blink.

What show? Didn’t we confirm? 

yeah. got me thinkin 

why no show? 

so i chked 

i missed one 

gotta do it 

Rage blooms hot, then cold behind your eyes and down your cheeks.

But you said we had the whole day. I made plans. 

save em 

ths is impt 2 me 

We’ve had this planned for weeks. 

i thot u suprted me 

on a bus cnt tlk 

You send a few more irate texts, but he doesn’t respond, and you toss your phone across the room with a shout of frustration. You scrub the hot tears from your eyes before they can fall.

And…on paper, Mary isn’t wrong. Nothing you had planned won’t keep: movies, beer, takeout.

But…

It gives you a stark look at what you mean to Mary. He gave you this date and confirmed it. He knew you were making plans.

How long was he going to wait to tell you he wasn’t even in the city anymore?

You fight the urge to kick the VHS tapes across the floor, but you open the fridge and grab a beer. If Queen Elizabeth could have beer for breakfast, then it was good enough for you.

Once you’ve downed all eight, you move on to the jug of vodka you keep for cleaning.

When you empty only liquid from your stomach into the toilet, you grab your frozen fries out of the freezer. You roll a handful of the cold ones in your mouth as you wait for the others to crisp in the oven, and once you’ve consumed the cooked ones, you go right back to the vodka.

***

Opening your eyes the next morning is a mistake, so you take a few deep breaths and go back to sleep.

When you wake again, your heart is fluttering, your stomach turns, and it feels like there’s an ice pick behind one eye. Shuffling slowly, you make your way out to your kitchen where you take some painkillers, drink some pickle juice, and eat two slices of plain bread.

The sense that you did something awful stays with you, but you’re in no condition to find your phone and see what you’ve done. Instead, you go back to bed. It takes more deep breathing to settle yourself, but once you do fall asleep, you’re out for hours.

You don’t feel amazing when you swim to consciousness again, but you feel at least like a human being. 

Your phone is dead when you find it under the sink, and waiting the 5 or so minutes for it to charge feels like waiting to face the executioner.

It’s both better and worse than you expected.

You breathe a sigh of relief to see that there are no vague social media posts, and you didn’t drunk dial any of your friends, but…

The texts to and from Mary are ugly.

Apparently, you’d managed not to send him angry texts until he’d sent you another clip of his performing. But then the floodgates had opened.

You’d started with telling him you didn’t give a shit about the show, how he was an inconsiderate ass, and then you'd devolved into incomprehensible, typo-ridden texts that accused him of using you, that you were only something to do when he didn’t have anything better to do, that he was an entitled man-child and if he didn’t apologize, you were done.

Mary’s texts in response range from him being angry at your disregard, to heated retorts you were blowing this out of proportion (and he didn’t appreciate your “ad hominem” attacks), to a cool detachment that this wasn’t working over text and he’d finish this in person.

You put your head in your hands but are too dehydrated to cry.

***

Mary doesn’t text you again during his self-imposed time frame.

You don’t text him either, but that’s more out of self-preservation than pride. There’s no point exacerbating the situation…and you’re pretty sure there’s no coming back from this, so why speed up the inevitable?

The horror tapes taunt you every time you walk by them, and you wonder if you can return them (you can’t). You give the TV back to your brother, and when he asks you how it went, you plaster a smile on your face and say, “Great!” with forced enthusiasm you hope comes across as genuine.

The primo weed goes over to your friend’s house, and the two of you wax poetic all night about existential claptrap as you devour two cheese pizzas and a bag of bbq chips. You talk about Mary without talking about Mary, and you get a heartfelt, “Sorry, dude.”

You beat the video game anyway, but it’s mostly because you needed something to occupy your mind and less out of spite (though that’s there as well).

***

Despite waiting on tenterhooks to hear anything from Mary, you truly don’t really expect to. You know you’d been atrocious, even if it had been prompted by his careless disregard, and you know Mary isn’t really the kind of guy that troubles himself with relationships that are hard.

Not that you’re in a relationship.

So when there’s a knock on your door a week later and Mary’s behind it, you’re genuinely surprised.

You gape through the peephole in shock.

“Fuck. If you’re there, just let me in, ok?”

Fumbling with the chain, you unlock the door and crack it open.

“Mary?”

“You gonna let me in?” he rasps.

You shrug and step away from the door, and he shuffles inside. He looks around like you’ve changed anything (you haven’t), before turning around to face you.

You close the door and stare back.

He folds his arms. “Breaking up with someone over text is tacky.”

What you think is, So you’ve come to do it in person, but what you say is, “Can’t break up if you’re not together.”

He winces and runs his fingers through his hair. 

“Yeah…apparently I’ve ‘taken advantage' of you.”

This…isn’t what you’re expecting.

“I…what?”

“Can we sit down?”

You nod, and Mary sits rigidly on the edge of your couch. You curl up in the chair on the opposite side.

He rubs his palms down his greasy jeans before he speaks.

“I mean…you pissed me off, ok?”

You nod.

“But, like—you weren’t wrong, ok? I kinda knew that deep down, but I’m a dumbass, you know?”

You don’t nod.

“And I kinda bitched about the whole thing…but the resounding response was that I was the asshole.”

He angles his body toward you.

“I guess I’ve kinda been treating you like my best friend that I fuck sometimes.”

Your entire face flushes—you’d always thought you’d maybe ranked a little higher than that—and you duck your head so he can’t see the tears that you blink back.

There’s a swish of fabric, and you startle hard when Mary’s hand is at your chin. He jerks back with a Sorry.

“Shit—that’s not what I…” he blows out a breath and puts his hands behind his head before looking back up at you.

“But you aren’t, and…fuck this is harder than I thought.”

So this is it.

Waiting for him to do the deed is clearly going to be excruciating, so you take charge of this whole shit-show.

“I understand,” you say flatly.

“You do?”

“It’s ok, Mare-Mary. It’s my own fault for reading too much into it. I just…I saw what I wanted to see, I guess. I know you don’t need…” you look down into your lap, “…my shit in your life.

He makes a noise low in his throat, and then he’s squatting in front of you, his hot hands planting on your knees.

“But I want your shit in my life.”

You squint your eyes at him.

“But what I said…”

He grasps your hands in his.

“Pissed me off, yeah…cuz I wasn’t fucking thinking, ok? You’re like one of the only people who gives a crap about what’s important to me. And all I could see was you suddenly…not.”

Anger wells up in you again, and you yank away your hands.

“Weeks, Mary…weeks of you all over the tri-state area, and you thought I didn’t care because of one night?! A night you promised to me?”

He sits back on his heels. “I know…fuck. Ok? At the time, it just felt…like the show couldn’t be rescheduled. Our night could.”

Because you’re what he does when he’s bored.

You curl in on yourself.

“Shit.” He leans forward again. “Fuck, I’m sorry, ok? I’m fucking on my knees here.”

You blink at him. 

What? 

“Please, please don’t break—say we’re done.”

“What?”

“Look, we can go into my shitty fucking psychological profile on why I fuck around later…but right now I need you to know that I knew it was you before I fucking knew it was you.”

You uncurl.

“That…’what’ was me?”

He knees forward and presses your hands to his face.

“The one I wanna spend my free time with. The one whose opinion means the most. The one who was the first person I wanted to share all my good shit with. You’re the one I missed, and—after that awful fucking night—everything felt pointless because I knew I couldn’t come over and jam about it.”

“Mare—what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m a fucking dumbass. I’m saying I thought I was pissed at you, but I was pissed at myself for fucking it up.” He sighs. “I’m saying no fucking one was on my side and they all told me to get my shit together.”

He looks up at you with wide eyes, and for the first time, you can see how they’re outlined in red, his subtle crow’s feet more pronounced.

“So, you’re not done with me? I’m not…too much trouble?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “What? Shit, no. I’m asking you to not be done with me. I’ll give you all the nights you want. Fucking text me, and my ass’ll be here posthaste.” He shifts up, and his thumb ghosts over your lips. “Anything to get you to give me that secret smile again.”

“Secret smile?” you ask while trying to perform the action.

Mary actually blushes.

“Uh…yeah. You get this…” he makes a motion across his face, “…when you’re giving it back to me.” His fingers shove back through his hair as he casts his eyes down. “You don’t give it to anyone else.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve made a study of it.”

You’re a swirl of emotions. Mary’s apologized—has admitted he was wrong and has asked for…more—but you’re still hurt. And embarrassed.

But he’s looking up at you with wet, hopeful eyes.

“Do you…” you start carefully, “…do you know why I got so mad?”

That statement was clearly not what he was expecting, and he blinks at you a few times before nodding and looking down at the floor.

“I made a…uh, commitment…to you. And I treated it like it didn’t mean anything.”

He gives you a look like, Did I get it right? and that’s close enough—even if he’s missing some of the nuance.

You nod. “And I know I…wasn’t…the best.”

His face contorts, and your heart sinks.

“You…” he shakes his head. “You said some awful things…some hurtful shit—and it really got in my head.”

Mary gives you a complicated look.

“Shit that you’d been pissed about for a while.” He traces your knee. “Shit you could’ve said to me…but shit I should have noticed. Fuck.” He presses his forehead into your knees, and you can’t stop yourself from sinking your fingers into his hair.

He takes it as encouragement and presses into you before looking up again.

“I just kinda wanna put that whole night behind us. It feels like a fucking ouroboros of fault. And like maybe I created it. But let’s agree to like…not do that again.”

You look down at him, and his eyes search your face.

“Ok…but what does all this mean, Mare? I can’t…I need to be something to you, ok? More than just your friend.”

Mary nods emphatically, and he takes your hand and curls his into it.

“No more fuck-ups, and no one else…can we start there?”

He’s saying all the right words, but you’re still trepidatious—you know Mary, and he doesn’t like constraints.

“I…just…how can I believe you?”

He shakes his head like he can’t believe you even have to ask. He rises and awkwardly reaches out to touch your face before drawing his hand back.

“Cuz you’re important to me. I care about you, and I don’t want to lose you. Ever.”

And yeah. Ok.

[obae-me]

Upside Down- CH 2

Author’s Note: I swear I don’t hate Mammon, he just happens to be the subject of everything right now, but don’t worry, the comfort will come. Just hold out for the next one, the healing will start I swear!

Tags: Cussing, fighting, unhealthy coping mechanisms, mentions of death, toxic friendships, blackmail (As always, read safely, feel free to ask about any of these tags) 

Word Count: 4683

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An Unlucky Break

Honestly, at this point, you weren’t sure what was worse. The humans? The endless noises? Or the devil-forsaken sunlight?! Groaning, you pulled another blanket over yourself, tugging it up above your head. Taking the pillow, you used it to try to muffle the sounds of the outside world. It was all so much. How did the humans even get any sleep? How could they see with all the blinding sun rays? You cocooned yourself tighter, imagining that you were back inside your home where nothing but endless moonlight existed and you were left exactly how you wanted to be. Alone.

But all those dreams and imaginations were dashed when you heard a single name roar throughout the house. “Mammon!” If it wasn’t his name, it would be another. They always seemed to be screaming at each other for something around here. At least they had the decency to leave you--

The door to your bedroom door opened, then shut itself quietly, the sound of panting followed by whispered cursing invaded your space. “Why’s he always gotta be on my ass? It’s just a little money, he’d spend it all on useless plastic or junk anyway. It was better off in my hands for sure. For sure...” A little bit of pacing, a small chuckle. “Just gotta lay low in here. It’s abandoned and dark as hell, he surely won’t find me.” It was bitterly amusing how your supposed “babysitter” seemed to have forgotten all about you. Although you stayed quiet, not really in the mood for conversation. Besides, you always had a knack for blending in.

The both of you sat in silence--well, relative silence, since it was obvious the human didn’t seem to understand the definition of being still. He kept mumbling to himself. But the two of you listened to whichever brother was on the hunt go rampaging through the house. Doors kept opening, slamming shut, the footsteps pounding angrily against the floor upstairs. Then it all went quiet. The brother of greed seemed as hopeful as you were that it was a sign they’d given up the chase. Mammon sighed, much too heavily. So of course, the handle slammed against the wall as the room was raided. “There you are, you--you---you!” Then the fighting started. A heavy sound of a body hit the side wall.

“Son of a--get offa me, will ya!? I don’t have your damn money!”

The newcomer growled. “That’s the problem!” The scuffle didn’t seem to end. Neither of them really dug too badly into each other, pushing, shoving, slapping. It was hard to tell if you were intrigued or annoyed. Regardless, you slowly took the blankets off of you, getting a better look at the fight. It was immediately disappointing, or maybe this was as intense as humans could take it? Mammon had his brother’s head in some sort of lock, while the attacker was simply tugging at Greed’s hair with two full handfuls. Neither of them were getting anywhere. No, this was definitely lackluster.

You were back to being annoyed. Sitting up, speaking up finally, you were going to ask, ‘can you two beat each other up elsewhere’, but you couldn’t even get that far. “Can you two--” were the only words you managed to utter before the both of them shrieked in startled fear, high-pitched enough to leave your ears almost ringing. The fighting dropped immediately, the humans instinctively grabbing onto each other in a supportive hug. They stayed like that for a good while before one of them broke away to flick the light on. The intense brightness had you blinking away spots.

Bright blue hair, a shirt with some sort of strangely drawn figure with...large proportions, a curved device around his neck, the brother’s previous assertiveness instantly melted. “W-who are y-you?! God, Mammon, call the-the cops or something!”

Sheepishly, Mammon caught his breath and cleared his throat, the look of recognition coming back to him. “Wait, Levi, this is the guest Lucifer told us about.” The one you were supposed to take care of. Not that I care.

“N-nani?!” So this was Levi Morningstar. Everyone labeled him as Envy. The third eldest and third strongest. So many of his demon followers drove themselves beyond mad, jealous that they couldn’t be as envious as the human. And if that was enough to tell you about this brother… “I thought that was, like, a prank or something! How long have they-they-they…” With every word, he seemed to turn more pink, and yet his face looked almost angrier. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” And he was back to fighting, taking Mammon by the front of his shirt. “I’ve been singing the opening song to ‘Kiss Me I’m Your Princess’ in the shower for the past week!” It was true. He had. “That’s supposed to be private!”

Mammon shrugged, his forearms raising with his shoulders. “Not very private if the whole neighborhood can hear ya, and besides I did tell ya! You were just so upset about the money you must’a not been paying attention!” He shoved Levi off of him. “So that’s on you!”

The older of the two really knew--or maybe he didn’t know--exactly how to push buttons. Levi, his anger reignited about the mention of his money, knocked Mammon to the ground. “Scumbag!”

Mammon pushed his brother off with a knee to the gut, turning the tables and getting on top of his opponent. “Fuckin’ weeb!” It was obvious Greed was the more physically capable, his speed and reactions praiseworthy, perhaps even for average demon standards. However, Levi was bringing his own to the fight--if you could even really call it a fight. He was more adept at using his surroundings as well as guessing predictable movements to stay in the ring.

Should you stop it? Human bodies were much more fragile than demon ones weren’t they? While they might have not been digging their heels into swinging, they were still aggressive, and it was only escalating. The binding marks around your wrists left a dull heat across your skin. Like it or not, you had to keep them in decent health to observe them. So you got up, placing your body between them. They quickly put their fists down, although Levi’s got dangerously close to your face, his knuckles so close they tickled your cheek. The intensity of battle fizzled instantly, and Levi touched a sore spot on his chin. Looking right past you, the blue-haired boy scowled. “You’ve got 24 hours, Mammon, you hear me? If you don’t, I’m taking this straight to Lucifer!” He went to leave, but then turned around to add something else in. “I’m sure he would compensate me by letting me sell your dumb bike!” Again, he went to the door...and again, he stopped to add another comment. “And-and forget about me lending you money ever again!” Finally, he slammed the door behind him. Which meant that finally the fighting was over with. Peace and--

Someone took you by the shoulders, giving you a shake. Every nerve in your spine sparked, the feeling of being touched burning you up and leaving you chill all at once. You slapped the hands off your body and took a good few steps back. “Are you an absolute idiot?!” Mammon yelled. 

Who was he to talk to you like that? “Excuse me?”

“Struttin’ up and steppin’ right in the middle of a fight, did you wanna get hit?!” He outstretched his hand, ready to move your head. “Did he land one on ya?”

Blocking him, you used your arm to cover your face. “Don’t touch me.” The words came out harsh and yet desperate. You didn’t mean to sound so emotional. They left your chest heavy, and apparently the human picked up on it. He backed up, his arms dropping. He turned his head away from you with a snap of his tongue.

“Damn it! How am I supposed to pay him back by tomorrow?!” Mammon started pacing, the wheels in his head visibly turning. “First I lose my precious Golide, I can’t lose Ruby!” He really was near crying over this. He verbally shouted out ideas, most of which were getting more loans from others to pay off the one to his brother. Not a smart option. But, somehow he came to an even worse conclusion. “I’ll just have to gamble it back!” Suddenly he looked excited. “Today is a lucky day, I can feel it! That way, I get to have fun and Levi gets his money back! Win win!” Or a lose/lose, if he, you know, loses. But that aspect didn’t seem to even dawn on him. “Come on, get dressed!”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“Well, you’re coming with me, aren’t ya? Don’t you want to get out for a bit? I haven’t even seen you out of this room once, made me completely forget about ya!” He laughed, every bit of negative emotion gone from his body once the addiction of gambling was rushing through his veins. Without even really giving you a choice, he was opening your suitcases which you hadn’t bothered to unpack, handing you an outfit. “Come on, come on! I do better with someone there watching me!” Were all humans this into invading personal space, or was it just him? “It’ll be fun! I’ll show you my home away from home!”

Your top eyelid started to twitch. “Don’t you have someone else to drag around?” It was meant to be spiteful, maybe a bit hurtful to get him to go away, but he just slowed. Then a familiar hue clouded his bright eyes, dulling them. A color you knew too well, the color that stained your soul. The loneliness of isolation.

He shook his head, and although you could feel a bit of his aura cry, he just smiled. “Nah, n-not many people are good enough to hang out with the Great Mammon! So-so be thankful I’m inviting you along!” It was demanding, brash, boarding on rude, but yet it came off to you like a beg.

It nearly churned your stomach at the thought of casually spending time with a human...but...those were your commands. You couldn’t hole yourself up in this room forever. At some point you’d be expected to hand in your findings, to try to restore these brothers to see if humanity was capable of change. You turned over the human clothes in your hand, the style of them vastly different than you remembered human fashion being. Sighing out of your nose, you gave in. “Fine.” His expression almost blinded you as badly as the sun.

It was very clear to you that there wasn’t going to be a single mode of human transportation that you enjoyed. They were all loud, bumpy, and the smell of metal and plastic that stayed in your nose and settled on your tongue made you gag. Mammon, however, was extremely enthusiastic about them. He had brought you to a special room of the home called a ‘garage’ , a special resting room for the family’s many...many vehicles. Each sibling seemed to have just one car, but Mammon had a few. He had waved you over to his specific end of the large room, gesturing to--as he referred to them-- his treasures. A bright yellow low-set sleek one that he named ‘Amber’, a tall black one with a carriage for storage attached to it--called a truck apparently, but he just called it ‘Ob’. But the one he adored most was one that looked vastly different to the others. This was Ruby, the one Levi threatened to sell in exchange for the missing loan.

Although, if you were being honest, you didn’t understand why Mammon didn’t let him. “It’s broken,” you claimed.

“What?! My baby?!” He left your side immediately, scouring over it, his eye scanning over every inch of the thing. “What are you talking about? She looks fine.”

Was he blind? You pointed to it. “It’s missing two wheels. All your other motorized vehicles have four.”

Waving a hand at you, he scowled. “Don’t joke around about something like that! I thought you were serious for a second!” I was serious...Oh well...It wasn’t anything you wanted to concern yourself with. He threw his legs up over the bright red two-wheeled thing, sitting on it like one might a horse. After he fiddled with it for a second, it roared to life. The sound pounding in your head, meanwhile, Mammon was thrilled. “Ah, yeah!” The machine continued to make this deafening deep...scream. You brought your hands up to cover your ears. Did they like the noise? Was basic human hearing so dull that they didn’t find it inconvenient at all? “Come on! The sooner we get to a casino, the sooner I can get more monay!” Isn’t it supposed to be Levi’s money? Mammon seemed adamant that you join him on the...Ruby. You shook your head, and with a little frown, Mammon turned the infernal thing off. “What, are you motion sick or something? Usually people would die to take a ride on a bike like this! With me!”

“Do you have something quieter?”

Dismounting the bike, he pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket. He clicked a button and the black truck lights flashed. “I’m already startin’ to regret this. You’re a buzzkill, you know that don’t you? And here I thought Lucifer was the one who didn’t know what fun was like.” He opened the door and hoisted himself up into the car. It already sounded much quieter than Ruby. It still rumbled and made your heart leap, but it seemed steady. It appeared to you that luckily most cars operated the same way, so you remembered how to pull the handle to open the door. Settling yourself in the seat, you shut the opening behind you, trying to calm your already churning stomach. Waiting for the thing to start moving, you braced yourself, but the truck stayed motionless. “Hey, man, I know I just called you a buzzkill and all, but I can’t afford another ticket right now, so seatbelts on.”

You could only understand about half of those words. Trying to blend in with the human world was going to be harder than you thought. Maybe some studying was in order...But you had to come up with some sort of excuse that made it appear as if you knew what he was telling you. “I don’t have one.”

It was practically an insult that he looked at you with such disappointment. “Come on, playing dumb won’t work on me, Lucifer’s already pissed from the last time I got pulled over.” Individually the words themselves made sense, but the phrases were almost gibberish to you. Taking too long trying to piece things together, Mammon sighed, leaned over, much too close to you, reaching behind your head. He tugged on an extending fabric, pulled it across your body and attached it to a clasp near your hip. As it fastened, it clicked. A seat belt. Strange. Why was it necessary for them to restrain themselves like this? “Rule number one about hanging out with Mammon,” the human started pulling a similar belt around him. “When you’re in my car, I’m in charge!” He hit a button, extremely loud music pouring out of every corner of the car, making the entire carriage thump. Screaming to be heard above the audio, he tugged on a lever in the middle. “Whoo! Roulette, here I come!” Your insides lurched as the front of the room lifted open and Ob moved forward.

Off in the distance, two adolescent humans were pushing each other around, speaking much too loudly about idiotic things. The car a little ways to the right of you had a human with long hair and tired eyes sucking on a piece of metal, blowing smoke out of their mouth. And as lines of more vehicles chugged on, and people talked in ways you didn’t comprehend, it started to hit harder how far you were away from home. This was a foreign land, filled with sins and distractions at every corner. And...food dipped in liquid apparently. As you raised the bag, you felt the slick underside of it rub off against your fingers. “Oi, oi, oi, oi, don’t be like my brother and get greasy fingerprints all over the place! I just got Obby detailed!”

You placed the bag in your lap. “I thought this machine was named Ob?”

He smiled to himself. “Ob, Obby, they’re the same. Technically, it’s Obsidian, but I like to give ‘em nicknames you know? Anyways, I ain’t like Lucifer, you can eat, but just be careful, ya hear!” He reached a hand into his own bag while the other hand was on the directional wheel. He pulled out a...fried stick and put it in his mouth. Mammon had stopped by...it was called a drive-through. At least you were starting to get the hang of their fairly straightforward naming system. You didn’t want anything, but apparently he got you something anyway. You didn’t even know what was in here, and honestly you were a little scared to find out. It was...dare you say, rather polite of him to consider feeding you. “Lucifer’s gotta give me my card back for sure! For looking after you so nicely and all! You better be thankful! I don’t do this stuff for anyone, just so you know!” And of course his ego ruined the gesture completely. Every action he made was a move to get him closer to more material gain.

Appetite was lost on you, not that this sickly human food was appealing anyway. It was all too much. The stimuli of everything was driving you mad. You put the bag beside you, leaning against the inside of the car, trying not to notice the seatbelt and how suffocating it all felt.

Suddenly, the deafening music turned down. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? You’re not feeling sick are ya? No being sick in my treasure!”

You were sick. Sick of all this. “I want to go home.”

Something about that must’ve resonated with him. He sighed, turning his head to look out the window. “Ah, geez…” Quickly, the mood turned awkward. “Hey, I mean, I can always turn around if you want.”

“Not your home. Mine.”

Mammon remained quiet at that, something that seemed like a rarity for him. It didn’t last for too long though. “They said your folks died, or something like that right?”

The lie the prince had come up with nearly made you laugh. You let out a single scoff instead. “Something like that.”

Even though you hadn’t been around Mammon for too long, he ended up surprising you. “That sucks, man...Listen...I-I know what it’s like.” The tone of his voice sounded uncertain, like this had been the first time in a long time that he’d been honest, vulnerable. The pitch was unsteady, struggling to try something on that he hadn’t worn in ages. “Losing someone...it stays with ya. Broke my family apart...if you can even call us that anymore nowadays. Once she was gone, we all found a different way to fill in the gaps.” There was humanity in him yet, buried deep beneath heavy sorrow. “But you know what helped me out the most?” You raised your head, actually wanting to look at him for the first time since you’d known him. Mammon pulled up into a lot littered with a bunch of other human cars. Just as you glanced at him, the goodness and seriousness in him retracted. He glanced out the window at a large shiny building. His particular “fill” he had mentioned had such a tight grip on him, it was hard to tell if he understood how much it controlled him. The lights of the casino hypnotized him, erasing any sense of despair that lingered in him. Or perhaps covering it up was a better explanation. This was no cure. “There’s nothing quite like a casino! Trust me,” He patted you on the shoulder. “Play a few games and you’ll forget that you wanted to go home in the first place!” Ob turned off, the shudder of the frame dying. Mammon hopped out of the car without a second thought, treading towards the entrance, leaving you behind. For a moment there had been awareness, a connection. Now, there was only one thing on his mind. Greed.

There were two options for you. Stay in this stuffy thing or follow the human inside. Neither were great options, unluckily. However, now your curiosity was piqued. Was it truly possible for this Morningstar to change? But did you have the patience to try? Maybe this was your own gamble. You landed on the solid grown below, making sure to remember to shut the door behind you. The bright white hair of the human was in your sights for only a second before he was engulfed in a crowd. At the worst, it might be fun to watch him fail...So inside you went.

If you thought outside was overstimulating, you were drastically underprepared for the contents of a human casino. Screens were flashing, noises rang out from every single inch, the carpet was almost louder than the buzzing in your ears. The aroma of tainted beverages and smoke sent your vision swirling. People bumped into you, some blind from crying, some far too lost in their indulgences to notice you were there. Mammon was gone. But even amongst all these attacks on your senses, there was one feeling that rose among them all. The presence of demons. You should’ve known a place like this where people sold their soul for the rush of a Jackpot would be where your kind thrived.

Knowing your luck, today would be the day Mammon lost more than the pot. You had to find him, quickly.

A circle of hell…this is what this had to be right? An hour had passed and still no sign of the cursed human. The only thing you kept note of was the same dumb sign that promoted some sort of membership that was obviously a borderline scam. You had seen it three times already…you were walking in circles. It wasn’t your fault! This place was a maze, a blinking, haze filled maze. You were running out of options, as well as sanity.

A large bulky man stood against the wall, keeping an eye over the many glossy-eyed consumers. You headed up to him. It took a second for him to notice you staring. “Yeah?”

“Have you seen a white-haired man, about this tall,” you moved your arm to about where he was against your own height. “Wearing a brown jacket?”

The man huffed out a laugh. “You think I remember everyone that walks past me? Listen, I’m just here making sure people behave. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Useless. Turning your back on the human, you walked off again, head on a swivel. Your eyes spotted a woman, still sober, also looking around for someone, maybe she’d spotted who you were searching for instead. Coming up behind her, you didn’t wait this time for them to notice you. “Excuse me?”

“Hm?” Brown curls bounced across her forehead.

“I’m looking for someone. Have you seen-“

The woman’s attention left yours, looking up past you. “Oh, there he is!” Following her gaze, you looked over your shoulder to see someone else entirely. Someone who was without a doubt not Mammon. Without listening to the rest of your question, she brushed you off, matching strides with the person she had found. So annoying…

Then a warm sounding voice pricked your ears. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help but overhear.” A different human man approached, someone with shaggy light brown hair with eyes to match, the shadow of a fresh growing beard darkening his jawline. His black leather jacket hung loose off his body, a few sizes too big, like it wasn’t his. Not to mention it smelled of cologne and cigarettes. “You’re looking for someone? I might’ve seen them, I’m good with faces.” His smile was wide and spotless, so flirtatiously perfect you had your doubts about him.

But any help would be worth it at this juncture. “White hair, golden brown eyes, a -“

“Mammon Morningstar, right?” The answer was so sudden. “He’s in here all the time, it’s hard to not remember him, you know? Well, that and he happens to be a good friend of mine.” The lungs in your chest stopped as soon as he put his arm around your shoulders. “Tell you what, why don’t we go find him together?” The mysterious helper started dragging you forward, and as he did, a few other people pulled away from their spots in the background, carefully weaving through the crowd, trying not to seem as if they were following you...but they were. Everything in you was tempted to tear the human off of you by his arm and chuck him into the nearest machine...but that would garner attention. “You know, it’s weird…” your escort wondered. “I’m really good with faces, and yet, I can’t seem to recall seeing yours. Where are you from?”

As blandly as you could, you gave him a completely honest half-answer. “Not here.”

The man laughed. “Oh, good!” Then he turned his questions in a different direction. “How long have you known Mammon? Because he hasn’t...ever mentioned someone like you before...and Mammon tells me everything.” The amusement was sour, bitter, just like this human’s soul. Simeon had been shocked when he’d discovered you’d never taken a mortal soul. But how could you when they were always so...revolting?

Your fondness for humans had already sunken to the bottom, but somehow you found yourselves wishing to be annoyed by Mammon rather than this…human in devil’s clothing. ”You’re asking all about me, and yet, I don’t know a single thing about you. What’s your name?”

Never give a magical being your name, that was the first thing legends taught humans, at least, the last time you visited they did. Either legends had long but died out, or this human was cocky enough to pass out his name to you on a silver platter. “It’s Cory.” As soon as he handed himself to you, demonic insight did the rest. Glimpses of terrible secrets, of all the wrong he had done in his life. What greed and anger had encouraged him to do. He was dangerous, and this human had Mammon centered in his focus. “But all my friends just call me Cash. So feel free to call me that too, yeah?” You opened your mouth, ready to finally get rid of this pest and drag Mammon to his house if you had to, but Cody’s arm left you. Outstretched, he moved away from your side to greet another familiar face. “There’s my Golden Boy!”

Standing in front of a table, rattling around dice in his palm, Mammon stopped himself from rolling them. At the sound of Cody’s voice, his shoulders tensed, his expression losing it’s playful tone. Cody’s hand’s gripped Mammon’s shoulders as he came up behind him. “C-Cash, fun-funny seeing ya here!”

It was obvious ‘Cash’ also wanted to avoid unwanted attention, although anger started to darken his eyes at the sight of his ‘good friend’. Ignoring the stuttering, Cody smiled. “How’s it going? Winning anything?”

Confidence faltering, Mammon tried to chuckle. “N-not yet.”

Three of the bodies that had been shadowing you and Cody stood directly behind you, far too close for comfort. There was something odd about their presence...You were picking up a smell, something you were sure human’s couldn’t possess. Yet, each of the humans behind you possessed something that was shockingly similar to dragon’s breath… Leaning in a bit closer to Mammon, Cash let some of his true colors show. “Well, I sure hope you start winning something soon.”

Another loaner had come to collect his dues.

Tag List!

@rayanicaraynbow

@inkyy

@designatedbreadbox

@qrowsofafeather

@crystal-freak24

[sharkface-daydreams]

SharkTank is live: 😏🦈emoji time

Sharkface: Hey, everyone, thanks for joining the stream. I’m Sharkface from the popular webseries Red vs Blue, and today we’re gonna be rating all the shark emojis. Before we get started, though, I do want to show off the hoodie Donut made for me--

[Video switches from Emojipedia page of shark emojis to camera feed.]

Sharkface: It’s a shark hoodie! It’s really warm, too, I love it. Donut does awesome work. I’m gonna put a link to his Etsy shop in the chat, check it out.

Sharkface: Aw, thanks for feeding the sharks, Caboose. Looks like Jasmine’s hungry, she’s gonna go snap those right up.

[The tiger shark swims over to the bits and they disappear.]

Sharkface: Alright, well, let’s get to it. It’s only a matter of time before Grif starts bitching about the bandwidth, after all. [eyeroll]

[Video switches back to the emojipedia page.]

The ever-present great white shark, the only thing most people think of when you say “shark”. Appropriate amount of fins. I like that he’s got a little blue reflection on the belly from the water around him. Nose is a little short but he’s got an awkwardly friendly smile. He’s a little anxious about being here but hopes you’ll give him a chance.

Verdict: 9/10 a friend and boy

Cartoon-style great white. For some reason they’ve completely gotten rid of his pelvic and anal fins? He kiiiinda needs those. Like okay, sure, it’s a cartoon, you gotta streamline things. But there’s plenty of space on the outer contour to put like, one of them just as a nod that you know they belong there, y’know? Now he just looks sad and upset to me.

Verdict: 4/10 someone rescue this fella asap

Another friendly lookin great white with at least an attempt at pelvic fins. She’ll get along fine. Overall a pleasant shape, friendly little smile, eyes proportional. Gills are a little big but she’ll be ok.

Verdict: 7/10 give this good girl some belly rubs, stat!

Lookin’ a little anxious here, what’s up buddy? He’s a little thin too, missin’ his fins and gills, no teeth to speak of. I’d be nervous too. That heavy outline seems a little constrictive. I dunno, man, I feel pretty bad for this guy.

Verdict: 3/10 free him :( 

Another nervous little buddy. Looks a little bit like a gangly teenager at a school dance, and that’s honestly kind of endearing. Don’t worry little friend, you’ll figure it out.

Verdict: 6/10, I believe in you 👍

What’s going on with all these sad sharks??? Twitter what are you doing to this lovely friend, they look miserable!! Sad little eyes, teeth all out of wonk. Actually, it doesn’t even look like they’re connected to the mouth. Jeez. I’d be sad too with only two fins, teeth falling out and no way to breathe.

Verdict: 0/10, Twitter I’m gonna steal your shark and treat it right <3

Looks like someone did some basic research, that’s refreshing. Proportions are nice, everything’s in the right place, I can even see his cute little nostrils. We get a cute belly view here too, prime belly rub real estate. 

Verdict: 10/10 Facebook’s a hell site but if this is the one thing they do right... I’m okay with that.

Skype version:

She’s animated!!! 😃😃😃 This looks like it’s based on Microsoft’s sad, incarcerated little fella from earlier, but now she’s got a smile and is happily swimming around. Effervescent. What a gal.

Verdict: 12/10 my heart is so full 😭

[There’s a brief sniffle and Sharkface ducks out of view for a second to wipe at his eye.]

I’m pretty sure they gave this bulky boy an eyebrow and I dunno how I feel about that. Confident grin, nice body bulk, swoopy fins for a fun cartoony feel. This one’s even got the subterminal notch on the end of the tail. Extra points. 

Definitely get the vibe that this one was designed by someone who really liked Bruce from Finding Nemo. (But let’s be real, that’s just everybody, right? 😉)

Verdict: 9/10, that eyebrow’s the only thing throwing me off.

This… looks like someone said “oh yeah I’ve seen a shark before” while lying through their teeth and then drew this out. Why are there three sets of fins in the pelvic area and why are they squared off on the ends. Where is their eye. (Y’know, normally I’d be willing to think it’s just lost an eye on one side, because I’m the same. But with everything else going on… not feeling real charitable.) This shark is a mess, artistic liberties or not. 

I’m gonna need whoever designed this to meet me in the pit. [He leans close to the microphone and lowers his voice.] Wear something flammable.

Verdict: -2/10. I’m... legitimately upset by this one.

Aw, this one’s cute. Our first shark “face”. [chuckle] Looks like a friendly fella, popping out of the water for a chat, maybe to grab a snack. His teeth are a little sparse for his big old grin but otherwise this one’s pretty fun. Stylized water splash is a nice touch.

Verdict: 7/10, solid and creative

Alright, this one is equal parts delightful and frustrating. It’s much more realistic than any of the others with blue lighting like it’s actually in the water which is awesome… but where are the belly fins? There’s a little indent that might be a pelvic fin. Where are the other three. Why would you put all this time and effort into making a mostly realistic white shark and then just cut corners? Caudal fin’s a little short (were they trying to do like… perspective?) Can’t see any teeth, either, the whole mouth is pure shadow, that’s just disappointing. 

Verdict: 3/10, B for technical effort but F for planning. This coulda been something special but the ball. was. dropped. [disgusted sigh]

[Video cuts back to camera feed.]

Sharkface: Anyway, that’s not a bad list, really, lots of cute and friendly-looking sh-- 

[Grif pokes his head in through the open door, frowning.]

Grif: Dude, what the fuck are you doing? The internet’s been slow as shit for like an hour.

[Sharkface rolls his eyes and pulls off his headphones, leaning back to look at Grif.]

Sharkface: Grif, I’m busy, get the fuck out.

Grif: What could possibly be suckin’ up so much-- [squints at Sharkface’s screen] --are you streaming?

Sharkface: Yeah? I’m rating all the shark emojis today. I thought Simmons told you since he’s modding the chat.

Grif: [disgusted sigh] Oh, great, more nerd shit. Jesus. We finally get a badass ex-super-soldier and he’s a bigger fucking nerd than Simmons.

Simmons: [from out in the hallway] Hey! I heard that!

Sharkface: [jams his headphones back on and turns back to the camera] ANYWAY. For those of you that aren’t complete assholes named Grif, thanks for tuning in and we’ll see ya next time. [wink]

[Video cuts off just as a large explosion jostles the camera and throws smoke and debris in through the door.]

---

Chat transcript from the stream image:

[Donut has a ‘mod’ (it’s green but it has a trio of bubbles instead of a sword) and VIP badge, Simmons has the bubbles mod badge, fishfriend89 and caboose have different sub badges that are a pufferfish and a seal respectively. Chompbot’s badge icon is a little shark head from the side.]

ItsFashionBinches: im so glad you like it sharky!!! 💞💖💗💓

jellyfinch: it's really cute

fishfriend89: @ItsFashionBinches do u think u might make some to sell?? 👀 asking for a friend

church’s best friend: henlo everbody!!!!!

Chompbot: Reminder you can find all sorts of cute stuff at Donut's Etsy store here: (fake bit.ly link) 

ilikesharks: 🦈👀(repeated x4)

Comment was deleted by moderator.

CyborgSupremacy: Seriously, Tucker? You read the rules when you got in here.

church’s best friend cheered 4 bits: time 2 feed fish!!!

[End transcript]

Trivia:

Sharkface puts bits in Caboose’s account bc he likes to feed the little sharks in the tank but Sharkface feels bad taking his money for it. 

Simmons is the one who created/coded the little shark tank assets. There’s 12+ varieties of sharks that can be put in to swim around and gobble up bits and Sharkface switches these out every stream.

Every shark has a name and people seem to get very attached to them and ask when their favorites will return.

Donut does his own streams too but he’s a sweetheart so Sharkface likes to promo his stuff when he can.

Sarge and Lopez were working on upgrading the stove when it exploded.

Locus nopes the fuck out to his ship at least an hour before and an hour after their scheduled streams so no one can possibly drag him in to be on camera.

[zue-zue-jean]

Body shapes in lore olympus

So the longer I read LO the more the same face syndrome is really starting to kill me, but more than that- the body shapes are so generic and so similar its painful sometimes, specifically chapters with multiple female characters in them. So I wanted to tweak a few tings and give a few thoughts on why I made certain designs the way I did. (ages included)

So Left to right

Athena! My favorite goddess of wisdom! Now I’ll admit I’m actually not that mad about her design, I dig the short hair and shiny silver skin, it just MAKES SENSE. However do I wish RS portrayed her a bit more fem? yes. Especially with the latest update I feel it’s often pushed on WLW relationships that there’s a more masculine woman, and theres nothing wrong with that, I just think it would be a fun and more groundbreaking to have two fem woman in a relationship. (but not as groundbreaking as having 2/3 of the maiden goddesses in a relationship together????what????whatever...) But do I think her body type is what makes her more fem? yes and no??? I don’t think it really matters honestly, the only thing I dislike is how similarly shape she is to Hades...

Persephone is up next! Now my main goal was to not make her proportions out of wack. A lot chapters have Persephone with such a snatched waist and busty torso it’s just a bit overwhelming. I did debate making her less busty considering she's obviously sexualized considering how young she is :/ But bottom line is woman shouldn't be sexualized strictly because of their breast size. So yes, busty Persephone is here to stay, but with some proportion check. I just wished she wasn't so sexualized considering her young age...so Instead of 20, she's 700 in my version! haha! still young, but not a literally BABY

Artemis- Artemis was so easy for me to redesign, I wanted her to still have a “womanly” figure but she's a protector of YOUNG girls, so I wanted her design to reflect the protection over the youth with youthful like proportions. With her being goddess of the hunt she's gotta be quick and agile, so I figured long legs would show this. 

Hera Hera Hera Hera, one of my favorites. One of my favorite chapters was when Hera explained how her life was like before her and zeus were together, how she ran and loved being with he earth, I wanted strong legs to show this running untamable spirit and I know she's the goddess of marriage, family, and child birth. So wide set hips with strong powerful legs seemed like an obvious to me. 

Aphrodite...This one was tough but I’m glad with what I went with. Aphrodite being the goddess of beauty is such a tricky thing to design, how to reflect beauty when everyone is beautiful with such varying body types? So i decided to do a 180 than what is typically done. I gave her the most neutral body type. no extreme curves, an average hight. Love is often tied with romance and romance is often sexual so people are quick to give her a “sexual” body type (can bodies even be sexual???) none of that extreme hourglass figure in this house. Love is also platonic and familia, so to represent how versatile love is I wanted a blank space to represent her body type. I hope my point got across but let me explain something that made me hesitate about this design-

Aphrodite VS Persephone 

It’s made quite clear that it’s a big deal about how beautiful persephone is compared to Aphrodite. Aphrodite even gets jealous of this beauty. I was scared giving Persephone and Aphrodite such drastically different body types where persephone is framed to be the more beautiful one was problematic and can make girls with this more neutral body type feel bad and thats not what I want AT ALL! The thing that kept me with Aphrodite’s design is because bottom line is she is beautiful. SOOO if her body type and persephone are in the same “level” of beauty and are both beautiful it helps to show that varying types of body are beautiful. It doesn't matter about the context of where the body is! 

Hestia, I actually really love Hestia’s design as is, Being the goddess of hospitably and warm, soft, comforting body just made sense- I really just wanted to include her as a comparison of height! 

The last body there is Hades lmaoooo (excuse my clumsy male proportion) . I wanted to toss in a dude to show how I would do height, I am so over seeing the woman in this comic be to the dude’s mid (giant) chest or shorter. It’s just such a weird look and some panels of Persephone and Hades are a bit extreme and add onto her being a CHILD (20 years compared to 2000+ is a lot) I still have a noticeable hight difference in my design but she’s to his shoulders, not his stomach. 

I don’t know, maybe I was extreme for slapping together a 5 minute sketch and going into detail about WHY I did what I did but I’m genuinely curious if anyone else is tired of the lack of diversity and how almost all females have the same body and same with the males? Is there anything in my post you absolutely love or absolutely loathe? Let me know! 

[dprwolfgang]

Sin Ti // Angel Reyes ft. Dominic Lee Part 2

Angel Reyes x Solana Losa (OC) 

Dominic Lee (OC) x Solana Losa

2.45k

This took a bit of a 360 turn.A lil angst, a lil drama and because I couldn’t stop typing once I started...there’s a part 3 to this but it’ll come out after Ez’s part drops. Angel is a bit of an asshole, Dominic is a bit smug and Solana is no longer the woman Angel thought she was or maybe she’d always been that way?

Enjoy! Feedback is welcomed and please reblog, like y’all don’t understand how much that means to creators on here.

Unedited.

Four months later

Angel stared at the ultrasound pictures laid out on his coffee table. It has been a total of seven months since everything blew up in his face and to say he wasn’t coping well was an understatement. Angel had reverted to his shallow fuck- anything- with- a -pulse self with everyone walking on eggshells around him. Even as he sat staring at the pictures, there was a woman in his bed fast asleep.

Angel had tried talking to Solana but she had Vega playing bodyguard and Angel knew better than to mess with Vega because even though she could handle herself, her big brother Rio was another story by himself. He had no idea when Solana had left Santo Padre but he knew that his heart had left right along with her.

This was the second set of ultrasound pictures he’d gotten and if he was being honest, they were the only thing giving him hope that Solana would come back to him.

Adelita had shown up out of the blue, caught him in a rather compromising position and then proceeded to tell him that the baby had died. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not because Potter had told him something completely different including the fact that her baby was a Reyes. Maybe Solana had lied to him but he could see past that and forgive her because she’d done the same for him numerous times.

If only she would just come home.

Solana smiled as she took in the scene before her, it had been a year and six months since she had left Santo Padre and quite honestly she didn’t feel like going back. Her uncle had told her that it was best for her to stay on the other side for a bit while things blew over but what was supposed to be five months had become more.

In that time she’d given birth to a healthy baby girl who she had named Cataleya Marísol Reyes. She had also met a man who made her feel love and happiness to an extent she didn’t think was possible. Sol had come to realize that while she had love for Angel, she was no longer in love with him. She had given so much of herself to Angel without the same effort being reciprocated that she didn’t know what to do with herself when she got a man who did.

Dominic Lee was the man Bishop had entrusted his niece’s safety to while she was on the other side. Their families had a long history and Bishop knew that if anyone would keep her and her baby safe it would be the Lee’s. The Lee’s were an immigrant family from China, how they ended up in Santo Padre, Bishop didn’t have a clue but Dominic’s grandfather was the first Asian man to be a part of the Santo Padre charter. His father, much like Ez, had a lot of book and street smarts. He had gotten into a school on the other side, started a successful business and would occasionally help the charters getting shipments in and out of Mexico.

Dominic had continued his father's legacy in both aspects of business and as much as Bishop respected and cared for Angel, he never liked the relationship that had bloomed between him and Sol. He had warned her on numerous occasions that even if Angel cared about her it would end in heartbreak. Seeing his niece happy was the only thing that mattered most to Bishop and if that meant encouraging Dominic to make a move on Solana…then maybe that's exactly what he did.

"So…you and Dominic? How'd that happen?" Vega questions as they both look on at Dominic, Ez and Rio playing with baby Leya who already had them all wrapped around her little fingers.

"Honestly V, I don't fucking know. It feels like it all happened so fast, like one minute he's showing me to the guest room and the next he's rearranging my insides cause my hormones were off the wall. He makes it easy…"

Vega gives her a look that says to elaborate what she was talking about because Vega had always thought that her best friend would forever  be whipped for Ignacio.

"I never have to question whether he loves me because it shows in everything he does. I never have to ask him to make time for me, to take me out or to treat Leya the way he does but he does it anyways because that's the kind of person he is. I'm not saying he's perfect, neither am I but we're imperfectly perfect for each other, I don't know what it is but he just makes me feel whole." she smiles looking at the man who had managed to steal her heart in more ways than one over the past eleven months.

Vega smiles at the way her best friend glows and even though she's still hesitant on Dominic, she can tell that he makes Solana happy. She wasn't Angel's biggest fan but a part of her had hoped that maybe they could work things out if Angel would just get his shit together. She didn't send him all those pictures for nothing but Angel never got the clue and never came around asking for the information that she would've eventually given to him after pulling his leg a little bit first. Instead, the asshole had chosen to fuck his way through Vicky's girls and even had a run in with Adelita that Ez had briefly mentioned.

"What are you going to do about Angel? You know he's not going to be happy."

"Yo Stanford, we gotta go." Angel's voice sounds from outside the front door followed by a series of knocks.

"Speak of devil." Vega mumbles as she gets up to open the door.

Solana had moved to where Dominic and Rio were playing with Leya out of Angel's view. Ez went to grab his keys and kutte as Vega dealt with Angel. Solana wasn't ready to face him yet, she knew she'd have to sooner or later. She sees Angel's figure rush pass Vega and Ez before the bathroom door slams. Still tucked away in the corner of Vega's living room, she prays Angel just leaves as soon as he's done in the bathroom but those prayers fall on deaf ears as Leya screams out loudly just as he's walking by. Solana quickly takes her from Rio trying to calm her down but it's too late as Angel rounds the corner with Ez and Vega hot on his tail.

"What the fuck?" Angel looks around at everyone before him before settling on Ez. "So this what we doing now?"

"Angel, don't blow this out of proportion. They only got here today, nobody's hiding anything from your dumbass. If I find out you put your hands on my man the moment y'all leave from here, I won't hesitate to take my switch to your dick asshole. Now get out before Bishop calls." Vega speaks up trying to diffuse the situation.

Cataleya refused to stop screaming so Solana stands in an attempt to get her outside for some fresh air only for Angel to grab onto her upper arm. Rio sits back watching the shit storm unfold before him. Dominic is on his feet the moment Angel reaches for Sol and grabs onto her. He knew exactly who Angel was, they had never met personally but from everything Solana and Bishop had mentioned he had developed quite a dislike for the man.

"Suéltame Ignacio.”

“We need to talk.” Angel says pulling her closer to him.

“I know you heard her say to let go. I’d let go if I were you.” Dominic says stepping into their space. The edge in his voice told Sol that this wouldn’t end well for Angel if he kept pushing his boundaries.

“Who the fuck is this clown?” Angel questions looking around the room. Vega shakes her head because honestly, could he get anymore stupid?

It took a lot to piss Dominic off but when it came to the things or people he cared deeply for, it's like a switch flipped inside him. Angel grapping onto his woman and refusing to let go while she held on to their daughter  was something he refused to sit by idly and watch. Cataleya may not have been his child biologically but she was his nonetheless and he'd protect her at all costs even if it meant from her own father.

"He's my fiancé." Sol grits out glaring at Angel who drops her hand like he's been burned. She hands Leya to Vega asking her to take her for a walk, both Ez and Rio following behind her. Dominic takes his previous seat because the look in Solana's eyes told him she could handle the situation and that he didn't need to intervene at the moment.

"What the hell is your problem?" she questions poking at Angel's chest.

"You're the one who left and then show up here a year and a half later with another man who's apparently raising MY child! You don't get to ask me what's wrong with me when something is clearly fucking wrong with you. I thought I knew you Sol but it's clear that I don't." Angel spits out at her.

"I gave you six months to get your shit together Ignacio, you didn't. I gave you all of me for fifteen years and you didn't give two fucks because you got comfortable. What, you thought that if you kept slanging me dick I'd stick around? Everything I said to you that night you decided you wanted to believe some woman you'd been fucking over me, I meant it. Everything I said to you that night in the hospital, I meant it. I still gave you six months hoping you'd take the fucking hint and come sort shit out but fucking your way through Vicky's girls was way more important than being there the night your daughter was born. So much more important that you signed away your rights as her father over a fucking phone call while you were deep in one of those bitches hungover and high out your fucking mind. You don't get to tell me something is wrong with me when you can't get your shit together Angel. You're the one who fucked us up, you made your decision and I made mine. I have love for you and I'll forever be thankful that you gave me that amazing baby girl but that's it Angel."

It hurt, Angel couldn't lie and say that it didn't. The look in her eyes told him a lot but also a little at the same time. She was no longer the woman he knew. He could no longer read her emotions but that one look in her eyes told him that she was permanently done with him. He didn't remember the phone call she was referring to but he wondered just how fucked up he was for fucking up not one but two of his kids lives. They'd never know him, he'd never get to watch them grow and it's simply because he was selfish and wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He had everything with Sol, he was happy and so was she even if they didn't have a label but shit changed when he met Adelita.

"I was under the influence, how the fuck does that count as me signing my rights away? I already lost one child, I'm not losing another. My child will not call that clown dad." he says pointing over to Dominic.

"You might be her father biologically but that's not what it says on paper and until you get your shit together, you won't be coming anywhere near my daughter." Dominic states smugly. He wasn't on her birth certificate yet but he knew that shit would knock Angel of his high horse a bit.

"The fuck are you even doing here? This doesn't concern you." Angel says pointing between him and Sol. "As far as I'm concerned,you're just a rebound fuck. Sooner or later she's gonna come right back where she belongs and I won't hesitate to put a bullet in your skull."

Dominic stands and walks over to the both of them. "And yet still…I'm the one who put a ring on her finger and the one your daughter's gonna call dad. I already won,thanks to you." he smirks before turning to Solana and presses a kiss to her cheek. "I'll be outside, don't hesitate to break his nose if he gets out of line."

Angel waits for Dominic to exit the front door before he speaks. "Are you seriously going to marry him?"

"Si."

"Why querida? And don't tell me it's because you love him."

"Loving him is not the only reason why I agreed to marry him Angel."

"Then why?!" he shouts. "Did you even love me or was that all a lie just like you lied about Adelita's baby not being mine?" Once again Angel isn't expecting the slap that he collects as soon as he finishes his sentence.

"I'm a lot of things but a liar isn't one of them and you know it Ignacio. I get it, you're looking for someone to blame but I refuse to let you use me as your punching bag. Get your shit together before you lose everyone around you the way you did with me. Potter may have told you that Adelita's baby is a Reyes but that baby is not your Angel and it's not Ez's so don't even go there. Don't look at me like that either."

"Then which Reyes is it huh? My pops?"

"That's not my story to tell but what I'll say is, once the truth comes to light…you're gonna look back and regret this very moment. I guess love really does make you blind. Look what it did to me." she chuckles lightly. "you never loved me Angel, you loved the thought of me because I was easily accessible to you. That man out there," she points towards the front door walking closer to Angel leaning in close to his ear. "…he loves me unconditionally, always puts my daughter and I first. I never have to question where his loyalty lies  and while we've had our unpretty moments…I won't hesitate to put a bullet in your skull the next time you threaten my husband." Solana pats his cheek and fixes his kutte before picking her baby bag up and walking to the front door where she stops and turns to look at him.

"Don't make me your enemy Ignacio."

[sarahzstories]

✨Interview with Princess and Narry✨

✨*A/N This is in the format that Niall, Harry and Princess are having a sit down interview with someone for a magazine. I have a Part 2 ready if you are interested, also feel free to send in questions you want the three of them to answer! Enjoy!*✨

Q: How did you really meet? And when?

Niall: At a Christmas party in New York about what like eight years ago?

Princess: Yeah they crashed my aunt’s party and Harry ran into me and spilled a drink all over me.

Harry: It was an accident and I have apologized several times since it happened.

Princess: That’s true he does apologize every year on our friend-anniversary.

Q: Is there a group chat?

Princess: Yes duh.

Harry: It’s called the Three Amigos.

Niall: I love dat it’s been da same name since we made it eight years ago.

Q: Who is the most annoying in the group chat?

Harry: Me

Niall: For sure Harry. He’s da bloody worst at sending incomplete thoughts instead of just thinking about what he’s tryin ta say and sending one long paragraph.

Princess: He just tells us things as they pop into his head is all. It’s not annoying.

Niall: She’s jus sayin dat cos she’s nice.

Harry: No she’s saying that because she does the same thing just not as much as I do. Remember that time she was trying to tell us she ran into Orlando Bloom at Starbucks?

Niall: Bloody hell that was such a shit show of a text conversation.

Princess: I was star struck! I couldn’t form complete sentences!

Q: What are yours names in each other’s phones?

Niall: Harry is jus saved as H an Princess is saved as Princess wit da crown emoji an a heart.

Harry: Niall is the Irish One in my phone and Princess is Bestfriend and it has a sparkle and heart emoji next to it.

Niall: *rolls eyes*

Princess: Oh Harry is saved under Little Lanky Baby with a red heart and Niall is My Little Irish Marshmallow with a clover emoji.

Harry: What? Are you serious?

Niall: Have Ya never noticed our contact names when she sends screenshots?

Harry: I’m not lanky?

Niall: Are ya havin a laugh mate? Yer arse is lanky.

Princess: You really are and that’s okay! Everyone loves it!

Harry: I don’t know how I feel about this...

Princess: You’ll survive.

Q: When do you three actually become as close as you are now? Was it instant?

Harry: I think it was maybe a month after we met. We got really close very fast because we talked all the time.

Niall: I agree, it was pretty fast we jus clicked and I think it was like after a month or so that we invited her to a show and after dat it was like we knew each other fo ever.

Princess: Texting and talking on the phone really helped speed up the getting to know you process. They’ve had a key to my apartment since like six months after knowing them. We all just meshed really well and it’s been great.

Q: Have you ever been in a fight? If so what was it about?

Niall: Oh god...

Harry: Yes. One fight and I don’t like to talk about it. But it was about my debut album details getting out before I was ready.

Princess: He’s so sensitive about this subject but yeah only one so far and it only lasted like three days so wasn’t too bad.

Harry: Wasn’t too bad? It was horrible. We didn’t speak for 72 hours.

Niall: It was all a misunderstanding type thing cos Harry over reacted and got mean and then just didn’t know how to fix it.

Princess: He didn’t overreact. He was right to be mad at me.

Harry: I’m not getting into this.

Niall: It’s been years mate let it go it’s okay you got upset at her, no friendship is perfect, even ours.

Harry: You wanna talk about how you also got mad at her the same day? Or no?

Niall: Jesus Yer in a mood today, m’fine talkin bout our little fight cos it only lasted a day and it was cos I blew things outta proportion.

Princess: Once again it’s fine we are allowed to be upset with each other. Next question?

Harry: Yes. Let’s move on.

Q: Is jealously an issue between the three of you?

Niall: *looks at Harry*

Princess: *also looks at Harry*

Harry: Excuse me, may I help you two with something?

Princess: Wanna talk about getting jealous?

Harry: I don’t get jealous.

Niall: Are ya fuckin jokin? Yer arse is the reason why we have ta have a group calendar so no one gets more one on one time than the other Ya knob!

Harry: That has nothing to do with being jealous. I like to be organized with my time that’s all.

Princess: That’s all? You sure?

Harry: I’m sure.

Princess: So it’s not because one time you realized Niall and I had seen each other three times in one week without you?

Harry: I mean three times in a week is a lot.

Niall: Yer ridiculous mate jus admit ya get jealous whenever P hangs out wit anyone besides you.

Harry: I’m choosing not to respond to that.

Q: Who’s the most protective?

Princess: It’s a toss up between the two of them.

Harry: I’d say i get more protective while Niall is the first to want to fight anyone who makes P feel uncomfortable or makes her cry. But I’m the one who wants to just prevent it at all costs.

Niall: what he means is he would rather P never leave da bloody house.

Harry: It would make it easier...

Princess: I get protective over them as well though!

Harry: *looks at Niall*

Niall:*looks at Harry*

Princess: What? Remember that time I yelled at that man who was trying to take pictures of us at the beach?

Niall: I mean yer right, ya can get protective an are always the first ta tell paps to fuck off.

Harry: She can be very ferocious when she wants to be.

Niall: *laughs*

Princess: Both of you are assholes.

Harry: I didn’t say anything!

Q: Was it easier being friends when Niall and Harry were both in the same band?

Princess: Yes I mean it wasn’t as chaotic trying to figure out what dates work best to see who but also it was a whole different type of chaos when I’d go visit them while they were in One Direction.

Niall: Ya it was wild as hell when she’d come cos we were literally always doin somethin fo tha band either all five of us or dey would separate us into groups and it would be Harry and I and the rest of da boys and we would be shootin promo or even recordin a bloody album!

Harry: It was always her getting shoved in a backseat with us in a car or getting little fifteen minutes breaks to talk and actually see each other between whatever the hell we had to do the days she was on tour with us.

Princess: But the shows were so much fun, but I’d honestly say getting to visit them while on their solo tours is better than when they were in One Direction simply because they get more down time and it’s not always go go go like it was back then.

Niall: I agree, when we get to the venues of our shows we don’t have ten thousand things ta do before the show so we get to chill and hang out.

Harry: It’s really such a different world going on tour now than it was when we toured with One Direction.

Princess: But I honestly would put up with the craziness of visiting them while in One Direction still if I had to.

Niall: Is she-

Harry: Hinting that she wants a One Direction reunion tour? Yes.

Princess: What? That’s not what I meant.

Harry: Mhm...right.

Niall: *laughs*

Princess: *rolls eyes*

Q: Okay but really who do you enjoy hanging out with more?

Niall: *looks at Princess*

Harry: Hmm...

Princess: Is this just a question for me? *raises an eyebrow*

Harry: I have the most fun with Princess.

Niall: Same. Harry makes me wanna smack em upside da head too much when it’s jus tha two of us.

Harry: I could say the same thing about you, you little hobbit.

Princess: I don’t have a favorite. I get asked this all the time on my Instagram and I feel like no one believes me? But I truly don’t have a favorite to hang out with and actually like it when it’s all three of us together.

Q: How do you deal with dating while being so close to the boys? Does it get weird?

Harry: Threats. Lots of threats.

Niall: Oh please we aren’t tha most threatenin set of blokes H. It doesn’t get weird tho cos P doesn’t really date do ya Princess?

Princess: I go on dates yes, I haven’t been in a serious relationship is a while but it’s not weird, everyone I talk to knows I’m friends with Niall and Harry.

Harry: I’d like to think we have more than just a regular friendship...

Princess: I mean yes it’s a bit different. But I let them know before it even gets to us going on dates that the two of them are a massive part of my life.

Niall: Same goes fo us though, I tell the people m’interested in bout P and the fact she’s one of the main people in my life and most of em are fine wit it.

Harry: Everyone who knows me knows about my relationship with Princess and knows that nothing comes before it. She will always come first, like it or not.

Princess: He is so dramatic i swear he makes it sound like I’m the only person in his life that he’s like this with, it’s the same with his family. Not just me.

Niall: Harry is dramatic though but it’s true, everyone that even tries ta get wit H knows three things for sure and it’s that he loves a good Gucci suit, loves his family and his friendship with Princess is untouchable.

Harry: Oh now who sounds dramatic?

Princess: We are going to be single forever aren’t we?

Niall: We could do one of dem packs about getting married if we are single when we are thirty.

Harry: I’d rather not marry you when I’m thirty that’s when I’ll just be starting to thrive.

Niall: Oi! Then when? Ya wanna be so old ya won’t enjoy it?

Harry: You’ll enjoy it no matter the age it happens you knob.

Princess: How about sixty? Still young, I mean look at Bruce he is thriving!

Harry: *rolls eyes* you’ve been dying to bring up Bruce Willis haven’t you?

Niall: Deal.

Harry: I guess I can agree to that.

Q: Favorite thing about each other?

Niall: I’d have to say I enjoy Harry’s opinions, he doesn’t sugar coat em he knows I don’t like all that fake ass stuff so he tells it to me straight.

Harry: You’re quite welcome for always telling you when you’re being an asshole.

Niall: Ya gotta ruin every moment don’t ya? Anyways I’d say my favorite thing bout Princess would be...her ability to jus know what I need and when I need it.

Harry: It’s kind of freaky how she does that though right? The texts are the creepiest.

Niall: Right? Like when she can jus sense ya’ve had a bad day so she sends ya Dis heartwarming text and yer jus like how the bloody fuck did she know??

Princess: I just know you both so well! I can’t help it.

Harry: It’s great love, we love it.

Niall: doesn’t make it any less creepy though.

Princess: Well I’d say my favorite thing about Niall is that he has this ability to make everyone around him instantly feel comfortable and like at home if that makes any sense?

Harry: I can agree, he’s very good at making everyone around him feel at ease.

Princess: And my favorite thing about Harry is he has this weird way of knowing how you need to be comforted. Like he knows when to just hold your hand, when to pull you in for a hug or just when you grab you and hold you. It’s lovely.

Niall: Ah yeah dis is so true. Always tryin ta hug me.

Harry: Well I don’t see you fighting me off.

Niall: Oi yer arse didn’t answer what yer fave things are bout us, do ya not have one?

Harry: I love Niall’s sense of humor, we both have the same type of lame humor and laugh at the stupidest stuff. My favorite thing about Princess is probably how she just gets me and lets me be me.

Princess: *sniffles* Can we move on?

Niall: Way ta go got er all watery eyed now.

Harry: I’m not the one who asked the question! I just answered it. You got her all emotional too you knob.

Q: Have you written any songs about your friendship?

Niall: Yeah Harry have we?

Harry: *rolls eyes* yes.

Princess: Go on, just tell them.

Niall: Yeah H jus tell em. Get it off yer chest.

Harry: You’re in such a mood today. Fine. I wrote meet me in the hallway about when Princess and I had a fight.

Niall: And...

Harry: I wrote Adore You with her in mind about her effect on the people around her. That she has no clue she has.

Princess: What about you Niall?

Harry: Yes hobbit what about you hmmm?

Niall: I wrote the Tide while thinking about her when she was datin that one arsehole.

Harry: And?

Niall: Fine you arse I also wrote Mirrors about her as well.

Harry: Oh and if you’re wondering about One Direction songs the main one we wrote about our friendship is Drag Me Down.

Niall: S’pretty obvious though, s’fo her and da whole fandom really.

Princess: That is my hype song. So damn good.

Q: What’s a memory the three of you cherish?

Princess: Oh that’s a good one!

Niall: S’gotta be when we all went ta Cabo fo a week like three years ago and we jus laid in the sun by the beach all day and got drunk off wine at night an it was one of tha most relaxing vacations I’ve ever had.

Harry: That was a great trip.

Princess: Mine is when we had our first sleepover at my tiny ass New York apartment. When we did face masks and ended up passing out on my bed watching Will and Grace. I think that next morning is when I really realized you two were going to literally be my humans forever.

Harry: Oh the good ole days of our sleepovers and trying to squeeze onto your loveseat. Mine is the time when Niall and I had to go get you from the bar when you got too drunk on a Monday night.

Princess: That’s your most cherished memory? Really?

Harry: Yes, because that was the first time you ever used us as your like emergency contact and the first time we had to come save you. You weren’t super wasted, Niall and I just had to make sure you got home safe and it was nice because you kept telling us how much you loved us.

Niall: Now we always gotta come save er, member that one time we had ta crash her date wit dat golf dude?

Princess: Oh god

Harry: That was fun! He was a proper dick.

Princess: Next question?

Q: This is the last one, who said I love you first out of the three of you?

Princess: It was Niall

Harry: I know everyone is gonna be shocked to hear it wasn’t me.

Niall: I mean yeah it was me. M’not ashamed of it. I was tellin P bye and was like love ya and she said love you too Ni and then Harry got all mushy an was like, what did ya say H?

Princess: He said and I quote “if we are saying we love each other I want to be involved because I love you too!”

Harry: Sounds about right.

Niall: That was like what three months into the friendship?

Harry: Yeah five or take a few weeks.

Princess: Now we say it all the time!

Harry: So that’s it then yeah?

Interviewer: Yeah that’s it! Thank you so much for your time this was so fun.

Niall: It was fun gettin ta hear what people wanna know bout the three of us. Hope it wasn’t borin.

Princess: Us boring? Never.

[gravelgirty]

Hi could you talk more about caves what you said on that post is really interesting

Sure thing!

First of all, it was an amazing cave I worked in. You never forget that. I'll pick one of my favorite topics,

the FALLOUT SHELTER AGGRAVATION TAX.

Clears throat.

Limestone caves are literally stone libraries in the geologic record of the world. Twice a year the airflow would change and then you'd smell smoke from decrepit old torches dating as far back as 1812. People made saltpeter in these caves, they were natural mines for things that went boom, and one of those 'requirements' meant airflow so you wouldn't suddenly and embarrassingly, drop dead of too much Underground. This is why the coal miners were eternally bemused and asking us questions like airflow. Sometimes you gotta canary. Sometimes you are the canary. This often led to predictable questions that was these old gents trying to be polite, but what they really wanted to know was,

'why the hell are you being paid $10 a trip plus tips to walk us 1.1 miles underground up to 3 times a day and no one has a mortgage gun aimed at your head?'

To which I would say, 'it wasn't quite that bad. If no one shows up at all we get paid $10.' ...Dear Saint Barbara, Chango, and the Gods of Deep Mystery, the things we tell ourselves. $10 a day. Crap. Thank goodness I had Granny's House, dad was paying the property tax, the water was on a well, and garbage was less that $20 a month. A shame we can't afford a TV, but hey, we can stay busy digging up that quarter-acre garden that will keep us fed plus the road kill Deer in the fall.

But the conditions that created saltpeter (I'll go into depth on that later if people are interested) also convinced some weird-ass people in Washington DC that caves were the perfect place to do a DR STRANGELOVE and people could go hide out in the caves, free of...well, nothing, really, because radiation = straight lines +caves, air, irradiated air and water, and everything goes down into the caves...

Look. It made people feel safe, ok? And it wasn't the worst decision the Pentagon ever made, considering they were telling the scientists working with HOT RADIOACTIVE MATTER to stay safe by sticking the stuff on a long pole so they wouldn't have to touch it.

Everybody knows about the bomb shelter President Kennedy was prepared to run to with his family in case of Cold War. It was in the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs (I prefer to think of it as the HIDDEN FIGURES birthplace). FYI everybody who lived here knew where it was. There are only so many power stations one measly little resort that cries that it can't afford to pay for its own water bill can keep.

[insert sniffle boohoo sobbing of the pro-confederates who run that place and while I can't be there for you, try to imagine the joy I am stockpiling for the day when we have another traitorous uprising and this time, the resort doesn't get a GO PASS GO by dangerous romantics and is finally burned to the ground.]

Anyway, the important people like the President, his family, his Secret Service, his staff, cook, maid-in-waiting, bootblack and et al got to go bunker down in the luxurious bomb shelter at the resort, which probably wouldn't be very resort-y after a certain point of Castro going, 'fuck you, you whippersnapper Irish Dog' or Khrushchev throwing a little more than his shoe around. I'm not convinced it was that great of a place to hide, really. I mean...they have lightning rods on the trees over there, and believe it or not, cavers in that country have been hit by lightning while underground. Because. Lightning. If it can bake entire acres of potatoes in the field, two subterranean surveyors with metal measuring tape haven't got a prayer.

I want you to know that I can't at this point go into detail (space restrictions) on the importance of all these caves to Union Sympathizers, slaves on the Underground Railroad, and the Far-Righter MAGAS called Confederates. Trust me when I say, if you didn't know where these caves were, you had absolutely no right to know.

In Appalachia, limestone caves were listed on properties and handed down because of their value. Thomas Jefferson made a point of making sure there were lots of caves to provide nitre for the Gunpowder Committee. I don't know if landowners had to pay taxes for having saltpeter caves (probably), but when the Cold War came around, they definitely and cheerfully sold the access rights to the government because...it was the government. I am not in the least bit joking when I tell you there are people over there who are still pissed off over George Washington's Whiskey Rebellion.

If you really want to get into the psyche of Appalachians, go read up every scene Terry Pratchett ever wrote about Lancre in his Discworld books. Just give them more libraries and a LOT of coffee stations.

Oh, dear. I forgot all about the owling and the Prohibition.

Owling = the practice of moving your herds of cattle from one ridge to the next to avoid a higher payment when the taxman came a-calling.

Prohibition = The Second Oldest Profession.

These days, many of the Fallout Shelter caves are being used for...modern needs. Meth labs, if you're a sensationalist, but if you aren't, bear in mind that hiding out stolen cattle and horses still requires big places out in the middle of nowhere. But when Mr. Gov't Man came around and offered cash for the access rights to grand-daddy's old saltpetre cave? Goodness gracious, we know we aren't supposed to take people's money from them because that's a sin, but...taxes...you know how it is... (most of the mountain folk had no real quarrel with Kennedy despite his heathen dog Catholicism because it wasn't his fault he was brought up Catholic, but when it came to the government...well, it was the principle of the thing).

In short order papers were drawn, and shelters were built and good god, they were ugly. Clapboard shantytowns, I swear. They were stockpiles whacked together with off-brand plank and tenpenny nails for where the selected few could bunker up in the cozy, damp, dripping, chilly, dusty, sneezy, probably-warm-from-stray-radiation environs. I have no idea who the Pentagon hated enough that they would send them to these caves. They had a bottleneck opening for easy defense, yes, but there was no defense against puking yourself to death or accidentally taking off your own skin with your uniform at the end of your shift.

YOU THINK I"M KIDDING?? YOU THINK IT IS A COINCIDENCE THAT CLASSIC DR WHO SHOWS DALEK HISTORY IN AN OLD STONE QUARRY? WELCOME ABOARD!

A fallout shelter's stockpile generally consisted of

*High-quality medical equipment, even though some of that stuff had a shelf life of three minutes.

*Radio Equipment. Which was probably a real belly laugh to the folks running the NARO satellite dishes up in Green Bank, because families in the most rural portion of WV (Pocahontas County) spent their evenings parsing Latin and teaching the young lads and lasses the wonders of shortwave and how to rig up your own crystals in case you needed to jackleg your own.

*Food. God. Awful. Food. It was designed to keep you alive, but you can't say anything more charitable about it. Honestly, I'm surprised nobody tried to corner a government contract on dehydrated water.

*Water. Potable water for drinking, but, I should say, I couldn't find any means with which you could make a potable distillery. Or, how much of this potable water was going to be used to rehydrate the ghastly awfulness of the dehydrated food, or the canned goods that included stuff the military couldn't wait to forget. Go ask your grandparents how much canned horse Circa WWII they ate while they served, m'kay?

*Candy. High energy, easily digestible candy. Flavor optional, at the discretion of the same government that made the WWII Chocolate Bar.

*The containers themselves. Yep, they counted. They were heavy metal barrels and tough buckets or small drums, plus the amazingly dense metal and plastic containers for medical kits, candy, and misc. I'm not sure if they had a requirement other than impervious, waterproof, and on sale. In fact, the smaller drums/buckets were supposed to be lined with the plastic used to wrap the other goods, and convert into a toilet.

Cold War comes and goes. I'm sure what happened next is shocking:

1) medical supplies goes missing in the dead of night.

2) Electronics follows. That probably makes the electricians feel good, because...what good would they have done in the wet, dust-filled atmosphere of the caves?

3) Candy. Candy, did you say? I don't remember seeing any candy..?

4) The gradual disappearance of the food rations is mysteriously in proportion to camping trips multitasking with double-dog-dares. Who needs a frat pledge if Freckles here has never been introduced to the joys of Dehydrated Ketchup?

5) If you think the backyard blacksmiths are making forges with tire rims, do you think metal containers stand a chance?

This leaves the barrels of water, but who would want to drink that stuff? It's been sitting around for how long? Ew. And the boards for those shelters...cripes.

This inadvertently makes up a tiny little side bonus for the hard-working tour guide. Because these shelters are usually ridiculously close to the entrance of the tour caves. You have to take your tour group in stages, see, and once they finish gasping and wheezing their way through the first 300 steps, you have to take their minds off how miserable they are and pause at the shelter with your flashlight, and describe this little chapter of history. By this time the bats are hanging off the boards (your chance to remind them of the exorbitant federal fines for hurting these little mosquito-hunters), the occasional lost salamander, and the beginnings of the Dreaded Cave Cricket (ten minutes with these little monsters and you'll never think pink is an effete color ever again).

And the mold. There are patches of mold the guides have been watching for YEARS. Some of them have even bothered to look them up, because...tourists. They love to stump the guides and use it as an excuse for not tipping you because you haven't taken a Master's in The Encompassing Topic of Karst Everything and are clearly a dumbass, hah-hah I'll spend my money in the overpriced gift shop, peasant.

But no, folks. If you ask them one more damn time if they're sure all the candy and drugs are gone...we're too tired to take your bleeping bleep bleep tip anyway.