#however if I already feel like my art is empty... I'm not sure going for a more minimalist style would fix that

[multishipper-baby]

I haven't been happy with my art style lately but I'm not sure how to move forward about it.

[johnwickb1tsch]

Sympathy for the Devil ~ Part 7

A Donaka Mark x housekeeper!Reader fic, based on @discoscoob 's concept & bot! Warnings: Donaka Mark is a bad man with a soft spot for you. dark romance, possessive behavior, nonconsensual voyeurism, red flag red flag girl!🔺, psychological games, power imbalance, eventual dubcon/nsfw.

one. two. three. four. five. six.

Seven. 柒

The next day you are going about the house doing your duties, cleaning, vacuuming, dusting. Every day you do a deep clean on a room. Today is the theater room, the den with all the dark monitors that you find so creepy. It almost feels like a lair to you, and you spend as little time as possible in there.

You are caught by surprise to see Mr. Mark is in the center of the long couch. Usually, he's not home at this hour. He's seated with his arms up on the back, watching martial arts tournaments, it looks like. He turns his head to look at you when you pause in the open door, clearly wondering if he noticed you, and if you can run away. 

"Excuse me, sir, I didn't realize you were home." You turn to go, praying, but he calls you back.

The satisfaction he feels for catching you off guard again is so very sweet. He flashes you a predatory curl of lips, calling out to you before you can escape in a commanding tone. “Wait.”

Slowly you approach, clutching your cordless vacuum like it might save you from this imposing man.

Donaka feels a dark gratification as you slowly approach. He almost chuckles in his throat like a Bond villain, the way he can feel your intimidation. He pats the empty spot on the couch beside him, gesturing for you to sit. “Come here,” he repeats, his voice low and authoritative.

"Sir, I'm on duty, and I already had my break..."

Your resistance irritates him, as though your true occupation is not obeying his every whim in this house. 

“I don’t care,” he says firmly. “Come. Sit.”

With a small sigh you do as you’re told, perching on the edge of the black leather seat like a bird ready to take flight at any moment. It is comfortable...and it does feel good to sit down.

Donaka enjoys a small sense of satisfaction as you finally do as you’re told. His eyes roam over your tired features–he’s sure you’re exhausted from your day before. A part of him delights in how adventurous you are, even if it just makes him want to clip your wings all the more. 

“You look tired. You overdid it yesterday.” 

You frown, open your mouth to deliver a sassy reply–then think better of it. “Maybe. My feet hurt,” you admit. 

“When you make use of a driver, you don’t have to walk so much,” he quips. 

However, you wouldn’t have changed a thing about the way your birthday went…except maybe that little midnight ambush in the garden. You’d had a field day writing that up in your journal into the wee hours of the morning–perhaps the real reason you were tired that day. 

You just narrow your eyes at him, and somehow this seems to delight your employer, counting your cowed silence as a point for his side.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he admonishes, holding out his hand. “Give it here.” 

Puzzled, you tilt your head at him. 

“Your foot,” he clarifies in a tone that brooks no argument. “Give it here.”

You are horrified. If this man gets those big strong mitts on your aching feet–you’re done for. You will melt for him.

“Sir–”

He has the urge to simply drag you over into his lap. 

“Do I always have to tell you twice? Give. Me. Your. Foot.” He beckons with those long fingers, snapping and pointing like you are a naughty dog. His annoyance is palpable; his hunger, undeniable. At last you give in with a sigh, slipping out of your sandal to reluctantly offer up the appendage in question. 

Your foot looks tiny in his hands, as he wraps his fingers around you, squeezing. His thumb runs down your plantar fascia, and you think you see god, a small sound escaping you.

His lips curl in a triumphant smile. “Not so bad, is it?”

“No, only slightly mortifying,” you sigh, closing your eyes. It feels too good.

He’s semi hard just watching your reaction to his touch, even if it is just your feet.

“Why? You have such pretty feet.”

You wish the couch would just swallow you whole. 

You just shake your head, unable to engage with him while he works this magic on you. His gaze trails up your legs, and he imagines how he would like to caress the sweep of your calf, the sensitive skin behind your knee, and keep going until the curve of your ass is in his hand. He could just…pin your body down with his weight and his mouth on yours. You might even welcome it, opening to him like the soft petals of a lotus flower after he's sweetened you up. He wants to take you, but he also wants you to want him. That is something…unexpected.

A squeak of pain escapes you as he squeezes your foot too hard, his handsome features pulled in a frown of consternation as he glares down at your leg. Your protest brings him back from somewhere–when his blazing dark eyes meet yours, you think this man could burn down the world. You have trouble distinguishing, as ever, if the rollicking adrenaline his hungry look inspires is due to fear, or desire.

Donaka’s eyes suddenly re-focus on your face as you sit up straight. He could have pushed you over with a feather, when his touch softens, his big hands just holding your foot, and a single soft word leaves his mouth: “Sorry.”

You can hardly believe what you heard.

"You're...very strong." You try not to sigh like you're in some stupid bosom buster bully romance book. Never mind the fact that you know later you’re going to write all about this in your ongoing fantasy epic, and it will not be G rated.

Just like that, the moment shatters, when a smirk pulls his lips again. He gestures for your other foot, and this time you obey without protest. Might as well, or you’ll be walking in circles…

The satisfaction Donaka feels for your submission spreads through him like warm poison. It was just a matter of time. He had to remember to be patient with you.

It would make his victory all the sweeter.

When he’s done with your foot he sets it aside with a light final caress of your arch. “There now. Get back to work, tou zai yee.”

You don't know what that means, but you take your opening to escape without questioning his sudden generosity.

Deep down, you know he’s just biding his time.

[ioniansunsets]

✖ Hwei Painting Reader ✖

✖ Hwei Painting Reader ✖

✖ Word Count: 1.5k

✖ Tags: Established R/S

✖ A/N: I've seen all the voicelines and read his content we ARE HWEI LUKAI SIMPS NOW LETS GO BABES!!!!!!!! I still can't believe this took 3 days to write because I kept re-reading and re-writing things to try to make it less OOC.

I also super kin him as a college student in an arts school. Yes my love, lets stay up to 11am rushing an uninspired assignment together surviving off coffee and instant noodles. Oh no am I triggering a school au thought for Hwei.....maybe......

Oh more art student thoughts, I headcanon his paintings to be like Henri Matisse! He is a Fauvist! I know for a fact !This man will use every single color that exists to paint his world just as he imagines it, who cares what his teachers say! That green stripe on his lover's forehead is meant to be there! Fuck the critics!

----

You had been sitting here for an hour by now, Hwei telling you how badly he wanted to- No. Needed to capture your beauty in the orange hues of the setting sun.

How inspired he was seeing you walk past the window in his studio as you two returned from a walk. The way the light glows as it hit your hair, how your body silhouetted against the glass, the way the shadows cast on the floor just was so perfect in framing sanctity of the moment.

Slowly Hwei walks over, hands soft as they feel your face. Gently, the tips of his fingers trail down from your eyes to your cheeks and finally stopping at your lips. His three favorite parts of your face, all so important in showing him your emotions.  An almost lamentable smile crossing his face as he looks down and walks back to the canvas situated slightly further away. You could usually understand him but, sometimes you wish you could understand what darkness held him back.

" I'm always blessed to have such a masterpiece like you love me. How such beauty flourishes besides my despair."

Hwei pauses, thinking of the right words. His hand rising to rest on his chin as he looks around, everywhere but you.

" It eludes me. Yet, it fills me with such honor at the same time."

Hwei speaks to you soft, voice trailing off as he thinks, slowly nodding. The lightest of pink undertones suddenly rising to his cheeks as he thinks again about what he just said.

Oh how he so dearly appreciates your bright existence in his life. Eyes not daring to meet your own for his heart is already threatening to explode just from that brief touch earlier. Emotions were always such an important part of art, he cherishes how you inspire him this way, just seeing your beauty in the world fills him with image after image to paint and bring to life.

You however, notice anyway, his feelings that he tries to hide away from you. The way the colors in his eyes change, another telltale sign of the way you affect him. Your own cheeks now dusted with the same soft pink on his.

You smile, sitting still on the window sill, a soft glow from the setting sun illuminating you from behind as you watch your lover paint. A sight that never stops amazing you, the way his magic throws colors onto the canvas, mixing together to create such visually stunning images, you were so sure those purples and greens don't exist in shadows yet somehow you know he would make it look like the rainbows were there all along.

" You know I only shine this bright because you care for me so, Hwei."

" Ah... Don't flatter me this way, your beauty is your own. I can never make something that really captures your brilliance on a canvas like this. But alas, I believe I have the skills to at least capture my emotions for you down in this one."

You watch on, another hour had passed. The sun had long set, instead, the moonlight and soft glow of the lamp overhead lights up your partner's features as the corners of his lips curl up into a smile. Unable to hold back his excitement as the empty canvas slowly fills up with color and form. His hands gracefully gliding across the scene, you watch how his clothes move around him, how the shadows move on his exposed collar as his arm raises to work. His hair bouncing behind him as he paces around, making sure he views you from every angle, catching all the important details to this moment. His eyes darting back and forth from your form to his canvas. After a while, the finishing touches finally placed, he steps back and gives a relieved sigh. He was usually so hard on himself to create perfection, but when it comes to a portraiture of you, he can't help but agree he made a masterpiece. You were stunning, so anything made in your image was stunning to him too.

" Take a look."

Hwei walks to your side, hand out for support as you held onto it and hopped off the windowsill. He guides you to the canvas, hand gently resting on the dip of your lower back. Eventually he moves to stand behind you, resting his head on your shoulder, arms now around you in a hug from behind. You can feel his anxiety, the silence in the air heavy as you carefully consider his work, a slight tremble in his grip around your waist. Of course, you only have good things to say about it, he's an art prodigy if you've ever seen one. Avant Garde work but undeniably breathtaking. As you finally look at the completed work in front of you, you were pleasantly surprised to see how once again, he left your breathless with just how he sees you.

" I can't lie Hwei, this is amazing. Everything you make is amazing to me I could never wield colors the way you do. To think that this was how you saw me."

As you speak you can feel him heat up against your back, his head slowly tilting down as he hides his face into the crook of your neck. His art of you was just one of the small ways he tries to show you his love.

" Thank you."

He whispers softly into your skin. You giggle softly, reaching up to rest your hand against his. After placing a soft kiss on the corner where your clothes meet your skin, he pulls away to stand in front of you, eyes finally meeting yours as you catch sight of gold flecks floating across his irises. He was so visibly happy to just be here, to see you happy with his work. Hwei takes a deep breath. Calming himself as he looks at you, taking in the sight of you in front of him, you can tell how his thoughts were flooding him as the two of you stood there in comfortable silence before he finally speaks.

" My dear, you bring out the light in me no matter how much it dims.

How you seem to quell that darkness is beyond me. I see so many colors when I'm with you...

The reds of your passionate love, the soft yellow of your happiness when were together, the lingering orange of comfort that you have around me all the time. And that is not even touching the blues and purples when you watch me work with amazement."

Hwei reaches out to you, one hand caressing your cheek while the other reaches around your waist to pull you in. You laugh, watching how his eyes swirl, reds fading into yellows briefly before oranges transform before your eyes into cool blues and purples as he describes you, his usually melancholic smile warping into a warm bright one.

Your heart begins to race, something about how the shadows on his face visibly lighten with his smile, paired with the excitement bubbling out of him as he exposes his precious thoughts to you. How you wish you had a way to capture this moment just as he did by painting you.

He leans forward slowly, resting his forehead against yours as his gaze casts downwards, watching your lips, taking in the curve, the way it moves as they part to breathe. He was just so taken in by you.

" May I kiss you?"

He asks, barely a whisper, somehow still seemingly uncertain in this partnership that you two have had for so long. His gaze slowly moving back up to your eyes as he awaits your answer.

" I am forever baffled by how you always ask first. You know I'd always welcome your love."

You offer him a soft chuckle, the sparkle in your eyes further reassuring him of your sentiments.

You could never say no to his sweet affections, he was always so careful with you, so gentle, so soft. You were but the most precious thing in his life after all, a blindingly bright beacon of hope in his darkest hours. A stunning jewel of ever changing colors in the light of his mundane existence. If the painting that sits at arms length from you is a testament to anything, you knew he was oh so in love with you.

Hwei lets out a small laugh of his own.

" I just like the reassuring comfort of your answer."

As he finishes his sentence, he leans forward, closing that tiny gap between your lips. You smile into the kiss, you can't help it, the feeling of his dry, chapped lips against yours was so endearing. You note to remind him to hydrate later, almost forgetting how he just spent two hours non-stop painting you with fervent passion.

As he pulls away, Hwei holds you closer to him, pressing your body against his in a tight hug. A satisfied sigh escaping him.

" I love you."

" I love you too."

[emilywaters]

So I just finished watching arcane season 2 act 3 and I have Thoughts.

Act 3 spoilers below

(I apologise for any spelling/grammar mistakes and if it all sounds wack. It's like late and I needed to empty my brain)

So I'll start with what I absolutely loved.

Seeing that Vi is actually the 'jinx' bcs in the timeline she dies, everyone else lives. And along this line is her saying, "I always choose wrong."

Lesbian Sex.

Canon Lesbian Sex.

The JaVik space marriage.

The casual representation of a very huge amount of demographics (queer, disabled, POC, etc)

The art style, animation, soundtrack, voice acting, character designs, set designs, fight scenes, the casual representation, all of those were absolutely beautiful. It was clearly a labour of love, and I have so much respect and appreciation for every single person involved.

Next, I do have some neutral points, where there are questions I'm not sure were answered, but it could also be me missing something.

These include,

The actual motive of the black roses,

What Ambessa did to piss them off,

Why Maddie was with Ambessa,

The consequences of going beyond the 4 second limit,

And potentially more. If there are answers to these questions that I have simply missed, please do tell me and disregard any points I make surrounding them.

Okay, so if nearly everything was perfect, where do I find fault? Tragically, the plot.

I watched season 1 quite a while back, so I'm drawing on my murky memories of it when I reference it.

In season 1 our main conflict was the undercity, with Jink, Silco, Sevika, versus the rich and affluent Piltover. Rich girl realizes the people of Zaun are suffering and two scientists try to solve problems in their own way.

This theme carries over into the first act of season 2, and somewhat into the 2nd act as well. However, this storyline, which has been a very important one, seems to almost be completely discarded for the Hextech-arcane plot line.

The undercity Vs the rich feels like it was solved too easily. How does a city that has suffered immensely at the hands of the rich and successful turn around so quickly to help them. And how does a city sending polluted air into an already crumbling city, ignoring their poverty and calling them filthy animals, simply turn around and accept them. It feels like that theme was shoved into a drawer, with having Sevika and others joining the council added as a consolation prize. There was no justice for their dead. And those in power suffer no consequences.

As I so crassly put it in my fervent texts to my friend, "Season 2 looked like it was going to be rich bitches Vs poor on steroids with police brutality." That's how the first act started out. We were going to see how the effects of grief, manipulation, hatred and privilege so quickly blur out all the innocent collateral of your rampage.

Then these seemed to minimize within the second act and vanish almost entirely in the third act. Additionally, the other minor plots feel underdeveloped, with a lot of potential, but too many spread too thin.

I saw some people talking about how Arcane was rushing the plot too much at the start of season two, and I do see what they mean now.

The inherent theme of the story, which was about liberation, equality, the guilt of the rich, felt like it shifted in act 3 into, again, as crassly put by me, "true peace is hive mind oh wait no imperfections are good thing."

Of course, I could be completely wrong and missing the mark entirely, so if I am please do enlighten me, preferably without insult, as I've been known to be careless.

The Undercity's rage requires more justice and I feel like it was discarded for a flashier prize.

I feel like the first arc and some of the second could've been a season by itself. They could've tied up the undercity Vs rich plot, with some form of stalemate or some other conclusion, and shift the focus to the Hextech-arcane plot line, with Jayce's whole speech about unity.

Then the latter half of act 2 and the third act would be a season 3, giving more time and weight to that battle and the factors surrounding it, while also showing the results of the previous parts.

I do wonder if there was an ultimatum where we get one season with lesbians or no lesbians and more seasons, where the former was chosen, but that's just conspiracy and speculation.

All in all, it's a beautiful show that had a lot of potential, but rushed and botched something they could've milked for one more season, for the money's sake, if not for good plot. If my points are dissuaded by any things I missed, please do let me know.

I did enjoy the show immensely and it was a good time overall. I'm in love with the characters and their dynamics and the setting and the art and animation, the soundtrack, it may have not made sense, but by god was it beautiful.

[the-fiction-witch]

Little Doll

Media - The Artful Dodger Character - Jack Dawkins Couple - Jack X Reader Reader - Miss Y/n Y/l/n (Porceline Skin China doll look) Rating - Sweet AF Word Count - 4638

Jack finished up with his work in the theatre heading out as he pushed the sleeves of his white long-sleeved shirt under his blue waistcoat up to his elbows and ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. However, he immediately met his eyes with a familiar sight.

Miss Y/n Y/L/N, stood in the main figure of the hospital. She was wearing a pair of tall black boots laced up tightly, a long plaid lavender skirt with a large bird cage crinoline underneath, a white button-down blouse, with a belt tightly around her corseted waist with a silver moth buckle, crisp white gloves, tight waves of Y/H/C curls, with a bow of the same lavender plaid of her skirt, pale porcelain skin with perfectly placed freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and large emerald eyes. Her leather-bound notebook clutched to her chest.

Jack chuckled to himself as he saw her, seeing her made him feel bubbly as she reminded him of one of those beautiful porcelain dolls dressed up and set perfectly. He knew why she was here, and what she wanted. “Morning Miss Y/L/N,”

“Doctor Dawkins!” She turned excitedly, “Just the gentleman I was looking for,”

“Where are you now?” He raised an eyebrow,

“Could I have a word, please?”

“Go on Miss Y/L/N, tell me what you need and quickly I’m a busy man,” He said as he headed through the corridors towards his ward,

“Well firstly, have you given any more thought to allowing me to shadow your surgery silently?” she smiled as she happily followed behind him her skirt bouncing a little as she walked,

“I’ve already told you, you're not allowed in the surgical theatre.” He told her, “I don’t let little girls into surgery,”

“I see.” She nodded, “But secondly, would it be possible for me to shadow an autopsy in the morgue? Please,”

He rolled his eyes and sighed, “Alright, But you’re quiet the whole time.”

“I will I promise,”

“Alright come on,”

Jack headed down to the morgue with Y/n following behind him like an excited puppy, Jack began to set things up tying his leather apron around his waist and gathering his clean tools. Y/n closed the door and happily hopped onto an empty table. But Jack merely glared her down and she hopped off the table again,

“Sorry,” She gulped,

“Thank you,” He warned, “Get a stool if you want to sit Miss Y/L/N,”

She nodded excitedly adjusting her skirt as she fetched a stool, bringing it over to the table across from Jack sitting kicking her feet, a smile as wide as a kid on Christmas,

Jack would sighed, and continued working the corpse. "You're excited about this? Aren’t you?"

Y/n shrugged, "I find it all so fascinating" She smiled

"Well if you find this all so fascinating, why don't you get in close and watch my hands closely?"

She giggled and put the books down shuffling her stool over to sit closer to him her nose almost an inch from his hands her eyes wide with excitement,

Jack pointed at the lungs and spoke, "Now these are the lungs, they are what is used to supply the blood with fresh oxygen for the heart to supply the rest of the body. Notice their dark colour, that's a result of the disease. As the disease infected the lungs, it stopped supplying the blood with oxygen." He smiled down at her, "Do you understand?"

"… But how do you know they go that colour because of the disease and is not simply because they're dead?" She asked,

Jack thought on it for a moment, "You sure are a curious one. You're correct it could simply be due to death, but I'm making an educated guess based on prior knowledge. The man we're cutting open had died due to infection, and in turn, I would figure that his lungs would be infected as well due to the way he was coughing. And lo and behold the lungs are dark, that and dark coloured lungs would generally suggest infection."

"but you don't know that you didn't take his lungs out while he was alive,"

"That's a fair point. But as you see his lungs are collapsed. That wouldn't be the case if he was alive, they would be inflated like balloons." He'd poke one of the lungs, "As you can see, they're collapsed, and thus I am making the educated guess that they are infected."

"hummm…" She nodded,

Jack would look down at her, "Are you familiar with Occam's Razor?"

"…no?"

"Occam's Razor is a philosophy that states that you should assume the simplest explanation for something unless further evidence suggests otherwise." Jack explained, "So Occam's Razor in this situation says, the lungs are dark due to infection. I don't have further evidence to suggest otherwise, so therefore… The lungs are dark due to the infection."

"… Whenever you eliminate the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be the truth"

"Precisely. You catch on quite easily." Jack paused for a moment, "Didn't take you for that type."

"I like to read, one of the few things I enjoy father hasn't taken away… And I think that's only because he can't be bothered to read my books to check their subject matter," she explained her fingers wiggling itching to poke, prod and investigate

Jack chuckled at her comment, "You're father sounds like a real charmer." he would say sarcastically. "What, if you had to guess, do you think this man died from?" Jack asked,

"well… You made a point about the darkness of his lungs due to infection however due to the elasticity of the lungs so late Into this stage in the morgue the body didn't die from the lungs giving out, there was scaring in his nose and his eye sockets are swollen out instead of being sunk in. This means the lung infection began as a meer sinus and chest infection which he ignored. And he smoked. Given the discolouration in his nails… I'm going to say he choked to death trying to smoke while having a lung infection" she explained

Jack was stunned by her level of deduction, even going to the level of checking the fingernails. "How in the?" Jack would ask. "Yes that was my observation as well, but your observation about his nails. How could you tell he was a smoker, and how can you tell he was smoking whilst infected?"

"… Tobacco stains the ends of your fingertips yellow over time and causes your nails to turn very sickly due to the lack of good health collagen in the body. He isn't a very old man so he had a thick habit makes sense he'd want to still smoke"

Jack was extremely impressed by her observation, "I can see why you enjoy reading, You're a very good detective. Most women your age are getting married, not reading about murder mysteries!"

"I don't know whether I should be flattered or insulted…" She said "I know most ladies are off at their debutant balls and popping out babies but I don't know, men don't find me very palatable" she said her fingers stroking the exposed rib but she saw him looking so pulled back,

Jack tilted his head, "Men don't find you palatable? That's a shock to me. Most would fall head over heels at first sight." Jack smiled down at her, "Maybe they can read how clever you are, and they're put off at the idea of a young woman being smarter than them."

"Perhaps… I think a lot of it is my… More macabre interests, most men are put off by such things"

"And what exactly are your morbid interests? Are they that offputting?" Jack questioned. He certainly didn't care, if anything he had a rather morbid view of life as well.

"I'm sitting watching an autopsy for fun?" She answered

Jack chuckled, "That's considered off-putting? Sounds like normal curiosity to me." He smirked at her, "I'm curious to know other interests. What else is considered morbid?"

"I read a lot of horrors, a lot of crime stories, I like to research the occult and supernatural, I used to collect small bones but… Father put a stop to that"

Jack chuckled, "What's wrong with collecting bones? Sounds like a perfectly normal hobby. If anything, it sounds kinda cute."

"I used to have a frame filled with bird wing bones that I collected all laid out with diagrams and names but father didn't like it so… He made me burn it"

Jack grimaced at the thought of such a beautiful display burnt to ash. "Did he give a reason for making you burn it?" Jack asked, looking confused "He just sounds like a control freak from what you say."

"he said such things are not becoming of a young lady"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Seems like an excuse for a control freak to burn something you loved. Are there any other interests your father ruined for you?"

"he said I couldn't use and or own a planchette board"

Jack looked down at Y/n, "That spiritual board thing? Why would he not want you using that? Scared you'll find a ghost in the house?"

"ohh I did several they were nice but I think seeing it move freaked him out"

Jack smirked, "Wait, you got them to work?" He asked, sounding quite surprised, "And what about the ghosts you found? What were they like?"

"They were all very nice, I met a nice lady who died in the town in 1656. They burned her as a witch but she's very nice"

Jack tilted his head, "A nice ghost eh?” He chuckled, He thought, "Wait, how in the hell were you using a Phancheeetty- or whatever board that young? You're twenty-four. Did you get one instead of a rocking horse?" he asked jokingly.

"I made one.." she answered sheepishly

Jack looked surprised, "Now that's impressive! Most people would need years and years of supernatural study to get something like that to work, but let me guess. Is that another thing your father burned?" He sounded slightly annoyed on her behalf at the idea of burning it,

"mhm" she nodded

"This father of yours sounds more like a dictator than a father." Jack sighed, "Does he also burn your horror books?"

"no, but I don't tell him what is in the books and he's too lazy to read them and find out"

"At this point, I'm starting to think laziness is a blessing from this tyrant father of yours." Jack paused for a moment, thinking. "Is there anything he hasn't tried to burn?"

"…I'd say me… But he's threatened it before"

Jack's eyes widened at her response, "Wait, you mean to tell me that your FATHER has threatened to burn you?" He was slightly taken aback, he couldn't understand a parent being so abusive.

"he was worried I was becoming a witch"

Jack's face darkened. "I have a feeling this man should never have been allowed to have children."

His face lightened slightly, "Have you been intrigued by the supernatural since you were a child?"

"mhm, I don't know why I find it all so fascinating. I suppose it's just another form of religion at the end of the day. Some people read the bible every day, go to church, sit in their room read tarot cards and go for walks in the graveyard secretly hoping they can find a pet bat"

Jack's lips twitch at the idea of Y/n with a bat as a pet, "That is quite a lovely analogy. Most women would probably be disgusted at the idea of walking through a graveyard. But you love it." He smiled down at her, "You're an interesting one Y/n Y/L/N."

"thank you Doctor Dawkins" she giggled as she happily poked at the heart

Jack's eyes widened slightly as she called him Doctor Dawkins, it felt nice to hear, instead of Doctor Jack or just plain Jack. "No problem, Y/n." He smiled down at her, it felt nice to speak with her.

"So what is your opinion on supernatural and ghosts and all that?" Jack would ask in a curious tone.

“My Maid says I use to talk to ghosts when I was little say things I couldn't have known any other way, it makes sense I mean… Humans sort of exist in two parts the body and the soul, when he body dies soul has to go somewhere"

"That's not a common belief you know Y/n. Most people would say you're insane or crazy for thinking that the dead can linger around in ghost form." Jack smiled, "I think you're very intelligent, seeing the world as it really is. What about the supernatural? Does that exist?"

"I suppose the undead are possible if a soul was to re-enter a dead body. Demons and spirits seem possible just higher ranking ghosts, cryptids make sense too I mean I wouldn't be that surprised to hear a large yeti thing exists, some big bear that walks on its legs covered In white fur and fangs, when you think about it a tall long neck spotted creature with thin legs is just how anyone would describe a giraffe"

Jack found himself nodding at her explanation. "I've never had anyone else look at the supernatural so… Logically. You certainly have a unique view on the world." He smiled, "And what of the idea of vampires. Do you think they could exist?"

"people are weird I'm sure someone out there as licked blood, liked it, and kept doing it" she shurgged

Jack snorted at her response, "True that. I can think of many things worse than a blood fetish. You seem to have a very logical view on the supernatural, as if magic can be explained with science."

"I think all magic is just science we have yet to explain. I'm sure one day the human soul and where it goes well be explained by science and maybe it does linger on a way we would call a ghost we're just not there yet. I mean a few thousand years ago they probably thought tiny people can clockworks machines inside us to make or organs work" she giggled looking at the body he worked on with such thrill and excitement

Jack smiled down at her, she really was a unique one. Logical yet curious. She had a sort of endearing personality. "That is probably one of the most unique and interesting takes on science and magic I've ever heard." Jack chuckled softly, "You’d make a very good doctor Miss Y/L/N, You certainly have the mind for it, and the curiosity of a child."

"father wouldn't allow it, the only reason I'm allowed to linger in the hospital is because I lied to father. He thinks I'm at dance classes"

Jack rolled his eyes at that. "Again, I can't blame you. He sounds like quite the dictator. What exactly does he want you to become? A baby factory?"

"a trade for a business deal I suppose, and then a baby factory."

Jack grimaced at Y/n's response. "You're father sounds like a real piece of work." Jack was quite frustrated at the father, just the way Y/n spoke about him made him infuriated.

"he's old fashioned is all" she shurgged "not a very modern man." She giggled

Jack looked at her with a slightly stern expression, "You shouldn't make excuses for him. That man's a control freak and a dictator." Jack was slightly annoyed at her shrugging and laughing her fathers faults off.

"I suppose…" She said too focused on her fun she was having with the body

Jacks sighed, he couldn't force her to get angry. "You certainly have a way of not letting the mood get grim, don't you." He smirked, "How are you even having fun in a morgue with corpses around you?"

"I did say I was morbid"

Jacks chuckled, "No kidding, you seem more fascinated by a corpse than I do, and it's my job to look at them."

"you see them everyday, I imagine surgery must be fascinating" she smiled

Jack smirked slightly when she mentioned surgery, it was something his was passionate about, and Y/n clearly had some interest. He looked down at her with a curious expression, "Why do you sound sad? Did you want to watch a surgery? You know hospitals don't allow young ladies in the surgery theatre."

"I know… But I'd like to, it's not fair the men all get to pay a penny and watch I'd pay a whole shilling"

Jacks snorted with laughter at her response, she certainly had an adorable innocence to her. He gave her a fond smile, "That would be quite the sight to see you sitting beside some gentlemen in a theatre next to a surgery. But Y/n, aren't ladies meant to be fainting at the sight of blood?"

"ladies see more blood then men" she answered

Jacks eyes widened slightly, but then he started laughing, "You really are quite unlike other girls. And you are certainly observant." Jack looked at her, "If you don't mind me asking, how much blood have you seen? Other then that which comes from a period."

"… Some" she answered sheepishly

Jacks smirked softly, he could guess how she would have seen more then most girls. "You make me wonder if most girls would faint at the sight of my work. Though you seem quite interested."

"I'm sure most would"

Jack chuckled softly, "Most likely, you might be the only one who could handle the sight of a surgery. Though most ladies would either faint or be horrified." He smiled, "What would your father think of you if you had an aptitude for surgery and medicine?"

"… Lock me in my room I imagine"

Jacks expression darkened, "That man really is a monster isn't he." His tone was dark as he spat the word monster, a wave of anger washed over him at the image of Y/n being locked away in her room for having an interest her father didn't like.

"… He's… Protective I suppose"

Jacks expression immediately lightened when she responded, and he shook his head with a chuckle, "You're too kind. Just the idea of that man locking you in your room for enjoying something he didn't like made me enraged and you call that protective?"

"I guess so… Don't know what else to call it" she explained as the autopsy was now finished with "doctor Dawkins?"

Jack raised an eyebrow slightly, "What is it Y/n?" He inquired curiously.

"can… Can I sew it up? I'll be ever so careful I promise."

Jack smirked slightly, "You want to try stitching it up?" He inquired. He found the idea of Y/n suturing a stitched up corpse quite endearing, she certainly was an eccentric young lady.

she nodded excitedly

Jack smiled, "All right. You can try stitching the body up."

He began to instruct her on what to do, as he prepared surgical thread and surgical needle to try and make the process a bit easier for Y/n.

she giggled and happily sat taking the needle and thread she was slow and careful stitching like fabric she needed to be corrected a few times but he just loomed over her shoulder watching her inhaling her soft lavender perfume

Jack inhaled her gentle lavender scent, finding it quite soothing. It wasn't often a lady with a perfume walked into a morgue and happily tried to suture a body.

Jack couldn't help but softly smirk she was quite the sight, the sweet young lady sat on the stool her feet didn't even touch the floor, her sweet Lilac skirt around her, her beuatiful curls pulled back with a matching bow, needle in her bloody hands, a somewhat wicked smile on her lips and a gentle humming in her throat she was so happy she smiled and even hummed a little song as she sutured the body to perfection Jack couldn't help but watch Y/n, it was an amusing and endearing sight seeing her happily sat on the stool, stitching up the body. And even more amused by the sight of a bloody needle in her dainty little hands.

A thought suddenly struck Jack, "What if your father saw you like this? Working beside a me, cutting into a body with a bloody needle. How do you think he would react?" Jack inquired with a smirk.

"he'd lock me in my room, have a preacher stand outside and shout bible verses at me. Or sell me off to India"

Jack snorted with laughter at Y/n's response. He knew he probably shouldn't Laugh because it wasn't a joke to Y/n. But for some reason, the idea of Y/n being locked away in a room with a preacher standing outside shouting bible verses at her sounded humorous. Maybe it was because he found Y/n such an interesting young lady. "What a lovely father you have Miss Y/L/N." Jack commented sarcastically, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"he's not good but he's mine"

Jack smirked slightly at Y/n's response, he understood why she defended her father. It was normal to want to defend someone despite their flaws and behaviour. but he couldn't help but wonder what kind of father would treat his daughter like Y/n's father did. Locking her away for having an interest, treating her like she's just for baby making… Jack couldn't help but feel disdain towards Y/n's father,

Jack glanced at Y/n again, he couldn't help but let out a slight chuckle when he saw the amount of blood on her hands. Some had even splattered on the delicate material of her outfit. Jack found it both endearing and amusing. He knew that a lady like her wouldn't want blood on her clothes but at the same time there was something captivating about seeing a doll like her with bloodied hands. A doll he pondered, she reminds him of a doll, the sweet polcerline and china dolls lined in toy store windows in sweet dresses with perfect hair. But now she looked like a haunted doll covered in blood with a wicked little smile, Jack continued working, still observing Y/n with mild amusement.

she happily sat watching him work, "hummm…" She ponders "sorry… I'll be quiet doctor Dawkins"

Jack shook his head, no longer laughing as Y/n tried to apologise.

"No, no, Y/n no apologies." He gave her a fond smile, "Don't apologise or get shy for your enjoyment. iT’S fascinating, especially when you don't hide them as much as most girls do." He glanced at Y/n, "If I was to be honest, your unique thoughts is probably why I find you so fascinating. The way you think isn't like most ladies. And I honestly find it endearing, especially your thoughts on corpses and science."

she blushed a little

"That's that done." Jack said with a smile.

she nodded "all done, slightly disappointing to put all that work in just to bury him"

Jack looked down at the body and nodded, he couldn't disagree with her there. "Yes, it is a strange thing. We spend all that time looking into a dead body, yet at the end we just bury them and move on to the next mystery." Jack then looked at Y/n, "There's something I've been wanting to ask you."

"yes doctor Dawkins?" She asked cleaning off her hands

Jack smirked as he watched Y/n clean her hands of blood. He knew most ladies wouldn't even want to touch blood with a ten foot pole, and yet Y/n was happy to just sit with her hands in blood, cutting up a body. If it was any other woman, Jack would find it unsettling. But on Y/n it just seemed endearing. "I have noticed that you have a very interesting way of thinking Y/n. In regard to the supernatural and life." He commented.

"I do?"

Jacks nodded, his smirk widening, "Yes you do. You don't seem to be afraid of the mysteriousness of life. I've also noticed you have an interest in death and corpses." His tone was gentle, he was still slightly amused by the amount of dried blood on the dainty young lady. He couldn't help but find her doll like appearance coupled with her thoughts endearing. "You are definitely not like most young ladies."

"I guess not…" She said but her tone turned sad as she finished cleaning her hands even if the blood had left a slight red stain on her pale skin "your going to tell me it's unbecoming of a lady too? Tell me I should use my wine to find a good husband…" She sighed "I wouldn't bother you anymore if you don't want me to doctor Dawkins"

Jacks expression immediately darkened at her response and he reached out and cupped Y/n's cheeks with his hands. He couldn't stand her being sad. "Please don't ever think for a second that I wish for you to stop coming here. You're a fascinating girl. I look forward to your visits." Now his tone was softer and slightly affectionate, "And don't you dare think that you're unbecoming of a lady, you're perfect just how you are. Don't listen to anyone who says otherwise."

she blushed hard her freckled cheeks turned pink, but she stepped back so his hands left her cheeks "thank you doctor Dawkins…"

Jack smiled gently as Y/n blushed at his compliment. He hoped he had managed to prevent her from feeling upset. However, he couldn't help but feel slight disappointment when she stepped back, it felt nice holding her cheek and seeing her blush. "You're welcome Miss Y/L/N." His smile widened and then he smirked, "I do hope you still come and visit my morgue."

"I hope to doctor Dawkins" she nodded "thank you so much for such a lovely day, I hope you have a nice rest of your evening" she smiled

Jacks smiled once more in response and watched as Y/n prepared to exit the morgue. He couldn't help but feel slightly… Disappointed she was leaving already. Sure Jack was normally glad when work was over, but this time he felt like he didn't want it to end and for Y/n to leave. He was starting to become fascinated with the unique and adorable young woman more and more.

She picked up her parasol and her small hat giving him a small polite curtsy before she heads out the morgue.

Jack watches her as she goes watching how her crinoline causes her lilac skirt to sway side to side as she walks, her Y/H/C curls and her little bow, he couldn't help thinking of her lavender scent, of her happy excited smile, of all the words they shared… Of the sight of her sewing the body, hands covered in blood, smiling and humming. Y/n… His little doll

He can't help thinking of her as his morbid macabre haunted little doll

Jacks stood watching Y/n leave the morgue, he couldn't help his eyes following her. As she left the room he felt something strange. He missed her already, and he couldn't help but notice how adorable she was when she did her little curtsy. How beautiful her dress swayed with her crinoline. He loved hearing her sweet little voice, every word she said fascinated him, and of course he couldn't help notice the way her hair fell slightly loose with her bow sitting just perfect.

… And then the realisation hit him. Oh dear.

Jacks felt an icy cold realisation wash over him as he stood there still watching the door Y/n had just left through. Oh…. No…. Not good… No….

Now he realised what this weird feeling was for Y/n.

He realised why he got so protective whenever Y/n mentioned her father.

He realised why he found her thoughts fascinating.

He… He…

He was starting to have feelings for Y/n.

Jack was completely dumbfounded by his recent realisation, and he felt a mixture of emotions.

Panic. Because if Y/n's father found out that he had feelings for her he would kill him.

Fear. Because he knew Y/n's father was the type of man to cause Y/n a lot of suffering for having feelings for someone he didn't approve of.

And… Hope? Because Jack knew that if he managed to win Y/n over he could possibly bring her away from that horrid man and into his arms where he could hold her close and let her watch autopsies and surgeries to the content of her morbid little haunted doll heart.

Oh… He definitely had feelings for Y/n.

[ghostly-wisp]

MR. LOVERMAN

Chapter 5 

chapter 4 | chapter 6 | series masterlist | page masterlist

warnings — strong language

The weekend didn't give Pedro nearly enough time to process what happened—however, life moves on. He can't not show up to work because of romance troubles amongst staff, though he certainly thought about it.

Pedro wonders if seeing you would bring up any emotions; he hopes not but knows that realistically they will. He had a panic attack in your classroom because he told you he's scared to have a crush on you—that's not something you get over in just two days. He figures he just has to avoid your gaze and stay in his room while you're in the hallway; it's not like he wasn't doing that anyway.

He hopes you try talking to him, though. He's curious to know if your relationship was on the mend, or if he lost you. He hopes he didn't, but he understands if he did. 

He's walking down the quiet, empty hallways of the school. He loves when the school is like this—empty, and quiet, with no students, and most of the staff isn't there. It feels nice not having to keep a smile on his face and act like all is fine for once. Even if it's for a short period of time. Shorter than he had hoped because he heard his name being called from down the hall. He lets himself get his hopes up, that it's you, and the two of you would walk to your respective classrooms like nothing ever happened. Though nothing in life is that simple, and when he turns, he sees Jenny rushing to catch up with him. He forces a smile, “Hi, Jen. He says once she caught up, you feelin' okay?”

She pants, “Yeah,” she stands normally in front of him. “How are you? I heard that there's some…problems–” she's not sure how to word it, and Pedro doesn't want to talk about it in the middle of the hallway. “I'm fine.” he says, “No problems.” Honestly the fact that it was going around the school already – like you and Pedro were some sort of object to be observed by everyone else, and for her to confront him about it in the middle of the hall. He thinks back to something you told him when you first met – sometimes we’re no better than the students – Jenny hums, “That's good, I’m glad.” She fixes her bag over her shoulder before she speaks again. “Can I ask you a favor? I have a shit ton of art supplies in my car that I need to get into my classroom. It would take me so long if I do it alone, could you help me out?” He hesitates, but he thinks that perhaps he judges Jenny too soon. “Sure,” he says, “Let me put my stuff in my room and I’ll be right back down.” 

That was only the beginning. 

Pedro found himself in situations more often with Jenny around, she would come to his room for lunch, they could talk comfortably about problems. Jenny is very nice – but she's not you. He can’t get past that, no matter how hard she tries. The two of them hang out after school sometimes and she always sits herself just a hair too close to him, he never says anything. He just silently allows it, because he thinks that maybe this is the way to get over you. He thinks that if he moves on that all his problems will wash away. Maybe you don’t even notice what's going on.

You definitely notice, though. 

The way Jennys hand lingers on his arm for too long, the way he goes quiet when you enter the room. You see her going into his room every day during lunch and leaving just before the students come back, you’re not stupid. She’s liked him from the very beginning, and you’re out of the picture. It was only a matter of time before this happened, still, it hurt like hell. 

He was never yours, you were never his – but still, you liked to think about what could’ve been, maybe you were too harsh, or things were moving too fast. What's stopping you from being friends with him? He was still so valuable to you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to walk across the hall to see him. Even if you did, you knew Jenny would be there, and you really didn’t want to see her. 

You had no reason to be mad at her in this situation, really, she saw an opportunity and she took it. You would’ve done the same thing if the roles were reversed. He was just a stupid guy that you were getting worked up about, like some teenager who watched her crush get with someone else. Still, you wonder if he even thinks about you anymore, if he wonders how you are, if even for a moment he thinks about coming into your classroom too. Sam notices you staring in the direction of his classroom for a second too long, and snaps their fingers to bring your attention back. “Y/N!”

“Sorry,” you say, turning your chair to face them again. “What were you talking about?” Sam only gives you a blank face, putting their lunch down on the end of your desk. “Y/N, you have to get over him.” They say it like it's so simple, and this, admittedly, annoys you just a little. “It's not that simple, it's like if I told you to get over Jae.” 

“It is absolutely not the same thing!”

“How?!”

“Jae and I have been married. For three years!”

You scowl, they have a point there, but still, you put the rest of the food in your mini fridge. You decide to take the rest of the conversation back to Pedro. “It's just hard, you know, I’m not just losing the guy I had a crush on, I’m losing a friend.” To that, Sam feels for you. You had been there when Sam was going through their men, too, they know how it feels. “I know,” they say quietly. “But you know, maybe this is for the best. He’s a bundle of hurt, a package you don’t need right now.” Still, you can’t help but think about what could’ve been. 

It could’ve been you, Pedro, and Sam. Laughing and making stupid jokes. It could’ve been you and Pedro hanging out at his apartment watching stupid movies, talking about your day, students. 

It’s not that you don’t value your time with Sam, you love them dearly. It's just that, you missed that extra presence, you missed the new person in your circle. Now you don’t have that, and you know the other teachers know what happened. Because they give you this sympathetic look when they ask how you are, and they suck their breath in whenever Pedro’s nearby. For teachers, they’re not very discreet people. They treat you now like even saying his name will cause you to burst, you hate it. You just want things back to normal, sometimes you wished that Pedro never came here. It would be easier if he just never moved into your district, never into the classroom across from you. Life would be easier if he just asked someone else for help on printing things, it wouldn’t be as fun though. Maybe it's your age, if you're older this could’ve worked. Or like Pedro said, if you met sooner. 

“Still.” you say in response to Sam, “It hurts, but I’ll get over it you just have to give me time.”

Jenny invites Pedro over on friday night, and he accepts the offer, it beats sitting in his apartment alone. They don’t do much, or talk about a lot, they just sit and watch Young Sheldon – which wouldn’t be his first choice, but it was the only thing that was on that they could agree on. 

She’s almost on top of him, their legs touching, and she's leaning awfully close to him. Still, he doesn’t say anything, he places his arms across the top of the couch – almost welcoming it in. When it cuts to commercial, she finally speaks. “I would hate to have a student like him.” Pedro raises his eyebrows, “Really? I think it would be interesting, hearing what he has to say. I guess he is condescending, though.” he replies, “I don’t necessarily want to say I would hate to have a student that acts a certain way, he clearly doesn’t see how he's hurting their feelings.” She shrugs, slowly pushing herself away from him to get up. “Still. I would’ve gotten so frustrated.” 

“Well,” he smiles, to show that he teases. “Good thing you’re an art teacher. I would be screwed. Science n’ all.” Jenny nods, “I guess so.. I’m going to get a glass of water, do you want any?” 

He shakes his head, “I’m good.” and when she disappears into the kitchen – he can’t help but glance around. He notices a few things, a coloring book on her glass coffee table, a stack of student artwork that he assumes is to-be-graded, and lastly, a staff photo that was taken just a year before he started working at the school.

He gently picks it up, looking around at the familiar faces. But his eyes are drawn to you. 

You're smiling widely, you and Sam have your arms around each other, the top you’re wearing looks nice on you, and he knows he's seen it on you a couple times. His heart pangs a bit, he misses you. No matter how much time he spends here, he can't deny that. He notices the dip in the couch from Jenny placing herself next to him, just as close as before. “I look so stupid in that photo,” she laughs, assuming that he was looking at her. He quickly scans for her to avoid making this awkward. Jenny sticks out like a sore thumb, she's in the front of the stand and she wasn’t ready for the photo because she was barely in her spot. “I was the one taking the photo, so I had to rush into the spot.” 

He hums, “You look fine.” 

Just fine she thinks, but she’ll take it. “So, I heard Y/N and Sam talking today, they were talking about you a lot.” This gets his attention, a lot more than what she had hoped for when she brought up the conversation. She hates the hold you still have him, she just wishes you could fucking let go already. He doesn’t say anything, so she continues. “Sam was tellin’ her that she needs to get over you, that you’re not worth all this time.”

That alone fills Pedro’s heart with this excitement, this sense of hope that he needed – but he's careful not to show it. He sucks in a breath, putting the photo down, he feels her hand slowly slide up his hand. This is the first time she actually physically touched him. He tenses at the touch, not expecting it. “If you ask me, she ought to let this go at some point. You know, she can be such a bitch. I mean she made you feel like shit and now she wants to act like–”

He isn’t sure what it is, but he feels an anger bubble inside him, and he whips around, lightly smacking her hand off of him. “Don’t you fucking talk about her like that.” he didn’t realize he raised his voice, his nostrils flare and he glares at her. This surprises her, her jaw is slack and her eyebrows raise slightly. Normally, Pedro would apologize for raising his voice in such a manner, but he doesn’t. “She didn’t hurt you. You have no fuckin’ right to talk about her like that.”

You’re in your apartment, you've got your headphones in listening to You’re On Your Own, Kid, by Taylor Swift. Cleaning up around your kitchen. Your music goes quiet in your headphones, and you notice an incoming call from Pedro. You pause, you even feel your body freeze unsure what to do. If Sam were here, they would advise you not to answer it, but then you think – what if it’s an emergency? If it's an emergency – why doesn’t he just call Jenny?

The pair stare at each other for a moment, and suddenly he stands. She doesn’t protest him, her eyes just follow his movements as he frantically looks for and grabs his coat, throwing it on. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he says quietly, “but I think I should get going now.”

But then your heart pangs, if he isn’t calling Jenny, maybe it's because he thought of you first. You disconnect your headphones and slide the green button. 

“Hello?”

TAGLIST (IM SORRY FOR THE DOUBLE TAG!! THIS IS A REPOST!!)

@djarinsstuff @doodlebob-mp3

@wanniiieeee @zeyzeys-stuff @jay1bird23 @corpsebridenightamare @queerponcho

@peqchsoup @surazim @melanie451 @krisviciousx @elliescumsl0t @theanxietyqueen17 @vasiliki-koshka

@figusquibis @lothirielcorleon @maybedisaster @kpicard @becca193 @themusingkitten @caravelofthesun @coldheartedmar

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 4.16.2024

I know I said I wasn't going to do these for a bit, but I felt like doing one. It's not good news, mostly I just want to complain because I'm very frustrated. I *want* to write, but my brain is just very, very empty and I hate it. I've been working on my ChadIshi story for what feels like a million years. It's not even very good. It's about 1500 words at the moment. I write about 3 sentences per day on it. I have no idea how to end it. All that being said, I would like to *finish* it, rather than just let it sit in my WIPs for 3 years, but I'm also worried that I am just sort of letting it drag on because I don't know what to write after that, either.

Candidate #1 is my Rukia-and-Renji-dirtbag-teens-in-Inuzuri fic, which I love to death and I *hope* that if I work on it, I might be able to make some progress on it. It's 11k words already (some are trash, I'm sure) but it's Most of a Fanfic and it might be kind cool to publish it after Damage History.

I've also been trying to brainstorm the next two parts of Heart is a Muscle. My plan had been for the next part to be an epistolary fanfic where Rukia and Byakuya have to go on a mission together and Renji gets left home with his still-healing arm. However, right at the beginning of Damage History, there's mention of Rukia and Renji going to some dreadful seafood festival at the train museum in East Rukongai. I was originally going to put that in as an epilogue, but then there was something else I wanted to do for the epilogue, and I told myself that it would be kinda fun to have a little short chapter about Rukia and Renji Having a Nice One, For a Change. The problem is, I don't know how to write that. I've spent the last two weeks trying to brainstorm ideas and my brain keeps going "maybe they could solve a murder mystery?" Don't get me wrong, the only thing that is keeping me from turning this into a murder mystery is the lurking Byakuya and Rukia Solve a Murder Mystery that the next one is gonna be (it's probably not actually going to be a murder mystery, but that's the vibe). I just want to write some cute little short hijinks thing and I am too dumb to come up with anything! I even read an entire Wodehouse book, trying to spur the old noggin to churning out a fruity idea or two, but the ideas were not forthcoming, not even a rummy one.

The other option is that I know I am supposed to get back to a little in love eventually, and I was kind of putting it off, because I didn't want it to get caught in my annual summer doldrums, but maybe I should just go for it.

Anyway! I wish I had ideas!! I have no ideas!!

(also, it's is very hard for me to write when I am on a Posting Schedule, I am very aware of this, and I am pretending like it's not true even tho I know this is probably the main issue)

In other news, I drew a Rukia and I was proud of it, please go look at it for me, thank you in advance.

[sepyana]

Noir 2001 Ep. 1-10 Thoughts

I really love her France Shirt dhshbd

I figured stopping at Chloe's introduction would be the best idea. From what I know this should be when the main plot picks up.

First, the bad:

The first episode was really jarring to watch. The cuts were awkward, the music was too loud at parts and certain scenes dragged out for too long. Maybe this is just me, but I didn't realize the music was coming from the watch until the end of the episode, which made things really confusing.

From then onwards isn't like this. Maybe I just got used to it, but the cuts didn't feel jarring and the flow between scenes was smooth enough.

There is a lot of reused animation, which is fine for the most part. It's not as elegant about it as shows like Utena but it's not a big deal.

What annoys me is sometimes the plot will screech to a halt to show you a falshback you have already seen before. Personally, I'm fine if a conversation is just one still frame or made of reused animation. The flashbacks and the occasional training is clearly there for budget reasons and nothing else. That's why it takes me out of the story sometimes.

Kirika and Mireille don't have much going on. They are pretty bland which makes it hard to care for them. The "I will kill you when this is over." thing is the most interesting bit. There is still plenty of time to develop them so I'm not that bothered about it.

The show feels rather empty at times, if that's the word. It feels like onthing is happening. For example: the information we get about the main mystery is not enough to make any conclusions or draw connections, so whenever a new development happens I can only think "Oh, we learned this now". We don't learn anything about what our protagonists are like either. The quiet moments are great for that, but I still feel like I know nothing about them.

I don't mind the censorship but it can be really funny sometimes. Kirika will get hit but her arm will look completely fine, making it impossible to tell how bad she was hurt until she reacts.

When I started episode 7 I genuinely though I skipped an episode. They don't make it even slightly obvious that a time skip happened.

This one is really stupid: I can't seperate Mireille from Misato in my mind. I'm sure Noir fans are annoyed by the comparison by this point but I'm really trying guys (ﾉД`)

Okay,, we can get to the good stuff now:

The atmosphere is great. The backgeound art is lovely and complements the animation well. They definitely achieved the aesthetic they were going for.

The soundtrack is pretty nice. Again, adds to the atmosphere.

Kirika especially can be super clever, making the fights fun to watch (only about 50% of the time though)

The composition of the shots draw your eye to the focus well. It's a good way to make shots interesting with a small budget.

It's fantastically homosexual, while also not being about romance at all. All the notable characters are women. That might add to the yuri vibes I guess.

I liked Silvana. She is one of the few side characters that have anything going on. Her relationship to Mireille is intriguing to me, they have met only once. But it's clear their one interaction has left a big inpression on not only Mireille but also her, especially since they were kids at the time. Her pulling out a knife and cutting the crown off of Mireille when she says she is scared tells us everything we need to know about her.

There is also something to be said about the crowns. Mireille's innocence being destroyed by Silvana. It's important to Silvana that she has control, removing the crown she gave to Mireille is a way fot her to feel superior, I guess. Even at a small age.

Mireille is still scared in their final confrontation, but she fights anyway.

I am very interested in Chloe because clearly, the two maidens who gover death are suppose to be Kirika and Mireille. However, she is insist she is Noir. I imagine things will go south when she realises that's not the case. (I doubt it's the case). The woman we see is most likely using her and Chloe is dependent on her validation. That's what I am guessing.

[maladaptive-jcb]

Chapter 6: Canvas of Connections

Jamie x female!reader

(fluff, safe for under 18)

Click here for chapter 5 if you missed it.

Summary: Reader is an independent artist who lives on her own in a small town and meets Jamie, a musician, in an art studio where their budding relationship formed through shared interests of different forms of art.

Warning: There will be talks about trauma and PTSD from sexual assault, domestic abuse and dissociative episodes throughout the story.

I check my phone screen as I hear that familiar notification sound from it. I feel a jolt in my chest when I see Jamie's name pops up as I click it. I open to a selfie that he sent and chuckle silently. It's a photo of him pouting in the driver's seat angled slightly towards the empty space beside him.

"Feels quite lonely when you're not here… ☹️," the message reads.

I start crafting my response in glee: "How sad. Guess we have to change that pretty soon. ☺️"

Jamie and I have been texting back and forth ever since we reconnected at the cafe. When we felt a deeper sense of closeness, we decided to exchange phone numbers at the end. Both of us realized that our heart-to-heart time wouldn't be enough in just a short coffee break. We texted about everything from our favourite books, destination spots, movies to even as silly as our quirky habits. With every text, my heart dances in flips. I can almost hear his voice, laughter and his genuine smile behind every single one of them.

Ding! Another response received. "How about I'll pick you up tomorrow for our class? We can go together! 😉"

I start beaming at the thought of starting a new routine with Jamie. Usually when I walk into class, he'll already be sitting there with his paintbrushes laid out or I'll be the one who's waiting around to hear the familiar footsteps of his ankle boots walking in. Now that he's already initiating a plan to come together shows how familiar and comfortable we already are getting with each other. This thought thrills something in me.

"Sounds perfect! Can't wait to see you tomorrow! 😊" I hit send, feeling a smile creeping up on my face again.

_____

One more time. I tell myself as I check my appearance in the full-length mirror in my bedroom, knowing full well I'll be back to check myself again in a few minutes. I keep tidying the hair that I tied up while still lowering some face framing bangs, adjusting my colourful-patterned top, paired with a simple denim jacket and a black skirt. I intentionally planned the balance between casual and put-together into my whole look. As I step back, the last touch of my subtle stud earrings sparkle under the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window. Yeah, that looks good.

I wonder if Jamie would even notice the effort behind my look. All those clothes laid out in bed and tossing aside the ones I didn't want from the previous night seems comical to me at the moment. However, I really do want to put more thoughts into how I look to Jamie today. He's quickly becoming an important person to me and I don't want to take that for granted.

"Good morning! I'll be there in 10 minutes. See you soon!," his text pops up on my push notifications. I pack my bag up with my art supplies and go to wait at the window. The view from my apartment window overlooks directly on the front driveway of my building. Peering down, waiting with anticipation of every passing car that could potentially be his. Sure enough, after a while, a familiar blue convertible turns into the driveway. Even after imagining that image so many times in my head, my heart still jumps when it actually happens.

When I walk out of my building, I'm met with Jamie standing right outside the car waiting to open the door for me. I speed up my walk towards him in excitement and give him a quick hug. He smells different, a little woody yet fruity at the same time. It's very intriguing and inviting. Seems like he's putting in the effort for me too. It makes me want to hide my smile at the thought.

"Hi! Wow, you look gorgeous!" he exclaims, admiring myself from top to bottom, which makes me more nervous than I thought I would be.

"Oh, thank you. Well, you don't look so bad yourself," I playfully push his arm.

Sure enough, he looks as stylish as ever but truth is, it doesn't matter what he wears. I'll always be captivated by his ruffled up blond hair, clear ocean eyes, striking features and lean build. Always towering over me with a sense of protection.

"Why, thank you, darling," he smiles and runs his hand through his locks. "Are you ready?" He finally opens the door of the car for me. I chuckle at him.

"You really don't have to do this every single time, you know?" I say.

"Try and stop me," he grins back and closes the door after me.

_____

Mr. Hayes and a few of the students were already there. We arrive quite early so we figured we would set up our stuff before we start. When I see two empty seats next to each other, I turn to Jamie.

"Do you want to sit together?" I ask him. His head turns towards me with a little bit of surprise and gladness.

"Really?" he asks back.

"Yes, silly! Come on!" I nod my head towards the seats.

We take the seats and put down our bags.

"It's just…" he starts ruffling his hair again.

"What? What is it?" My curiosity starts growing.

"I don't know. I just think it's funny since there were times where I was thinking of sitting next to you but there was never an available seat. Even when I was early, someone else took the seats next to mine instead," he stares forward, remembering them in his head.

My heart feels touched until something clicks in my head all of a sudden.

"Wait, I might be crazy here but… is that why you were always so grumpy in class?" I ask.

He starts blushing and rubbing his cheeks with his left hand to hide it. His silver rings twinkling under the fluorescent studio lights as he did. "Oh, lovely. You finally caught on me."

"Wait… Jamie Campbell Bower, have you been thinking about me? This whole time?" I start playfully shoving his arm and teasing him endlessly about it. His face starts getting even redder and it's even harder for him to hide it.

"Stop it, behave yourself!" he says in a slightly higher pitched voice with a shy grin on his face.

"Okay, I'll stop… this time," I giggle.

"I'm glad we're here together by the way… even though it took us long enough," I add, shifting the teasing away to calm him.

"Yes, me too. Plus, you promised to help me in class, didn't you? I'm still holding onto that," Jamie says as he leans his body closer.

"Yes, absolutely my dear boy," I pat his back. He smiles with it.

_____

Today, Mr. Hayes gave us a few options of landscape photos to study and copy them into our paintings for the day. The landscape photos were put up from the easiest to the hardest one. Jamie chooses the one in between. Sort of an intermediate level. It's a lovely photo of a purple sunset with different hues of mountains overlapping on the horizon as they fade away. I choose the same because I think it would be nice for us to study it together.

Jamie has the first few layers of colours on the canvas and is now struggling to get the perspective right. I stop to look at his work and help him learn how to realign the proportions through sketching out the shapes before layering another colour. The change of mood shown in his demeanor after accomplishing what he thought he couldn't do makes my heart warm. It feels as if I succeed alongside him as well. He looks up to me again for approval when I notice something and laugh.

"Jamie, you have purple paint on your cheek," I point at the part of his face, continuing to giggle.

"Oh, great…" he rolls his eyes at himself. "I must look soooo attractive right now."

Yes, you do.

I shake my head and smile. "It's okay, I got this." I pull out my wipes from my bag, gets up from my chair and starts cleaning the acrylic paint on his cheek. The acrylic paint is a little dried up so I'm trying a little harder to get it out when I finally notice his iridescent eyes staring right at me. My heart skips a beat.

"Is it gone?" He asks.

I clear my throat. "Oh, yes a little bit more and… there you go."

"Thanks," he beams.

Class is going really great today, especially now that I have him here with me. No longer just staring from across the room or stealing glances at him when he's not looking. No. He's actually sitting next to me now. As my friend.

Jamie and I couldn't stop talking the whole time. Sometimes he would peek over my painting and tried to learn the techniques that I've been using. Because of his eagerness, he'll try and reach my hand to move it away so he can look closely at what I'm doing. I just shake my head at give a slight chuckle from time to time. His behaviour is quite entertaining to see.

Mr. Hayes comes up to us and tells Jamie that his work is super impressive for the day.

"I'm glad you have been learning more with y/n now, huh?" Mr. Hayes nods at me as he talks to Jamie.

"Absolutely. She's an amazing teacher. A cute one too," he smirks and winks at me.

"Now, now am I not a cute teacher for you, Jamie?" Mr. Hayes teases back.

"Oh sorry, Mr. Hayes, I mean-" Jamie's hand on his mouth now.

"That's what I thought," Mr. Hayes chuckles. "You keep an eye on this young boy, y/n. Alright?" He then says to me.

"I will, Mr. Hayes. I promise," I giggle as he moves along to check the other students.

_____

"Hey, thank you for today. I know it was a lot, you know, teaching me while also doing your own painting too," Jamie says to me as we step out of the studio.

"Are you kidding me? It was so much fun doing this with you. I knew I could unlock your potential."

"I really did great today, didn't I?" I sense his happiness in his high pitched voice and his usual big grin on his face.

"Oh yeah, Mr. Hayes was very proud of you!" I place a hand on his shoulder. "I'm proud of you too."

Jamie pulls me into a hug. It takes me by surprise but I feel pleased to welcome it, taking another sniff of his woody scent. His chest feels warm and I can hear the excitement in his heartbeat.

"You're not working today aren't you?" he asks.

"Nope. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was wondering if you would like to do something," he suggests.

I can feel a smile starts forming on my face.

"Well, what do you have in mind?"

"Come with me. To the beach," a thrill in his voice as he speaks.

"Okay, but please let me get ready and change before we go out again this time."

He laughs again. "Alright, let's go get you back home then."

Jamie drives me home and promised to come back in a couple hours.

Chapter 7

_____

Hi, guys! I'm back! Thanks for all the notes and sweet messages you left me for my stories so far. I'll try to update as often as I can. I hope you like this chapter as much as I do. Just you and Jamie being cute hehe. I'm planning to do more cute stuff like these without derailing my actual main plot. So much in work! I'm excited!

[moyokeansimblr]

So here's the plan...

So I stopped playing ts2 around the end of August for a short lil ts3 stint. That's normal for me. Thought it'd last longer but I really wanna play ts2 again so I will be doing so.

However, for right now anyways, I won't be continuing Doogler Valley/Maple Hollow. Every so often I see Strangetown fan art on the dash and it always makes me want to play Strangetown again. Last time I played it was part of a failed Megahood, but I think this time I'm going to play it solo.

Dunno how interesting that'll be for you guys, since they're sims you (probably) already know and not custom sims. But I enjoy seeing the premades in other peoples' games, so hopefully that means so will you?

I apologize for never finishing anything, I must be a very frustrating simblr for those of you who get attached to other peoples' sims. 😅

Anyways, clean template and empty stealth hoods are in, all my mods, cc & defaults are in. Strangetown is so pretty.

Haven't settled on a Gshade preset to use full-time yet but for now those were taken with papercut.

I should start playing in the next few days and then normal screenshot posts will resume. I wanna catch up on all my favorite peoples' cc from the last few months (PLATASP I AM COMING!)

I'm not sure when I'll resume creating for ts2. I haven't redownloaded Milkshape or the like yet but I have links for everything I need when I feel like it. Had a tiny itch to create recently, but not yet. 🙏

[elazul-sasayaki]

I look over the invitation ticket one more time to make sure I have the right place. I'm not much of a party person, and the venue is fancy enough that I feel inadequate even in my best clothes, but I did make a promise I would at least attend. A friend of mine had apparently been invited to this "event" but had fallen ill and was unable to attend. Both he and the invitation had neglected to mention what exactly this event was, though with the manor standing in front of me, I have the social skills to recognize that asking would probably be something of a faux pas. The only clue as to what was supposed to be happening here was a photo of a chubby hybrid catwolf listed as the guest of honor. Admittedly he was easy on the eyes, but he was probably there as a speaker or maybe he was a CEO or philanthropist celebrating some big accomplishment.

I flash the doorman my ticket and he notes down the number printed on it before opening the door and gesturing me forward. The large chandelier lit ballroom is filled to capacity with all kinds of people casually milling about the place, seemingly without a care in the world, most of them appear upper class, decorated with fancy designer dresses and suits and loaded down with flashy jewelry, but I am surprised to see a number of more modestly dressed folk like myself wandering aimlessly around.

Looking around the place for what is supposed to be happening, I spot a line of people going past a table off in the distance, and make my way over there to try and at least look like I fit in. When I get closer, I find there is more activity here than I expected and get pushed out of the way a couple times by others looking to join in on whatever is happening. I fall in line, more on instinct than anything and quietly observe the room as I slowly shuffle forward.

The house is just as fancy on the inside as it is the outside, expensive looking furniture is sat neatly in its place and the occasional painting or other piece of wall art breaks up the blank spaces nicely. Clearly whomever was hosting this affair was well off enough that its cost was of little real consequence to them. How my friend managed to get a ticket to an upscale event like this is beyond me.

The line has slowly but surely been moving forward as I've been admiring the decor, and I lean around the people ahead of me to get a look at where we are going. What I see doesn't make sense at first, and it's only after a few minutes of staring that I start to comprehend what's happening.

The line passes along a table stocked with all manner of food, carved fruit displays, pasta dishes, slabs of meat, and plenty of rich desserts, it all looks mouth wateringly good and as people walk along it, they pile their plates high with the catering. When they reach the end of the table however, most of that food is being emptied into an amorphous blue blob that I realize with a start is a person! A catwolf specifically, the very same one from the ticket in fact, or at least he looks like he might have been the same one some time ago. Now he looks like a caricature of the plump hybrid the ticket depicted, bloated to preposterous proportions with a sign looped around his pudgy neck that reads "Will eat for food."

Whatever the guests don't eat as they make their way down the table is crammed into his mouth, and now that I'm closer, I can see him struggle to chew through all the goodies being pressed into his open maw. I pick up a plate as I reach the far end of the table and start piling up goodies onto it as the line makes its way down the table. Looking back, I can see only a handful of others in line behind me, it looks like everyone else has already fed the guest of honor, so I figure the most appropriate thing to do would be to treat him to dessert.

As the line ahead of me shrinks, I can only stare in awe at the catwolf, at first I thought the image of him from the ticket might have been old, but with the amount of food he is devouring, it looks very possible that the photo might have been taken only a few days prior. His shirt strains at the seams, little diamonds of blue fur showing between the buttons, and his thick arms dangle uselessly at his sides, looking like overstuffed sausage casings with how tightly they are packed into his sleeves. I can hear his stomach gurgling and churning as it processes the mass of food within, interrupted occasionally by his wheezing or gulping. He has a dim, vacant stare on his face, his eyes tearing up slightly as the person ahead of me forces a slice of pie into the half open maw of the blimp like hybrid, and then all too soon, it's my turn.

I look down at my plate, stacked high with sweets I don't remember grabbing and then back to the catwolf. He stares back at me with a pleading expression on his face, or at least as much of one as he can manage with pudgy cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk. I can't tell if he's pleading for mercy or pleading for more, and I hesitate, just long enough for his stomach to gurgle loudly.

I put a paw on his massive belly and gently stroke the outside, feeling it swell and shrink with each painfully full breath. He swallows more of the food he's chewing and I reach over to my plate and pass a brownie between his lips on instinct. It surprises me, that I do so without even thinking, but at the same time, it feels so right, like feeding him is what I was meant to do. Time blurs as I alternate between rubbing his churning gut and passing him more desserts, and before I know it, I'm reaching over to an empty plate.

I blink suddenly looking over at my now bare platter and then back at the doughy catwolf who is panting and groaning with fullness. It can't have been more than a few minutes, but it feels as though I had been feeding him for days. Wordlessly I step out of line and let the next person in line casually walk forward and cram a slice of beef into the immobile blue blob as they chat with another person in line, almost as if they don't even recognize what they are doing. I pull out my ticket and stare at the heavyset catwolf depicted on it, then back to the boulder sized one at the end of the table. They are unmistakably the same person, but it seems impossible that he could have gotten so fat, so quickly. Reading the invitation over, it only announces him as "Elaz" the guest of honor for this party, there's no mention of why he is the guest of honor, nor is there anything about why everyone seems to be stuffing him to the bursting point.

I look up from the ticket and watch the last person in line pour their drink into Elaz before dispersing into the crowd. Whatever reason everyone had for wanting to turn him into a food balloon doesn't seem to warrant coming back for a second round. The crowd has already started to spread out to the rest of the mansion leaving Elaz alone at the head of the table. I can't help but stare in fascination as he makes a final gulp, condemning the last of his feeding to his colossal gut. Before I even realize what I'm doing, I've already walked right up to him again and put my paws on his bulging belly. He looks at me with those vacant eyes and I can't tell if he is relieved or disappointed that I'm not forcing more food into his mouth. I gently run my paws across his bloated stomach, feeling it shift and burble as the mass of food within churns noisily. Anywhere I put a paw on him, it just seems to keep sinking deeper, first through thick fur and then through plush fat. He seems to appreciate the gesture at least, since his arms are unable to reach with how tightly they are bound by his shirt. The rubbing eventually coaxes out a few small, overstuffed burps, causing the blubbery blue ball of catwolf belly to wobble slightly.

He doesn't speak, but his panting and groaning gets ever so slightly softer, so I can tell I've given him at least some relief from the pressure. I grab a napkin from the table and lightly dab at his face to wipe away the crumbs of food that did not quite make it to his mouth before removing the sign from around his neck and laying it on the table.

Elaz shifts slightly in his chair and I can hear the aged wood creak before it snaps, sending him tumbling to the ground with a meaty slap and an uncomfortable sounding belch. His shirt, strained to the breaking point, rips a seam along the side, and soft catwolf flab oozes out through the newfound weakness.

It takes several minutes, but I am able to help haul him to his knees and eventually his feet, the entire ordeal made more difficult by his colossal weight as much as it was by his thick flabby exterior. My paws sink at least an inch into anything I grab, and it's nearly impossible to get good leverage on him when anything I can push on flows out of the way like a water balloon. When I am able to get him to his feet, I carefully guide him towards a couch lined up against a nearby wall. He can barely walk, only able to make a slow, ponderous waddle when he leans most of his weight on me, nearly burying me in warm, soft blubber. Eventually he does make it to the couch, and I have to hold onto both of his paws to ease him onto the couch so that doing so resembles sitting more than it does crashing into it.

Even as softly as I am able to sit him down, the motion jostles another belch from Elaz, and the tear in his shirt rips another few inches, but he is finally comfortable, or at least as comfortable as he can get under the circumstances. His flabby frame bulges out in every direction, and there's barely enough room left on the couch for me, but I'm able to make it work. As exhausting as getting him across the room was for me, I can only imagine how exhausting it was for him. With Elaz finally seated, I set to work rubbing his belly, receiving pleased gurgles and groans from him as he digests his massive meal. The gentle, rhythmic motion seems to help settle his stomach, and the angry growling of minutes ago is replaced by the occasional low burble. All my kneading and massaging does not erase the consequences of the catwolfs gluttony, but it does, at least, appear to make them bearable. Elaz is putty in my paws, his dim expression much more relieved than when he was, quite literally, stuffed to tears at the table.

With his tummy seemingly satisfied, I take one paw off it to lightly scratch behind his ears and under his meaty chin while my other paw absentmindedly traces patterns in his belly fur. Something about him being stuffed to the gills like that makes me want to reward him for it, I lean into my scratching and rubbing, and get pleasant sounding grunts in response.

A gurgle from his belly suddenly snaps me out of my trance, and I look around to see most of the partygoers have left. I check my watch to find it's been hours since I arrived and am surprised to realize how tired I am when I yawn. I look over to see Elaz staring at the table with that same conflicted look on his face as before, caught between wanting more and feeling like he could burst at any moment.

I get up off the couch and survey the table as I approach, spotting a now mostly melted tub of icecream that would make for a suitable offering. Cool, soft, and calorie rich, perfect for the hybrid who doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word, "enough".

I bring the tub back to the couch and sit down next to Elaz again, he opens his mouth to say something, but I press the corner of the tub to his lips and slowly tip it forwards. He starts to gulp down the thick liquid, slowly at first, but soon his greed starts to overtake his reasoning and he starts to take bigger and bigger swallows of rich dairy dessert. In only a couple of minutes, he has emptied the tub and has to take shallow breaths to recover from the ordeal. As I'm setting the empty tub on the ground, he takes a deeper breath than before and nearly shreds what little remains of his top. The rip in his shirt goes even farther this time, letting more catwolf blubber spill out, pinning me to the side of the couch so hard I have the wind knocked out of me. The two of us groan at the same time, Elaz in relief and I in pain.

After I blink the stars from my vision, I find myself half buried underneath Elaz, squashed between his frame and the frame of the couch. Trying to stand up proves futile, I'm simply too exhausted to heft the mound of fluffy blue belly out of the way, and with Elaz starting to nod off, there's no way he will be able to help me escape either. "Ah well", I think to myself, "might as well make the best of the situation and get comfortable. I've got the softest weighted blanket around, and there's nowhere I'd rather be."

Hhhhhh... Yes, yes please, this is a beautiful expansion on my silly idea, I absolutely love it and could almost feel it as I read along.

Thank you so very much for writing this, I can't think of anything else to say to express how giddy it made me feel to read it. ~w~

[roseonne]

strings left untied

Chloe has had a lot of battles in her life. The hardest one she fought, however, is against a measuring tape.

idea by & dedicated to @suispicibo-setomaouge ! ( ao3 link )

Chloe has had a lot of battles in her life.

Did she win over them, though? Oh, absolutely. She might not look the part, but she is a fierce fighter. It may seem scary at first too; but she sure won't back down on anything! Be it against a class deadline, a big bully, a creepy bug, or even the wooden door with the 'arts and crafts room' sign hanging onto it.

I-I am a fighter...!

The redhead swallows a lump down her throat, as she continues glaring at the colorful signage.

"I... I am a fighter," she tries to convince herself, voice slightly quivering, and barely audible enough to sound like a whisper.

Her eyes have been glued to the door in front of her for how many minutes now? Five? Thankfully, the hallway's empty; no one's around to spot her struggling to figure out exactly what her preferred manner of knocking would be.

Should I tap with my fingers three times? Slowly? What should I say? Do I open the door right away or wait for a response before I proceed?

With each passing moment, the more frantic she grows and restless she becomes. She's supposed to be meeting someone hereーquite the special person for her, truth be toldーand it's already past the particular time they both agreed to meet at. Repeatedly glancing over to her left, then to her right, and back down to the watch strapped onto her wrist every thirty seconds could only take her so far. She has to decide. Quickly.

But her chest is pounding, hands are trembling, and an almost endless whirl of thoughts making her a little lightheaded.

Great.

Talk about leaving first impressions! And because Chloe couldn't have asked to be in a better state, her brain fails to instinctively register the door suddenly swinging open, thus revealing the very person she is bound to meet merely standing there, right before her eyes, frozen in shock.

"Chloe!"

The evident surprise in Rutile's tone brings her back to her senses. And with her senses regained, comes a wave of panic crashing over her entirely.

"R-Rutile!?" The internal wince she has to endure as her pitch rises to a volume higher than the clouds outside that day could ever reach. "Wh-where are you going...?"

"Oh, thank goodness you're here, Chloe!" Rutile exclaims, sighing deeply in utmost relief. "I was so worried, I thought something might have happened. I was just about to go look for you!"

Chloe could very well recognize butterflies fluttering in her stomach, whenever she feels them. And there's definitely a whole army residing in her tummy right now. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" the blonde asks again, eyes filled with nothing but genuine concern, carefully examining each and every facial feature of hers.

"I am!" Chloe rigorously nods her head, hopefully enough to be able to convey her assurance. "I'm... I'm alright. Really."

A short pause. The air surrounding themーit's quiet, but also quite thick and tensed.

Rutile has yet to tear her solid green gaze away from Chloe. Any longer this goes on, the redhead isn't too keen about being able to decently handle its consequences.

And how can she, really? When she's always had this biggest crush on Rutile.

Rutile Flores. The school's most prided model. She's kind, caring, and beautiful. She's easy to get along with, has great style, and is extremely popular across campus grounds. Anyone's bound to fall for her plenty charms!

But Chloeーthe good, little, aspiring designer that she isーcould only go as far as hope to have her feelings noticed; and even farther be reciprocated. Not like she thinks she stands little to no chance at all in the first place, though.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to promise me that you'll tell me if anything's wrong," Rutile abruptly says, much to Chloe's astonishment. 

Taken aback slightly, Chloe brings her eyes up to meet Rutile's. The expression on the latter's face remains stern, but Chloe can tell she's only saying these purely out of her best intentions. Something she would very much love to hear, and something she greatly appreciates.

"Would that be alright? I promise I'll do the same for you," Rutile hastily adds. 

Nothing's wrong with being a bit too trusting, yes? Especially considering the circumstances at hand, Chloe discerns, with the tiniest sparkle of hope she forever carries in her, that maybe, just maybe, she actually deserves a shot at this.

In a heartbeat, the redhead replies with a smile, "Sure. I promise."

~~~~~

Chloe has had a lot of battles in her life.

She would bravely conquer one after another, like the true warrior she is. It's the experiences of this kind that helped convince her that she can do anything, so long as she perseveres in it. But never once did she anticipate a measuring tape to be the one battle that gave her the most trouble in years.

Come on... Come on...!

She mentally cheers herself on and on. The measuring tape she's working with has constantly been getting stuck in between her fingers as she tries her best to note all of Rutile's measurements down on her notebook.

"Ack!" And there it goes again.

"A-Are you okay...?"

It's so frustrating, honestly. When she found out from a club announcement that Rutile's in need of an outfit or two to represent their school at an upcoming event, Chloe gathered up a lifetime's worth of courage and immediately offered her aid. Which, to her surprise, Rutile herself graciously accepted.

The stakes are high. I can't mess up, Chloe tells to herself in her head, I just can't!

But how, exactly, can she not mess up? She's practically, physically, prestigiously a mere couple of inches away from her biggest crush!

"Uhm," Rutile curiously jives in. "How are my measurements going, Chloe?"

"Oh! Er-pretty good, actually." Chloe lets out a nervous laugh. "I... just need to take the length of your arms and we're all good!"

"Wow... That's amazing! You really are something. Thank you, my dear Chloe!" 

After jutting the last set of numbers she recalls down on paper and upon realizing what she had just been called, Chloe's face then subconsciously zooms back up too closely to Rutile's that she yelps and jolts several steps away on reflex, causing her to lose the balance on her feet. Luckily, Rutile reaches out just in time to pull Chloe back towards her body to prevent her from completely falling flat on the ground.

"Careful, Chloe!"

Surreal. The only word to ever describe it all. Chloe could almost mistake this as another one of her many, bittersweet dreams at random nights. If it really is a dream, then perhaps it's alright to remain asleep for a little while longer; maybe at least until she witnesses the end of this beautiful story.

But if it isn't just a 'dream'...

"Please don't hurt yourself, Chloe." There is a hint of pain lingering in each of Rutile's words that touches the core of her soul. The redhead still could barely believe it.

With a heart as light as the threads that seem to have magically tied their fates together, Chloe leaves her answer drifting amidst the calm, early autumn breeze, entering the room through parted curtains of opened windows.

"I won't." A meaningful smile is shared between two lost hearts; now found. "That's a promise. Thank you, Rutile." 

[maniculum]

The College of Grotesque Arts -- Introduction

So, I’m going to tackle this Dungeon23 idea. (This is Mac speaking, incidentally — I talked over the project with Zoe, but the analog element makes it a bit hard to collaborate from a distance, and she has other projects to focus on, so this one’s just me.) The idea, if you didn’t feel like clicking on that link, is to create a TTRPG “megadungeon” by doing one dungeon room per day, one level of the dungeon each month, so that you have a 12-level, 365-room dungeon at the end of the year.

I’m going to start off by saying that this is something I’m mostly doing for fun, so it’s going to be much less polished than something I might do as an Actual Project. (I say this because we do have some Actual Projects bubbling along in the background, and I don’t want anyone to assume they’ll be as slapdash as this is likely to be.) You’re looking at a first draft with minimal planning, which I think is appropriately in the spirit of things.

(If you're wondering about the title, that's what I'm calling the dungeon; to be explained in the next post.)

One of the things we really enjoy here at the Maniculum is medieval marginalia; of course, a podcast is an audio medium, and we’re not art historians so we can’t do a properly-informed discussion of it, so that doesn’t come up much on the show itself. So what I’m going to do is use the marginalia of the Luttrell Psalter for inspiration. Each day, I’ll look at a different page of the manuscript (in order, from the beginning), and try to base the contents of that day’s dungeon room around what I see. We’ll have to skip some pages, because they don’t always have anything besides geometric & floral decorations, but I just looked through it, and I’m pretty sure there’s enough pages left to get through the whole year.

(Text continues below image; I can't figure out how to make the image smaller.)

(You can find the digitized manuscript here, by the way)

I’ll also be using Appendix A of the AD&D Dungeon Masters[sic] Guide to get a starting point for each room, though I won’t consider myself strictly beholden to the results.

I considered doing a hexcrawl instead, since a lot of this marginalia doesn’t really fit with a subterranean dungeon, but it’s been years since I’ve done a proper dungeon, and I’m excited to give it another go. So we’ll just have to try and make it work.

Between now and the end of December, I’ll try and come up with a basic concept for the dungeon — I’ll post that when it’s ready. Come January, I’ll do a new blog post on the website once a week with my progress. (I may or may not post smaller amounts on our social media in between those weekly posts; we’ll see how I’m feeling.) It’s going to be once a week instead of daily because (1) I don’t want to clutter things up on the website and (2) I’m probably not going to stick to doing exactly one room each day. My work habits are disorganized, unpredictable, and possibly a function of undiagnosed ADHD — I expect, based on what I know of my own tendencies, that I’ll regularly pull ahead or fall behind on the project, and it’ll be easier to compensate for that if I’m doing weekly releases.

Now, the material-culture angle of this project: the notebook.

I could not justify buying a special notebook for this project, because I have too many blank notebooks sitting around already. My preferred brand is Field Notes, and I have a ton of those because I was a subscriber for a couple of years before I decided I couldn’t justify the expense, considering that the notebooks were coming in way more quickly than I was filling them. However, unfortunately, my box of empty Field Notes books cannot help me here: they’re pocket-sized and 48 pages long. There’s simply no way to fit this project into one of them. Even if I somehow managed to cram a week’s worth of rooms and descriptions on each page — not possible if I want it to be legible to anyone but me — it would still overflow. I’d spend the whole time stressing about space.

So, reluctantly, I turned to my other miscellaneous blank notebooks. I have a bunch — I’ve gotten a number as gifts over the years that I haven’t used, but unfortunately the reason I never used them also makes them ineligible for this project: inexplicably, most notebooks use ruled paper or blank paper. (Graph paper can be used for any purpose you can use ruled paper before, plus purposes you can’t use ruled paper for. Why would anyone ever use ruled paper when it’s obviously the less useful option?) And, of course, this project requires graph paper.

Turns out I have exactly one notebook that can be used for this project: a battered Moleskine Cahier that must have been in my Empty Notebooks Pile through at least four moves. No idea why I even have this one — I haven’t bought Moleskine in about a decade. Also I think these things come in packs of three and I have no memory of using the other two. Regardless, though, I have very professionally scrawled a title on it in Sharpie. It’s official now — I am doing this project.

[vulpine111]

I am just trying to think about and plan my weekend. I wanted to pay rent/utilities as soon as SSI hit, but I have to wait until the 1st because the post card statement that tells me how much to pay is lagging.

This is annoying because I have more peace of mind spending any amount of money after bills are out of the way. The sooner I pay, the sooner I can call my new case worker and let them know that is accomplished. (My original one retired.) I was supposed to reach out anyway. It's been a long time. Oh well.

I might call my grandpa in a little bit and ask if I can do laundry at his house. I have to see if they're still doing work on the parking lot where I live, though. I don't want to haul my laundry all the way to the entrance. Furthermore, if the cones are still blocking where he'd park, it would be harder to bring my laundry back upstairs, plus anything else.

I wanted him to take me to the dollar store and Sprouts for some light shopping too. Those places aren't far from his house.

I still feel guilty asking him for anything even though he's doing well for someone in his situation. (He doesn't seem to be suffering over his toe he had amputated, at least.)

I don't know what else to do, though. I don't think any friends feel like dropping everything to help me with these tasks.

There is a lilac bush out front in between his yard and his neighbors' yard. While I'm there, I want to harvest a few heads of flowers and use them in lemonade. I hope the dollar store has a pitcher and new ice cube trays. The ice cube trays I bought when I first moved in here have already fallen apart.

Aside from the items I need for lemonade, I was hoping to find socks, a new tooth brush, sponges, composition notebooks, and some more disinfectant spray at the dollar store. There's probably more I'm forgetting.

I am not sure what all I should get from Sprouts besides the lemons. Maybe some more lion's mane mushrooms and tulsi tea. I have a big list of ingredients for meals I'd like to make, however, I am struggling with meal planning/executive function and Sprouts is expensive.

That being said, I would be willing to buy some blue corn flour anywhere I can find it. I'd rather not order it. They didn't have any last time I went to Trader Joe's.

I want this particular flour in order to make tortillas, pizza crust, and anything else I can think of from scratch. I imagine my favorite tacos would taste better with home made tortillas and guacamole instead of the pre made kind I find in stores.

Speaking of food, I need to take a few minutes to call and recertify food stamps. Otherwise any and all spare money is going to food for a while. I don't know how long it's going to take for them to re-approve me if I don't manage to do this before some cutoff date.

My copy of "Anything That Moves" by Jamie Stewart from Rough Trade never came. I need to email them and explain soon is a good time to process my payment. Maybe they tried while my account was empty. :(

Speaking of ordering stuff online, Helix will get a reward if I buy from Gamersupps. I have been eyeing their energy powder for drinks for months now and it seems finally worth trying. It might save me some money that would normally go to energy drinks, kombucha, yerba mate, and coffee. I need some way of indulging my caffeine addiction that is cost effective.

As for how I will mix the powder, I *sort of* want the latest cup from them but I saw reports from customers of these cups cracking frequently. I can't justify spending that much on something that might break almost immediately. I like the art on the latest one a lot because it's the nurse from Poke'mon, though.

I am gonna have to look around Walgreen's for some sort of plain shaker cup or water bottle. That's gonna fuel me to collect a bunch of water proof stickers, though. I should be more careful about how I spend my time.

Anyways, if Gamersupps steps up and improves their cups, I will order more than just the mixings someday. Especially if they happen to feature more characters I like by then.

My only other concern is I don't know how every single ingredient will interact with my meds. It seems safe at first glance, but I plan to bring the container to my next pain management appointment and talk to him about it. It's part of their rules I have to show them all my pill bottles and any supplements I take.

[lynbaccha]

Before I go into details of my own experience, I want to say this;

DO NOT HARASS ANY PERSON MENTIONED IN THIS THING, CAPISHE?!

Idk how relevant it is, but I have a bad experience with the same user. Sure, I wasn't involved with anything in Per Aspera's creating process, never wanted to either as it wasn't my co-project. But I tried to talk to Lance and befriend him. His art was cool to me, and we created our then similar OC's around the same time (Koranus, who was originally evil little bitchboi and my still evil Umbra, whom I really need to use more.)

But me being a fan of Lance's work started with his Dewther-comic, Fade. I even bought it, bc I couldn't wait until Valentine's to see what would happen. And since I found out they were from Finland too, I followed Lance. And he followed me back.

Basically, it was saying stuff in an empty cave and cave answered. Our interactions felt so empty. Despite me trying to ask about Koranus, who I saw as an interesting character, and me dancing around with Lance's dislike towards heteroships - despite one of the main ships I focused were (and still are) Terzo/Omega/and my OC Freya. I know that I mentioned this, because I showed him mine and my good friends OC, Ursa, who's Omega's and Freya's daughter.

I also have hunch what concert we are talking about, and I'm still a bit salty. Basically, I asked Lance can I tag along with their group, bc I was there too, and I wanted to meet fellow ghesties. I asked three times, which I unfortunately can't prove, because I deleted my Twitter before all what was described above went nuclear, and we talked in there before Lance deleted his own. Basically, despite him saying he would ask, he didn't say yes or no to me. And I just found put from Ruska that it was supposed to be a gentle no... But I never got an answer.

Which, honestly, even no could have been 1000 times better than leave hanging.

Also, according to Lance, he himself couldn't manage to arrange it, and that "this child isn't spoiled with brain cells", or something like that, but in Finnish. Of that, I have a screenshot, but it's in Finnish, so idk should I post it here. And Lance apologized only when I reached him almost month after the said concert.

I stopped talking to him directly on around August, because I never felt welcomed in his DM's. And some time after The Thing happened, I unfollowed all the three blogs - Per Aspera, Lance's and Fay's, and I figured out that I would just leave them be. The story itself isn't bad, and I'm all for LGBTQ+-voices to be heard in creative spaces, I just couldn't support the project myself.

I could have blocked him, sure, but... It was a bit complicated matter

I was originally part The Infestissunam-zine, and I was supposed to do a piece for Monstrance Clock. However, my mental health was shitty all last year, so I shouldn't have continued in the zine as long as I did. I was thinking about leaving long and hard...

Lance was one of the mods. And while I was scrolling through "ghoul kits"-tag I noticed something was missing.

One of the Per Aspera posts. About what Koru and Astra looked like as kits.

After doing some research, I found out they both have blocked me from their personal blogs and from Per Aspera. And I was already thinking of leaving, I contacted the other mod and cited my mental health as a reason. However, there could be a possibility that Lance blocking me, and apparently some others, was made known by a third person.

But you unfollowed Lance, why are you so upset about that? Again, Lance was a mod in the zine I was a part of, blocking him wouldn't have made sense. And since Lance didn't spend much time on the server - I think he had one message in total in there before I left, but I might remember wrong - and since his Twitter was long gone by then, I could have only reached hin from Tumblr, as far as I'm aware, if I ever needed his help.

So, uh... That's my experience with this user. And it honestly made me feel a bit like an outsider even in here - I felt very ignored in the last fandom I was in, I was thinking that maybe my approach is wrong.

But, perhaps all the fault wasn't on me? The more these things come to light, the more it feels like that.

So yeah... That's my experience with this user.

why did you guys stop talking to lance and frey

after being ghosted for several weeks and then blocked, we couldn't. the one who wasn't immediately blocked had a few more days, most likely because his place was the bed and shower for a concert, and was then informed that "some friendships aren't built to last" before he was also blocked

he had a point, tbh, because you can't have a friendship with anyone when you push people away and don't communicate with them. one of them didn't say a word to anyone and let the other speak for him.

and the saddest part? it was over the stories and art, for the sandbox we were playing in together to be theirs and theirs alone. they seemed to not want our ideas filthying the pool of theirs. we went from a lively gc to a dead one that felt like we couldn't participate in without bothering them, then a truly dead one when they left.

i can't speak for the others, but i liked seeing their work. it was exciting watching the story change over time because they were my friends and i got to see something they made come to life, and they wanted me to see! do you know what it's like to be allowed behind an artist's creative process, to know that you're trusted enough to see the incomplete work? i loved hyping them up, because they were my friends and i loved giving them the support they deserved.

and they wondered to us about how hard it was to make friends. i really fucking wonder why, with this trail of dead friendships one has left behind, all with the same story as ours. the distancing, the latching on to someone new and shiny, the inevitable blocking because you're not good enough anymore.

if I sound angry, it's because i still am. i'm angry because lost two friends and watched two more struggle to cope with the devastation left in their wake. i'm angry because my stupid brain still makes me wonder if i could have done anything differently when i know they don't deserve a shred of my affection.

they're terrible people, and that's why we don't talk anymore

[signalhill-if]

A New UI Preview!

Here's a glimpse at my progress so far with the sidebar!

None of this is necessarily final (the history buttons at the bottom, for example, are temporary- they're only there for testing!) The sidebar on the right will be used to display various artwork- character artwork when you're in conversation, and hopefully location artwork based on where you are. If that doesn't go well (which it may not, as I'm not great at environment art), I might instead use it to display some at-hand info while you're walking around, like the contents of your pocket, your stats, or even a highlighted lead. All of this is a for-later concern though, and anything that "might be cool" can be added when the necessary stuff is finished!

The art style I've used there is the best I've come up with. I tried more painterly styles and more detailed styles, but they wound up looking less great on a smaller scale. However, they are also not final! I can whip these up very fast now that I've nailed down a basic concept, so these might wind up as placeholders.

I've already noticed (and had pointed out!) the big imbalance in this new look, haha. The left side looks a little empty while the cassettes are tucked away like that. I'd like to put something back there, but I'm not 100% sure what yet. Probably just some graffitti. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!

(Btw, the character there isn't one of the MCs- I wanted to "feel it out" first before drawing them. That's a small side characer I've taken a shine to, the guard at Yvette's brothel.)

Phew... sorry, I rambled a lot there! I've got a lot on my mind about this whole UI thing! If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment or send an ask.