#i actually drew a bunch of stuff today but none of it was posting ready lol

[mookys-wips-and-practice-doodles]

Doodles day 7

Random pony I drew in less than 10 minutes because I was running out of time

[catrasredemption-moved]

hi! if you're still taking Catradora/She-Ra prompts, i'd love to see your take on Catra making progress with her anger and PTSD but having a Bad Day, and how Adora and the others help her through it with love and support. thank you!

((this one gets kind of heavy. TW for slight self-harm))

Some days were fine. Great, even. Some days Catra woke up with a smile and went to bed with one, wrapped in Adora’s arms. Things weren’t perfect, of course. There were plenty of issues, especially between her and Adora. Confessing their love hadn’t fixed everything. But it had allowed them to fall back into some old habits, such as sharing a bed.

(Catra technically had a room next to Adora’s, but it didn’t get much use.)

Today was none of those things. Today was a wake up alone because Adora had to do something day. Today was a wake up with skin crawling and nerves itching and fur on end waiting for a danger that didn’t exist day. Today was a jump at the shadows day.

Today sucked the moment Catra opened her eyes.

Sometimes there were things that set Catra off - specific events or things that would remind her of the bad things. She hated the color green more than anything. A very specific shade of green. Sometimes, someone would say something that rang too close to something Shadow Weaver or Horde Prime had said. Sometimes, Scorpia would use her powers, and the sound would freeze Catra as effectively as Shadow Weaver ever had.

And sometimes it was just a bad day.

Of course, it was a meeting day. Catra couldn’t figure out when exactly she had started getting involved in the meetings. Glimmer had convinced the others that Catra’s strategic abilities would be good for for them; she was good at planning. She always had been. The same skills that had allowed her to make it so far as a Horde leader could be put to good use with rebuilding Etheria. And usually Catra was happy with that.

At that moment, however, she would have given anything to be anywhere other than this bright, exposed room at this stupid table surrounded by loud, chattering princesses. Adora slid in at the last moment, sitting beside Catra and grinning. Catra tried to return the smile. She wasn’t sure it was any good, but Adora was easy to fool. And Glimmer started the meeting as soon as Adora was there, saving Catra from any questioning.

Today’s topic was rebuilding routes between the kingdoms, especially the more far off places like Entrapta’s and Frosta’s. Catra did her best to pay attention, to figure out where she could contribute, but her mind was in other places. Her ears were twitching, knee bouncing, heart pounding. She wasn’t sure if she was anxious or angry or some weird mix of both. She had her claws pressed against her thighs, not breaking the skin, but sharp enough to keep her grounded. She stared at the map on the table without really seeing it. Any other day she probably would have had a dozen ideas.

Today it all ran together as her mind raced.

She tried the breathing exercises Perfuma had taught her, tried the stupid “five things I’m grateful for” thing that Scorpia had said always made her feel better. She tried to focus on Adora’s presence next to her, her constant anchor, her reminder she was safe, she was home. Nothing was working. Nothing was working. It was infuriating. She was safe, she was supposed to be happy, nothing had happened, so why did she feel like this?

She didn’t hear Adora say her name. She barely felt the brush of gentle fingers against her shoulder. But it was enough to jerk her back to reality. Anyone else might have ended up with their face cut open. But Adora had grown up with Catra. She recognized the way Catra’s fingers twitched, the way her muscles bunched, the way her arm drew back, ready to strike. Adora knew to jerk back as Catra lashed out.

It was terrible that part of her was grateful it was Adora.

Silence fell. Adora had her hands up in a placating gesture, expression gentle but concerned. Catra was vaguely aware she was starting to shake. She could feel everyone else staring at her. Judging her. There’s the Catra we all know, the wild animal who can’t control herself, can’t be trusted, it was only a matter of time-

“Hey. You okay?”

Damn it, why did Adora have to sound so fucking worried?

Catra shoved away from the table, muttering, “Can’t be here,” and hurried out before anyone stopped her. She didn’t really remember much of the walk, but somehow she was back at hers and Adora’s room. Melog slunk out from under the bed, mane shifting colors as he tried to figure out what Catra was feeling.

What’s wrong?

“I don’t know!”

She kicked the vanity chair, knocking it over, breathing heavily. “I don’t know, I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t fucking know, I just - everything-”

She was definitely shaking now. Melog watched her, clearly discontent. You need to breathe.

“I know I need to breathe!”

Her hand was on the back of her neck now. She still remembered that empty, hollow peace she had felt under Prime’s control. It was the only time in her life she could remember not being angry. She hadn’t been happy by any means, but she had been... calm. Sedate. Things she had only ever felt in fleeting moments, there and gone before she had time to comprehend them. Now, after experiencing Prime’s warped version of those feelings, they felt like a cruel joke. How was she ever supposed to be calm without remembering that ship? How was she supposed to feel peace without wanting to disconnect herself in the process?

Melog collided with Catra, knocking her to the ground and very pointedly pinning her arm down. She was confused and annoyed for a moment before she felt something sticky and warm on the back of her neck. Her claws had started to dig in.

“What do you want from me?” The words were barely a whimper. Melog purred, nuzzling her cheek against hers.

That was the position Adora found them in a couple minutes later. She let herself into the room, noting the disturbed vanity chair but lack of any other destruction, which was good. Melog was sitting on Catra, which wasn’t good, and Adora saw the blood on her hands. She knew it wasn’t hers, and it probably wasn’t Melog’s, and no one had raised the alarm about Catra attacking them since she’d left the meeting, so...

Adora went to the bathroom and returned with the first-aid kit. Only then did Melog move, letting Catra sit up. She didn’t say anything as Adora settled behind her, cleaning up her neck. It wasn’t too deep, at least.

“What happened?” she asked as she worked.

“Nothing,” Catra muttered.

“Bad day.”

“No. Nothing happened.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have a bad day.” Catra hissed as Adora gently disinfected the wound. “I have them too, ya know. I wake up and everything just feels tense and on edge and like I’m waiting for something to happen even though there’s nothing that could happen.” Catra wilted slightly. She had never noticed that. “I usually punch it out. None of Perfuma’s breathing stuff works for me.”

She finished bandaging the wound, pressing a small kiss to it when she was done. “Can I hold you?” Catra nodded stiffly. Strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her in until her back was flush with Adora’s chest. Adora rested her forehead between Catra’s shoulder blades. “Has Bow ever told you about his dad?”

“No.”

“He fought in the war years ago, during the First Princess Alliance. He doesn’t like to talk much about it, but he... understands feeling this way, I guess. Bow’s dragged me there to see him a few times. There’s a lot of snacks and tea. It helps, though. There are actual words for these feelings, you know? Not just angry, because I know it’s more than that, but words that really describe it.”

Catra hesitated before asking, “Like what?”

“PTSD is the most important one, I think. It’s um...” Catra could feel Adora’s forehead wrinkling as she tried to think, “Post traumatic stress disorder,” she finally said, a hint of pride in her voice for remembering that. It was a lot. “It’s like your mind is stuck on the bad things that happened to you, and you can’t turn the thoughts off. Like your nightmares, or the way you panic when something reminds you of Horde Prime or Shadow Weaver.”

Something loosened in Catra’s chest, and a bit of tension eased from her body. “I’m not just broken?”

“Of course not.” Adora hugged her tighter, resting her chin on Catra’s shoulder. “You’re hurt. Just like I am. Just like George is. It’s okay. It’s normal.” She laughed. “It might be the only thing about us that’s normal.”

A small smile pulled at Catra’s lips. She finally relaxed against Adora, curling up. “You should come with me to see George some time. I think you’d like him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Also, they live in a giant library. You’ll definitely like that.”

The faint sound of bells hit Catra’s ears just as Glimmer appeared, holding a tray. “Don’t mind me, I’m not here,” she whispered loudly, setting the tray on the bed.

“You... are, though,” Adora pointed out.

“What’s that?”

Glimmer turned to them, smiling. “We kind of agreed that it’d be best to just let Adora talk to you but it kind of felt wrong not to do something, and Bow suggested snacks and... I’ve been teleporting across Etheria for the last hour trying to find everyone’s favorite comfort food.”

Catra blinked, surprised. “Everyone?”

“Yup! I’m not too sure about some of these things, but you know, your choice if you like them or not. Mermista swears dried seaweed is good. And Scorpia seemed pretty confident you’d like... I dunno, she called them the red ones.”

“Oh!” Adora perked up.

“Horde thing, got it.” Glimmer laughed. “Anyway, we’ll be down in the meeting room, let us know if you need anything.”

“Can you... thank them for me?” Catra asked hesitantly. “And thank you for doing all the legwork.”

“I’m an awesome friend, what can I say?” Glimmer feigned humbleness, but there was a genuine smile on her face as she disappeared again. Adora was pressing forward a bit, eyes on the tray.

“You want to see what she brought, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Catra stood, taking Adora’s hand to pull her up as well, and they went to settle on the bed. “Bets on who suggested what?”

Adora examined the tray. “Cake, hot chocolate, and brownies is definitely Bow and Glimmer. Red bars are Scorpia, seaweed is Mermista.”

“Tiny foods are Entrapta. Snowflake cookies must be Frosta. Green stuff.”

“Perfuma,” they concluded in one voice, exchanging smiles.

“What do you think this is?” Catra asked, picking up a round piece of bread with a hole in the middle.

“Oh, that’s a donut! I bet that was Netossa and Spinnerella, there’s this bakery outside of Bright Moon that they really love. They used to drop off treats for us if they were in the area.”

Catra carefully ripped it in half, offering a piece to Adora. It was sweet and chocolate-y and tasted really good. “I’ll try the seaweed if you try Perfuma’s green stuff,” she challenged. Adora puffed up, clearly ready.

“You’re on.”

They each picked up their chosen poisons and took a bite. The seaweed actually wasn’t that bad, Catra thought as she chewed. Thin and brittle and weird, but not bad. Adora, on the other hand, was choking on whatever she had tried.

“No green stuff, got it.”

Adora took a long sip of hot chocolate before she spoke again, her voice gentle. “Better?”

“Better than it was.”

It wasn’t ever completely better. But it was more than Catra could’ve hoped for when she had woken up that morning.

And that was enough.

[canaryatlaw]

today was....mixed. it had some good parts and some not so great parts, and I’m leaning towards the not so great parts right now because I’m stressed of course and like....I really think I’m going to flunk the bar. like not being dramatic, I really think it’s going to happen. I wasn’t diligent enough in studying and I consistenly get a large percentage of the practice questions wrong and I can never recall the stuff even when I did study it and like....I’m so fucking stressed out about all of it and like, it’s the worst. but, let’s start with the beginning of the day. My alarm was set for 8:45, the plan was to get up and buy tickets for New York Comic Con when they went online at 9 am, then after that I would take a shower and get ready, then uber to church because I’m annoyed with my current public transportation options. well, that’s not exactly what happened. I did wake up at 8:45 and brushed my teeth, and was sitting at my laptop waiting for it to hit 9 am, and legit as soon as the clock turned to 9:00 am I clicked the link, and was set to a site telling me I’m in line and not to refresh the page, it will update when it was my turn. so I waited. I mean, I clicked it right away, how many people could actually be in front of me? WELL. turns out it was a lot. I legit sat there staring at the page waiting for it to update for over a half hour, when I legit clicked it as soon as it went on sale....and then finally at like 9:35 it updated and I was able to click through quickly and enter my information (you’re on a 15 minute clock to fill it all out) and was able to get tickets for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as we planned. I had been talking to Jess while we were waiting since we’re going together, and she hadn’t gotten through yet and was kinda freaking out, so I did my best to comfort her until she got through like 5 minutes later. Well, at this point it was too late to make it to church on time, so fuck that, Jess was still freaking out a bit so I suggested we go get breakfast (I mean I first suggested that we go get ice cream but none of the places opened till 11, so then I suggested breakfast) at this little place that’s pretty much exactly at the halfway point between our apartments that does breakfast and we’ve never actually eaten there, so I got dressed and headed over there to meet up with her. It was actually not terribly hot out at that time of the day (it got horridly hot afterwards of course) so we sat outside and ate, I got french toast because I’m predictable and Jess got a veggie omelete because she’s also predictable, in food choices at least, and we talked about plans for upcoming cons and trying to figure things out, which is of course an ongoing conversation because there’s always another one coming, and of course she’s going to SDCC in like four days (which I am just absolutely so happy for her about and definitely not jealous at all) so we were talking about outfits and cosplays and figuring out the phone conundrum so she can actually have a working gps while running around an unknown city. So we had a good breakfast then parted ways, I was hot at that point and I had a bunch of bath bombs and bubble bars from Lush that I never actually used because I never really wanted to take a bath at night or had the time in the morning, but I had some time today and I figured it would be a good opportunity to use one, so I drew a fairly cool bath because it was so fucking hot and used a pink bubble bar, which of course turned the water pink. So I continued to take a bath, which included washing my hair, and since I used my color depositing conditioner on it yesterday it always washes out as like neon pink, and when that got combined with the already pink bath it became like, the most intensely pink bath that ever existed and I was amused lol. The live podcast episode I was on a few weeks ago was released today so I got to listen to myself on that, which was an odd experience, but I definitely enjoyed hearing myself rant about AvaLance and Sara Lance and why she’s my favorite character on all of tv, and then of course me trashing Elongated Man (I think the phrase I used was “I didn’t order this) and knock off Batman Green Arrow and how I now have to qualify my statements that GA is my favorite superhero with “NOT the Arrow version.” So that was fun to listen to. But I finished that and then went to studying, trying to knock out the lecture I had for today, it was like an hour and 47 minutes so not so bad. basically I’m going to try to do one lecture a day for the Illinois essay subjects that I missed by switching over late, so I’ll at least have something to go off of if I get a question based on it, because right now I don’t know jack shit about them, like one of them is commercial paper, what the hell does that mean??? so I obviously need to get that done. So I got through the lecture and then started working on the other review exercises when I got a message from Jess asking if I wanted to get ice cream because it was HOT and I’m weak and can never say no to ice cream, so I headed out to meet with her and then walk to the ice cream place. It wasn’t too crowded when we got there, but after we had ordered and paid there was a huge influx of people, like a group with about twenty children with them, so it looks like we hit it at just the right time. I tried their lemon meringue ice cream that I’ve considered for a bit now and I honestly wasn’t crazy about it, but oh well, it was still good because it was ice cream. So we sat at a table and ate our ice cream and talked for a bit before heading home because it was getting super crowded and we didn’t want to take up a table when we had finished eating. So, back to studying. I’m really bad at like, reviewing my notes to study because I’m so impatient, but it also makes me anxious because I know I don’t have any of this shit memorized and I’m gonna just be so fucked over. But yeah, did that and finished up the assignments for the day. I was considering doing another lecture since I had some extra time and I had thought I checked the fed income tax video and it was only like 30 minutes, but I must’ve checked the wrong thing because when I brought it up it was a full 4 hours and it was already 6 pm after a solid 8 hours of studying and like.....that’s not happening. But I kept the tab open to do some extra work when I got a chance. I had a few random things I had to do, my dad wanted me to review some blog posts one of the girls who works in his office had written because he wanted me to clean them up a bit. They weren’t anything extraordinary, it showed a bit of lack of knowledge on some of the finer points of law, and there were a bunch of awkwardly phrased sentences, and instances when it was apparent she basically used a thesaurus to get a more complicated word, except the meaning was off and I had to change it back to the simpler word that actually conveyed the right meaning. Then I did an article draft for when the legends trailer comes out for the podcast website, then finally updated the company tumblr which was WAY overdue, it had been 3 weeks, which I’m pretty sure is the longest I’ve gone without updating it (of course it didn’t effect the posts because it’s on a 6 posts a day queue) but if I let the queue deplete too much I can lose the system I use to queue the posts (I would try to explain it but it’s absurdly complicated lol). And I decided to watch Heathers the movie since I had nothing better to do and I’m quickly becoming obsessed with the Heathers musical cast recording and have been listening to it all day, so I figured I should see the source material. It was an interesting perspective to see the musical based on the movie first and then see the movie. I thought they actually stuck pretty close to the plot as far as those things go, the musical lifted a LOT of lines directly from the movie but I think they made it work for them so I can’t really complain about that. I do like that the musical gives us the part where we see how Veronica got in with the Heathers to begin with, the Martha friendship was the only other really major change, which I was kinda meh about because she’s not that big of a character. So I liked the movie a lot, Winona Ryder is awesome and she was a great Veronica. But after that I watched like two episodes of Nailed It before switching over to 30 Rock and then eventually getting ready for bed. I’m like, majorly tired now and my eyes no longer want to be open, so I’m going to close this out here. Goodnight darlings. Have a lovely Monday.

[wordshappensometimes]

Inked (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Summary: After spending the afternoon drawing all over your legs in sharpie, you’re worried a certain supersoldier won’t be a fan of your new tattooed look, but if nothing else, Steve Rogers is a man who’s full of surprises.

Steve Rogers x Reader

A/N- inspired by “Ink my Skin” by the wonderful @fvckingsteverogers (their story is super cute- read it HERE) and by the fact that this is how I actually spent my afternoon today... well the drawing all over myself part anyway ;) (seriously my legs are covered in sharpie and I have work tomorrow.. thank goodness for long pants) Enjoy the fluff!

Warnings: none, I don’t even think I swore in this one!

Words: 2,833

You looked around your apartment and sighed contentedly, it’d been ages since you’d had time to really go through and clean the place, but since Steve had been on mission for the past week you could finally dedicate some time to clearing out your embarrassingly cluttered apartment. It’s not that you couldn’t clean when he was around, but when he had a day, or hell even an afternoon off, all thoughts of cleaning and productivity were thrown out the window. Even if Steve insisted that he didn’t want to distract you from your work, you just couldn’t keep your hands off of him if he was within arm’s reach.

You reached down and pulled up on the black trash bag lying at your feet, tossing it over your shoulder with a grunt, you carried it towards the front door and plopped it down by the other two trash bags that you told yourself you’d take out later. It was rainy and crummy today, and the last thing you wanted to do was run across the parking lot of your building just to throw out the trash. With Steve away you knew it was more than likely that you’d leave it there for a few days- with no one around to impress, your motivation to keep things super tidy waned, to say the least- but at the very least you knew you wanted to take out the trash before Steve got back from his mission, just so he wouldn’t have to do it.

Making a mental note to remember to get to those bags before Steve did, you stepped into your bedroom and looked around. This was the last room in your apartment you needed to tackle, and it was by far going to take the most work. You had clothes to sort through and donate, linens to wash, and a desk full of useless tchotchkes (knicknacks), notebooks you hadn’t touched in years, and all sorts of other crap that you needed to weed through. You set to work on your desk, figuring it wouldn’t take you too long to figure out what to keep and what to trash, unlike the debate you were likely to face when it came to your clothes. You dumped out the contents of each drawer one at a time and sorted out your stuff accordingly. Aside from some unidentified usb cables, loose post it notes and several years’ worth of school notebooks, there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff to sort through so you were able to work quickly.

To your great surprise, you discovered your old (more like ancient at this point) ipod classic and an unopened 12 pack of sharpie markers at the back of your top drawer. You hopped up excitedly and brought the two treasures to your bed, you just had to know if your ipod still worked, so you plugged it into your laptop and crossed your fingers. Would you like to sync “The Titanic lol” to itunes?

“It liiiives!!!” You proclaimed dramatically. You wiggled excitedly as you got ready for a middle school/high school era jam session, and you literally laughed aloud when Bowling for Soup started to pump out of your computer’s speakers. You reached for the pack of sharpies and pulled the cap off of the black one to see if they were still any good, but all your notebooks and post its were on the other side of the room. You looked down at your bare legs sprawled across the bed, chuckled to yourself and shrugged playfully, Beats getting up to get paper. You did a few test scribbles, just to see if the marker worked, but that quickly turned into doodling a bunch of dandelions just above your knee, which turned into wanting to test all of the markers in the pack, ya know, to be sure they worked.

You got lost in the nostalgic early 2000’s music and stink of sharpies, and before you had realized just how long you’d been sitting there, your leg, foot and ankle were more or less covered in ink. You also hadn’t realized that your front door had opened and closed.

“Y/N?”

“Steve? Is that you??” You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your lips as you called across the apartment, you knew he was probably exhausted, but the fact that Steve always came straight to your house after a mission filled you with a sense of relief and excitement that you couldn’t quite fully explain.

Steve popped his head into the doorway to your room then stepped completely into view. He wasn’t in his uniform anymore, but you could tell he hadn’t showered at the tower, and to your great relief it looked like he hadn’t been too badly injured this time around.

He drew his face up into a confused wrinkle and laughed softly as he took in the sight before him, “What the hell happened here?”

You were confused for a moment, but one glance down at your legs quickly reminded you of how you’d spent the last few hours. You shrugged and played up an exaggeratedly guilty face,

“I found some new sharpies...?”

Steve shook his head as he stepped into your room and sat on the bed next to you, he placed his hands on either side of your face and pulled you into a gentle kiss. You wrapped your arms around him and sighed contentedly. As much as you hated it when he would leave, there was nothing quite like having him back in your arms again after a long mission.

Steve pulled away slightly and rested his forehead against yours, he sighed and closed his eyes as he stroked your hair.

“God, I missed you so much.”

You pecked a light kiss to his lips.

“I missed you too, Steve. ”

Steve smiled at you, his blue eyes shining into yours. He scanned you up and down briefly, and his gaze landed on your heavily inked leg. He chuckled silently to himself and patted your thigh as he started to shake his head again.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” You knew your boyfriend wasn’t the biggest fan of tattoos, but you were hoping you’d be in the clear with your recently acquired temporary ones.

“No no... Actually I kinda like em.” He blushed a little at the confession.

“Really?” Now that you hadn’t been expecting.

“Yeah!” He smiled up at you and moved your leg so that it laid across his lap. “You know I love looking at your drawings” he said softly as he started to inspect your work. Steve gently traced the lines on your legs with his finger, sending goosebumps up and down your skin. Art was one of the first things the two of you had bonded over, in fact you had been drawing in your notebook when the gorgeous blonde first approached you in the Avengers tower’s cafeteria.

“Were you finished already?” He looked up at you suddenly, and there was a light behind his eyes that you couldn’t quite identify.

His question caught you a bit off guard. “Uhhh, I dunno. I mean there’s plenty of space left but I was quickly running out of ideas.” You laughed softly. “Why?” You bit your lip slightly as you waited for Steve’s response.

He arched his eyebrow and threw you a playful look, “Can I do some?”

Your face fell into a wide smile and you laughed, this man seriously never ceased to amaze you.

“I’d love that.” You bent forward and reached for the pack of sharpies. You readjusted your seat slightly and motioned at yourself with your best Vanna White impersonation. “Where would you like to work?” You quirked an eyebrow up at him.

Steve pulled his lip into his mouth as he looked you up and down, debating. Finally he reached out towards your shoulder and pushed up the sleeve of your t-shirt.

“Here.” He pressed his hands against your upper arm and shoulder.

Your cheeks flushed slightly, Steve knew just how to push your buttons in any situation, and when he was sweet like this you couldn’t help but turn into a blushing, giggly mess. It was these quiet, intimate moments with the supersolider you cherished the most, because those were the moments when Steve was most at ease, and the most like himself.

You held out the pack of sharpies to him, “Have at it, babe.” Steve pulled out the purple sharpie and you quickly pressed a kiss to his nose. He wrinkled his nose and blushed slightly. He poked your nose in retaliation.

“No peeking.”

“Oh what? That’s not fair!” You pursed your lips in mock annoyance and narrowed your eyes slightly. Steve dropped his head to the side and looked right back at you. While his puppy-dog pout was nearly invincible, you were determined to win him over. After what felt like ages (and after morphing your own expression so that it became more and more ridiculous) Steve finally cracked and let out a laugh.

“Alright, alright fine. You wanna draw on me while I do you?”

You shot up, “You mean it??”

Steve laughed again, it was like music to your ears, if only you could keep him constantly laughing. “Yeah I mean it. It’s only fair. Besides, I’d love to wear some of your art, doll.” He moved in close and nuzzled his nose against yours, causing you to giggle like a schoolgirl.

You pulled your lip between your teeth as you scanned your boyfriend’s ridiculously sculpted body for where you’d like to work. You placed your hand over his left bicep and traced light circles into the fabric of his shirt with your finger as you raised your eyebrows at him. Without a word Steve pulled off his shirt and you pulled yourself onto his lap so you could both easily reach where you were going to draw. You wiggled your hips slightly as you adjusted your position in Steve’s lap, and smiled to yourself when he hummed contentedly. You felt your boyfriend’s left hand rest on your hip as he pressed a quick kiss to your cheek. The two of you locked eyes for a moment, Steve brushed a loose hair from your face and flashed you a beautiful smile.

“I love you so much, Y/N.”

“I love you too. I’m so glad to have you back.” You kissed him gently on the lips, and as you went to pull away, Steve reached up and pulled you back in, deepening the kiss. Before you got too lost in Steve’s touch, you pulled away and wiggled your eyebrows at him as you reached for the markers.

You pulled the blue sharpie from the pack and got to work on Steve’s chest as he, in turn started in on your left shoulder.

For the next hour, the two of you traded markers back and forth, pausing every so often to kiss or tickle one another. You sang quietly along with the music as you worked, and Steve couldn’t help but look down at you and get lost in the adorable expressions you made as you focused on your drawing.

“Hey, I thought you said no peeking!” you taunted playfully when you caught him staring down at you.

“Sorry doll, couldn’t resist.” He pressed a kiss into your forehead before returning his focus to your arm; whatever he was doing over there it must have been pretty intricate, or it least it felt like it as far as you could tell from the pen moving over your skin.

“Well ya better focus on your own work, cause I’m just about done over here, Rogers.” Even though he wasn’t looking at your face as you spoke, Steve could practically hear the eyebrow wiggle that followed your little brag.

A few minutes later you leaned into Steve and pressed a wet, passionate kiss into his neck to let him know you’d finished your drawing. You felt his adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed roughly.

“I take it you’re finished then?”

“Mmhmm” you hummed your answer into his neck as you kept kissing him.

Steve let out a soft moan. “Just give me a second to finish up here doll, otherwise you’re gonna drive me insane.” Deciding not to torture him any further, you let your head rest in the crook of his neck, and you watched him as he finished his drawing.

Moments later, Steve brought his hand up to your cheek and brushed it with his thumb, you could feel him smile against the top of your head.

“You ready to see?”

You sat up in his lap and smiled brightly.

“Hell yeah. Are you?”

“You know it, doll.”

“Go ahead.” You nodded down at the drawing you’d done on Steve’s chest as you reached for a mirror.

Steve looked down at your work and couldn’t help but laugh with surprise at what he saw.

“Is that...?”

You nodded excitedly. “Do you like it?” You held the small mirror up so Steve could better see. Steve’s hand traced over the small ferris wheel and boardwalk you’d drawn over his skin. You had only been to Coney Island the one time when Steve took you there on a date, but from the smile in his eyes you could tell you’d done a good job capturing his treasured Brooklyn boardwalk.

“Doll... I love it.” He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into a deep kiss. He pulled back suddenly, and his eyes shone with excitement “Your turn.”

You bit your lip excitedly as you twisted to get a better look at your left arm, and once Steve’s drawing came into view you gasped and brought your hand up to your mouth. You were speechless. It started halfway up your forearm and curled just over your shoulder, and it was absolutely stunning. You gingerly traced your right hand over the beautiful bouquet of purple lilacs, pink roses, and red carnations, it was only after a moment that you noticed that in the middle of all of these flowers there was sparrow that had its wings stretched out behind it in flight. How Steve had managed to capture so much detail and beauty with just sharpies you had no idea, but you were absolutely blown away.

“Steve....” you looked up at your boyfriend, you were at a complete loss for words.

Steve smiled softly at you and took your hand in his.

“You remember our first date?”

You nodded, “Of course. T-the flowers, they look just like the ones you gave me... and we saw that huge flock of sparrows when we were walking through the park..”

“Do you remember what you told me about sparrows?”

You furrowed your eyebrows and shook your head slightly. Steve brought your hand up to his mouth and kissed it.

“When we saw those sparrows, you told me that in Greek mythology, sparrows symbolized true love... I think you said it was because of Aphrodite- but anyway... it just felt right.” He smiled sweetly up at you and you felt your eyes water with tears. What on earth did you do to deserve this beautiful man?

“Oh, Steve...” tears were slowly rolling down your cheeks now, but you didn’t care, “that’s beautiful. And this- this is absolutely stunning.” you said, motioning towards the ink on your shoulder.

Steve held your face in his hands and brushed away your tears with his thumbs. You giggled when he kissed you on the nose.

“I love you, Steve.”

“I love you too.”

You looked back down at Steve’s drawing and bit your lip in thought.

“I know you’re not big on tattoos... but how would you feel if I got this one done?” You looked up at him, hoping he wouldn’t mind the idea.

“Seriously?” he looked surprised, but you nodded enthusiastically and even bounced slightly on his lap to show your excitement.

Steve bit his lip in thought “.... One condition.”

“Name it.”

“You have to draw a sparrow for me to get done.”

Your jaw dropped and you opened your eyes wider than you thought possible.

“Steve! Are you serious?”

Steve nodded, he looked just as excited as you did now, “Yeah!... Sparrows mean true love... So we can’t just have one sparrow.”

Once again you were at a loss for words, but Steve crashed his lips into yours and kissed you, so words weren’t exactly a priority right now. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself as close to Steve as physically possible. You carded your fingers through Steve’s hair, eliciting a quiet moan as he massaged his hands into your hips and back. In an instant, Steve lifted you from his lap and before you realized what he was doing he had you pinned between him and your mattress, a playful grin splayed across his face.

“So whaddya say, doll?”

You pulled him down into another passionate kiss.

“Deal.”

[miximax-hell]

Happy birthday to me. /o/ And that’s the first and last time I mention it in this post. I don’t care and you shouldn’t either—I just want cake.

FubuGabu is back! Not by popular demand because, well, no one has asked for it, although the feedback I got was lovely. But, hey, I had this material ready, so might as well do something with it, lame as it might be.

These are some early and not-so-early doodles of FubuGabu. The latter was pretty much the base of the final design, but the former… that’s from 2014 or something wild like that. I actually had many more doodles and concepts, but I hated them all so much that I erased most of them. I’m surprised I could save that one. I might have kept it because it was a full lineart, I guess. In any case, I’m glad I could find that much.

Since it’s fitting to do, let’s talk about FubuGabu’s design today! There’s a lot to talk about, but my memory is awful, so I’m sure I’ll forget about some things. I hope it won’t betray me too much.

Anyway, as usual, more under the cut.

Well, well, well. Ain’t this boy one little shit. Fudou gave me nightmares. Kidou is still giving me nightmares (to the point where I’m considering changing the idea I’ve had for around a year now). Someoka was awful to draw and make sense of. Max’s tail was awful to work with. But Fubuki? Fubuki is on a whole different level.

Let’s start by talking about the final design, since that’s the better one. Not even good, just better. That’s an epic victory as it is, so who cares.

FubuGabu’s design, as the reference sheet and my last post states, is not based on Gabumon, but on Gabumon’s line. What this means is that it has elements from (almost) every single one of Gabumon’s evolutions. Just for the sake of satisfying people’s curiosity, namely @IshidoShuuji’s, I’ll list the different elements here, since that’s the easiest and most straightforward way to explain it:

Tsunomon: eyes, colour of the face.

Gabumon: horn, face stripes, teeth, hair ears.

Garurumon: eyebrows, pretty much all of the hair, hair tail, forehead marks.

WereGarurumon: nose stripes, pretty much all of the hair, earrings, eye scar.

So, no, MetalGarurumon, Punimon and Omnimon/Omegamon aren’t part of the design. …Or are they?

Just kidding. They are not. ww But you shouldn’t rule them out just because of that. Well, no—rule Omnimon out. There will be no Agumon miximax, so that isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to keep people’s hopes up for nothing. I made it pretty clear from the start that I wouldn’t use a franchise twice, but I bet most people don’t know that. So, yeah.

Now that I have broken down the elements, let’s look at them from up close. This is truly a difficult design to understand, so I’ll get the explaining done as I move along.

Let me start with Tsunomon’s part. I used the colour of Tsunomon’s skin because it looks human: I didn’t want to turn Fubuki into a furry—I mean, have him all covered in hair, because it just looks weird. It was either Tsunomon’s skin or Gabumon’s, and he’s BRIGHT YELLOW. So you’re welcome.

The eyes have changed very dramatically. Tsunomon’s aren’t all that complex compared to Gabumon’s, for example, so it was easier to pull off without screwing up too much. That’s in the early concept you can see above, Fubuki has eyes based on Gabumon’s instead and it looks like he’s using about 4kg of eyeliner, hah— You’re gonna run out of money if you wear so much of it every single day, pal.

They’re not exactly Tsunomon’s eyes, although it’s a rather radical change. As I mentioned when I talked about Creature miximaxes, eyes get rather distinctive shapes when animals (or monsters) are involved. I did something that goes against my analysis, though: I added light to FubuGabu’s eyes. Just because I hate myself and because it looked kinda weird without it.

While Tsunomon’s eyes are completely round, FubuGabu’s actually follow the shape of Fubuki’s eyes, although vaguely. The irises are Fubuki’s, period. I simply extended the lines to match the new shape of the eye. The lower eyelid creates a straight line based on the hypothetical line of Fubuki’s eyes, which is visible in coloured art. The outer part of the eyes also matches that of Fubuki, not to mention that I kept the fold over the upper eyelid and the little marks below the eyes. The main difference, therefore, is the thicker contour (which is linked to the spikes) and the curve that replaces the right angles on Fubuki’s usual eyes.

Let’s move on to Gabumon. His marks were probably the toughest to place, and it doesn’t help that Fubuki’s refs are so BAD. REALLY. Many, most characters have references that match. Maybe not perfectly, but almost. But Fubuki? Fubuki ain’t need none of that crap. When you are this FABULOUS, no one cares about your face changing size and shape in every screenshot or your hair going longer and shorter every 5 seconds. Everyone is blinded by your sparks, anyway, so who will notice?

I noticed. But anyway. ww

Since Gabumon only has markings on half of his body (since the rest is all yellow), I let FubuGabu borrow those on Gabumon’s nose. Actually, if you were to strip FubuGabu (please don’t do that), you’d see that his whole body is covered with markings. I like to think that those belong to Gabu, even if they could easily belong to Garuru or Were instead. Still, that means that the marks on his neck are Gabu’s.

As for the marks on his cheeks, they were very easy to place on the front view and frustrating to figure out elsewhere. I just gave up on them at some point and thought, “meh, Inazuma has pulled off weirder stuff!” They’re supposed to end somewhere behind the jaw, though, but before reaching the neck. Hence why I actually drew the jawline ww

The horn and the teeth are pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll point something out about the latter: I only added two teeth even though Gabumon has many because I wanted some kind of parallelism with Someoka. He, too, has two teeth, but they grow on the opposite direction. True teammates who complement each other!

Now, for the hair ears, aka those things growing from the sides of his head. Those are 100% hair—they don’t really serve a purpose. As such, using Gabumon’s seemed like the best idea. After all, what makes WereGarurumon’s ears interesting are the earrings, but how do you put an earring on hair? As for Garurumon, his ears are just more boring than Gabumon’s. Gabu’s ears are kind of quirky and worn out, which is a cool little thing that I felt like adding. Also, Garuru’s ears go upwards and I didn’t dig that.

Regardless, Garurumon is probably the star of this design. Most of the bigger elements are based on him, after all. You could argue that many of them also belong to Were, but I was looking at Garuru when I designed them. I guess that’s enough of a reason. I guess.

There was an element of Garuru’s design that I really, really wanted to add to Fubuki: the feather-shaped hair growing from his back. You know, these things:

After fiddling with that idea a whole lot, I eventually realised that it was best to keep it simple and shape Fubuki’s hair to look like those… however you wanna call them. I’ll just call them feathers. It may not be a perfect resemblance (and it may not make perfect sense either lmao), but I definitely thought it looked the best. These are actually not too hard to draw:

The first feather (from the top) follows the natural curve of Fubuki’s hair, but instead of curving down again, it creates an arrow-like shape.

The second feather starts and ends in the exact same spots as Fubuki’s, but instead of curving upwards, it’s completely horizontal.

The third one is the trickiest: it’s long and doesn’t match Fubuki’s normal hair. The part that touches the second feather starts where it should, but the part that touches the fourth one doesn’t. It’s tough to explain, so here’s a picture that will hopefully make it all clear:

The last feather is shorter and isn’t as diagonal as the third one, but it does start and end at odd places, too. The “trick” to draw it is keeping in mind that the third and the fourth feathers end at pretty much the same height:

The fifth feather isn’t even a feather; it’s just a simple spike. Nothing relevant there ww

Garurumon is also responsible for the marks next to the ears and the one on the forehead, not to mention the top of the head in general. The ones on the ears weren’t too bad, but the forehead was frustrating. As I mentioned, Fubuki’s references are a mess and I draw over them for the sake of keeping the original proportions, but it backfired in this case. Since they’re all so different from each other, Fubuki’s forehead grows bigger or smaller depending on the view, so the forehead mark is radically less visible sometimes, even though it technically shouldn’t be. Still, rather than repositioning it every time, I thought it made more sense to place it correctly to settle for a specific place, so that’s what I did.

Now, the top of the head is tricky. Let’s start by saying that it’s based on Garurumon’s back. Maybe WereGarurumon’s too, but I couldn’t find a single picture of Were’s back, so who knows. As you can see in the following image, Garuru’s back has a long, thin line that goes from his head to his tail, and that’s exactly what happens to FubuGabu too. You can’t quite see the end of the line because of the hair, but it’s still there… technically.

That thin line sprouts into a bunch of rugged lines, and that’s exactly what happens with FubuGabu too. The lines are rather random (and I didn’t spend much time figuring the size out, whoops), but they do follow some certain shapes. The closest line to the face might be rugged, but it goes straight down. The second one starts from way back, but it’s shaped like an arrow pointing at the face. The tips of both lines are fairly close, too. The third line is way smaller than the rest, and is also the last one you can see, but definitely not the last one in general.

Let’s talk about Fubuki’s little sprout as well. As you know, Fubuki’s sprout has two locks of hair, but FubuGabu’s has three. That’s because FubuGabu’s is also based on Garurumon: to be more specific, on this part:

I tried adding that part just the way it is by sticking it to the forehead, but I didn’t like the result at all, so I figured it was best to do something funny with Fubuki’s sprout instead. Oh, well. Choices! And talk about choices, I added Garurumon’s tail simply so the hair would be a complete portrayal of his figure. As I mentioned in the post I linked to above, miximaxing with creatures often leads to that, so yeah.

The hair is obviously the biggest and most visible part of FubuGabu’s design, but Garuru hogs quite a few other spots. Not Gabumon, nor Tsunomon, nor WereGarurumon (nor Punimon) have eyebrows, so I was pretty much forced to use Garurumon’s. Not like I mind, because they’re pretty awesome. It’s kind of sad that they’re usually not visible, but, to be honest with you guys… they’re kind of a pain to draw because of their very specific shape. So I’m secretly glad. ww

And last, but not least, WereGarurumon. Ah, what a little shit. How come there are official linearts for MetalGarurumon, but not for WereGarurumon? Anyway. ww

Were’s contribution is pretty straightforward. Earrings, a scar and marks. There are a couple of things worth mentioning, though.

For the earrings, I noticed too late that Were has both white and red earrings. I was going to use the red earrings because they stand out more, but I noticed that the visible ear was on the side of the white ones… And it was too late to change the design completely, so I just went for the white. Too bad, but life is simply unfair. Especially when you don’t pay attention.

Now, the nose marks are funny. I struggled so much with those. As you can see on the second picture of this post, they were originally going to be shaped like triangles, but I didn’t dig that. And even after I changed the design, I couldn’t get them right, which was… frustrating.

(Also, it took me a long time to realise that the bridge of the nose would be hiding one half of the marks in every view except the front one. After I did, though, everything finally looked better. Thank goodness.)

Anyway, I think that pretty much covers the final design, but let’s also talk about the early designs real quick.

Nothing much to say about the second picture of the post. I just made sure to make some sense out of the markings and retouched the elements I mentioned above. Well, I tried to polish everything, really.

Now, the first picture of the post is easily over 2 years old. It was one of the first, if not the very first, concept of FubuGabu. And, man, what a mess.

It was like, “what does Garurumon have? Feather thingies! SO LET’S ADD THEM EVERYWHERE.” The feather thingies appear on his forehead, the locks of hair over his face, on his hair and even behind his head. I could never figure the latter out—but, man, did I spend hours trying to make those work. And all because Garurumon has feather on his face and on his back, so I felt like FubuGabu needed two layers of feathers too. Thankfully, I eventually realised many of these elements simply weren’t needed, like that second layer of feathers, the earrings on Garurumon’s ear (which, again, are made of hair, so wtf), and… the ring at the end of the tail? Where did that come from? This is Garurumon, not Gatomon! Geez, self!

Some of the early elements made it to the final design. The overall shape of his eyebrows, the markings on the head, the neck and the cheeks and even the horn, just to mention a few. The final feel to it is completely different, though.

This is probably because of how different the hair looks. FubuGabu’s original hair was full of feathers, but they didn’t fit Fubuki’s normal hair. They were randomly coming out of his head for whatever reason. Not to mention that the hair falling over his face looks like tentacles rather than anything else. It looks like a miximax with Squidward rather than with Gabumon. Ugh, I hate myself. XD

One last note: I don’t know where the forehead mark on that first design comes from. I guess it’s meant to be Gabumon’s, somehow? I forgot and I’m too tired to investigate it. It probably never made sense, anyway. XD

I think I covered everything! But, phew, that took long. Still, if anything isn’t clear or there’s something I forgot to mention, please let me know!

(Also, I’m too tired to re-read this post, so excuse the many typos that I probably made. I’ll check it out... eventually.)