#i actually loved doing the colouring on this

[courfee]

the complimentary james to this regulus

[demi-god77]

BYLER GATES: A GUIDE

(Explaining all the different theories, for anyone who is also lost with how many there are)

THE BIG 4

Flickergate: This theory involves a lot of time shenanigans and is connected to the Will having powers in s5 one (possibly manipulation of time or electricity). Theory claims Will and Mike will kiss in the UD, specifically outside Mike's garage, paralleling 1x01. Will is going to tell the truth at the same time his s1 self is ("it was a seven"), causing the garage light to flicker on Nov. 6th 1983.

Birthdaygate: This theory suggests that the Duffers didn't actually forget Will's birthday is March 22nd (the day of the rink-o-mania incident). It claims that Vecna is actually manipulating the characters' memories (possibly even Will's), making them forget his birthday in the process, maybe in an attempt to make him feel excluded/lonely and making him vulnerable. (Similar to the beginning of Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets, which happened to be on the inspo board for S4)

But also the Creel murders themselves happened on March 22nd.

Churchgate: More UD kiss related theories! This one claims Will is going to get Vecna'd or possessed in the Upside Down church (and that he's going to hurt/choke Mike in the process). With a crazy amount of religious symbolism, Mike would be the one breaking him out of his trance, through a kiss or a confession.

(More thorough explanation here.)

Lettergate: This gate's truthers believe that Mike did actually write to Will in the time period between s3 and s4, but never sent the letters. Said letters (signed "Love, Mike") are going to make an appearance in s5, revealing his true feelings. (Great post that has to do with this gate here)

Also related to:

OTHER GATES

Pocketgate: Very connected to Lettergate™️, this theory has to do with Mike's infamous triangle shaped pocket in S4. It suggests that the letter signed Love, Mike is hidden in said pocket throughout s4, since it very closely resembles an envelope. Triangles have also been used in ST as a queer symbol (with Robin) and Mike's pocket consistently points to Will like an arrow.

Phonegate: Kinda similar to the previous two, this gate claims Mike did actually call the Byers in Lenora. For some reason, the calls didn't go through, either because of Joyce's telemarketer job OR because of Vecna manipulating things again (cough, birthdaygate, cough).

This is backed up by one of Dustin's lines, saying that the Byers' phone line is always busy and Mike won't stop complaining about it. We know he must have been calling WILL, since the whole reason he was communicating with El using letters is that they couldn't talk on the phone.

Loverslakegate: Related to Lovers' lake (obviously). The lake is shaped like a heart, tying into its name, but it was split in two after the gates opened, now resembling a broken one (and Mike is ofc referred to as "the heart" so it could be a reference to him).

According to this theory, Mike and Will are going to kiss/become lovers near said lake/Reefer Rick's house.

Heartgate: To put it simply: Heart reflections EVERYWHERE. This one is better explained through pictures:

Also: Different heartgate but really interesting

Colorgate: I don't think I have to explain this one tbh but anyway

Blue meets yellow in the west.

Mike and Will have been HEAVILY associated with blue and yellow respectively since the beginning of the show (even wearing eachother's colours in both of their arguments). There's an insane amount of evidence that backs this one up.

It's speculated that the Russian code in s3 was foreshadowing for s4 ("The silver cat feeds when Blue meets Yellow in the west") Silver cat: Vecna who started killing when Mike (Blue) met Will (Yellow) in the west (California, literally west of Indiana)

Curtaingate: "They don't spent their lives trying to get a look at what's behind the curtain [...] They like the curtain. It provides them comfort, stability, definition" -Murray 2x05

Mike and El are pretty consistently framed in front of CLOSED (and more often than not, yellow) curtains, or ones that have closed blinds. According to this theory, closed curtains represent not being honest with one's true feeling. So, the truth about Mike's feelings is beyond the curtain and in s5 he will open it (and come out)

Motelgate: This one has to do with the dreaded two day time skip at the end of S4. Theory claims the Cali crew stayed at a motel during that time skip and the scenes were cut for time, but we'll flash back to them in s5. It's based on a photo a production assistant posted from the New Mexico filming, as well as some bts pics of the Cali Crew playing board games in a motel.

Shoegate: In S4, we see a pair of Will's shoes in his bedroom. In s5, Mike seems to be wearing that exact pair. This, in addition to the fact that they wear the same shoe size (a 10 according to their rollerskates from 4x02), lead people to theorize they will share clothes/shoes in s5. More importantly though, this theory suggests Mike is figuratively being put into Will's shoes (maybe pining?). Also, both of them wear the same shoes they wore in s2. Interestingly enough though, even though the design is the same, the colors are reversed (so their roles will be reversed too).

Possessiongate: This one runs DEEP so I'm going to link a bunch of posts

To put it VERY simply: this theory claims Vecna somehow attached himself to Mike (maybe when the vine grabbed him by the leg in the S2 tunnels- right before he started acting weird in s3 and s4) and he has been influenced/possessed for some time now.

He's not the dungeon master anymore, he's not in control. Both in s3 and s4 someone ELSE is the DM when they play D&D (Will and Eddie respectively)

More here and here

Victimgate: Very closely related to the previous one, this one suggests that MIKE was originally supposed to be Vecna's 4th victim instead of Patrick. Since Max escaped the first time, SHE ended up being the last victim but the original plan was for it to be Patrick. However, Patrick's curse doesn't fit the theme of all of the previous ones. We only see one of his visions, he gets cursed for ONE DAY, as opposed to the other 3 that are cursed for almost a week and we also know very little about him, even though we gradually knew more about the previous victims. Chrissy (no relation to main characters) -> Fred (friends w/ Nancy) -> Max (main character who we've known since s2)

More thorough explanation here

Twelvegate: This one is not really Byler related but i wanted to include it anyway

Theory claims Will was one of the lab kids (specifically 012) and him and El are actual twins. There are mentions of Will and El looking similar since s1, and a lot of twin imagery.

This theory obviously ties in with the Will having powers one and some people believe he wasn't 012, but him and El have a deeper connection/may be actually related. It could theoretically explain Henry's connection to Will, as well as things like El seemingly recognizing him in s1.(Alternatively called rainbowshipgate, because of the rainbow ship drawing Joyce mentions in s2 and the rainbow room)

Eightfifteengate: Again, not explicitly Byler but it's quite crazy.

TL;DR: The time 8:15 seems to have great significance in the show and it's mentioned all the time, if not by the characters themselves, (Eg. "It's 8:15, you're late"- El s2) then by small details in the background. There's even a whole track named after it.

Will left the Wheelers' house at 8:15 and it's the EXACT timestamp of his disappearance in 1x01. It's also the time in which most of the UD related weirdness happens and so it's very likely the UD is stuck on 8:15. (Also you know, 15-8=7)

Radiationgate: Related to the previous one! Clocks in Chernobyl are stuck on 8:15 and Hiroshima has been described figuratively as being frozen in time. Henry has burns identical to Chernobyl victims and almost all of his + his victims' symptoms can be explained through radiation exposure. As this post explains, for radiation levels between 8.3-11 Gy (SI unit for absorbed radiation), symptoms start with headaches and disorientation, move on to unconsciousness and bleeding (the exact symptoms of his victims) and finally, death happens at around 7 days (which is about how long Vecna's curse lasts AND how long Will was in the UD for)

Whiterabbitgate: The song "White Rabbit" is the first song in the show and it plays when we first get a sense of El's powers. Theory suggests it will also be the last song in the show (coming full circle) with either Will using his powers, or Willel using their powers together.

In general though, ST has a lot of similarities/parallels to Alice in Wonderland. The white rabbit constantly being late (Mike is late to something at the start of every season), great significance to clocks/ticking/time, a lot of hallucinations/visions, the overall similarities between the Upside Down and Wonderland. Henry's sister was literally named Alice Creel and there is SO much rabbit imagery throughout the show. There are also direct references to AIW with set pieces and paintings.

Soundtrackgate: This one has to do with the Stranger Things OST and the overall insane musical symbolism throughout the show. A lot of different theories talk about the show's soundtrack, but this one talks about 3 tracks in particular: Being Different, The First Lie, The First I love You

To put it briefly: "The First I love You" plays in both Robin's coming out scene and El's kiss with Mike at the end of s3 (Already a weird parallel). The three tracks not only share the same melody, but they also sync up perfectly. "Being Different" (s4 van scene) and "The First Lie" (Nancy and Jonathan's kiss in s2) especially, match up together to create an entirely new track, completing eachother. The scenes featuring those three tracks also share very similar themes at their core. (This post goes into a lot of detail!)

Playlistgate: Character playlists! At a certain point, every character's official playlist on Spotify was deleted, except for three: Mike's, Will's and Billy's. Songs were seemingly being added/deleted for no reason to the Mike and Will ones and people were struggling to make sense of it all.

Also, Mike's character playlist in particular is VERY interesting (so many byler coded songs, as well as "Smalltown Boy" a gay anthem, about a young gay boy forced to leave his home town to escape from their disapproval and homophobia.) There are three playlists on Finn's spotify that are very incriminating. "Love songs" (That has "BOYS DON'T CRY" on it, a song that Will literally has a poster of in his room), "drive" and the most recent one "STurn". These playlists feature songs like "Let her go", "Angst in my pants", "Me and Michael", "Gay thoughts" just to name a few. Basically a lot of the songs on all four playlists seem very relevant to some complicated feelings about Mike's relationship with El/Will but also with himself and his sexuality.

Scriptgate: Oh boy. Here we go.

On August 5th 2022, the byler fandom got #bylerscript trending worldwide on Twitter while waiting for the 8flix account (run by Nick Runyeard) to release some supposed s4 scripts (that people PAID for, mind you). These scripts dropped on August 8th, featuring lines like: "I hate who I am" from Will in the van scene, "His mouth dry, like a California summer" from the bedroom apology scene and also, Will seemingly recognizing Brenner at NINA, despite never meeting him in canon.

These turned out to be fake and the community was in shambles. Nick started calling people psychos, the Stranger Writers tweeted that everyone got scammed, Nick privated his account and the authenticity of some released s2-s3 scripts was questioned. This post explains the entire situation in detail.

Breathgate: This one is also script related and specifically about a Mike/Max parallel.

In the official van scene script, when Mike sees Will's painting "his breath catches." Then, when Lucas asks Max to the Friday movie date, "(her) breath catches" as well. People caught on that parallel very fast and since the latter is obviously a romantic moment, it boosted their confidence for both Byler and Lumax endgame.

Piggybackgate: This one refers to two different situations/theories.

One, the seemingly deliberate framing of Mike and Will inside the little bubble in El's piggyback drawing (and it referening to Byler). The framing is especially suspicious, because the bubble drawing was drawn two separate times (it's different from one shot to the other). In the second shot, they're framed directly inside of it.

Two, Mike in his monologue essentially piggybacking off of Will's van confession. His monologue was going off of El's feelings, but since they weren't actually El's, the speech was based on Will's feelings. It also ties in with the parallel/foreshadowing between the monologue and Suzie's house, with Will being paralleled to the "director" kid, directing a "choking" Tabitha and their dad (more thorough explanation here).

THE SILLIES

(aka the joke-theories/memes)

Miniongate: Mike and Will are secretly minions. (Because you know, minions are primarily blue and yellow)

This information will be revealed to us in s5 and they will have a magical girl-esque transformation where we see their true minion form. (Original post here)

Localvillagegate: Related to the leaked Mike and El rooftop scene.

Basically, a mlvn used AI to lip read the scene and try to figure out what Mike is saying (and then posted the video on Twitter).

According to them, Mike was telling El they were going to leave the local village (AKA Hawkins) together and travel to a beautiful faraway land with "like, three waterfalls or something" (and also that she has to "improve her motivation", whatever that means).

People thought it was hilarious and started making a ton of memes based on it.

Parrotgate: This is directly connected to localvillagegate™️ and it was created by @cloudycleric in one of his streams.

Basically, the parrots are gay and represent Will and Mike, who in s5 will kiss under the three waterfalls depicted on the image.

Backgroundguygate: People making headcanons and creating backstories for random extras. The star of this gate is Barrett, an extra from the Lenora high school, who wears a barrette, bright red pants and a shirt that says "Hell".

According to this gate, he's actually gay and in love with Will. He has a goth best friend named Claire who is a lesbian and in love with El.

Chancegate: The theme of shipping Will with random extras continues on strong

Chance is one of Jason's friends and part of the basketball team. People thought he was attractive and somewhere along the line started making headcanons for him and shipping him with Will (Bychance). Basically, they're gonna date and Mike will be jealous.

Mikhailgate: More shipping Will with randoms! (I'm beginning to see a pattern here)

Originally created by @paladin-n-cleric

Enzo in S4 mentions his son, Mikhail Antonov. Mikhail is the Russian name for Micheal.

People started making jokes that Mikhail would arrive to Hawkins from Russia in s5 and shipped him with Will (Willhail), since he's like Mike but Russian and cooler. They made fanart, edits and posted pictures of Finn as Boris in "The Goldfinch" claiming it's Mikhail.

@will80sbyers then begun to ship Mikhail with El and thus the ship "Jail" was born.

Baldmikegate: Did you know Mike is actually bald and is bullied for it? Well, now you do.

In 2022, a cult was born and the byler tag was filled with edited pictures of Bald!Mike. Terrifying honestly.

Some people made posts about how the rest of the party feels about Mike's secret baldness and some even wrote FANFICS.

Gridgate/whiteboardgate/pixelgate: The Stranger Writers posted a picture of a pixelated/blurred whiteboard that had the entirety of s5 mapped out. People were desperately trying to decode it and figure out what was written on it.

On the space for episode 7, there was a "big black hole" that people went crazy trying to make sense of, only for it to be revealed as a pen holder.

Babygirlgate: The babygirlification of Mike Wheeler. That's it. That's the gate.

I think pretty much every line Will has ever said to Mike has been posted with the word "babygirl" replacing his name (it's hilarious and I love it)

Some examples here and here

Mattduffersbasementgate: Finn and Joe made up a third Duffer brother named Pete, who has no hair for some reason and is the actual writer of Stranger Things, while Matt and Ross are just the faces of it. Pete lives in a shed/Matt's basement and that's where he writes all of the scripts.

Finn and Noah are both also being held in Matt's basement however, and they're not allowed to leave so that they don't spoil byler endgame.

I definitely missed some gates, but omg this took SO LONG

(this post is for you @felix-fathoms @bibylers)

[sturnsdarling]

gloves off

Hockeyplayer!Matt is on the ice, and a guy from the other team says something about his girl, so Matt deals with him

vibe check: based of this edit, violence, fighting descriptions, blood, fluff at the end, lowkey pick me vibes from reader but i don't actually care i love being cringe

1.7k words

A/N: I got a req for hockey matt and didn't see it until i saw that edit... I know some people don't like it but angry!matt makes my coochie tingle

love and cigs, merc

It was weekly occurrence, coming to watch Matt play hockey. Sometimes you were just watching him practice, others you were watching actual games. Today was the latter, his team was playing against the rival college, a game everyone had been waiting for for months.

They had spent weeks working their way up the leagues to finally get into the final stretch against each other, the school rivalry going back decades and either side being riddled with personal beef, some petty, some slightly more serious.

It was half way through the match, Matt had already been given multiple penalties for violent behaviour, slamming kids into the ice and barriers, sometimes because they deserved it, mostly because it was fun.

There was one specific kid on the other team, Josh Anderson, and Matt fucking hated him. They went through all of school together, playing hockey against each other since they could hold a stick. Anderson had always been bigger than Matt, until he had his growth spurt, and he made it his personal mission to make Matts life a living hell purely because he could. They hadn't played against each other in nearly three years, and Matt knew he had to come down hard on him.

They spent the whole first half of the game tormenting each other, pissing each other off in every way possible. Matt had already broken a stick, whacking his first one off the barrier after Anderson got him a penalty for something ridiculous. He was by the sidelines, standing with you as you taped his new stick for him, a tradition you had started even before you started dating.

"I'm gonna fuckin' bury him" Matt said, eyes trained on Anderson as he rubbed small circles on your arm.

You were taping the stick with green tape, your favourite colour, and just letting Matt rant, "he's irrelevant, my love, don't let him get under your skin" you cooed, knowing it would go in one ear and out the other.

"I dunno who he thinks he is, fuckin' pussy always coming after me like I wont break his jaw" Matt wasn't listening to you, but you didn't mind, you knew what he was like when he got in the zone for hockey, especially when he was pissed off.

You finished taping up his stick, scanning it with a satisfied hum and handing it to him, catching his attention. He looked to you with a clenched jaw that relaxed the moment he looked in your soft eyes.

"thanks, baby" Matt smiled, leaning over the barriers slightly to kiss you before pulling his helmet over his head properly and putting in his mouth guard.

He pushed away, skating across the ice to take his place, waiting for the second half buzzer to go off. As it did, he pointed to you, followed by a double tap on his chest plate, one for every year you'd been together.

The game began, and they didn't hold back at all. Matt was angrier than ever, and knowing that only made Anderson more eager to piss him off. They played for about ten minutes before the score shifted in the other teams favour. Anderson skated across the ice, celebrating a goal he didn't even score and b-lined for Matt, skating past him and maintaining eye contact through their helmets.

"Yo, Sturniolo, when we win, tell your girl I want her on her knees for me in the locker rooms as my trophy" Anderson said, his tone smug as a sly grin formed on his face.

A hot rage flooded through Matt, every once of anger boiling to the surface as he watched Anderson skate around him, taunting him to do something. His jaw clenched tight, and he saw red.

Matt threw his stick on the ice, bounding over to Anderson and pushing him backwards, sending him flying back onto the ice. Everyone in the stadium gasped in sync, and you immediately stood to your feet.

"you wanna say shit about my girl? huh? say it again, I fuckin' dare you" Matt spat, pulling out his mouth guard and standing over Anderson on the ice.

Anderson just laughed, pushing himself to his feet and pulling his mouth guard out.

"still that same angry little kid, aren't you Sturniolo?" He grinned, pressing his tongue to his teeth.

"yeah, I am, and you're still the same fuckin' loser you were back then, so come on, Anderson, say something about my girl again" Matt said, squaring up to the boy, who was once double his height, that he was now eye to eye with.

Everyone in the stadium had stopped, time standing still as the whole room watched the disaster in front of them unfold, not even the ref was getting involved, knowing from the events of the first half that the boys clearly had something to sort out.

"ion' want your bum ass girl, Sturns, she's probably been passed around the whole team" Anderson chuckled, looking to the boys all standing round in anticipation.

That was all it took, before Anderson could look back, Matts gloves were off, and his fist was connected with the plastic of Andersons helmet, sending it flying across the ice as Matts knuckles connected with Andersons jaw.

Matt sent him flying onto the ice, crawling on top of him and pummelling into him relentlessly. The whole room erupted, people screaming to get Matt off him, Matts team cheering him on and Andersons team berating the ref for not stopping it. No one even tried to get involved, all slightly terrified by the sight of Matt denting the ice with the back of Andersons skull. You on the other hand, were begging security to let you on the ice, moving in a flash the moment you saw Matt take his gloves off

Matt was relentless, and Anderson was just as bad, hitting Matt back the best he could. There was a split second where Anderson was on top of Matt, laying into him and cracking the plastic face shield off the bridge of his nose. Matt simply smiled with blood covered teeth, just before cocking his head forward, head butting Anderson with the plastic of his helmet, and the next thing you knew, Matt was back on top of him, punching him over and over again.

You finally got onto the ice, struggling to walk straight as you screamed Matts name over and over again. He couldn't hear you, he was in a world of his own, laying into the nearly unconscious boy beneath him.

"Matt!" You screamed, grabbing his arm as he raised it once more to hit Anderson with a final blow.

Your touch brought Matt back to reality, his attention snapping to you immediately. His eyes were bloodshot, a bruise already forming on his definitely broken nose as bright red blood began to dry on the lower half of his face. The look of pleading on your face, the tears pricking in your eyes and your grip on Matts wrist, made all the muscles in his body relax.

"stop, please" you said, softly.

Matt looked up at you, brows flinching slightly before he looked down to Andersons groaning, stuttering body on the ice, and then back to you. You lowered your head slightly, looking at Matt through your lashes with pleading eyes. He couldn't help but crumble, getting up off the ice and near enough melting into your arms.

Your hands round his shoulders, his arms round your waist and head buried in your neck, you just stood their on the ice for what felt like forever, rubbing Matts back with slow touches as everyone began to tend to Anderson.

"lets go, yeah?" you muttered to Matt, and he nodded into your neck.

In the locker rooms,

Matt sat on the bench opposite you, his broken helmet next to him as you perched on the bench, patting the blood from his face with a damp, warm towel. He hissed with every touch, and you apologised softly nearly every time.

"that was really fucking stupid, Matt" You said, looking at his bloodied features intently.

Matt sighed, "I know" He scanned over your face as you gently cared for him.

"you could get kicked from the team" You said, shaking your head slightly

Matt hissed as you brushed his bruised and blooded nose with the towel, "I know" he repeated.

"so then why did you do it?" You asked, only a small once of judgement in your tone.

"he said shit about you" Matt admitted

You stopped your movements, pulling your eyes from Matts nose to lock eyes with him. He was already looking at you, eyes sad like a puppy. You sighed, shaking your head as an uncontrollable half smile formed on your face.

Matts bloodied hand came to your jaw, cupping your cheek in his big hand as his thumb rubbed the soft skin there.

"he started speaking about you, and - and I just lost it" Matt said, his tone soft.

You leaned into his touch, brows furrowed slightly as your eyes poured into his bright blue ones, flitting between them.

"the kid has basically bullied me my whole life, and now I'm finally just as big as he is, I jus-" Matt sighed, "I needed a reason to batter him, and he gave me one"

"me?" you questioned with tight knit brows

Matt nodded, pressing his thumb into your skin with more pressure, "you're the most important thing in my life, more than any stupid place on the team or petty childhood beef, n' I can handle him comin' for me, I don't give a fuck, but he came for you and-" frustrated tears started to form in his eyes, so he stopped talking.

You practically melted at the sight, pressing a long kiss into Matts palm,

"I love you" you said, softly.

Matt smiled slightly, despite the pain it caused him and brought your head to his lips, pressing a short kiss onto your forehead.

"I love you more" Matt replied.

Normally, you would have gotten into a twenty minute long back and forth about who loved who more, but today, Matt had earned rights to that title, and even though the way he handled the situation wasn't ideal, at least you knew you never had to doubt his love for you.

taglist: @sturniozalt@mattslolita@shaquilles-0atmeal@blahbel668@sleepysturniolo@le4hsblog @sarosfilms @joemamaaa42069 @2muchofaslvt @seluky10 @cherib3lla @jetaimevous @witchofthehour @sofieeeeex @ncm9696 @lovesturni0l0s @pepsicola-pussy

[gay-dorito-dust]

Hi, I just wanted to ask: If you end up writing something for the monsterfalls au do you think you could do something where reader helps to groom Ford or Stan's newly acquired wings and them just loving the attention and care they give them? Also, love your stories and thanks if you decide to do this.

Stan, while thinking his new appearance was great for scaring kids on Summerween, hated his stone wings that weighed like a pair of cinder blocks.

They made sleeping difficult! How do you make sleeping difficult?! Apparently becoming a stone gargoyle.

That wasn’t even the worst thing either. Ford told him once after he complained about how his wings felt itched and irritated, almost like an itch he couldn’t scratch, that his wings needed constant preening whenever necessary as to avoid such situations from happening.

However Stan couldn’t exactly reach everywhere that needed preening and grew annoyed but his saviour arrived in the form of you.

‘Doll face! Just the person I’m looking for, would you mind helping me with my wings? They’ve been a pain in my ass this entire morning and I could really use some help in getting to the spots I can’t reach.’ He says as you examined his wings, strong and durable just like him, but oddly enough were soft like clay underneath; also just like him

‘I’d be happy to help Stanley but why me? You could’ve asked the kids or even Ford to help preen.’ You asked and Stan stiffened as he remembered the fact that Ford told him about preening; it was a mating thing to display the bond between mates amongst other reasons, which was mainly why he wanted you to preen his wings for him.

Stan scratched the back of his head. ‘Eh, none of them are in the house, doing their own thing or whether and even if they were they’d probably pull out the wrong feather.’ He quickly explains himself, hoping you’d buy it.

‘Okay, why don’t you lay down on your stomach and I’ll get to work.’ You replied after a brief moment of silence and Stanley sighed in relief as he was quick to flop on his bed, displaying his beautiful wings for you to gawk at.

Ford maybe a sphinx with pretty wings but you found Stanley’s wings even prettier, they looked as though they have priceless minerals within them, glistening beneath the light. They were a beauty to behold for those who actually cared to look at them and it never failed to take your breath away. ‘Beautiful.’ You murmured to yourself as you began to gently pull out the loose stone feathers that weighted like a pebble within your hand.

Stan felt like he could’ve fallen asleep then and there with how therapeutic he felt, he could feel his wings getting lighter with each loose feather you pulled, growling lowly in content as he closed his eyes and focused his mind on the way your hands carefully navigated his sturdy wings. He could’ve told you to be a bit rougher as they were like ordinary wings, but he throughly liked the way you treated them like they were glass and the way you run your fingertips in appreciation of them while counting the minerals within them, thinking he wouldn’t notice but he did and he couldn’t help but smile softly to himself.

He could happily stay like this forever if he could but he knew he couldn’t, so Stanley will take whatever time with you he could and keep it close to his heart to remind himself that someone does care about him and his stupid stone wings.

Ford took immense care of his wings but he often forgets that he has them when he’s deep in thought, which leads to him knocking stuff over, smacking Stanley, you or the kids accidentally with them and so on.

His wings were beautiful, majestic and fluffy, unlike Stanley’s which were the colour of gunmetal or cold stone or even gravel.

So whenever he forgets that his wings needed preening, he won’t know until you point it out to him, which is what you did.

‘Ford, did you forget to preen your wings?’ You asked as Ford looks over his shoulder and at his wings, where he could obviously see there was a few feathers that needed to be removed.

‘Ah so that’s why I’ve been in such discomfort as of recently, thank you my beloved for pointing it out. I shall preen them as soon as I’m done here.’ Ford replied but you pressed your hand onto his shoulder.

‘Why don’t you let me preen your wings for you?’

Ford blushed, he has read somewhere that pressing one’s wings was a thing only done between mates, or even that of a courting ritual amongst some bird species, but not only that but preening one’s wings was also seen as a means of survival and self care of one’s being. So the thought of the of you doing his wings for him had a whole lot more meaning to him as he would very much like you to preen his wings, but feared that he might make some…noises of enjoyment from your actions.

You saw his hesitance and said. ‘I’ll be gentle but then again it is all up to you as they are your wings, that and I don’t want to see you in discomfort or pain.’

Ford’s features softened as the blush died down. ‘Okay my dear I trust you with my wings.’

You smile as you sat yourself behind him and began to get to work in easing the loose feathers as carefully as you could, making sure you weren’t using more forced them necessary while praising Ford and his beautiful wings. ‘Your wings are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, but then again they only reflect the person blessed with such wings.’ You then sweetly kissed where his wings connect to his back, a sensitive spot for Ford, causing the man to take a sharp breath as you do so before relaxing once more.

He was a little tense to start off with but gradually Ford felt himself melt under your carful touch and caresses as he purrs low in the back of his throat, tail slowly swishing in a display of his happiness and content regarding the current situation. He knew from that moment as you placed the loose feathers into a neat pile by your feet that he didn’t want anyone else to preen his wings but you.

Then again he was never in dispute with this idea of you preening his wings, he was just a bit awkward and unsure how to ask such a task of you without it coming across too strong, or that you didn’t have a choice but to agree to preening his wings. He just wanted to spend time with you and it just so happened that his wings were also in a state of disarray when you came in, all of which was completely unplanned and purely coincidental, but Ford couldn’t help but thank fate for this moment for he would treasure it forever and always.

‘You okay Ford? I think you’re…purring.’ You spoke with a smile upon your face when you felt his tail hit against your foot, finding it adorable as the purring coming from him.

‘Yes I’m perfectly fine my dear, perfectly fine.’ Ford reassured with a smile upon his face. ‘Perfectly fine indeed.’

[pitchsidestories]

all's well that ends well II Lucy Bronze x Reader

masterlist I word count: 2010

a/n: hi, we hope you enjoy the full length oneshot to the snippet we posted last week. 🫶🏻

“You!”

Your voice was high-pitched and cracked slightly at the end of the question.

You didn’t care.

There was no way, she was actually here. You had heard the rumours but hadn’t believed any of it. And now she was actually here, right in front of your eyes, on the Chelsea training grounds.

She actually did it.

You watched her through narrowed eyes, subconsciously clenching your jaw.

She smiled brightly at you: “Yes, me. Good morning to you too, pretty girl.“

There it was, that typical smug smile. Lucy Bronze, just like you wanted to forget her.

“Don’t call me that.“, you warned her.

Bad enough that she was here, you didn’t need her stupid remarks.

She remained unbothered, teasing you some more: “Oh, someone woke up in a bad mood.“

“No, only still stuck in a nightmare called Lucy Bronze.“, you replied, taking in the unfamiliar sight of her in the blue Chelsea training shirt.

From the look on her face she clearly interpreted it as you checking her out.

You cringed.

“A nightmare, huh?”, she repeated with a grin.

You wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid self-assured smile off her face.

“Dressed in Chelsea colours. Why did you come back? And of all clubs you had to choose mine?!”

You half-expected her to crack another joke but instead, her face turned serious.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t come here for you. I came for what the club had to offer.“

“In other words, Barca didn’t want you anymore.“, you taunted her.

You watched, waiting to see her face fall but it never did. She just cocked her head and replied: “Cold. But essentially yes, they didn’t guarantee me a spot in the starting squad so I left.“

Before you could stop yourself, you released a humourless laugh.

Following Lucys confused look, you explained: “You always leave when it gets uncomfortable. See you on the pitch.“

You turned around and took exactly two steps towards the football pitch before you heard Lucy catching up to you.

“What’s that supposed to mean? If you really think that you don’t know me well enough.“, she asked, her voice finally conveying some anger.

“Oh, I do know you.“, you shrugged and left her standing on the sideline of the pitch, joining your teammates for the warm-up.

To your surprise, she jogged up next to you, clearly not done with the conversation yet. “Sure. Of course you know me better than I know myself. You’ve always been such a know-it-all.“

You huffed in offence but before you could protest, she increased her pace and left your side.

In her place, Sam Kerr appeared with a curious look on her face: “Wait, you and Bronzey got history?”

“Yes, it was a long time ago though and I don’t want to talk about it, okay.”, you revealed reluctantly.

“Aw man, I love a good break up story.”, the Australian forward replied pouting.

“I know you do Sammy, but you won’t hear that one.”, you told her.

“I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”, she declared confidently.

“Don’t you dare asking Lucy about us.”, you warned your teammate.

“I’m sure she’ll tell me.”, Sam responded winking.

Much to her actual surprise the English defender did open up towards her, once it was just the two of them in an empty room.

“Our story is quick to tell we were together for quite a while, I went to another club, so we tried to do long distance, yet it didn’t work out.”

“And she thinks it’s your fault?”, Sam questioned.

“Obviously and she’s talking about comfortable all she has ever known is English football.”, the older woman shrugged.

The forward took a moment to think about what she just said before humming. “Oh, this is going to be a very interesting season.”

“Admittedly, I did a few things wrong in the past and there isn’t much I regret but these I do.” Memories of the moment Lucy regretted the most passed behind her inner eye.

“That’s too much information. I didn’t come for a deep dive.”, Sam intervened chuckling.

“Come on girls, don’t dally.”, Millie who stood in the doorframe called for them.

“She thinks she has something to say around here now that she has an honours doctorate.”, the forward rolled her eyes playfully.

“We’re ready, Doctor Bright.”, the dark-haired defender reassured the blonde with a teasing grin on her lips.

“Good to hear, Doctor Bronze.”, Millie answered happily.

A few days had passed since your conversation with your ex-girlfriend. During and post training you tried your best to ignore her. You were about to leave the Chelsea grounds, but a familiar voice held you back.

“Can we talk?”

“Now?”, you wanted to know.

“Yes.”, Lucy nodded.

“Fine, but be quick, I don’t have much time.”, you stated in an icy tone crossing your arms impatiently.

“Then you’ve to make some time.”, she emphasized.

“What do you want to talk about?”, you asked short-temperedly.

“About us. This is getting ridiculous. How’re we supposed to play together when you ignore me all the time?”, the defender countered eagerly awaiting your response.

The late afternoon light enhanced her tan, and her green eyes were glowing. You couldn’t help to admire the woman in front of you, but when you remembered what happened between you two and acid formed in your mouth, so you spat out words as cruel as the taste of that. Sentences you knew would hurt her.

“You’re less quick and sharp nowadays. Also how am I supposed to trust you on and off the pitch?”

Lucy blinked at you. Her face frozen, not slightest slip. Shaking her head, she replied: “You really have a way of making someone feel welcome here.“

“I’m normally more welcoming to our new signings… making sure they settle well into London…“

You stopped yourself from continuing and bit your lip. Why did you now feel the need to prove to her that your were actually good person?

“But not to me, I got it.“, she said, almost reading your exact next thought. She should know that you didn’t welcome her here.

“You’re a whole different story.“, you said plainly.

Your eyes suddenly caught sight of her arms crossed in front of herself. The little hairs stood up, small bumps forming around them. She had goosebumps.

“You’ll need a jacket. The evenings can already get cold.“, you advised her, trying to let no empathy seep through.

At once, you felt glad that you remembered to wear a long-sleeved shirt to training. You absentmindedly pulled the sleeves over your hands.

Your ex just rolled her eyes: “You act like I’ve never been to England.“

“You’re freezing. I can see that from here.“

“Yeah, this is obviously not Barcelona. But I’m not new here.“, she replied with clear annoyance.

You refused to let her have the point. “True but you never played in London though.“

“No, I didn’t.“

“See.“

It was petty but you won. You turned to walk away from her like you had done so many times in the past few days but again she wouldn’t let you. Her hand wrapped around your wrist, pulling you back in one swift movement.

“Where are you going? We’re not done here.“

You sighed in frustration: “I won’t ignore you in training anymore. Happy?”

“No.“

“There’s more?”, you frowned at her.

“Of course, it’s not done with that.“

Eyebrows raised, you waited for an explanation: “So?”

“We should talk about us too. And what happened.“, she suggested.

Your heart stopped for a second, your lungs felt deprived of air and you couldn’t do anything but stare at her for a second. There was no way you would bring that break up back again. You both knew how it had ended.

“Another time, okay?”

“Y/n…“

You forced yourself to a half-smile: “See you tomorrow.“

You found yourself in the starting line-up for the next friendly at Stamford Bridge. You would be playing on the right wing, in front of Lucy. And despite all your doubts, the game went well.

More than well, to be honest. It was like you had never been apart. Lucys typical runs forward gave you the opportunity to move towards the centre and position yourself in the penalty areas. One of her crosses was so precise that you only had to tilt your head to put the ball into the net.

“Amazing game, girls. The season is off to a great start.“, Millie cheered as she high-fived you way too hard.

“Yeah, thanks for the assist, Luce.“

“You’re welcome. I still know your movements on the pitch.”, Lucy waved it off while the look on her face was melancholic. There was a hint of fondness in her voice too.

“And I’m sorry for what I said about your playing style.”, you bit your lip guiltily.

“I know.”, the defender sounded almost amused.

“Good.”, you sighed relived.

“Don’t worry.”, the older woman added quickly.

“Bye Luce.”

“See you, y/n.”, Lucy watched you go with a sad smile.

“Lucy? You two are so weird.”, Millie tapped on the dark-haired defender’s shoulder.

Irritated she turned around to face her team’s captain. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you finally talk about it?”, the blonde asked frustrated.

“I try to, but she always runs away.”, the older player explained annoyed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out for you.”, Millie promised.

And the Chelsea captain stayed true to her words.

It was the next day when you found yourself locked in a room with your ex-girlfriend.

“Sam, Erin, that’s not funny, let us out!”, you commanded, hammering your hands against the door. You felt like a mouse stuck in a trap.

“Do you hear anything, Erin?”, you heard the Australian ask the Scottish midfielder. The reply wasn’t audible to your ears because Lucy had started to speak.

“They’ll open the door again once we talked about us.”

“That’s so childish of them. To talk about us? That’s history.”, you grumbled.

“Of course. It’s obviously not history for you if you keep pouting about it.”, the defender observed

“I’m not pouting, I’m so over you at this point.”, you corrected her.

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”, your former lover sounded unconvinced.

“You really broke my heart back then.”, you confessed quietly, your voice full of the sadness and hurt from days in the past when the breakup was still fresh like a open wound you thought would never heal.

“I didn’t do anything.”, she remarked calmly.  

“Yes, you did you left.”, you disagreed fiercely.

“I left because I had to. After you assured me, long distance would work.”, Lucy defended herself.

A grieving smirk appeared on your face, you remembered your old self, what a fool she has been. “I thought it would, but it didn’t that happens.”

“Yes, it happens. So, stop blaming me for leaving it was a mutual decision.”

“It wasn’t your fault- Cam we leave now?”, you directed the question towards the people who kept you in that room.

“Nope, you know what we want to hear.”, Sam declared grinning.

“Lucy, what does she want from us?”, you wanted to know.

“I’ve no idea., she admitted before continuing, we won’t get back together, Sam. That won’t work.”

“Exactly.”, you added quickly.

“That’s not what we want. Keep talking and you’ll see.”, the forward insisted.

“What if we begin again? Like we just met for the first time.”, Lucy suggested.

“Wait, what?”, you frowned.

“We can start over.”, she offered in a hopeful tone.

“You mean as in strangers who get to know each other?”

“Maybe.” , she nodded knowing fully well you’d never be a stranger to her.

“And we don’t know where this leads to?”, you felt your heart flutter against your chest, the door was open again and you both stepped into the unknowing. The past was the past the future was uncertain, all you could influence was the present.

All's well that ends well. Yet this was only the beginning and the closing of one chapter of your relationship.

[parisoonic]

How the hell do you manage to superimpose the hilariously exagerated proportions of the tf2 mercs into a cohesive 2d style? I always struggle SO much with like, the way the mercs' models have huge hands, the way they have relatively low-poly definition on things like arms, shoulders, and legs... and Especially the way like, the models are kinda janky when you pose them for art purposes- when using movement tools, things like armpits and seams between body parts get all deformed... Which makes the study of form and silhouette rather difficult.

I assume that a lot of your ability to translate the concept of the mercs from their original mediums into your own works of art comes to you quite naturally- through experience you have with drawing and art style stuff, as well as through intuition. I was simply wondering if I could poke at your mind and get some insight into your process, any thoughts you have about the proportions and silhouettes of the mercs, any quirks you've found while drawing the mercs, or simply what you enjoy drawing about them. Like, don't be afraid to infodump about something just because you think people wouldn't find it interesting- I am here, I am sitting, and I am listening- if you so choose to speak.

I am utterly fascinated and enraptured by the more behind-the-scenes aspect of art. The mundane things that come second nature to great artists yet seem so revolutionary to less experienced artists.

I love your work, I look forward to seeing more of it, and I hope you have a nice day :]

Sorry for the late reply! I've been a little…stuck on how to answer this but that's mainly because to me, drawing is composed of SO many different little skills - you have form, anatomy, shape language, silhouette, appeal, rhythm, acting and posing…not to mention everything AFTER your raw draughtmanship like line style, rendering and colour theory. Trying to distill a multiude of small skills into some pithy advice is overwhelming to my brain. So I'll take the invitation to ramble instead :))

I don't think I have any new or revolutionary insight into the tf2 guys specifically - more I'm using them as work horses to excercise general silhouette/posing/shape-language and further my skills when it comes to drawing characters!

I do agree though the proportions are rather silly when you stop and think about them realistically…they can be kinda tricky if you follow their 'actual' proportions. what looks great individually was maybe never meant to be directly compared (ie: Heavy's hand size against Spy's lol). It would've been funny if the TV show exsisted and we had more content to review…would the animators have had rules like Spy and Heavy can never shake hands? Would they cheated the proportions for shots? Or would they have said WHATVER it's gonna look weird and embraced it? (Like Kingpin in Spiderverse lol)

Paul Lasaine for 'Into the Spiderverse' This is AWESOME. But it's also one of the silliest designs I've ever seen comitted to screen. The varied scales of the characters work because of the unifying treatment (lighting, rendering, consistant hand anatomy, consistant cxlothing fold treatment etc) and because they are sort of proportional within themselves. A common manta is that hands should be about as large as a characters face....which they all are here!

Human brains are very flexible and forgiving though. It's totally fine for you to put a character with huge hands and head next to a teeny tiny character! Vanellope and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look grand next to each other! And in that film you even have varying levels of stylisation sitting against each other (unified by the look dev treatment of the shaders and lighting). I think as long as the chracter is proportional within themselves it sort of works out. IE: a general rule is that a hand should be as large as the face so…you can have some large arse hands as long as their placed on a body with a big arse head. Unifying characters with the same treatment (ie: lineart brush, colouring style will also help them look cohesive next to each other :) )

I don't actually reference the 3D models/animations very much at all and instead draw their proportions based on my tastes for stylisation following their general vibes/silhouette profiles. I don't stick THAT close to their in-game looks and there are artists who do that are so so so much better than me (Creedei and Flapjack come to mind). I'm not amazing at body-type differentation and TBH they're all wearing chunky clothes all the time so I usually draw the guys as one-of-three body shapes: Heavy is the uniquely wide guy; Sniper/Scout/Spy are all tall and slim and Demo/Soldier/Medic/Engie have a little more of the generic 'hero' bodytype with varying tallness and broadness of the shoulders

Something like this! You can vary all these individual elements in terms of size, thickness, taper amount etc to create different characters. If you ARE going to reference the 3d works though you'll need to apply some anatomy knowledge to overcome the weird shoulders, armpits and knees which desperately need blendshapes to correct the 3D volumes and approach it a little more like an animation supervisor. There's a reason why you see in making-ofs and art-ofs character designers, character leads or animation supes doing drawovers of the models. These are character models that have had great effort put into their 'base' silhouette but it still needs to be reinforced in every frame for maximum appeal.

Shiyoon Kim for 'Raya' This sort of thing will occur at multiple stages during the animation process. Shiyoon Kim's notes are post final model but pre-animation. Most likely for internal rig tests, exploring what blend shapes and alt shapes are needed for the rigs etc. If your production has time, this will continue all the way to final anim. IF! But it's interesting to see how he emphasises the shapes and enhances the character acting of the 3d model.

As for 'mundane things' - I wouldn't say they're second nature! (If that makes you feel better!) I have to actively really persue certain advice and try to figure out how to best apply it. This can sometimes involve redrawing and redrawing an element of the drawing until I've grasped the nettle of whatever I'm after or…..until I get frustrated and either delete the drawing or just call it done lol

Here, I'm looking for a really specific flow of the head that sells both the acting and a subtle head tilt. I'm also trying to apply the general mantra regarding faces that converging lines (set by the eyebrows and mouth) are more appealing than parallel. It's tough! I also tend to use a drawing I've already done as a template/reference on the page too. Oh! This page is an amazing example of why I'm not an animator or storyboarder…consistancy? Who is she? 💅

Converging lines (that form tapered shapes) are always more appealing than parallel. Using this logic you can loft the facial features across converging lines to create dynamic appealing espressions. Combining this with anatomy, perspective and rotation is the tough part though. I'm still learning o7

The things I probably think about MOST are always flats vs curves, simple vs complex and general line of action/flow...and then eliminting tangents. Each of these can be a dedicated visual-essay on their own - hence my stumbling as to answer your question. Anyhow, not sure if it's ever come up on this blog but I looove dinosaurs :)) so i'm using a wee piece to demostrate these ideas! (but also to demostrate these concepts apply to everything from humans characters to animals, props and background design)

Okay, I'm getting self-aware that this is getting really long :') I have a wee tutorial tag for my blog if anyone wants to comb through my garbled art-thoughts. Learning, studying, repetition and practice will always be the greatest teachers! I'm glad you like my art- thank you so much for the lovely comments - I feel like such a noob still and not qualified to give people advice but we're in it together learning! High-five! 🙌

[bubblergoespop]

My Top Blake Quotes

BLAKEY POOOOO ♡ sassy man

“You’re the brightest spot in my life. You always have been, even when you’re so far away I can barely see the glow.”

“Charming friend you got there. [he’s shaking in his boots]”

“That’s a one-way ticket to ending up in a spiral!”

“Whatever you need of me. I’ll give it, provided you save my love.”

“Questions aren’t really necessary right now, so how about you just sit there and look pretty, hmm?”

“Do you want me to show you exactly what magic can do when it’s not on your side?”

“If that’s what you want, then that’s what I want too. [goofy goofy chuckle]”

“You make me smile, you make me happy. I like being with you. That’s enough.”

“I can’t always keep my head above the water, but being with you is like… having an air tank. I might be below the surface, but I’m still getting oxygen. You’re that oxygen that keeps me going when I’m under."

“I told you, it was nothing... All right, let me clarify, it’s not “nothing”, it’s none of your fucking business.”

“I’m all yours.”

“Your little fuckbuddy-"

“It didn’t feel like a mistake to me. It felt like… someone switching on the lights, and suddenly realizing that I’d been standing in the dark all that time before. It felt like life was suddenly in colour.”

“it felt like I got a taste of everything I’d ever wanted, the most amazing feeling I’d ever experienced and then the next morning, I didn’t just lose the chance at that, I lost my best friend.”

“I’m tired of the dance. I just miss my friend.”

“I can’t be another mistake. Because it’ll break me.”

“You know me, you know how I am.”

“If we’re together, I’ll do everything for you, and I’ll give you everything I can, I’ll give you time and patience, if you need to be with your own thoughts, I’ll give you quiet, but I won’t be able to give you space.”

“The things I think about you, how much I want you… it’s the stuff you’re not supposed to say out loud. The stuff you’re never supposed to admit to feeling.”

“Just sitting at the table one morning, having breakfast when you realized, Oh wait, who's that voice in my head? Must be an ancient, unknowable force in Death. Guess I'll go back to my oatmeal.”

“What are you doing?”

“You would dirty their fucking name by speaking it.”

“if you pick this, it’ll be all of me. All of it. And we both know a lot of that’s not pretty.”

“I’ll get that smile on those pretty lips in the morning, just you wait.”

“I’m not worried you’ll try something. You don’t constitute a meaningful threat in my book. Sorry to bruise your ego.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“I’m not that fucking stupid. [He is]”

“Congratulations, someone please get the gentleman a door prize.”

“You can’t matter.”

“You're going to learn when to shut the fuck up. And spoiler alert, tied up, on the ground, with your powers inhibited? That's one of those times.”

“Wouldn’t that be cute?”

“I sleep easy in the arms of the person I love. Knowing that everything I’ve done, everything I do, I do for them.”

“I never stopped loving you, I’m still back there, I’m still just this scared kid telling you he fucking loves you.”

“Cute. Are you going to keep wasting time with passive aggression or do you actually have something to tell me?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Yeah, all for you. All of it. [ft D’Deridahn calling him horny in the background]”

[mephistopheleswasrobbed]

Right so, I currently feel a very strong urge to cut open my stomach like Chef Hong, but let's put that aside for now and focus on all the new evidence that Peaceful Property is very much gay, actually:

(somehow in light of the end of this episode all of this feels so shallow but well, I got this far, I'm not giving up now)

1

Peach is wearing THE shirt. The infamous "more than friends less than lovers" shirt.

And as is usually the case when this shirt appears, it perfectly describes the current state of Peach and Home's relationship.

2

I'm not really attentive enough to analyse colours in these shows, but even I noticed that Home's shirt is pretty blue at the beginning of this episode

Looks like both of them are (not so) subtly expressing their feelings through their clothes this week

3

We didn't really get confirmation either way about Peach's relationship with Best. Though judging by this little interaction between them, if there was something between them, it was probably initiated by Best. He's full-body reaching more than half-way across the frame, trying to get Peach to fistbump him while Peach only half-heartedly raises his fist towards Best's a little. (I admit I might be somewhat biased against him because of Pangpang, but I almost get the vibe that he kinda tried to get close to Peach to siphon off some of Chef Hong's attention. So he was using him from the beginning, first for his cooking skills then for his exorcism skills. But tbf it might have also just been innocent excitement.)

Anyway look at Chef Hong frowning at their interaction. She knows this is not the right man for her son favourite student.

4

Home, deepely and sincerely, wants to help Peach.

As soon as he finds out about Peach's trauma his first priority becomes helping him, not selling the property and not exorcising the ghost.

He even goes all alone to meet the ghost of Chef Hong and asks her to help Peach.

This is kind of a parallel to the second episode where Home went to confront Rak alone (with Suradech and Kan) after Peach refused to help him anymore. Except this time he actually goes alone and instead of asking the ghost to leave so he can make some more money, he sincerely asks her to help Peach. Character growth. But also. Doing it for the guy he likes. And this is why he gets the mother in law approval and not Best.

But helping someone is not always easy, so:

This is the face of a man who's desperate to help the person he loves even if that person doesn't think he can be helped. And he's willing to play the bad guy to get him that help.

It so clearly hurts him to talk to Peach that way but he doesn't know what else to do.

And Peach is also hurt because he thought that he and Home had gotten close enough that Home would care about his wellbeing more than making money. And he's right, too because Home IS actually doing this FOR his wellbeing and NOT for money. Peach just doesn't know that, yet.

(Quick aside about Peach: Shouting at someone while clutching their shirt. That's 'I love you so please understand me' level of fighting)

Classic tragic romance shit (in preparation for later things to come?). Especially with their next conversation happening through a glass pane. (Star Trek anyone? and many more that I can't think of right now)

And Home gives him hope. Hope that maybe his mentor didn't kill herself, hat maybe he's not responsible for her death. And with that he gives him the strength to face his fear. Good (not yet) boyfriend.

5

It's love, your honor!

He litterally takes over the job of taking care of Peach from Peach's mother figure

and then holds him while he breaks down. And not only does he hold him, he PULLS HIM IN so Peach can cry into his shoulder.

And Peach lets himself fall apart in Home's embrace, to let out all of the grief and guilt he had been carrying mixed with the relief of realising it wasn't his fault she died, and she never blamed him for any of it.

(I know I've said it before but man, Tay and New are really blowing this out of the water. They're just so good. Everything about this show is just sooooooo good.)

6

Is that jealousy I smell, Peach?

Don't worry. Home has already admitted that he's flirting with Kan as a bit not with any real intention. The real is reserved for you.

7

He fully plans to give it to Peach, doesn't he? Simp.

8

Between all the real talk, raw emotions and vulnerability, they're right back to bickering and teasing each other.

9

Now there's a classic BL trope. (And also again a callback to Chef Hong taking care of Peach, making it even more meaningful.)

10

Its LOVE, your honor!!!

But seriously:

Peach has fully fallen in love with Home at this point. And how could he not, after Home fully proved his kindness and selflessness and care for Peach this week. Peach had already started to really trust and be comfortable around Home last episode, but with this he's fully brought down Peach's walls. (too bad it's going to end up hurting them both soon)

And Home knows it, too. Speaking it out while also giving the plausible deniability of a joke. And note how Peach denies on behalf of Kan but not of himself.

They're inching their way towards each other, neither of them willing to say it without beating around the bush but both of them fully aware of what's happening between them. (too bad there's a big storm coming for them that's going to wreck this puppy love bliss)

11

And this, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between and beyond,

is the face of realisation that you did irreconcilable harm to the man you love and you didn't even know it. That the man you love just said a most sincere and heartfelt "Thank you" to his killer. To you. That all your newfound happieness is about to come crashing down around you and it's all your fault.

Seeing them be happy and flirty in the credit scene hurt. Because how long will they still have this? And either way, any blissful moment from now on is going to feel hollow for Home. And Kan knows, too. Will Pangpang find out before Peach? Will Home get to tell Peach himself or will Peach have to find out from someone else?

Major angst is incoming and honestly? That's pretty gay. Silver lining and all that, I guess.

Anyway I don't want to leave us off at a complete downer so have a quick

Lesbian Corner

The focus was very much on Peach this episode and Kan was mostly off doing her own thing so there's not much but there is this:

Pangpang felt quite betrayed when Kan didn't take her side against Home. She's clearly aware that they should hook team up seeing as the boys are busy with each other.

Don't worry girl, you'll get there eventually.

[balo-badartist]

HFDOSN OMG YOUR ART IS SO LOVELY!!

I was wondering if you have any tips to rendering or the way you pick colours?? It's something I struggle with and yours are so vibrant and full of life!

HII I’m actually so happy to answer ur question! I work at the studio I took art classes at to help highschool kids learn the basics to art, so I love teaching a bit of art!!

Mind you, I’m still a younger artist, and I still have a lot to learn. And this is only talking about my style and my tastes! Make sure to look at how the true masters do it too! (My favorite master artists are Redum4, Octahooves, and Matchach on Twitter)

When it comes to rendering, values, and color, it’s all about balance and contrast.

For rending, (at least for my style) it’s all about lost and found edges. Balancing lost edges vs soft edges. Smooth vs textured, harsh vs porcelain.

In my style, I see rendering as a way to convey character and mood. Lost edges equals softness and grace. Found edges equals harshness and severity.

I utilize lost and found edges in this way! In other words, if you ignore balance (such as utilizing many found edges and hardly any lost edges) then give it a narrative/mood reason, I say! :3

But in terms of the basics, lost edges means a smooth surface, a smooth transition from light to dark (or transition of color). While found edges suggests a harsh transition from light to dark. ALSO and probably most importantly when it comes to edges in rendering: Found edges reels the eye in, creating focus. Lost edges typically lose the eye, creating a rest for our eyes. It’s important to balance them for these reasons too!

For colors, it’s all about THE GRAYS. (Ironically enough!) The basics of my coloring method can be described via this sphere:

Basically, a highly saturated color can only have its high saturation in the spotlight BECAUSE the gray tones make it pop by giving the eyes a break period saturation wise. All about contrast!

As you can see, I differentiate the colors and saturations by values. My shadows are deeply saturated, typically warm. (It’s more typical to make the lighter area warm and the shadows cool! But I find that vibrancy comes easier if you desaturated the light, make it colder, and really PUMP UP the saturation and heat in the shadows.) And the areas lit up are typically cooler and have hints of gray in them! This is great for conveying strong direct light (which is typical in my style), and it makes it look as if the light is so powerful it seeps through their skin. You can see how I do this in some of my work, I typically exaggerate these qualities in skin!

You can also do this especially well for skin with melanin!

This also works especially well digitally, because saturation and value works in tangent in the color square! Pure white has no saturation, and the more saturation you add to pure white (the further right you go on the color square) the more saturated you get.

The use of grays are the most important thing when it comes to vibrancy, in my opinion! Too much saturation is, well, too much. Again, you can disregard this rule if you have a reason for it. Such as a high energy mood or overstimulation you’re trying to convey! Or desaturated to convey coldness, stillness, etc.

Anyways, I hope this made sense! (And sorry about it being more of an info dump than tip-giving >w<) If anyone wants clarification on anything, feel free to ask me in the comments! 🫶��🫶🏼

[batsplat]

In fact Open is a mandatory book for vr46 boys :)

ohhhhhh thank you!! that is SUCH impressive archiving, I'm always in awe of how much material you've amassed. and very based of them, big W for italian motorcycle racing. it's a great book!! I love that they've read it! there's a lot of sports autobiographies that take care never to stray from the generic when telling their stories... but this one has so much character that even knowing other professional athletes have read it makes me want to quiz them about what they thought

seeing as I've been given an opportunity to proselytise about this book, here is how it opens:

it's a book about having a deeply complicated relationship with the thing you've been forced to dedicate your whole life to, about being in constant pain and asking yourself if it's really worth it, about never having been given the time and space to develop properly into your own person... about hating tennis and never quite being able to walk away from it. the misery of winning and the refusal to countenance losing. the burden of having the whole world narrativise your career and your life, denying you the chance to do so for yourself, of being constantly judged and being constantly found inadequate. about rivalries!! having your whole career ending up being inadvertently defined by One Guy who you just don't really understand and who you can never escape

what agassi does is put words to a lot of the underlying narratives and themes of sports that other athletes also come into contact with in one way or another but are far less capable of articulating. you'll be hard-pressed to find another book that captures the humanity of sports so well, its twisted appeal and why it's so compelling

like,, idk there's so much going on in that book that when I find out another athlete has read it, I do want to basically go through it with them chapter by chapter (obviously I have a full set of notes and a highlighting system with one colour dedicated just to the sampras rivalry, so I'm well prepared for this task). it's cool that they've read it! good healthy interest in sports narrativisation on their part. in this post I brought up one of my favourite excerpts from the book when discussing the vale/casey rivalry -

- and idk, this kind of thing is just so fun and interesting you kinda want to go around and get everyone's thoughts on it. also obviously on a personal level,, enjoy the motogp guys, adore agassi and that whole era of tennis, so it's a fun crossover for me specifically. yay

btw, a new interview with agassi was published in the nyt a few days ago that I'd defo recommend to anyone with even just a passing interest in the sport (once you scroll past the bits about the worst event in tennis). starts with the line “as far apart as you are on a tennis court, you can actually feel the other one very intimately". even when he's delving more into the nuts and bolts of the sport, he just kinda gets how to explain it in a way that taps into the fundamental narrative appeal of what you're watching

oh yeah that's the good stuff

[loustica-lucia]

Heroes of the Dragon Age

An animation I've made for Dragon Age Day 2023, featuring my main Warden (Alyssa Cousland-Theirin), Hawke (Eleena Amell Hawke) and Inquisitor (Sulevin Lavellan)!

It's to this day one of my best artwork and I thought I should share it here too! 90+ hours between the original sketch, outfit design, the rough animation, rotoscope, inking, flat-colours, background shading and even the audio :')

Interested in the process? I detailed it below since it was my first time doing something like that:

I would like to start by saying I'm not a professional animator!Everything you've seen here is the result of experimentation and a lot of practice to learn and understand how 2D animation works.

My first idea started in May 2023. I just finished rewatching DA Absolution for the X time, and wanted to analyse why I loved the intro so much. (Even after countless rewatch, I never skipped it once.) I was inspired to study it with my main three protagonists!

Then came the first test with Alyssa Cousland-Theirin, my Hero of Ferelden! I tried to understand which part to separate for the animation. Mainly the hair and cape because it flows a lot more than the rest! If I recall, my first idea here was to make her counter flame attacks (?). Then, as the camera turns around her, I tried to add a grid to know how the camera would work around it.

I ended up making the clip longer, so she could position herself to the further left and leave space to the two other protagonists.

Now it was time to try to animate Sulevin Lavellan, my Inquisitor. I really kept that quick doodling style just to capture the vibe without putting too much time/effort into it! The background would be static to contrast with Alyssa's. I also loved the idea of a rogue sneaking!

Instead of working on Eleena Amell Hawke, my Champion of Kirkwall, I went back to Alyssa and started working with Clip Studio Paint 3D models (this entire animation has been done on the EX version of the software!) It helped for rotoscope animation and maintaining likeness! That's when I got the idea to make the background swirl around the character to let the eyes be guided by the rest of the screen!

After a couple more hours, I planned the entire animatic with 3D models and quick doodles! I finally found a cool pose for Eleena Hawke, which was honestly the hardest of the three to imagine for some reason? I tried many other poses but ended up picking an animation from the game!

This whole time, I was studying a bunch of background ideas and how studio Red Dog Culture House (who made Absolution) work! Thankfully, they have a YouTube Channel where they shared some BTS content so I could analyse it!

Then, I simplified my character and their original designs in the style of the studio! These outfits are how I imagine them after Trespasser. Alyssa as the Queen of Ferelden, looking for a cure to the Calling, Hawke following Fenris to Tevinter & Sully as a Red Jenny Inquisitor!

The idea for Sulevin's animation actually came from a piece I doodled on a live stream, when I was drawing pose studies and turning them into finished artworks haha As for Alyssa, I wanted to draw the fight that got her facial scars!

Once their designs were ready and the background ideas too, I made the rough version of the animation! Basically a sketch done on top of the 3D models to add the details, staying pretty rough just to capture the idea and movements.

Then it was time to start the lines! I decided make a folder per frame, so I could separate all he main elements and draw them one by one. It helps keeping the likeness of a character in the different frames without having big "jumps" between frames! In fact, every parts were coloured differently to recognize them, and then I used vector erasers and masks (Ah yes, the entire lineart is done in vectors of course! It's easier to adjust and save time when working on similar frames!)

At first of course, everything overlaps! But I find it easier to draw too much and erase after, just to make sure everything is coherent in each frames! The cool thing about CSP is how you can change the colour of the layers in one click! So all the coloured lines turned into black in one second, and I could reverse it just as quickly to double check!

Then I started working on Sulevin! I made a blue line to mark where her feet were, as the sketch in the background wasn't perfectly straight! (Like Sulevin's sexuality 🤭😂) The silhouettes were very quick to do, but I had fun adding more & more details as she came closer to the foreground!

I really wanted to add that little dagger trick, but I remember it required me to change the pacing of Eleena's apparition, as it was recovering her arm too quickly! I had to change the pace of multiple frames quite a lot during the project, to make sure the flow was right! For Eleena, most of her animation remained around her arms and the staff itself, as magic would be the most difficult part! That way each character has their own focus: Alyssa has a very animated background, Sulevin got the grappling hook and Eleena the ice!

Then it was time to start adding colours! Just like for the lineart, I separated every colour on it's own layer, so I could easily adjust the colours later if needed. I added one colour at the time, going through all the frames, and then another colour!

I made full palette tests with the colours I would use for their background at this point, checking if the details remained readable! Alyssa was the most challenging in terms of clothes, because I made her a very detailled armour! I had to simplify the Theirin heraldry, vectorize/redraw the Cousland, and make a brush for her cape's pattern!

Once I was done adding the flatcolours, I started the background, and oh boy it was a wild ride. For the cave, I painted multiple tests. I imagine was to use CSP panorama tools, which transform a texture into a 3D sphere, so each corners must match to look good. Sadly, it made the background very blurry, so after hours of testing, I changed ideas. Instead of the random fire balls (?) I originally imagined for Alyssa, I made three simple frames of a Rage Demon to attack her.

I ended up using the cave as a repeated pattern to make it turn 360° around the character. For Eleena, I mixed inspiration from the comics, Dreadwolf & Absolution, using warm colours matching Hawke's signature red. Just like I made the cave very grey/blue to match Grey Wardens. For Val Royeaux, it was more complex because I wanted to make it green, matching the Inquisitor's signature green. But bright green couldn't work, and the original colour during day time was blue/white/gold. So I added more leaves, played around the design a bit! After adding the rage demon, I made the shading! It was surprisingly easy and quick to do now!

I clipped a white layer on the flatcolours to not be distracted by the colours, and made thin lines to separate the light/shadows, then simply filled everything with the bucket tool! Then you set the layer to multiply and remove the white layer, and you have celshading shadows! Now the character looks out of the picture, so I added layers of blue in color burn, saturation and substract blending modes to make her look like she's in the right setting! Of course, I did the same with the other two, giving Hawke a red overlay and Sulevin green shadows!

Then I added the details, it went from white irises, to sword/staff smears to earrings and smaller finition that goes on top of these layers. To add the lights, I simply selected the shadows and reversed the selection! Using warm and cold tones to create contrast with the purple/bluish shadows! I also added more ambient light layers for Alyssa to reflect the Rage Demon fire. Now it was time to add ice magic! My first attempt had too many frames, making it look weird! Sometimes it's better to lower the frame rate to make things less bumpy!

Then I downloaded some cool ice brushes on CSP assets that made it look less like blue magical flames! But when I covered the screen in ice, I realized "Oh wait, I could make a cool transition from the ice, to blue lyrium turning red?"Red Lyrium truly links these three games and The Veilguard somehow! I spent the next hour painting over the idol and putting it in a black background, with lyrium and then the golden Dragon Age title text.

For the SFX, I used free youtube libraries sounds & "Darkspawn!" comes from the violent human female voice set (iconic for ""Can I get you a ladder? So you can get off my back!"😂🤭) After editing all that, the animation was finally done!

Here's the final math:

About 15 hours for the sketching/rough/animatic phase, 30h for the lineart, 25h for colours, 10h for backgrounds, 5h for details & 5h for music & SFX, for a total of 90 hours. Aka the same amount of time it took me to finish Baldur's Gate 3 the first time lol

If you have any question regarding the animation or the softwares etc. do not hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer!

[creatingblackcharacters]

hi yes back with another submission for the september challenge

May from & Juliet! (nobody is surprised im sure)

May is a non binary character. they genuinely mean the world to me. theyre fun, theyre happy, thryre colourful and bright but most importantly? complex. (well, as complex as you can get as one of 8 main characters in a 2 hour musical)

from their first scene, you might think they're just another gay best friend stereotype. but the amazing thing is is that theyre NOT!

May has their own story. they get a solo song about their experience with being trans, being non binary, and it's so beautiful.

theyre Juliet's best friend. theyre one of the first two main characters we see Juliet interact with and the love there is so CLEAR. they love each other so much, they love her so much!!

some actors do little things to show that theyre also close with Angelique which is just so cute to me, i love them all sooo much 💙💙

Reggie's Obligatory Actor Section: the actor ive selected for this is Jesse Dutlow! they were the May principal actor in the australian tour, and theyre a huge fan of the show too! (theyre travelling to GERMANY to see it, and im pretty sure they dont speak german)

Jesse's May is super confident, not particularly shy, very outgoing, and i love that! (although i ALSO love a shy May, i just love May)

Jesse has some FANTASTIC vocals. with May's love interest, one of their lines is really special, and i love the way Jesse says it!

the line is "you know im not a girl, right? because if thats what you think-" and Jesse says it in a way thats clearly like, nervous. and considering that ive mentioned that their May ISN'T really nervous, i feel like it shows their vulnerability in that moment. (and the love interest responds great, saying that it doesnt matter to him and that he just likes them)

sorry for the Jesse ramble, theyre a super good May actor and i love their portrayal of them a lot

like i said, May is a 'gay best friend' who gets a STORY. they get to be so much more than just that. they get to fall in love and fight for what they want and they get to sing about their life and i love them! i love that they get to do this!! (also ive met Jesse before and theyre like, literally one of the most lovely people on the planet)

i think ive rambled on long enough so here's some pictures of other Black May actors that i didn't talk about!

this isn't all of them but theyre all fantastic, genuinely Jaz Terry (the third one) is so amazing and one of her vocal choices for May's solo always has me screaming cause shes just so GOOD

tl:dr, i love May i love Jesse i love all May actors and i also love & Juliet

You sure do love it lol. That's good though. I'm happy to see that so many important roles, especially around Juliet, are other Black people. That outfit on the top right though!! I'm also glad to hear they're not another gay best friend stereotype. I feel like Black men specifically (ik this person is nonbinary) get tossed into that role in a way to... to make them more "acceptable"? I've mentioned it before that it feels like many people try to go the "feminine twink" route to make Black men less threatening and "more relatable" (without saying that), which really reveals how they feel about Black men as a whole. It's like they want the Sassy Black Bestie, but toss in some mode of queerness to sound "inclusive". So to hear that there's an actual nonbinary bestie played by an actual nonbinary actor whose identity isn't a token for story and cushion or laughingstock for viewers is a relief.

Hot Chocolate: The nonbinary best friend actually gets their own time to shine and character depth??? Hell yeah 🙌🏾🙌🏾. I'm sure we're all tired of that trope in general, but it also annoys me because it often leans into the magical Negro trope. We have lives, concerns, and personalities- we shouldn't have to remind y'all of that. Anyway to see the character get treated with such respect and genuine love is all we ask for. It's not that hard and I'm glad this musical achieves that 🔥🔥

[buckgasms]

Hi, I have been absolutely loving your blog, mostly the Daddy!Bucky & Princess stories (but let’s be honest who doesn’t love Bucky 🥰😂!) and I was wondering about something..

I had my birthday recently and was wondering how the 2 of them would celebrate? U can make it as fluffy or smutty as u would like, and it’s okay if it takes a while for u to write, I have one every year so it will be close enough to each of them 😉

Keep up the good work and I cant wait to see more of your stories and imagination come to life 🥰

First of all @nicoline1998enilocin I am so sorry! This request is so old it's probably almost your birthday again 🫣 but I kept it in my inbox because I really love it and I wanted to do it justice, which hopefully is done for you today.

And also, happy birthday 🎂🎈 thank you for preempting my uselessness and for sending in a lovely ask!

So let's start with Bucky's birthday:

- You try your absolute best to wake up first so you can give him birthday head but I feel like he would also be happy at waking you up too.

- Either way it's an X-rated morning lol.

- You managed to sneak out of his arms long enough to rush out to the kitchen and grab the pretty cakes you made the day before.

- He appears in the living room to find you sitting amongst his presents, a little cupcake and a candle lighting up your pretty face.

- Kneeling down he looks at you for a moment before blowing out his candle. He cups your cheek in a warm hand and pulls you in for a kiss.

- I'm not sure what you'd get for a criminal CEO who has everything but you manage to get him some lovely gifts.

- Stationery is always good, and some books. Maybe a nice watch? Shirts? Sunglasses?

- Plus you have a few little bags filled with pretty lingerie and toys that you figured he would enjoy.

- The present unwrapping ends with him cuddling you and kissing you all over, snuggling up as he thanks you for all the wonderful gifts.

- But you are the best gift he's ever had.

- I feel like there would also be an unspoken agreement that any time the birthday boy wants to have his princess, he gets her.

- Doesn't matter where you are, or what's happening. He just grabs you, pins you down or presses you up against a wall and takes what's his.

- Without knowing when it's happening you spend the day in a state of giddy excitement and desire.

🎂

- Daddy is the kinda guy who does big parties, but actually hates them when they are happening.

- He spends a bit of time chatting to his friends, opening some gifts and eating delicious canapes, but his mind is preoccupied.

- Because of you.

- You have dressed up in a little pink dress that looks exactly like a ribbon on top of a present. And he wanted to unwrap you right then and there.

- And perhaps in fact you told him that he could? As a special birthday treat?

- He'd managed to resist so far, but now he just wants his pretty present.

- He sidles up behind you and wraps his arms around you, pressing kisses to your shoulder and neck. You giggle as he tugs gently at the end of the bow.

- Much to both of your surprises it falls off quite quickly and drops to the floor. Some of the guests notice and clap, as you giggle twirling around and pressing yourself into Bucky's chest.

- "Much better I must say" he mutters into your ear and brushes his nose along yours before stealing a kiss from you. He deepens it as your arms wrap around him, holding you close.

- People actually sigh and swoon.

- Maybe you dance a little or maybe he just waves his guests goodbye as you walk with him up the stairs to the bedroom.

🎂

Now let's talk about Princess' birthday:

- He wakes you up with kisses and surrounds you with presents on the bed.

- I also think he would get you a tiara because you are a Princess.

- All the presents are so perfect, he gets you all those little things that you have mentioned over the past few months.

- Maybe some nice jewellery, books, dresses, colouring books, a new phone? New supplies for arts and crafts? Teddy bears?

- Also he's taking you to Italy...

🎂

- He spends the day pampering you, pleasuring you and treating you like the princess that you are.

- I think he would take you out for lunch, but he'd make sure the whole restaurant was booked so you weren't disturbed.

- He's gonna fuck you right there as well because you look so beautiful and happy and he can't resist you.

- I think you have permission to come anytime you want on your birthday. All you have to do is say, "Daddddy" and bat your pretty eyelashes and he'll be there to make you feel all better.

🎂

- A similar party ensues, although probably a smaller crowd because you prefer it that way.

- You take your time opening presents, giving big hugs to all of the gifters and showing Daddy what you got.

- Despite a whole day of sex on tap, you still feel a hit desire for him. He just looks so divine and delicious.

- And he knows you are dying for him so he asks Natasha to give you your present as he drags you into his lap, pretty skirt of your dress covering your lap.

- You squeak as his hand slides up your thigh and into your underwear, rubbing and sliding into your soaked heat.

- "Just can't get enough can ya? I can feel how swollen and used this pretty cunt is Princess, and still you want more hmm? Such a good girl. God I'm so lucky..."

- His whispering all this filth in your ear as you unwrap your present. You do your absolute best to thank Natasha and focus on what she's brought you, but his fingers are curling and pressing into that magical spot inside that sends your brain into a fog.

- You basically stay like that until the party ends. Everyone gives you a birthday kiss before they leave and you smile and wave as they go.

- Leaning back on Bucky's chest you let out a little whine, as he continues to make a mess of you.

- "Ready for your last present?"

🎂

- Much like his birthday the evening will end with something very special.

- I think he'd purchase something really kinky for his birthday, and something even kinkier for yours 😂

- I also like the idea of it all being a bit silly. Like you have to sing happy birthday to him as he spanks you, and if you get distracted he starts again.

- Ooh what about those candles you can use in the bedroom?? He'd turn you into his little birthday cake, eating you out but you have to stay still otherwise you get wax on you?

- Or instead of a gag he puts a cupcake in your mouth and you have to hold it tight without eating it.

- Frosting.

- I feel like these would work for both your birthdays because let's face it, being Daddy's plaything is as much a treat for you as it is for him 💞

- But always ending in cuddles, a nice bath and a reminder of how much he loves his Princess, how his life is better with you, how lucky he is and how he wants every birthday, every day spent with you 💞

[roo-fanart]

This post contains Spoilers for all of In Stars and Time!

Please play the game blind if you can it’s so so so worth it.

So! I made a post on my main account a few days back making a joke about Loop looking like a xurkitree. I edited their eyes onto an image from bulbapedia, and voilà!

A loop both in full colour and greyscale!

But that got me thinking - what pokémon best suited the other characters? I’m still stumped on most of them, but the ideas for Siffrin flowed way too fast. some were obvious - pokémon with funky hats like murkrow, space themed pokémon (with a little extra) like minior or jirachi, celebi or basically any ghost pokémon for the loops, pokémon like ditto or zorua for twohats, SOMETHING to tie back to where he’s from, etc.

I was REALLY attached to mismagius (mostly for the hat/ghost type combo) but also kept coming back to mimikyu for the island. mimikyu were added in alola, their whole thing is mimicking (but in a way that’s obviously wrong), the ghost type also works for the loss of memory and the disguise has a lot of potential for any conversations Siffrin normally has about their clothes. I really loved the idea of a disguise that told of how clearly and then I had an epiphany.

do mimikyu disguises have to be pikachu?

I somehow managed to forget to write this, but Odile was the one who came up with the idea of the patch being the same colour as a mismagius eye. Siffrin doesn’t have an actual eyepatch underneath, because there is no eye (or eye socket) there either, most of the time - it’s just ghost mist. The patch was necessary to keep the disguise from fraying thanks to the damage, and the only way Isabeau could find to do that without damaging the craft on the disguise further was by patching over the damaged hole.

I debated a LOT with where to put Siffrin’s eyepatch. The ability disguise made it even harder - it would make more sense for it to activate, but the enemy wasn’t aiming for siffrin, they were aiming for Bonnie, who is probably tiny. I eventually decided that I was still going to have the sadness (equivalent) hit their actual eye, on grounds of “the only reason for an eyepatch would be if Bonnie stitched up the disguise eye as a non-verbal apology, rather than Isabeau” and “regardless of how naturally it happens, writing out disability is something I’m wary of”.

And yes! Mal du Pays! I knew fairly early on that I wanted to keep the silhouette but not the outline. Still not sure if I want to go with something close to canon Siffrin or something related to jirachi, but…

[silhouette-cosplay]

Hi! I really admire your cosplays and all the work you do! Your Loki cosplays were actually some of the first major cosplays I was exposed to, and it ended up really inspiring me to try it myself.

I was actually wondering how you blend your elf ears for characters like Astarion and Galadriel; it always looks really smooth in pictures and I haven’t been able to find any tutorials online for the blending part of the application.

Thanks, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Heya! And thanks so much, it always makes me SO so happy to hear I can inspire folks to jump into their own cosplay endeavours!

So re: ears, it actually depends on which photos you're looking at. In photoshoot pics, I'll usually touch up the ear edge in photoshop to look more seamless, so if you're looking at those, that's just the magic of finished photos haha. But there are a couple things I do too to make the ears look better in person!

I usually cut off the lobes if the ears come with them, so it's more like an ear tip, which for my ears blends better than having a full ear covering!

I paint the ears with matching foundation AND (this is the important part) blush! At least for super pale white folks like me, ears have a ton of red/pink tones and matching your personal ear colours makes a huge difference in how natural they look.

I apply my ears with pros aide, which is a medical grade adhesive and is SUPER sticky and very long-lasting. I can really squish the ear down flat against my own ear contours so it has as little of a gap as possible.

My ears are latex and bought from Madhouse FX; if you want something even more realistic, silicone ears are even better, and if you wanna go SUPER custom, you could try making your own ear casts/moulds/scupts and these will blend better than prebought anything (I would love to try that sometime, just haven't had the time haha)

I know this is probably a lot more info and a bit of a tangent from your initial question, but I wanted to throw extra info out there for anyone else who might be reading!

[cher-rei]

love song ♬— chapter 4 [ J.M ]

pairing: jamal musiala x fem!oc

summary [please read]

genre(s): strangers to lovers, fluff, angst and football romance [love song playlist]

[w.c: 4.3k] masterlist

notes: this is the one!! ya'll thought I was joking about the 5k word count 😔

previous chapter | next chapter

the three friends stepped off the train in herzogenaurach, the city bustling with excitement and laughter. with their luggage in hand, they caught their uber and successfully made it to their b&b that they rented our for the remainder of the tournament.

obviously because it was where the team's training camp was located, and it would mean less hassle and back and forth travel from munich.

the uber turned into a quaint street lined with traditional bavarian townhouses, each boasting colourful flower boxes and rustic facades. a wooden sign creeked in the gentle breeze, bearing the b&b’s name in gold, bold letters.

“welcome ladies.” the sight of a middle aged man greeted them at the front door, his smile inviting as he held the villa's key in his hands. “she's yours for the next few weeks. don't be scared to call me if anything is needed.”

with a grateful smile, aaliyah let the keys fall into her palms and waved off the property owner while sophia and noelle got the rest of their luggage.

as they entered the, the cozy living room enveloped them in warmth. plush sofa's, rustic wooden furniture, and rich, dark wood floors created an inviting atmosphere. vintage memorabilia adorned the walls, alongside german team jerseys and photographs.

they led to each of their bedrooms— sophia's boasted vibrant red and black bedding and a more rustic look while aaliyah's room featured sleek, modern decor. noelle's room was cozy, with a comfortable reading nook.

the kitchen beckoned, filled with with aroma of freshly brewed coffee which was more than enough to make noelle's senses perk up.

“you know,” she turned to look at her friend's with an innocent smile. “I think we should have some coffee, to match the atmosphere and stuff.”

before she could successfully open one of the cabinets, aaliyah interjected and pulled her to the side and gestured to the fridge. “we have orange juice, don't talk crap.”

noelle's shoulders dropped in disappointment. “but it's not the same,” she whined but her friends weren't giving into her plea.

“yeah, it won't lead to kidney failure,” sophia said with a smile and passed her the glass of orange juice, the look of distaste on noelle’s face comical. “drink it so we can unpack.”

the following two days spent in the city went about quickly, with lots of time out to explore and just enjoy their time together. noelle even got some time to start on her thesis, or at least figure out where she was intending to go with it. on different occasions she would call sophia and aaliyah aside separately for some questioning, trying to get as raw of a response that she could.

sophia's interview [log 1]

n: how do you handle the pressure of being in the public eye?

s: honestly, it's tough. but kai keeps me grounded, funny enough. he's really supportive and puts my comfortability first, which I really appreciate.

n: how do you maintain intimacy and the relationship's strength with different schedules?

s: (laughs) we make time, even if it's just a video call like we've been doing recently. trust is key.

n: okay, yoda. what's the most challenging part of dating a high profile athlete?

s: balancing my own identify with being “kai havetz's girlfriend”. well, fiance now. but he's sweet, and encourages me to pursue my passions, even if it isn't the most ideal. we work around it.

n: aw, that's so sweet... move back to munich for me.

s: (laughs) no. nice try though, maybe it'll actually work next time.

n: shut up.

aaliyah's interview [log 2]

n: uhh, let's see. ah, how do you cope with flo's intense training regiments?

a: communication is key, sweetheart. we prioritise our time together and as long as there is understanding and trust, we’re good.

n: ew, sophia said the same thing.

a: because it's true you idiot. you're just a baby, you'll understand one day.

n: what's the most surprising aspect of dating a professional athlete?

a: the emotional highs and lows. you're going to experience that first hand this time around since you're with us. their passion for football is infectious but losses can be tough, which means that they rely on us for emotional support and reassurance. it's a lot of responsibility but it's worth it.

n: that's a lot of words. I think I deserve some coffee.

a: you wanted raw and honest? I gave you raw and honest. but touch that espresso machine and i will light it on fire in front of you.

n: ughhhhhh!

she slept, ate and drank thesis for the next few days. and that even meant when they went out. it was a day before germany and hungary's match in stuttgart that sophia proposed that they took a trip to the training camp. were they allowed to? not in the slightest.

there was a strict no family policy implemented to keep the teams’ players focused and isolated. which noelle found sort of dumb.

the three friends entered the camp with sophia leading the way as if she owned the place, greeting the staff members that passed by and whatnot, while aaliyah and noelle walked behind with their arms linked.

“this feels illegal,” noelle said, her eyes scanning the sleek and modern interior of the building before they headed onto the training pitch.

aaliyah smiled. “that's because it is.”

noelle couldn't help but shake her head, a quizzical look on her face as she looked up at aaliyah with so many questions plauging her mind. “how do you not have a criminal record yet?”

from in front of them sophia threw her head back in laughter, taking a step back go high five noelle with a satisfied smile. aaliyah didn't see the comment as an insult however and shrugged her shoulders. “I have connections and a very pretty face.”

the path that led them to the training pitch was unnecessarily lengthy, the accommodation in general was absolutely huge. the building felt like it was swallowing noelle whole.

the football pitch was located on the further side of a smaller pitch with fake grass, a running track circling the field with the bleachers on the far right just opposite the building.

the three girls happily took their seats on the last level of the bleachers, nothing but a barricade separating them and the footballers going through their drills. turns out that aaliyah did have connections, meaning that even though family weren't allowed to visit unless given the permission at allocated times, the girls were.

it didn't take much for kai and florian to spot their girlfriend's, and by the looks in their eyes they were ready to drop everything and make a run for it. jamal on the other hand tripped over his own feet at the sight of noelle but he managed to catch himself without making it too obvious.

“are you okay?” toni asked the younger boy, who sheepishly waved his captain off and cleared his throat from the minor embarrassment.

for the rest of the first session, jamal couldn't help but turn to the bleachers every so often, his gaze unintentionally landing on noelle who was sat with her ipad on her lap, scribbling something down. he came to the conclusion that she was working on her thesis, listening intently as her friends spoke.

her laughter sounded through the air at some point, followed by sophia slapping her on the arm and yelling something through her own laughter.

“you look like a lovestruck deer.” the retort came from none other than kai himself, which promoted jamal to take a step back and hit him with the most judgement look he could muster.

“are you telling me that?” he scoffed. “kai ‘my girlfriend breathes and I want to die in her arms’ havertz?”

kai threw his hands up in defence. “wow, thanks for that. remind me to just shut up next time.”

jamal playfully smiled at his sarcastic comment, gratefully taking it. “with pleasure.”

“jamal and kai you're acting like we're not playing an international tournament!” their coach yelled after blowing the whistle to gain their attention, the two footballers immediately halting their argument. “wouldn't you like to hold a trophy this season havertz? might just be the first and last!”

while the players all erupted into a fit of laughter, the three girls on the bleachers were in their own bubble of conversation.

“seriously, how traumatised do you have to be to start yelling, ‘run up, run up. cross the ball, I'm open!’”

noelle and sophia covered their mouths in an attempt to contain their laughter at aaliyah's story. she shook her head and continued complaining, sophia giving her own input in between while noelle took notes on her tablet.

she was silently absorbing all the words exchanged between her friends, perhaps looking up at the pitch to see jamal laughing or jumping in excitement about scoring. unbeknownst to her, there was a faint smile on her lips even if it didn't feel like it.

“are you seriously just going to sit there?” sophia asked with a chuckle, watching as noelle took a sip from her water bottle. yes water.

she closed the plastic bottle with a smile, gesturing for them to continue. “yes, now carry on talking. you're doing great.”

aaliyah's brows furrowed. “I was literally talking about how irritating flo is when he sleeps talks.”

“exactly,” noelle deadpanned and got comfortable in her seat, ready to listen to more complaining but unfortunately the whistle sounded which meant that it was time for a water break.

sophia and aaliyah were out of their seat at lightning speed, practically hopping over the barricade to get onto the pitch where florian and kai were getting water. she shook her head in slight disapproval, a sigh escaping her lips as she focused on the two couples and their interaction.

their dynamics were so different, and it was something that noelle was heavily taking into account for her thesis, and simply out of genuine interest. kai and sophia were softer— their love and affection for each other was so evident that you wouldn't be able to see them without each other, it simply didn't make sense.

and florian and aaliyah were a lot more playful, with aaliyah wearing the pants in the relationship. they shared light banter, silent glances and gentle gestures while also maintaining a strong sense of friendship. it was cute.

noelle didn't even realise that she zoned out until jamal called her name. the footballer walked up to the barricade, “hey stranger.” his arms relaxed on the top with a gentle smile on his face. “what brings you to this side of the world?”

a chuckle left her lips at the playfulness in his voice and she hummed in thought for a moment. “my friends’ borderline obessesion and codependence,” she said half joking and jamal laughed. “and what brings you to this side of the pitch?”

a glint of something flickered in his eyes at the question, something that noelle managed to catch before he answered. “a very pretty psych student.”

now, just because noelle had never been in a relationship before did not mean that she was oblivious. she's had her fair share of encounters to know when someone was flirting with her, it's just that this was the only time where she didn't have the alarm going off in her head telling her to awkwardly laugh and change the subject.

for some reason she was more thrilled and keen on entertaining it, even if it was just a joke (she wasn't sure).

“oh, really?” she questioned with mock intrigue. “where is she?” she straightened her posture and looked around the field to which he laughed.

his laughter sent a warm shiver down her spine, she couldn't help but enjoy his playful demeanour. she watched with her lips pursed as he took his phone out of his pocket and turned the screen in her direction to see the front camera open.

yep. she was on the verge of throwing up and overheating.

“she's right there,” he said with a proud smile and she nodded along with flushed cheeks but she held onto her playful facade.

“oh, wow. and what makes her so special exactly?”

jamal's grin widened. “well she's super smart, has this insane coffee addiction, and she can quote fifa regulations verbatim.”

noelle chuckled at his answer, almost losing herself at the last point. he wasn't even trying but she was quite aware that what she felt in that moment was the equivalent of downing four shots of espresso. “that's quite the combination. was that combo the reason you tripped earlier on?”

jamal's laughter echoed through the air, his eyes crinkling at the corners while slight embarrassment welled up inside him. “maybe it was the combination, maybe it was something else entirely.”

she stifled a laugh and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ears that were on fire. “well whatever reason, I'm glad that you're okay.” her tone was gentle and genuine, enough for him to lean in a little closer, his fingers absentmindedly tapping along the barricade.

“I think that it was fate’s way of getting my attention,” he prompted and noelle's lips parted, her eyes playfully rolling. “and now that I have it, I think I should conduct a study of my own.”

he was freakishly good at this. every word that left his mouth made her question herself. “oh, really? I'm listening.”

he looked up at the sky for a moment. “the psychology of the perfect distraction.”

her cheeks burned, but she couldn't tear her gaze away from his. not when this was a thrill that she wasn't about to give up. “and how do you want to go about that? any references in mind?”

he nodded eagerly, proud smile on his face to know that he wasn't shooting himself in the foot with whatever the hell he was doing right now. it wasn't even planned. he just wanted to say hi. not profess his undying love!

“there's this coffee-addicted, fifa-regulation-quoting-genuis that is exactly what I'm looking for.”

“and what makes you think this genuis would be interested in your research?”

for the first time in however long this conversation was going on for, jamal felt his smile falter before he managed to recover it. “well, I'm willing to take the risk. and besides,” he shrugged. “I think she's already interested.”

naturally she asked what made him think that. because she wanted to know what her behaviour looked like from his perspective, granted that he was talking about her right now. if not, then she was screwed and was about to live with a life time of embarrassment and another reason to not leave her house.

a sigh left jamal's lips, one that seemed more dazed than exhausted. “the way that she smiles when I talk about fifa regulations.”

she couldn't hold it in anymore, her laughter practically burst from her chest in relief to the point where she was doubled over and clutching her stomach. she tried to calm herself down but whenever she took a breath to look at jamal she found herself laughing again, leaving him there to hold back his own to admire her.

she sit up and fanned her already burning face, taking a moment to wipe the tears that managed to escape. “I think you're already an expert in distraction.”

he raised his hands in defence. “guilty as charged.”

unfortunately their banter was disturbed. “musiala, water break is over!”

with a sigh he turned to noelle and shot her one last smile. “duty calls, but I'll see you tomorrow?”

she nodded slowly, but bit her tongue for a moment, rethinking her original answer. “I think I can arrange that research meeting by the way, at a price of course.”

his intrigue that died down seconds ago was back and jamal found himself looking at her like a lost puppy. “oh?”

her lips parted to say something but was drowned out by someone calling his name again which he dismissed immediately. “leroy, can you shut up for a minute please! I'm right here!” he turned back to noelle. “I'm listening.”

“I need a goal from you tomorrow, just for fun,” she stated with a shrug and he hummed in response, more than happy with the request.

“deal,” he said almost instantly but noelle felt like carrying on her teasing, eager to test his limits.

she held out her hand, watching as his confused gaze travelled to it. nonetheless, he leant his arm over the barricade, enough that she was able to get hold of his hand to which she gently held his wrist and lightly tapped the inside of it thrice.

“what?” he looked up at her.

“I just cursed you,” she said through a smile, his expression dropping instantly. when she was done with her joke she went on to explain to him that it was a simple gesture to lock a promise.

it was something stupid she made up a when she was younger, and often did with carmen before she became the epitome of her worst nightmare.

as he jogged back onto the field, the post convention clarity hit noelle like a truck. immediate regret bubbled in her stomach but she couldn't even dwell ob her stupidy long enough before sophia and aaliyah were at her sides, nagging on her head about the encounter.

they weren't satisfied with a simple, “we just talked.”

aaliyah shook her head, calling out her bluff and blatant lie. “you didn't see what we saw! you were smiling like crazy, shut up, noelle you even giggled!”

“ew, as if!”

when they got back home, noelle was the first to head to her room saying that she was exhausted. and naturally the girls decided to not press the situation and let her be, making sure to call her down for supper and then she was back in her room.

noelle sank into the bed, surrounded be the quaint floral patterns and photographs in the room. the soft glow of the bedside lamp cast eerie shadows on the walls, mirroring her inner turmoil.

as she lay there, the silence was oppressive, punctuated only by the distant hum of crickets and the occasional creek of the old wooden floorboards. sophia and aaliyah's excited whispers still lingered in her mind, but now they were replaced by her own taunting doubts.

her thoughts swirled like a maelstrom, threatening to pull her under. she knew herself, she knew her fears like the back of her hand. she knew all too well that intimacy was something that she preferred to steer clear from, there was nothing worth being vulnerable and losing someone. she's seen it first hand with her parents.

noelle was young but she wasn't stupid, and seeing her father leave the house in the middle of the night only to return hours later without explanation was enough of a tell tale. she was 8 when she picked up her father's phone for the first time, the distant rising annoying her as she proceeded to colour in, in the living room.

it was silent, she didn't want to say anything yet because she wasn't sure who was calling. until the unfamiliar female voice echoed through the speaker. “adrian, sweetheart are you there?”

from that day onward, noelle was unable to look at her father the same. she had to witness her mother suffer through the deceit and self doubt, the crying and the anger filled words. she was there.

the darkness outside seemed to seep into her room, shrouding her in an unsettling uncertainty. noelle's heart raced, her palms growing slick with sweat.

intimacy terrified her. the thought of vulnerability, of exposing herself, made her want to retreat into the comfort of her solitude.

but jamal's playful words lingered, and his smile was etched into her mind. he didn't what he was getting himself into, and that guilt settled into her stomach. he was trying, he was genuine and she was a coward.

noelle's eyelids grew heavy, but her mind refused to quiet. fear and self doubt wrestled with the fragile spark of hope.

they weren't doing much the following day besides getting on the train to stuttgart early that morning for the match. it gave noelle time to sleep seeing as she was up the entire night. sophia and aaliyah carried on as per normal, aaliyah holding on extra tight to noelle at her side.

as the train rumbled towards frankfurt, noelle's exhaustion weighed her down like an anchor. her eyes felt gritty, her mind foggy from the sleepless night.

when she woke up, aaliyah noticed her friend's subdued demeanour and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “hey, you okay?”

noelle forced a smile. “yeah, just tired.” but aaliyah's knowing glance suggested that she could see past her facade.

the train’s din and the girls chatter receded into the background as noelle leant her head on the window, her gaze drifting through the german countryside that was being overshadowed by darker clouds.

every so often her heart would skip a beat at the thought of the footballer. she just couldn't shake off the feeling that she was sabotaging something before it even began. but this isn't what she needed at the moment, instead she needed to shake off all that negativity and enjoy the evening.

when the train stopped she took one last final breath and prepared herself for whatever the evening threw at her, because at least she wasn't alone.

to no ones surprise, aaliyah sensed her tension and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “babe, relax. it's just a match,” she whispered as they took their seats, the roar of the crowd drowning out her thoughts.

but it was more than just a match. for noelle, this was a direct confrontation with her own fears, her own doubts. and he was standing there on the pitch underneath the stadium lights, taking his teammates hands before getting into position.

noelle's gaze involuntarily drifted drifted to jamal, his confident stride and assured smile making her heart stutter. the flutter in her chest was undeniable, and she hated herself for it.

aaliyah's grip on her shoulder tightened, a gentle reminder that she was going to be okay. sophia, oblivious to the inner turmoil, chattered and took pictures of the stadium.

as the game commenced, her attention wavered between the action in the pitch and jamal's dynamic movements. every time he touched the ball, her pace quickened. his sudden sprint down the wing, ball at his feet brought noelle back to reality.

her brows furrowed as she scowered the pitch. “the weather is actually clearing up,” she got hums of confirmation at the question and cuddled futher into aaliyah's side, the crisp air hitting noelle's bare face, the sun starting to peak through the canopy of clouds.

nothing much had happened, but the stadium's atmosphere was intense yet inviting. the supporters were singing and cheering, their attitude and excitement giving the players the much needed energy.

as the 22nd minute ticked by, jamal's sudden sprint down the wing brought noelle to the edge of her seat. she wondered if he remember what they talked about the day before— if it was even the slightest bit significant to him.

her brows furrowed, her eyes scoured the pitch as the supporters waited in anticipation. then in a flash of brilliance, he struck the ball— and it curled into the top corner of the net, a work of art.

noelle's world exploded in a riot of colour and sound, her friends’ screams of excitement deafening her more than the others. naturally, she leapt to her feet her voice lost in the cacophony of cheers.

aaliyah's arms enveloped her, holding her steady as the stadium swirled around them. for a fleeting moment, jamal's gaze locked onto hers, a spark that left her breathless. he remembered.

“noelle, did you see that?” sophia screamed, her voice piercing but noelle’s attention remained on jamal, his triumphant smile illuminating the pitch.

and then in a subtle gesture, he tapped his wrist thrice, eyes locking onto hers. noelle's breath caught. it was a joke, asking him to score was a joke. but the fact that he remembered was what had her breathless.

when the game was over, the final whistle blew at 2-0 to germany. a successful win that blurred noelle's doubts and turmoil for a moment, a reminder to focus on the little things and let go for a bit.

they found themselves on the pitch again under the summer heat, congratulating the team and taking the necessary pictures. it was good until jamal came up to her, his hand out for a fist bump that she was more than happy to accept as a token of gratitude.

their “research task” was brought up obviously, and it was going to take place at the cinema, seeing as spiderman: across the spiderman released a week ago back at the cinema in herzogenaurach.

but before they could exchange another word, aaliyah burst in. "spiderman across the spiderverse? that's a great idea, jamal!"

sophia chimed in, “that sounds like a fun group outing.”

jamal's gaze drifted from noelle to the growing group, his smile forced. noelle's heart sank, sensing jamal's dismay. was he that keen on having a few with her alone? the joke was implied, but once again she was left confused.

aaliyah, oblivious to the tension, continued planning. she had already talked to florian about booking the vip cinema, naturally to avoid interruption from the public and media.

jamal's eyes met noelle's, searching for clarification. her apologetic shrug barely eased his slight disappointment and waned excitement, leaving him wondering if he'd misread the signals. the spiderman marathon, once a covert date, now felt like a group outing.

“this research task just got a lot more…” he sighed, his attention on his friends who were excitedly planning the outing, noelle laughing along with them. “...inclusive.”

“all I remember is the handshake,” florian said with his brows furrowed, and noelle immediately burst into laughter at his mistake at referencing the wrong movie.

he looked at her with a look of disgust and aaliyah gently pat his back. “wrong movie, babe.”