#i have this very specific instance in my head of one of those big fancy fundraising galas where they invite the bigwigs

[chronal-anomaly]

in all my feelings again about publicity n overwatch. the sheer marketing aspect of it. covers of magazines, cartoons, interviews, random civilians grilling them. they're heroes, they're not politicians or bureaucrats. leaders in their fields and dressed in the overwatch blues.

[zabo-writes]

Mumbo is a God (He thinks everyone else is also a god, but that they’ve just been really good at pretending to be human)

Mumbo was beginning to suspect he was on the receiving end of a remarkably complex prank.

This put him in a predicament. Should he go along with it? He knew it was more fun if he did. If Mumbo Jumbo knew one thing, it was how to commit to a joke.

However, this had been going on for years now. Mumbo was starting to get one of those feelings in his gut that was the kind of gut feeling people describe when they say they have a “gut feeling” about something.

And being that Mumbo did not have a gut, or any human body parts for that matter, one could see why this was distressing to him.

Mumbo Jumbo was a god. Specifically, the god of redstone. All of the other hermits were gods as well. The crux of the issue here was that all of the other hermits had been pretending to be humans for about 10 years now. And by pretending, Mumbo meant seriously, seriously roleplaying. He’d tested it! There’d been multiple instances where he had tried to convince another hermit to break character and do something godly. And they never cracked!

Truly, Mumbo was impressed. He himself was not quite as unshakeable. There’d been a few moments where his facade had cracked: the time he accidentally made a perfectly circular pumpkin (big problem in a world made of squares), the time where he put too power into the redstone AI for grumbot and gave it an existential crisis, the incident where he may have slightly consumed Grian’s soul…

All that was to say, Mumbo wasn’t the best at pretending to be a human, but he was giving it his best effort. And it seemed like the other hermits, in some sort of years-long prank, were keeping up the joke until Mumbo got it right.

Well if that was the case, he’d finally caught on! Haha! Take that, other hermits! Mumbo finally figured out the prank where everyone else pretended for a very long time that they weren’t actually—

Gods.

Wait.

They were gods, right?

Scar with his magnificent terraining skills, Cleo with her armor stands…

And surely Grian was some sort of trickster god. Right?

All of his friends were so talented, he had simply assumed it was related to some sort of godly domain.

Come to think of it, did he have any confirmation that they ever were gods in the first place?

No, no, no… surely…

Mumbo paused his task of mindlessly mining out a very large area under his base. He blinked. The netherite pickaxe clattered as it hit the floor.

Oh, he was an absolute spoon.

———

Grian grumbled as he shuffled through every chest and shulker he owned for what felt like the billionth time. He could’ve sworn he left the materials to make a beacon somewhere around here. Did it “lag” into someone’s inventory again? He pulled out his communicator to put a message in the chat.

“Grian! Incoming!”

Grian looked up just in time to see Mumbo collide with his face, sending them both sprawling across the floor.

“Ah! Hello Mumbo, fancy seeing you here! Do you happen to know where my beacon is?” Grian laughed as he dusted himself off.

“This is not the time! Grian! Grian I’m having a crisis.” Mumbo lamented,

“Yes, so am I! My beacon is gone!”

Mumbo continued, undeterred, “Grian, I have a very important question for you, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”

“Okay?”

“What does your true form look like?”

“My what?”

“Alright, alright. So you know how I’m a god?”

Grian stated incredulously at the mustachioed man before him. “WHAT?”

Mumbo groaned and put his head in his hands. “No, I really need you to be honest. I’m a god, you’re a god, bdubs is a god… we all are, right?”

Grian was not sure how to respond to this. He was, to his knowledge, as human as they come. “I think this is a sitting down conversation.”

After a long, long chat inside of Grian’s bedroom, Grian felt he was finally understanding the situation. He was taking it pretty well! As well as one can take your best friend explaining to you in the same breath that he is a deity, and oh— by the way, he thought this whole time that you were as well.

“Okay, okay. Let me get this straight. You’ve been pretending to be human this whole time because you thought you had to?”

“I thought it was a game!” Mumbo exclaimed, burying his face in the pillows on Grian’s bed. “I thought it was a game, like an ‘I’m not going to kill anything for a season’ type of game!”

“Right, but in this case the game was ‘pretending to be human for multiple years without mentioning the fact that you’re a god’?”

“…. Yes.”

Grian cackled “Well, Mumbo, I can assure you, if that ever was a game, you’ve certainly won! I would never have suspected you.”

Mumbo nodded sagely. “Yes, it’s the mustache. A classic human disguise.”

“You don’t really have a mustache?!”

Mumbo cocked his head. “Grian, you’ve seen my real form! Or, a depiction of it, I suppose. The redstone god? From the buildswap we did?”

“That was ages ago! And wait, did you just make a self portrait for that prompt, then?!”

“Yes! That’s why I thought you knew!”

“Somehow that feels like cheating. I should go get Pearl and have her re-evaluate the results of that build swap with this new information”

A look of concern crossed Mumbo’s face. “Oh, I didn’t even think that. I’m going to have to explain this to everyone, aren’t I?”

Grian shrugged, “I’m sure it’s fine. Say, could I see your ‘god’ form, O great and powerful Mumbo Jumbo? Now you have me curious.”

“Well I could, but I might destroy your ceiling.” Mumbo looked up at the rafters sheepishly.

“Back outside we go then”

Safely on the grass behind Grian’s base, Mumbo transformed into his full form for the first time in what felt like ages.

The form was that of a large humanoid figure, as tall as Grian’s house, made of red terracotta and loose redstone dust that fell and scattered like sand with every movement Mumbo made. His eyes were two glowing redstone lamps that flickered with emotion, reminiscent of a certain robot they had built before.

It occurred to Mumbo at that moment that if his friends were truly human, this form might be quite scary to them. He knelt down to look at Grian, bracing himself to handle whatever fear was in his friend's eyes.

Instead, Grian was grinning like a madman.

“Oh, we are SO pranking Scar with this.”

[navree]

Piggybacking off of your costumes comment: I loved a lot of them, but I wish there was a bit more of a cohesive silhouette. Especially so you could tell the passage of time a bit easier. ALMOST every era in history has a cohesive silhouette. Like the 1860s are known for the slim waists and the big circle crinolines, the 1520s known for the big sleeves and the head coverings (among other things)

It’s fantasy but there should be some cohesion.

Yeah that's my big thing, there should definitely be some sort of link in the costumes rather than everything just seeming very much like they all got dumped out of a bin and rifled through. It's one of the things that earlier seasons of GOT actually did fairly well, the fashion of King's Landing was defined with a specific kind of hairstyle and those wrap kimono style gowns with long hanging sleeves, men in the cities of Slaver's Bay wore those specific robes with knotted cloths that differed in types of colorings for the different cities specifically (white and green in Astapor, white and blue in Yunkai, blue and yellow in Meereen). Not only was there cohesion in the silhouettes overall, but there was also cohesion based on location, and key differences based on location as well, the same way that the silhouettes for fashion in our world have varied based on location and culture (the silhouettes of the Mughals during the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb looked very different to the silhouettes of the English in that time period, for example). Alicent and Otto are from Oldtown, which is actually pretty far removed from King's Landing, it's further south and on the Western end of the continent where King's Landing is on the east, so why not see some differences in the clothing that they tend to gravitate towards vs the kind that people who've lived in the Crownlands might wear. The Targaryens are also still clearly trying to keep in touch with their Valyrian roots at this point, what with all The Tapestries and everything, so why not have their own sense of fashion have a flair of Valyrian to it, to mark them as distinct even beyond the pale hair whenever they walk into a room, rather than just a simple red color scheme. Another issue for me was also just that the clothes never seem to convey passage of time? HOTD season 1 alone is meant to take place over a period of twenty years, and even in twenty years silhouettes change a lot. The costume designer I think said they were modeling a lot of the clothing on the Renaissance for instance, which is why we see a lot of men with chains of office on fancy occasions, and the silhouettes of the Renaissance also went through changes. For example, the 1550s tends to hew closely to the fashions we expect from Tudor dramas, wide and triangular skirts and hoods and hanging sleeves, whereas the 1570s was seeing the emergence of the types of fashions you think of when you think of Elizabeth I or Mary Queen of Scots, the beginnings of farthingales and puffed sleeves that were close fitted at the wrist and a lot of ruffs. It would have been cool to see how Rhaenyra and Alicent and Daemon's fashion choices all evolved not just due to personal decisions, but also to the simple passage of time and the change in styles that would come with it even if the changes are only slight, and it would have helped with the overall timeline better.

Yeah, there are costumes that I do think look good, and barring some nerdiness about why certain people aren't wearing chemises or other stuff (I know it's not real but like why isn't Alicent wearing anything under the green dress if she's just got straight brocade damask on her skin that's just gonna be uncomfortable, that's why people liked chemises back in the day!), but I do wish they looked more put together than they do.

[fisherrprince]

do you have more thoughts on keyblade fighting that you need to put somewhere, because i have two hands ready to catch Should The Need Arise

anon: hey I heard you mention you’d analysed the combat styles in KH and what you said in the tags was already alluding to really neat stuff, but I for one would love to hear more of what you came up with!! so if you ever wanted to share any of your analysis then the floor is yours

aHAH, MY EXCUSE!!

Okay, so first some words on “standardized wielding styles”. These are styles shared by Terra, Aqua, Vanitas, Riku, and Xehanort and every other scala and daybreak kid. I will make the argument that the red style is the fanciest standard style, while the purple is seen often to make it easier on the little chibi sprites. BUT, I cannot discredit Eraqus, who uses the purple variant in bbs, nor can I discredit half of the Foretellers (Gula and Ava, at least, use this. Invi and Aced use the first type). So, two standard styles. For simplicity, let’s say one for primary offense, one for primary defense. The standard offensive style really wasn’t popular before Scala-era society.

check this difference out, specifically between ava invi and gula:

then between eraqus, hermod, and xehanort, and eraqus and terra.

These two were likely popularized and standardized for education in Scala ad Caelum for their predominant lack of obvious weak spots.

After this, we have unique styles. Those include Sora Kairi and Xion’s (similar to standard defense, but more mobile at the expense of form — Kairi takes after Sora but less confident, she hasn’t been hit that heavily yet), Ven’s (backhand, heavy range and mobility), Roxas’ (modified for two keyblades, but takes after Sora), and Axel’s (taught himself, comfortable with chakrams).

So! Let’s go.

.

Standard (offensive)

All styles have sub-variations, of a sense. Different wielders can choose where their keyblade points, and how they hold it exactly, based on what makes them most comfortable. Terra and Aqua point theirs downward, while Vanitas and Riku hold theirs above their head. What is recognizeable to this style is a hand for the sword, and a hand for guarding/blocking/items/magic.

It’s incredibly efficient. With only one hand on the weapon, you not only free up a hand for other things, but increase your range of movement with said weapon. Test it out yourself! The keyblade hand is always your dominant hand, held behind you for increased power when attacking (since you lose a significant amount of it by choosing not to grip with both hands). This style also decreases the speed of the defense you have, but with that increased mobility and swing power, along with a hand free to brace against the keyblade (defense strength up!), it makes up for it. Many people who use this also have strong barrier spells — both a testament to their preference for coverage and an acknowledgement that any directional block will take a little longer and be weaker if they try it with one hand.

The pointy end, though. What difference does it actually make, the height it’s at?

I think it’s half a matter of attack style preference and half intention. Riku, Vanitas, and Xehanort stab quite a bit. Aqua and Terra slice more. Not that they don’t do both, but it’s the first instinct. Aqua and Terra are also likely taught to hold their keyblade neutrally, in a safe position, until someone starts attacking. It’s polite! Eraqus also holds his one-handed, neutrally, until he gets into position. Riku and Vanitas learned to fight assuming everyone was out to fight them. Invi and Aced may like this style because of range (i hc she’s blind and strikes very very quickly, and he’s already very powerful with just the one arm and wants better motion).

and on character specifics: Terra often switches to two-handed, to copy his dad and add extra power to his hits without always sacrificing the empty hand. Vanitas likely was forced to relearn how to fight, as instead of solely being trained to be better at withstanding, he was constantly being made to better his own attacks. The moves Xehanort uses would best be replicated in the same style. Vanitas is wild for holding the massive spiky x-blade like that.

Now, what‘s good on this style does not correlate to what’s bad in the other. The two standard styles simply have different ways of dealing with each con they create or taking advantage of each pro.

(Here’s an interesting side note — Gula uses standard defensive, but in this instance, swaps. One hand… likely to display confidence! Wrong move, but hey. He got cocky. He’s also doing it wrong, and swaps back to two-handed to take Aced’s attack.)

.

Standard (defensive)

The main detriment of this style is the lack of ease of long range movement. Hold a wrapping paper tube out in front of you with both hands, then run. It goes to the side, or tucks in to your stomach, right? Dodge. Your legs will get in the way unless you know where to move that sword. It requires, interestingly, a little more discipline. You’d think Aqua would like that, but no, she wants movement and practicality, and she loves magic, and remember that you must take a hand off this style to grab a potion. You’d think young Eraqus wouldn’t, but remember that he’s a fancy royal lad.

The main draw, though, is tankiness, readiness, and power. You don’t need to move as much if nothing dares hit you! Ava and Gula might be attracted to this style because they’re not as physically strong, but want protection in close-quarters fighting. Using this style when your muscles aren’t as big but you still want to Hit Things Good, or when you want to be a boy you can’t knock over with a pail of water (horse stance rules), is probably solid advice.

Traditionally, this is a lot less like fencing, and a lot more like a samurai sword or kendo. Your blade is held in front of you, giving you very easy access to blocks and frontal attack/defense. In losing some twirly spinniness, you gain power and minimize your opponent’s ability to parry and block.

you gotta dodge master Eraqus so mcuh

All styles will swap between one and two hands for different moves. Eraqus, notably, swaps to a stance very similar to Xehanort when channeling a metric ton of magic.

Both of these styles require a degree of upper body/core strength, as does all swordfighting. I would be interested to see someone whose keyblade style relies on leg strength.

.

Sora, Xion, and Kairi

please look at the difference between the foretellers’ or eraqus’ two-handed grip and Sora’s. Do this with your shoulders and a top-heavy object.

They’re both in a hard stance, but hon. What are you, a gremlin? Anyways, a traditionally taught master would have… better form, even if it’s harder to learn at first. It’s habitual. Sora nearly crouches, and holds his keyblade back-pointed with two hands, which makes it easier for him to dodge roll, push off his feet quickly, and pull off those spinning combos he loves. It‘s really gonna hurt his muscles, in the future, though, since he’s doing a squat for like…. hours. Pulling on those shoulderblades and neck. Xion, too. Replicas had better have correct muscle dynamics. Kairi is brand new, so… maybe Aqua can teach her how to hold a sword so it doesnt hurt you.

Okay, now look at the grip itself. Held in front versus held to the side-back. They’re really attempting to combine both standard styles subconsciously, giving themselves more attack power while really wanting to keep that hard defensive parry, wanting to prevent all attacks to the front while also wanting mobility. It’s working for them really well, they fight like an anime character, and manage to get the best of both, with a minor sacrifice of length range that they don’t care about. We’re flexible and full of magic, baby! Holding the blade like this makes it pretty easy to let go with one hand without sacrificing that crouched defense position.

Now, Sora, specifically, is very adaptive. He’s had two keyblades, claws, guns, yo-yos, and a giant shield, to name a couple. He retains a bit of that alert crouch no matter where he goes, but Sora knows how he wants to attack and how to balance that with the most effective way to use his current weapon. He’s a smart kid! Sora has the most ridiculous shotlocks, which are also probably due to not always wanting to go standard for it. He also prefers to keep his focus on the enemy, which is evident in his reprisals and lack of very many effective “escape” moves.

Xion is very similar to Sora, but she does have some moves that are all movement. She switches to one handed for strikes a lot — using two for defending, one for smacking. In her data battle I’d swear some of those heavy hits are claymore-like. But anyways, since we’re magic, Xion cares not for the laws of exhaustion, and will ping about as a ball of light everywhere. Short range? Up in your business. Mid-range? In your business with one hand. Long range? Throws a boomerang. Hit her? No you dont. Ball of light. She’s above you and wants to bash your head in. (Vanitas also does this! A lot. It’s an easy way to catch someone off-guard. I’ll argue that the soras are very tough and strong, but not tanky. they want to avoid being hit a lot)

Another interesting note about Kairi. I say “unconfident” not because she doesn’t hit hard, but because her stance is also often tilted back, ready to dodge. It’s two handed, but almost all her moves are one. She does love spinning and throwing the thing! It looks like she’s been taking notes from the wielders she knows. It would be easy to teach her a standard style, I think. See here, she lets go on the strike, and by trying to do both, actually ends up with an advantage (being confusing) and disadvantage (losing both the power of two handed and versatility of one handed).

A counter to Sora and Xion is difficult to pin down. Time? Probably. Lack of heating pads. Something that takes all their attention is about the only way to get a sneak attack in, and then you have to hit hard. A counter to Kairi would be anyone who can knock her off balance. She needs a sturdier stance. .

Roxas

Roxas is interesting. He takes after Sora for the one blade. Wielding two, however, nets him a totally different way of fighting. Roxas’ clavicle muscles n… deltoids and stuff must be Ironclad. Also, two handed means you are very fast and sharp all the time. He has the advantage of standard defense (horse stance), and the advantage of offense (range of one sword, but twice).

Roxas generally attacks in two ways — simultaneous hits, and follow-up hits. Either he hits with both at once, or hits hard with the first one, and adds the second one as a bonus smack. He can attack by hitting in opposite directions with the two, like a drum, but that will be a little awkward and leave him prone to being tangled. That established, the follow-up hit method means he spins a bunch. As do we all.

Roxas gets a little complicated because we are not in the real world. We have magic and turning into light and physics that let you become a circular saw. So, typically, disadvantages would include: being unable to let go of a weapon to grab something or use an item, having just a very big silhouette to attack on, having difficulty with close-range attacks because Oathkeeper and Oblivion are kinda long, and convenience. Roxas gets to dodge #1 (keyblades can be unsummoned) and #4 (keyblades can be unsummoned). Speaking of dodging, he also gets to skirt the difficulty of dodging and rolling with two swords because he turns into a beam of light. But he can’t dodge how difficult it is to use two swords effectively — he needs to concentrate on fighting, and nothing else, or he risks messing up. He has to be very, very coordinated, and undistracted. Luckily he’s pretty good at making his opponents shut up, most of the time. Blocking is another thing — theoretically his blocks could be strong, but Roxas has no real brace: crossing your blades and taking a hefty stab might smack one of them back into your face. He mostly uses reversals and dodges, because of this.

The takeaway to this is Roxas is built for speed and power, and he is very strong. He’s a mid- to far- range fighter who if you’re not careful can snap you in half if you’re too close (be SO careful of that cross blade scissor).

A perfect counter to Roxas would be a tank that can grapple, and also be very distracting. If you can take hits, be talkative, and get close enough to stop his blades, you have a chance.

.

Ventus

This is a bizarre choice, my guy, but I get it.

Backhanded weapons are very impractical for a lot of... attacking, mainly in mid-range combat, and Ven likes to either fight very close or throw the keyblade like a boomerang (and hey, backhand gives it a good whip for throwing). His attacks aren’t meant to one hit KO, but they do come with a bit of power to them, especially on the backslash. Like holding a knife for gouging. It’s for very close defense — pretty good when Wayward Wind and Missing Ache have hooks.

Backhand also, while retaining that empty hand for potions and guarding, gives you an extreme coverage boost. By which I mean Ven’s sword hand now has a nearly 270 degree sweep of “I see you, don’t touch me”, very quickly, based on just flicking his wrist. It sacrifices a ton of strength/sturdiness, but you don’t need that if you’re dodging. You also don’t really need to block, which is slower, but relatively sturdy when Ven does it, as he blocks with mostly the chunky hilt between crossed arms. He sacrifices (again) a bit of strength for coverage — an attack would hurt his arms, not his chest, if he were hit head-on.

His attacks often have him flip the blade around in his hand, too. Quick swaps between standard moves and backhand ones. Basically, Ventus is built for moving, protecting himself, and quick attacks that wear down the enemy, not outclass it. Likely because he’s good at fighting, but everyone he’s fought hits harder than he can! It doesn’t matter how he holds it, getting hit will hurt. So he just. Doesn’t. He’s not a buff little guy — but he is a persistent one. Ven very likely made this up on his own, in Daybreak, and it was too hard to fix his whole style, but it was enough to correct most of his form so he doesn’t hurt himself too much. He is going to have to really stretch that shoulder and wrist (maybe get a brace), though. At least his neck is ok. … not sure about his knees tho dang boy that crouch

A perfect counter to Ven would be someone big and fast, who hits hard mid-range. He’s already been sparring with Terra, though, so when in doubt, try scruffing him?

.

Axel

Theres not a ton to say about him — he‘s not a swordfighter. He uses his keyblade like it’s a frisbee. Because that’s what he’s used to! His neutral is behind his back on his shoulder, which is terrible for readiness, but okay for chucking the thing. It’s good it has a sort of… ripstik like… boomerang quality.

Axel’s fighting style is completely made up, like most of the self-taught wielders’. His strengths lie in some of the benefits of standard offensive style (one-handed), and some of the same coverage stuff as Ven, having a cocked wrist most of the time so no one can sneak up around him without risking getting whacked very quickly, and having an interesting range due to the pointy end being basically on a spinny swivel wherever his hand moves. He’s not going to be good at close-range and he knows it — his attacks are mostly distance. And the guy has ZERO defense, combined with zero coverage when idle, so it’s for the better.

Distance-wise, though, he rocks. Treating the blade like it’s a flaming throwing weapon means his idle is actually great for sudden flick-tossing and attention-guiding for sneakier attacks, and his stance itself (…nonexistent) serves a different purpose: bait. Basically a big "come hit me". Fun, when you have a lot of fire magic and two friends who are beasts and love to take advantage of a distracted enemy — distance on the blade, proximity on the burning.

A perfect counter to Axel would be someone pinging around very close <—> very far and circling him incessantly. Like, data Xion could wreck him, as he has to wait for the boomerang to come back -- he no longer has two spinny wheels. Also someone with water magic.

.

SO! In conclusion! Having a teacher who teaches you correct sword usage rather than instinct may detract from overspecific styles that benefit you most but leave weak spots, but your muscles and your oversights will thank you. Everyone is glad we have the power of the Mouse and anime on our side.

Keep in mind again that I have done cursory research, and have had minimal actual sword instruction, I am not an expert and this is all for fun anyways :]

[lilyrachelcassidy]

Brawl Over Hallucinogens [1]

A/N: IT IS DONE!!! Oh, and btw, happy HP22 Event everyone! I’ve been anticipating the finals of your team project for so long, and they are finally out. And I cannot be any more proud of all of my mutuals who engaged in writing this non-smut content for our lovely Draco community! A big thank you to @draconisxcaput​ who was a chief organizer of the event and arranged everything so wonderfully! Also, @drawlfoy​ and @war-sword​ who came up with the idea and pulled it all together to make it look all fancy and professional;) I hope we’d be able to repeat such a huge project, and yeah, that’s all about the event as for now...

A new series I came up with. And I know, I know, I leave Summer Nights unfinished and so forth, BUT I have a very good forecast for this series because I have the whole thing planned out in my head and I just know that it’s gonna flick. I’d be posting the second part of BOH in 4 days I think, for the next day of HP22E. But I also thought of posting every new chapter once a week, so that’d be able to breathe, squeeze some fic writing into my schedule, and still could keep up with my school stuff, etc. 

Okay, so not prolonging too much, let’s dip into some Draco-non-smut fiction!!! Pls, also, don’t forget to check out other wonderful masterpieces prepared by my friends for THE EVENT! I’ll be reblogging them, however, in the link you’ll find the whole index for each of the pieces!

Enjoy:)

Index

Warnings: No specific, I think?? Just some langauge but you’ll survive;)

Wc: 3.1k 

Tags: @draconisxcaput

“Have you heard?” Susan entered their mutual room and, without preamble, started off with a question. Sparing her a glance, Y/N could easily detect the exhilaration and curiosity all over her face, which was a typical reaction of Susan’s at every mystery-involving news, as Y/N thought about it. She bit her cheek, preventing herself from letting out an amused giggle.

“No, I wasn’t at the feast today.” Y/N turned her sight back to the magazine she had been reading previously, somehow not expecting her roommate to say anything up to the minute. “So what’s that?”

“Today’s pre-meal speech belonged to Snape actually,” said Susan, and Y/N made deer-in-the-headlights-like eyes, diverting the attention back to her friend. “He said some vials of potions had been missing from the storeroom, and no matter what a thief’s purpose was, the consequences will be dragged out. And they’ll be severe.”

Y/N gulped. “And did he mention what kind of potions are missing?”

“Just mentioned a few of them. But I can only remember the tranquilizer and… —um— a sleeping potion.” Flipping on one of the pillows next to Y/N, Susan sighed and took off her auburn slip-ons as to locate herself comfortably on a bed. “I don’t get it really, why would anyone steal those? I mean, you can easily get them without such an effort, in Hogsmeade, for instance, right? Or simply ask Madam Pomfrey for some. It’s not like they aren’t available or something…” Still getting no response from her friend, she continued. “Do you think that it could have been Ron Weasley, perhaps? Or his siblings? The rumors say their father had recently dropped off the work in the Ministry. So now they have to behave on the cheap.”  

“The Ministry is the rotten place, but Weasleys would have to be out of their mind to cut off their only source of income. You shouldn’t be judging them by their wealth, you know?” Y/N peeked at her friend from the corner of her eye, simultaneously flipping the page of her ‘Weekly Witch’ magazine. “I think it could have been anyone. And besides, you know how rumors can be — depending on nothing more than lies. Do you remember the one time when a Gryffindor gal accused you of being a Squib just because you couldn’t operate with your wand properly?”

“I hexed her for that.”

Y/N laughed at Susan’s sudden gloom. “Yeah, but you know what I’m going for.”

“I agree, but it still bothers me, like…” She threw herself in the pile of pillows and imitated the angry yelp, causing Y/N to continue with her laugher. When Susan didn’t stop with her act-out after a while, Y/N grabbed her by the shoulders forcing her to lift up, all hair ruffled and soaring in different directions, and she looked her straight in the eyes with a serious mien.

“Don’t you bother your pretty head with all those thoughts, alright? The Slytherins organize a grand party today as to celebrate, you know, the opening of another year of tortures. Same old drill. And I think we could visit at least for an hour…” Noticing the idea didn’t quite appeal to Susan, she proceeded. “Oh, come on, that’s our only chance to get ripped throughout this semester. And we haven’t seen our friends in forever. What do you say?”

“Under one condition.”

“And what’s that exactly?”

Sudden mischief appeared in Susan’s eyes, and it instantly occurred to Y/N that she wasn’t up for too much good with her inventory of ideas. Something in terms of a smug smile appeared on Susan’s lips, and before she could utter a word, Y/N interrupted. “Okay, just an FYA, I’m not going for some crazy-ass shit if it’s that what you’re thinking of.”

“No, it’s not that,” Susan chortled, wiggling her eyebrows in an opposite-suggesting manner. “I- I mean, we could kick off with the investigation about those potions. You know, to find out how’s snicking them out and what for. Satisfying the curiosity is one thing, but how many points we’d be able to obtain for Hufflepuff, can you imagine?”

“Susan…” Y/N sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Before you say anything,” she covered her friend’s mouth, apparently finding it the best way to mute her down. “I know that the House Cup doesn’t really matter to you, but it’s such an honor to finally get it for the first time in a few decades. It was always either Slytherin or Gryffindor to get it, and for once we’d get some fame out of that. Merlin, we would even go down in history for something like that.”

“Don’t exaggerate it.” Quite a pause there. “But if it’s that what you want, yeah, sure we can do that.”

“Really?!” Susan’s loud squeak carried over the entire room, which got Y/N very startled with her roommate’s sudden change of heart.

“Sure.” She smiled, nodding. “The key question, though — how are we supposed to, you know, find the suspect?”

“We will find our way. Looking at the clues, observing people, and so forth.” Frowning, she shrugged her arms, jumped off the bed, and walked over to her wardrobe. “I presume, I’m going to choose this glittery dress you gave me on my birthday. Can you do the curls for me? I’d appreciate that.”

XOXOXOX

As much as Y/N tried to make an impression of insouciant, she couldn’t get the taboo topic about the potions disappearance out of her head for days. Obviously, Susan broached the subject as well, not once nor twice, but numerous counts of times, which made Y/N reflect even more on the case. Why would anyone need those vials? What was the use of them? Has Susan really remembered all the relevant details back from the feast speech that she hadn’t bothered enough to attend to? She now contemplated how matters would have been different if she could change her past life decisions, and in lieu, go on the fucking feast that night. Things could have been different by now — she could have caught much more out of Snape’s diatribe than could Susan; she could have noticed other students reacting to the news. Maybe not so new to some after all. But that didn’t matter anymore…

She had attempted, in various ways, to pursue her detective-like role and, following Susan’s advice, tried to look out for any kind of hints that could help out in their common investigation. Until now, however, everything was for no use because every piece of information that was found only led to a blind alley. One time she thought she had even caught a suspect in the act, as she espied the widely-opened door to the Potions Stock and found a black-haired Slytherin inside it, however, as it later turned out, he was only collecting the ingredients for his lessons with Snape.

So that was the next failure on her account, unfortunately.

Currently, Y/N was bracing herself to go for her night shift as a Prefect she was involuntarily elected to be (her parents forced her to submit herself), and she put on several layers of clothes due to a freezing temperature in the corridors, especially in dungeons. She was supposed to meet up with a Ravenclaw boy who would be making rounds with her in a few minutes on a third floor, and she hadn’t yet left her dormitory, much more made her way to the appointed spot. That’s why she tried to gather herself in a great hurry, causing tremendous mayhem all around.

But she couldn’t care less at that moment, because she finally tracked down the pair of shoes she was looking for, thus she swiftly put them on, and almost sprinted out of the room.

‘I’m not gonna make it, I’m not gonna make it…’ Y/N thought to herself, criticism swirling in her head. ‘I’m not gonna mak—‘

“You don’t fucking understand, do you?” Y/N halted in her steps. Breathing like a sore rhinoceros, she succeeded in reaching the fourth floor with her best speed time yet. She didn’t have enough audacity, however, to think about her achievement because the conversation she happened to overhear particularly gripped her interest. “I needed to have them.”

Y/N recognized that voice. Harsh. Bold. Very masculine. Derogatory. She had encountered it too many times in her life as not to detect who the person was — Draco Malfoy, it deemed to her instantly. From what could Y/N detect, he sounded very agitated and vexed, even for himself.

“Watch your tone, Mr. Malfoy,” a man, apparently Snape, scolded him. He too seemed to be a little over the edge, however, could master his temper much better than his interlocutor. “If you needed my help, you should have given a sign. That would provoke much less trouble for both of us. Dumbledore and other professors are getting suspicious, Malfoy, so the next time you try to pull something like that, contemplate twice.”

“I don’t need the advice from you!” Although he lowered his voice a few timbres, Draco huffed and made an impression even angrier than before. “I told you, I’m perfectly capable of doing the whole thing by myself. I don’t need you leeched to my glory.”

“Say that again, and you are going to lose my assistance for once. I pay no interest in acquiring the glory whatsoever,” Snape warned him, sternly. "If it wasn’t for me, everything would have leaked out already. Dumbledore is not foolish. I had to offer him a very far-fetched story to clean you up from the suspicion after the last turn of events.”

Y/N peeked from behind the wall, and indeed, got a hold of a very perplexing scenery. Draco bristled and, with a scorn on his lips, stood with his back pinned to the cobblestone wall whilst Severus Snape, hovering over him with his bat-like garments and greasy hair, stared him blankly in the eyes, disclosing no rage nor irritation. No emotion, really. Draco, on a contrary, had a death-lust painted all over his face.

Wanting to get a better view of the whole situation, Y/N wriggled a little more to get a more favorable position. However, Draco’s gaze suddenly snatched in her direction, and Y/N could only wish that it was too dim for him to perceive her in the cheaply-lit corridor.

‘Don’t move, just don’t move,’ she repeated to herself, withdrawing her breath and deeply praying to come off unnoticed.

His eyes were piercing through her mind, pupils dilated, and what could have been said even from afar was that he wasn’t the same mocking, adolescent Slytherin he had been a year ago. He had the oddest air rising up around him. And his posture was slightly but noticeably hunched, with his ink-black suit hanging on his slender arms. Truthfully saying, he looked more than sick in her opinion and probably must have skipped a few nights of sleep, judging by the bags under his eyes and the extremely pale complexion.

Try as might to suppress it, Y/N felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

“I’m not sure whether you are aware of a weight of the task you have been given, Mr. Malfoy.” Snape turned Draco’s attention back to the conversation. “Dark Lord expects you to perform the task to the nines, and from what I have heard, the progress of your work is hardly perceptible.”

“I told you, I’m handling it,” said Draco with his jaw tightly clenched.  "I’m trying to mend a fucking cupboard up. But I need more time.”

“I can be patient Draco,” said Snape. “However, the Dark Lord won’t be.” And with a swift sweep of his cloak, he vanished into the vast darkness of the corridor, leaving flustered and annoyed Draco behind, who had an apparent influx of anger because he hit a wall with his fist with the greatest force he could gather.

Using the advantage of a momentary lack of Draco’s attention, Y/N tried to escape a place of witnessing the scene between a platinum Slytherin and her, what she had reckoned in the beginning, not so innocent Potions teacher.

Thoughts were swirling in her head like a tornado. What were the two of them talking about? Was their conversation related to the latest potions pilfering, and if so, why would Snape make such a fuss about it during the feats if he had had a clue of a potential robber? Why wouldn’t they use more secluded area to talk over such matters?

Nothing made a coherent answer in her head.

Y/N acted as quietly as she could, withdrawing her breath and hoping that Draco was far gone in the other direction of the school so that she could reach her room with no disturbance. However, before she could make a second step, a voice carried over, leaving a great echo behind. “Come out. I know someone is out there.”

What she could say was an act of desperation, Y/N collected herself to the fastest dart she could manage, feeling a little bit jittery and panicked. She couldn’t be caught by him. She wouldn’t bear standing with him eye to eye, especially after what she had overheard. Her plan was to run over back to the Hufflepuff Tower. But if she couldn’t make it, she would hide behind one of the old tapestries (after wandering alone around the school at night, she had discovered a lot of interesting spots she could make use of). Then, after waiting a while, she would return to her dormitory and, in the following day, she would offer a far-fetched lie to the Ravenclaw boy about not being able to make it to her Prefect shift due to the sudden flu. Or a cold?

Yes, that was a good plan.

His hasty footsteps were approaching her from behind, and Y/N couldn’t be less surprised — he was a head taller over her. With this height, he could beat her up in the race three times, if not more. Not yet losing her determination, Y/N ran further with an unsteady breath and an extremely high heart rate. She had bunked off her Quidditch lessons many times in her life, and she had never thought she would wish to participate in them again.

Y/N could swear her run prolonged from minutes to hours. But she couldn’t stop. Not now, when her destination was finally so close — the tapestry next to the Great Hall that she was the only one who knew about.

A few more steps.

A few more steps.

Y/N felt a sudden yank, and before she could get a grip of what was happening, she was pinioned to the wall by an unimaginable strength she hadn’t known Draco owned. She gasped from bewilderment. Draco was holding both of her hands above her head, and the approximation of their faces made Y/N startled because their noses were almost touching, and she could smell his sandalwood cologne from a little distance. With his breath puffing on her skin, she could feel her cheeks burning from the blush and, suddenly, she was very thankful for the darkness that surrounded them.

“Why were you running away?” he asked, his buzzing eyes inspecting her every flinch.

“Why were you chasing me?” Y/N couldn’t articulate the reason she was running away because she had no particular one. It was her common sense telling her that what she had done, eavesdropped, was inappropriate and should act as she had never witnessed anything. Apparently, that didn’t work out.

“Don’t give me that shit,” he said, huffing. “How much have you heard?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Somehow, Y/N felt even tenser than before, and she had an instantaneous urge to kick him in the guts and flee.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw you peeking.” A next sneer. “Nosy Hufflepuffs, can’t just mind their own business, can they?”

“It’s not that I did it on purpose!” she defended herself instantly, knitting her eyebrows together. “I was only doing my rounds as a Prefect. It’s not like you couldn’t go to the more private area or something.”

“Again, how much have you heard?”

Y/N deflated, sinking in her chest becoming sharper every minute. “I-um... Not much, all right? I only heard something about the task. Nothing specific… I swear, I didn’t know someone was there! I was only patrolling, you know, with my Prefect duty.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that already.” Draco removed his hands, releasing Y/N from his grip and, try as might to suppress it, she felt partly wistful because she oddly enjoyed the heat radiating from Draco’s body. He, however, didn’t seem to notice her swift change of mood, and with a little sigh, he continued. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“About what?”

“About this night. The quarrel, this conversation. Nothing. Understood?”

“Bu—“

“Please, just don’t make me explain that,” he cut her off. “I know this might be confusing but believe me, you don’t want to be mingled into this shithole. Just keep your nose out of it, and nothing bad’s going to happen.”

What did he mean? Did he view her as that oblivious as to not ask questions?

“I—“

“Y/N?” A different voice rang from the opposite side of a hall. Stamps approached Y/N and Draco in surprisingly fast time, and out of nowhere, Terry Boot was standing right in front of them, staring at them in awe. “What are you doing here? We were supposed to meet with each other an hour ago.”

She scratched her head nervously. “I overslept. Took a too-long nap.” Avoiding any eye contact, she let out a neurotic laugh, wishing to have this whole chatty-chat situation behind her.

“And him?” Terry took a suspicious glance at Draco.

“Oh, um — he was just walking back to his dormitory, I assisted him.”

“A little late for a stroll, ain’t it?” Terry asked, folding arms and directing his suspicious gaze back to Draco.

“That’s why I was walking back to dungeons, Boot,” Draco sent him an in-verbal warning, the intensity of his upsetness hovering around. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have early classes tomorrow.”

Uttering nothing more, he ambled away from the pair of them but not before sending Y/N the last caveat with his wary eyes over his shoulder. She should be feeling relieved, but instead, even more conflict arose in her head after her conversation with Draco. What she finally realized was that something much more dangerous than a student’s frolic was standing behind the potions' disappearance. And Draco could be one of those reasons.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Terry inquired when he had an assurance Draco disappeared off the horizon.

“Hm? Oh, ye-yeah, I’m fine…” she stuttered out, still gapping at the black void of darkness where Draco had been standing a few minutes ago.

XOXOXOXO

A/N: Thank u sm for reading and hoped you liked it!! yes, yes, our Terry Boot is returning back to the scenery [spoiler: ‘Turn’]. I’m sure that at least @drawlfoyknows what i’m alluding to hehe.. Idk what’s with the bad, secret boys but i always liked that image of Draco, so... I MADE IT. There’s not too much steam going on rn since, yk, it’s only the beggining. But expect some more heated-up scenes very shortly;) If you want to stay up-to-date with the series, don’t hesitate to ask me to be added to the taglist!

[sylvctica]

[ GET  TO  KNOW  YOUR  WRITING  PARTNER! ]            

knowing your writing partners can potentially make writing together a lot easier.   repost, don’t reblog.

NAME: Aid! at least that’s what ppl online know me as, tho i did go by Resu at one point when i was active in the early days of the bleach RPC, but i eventually dropped it for Aid once i picked it up as a nickname.

PRONOUNS: she/her, nothing too fancy here!! tho i don’t mind masc stuff like ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ being used around me.

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: uhhhh usually discord, but god i am terrible at replying i am so sorry to anyone who chats with me. 😭 tumblr IMs work as well tho i’m just slow, or just post replies/tag chats cause they’re pretty easy on my brain.

NAME OF MUSE(S): just one whole Sylvie!!! or Sylvatica. or Foras. or a bunch of nicknames they’ve got LMASOAMO.

EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG: I think I’ve been writing on tumblr for the last ... lemme look at my first blog ... may 2013? i did a bit of writing on devART before moving here from 2011-2012, so roughly 10-11 years of RPing experience.

BEST EXPERIENCE: i’ve had so many good experiences!!!! and i’ve met a lot of dope friends thru tumblr (shoutout to @afacere​​​ for chugging along with me for so many years). it’s hard to pinpoint any specific experiences cause i value rlly everything and everyone that has helped me develop my muses (esp with sylvie) cause you guys helped to shape them into the muse they are today.

RP PET PEEVES: it’s funny cause i know i have them, but i’m blanking out so hard on what they are. thankfully it’s not as much of an issue any more (esp with the new dashboard view u can use on any blog so it mitigates it), but i remember the days super tiny container themes were the jam and everything was ant-sized and im like ... please. 11px or 12px sized font won't kill you or ruin your aesthetic, nor will 500/540px sized posts (or even 400+). i distinctly remember coming across a blog way back in the day where the container size was unironically like... 300x200 or something and i’m like ... why tho.

MUSE PREFERENCES FOR ANGST / FLUFF / SMUT: uhh, fluff? i do love me angst, but since my muses flow on their own, maintaining angst is hard and sylvie is very much not a muse that’s prone to any form of sadness or depression, so those threads are very few and far between. i enjoy more fluffy/silly stuff overall cause it makes me feel good!!!

PLOTS OR MEMES: memes mostly because they work with my low energy, but i enjoy the small plot (or big?) when they come around and inspiration strikes or a mun and i find something we’d both be curious in exploring--but memes take priority usually.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: both!!! im just slow with long replies because it requires focus from my brain and with me working so late, im usually low on that. slow replies function best with my energy and focus, but i lov me a good juicy long thread.

BEST TIME TO WRITE: *it’s a mystery plays in the BG* my energy is random as hell. i usually try to write on weekends cause it’s when i have the most free time, but i end up usually sleeping most of the day to recover from the work week. otherwise, i dont rlly have much free time to write until after midnight on weekdays, and by that point my brain is usually buzzed out.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE: to a degree? a lot of myself bleeds out into my more active muses. i can be a lil stupid like sylvie with stuff flying over my head, i cope with humour like they do, i love food too and nature ... it’s mostly surface level stuff though, cause their insecurities and what not do not touch much upon mine outside a few instances. mostly because they’re not human, so a lot of their things do not overlap with mortal issues LMASOASMASO SO TO SAY ANYWAY.

[we-are-indeed-villains]

Some things I wish I had known before getting sucked into the whole “dark academia” business:

I waited a very long time to start posting here because It just seemed necessary to wait a bit since DA exploded out of nowhere last year. I just couldn’t bring myself to write when I was so disgusted with the community. Now that it seems like we are out of fashion again (lol) I decided it could be worth giving this blog a try.

Also, almost everything I say here goes for pretty much any change in lifestyle, and these are just some general guidelines that I find particularly easy to follow, but do what works best for you!

1 - You DON’T have to spend all of your money to fit into this “aesthetic”.

The biggest problem with what is now called dark academia (but really, it has been a thing for such a long time) is that people put it in the same category as, for instance, VSCO girls or Indie (not that there is any problem with these aesthetics in specific, they are actually quite cute!). I know this sounds like rubbish, but DA really is a little bit more than that. The clothing/visual part of it may be important to some, but the way you choose to live your life and the hobbies you opt to engage with are crucial for everyone!

That being said, don’t spend a ridiculous amount of money on expensive linen shirts and fancy blazers. You don’t need a brand new pair of Oxfords or a 100% leather messenger bag to consider yourself DA. Start small, then make investments if you find it to be worth it. That brings us to our second point:

2 - Find your favourite aspect of the community.

I know it can be very overwhelming to adhere to any new style of living, but there are some easier ways to make a smoother transition (also, you don’t really want everyone to notice that you went from water to wine in one week, and then back to water after two more because you felt lost amidst all of those weird nerds you found on Tumblr, right?).

Begin with figuring out what part of the lifestyle you identify with the most. Is it the musical part? Classical dance? Are you into poetry? Books? History?

Once you have that done (I plan on doing posts on all of those topics and more, so stay tuned!), narrow it down until you find the very core of your interest. For example, I absolutely love literature, but what do I love about it? Is it the writing part? The reading part? Both? Do I have a favourite style? If the answer for the previous question is ‘no’, try to find one! There are so many amazing styles and eras to explore!

After determining what is/are your main interests, make sure to find time to fit them into your life. Buy more books, if possible. There are also public libraries with a great variety of literature to choose from! If you already do that, I encourage you to try getting out of your comfort zone and attempting something new. Why not experiment reading a different style of books? Or maybe getting into the more poetic part of literature?

3 - Get into it!

Have you found your main interest? Great! Now it may be time to actually get into the fashion aspect of the whole thing. Also, remember that, although it is not a requirement per say, being academically successful is something you may want to achieve, so put some effort into that as well.

I won’t get too much into the fashion rabbithole, but I may write something about it later. In the meantime, you can definitely find some great guides on different DA related blogs.

4 - Don’t adhere to all the negative habits that DA romanticizes.

We all know that mental illness and self destructive behaviors are heavily romanticised, and I will say this from the bottom of my heart: DO NOT LET YOUR MENTAL HEALTH SLIP BECAUSE OF SOME 15 YEAR OLD ON TUMBLR! Trust me, it is NOT worth it.

Cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, all-nighters, heavier drugs. All of that may seem cool and edgy from the outside (why people think that, I could not tell you), but it can also defeat the main purpose of DA and, even worse, ruin your physical and mental health for good. How are you going to stay ahead in school and go to Oxford if you are too busy partying and snorting coke? You will get a sore nose and a big hole in your pocket, that’s all.

Nihilism is another one. Note that I said “nihilism”, not "existentialism" (more on that coming in the future). If you enjoy pondering the reason for human existence and you question the religious beliefs that control our society, welcome to the club! But please, please, don’t let that get too much in your head. Existential depression is a very painful and difficult thing to deal with. It will take away any joy you may find and it is not in any way productive. If you have it, you will know what I mean. Thinking about it sometimes, writing poems, debating with friends, that’s all good, even encouraged, but don’t let it go to your head and become a problem. Not worth it.

Some extra things I would like to mention:

1 - Don’t force yourself into doing or enjoying anything. Sure, reading is good, but if it isn’t enjoyable there is no reason to become obsessed with it! DA should not be a burden.

2 - Stay away from the eurocentric ideals that come with the community. Racism is bad even if you want to live in the 1800s. There is simply no excuse to think that European culture is richer or more refined than any other. Remember that the only reason you think that is because some rich, old, white men decided to murder and opress millions of different people for pure egoism. Not really something to be proud of.

Also, if you are thinking “Yeah, whatever, but English culture is a lot nicer than Mexican, or Indian culture”, then you should probably reevaluate the reasons for your interest in DA.

3 - Don’t be mean to people just because you think it fits with your all-new pretentious and arrogant character. I don’t care if you want to be perceived as such, but it can be very bad in the long-run. Just be aware of that.

And most importantly, don’t let DA take away your personality! It’s okay to like video games and read gossip magazines every once in a while. It is also okay to be yourself. You don’t have to (and probably shouldn't) get rid of all the qualities that make you unique (yes, this is a cliche, but there is a reason why people say it all the time). Be silly, say dumb things and play minecraft with your friends all night, for godsakes!

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

(Hamlet - Polonius, act 1 scene 3)

-- Shakespeare, William

Memento Mori, dear villains.

[flying-elliska]

one of the most impactful things I have read lately are two of French author Edouard Louis' books, Pour en finir avec Eddy Bellegueule and Qui a tué mon père (translated into English as The End of Eddy and Who Killed my Father). It's been two months and I'm still thinking about it.

The first book is an 'autobiographical novel' about the author's childhood growing up as an obviously gay boy in one of the poorest areas of France, until he leaves and reinvents himself as a writer. It's fraught with bigotry, abuse, bullying, violence, deprivation and social despair, and it's one of the most harrowing things I have ever read. It reads as many things as once : a recognition of trauma, an angry exorcism, a cry for society at large to pay attention, and to be honest, as a horror story.

It was criticized by some in France as portraying the working class in a manner that was too negative, which tells me they missed the point entirely...ironic for a book by someone who actually grew up poor - one of my least favorite things ever is progressives telling a marginalized person they can't talk about their own experiences because they don't fit the desired mold. (The French love to romanticize the working class and I'm pretty sure it's often an avoidance mechanism.)

The point of the book is so obviously not about 'look at how terrible and bigoted those poor people are'. Little Eddy spends a big part of the narrative trying to escape - himself at first, then his family/circumstances and the persistent homophobia everywhere. In the end of the book, he finally manages to get accepted into a fancy high school in the city on a scholarship and tries really hard to fit in. The last scene of the book is a bunch of his - educated, upper/middle class - classmates throwing homophobic taunts at him, starting the cycle anew. I can't think of a clearer way to say 'this is not a story about a sad gay boy escaping the evil bigoted countryside for the city and then everything was wonderful!!!! this is a story about a systemic, pervasive problem.'

One of the key arguments of the book, to me, is how homophobia, sexism and bigotry in general are both a product and a reproduction mechanism of social and economic exclusion. For instance, he describes how the norms around what it means to be a man in his village (being tough, disobeying authority, quitting school early to go work at the factory, drinking alcohol, neglecting your own health, fighting over women, repressing your feelings, etc) perpetuates the cycle of poverty ; but again this isn't 'oh these people are so stupid' and more 'these people are trapped'. Because he makes it evident how degrading and dehumanizing poverty can be, this masculinity reads as a desperate attempt to cling to a certain amount of dignity - it's an extremely dysfunctional coping mechanism. At the same time, anyone falling outside of the mold is violently ostracized (like Eddy, who tries and fails to fit in). So the system keeps reproducing itself.

In Who Killed my Father, the author makes his political argument clearer. This is more of an essay, centering on his father, arguably the most complex figure in the first novel. The man is an angry, bigoted alcoholic who makes his family miserable ; at the same time he is the son of an abusive father who makes a point of honor to never hit his kids or wife even though it's very normalized in this context. In this essay the author keeps talking about the moments of almost tenderness with his father that haunt him, the picture he has of him doing drag in his youth, the fact that the father tried to leave the village when he was young to find a better life for himself with a close friend but failed and had to come back - the moments of what-ifs, of trying to struggle free from the cycle, when the system appears almost fragile and not so unbreakable after all, that the son kept holding close like a sort of talisman.

The narrative is structured around the fact that his father injured his back working in a factory and that he had to keep doing physical labor afterwards for money, instead of resting to recover, until it completely destroyed his body. Now he finds himself bed-bound at 53. Louis inquires into who is responsible for this premature 'death'. After considering individual choices, he turns towards political decisions - the successive governments, left and right, who have been destroying the French welfare system for decades and accelerating inequality. The point is to step out of the neoliberal obsession with personal responsibility and who is guilty and who is a bad or good person, and look at systems.

An element that isn't focused on but hovers over the story constantly is that this village is one where the majority of the population consistently votes for the extreme right National Front party in most elections. The book is too angry and nuanced to be some stupid "it's not their fault that they're racist because they're poor!" argument. It doesn't make any excuses for how awful this is but instead illustrates how dehumanization replicates itself, how people being denied basic dignity leads to them wanting to deny it to others. If you want to really understand the rise of the far right you have to look at where the inequality comes from in the first place, and how easy it is for people in power to wash their hands of it by blaming the bigoted masses. (Just like you can blame societal ills on minorities ! Two for one strategy.)

Towards the end of the essay, the author talks about how proud his father is of his son's literary success - for a book who clearly depicts him as a horrible person ! And this is a man who has spent his life openly despising anything cultural, because it never showed him a life like his own. But maybe now he feels seen, now he knows people want to read about these things. Maybe there is a reclamation of dignity through looking at the horror head on. Maybe his son somehow slipping through the cracks of the cycle gives him more room. The man stops making racist comments, and instead asks his son about his boyfriend. Most importantly, he asks his son about the leftist politics he's engaged in. They talk about the need for a revolution.

I think what strikes me the most is this attitude of "wounded compassion" that permeates the book. What do you do when your parents are abusive but even after you grow up, you can't help but still love them, and you know they've been shaped by the system that surrounds them ? Recognizing, speaking the harm is essential. You need to find your own freedom, sense of worth, and safety. You need to dissect the mechanisms at hand so they lose at least some of their power over you. You need to find people who love and believe you. But then what? Do you dismiss your persistent feelings of affection and care for those who hurt you as a sign you're just fucked up in the head ? You could just decide to never speak to them again, and it would be justified, but is that really what is going to heal you the most? It's important to realize you have the choice. But there are no easy conclusions.

This makes me think of a passage I have just read in Aversive Democracy by Aletta Norval. The essential ethos of radical democracy, she says, is about taking responsibility for your society, even the bad parts, instead of seeing them as a foreign element you have to cleanse yourself of. It's too fucking easy for queer progressives, especially the middle class urban kind, to talk about dumb evil hicks, to turn pride into a simple morality tale, and forget that any politics that don't center the basic dignity and needs of people are just shit. The injury is to you and by you and you have a duty of care just as much as a duty of criticism. (And this is obviously not only applicable to class matters.) You can't just walk away and save your sense of moral purity. (This is not an argument that the oppressed are responsible for educating the oppressors ; it's about how privilege is not an easy simple ranking and it is too damn easy to only focus on the ways in which you are oppressed and forget the ways in which you may have more leeway.)

There is no absolute equivalence between political and family dynamics but the parallel feel very relevant somehow. Several truths can coexist at once : you needed help and it was not given. You were let down. It's important to recognize that people are responsible of how they treat each other. You need to call out what isn't ok and stand up for yourself. At the same time, there is a reason why things are like this. Making people into villains is often bad strategy (within reason!), and in the end, easy dichotomies are often an instrument of power. The horrors you have been through might have given you a very specific wisdom and grace you do not have to be afraid of ; you are not tainted by your compassion (it is very much the opposite of forced forgiveness ; it has walked through the fire of truth.)

To me these books fit into what French literature does best, sociological storytelling a la Zola or Victor Hugo - the arguments aren't new and they can come across as heavy handed, even melodramatic. But I'll argue that the viscerality is the point, how the raw experience of misery punches through any clever arguments about how exploitation persists for the greater good of society. Really worth reading if you can do so with nuance.

[tmnt-brave-new-world]

Interaction guidelines- The Rules RPs are currently open, please read the rules before interacting

The Rules

- Please Read the rules before interacting

-This is an Ask and RP blog. Rps will be taken under consideration, on a case by case basis

- Absolutely No one under 18, preferably 21+. I’m not planning to censor anything on this blog. If you are not of age, do not follow or interact. You will be reported and blocked

- Patience is a virtue. The Mun works an incredibly difficult and stressful job, that, because it pays the bills, takes priority. This blog is a platform for fun and interaction but can’t take precedence over the real world. Sometimes I’m super busy and it could be awhile before I respond to a post, or an RP. If you aren’t capable of patience don’t interact.

- Please be respectful. The level of respect you show this blog and others is important to the Mun. if you aren’t capable of acting in a mature fashion, you will be blocked. BE NICE…

- Absolutely no popup RPs in ask, without having discussed or plotted a story with the Mun.

- If you would like to RP please dm me with a story idea.

- This is not a tcest site. I’m sorry I don’t know how to write tcest, and don’t have a desire to do so. I feel that I would not be a decent or supportive rp partner if I’m not able to give it my best, and thus do not wish to mistreat or neglect those in the community who enjoy this type of RP

- No randomly appearing in the lair without being invited. Donnie has gone above and beyond to give them safety in their sanctuary. If you weren’t invited, you are not welcome in their home, as is the case with any stranger.

On to the boys!

- The boys are 2014/2016 Bayverse turtles but are mature adult men. Human age wise they are around 50, but maturity and body wise, somewhere in their 30’s respectively. They do not age the same as humans due to the properties of mutagen and their turtle mutant base type

- This is an AU set several decades into the future- please read the prologue to help understand a little more about the world they live in

- They live in a skyrise, penthouse. With state of the art- Donnie certified level protections put into place. Nothing gets in or out, without his knowing. He does not take the safety of himself or his brothers lightly

- The Boys do not belong to anybody and will not belong to anybody. They are free to interact with whomever they would like, in any way that has been discussed and planned between the two muns.

- They don’t know your muse, nor have had any previous interactions with your muse, and thus are not in love with your muse, or have an established relationship with your muse.

- If you want their love and attention you will have to earn it, just like you would in any other type of interaction

- Absolutely no god-modding. Example: its your 3rd time to respond and you’re attempting to have Leo princess carry your character to bed. This is not a natural flow to the story, and not going to happen.

- The boys may like certain features, or admire certain characteristics, however they are open to all body types, shapes and beings, so long as they feel a connection.

A quick explanation as to what the boys do with their free time in a world that knows they exist.

Leo: “We each found our interests and talents opened up a several viable options that had lead us each to a “unique” position.” Leo led as he gathered his thoughts. “Keep in mind after we managed to stop Krang and those who worked closely with him, the world was vulnerable. As far as my brothers and I were concerned, we had fought too hard and for too long for someone to simply slip into the power vacuum we had created and to continue to harsh reality Krang had created for Earth’s inhabitants. Due to this we each chose to do what we knew how to do and could most easily adapt as challenges presented themselves.”

He paused for a moment as he thought about the hardships, they had each faced and managed to overcome as they slowly helped right the world and returned her to standing on her own. A shimmering blue jewel among the galaxy and other worlds that had become familiar with the planet and its amenities.

“During our years in the resistance we managed to acquire wealth and assets. We were able to accumulate quite the little nest egg using those. Along with our acquired influence it opened many a door which in the old world would have remained not only closed but permanently locked to us.”

“I became a strategic investor. Buying the remnants of properties, businesses and services and either helping them to return to what they once were or repurposing to better suit the needs of this new era and turn a profit. It proved to be very profitable and allowed for me to continue to churn out profits which allowed for me to seek other properties and businesses to invest in or connect the right individuals with each other in away that led to my ability to offer the initial capital for a small percentage of the quarterly earnings. It helped people to create jobs and led to a lot of normalcy for those who desperately needed.

One hand washes the other, and this in its essence has lead to my own sector of the Tartaruga brothers incorporated. I have a multi-billion dollar operation on Earth and several branches operating throughout the universe currently.”

Donnie: “As Leo has said,” Donnie commented calmy, “our time resisting and fighting lead us each to our own talents. I spent a lot of time wearing many hats, which included, chemists, doctor, surgeon, agronomist, engineer, electrician, etc. to put it simply I spent a lot of time learning how to save lives, human and otherwise, and the best way to stretch our available resources in a way which led to people surviving. I also had to learn how to create medications which were so commonplace that many died without having them available. Most antibiotics don’t have a very long shelf life and when those ran out initially, we were in constant jeopardy of losing lives to the simplest of bacterial infections. My knowledge, and subsequent research lead to significant improvements and branching into many other factors, and shall we say break throughs.

Needless to say, the value of others wants, lead to my ability to fund the needs of the many. In my sector, I have several leadings areas including pharmacy, medical research, agrarian development, as well as generalized research and development in multiple fields from domestic to military. For obvious reasons, more detailed information is strictly classified.”

Raph: Raph chuckled as Donnie glossed over his closely guarded research. He was willing to kill to protect his research and continue to control the aspects that allowed him to fund the bulk of his interests and common welfare of those he blanketed with his programs. “They ain’t lying. After the world came back from going to shit, it took awhile to get it back up and going. Additionally, there were a lot of people, generally those not from this world that were way too determined to make sure we failed. This led to a lot of infighting and groups struggling for control. That tends to lead to a lot of shady business if you know what I mean, and it wasn’t like we had any type of social services such as police, fire fighting, or anything else. I initially took charge in areas like these.

I took a lot of care to train groups so that they worked together and were prepared to handle whatever problems came. It took a lot of time to cultivate proper training programs and help prepare people on how to help a traumatized world get back to functioning in a healthy way. I still help do this on planets and areas that are in recovery.”

“That being said however, my primary interest and “job” if you want to call it that, is training mixed martial artist prize fighters for the world federation galaxy league. Simply put we aren’t the only species that likes to watch trained athletes test their skills against one another within their respective brackets, or on specially contracted prized fights. I used to fight for the league and earned a lot of titles and prestige. I won most fights and was often the favorite to win after a while. I’m semi-retired and only occasionally enter the ring now days. However, I take and train promising talents for the league and other groups. I have also trained personal bodyguards for a variety of individuals.  Different specialties come with different specifics and contracts as well as costs. It takes a specific might set for each, and a lot of time to drill into a thick skull.”

Mikey: Mikey laughed at the turtle in red, “Oh yeah, and you were the king of thick skulled back when we were young, and dumb.” He barely dodged the throw pillow that was chucked at his head.  “Let’s see for me personally,” Mikey flashed a big grin, “I happen to be a master of many trades. During our days in the resistance, I learned a lot of different tricks to help make the food rations we had on hand not only palatable but nutritionally sound while feeding a literal army of people! So when it was possible I spent a large amount of time learning how to take fancy old world recipes and revamped them with food sources that were still available or recreated them with off world goodies. I also still paint, and love to collaborate with others to create amazing new concepts!”

His face darkened for a moment as he thought back to the early days of the resistance. “There were so many people who in the blink of an eye had lost everything, and unfortunately it was insanely common to find kids who had either been separated from their families or were the only survivor. In a lot of instances they were traumatized and it took a lot of creative thinking to coax them out of their shells and help to reteach them on how to live. This happened fairly frequently with adults as well. Because of this and what seemed like a never ending shortage of textiles, I had to learn and create new ways to make things and often times help find things that brought the sparkle back to peoples eyes. Because of this however, I have a multimedia conglomerate that allows me to work in a wide area of creative outlets. The fashion world is a flippant mistress, but there are a lot of ways in which one can compete and stand out. It’s led to a lot of lucrative contracts with those who are “starving” for the next amazing piece of creatively, or at least that’s what they tell me. The great thing about taking high end contracts and commissions is that a lot like my brothers, the revenue lets me continue to reach out to others. I fund a program that includes shelters called “Uncle Mikey’s” for those who are missing, exploited, or just need help. I also teach cooking, and practical skills for those who need them, and they are streamed to community centers such as local libraries, after school programs, and the like, to try and continue to help those who never received a chance to learn to do things due to the world kind of going through an apocalypse level event.

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog JJBA Ch.48-52

This is the “Joseph vs. Straizo” arc, so I’ll just lead off with one of my favorite moments from the entire JoJo franchise, when Joseph furiously declares war on Straizo with tears in his eyes.   In the anime, voice actor Tomokazu Sugita delivered this with such intensity that it actually overshadowed the machine gun.

None of the dubs or translations can do it justice, including this panel from the JoJo’s Colored Adventure scanlation project.   This is a faithful translation of Joseph’s line, as far as I can tell, except they always leave off the last part: “宣戦布告だぜ!!”  In romanji, that’s: “Sensen fukokuda ze!!”    And it means  “This is war!!”  

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last time, we saw the Joestars treating their new friend Smokey Brown, to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant.   Some mafia jerk caused trouble, Joseph whooped his ass, and then a second mafia guy apologized and shared a rumor he recently heard: Robert Speedwagon was found dead in a Mexican riverbed, apparently killed by a Tibetan monk.  

From there, we see that Joseph immediately realizes that this must have been Straizo, and Erina suspects that it must have something to do with the Stone Masks and the battle with Dio fifty years ago.   Smokey warns Joseph to consider the source, but Joseph is pretty sure it’s credible information, since mafia guys are all about money.   I’m not sure what that has to do with whether he’s telling the truth, though.   Either way, Joseph slugs the guy for just blurting out such terrible news in front of Granny Erina.  

Now, at this point, Joseph and Erina are making all these Phantom Blood references, and Smokey has no idea what they’re talking about.   And I think seeing this panel helped me understand Smokey’s role as a viewpoint character.  When the Part began, it seemed like Smokey was sort of the narrator for the thing, which works because he’s a good viewpoint character, and he seemed to be settling in as a sidekick like Speedwagon and Poco in Part 1.   But shortly after this he just vanishes from Battle Tendency altogether, and then he shows up at the end like it’s no big deal.   I never quite understood that, and I think this is the sort of thing that fuels the “Araki forgot” memes, but it actually makes a lot of sense.  

See, Smokey’s primary function is to be the viewpoint character, specifically for the readers who missed out on Phantom Blood.    BT is a direct continuation of the previous part, in a way that none of the other JoJo parts are.   Most of the main BT cast was deeply affected by what happened in Part 1.   A few of them lived through it, and the ones that didn’t have personal connections to it.    So they constantly talk about Stone Masks and Dio without really stopping to explain any of it.   Well, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, you can take heart in the fact that Smokey doesn’t know either.   So as long as he can keep up with the story, so can the uninitiated readers.  For now, all that matters is that he’s impressed by the Joestars’ great kindness, and he’s intrigued and disturbed by these hints of a tragic past in their family.  

And eventually, Smokey learns just what happened to the Joestar Family, or at least everything that the reader needs to know to follow Part 2.   But that doesn’t happen until near the end, which is why he shows up to hear the secrets revealed.   But for most of the story, he steps aside, because that’s mostly about Joseph dealing with events in the here and now, so Joseph can act as his own viewpoint character.  

But is Speedwagon truly dead?   The story flashes back to the previous night, after Straizo killed his own disciples and clobbered Speedwagon.   They’re in this temple where Speedwagon discovered more Stone Masks, like the one Dio used, but Speedwagon also discovered an immortal man petrified in a stone column.    Straizo was enlisted to destroy this “Pillar Man” with his Hamon power, but instead he wants to use one of the Stone Masks to turn himself into a vampire.  

Before he does this, he reads Speedy’s translations of the writing on the walls of the temple.    The ancient Aztec cultists who built it said that the Pillar Man was immortal and had many powers, but he was vulnerable to the sun, just like the vampires from Part 1.   But the writings warn that the Pillar Man created the Stone Masks because of this weakness, and one day, “when he befriends the sun, the world will be his.”  That doesn’t seem to follow, since the only thing the Stone Masks seem to be able to do is make new vampires, who are just as vulnerable to sunlight as the Pillar Man.   

Anyway, Straizo doesn’t seem to care.   He just doesn’t want to die of old age, and he’s become disillusioned with the Hamon power he has, so he’s turning heel and going full goth on us.   To avoid Dio’s mistakes, he plans to eliminate any witnesses, including Joseph and Erina.  Then he’ll go into hiding and figure out a long term plan, with the rest of the world unaware of his existence. 

You know, now that I write that out, I’m amazed by how similar that plan is to what Dio ends up doing in Part 3.   In Part 1, he set about turning a whole town into zombies, and planning to unleash them on the world without any real agenda.    But in Part 3 he eventually holed up in a swank mansion in Cairo and took great pains to stay hidden while he acquired more power.   Parts 5 and 8 carry that same idea even further, with villains who go to great lengths to cover up their very existence.   

At any rate, we only see Speedwagon pass out in this scene, so it’s unclear whether he actually dies or not.   Really, using Speedwagon in this way is a pretty smart play.   He’s an old man, and he was never going to survive another 50-year time-skip into the next part, so it’s safe to assume that Part 2 is his swan song.   But how will he die, and when?   It could be at the very start, or maybe somewhere in the middle.  

Anyway, Straizo just walks up to a cafe in New York to confront Joseph, and Joseph whips out a machine gun and shoots his ass.   This whole time, Straizo had assumed that the untrained grandson of Jonathan Joestar would be easy pickings, but Joseph’s a lot more skilled with Hamon than he expected, and he’s tricky too. 

As Joseph fires on Straizo, he recalls how worried Erina was about all this.   The story kind of glosses over it, but Joseph seems to have worked out Straizo’s entire plan.   I guess that’s not much of a stretch.   He and Speedwagon were together with a temple full of Stone Masks, and then Straizo turned on Speedwagon.    Why else would he do that, unless he used the Stone Mask to turn into a vampire like Dio did?   And once you arrive at that conclusion, it isn’t hard to figure out what Straizo’s next move would be.    And that’s how Joseph was so prepared for this.    After the shooting stops, Smokey freaks out about Joseph murdering a dude, but Joseph was expecting a vampire the whole time. 

I also like Joseph’s line in the flashback.   Erina isn’t worried for herself, but for Joseph, because it looks like he’s being pulled into this same tragic fate as the rest of the family.   But Joseph resolves to face this head on.    “If this is my fate, then I accept it.”  Pretty sure Will Zeppeli said the same thing when he discovered that he would die saving Jonathan.  

There’s similar “call-to-adventure” moments in the other parts.   Jonathan has his when he accepts Zeppeli’s offer to train him to battle Dio again.  Jotaro has his when he defeats and saves Kakyoin, then learns what’ll happen to his mother if he doesn’t go.   Josuke has his when Angelo shows up and he has to avenge his grandfather.   Giorno kind of always had a hankering to take on Passione, but I think things got serious once he had a choice between killing or sparing Bruno.  There could be no turning back from that point.  For Jolyne, it was the moment she had a clear path to escape the prison but decided to go back in because that was where her enemy was.    For Johnny, it was that one battle where he chose to crawl towards the danger to save Gyro instead of withdrawing to safety.   For Gappy... I’d have to study that a bit.   

But for Joseph Joestar, it’s this moment.  Erina never sent Joseph to learn the Ripple from the Hamon monastary, and she seems to have taken great pains to keep him out of trouble, but now trouble has come to them, and Joseph isn’t about to back down.   

So yeah, bullets don’t actually kill vampires, but Joseph was hoping to destroy his head with some of those shots, or at least slow Straizo down long enough to finish him off.   Instead Straizo reveals that he has the power to shoot high pressure fluid from his eyes, the same move Dio used to kill Jonathan at the end of Part 1.   He calls this “Space Ripper Stingy Eyes” which is either stupid or brilliant depending on your mood, I guess.   He used it to protect his head from the machine gun fire, and then he uses it again to shoot Joseph... except he hits Joseph’s reflection in a nearby mirror, and I guess he didn’t notice the real thing standing behind him.

What makes this fight so awesome is that these two are determined to kill each other, and they each have extremely simple moves to defeat one another, but they have all these tricks and schemes to protect themselves.   Joseph manages to hit Straizo with Hamon, but it does nothing... because Straizo was a Hamon master before turning into a vampire.   He can’t use the Ripple without destroying himself now, but he still knows how to defend against it.   For instance, he’s got this scarf woven from dead bugs, because it conducts Hamon energy far more effectively than his own body.    So it just absorbs Joseph’s attacks and disperses the energy harmlessly away.   

Does it really have to be made of dead bugs?   I feel like Tonpetti just told him that as a prank.   “No, really (snort!) the only thing that works is dead bugs.  (tee-hee!)   It smells awful but you have to wear it (ha!).”

But Joseph has his own tricks, like... putting a dozen grenades on his opponent’s back when he isn’t looking!  Seriously, there was zero opportunity for him to do this.    One moment he steps over Straizo’s body to see if he’s still alive, and the next moment he supposedly planted all these things on his scarf.   I get that he could pull a string connected to the pin without being noticed, but that’s the only part that makes sense about this.   It’s still awesome, though.   If Jonathan had access to explosives, Part 1 would have been a lot shorter.  

I really think this was the battle that set the tone for Stand Battles in later Parts.   Araki loves these off-panel tricks in combat, and they’re a lot easier to explain when all of your characters have magic super powers.   If Joseph had Hermit Purple in this fight, there’d be no problem at all.   He could just use Hermit Purple to snake through the ventilation shafts and hook up all the grenades.   In fact, it’s tempting to suggest that Joseph was unconsciously using Hermit Purple throughout Part 2, but I don’t want to get into that right now.

Anyway, explosions don’t stop vampires any more than machine gun fire.   Straizo’s body is in pieces, but the pieces just slither back together and regenerate.   Wait, wouldn’t his head have been vaporized in that blast?   Also, Straizo spends the rest of this battle in the nude, so we know that stupid scarf is out of the equation.   Why didn’t Joseph just go back in the cafe and finish Straizo off while he was still in pieces?

Again, it’s easy to say “lol Araki forgot”, but I think it’s a lot more sensible to suggest that Joseph forgot.   As clever as he is, he went in with the Ripple, a machine gun, and a dozen grenades, and Straizo had an answer to all three.   He doesn’t want to press the attack because he’s out of tricks.   All he’s got left is another Hamon attack, which means Straizo will see it coming.   Or he’s still worried about the scarf, and hasn’t realized that it’s gone now.    In any event, he’s running away, creating some distance before Straizo can make his next move.

Also, there’s a lot of bystanders gathering around, so it makes sense to take the fight elsewhere.   Some guy named “Bruty” tries to stop Joseph to impress his girlfriend, but that backfires spectacularly.  Was Bruty in the anime?  I feel like he wasn’t, but I don’t want to check. 

The one I do remember is this girl photographer.   Spider-Man hadn’t been invented yet, so in those days photographers just sort of wandered around with their camera, waiting for Spidey to debut.   This exploding vampire diner is the best she could do in 1938.  

I just really like this lady.   There’s a spark in her eye and I just assumed she would end up being Joseph’s love interest by the end of the story.    Well, we’ll get to that.  

Instead, she’s a hostage.  Joseph and Smokey run to the Brooklyn Bridge?   I guess?   It’s a bridge, I’m sure of that much.   Anyway, Straizo catches this lady and takes her with him to intercept them.   He threatens to kill her unless Joseph faces him again.   But Straizo offers to spare Joseph and never trouble him again if Joseph runs away.   This is because Straizo figures that if Joseph chickens out now, then he’ll never be a threat to Straizo in the future, no matter how powerful his Hamon abilities become. 

Joseph tries to call his bluff, but then Straizo rips out one of the girl’s teeth to prove he means business, and Joseph gets furious all over again.  I don’t think he was ever planning to abandon this fight, but he was probably hoping to get Straizo to give up his hostage at least.   Now he’s just pissed, and Straizo is impressed.  Joseph tries to act cool, but he just can’t hide his passionate feelings.    This is in stark contrast to Jotaro, who wagered his own soul in a poker game and bluffed his way to victory. 

So Straizo tries again with the Space Ripper Stingy Eyes, but this time Joseph blocks it with two shot glasses charged with Hamon power, and then he lands the decisive blow.   But before Straizo dies, Joseph demands to know why Straizo dumped Speedwagon and the others in the river.   Not only does Joseph want to give him a proper burial, but he doesn’t understand why Straizo would have dumped them in the river, since that was how Joseph knew to expect him.  

Wait, I thought Straizo wanted Joseph to know he was coming.   Oh well.

Anyway, Straizo explains that he had to do it, because the Pillar Man was absorbing the blood from his victims.   Straizo was worried that the Pillar Man might awaken, so he put them in the river instead to be safe.    Nevertheless, he suspects that the Pillar Man will reawaken eventually anyway, and Straizo now realizes that it will be Joseph’s destiny to face him some day.    Then Straizo just uses the Ripple one last time, and self-destructs. 

It always seemed strange to me that Straizo saw the danger of the Pillar Man and just left things the way they were.   Maybe he planned to deal with him later, or maybe he just didn’t know or care about it until Joseph defeated him, and he felt a moral obligation to warn someone. 

I guess he could have destroyed the Pillar Man like Speedwagon wanted him to do in the first place, but it seems like Straizo didn’t realize that blood would wake him up until after he was already a vampire, and unable to use the Ripple.  For that matter, it remains to be seen if Hamon will work on Pillar Men.   

Anyway, what else is going on?   Oh, yeah, Europe is getting closer and closer to World War II.   The official start of the war is usually considered to be September 1, 1939, but Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and Japan invaded China in 1937, and Germany annexed Austria and conquered Czechoslovakia in 1938, the year Battle Tendency is set.  So we’re in this weird time period where there’s Nazis in the story, and the British-American protagonist doesn’t care for them, but isn’t trying to kill them on sight.   I’ll be coming back to this topic later on. 

I think the main reason for including Nazi Germany in this story was to draw parallels between their goals and those of the fictional villains.    The Nazis believed themselves to be the “Master Race”, the most “evolved” people, and this made them worthy to rule the world.   Araki notes that they turned to all sorts of sci-fi/occult/fantasy stuff in their war.   Similarly, you have villains like Dio and Straizo turning to mysterious Stone Masks for spooky powers, and then you have the Pillar Man himself, who apparently sought the means to “befriend the sun” and rule over the world.    So the Nazis fit into this theme of trying to claim some sort of supremacy over other beings.  

But what’s their role in this story?   Well, the Germans have an “information base” in Mexico, run by a guy named Stroheim.   He makes pretty ladies shave him with a straight razor, and if he gets a nick he makes them lick the blood off, and then he threatens to cut off their tongues.   Also, he trained his dog to not eat treats until given permission. He’s a sick fuck, is my point. 

Wait, no, my point was that his staff discovered the bodies that Straizo dumped in the river, including Speedwagon, who’s still alive, somehow.      I guess Straizo was going to finish him off but he got in a hurry when he saw the Pillar Man absorbing the blood from the others.  Not sure how Speedwagon survived that ordeal, but Stroheim’s men have been taking care of him this whole time, and he was unconscious until recently, so it might have been touch-and-go for a while. 

            Back in New York, Joseph doesn’t know what this is all about, but he decides to go to Mexico himself to get to the bottom of it...

[welllpthisishappening]

First-Line Defensive Pairing

Of all the things they’d done in the last few months, spending the afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream was one of the more ridiculous. Mostly because of the wooden spoons they gave out on the tour. Partially because it seemed Will Scarlet could not stop casting furtive glances at Belle French. Or the heels that always matched her dresses. Maybe because she kept answering his hypothetical questions. And maybe even because he was willing to drift far closer to genuine these days. At least when it came to his feelings for her.

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Word Count: 3.7K AN: Take two! Ok, so apparently yesterday when I posted this Tumblr thought it’d be a really cool idea to just...reformat the entire story. With whole graphs in totally wrong spots. Anyway, here it is again. Just as ridiculous as yesterday. With just as many Will and Belle emotions. Because that’s a thing I’m doing now, apparently. Writing Blue Line-era Will and Belle. If you’d like more of these flirt-prone idiots, here is their first date and Belle getting annoyed that Will fought someone on the ice. Technically, this was part of the kiss prompts and was “height difference kisses.” I hope the five of you who are interested in this enjoy it. That includes @shireness-says​ and @eleveneitherway​ who are mostly to blame for this.

————

“I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question.”

Belle lifted her eyebrows. Let some of that light creep back in her gaze, a flash of amusement that regularly made Will’s stomach leap dangerously close to the base of his ribs. That’s why he did it. Maybe not the rib thing, partially because he wasn’t even sure that was the correct technical term. The rest of it, though. The eye thing. Sure. Definitely. One-hundred percent. Why he’d also made sure the little wooden spoon they’d been given at the start of this tour was still in the corner of his mouth; to guarantee absolute absurdity, and he figured that started when they decided to spend their afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream, but he was willing to take it all a step further. 

In the absurdity factor, at least. 

Other things were—

Well, it wasn’t as if they explicitly decided to keep the relationship a secret. Not on purpose. Not really. Or come to any sort of legitimate agreement regarding the use of the word relationship. It never seemed...important, honestly. And that was a potentially problematic and lackadaisical approach to someone who made Will smile with an almost alarming consistency in the last few months, but she’d also sort of snuck up on him, and Ariel was going to be so annoying. 

About the whole goddamn thing. 

She’d never shut up about it, he knew. 

So he didn’t push. Belle didn’t, either. An unspoken agreement, that’s what it was. He had other things to do, anyway. Like get ready for a playoff run and ignore the lingering ache in his calves after the echo of Arthur’s whistle stopped ringing in his ears, and, ok, his apartment was starting to feel a little bit larger than it had in a long time, maybe since Killian had moved out, but that was fine. Cup runs did not come because someone was in a relationship. Will had seen that first hand. With Cap, of all people. 

Watched the way his whole life had fallen apart around his ankles, little shards of hope and possibility that, Will knew, still threatened the structural integrity of Kilian’s internal organs and all four ventricles of his heart, and he did not understand enough basic biology to be making those sorts of sweeping observations, but Robin had lost someone too and that had been horrible and tragic and—

If Will simply did not want to jinx things, then that was neither here nor there.

Relationship’y speaking. 

It was good. They were good. He hated the wooden spoon they gave them to taste test half a dozen ice cream flavors. 

He was legitimately worried about getting splinters in his tongue. 

No excuses could possibly reason away that problem pre-game. 

Belle’s eyebrows were still in the same spot. “You going to follow up on that, or…” “Would you burn a Gutenberg Bible? To stave off the apocalypse and or potential frostbite?” “Those two things go together, do they?” He shrugged. “In this instance, yeah, because—” “—Well, it wouldn’t matter,” Belle said, eyes flitting towards the overly enthusiastic tour guide and the seemingly never-ending history of ice cream, “because I wouldn’t allow myself to be in that position. And I don’t live anywhere near the Public Library. What would I be doing there when the freeze-wave came?” His stomach. Did that thing. Jumped and twisted, got a ten from the Russian judge on its floor routine. He was cautiously optimistic he’d be able to pull off a flawless beam performance too. It was an exceedingly convoluted metaphor. Wrong Olympics, too. 

“Does salt air give you mind-reading powers?” “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are,” Belle grinned. Moving her hand faster than he was entirely prepared for ensured that he nearly dropped his small plastic cup of churro churro ice cream. He made noise. Without trying. A hiss and a grunt in the back of his throat that then led to a sound escaping between Belle’s half-hearted scowl, and that sound was closer to a giggle than either of them would ever admit and just enough to mess with his mental faculties a little and the tour guide stopped talking. To stare straight at them. 

Color lifted on Belle’s cheeks, ice cream-covered spoon held awkwardly between them. 

“As you were, ma’am,” Will said, all false bravado, and that was something of a trend. In several different capacities. It was far too depressing a thought to have while eating cinnamon-flavored ice cream. 

Belle elbowed him. 

And the tour guide got back to her to spiel. Without a reprimand. 

“Say freeze-wave again without laughing.”

Her eyelashes were more of a problem, honestly. Than the eyebrows. Or the specific jut of her chin Will had rather quickly learned meant she was ready to challenge him on some ridiculous topic, fully prepared to argue a position she might not have otherwise agreed with. Only because it wasn’t what he was arguing, and it was easy to understand why she won that Model UN award. 

Plus, her eyelashes were just stupid long, and he thought she was really pretty. 

Like in a fundamental sort of way. 

“Freeze-wave,” Belle enunciated, pausing between syllables for maximum effect, “are you asking me Day After Tomorrow questions because of the ice cream, because I’m a librarian or because you’re the strangest man alive?” She finally ate the rest of the ice cream. It was starting to melt, that was why. This was very melt-prone ice cream. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled, “this is really good. Better than mine.” Something popped in his shoulder when he reached towards her plastic cup. He wouldn’t tell Ariel about that, either. 

“Which kind is—” Fighting off the objections of a small librarian who resolutely refused to wear anything except heels, no matter what the weather was like, was not usually as difficult as it was in that moment. Will assumed it had something to do with sugar. Or the force of his smile. Robbing the rest of him of energy and the ability to fend off either one of Belle’s fists. “Why are you like this?” “You didn’t want to try peanut and pretzel. With peanut butter swirl.” “Swallowed the flyer for this place while I wasn’t looking, huh?” Sticking her tongue out was distracting. Almost enough that he didn’t notice the absolutely atrocious attempt at impersonating his voice. “Oh, no, no, babe, I don’t want that; you can get peanut butter anywhere. That’s not special.” “Well, it’s not.” “I’m a big fancy hockey player, and I know everything there is to know about ice cream flavors and the potential life-changing palette moment that comes from the sublime combination of salty and sweet.” “Oh, now you’re just taunting me.” Her eyes narrowed, that time. His smile was going to permanently stretch out his cheeks. “You have a disgusting mind.” “You can’t get churro ice cream everywhere, babe.” “I’m going back to get honey later.” Will hummed. Stuck his lower lip out. Noticed that flash return. And hoarded it. Like a relationship—

Ah, fuck. 

“Would you burn the Gutenberg Bible?” Her laugh was quickly becoming his favorite sound. Which wasn’t bad, per se. Was just kind of passably concerning. God damn. It was the heels. All of them kept matching the dresses she wore. She kept wearing dresses. 

Of course, that was going to mess with Will’s head. 

Belle shook her head. “No.” “Historical significance?” “Well, once again, I would not be in that position, would have listened to science and fled to warmer climates, so as not to make myself prey for escaped...what were they? Tigers?” “I honestly can’t remember,” Will admitted. 

“This was your hypothetical!”

Heads snapped their direction. Frustration creased the tour guide’s forehead, and they’d paid extra to learn about the history of ice cream. Will had already known about the origins of the ice cream cone, though. So, the whole thing felt almost like a raw deal, and he was far more interested in preserving the color in Belle’s cheeks. He saluted. Who he was saluting was anyone’s guess, but it very likely was the otherwise unengaged teenage kid trudging behind his family who absolutely recognized Will. 

“That’s going to end up on sixteen different social media sites,” Belle warned, not quite able to get her voice to an appropriate whispering level. 

“So long as he got my good side, you won’t hear me complaining.” “Do you have a good side?”

“Sweetheart, the self-confidence. God.” She squeezed her eyes shut. While practically beaming at him, and Will had to bend his knees to reach, something else creaking in the process, but that was fine, and good, and pretty goddamn fantastic because her lips tasted a bit like chocolate. 

“‘S’not your best work,” Belle mumbled, almost entirely into his mouth. 

“Brain freeze.” “I would burn no books. That’s my final hypothetical answer.” Her eyelashes must have existed purely to torment him. Leaning back made it clear when they fluttered back open, and he swore there were flecks of gold in her eyes. Maybe he was melting, too. With the ice cream. That was almost poetic. “None at all? What if you were going to die?” “Maudlin.” “I don’t know what that means.” “Liar,” she challenged, another smile tugging at her mouth, and Will was clearly staring at her mouth. Stained slightly with chocolate, as it was. “I stand by it, though. The book stuff, not the commentary on your burgeoning intelligence.” “You want to find a corner to go and make out in?” Different laugh. The kind that came with her head thrown back, hair tickling Will’s forearm because at some point his arm had found its way around her, and touching Belle was becoming something almost close to second nature. “I could keep complimenting you if you want,” Belle said, “or I could give you my reason for not burning books.” “You’re a giant nerd, that’s why.” She clicked her tongue. “Very, very cute nerd, though.” “Betcha say that to all the girls.”

His stomach stilled. Dropped a few inches, for good measure. Below where it was supposed to be, and inching dangerously close to his feet, and what Will could not imagine was a very sanitary floor. The Museum of Ice Cream had a giant sprinkle pit. Nothing about that seemed very sanitary. 

“I think stories have a purpose,” Belle said, still not quite whispering but definitely getting there, and he knew. Knew she knew. What he was thinking and feeling and unspoken understanding was quickly becoming the name of this particular game. With them. 

Where it wasn’t a game at all. 

Damn. 

Ariel was going to be so annoying. 

“No matter what they are. Shitty as they can be, all those ups and downs, and ridiculous, often unnecessary melodrama. It’s going to matter to somebody. Someone, somewhere, will be living their life and read those words or see those letters, and they’ll think, wow, whoever wrote this, gets me, and it will change everything for them. They’ll go back to it. Find solace and safety in it. Themselves, maybe. They’ll believe everything will be ok. Even if they only think that while they’re reading.” “Don’t forget audiobooks,” Will muttered, voice strangled and tinged with emotion. In the ice cream museum. Figured, honestly. 

Belle pinched the side of his wrist. 

“Ow. Avoid the bruise further up, please.” “Did you get hit?” Nodding took more energy than it should have, too. She hadn’t been to a game. He hadn’t asked her. What an idiot. “Not bad though, that’s just—” “—Par for the course.” “Mixing idioms, mon trésor.” “Oh, I got that one, actually.” “Slow pitch softball, that’s why,” Will reasoned, some of the tension he wasn’t especially pleased by loosening. 

“I think we’re on a roll now.” He hummed. Nodded, again. Curled his fingers into the back of Belle’s dress. Blue, that afternoon. With matching heels. “It all matters,” she added, soft and earnest, and his eyes snapped. To her and with her and that second one didn’t make sense, not really, but he was and wanted to be and that absolutely terrified him. 

Of it all falling apart again. Of it not being enough. 

He wasn’t enough. 

A story no one was ever all that interested in finishing. 

“You think?” Belle nodded. “Why’d you start playing hockey?” “Quite a transition.” “Tit for tat, or—no, no, c’mon don’t look at me like that.” Red stained her cheeks, now. Making it difficult to concentrate on anything else, although the desire to kiss her again was a fairly strong second, and that kid was taking more pictures. “That’s not fair.” “You’ve brought this on yourself, babe,” Will argued, and he hoped Lucas didn’t yell. At him. He’d never really listened to the social media rules. “It’s a very long, occasionally depressing story about a kid and his single mom, the second of whom often worked her ass off and her fingers to the bone, and all those other delightfully visual clichés. But then! Who would guess, she got a job picking up extra shifts cleaning at the rink in town. Home to the world’s shittiest ice and loudest Zamboni, it instantly drew the attention of our kid-like hero. 

“He was...infatuated, let’s say. With the sounds, especially. Nothing sounds like that first scrape of skates on fresh ice. Full of possibility, you know?” Belle didn’t answer. Will kept talking. “Best noise in the world. And then he learned there were other noises. Pucks hitting the back of nets. Sticks clanging together. Grunts and groans and the game itself, how loud it was. Helped silence some of his thoughts, none of which were ever very good. Lots of worries, some about his very dead sister, then a few more about that mother and her predilection toward clichés.”

“Good word,” Belle murmured. He kissed the top of her hair. The kid was openly staring at them, now. 

“Anyway, the crux of the story is that the guy who owned the rink agreed to let the kid play on the rink. Knew the mother, understood her situation, and hockey is expensive. Like, well, we spout all that bullshit about hockey is for everyone, and I’ve got to stand up there and smile and nod and agree, and it’s fucked up because it’s not really true. Hockey’s for rich kids and families with regularly functioning alternators in their car.” 

He shook his head. Had to. To chase away the memories and the cobwebs, and Cap knew this, too. Understood it, even. Remembered a life before the Vanklads, and not every kid got the Vankalds, and sometimes Will let himself wonder what would have happened if he’d found the Vanklads. Or their upstate New York equivalent. 

Gotten better shin pads, probably. 

“Hockey’s an exclusive sorta club,” Will continued, “gotta know someone who’s related to someone else, and they know someone who played, and it’s six degrees of increasingly desperate separation. By some lucky twist of fate, though, Jimmy Newell knew some bastard who knew somebody else, who saw me play, and you don’t say no to USA Developmental. Spent two years in Minnesota, way before Cap did, so he doesn’t get to claim that state as his own.” Belle’s lips twitched. “Good to know, for argument’s sake.” His stomach was becoming a problem. 

Heart, too. 

Sputtering and slamming, uneven beats that were going to leave another bruise. Will licked his lips. 

“I went to Developmental, declared for the draft, got picked by New York, went to college, stayed in college, and the rest is history. As they say.” “They do say that, yeah.” “What’s the next question, then?” “How do you know there’s another question?” “Shot in the dark,” Will shrugged, but that was a lie, and it was getting increasingly easier to read that pinch between her eyebrows. “So, hit me.” “Literally?” “Please do not literally hit me. Locksley’s been feeling the forecheck the last couple’a practices.” “I know what that means!” Someone shushed them. Will couldn’t imagine the color will ever leave Belle’s cheeks. 

He kissed the bridge of her nose. 

“Who’d you get to teach you French?” “Who said I didn’t just learn French on my own?” “Babe,” she chided, and, well, that was the tipping point. As they say. To his heart and his stomach and—

“You wanna come to a game this series?” Belle blinked. Once, twice. Leaned back. Tilted her head. Likely waited for the camera crew that was inevitably lurking in the corner he was cautiously optimistic they’d make out in eventually. Didn’t happen, though. There was no camera crew. 

Just Will Scarlet, professional hockey player, and part-time sap. Standing in one of the more nonsensical museums they’d been to in the last two months. Although they did go to the transit museum on three separate occasions, and he could honestly say he didn’t expect that. 

So, maybe this was all just—

Par for the course. 

He’d have to make some sort of deal with Eric. To make sure Ariel didn’t proclaim her relationship-plotting victories from a variety of rooftops. Someone in front office had to know someone else with Empire State Building connections. 

Zelena probably did. 

Ariel would use that. 

“Where would I sit?”

He pulled her. Up. With an almost violent amount of force, threatening the safety of both of Belle’s shoulders in the process. But she’d asked the one question he hadn’t totally considered in his half-plotted plan, and getting his mouth back on hers was an acceptable diversion. Plus, she looped her arms around his neck pretty quickly. 

Which had to count for something, he figured. 

One hand cupped the back of his head, pulling him closer. Like he had any intention of being anywhere else, swiping his tongue against Belle’s lip and swallowing her sigh. They were still in public, technically. Her feet trailed the multi-color carpet beneath them, Will’s arms tightening and his palm flat against her back and her spine, and if she kept rocking up like that, he was going to do something drastic. 

Something in the same realm as melting, probably. 

Strands of hair tickled his skin, making him tilt his head and alter the angle, and that was entirely appropriate, but getting kicked out of the Museum of Ice Cream would probably make an absolutely fantastic story. Once they told people they were—

Doing whatever it was they were doing. 

They’d get there eventually. 

“Cap’s sister-in-law is coming,” Will said, not entirely able to catch his breath, “wants to see Kris and—” “—Should I know who that is?” “Works in equipment, and that’s not really the point.” “What is?” “That Little Vankald isn’t super interested in listening to Cap be full older brother on her and, far as I know, is fully capable of getting tickets wherever she wants. Can sweet talk the gold out of anyone’s pockets, and—” “—Wait, wait, are you equating hockey tickets to gold?” “When I’m playing, ma choupette.” “Is that cabbage?” He hummed. Nearly tripped over his own feet trying to hold onto Belle and the mostly melted cup of ice cream and paying for more churro ice cream made perfect sense. At the moment. “One of the kids at school was French Canadian,” Will explained, “used to swear all the time on the ice, and then he’d use stuff like that.” “You’re sharing endearments with a trash talker.” “More or less, yeah. Used to infuriate other guys.” “Who wants to be called a cabbage?” “I think you’re super cute.” Belle scowled. Didn’t argue, though. And Will refused to linger on the beat of his pulse. “I’d really like it if you were there,” he added, “Little Vanklad’ll be cool about it. She owes me. I fed her for a very long time.” “Did you just?” “I make incredible garlic bread; ask anyone.” “Wow,” Belle drawled, “just like people on the street, or…also, do you call her Little Vanklad all the time?” “To her face and behind her back with startling regularity. Not everyone gets my French endearments, babe. Consider yourself lucky.” 

She scrunched her nose. 

Stayed silent. All Will could hear was the soft explanations of the tour guide, and the questions from tourists who probably also thought going to the Museum of Sex made them edgy. After they bought a STRAND tote bag. God, maybe he was a dick. A judgmental dick, who still had too many thoughts and used an occasionally violent game to silence them by making sure he was the one dictating the noises and the trash talk and—

“Hey, uh, Will...Mr., uh—Mr. Scarlet? Do you think we could get a picture?”

Belle’s lips disappeared. Behind her teeth, and that didn’t do anything to temper the sound of what might have actually been joy. At the prospect of the staring teenager and his photo request. 

In the goddamn Museum of Ice Cream. 

Giving a jerky nod, Will quickly scanned the kid for any team-branded, but it didn’t look like he was wearing merch and that was a rather small miracle. Far as those things went. 

Still, he had been in the middle of a pretty intense internal dialogue and potential freakout, and there was going to be ice cream on his hand if he didn’t throw this cup away. 

Belle took the phone. 

The kid’s phone. 

“Smile,” she instructed, and Will tried. Really. He hoped he didn’t end up looking like a murderer on Twitter or Instagram or whatever kids used, and he had no idea when he got that old. When things started to freak him out, and he let the nerves claw back in, and the worry take root and—

“Hey,” he said before the kid could walk back to his parents and their matching STRAND tote bags. “You think you could take a picture of us, real quick?”

No one had ever moved faster. 

In, like, the history of photography. 

Circling an arm around Belle’s waist, Will’s smile came a bit easier and that was good because he was totally unprepared for what happened after that. Another instruction and flick of someone’s thumb, but then Belle was on her toes, even with the heels, and her lips were pressed against his cheek and it was like some sort of really exceptional sugar high. 

Without the threat of inevitable crash. 

Will didn’t think so, at least. He was also pretty positive it wasn’t tigers in The Day After Tomorrow. Wolves, maybe. 

“Tell Little Vankald to save me a seat.” “I mean, I don’t think you should call her that.”

Her teeth grazed his jaw. Both of them were laughing in the picture, the kid’s eyes going impossibly wide as Will thanked him. “How hard you think it is to set up an Instagram account?”

[ohpsshaw]

Having Finally duct taping the fleeting scraps of courage I have to actually engage with you, I was just wondering if you had any tips on shading or lighting. being the cave man that I am I find it hard to find any tutorials that aren't extremely painterly or when you blink they've suddenly painted an entire Post modernist scene of the entire french country side, dog and drunk man included.

HEY!! HI! No prob, I can at least tell you my thoughts on it.

My problem is that without structure I never know when to stop, so I try to keep my coloring method as simple as possible. Base color, one shadow, and a little highlight on whatever materials call for it. If it still needs something after that, MAYBE I can add more depth or some gradients. Super, super simple.

So it’s not about having any fancy brushes or tools, it’s about how you use it. Shadow isn’t just Something That Has To Be There. It’s how you make things POP. Every time I open up my linework in Photoshop I think “damn, this is really flat” and go searching for the bulgy bits that I can put big juicy shadows on.

I lllove drawing bulgy knuckles and knees specifically so I can shade them later. This also works for brows, noses, boobs, anything you can make stand out.

One mistake I see beginners make is always slotting shadows as far to the edge of a figure as possible, like they’re scared it’ll ruin their linework. On the contrary!!! Shadows can function like SECRET EXTRA LINEWORK! Here’s a bad example using my Zim sketches.

The tunic on the left is from someone who understands what light and shadow are in concept. The tunic on the right is like, “mark my words, THIS SHADOW IS GOING TO HELP ILLUSTRATE THE FORM.” It’s going to be big in order to suggest that Zim is leaning forward, therefore casting a shadow over his waist. It’s going to be a little funky, to point toward his butt and accent his bending motion. It’s even gonna have a little ripple at the bottom, to show that this is fabric being stretched across his thighs. Suddenly this piece has more texture, motion and maybe even narrative, all because of one dumb shadow!

Note that you don’t even have to make a complicated shadow! I almost shaded the ribbing on the tunic too, but that was already defined by the linework so that wasn’t necessary. Personally I think bigger, less-complicated shapes are better and easier to read. I try to eliminate or join together overcomplicated shadows so they can accentuate the lines instead of distracting from their message.

If you’re doing light correctly, you’re going to run into parts of a piece where you don’t need a highlight, midtone, and shadow, but rather just one of those! This is useful for pushing unimportant limbs away into darkness and whatnot.

And very rarely will shadow or highlight hit directly on the edge of a figure. (These instances create cast shadow or rim light, generally, and they look really cool when done right. Here’s an example of a time I used rim light kinda not-right, but to make sure you could make out where Fiend’s hands were on this dark background:

The white rim light is pretty dramatic, and I could have gone way further with this by making the other colors even darker! You can shade 95% of a goddamn face if you want to. Actually, do that sometime. It’s very scary but enlightening.)

OHO, AND REFLECTED LIGHT! When you shade using big shapes, you give yourself a lot of room to stick reflective light in there! I don’t use it a lot myself, but I know furry porn artists love it as a quick and easy way to make their speedpaint commissions look impressive. Sometimes a secondary light source can bring extra color and atmosphere to your shadows! (This is especially useful for showing your character hanging out around water, imo.) [source]

Aaaand overall just… don’t feel chained to making your shadows just darker versions of the base color. Try adding a blue or orange or purple tinge, try shading with straight-up red once or twice just to make something scary, NEVER USE PURE GREY EVER, JUST TRUST ME, and remember your light source yadda yadda but you knew that.

That’s all I got off the top of my head, I hope it’s a start?

[allicekitty13]

In 1987 Jasper and Alice meet at the local country club. With all the cards stacked against them can they find their way to happiness? 

Read On Ao3

Read On FFN

                     Let em' say we're crazy, I don't care about that.                  Put your hand in my hand baby, don't ever look back.                              Let the world around us, just fall apart.                       Baby, we can make it if we're heart to heart.

"Don't you have a shift today Whitlock?" The voice rousing Jasper from his sleep was accompanied by a dirty shirt being thrown at his head. The man opened one eye squinting against the bright sunshine currently streaming through his window to look at his best friend Peter leaning against the doorframe of his currently open bedroom door.

"Pete," The twenty-one year old groaned. "The fuck did we do last night?" Jasper remembered they'd decided to go out. He remembered Peter and Charlotte going off to do god knows what. Well, the man had a pretty good idea of what but preferred not to think about it. He definitely remembered the line of shots he'd done with his favorite bartender, Mara. But anything after his seventh Alabama Slammer was either extremely fuzzy or a black spot in his memory entirely. Judging by the way his head was pounding, the sick feeling in his stomach, and the intense craving for a nice greasy burger from McDonald's, it was really no wonder why he struggled to recall the events.

"We got drunk." Peter shrugged. "You know, like we do every Friday. But really man, you gotta get up. It's after noon."

"Haven't you any sympathy for the hungover?" Jasper rolled over as he spoke to lay on his stomach wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep the condition off. Maybe to venture to the living room couch at some point and watch re-runs of sitcoms from the 70's on the sole TV in the apartment.  

"Not when I know you have to be at work in an hour. Rent doesn't pay itself, dude." With that, Peter left his friend alone to the misery of a bad hangover. Daring to open one eye, flinching at the still too bright sun, Jasper spared a glance to the digital radio/alarm clock sitting on the messy bedside table next to him. Although blurry, he could faintly make out the time of 2:13pm. That information caused him to awaken, fully sobering up in an instant.

Peter was right; he did in fact, have a shift soon. In approximately forty-five minutes soon. He would have to skip a shower, something his co-workers wouldn't be too happy about operating in such close quarters without air conditioning. That was nothing compared to the fancy customers he served at the country club who didn't exactly need an excuse to complain. Luckily it was Saturday afternoon, and most of his interactions would involve nothing more than shoving cans of Coors or Tab into coolers for the members to take out to the tennis courts or golf course.

Jasper threw on the polo style shirt he kept around specifically for the stuffy dress code required at the establishment and his cleanest, least beaten up pair of jeans. He quickly brushed his teeth and hopped into his beat-up 75' Gremlin hoping to make the thirty-minute journey in twenty.

Fate, as always, wasn't in the man's favor and he ended up being late. Only by about five minutes, but the glare Angela shot him when he finally arrived to take over the bar caused Jasper to feel as though he'd shown up hours tardier than expected. Once the irritated Angela rushed off to god knows where Jasper busied himself with making sure glasses were clean and everything well stocked for when the night shift arrived in five hours.

Of course, Angela being exceptionally organized and great at her job had, as usual, left very little for Jasper to actually take care of. He often wondered why she spent her time working at the club rather than going to college, but at the end of the day, they weren't really friends. The way Jasper saw it, her personal life was none of his business. If she didn't want to share, he wasn't going to ask. So with everything taken care of, the man figured he might as well venture over to the kitchen for a chat with the equally bored cook Emmett.

Jasper liked the slightly older man; he was a pretty solid dude. Emmett was trying to save up enough money to buy his girlfriend, Rosalie, an engagement ring. So a few months ago picked up a side gig working at the club as a fry cook. Emmett was hard-working, funny, and one of the most genuine people Jasper had ever met. They'd butted heads at first, having vastly different upbringing and thus outlooks on life. Still, over the past few months of working together at the establishment, Jasper found himself looking forward to Saturday shifts exclusively for their engaging talks.

Once he'd double checked to make sure there were no more menial tasks to take care of, Jasper swaggered into the kitchen and plopped upon an empty counter, ignoring the way his friend shook his head at the antics. They had a usual back and forth. Emmett warning the other man that if their boss were to walk in, not only would Jasper receive yet another meaningless warning about cutting his hair. Both parties would be lectured on how inappropriate it was for anyone, let alone an employee, to be acting so unprofessional in the workplace.

Of course, Jasper being reckless had received countless amounts of these warnings. The truth of the matter was that employees were hard to keep. High schoolers could only work so many hours, and most adults willing to take on such a job were quickly worn by the entitled attitude the customer's attracted to such an establishment possessed. Needless to say, turnover rates were high. Management couldn't afford to lose anyone for something like a haircut or unconventional seating choices.

So, as always, Jasper kept his place on the counter, chatting with Emmett about their respective weeks. Rosalie had recently taken a job at The Gap for an excuse to spend more time at the mall that her father couldn't argue with. Emmett had needed to replace yet another part on his frequently failing vehicle setting him back yet again on those engagement ring plans. And Jasper's band had finally scored an opening gig at one of the better-known bars in the area. Sure it wasn't headlining, but for the unknown musician, it was a big deal.

After just short of an hour of conversation, Jasper was in the middle of excitedly going rambling about his dreams of getting away from the California suburbs. Of how he wanted to pack up and head down to Los Angeles and the fabled Sunset Strip, when the bell at the bar counter rang, signaling a customer was waiting for his presence.

What he expected was another irritated woman, upset that she'd had to wait more than thirty seconds for another Tab. Possibly even a man who would chastise him because he paid hundreds of dollars for his families club membership. A fact that the members assumed meant they should somehow receive instant service. What he hadn't anticipated was the absolute goddess waiting patiently at the counter.

She was short, with permed chin-length black hair that she teased her fingers through as she leaned against the counter, talking animatedly with a younger girl. When he stepped behind the bar, she looked over at him with a bright, breathtaking smile. The girl uttered only four words, "Two Coke Classics, please." in her high pitched musical voice.  They were spoken pleasantly, and her attention had been redirected to him entirely, in stark contrast to what he was used to. Typically customers would bark their orders in the mans' general direction before immediately resuming conversing with their companions.

It could have been the breath of fresh air that her attitude brought. Potentially the reason may have been how entirely simple Jasper found it to get lost in her clear blue eyes. In either instance, Jasper must have stood frozen, staring for too long as the girl frowned slightly, her eyes glancing up at the nametag clipped to his shirt collar. "Jasper?" She spoke again, concern lacing her words rather than annoyance.

His name on her lips sparked him into action, "My apologies, ma'am." He finally spoke, reaching into the belly cooler behind him for her order with butterflies beginning to swarm in his stomach.

[pikapeppa]

Smut 101: A Tutorial For Beginners

Hi. I’m Pikapeppa (queenofkadara on AO3) and I’m a smut addict, with 68 counts of smut to my name in 2018.

I’ve been trying to bully convince the lovely @schoute​ into writing more smut, so I thought I’d write a little primer on, well, how to write smut for those who aren’t sure where to start.

Please note: this is based on my personal process for writing smut. Other writers do different things; for instance, some people only write smut while drunk, whereas I’m the total opposite. Everyone’s method is legit, and what I suggest may not work for everyone. Feel free to reblob with further suggestions if you have them!

All right, friends. Let’s get personal and awkward. [cracks knuckles]

Why do we write smut? What is the point?

One major reason: wish fulfillment. Maybe you were robbed of a sex scene in a favourite game (REYES VIDAL in ME: Andromeda??) and you just need to fill that gap. Thus, one reason that we write smut is to explore fantasies and set them free into the world. Keep this in mind when you’re thinking of the smut you want to write; let it fill some kind of fantasy that you have, whether for yourself (SELF-INSERT IS OK) or for your beloved characters. Sometimes the smut you write is just a big ol’ self-indulgent oneshot, and that’s totally okay.

Another huge, huge reason is that sex is a big part of many romantic relationships, and writing a sex scene allows for so many character- and relationship-development moments. People become more uninhibited and vulnerable during sex. Walls come down, opening the door for intimacy between your characters. They may say or do things they wouldn’t normally say if their clothes were on and the lights were up. To illustrate, in Fenris and Rynne Hawke’s relationship alone, I’ve used sex to dig into Fenris’s head during the angsty breakup moment, to help him work through deep-seated issues with body image and dissociation, to help him calm down after an argument and to help Rynne put her troubles behind her, and as a sheer and unapologetic expression of love. All of this is to say that the sex your characters have tells us a lot about them as individuals, and about them as a pairing.  

With these reasons in mind, let’s move on to the actual writing of the smut! 

Where do you start?

Think about what you enjoy reading in smut. Do you enjoy smut that’s primarily focused on the actions of the people involved? What feelings/sensations/thoughts do you like reading in smut? Are there particular phrases that other writers have used that you might want to borrow, or ones you want to avoid (e.g. maybe you can’t stand the word ‘cunt’ in smut)? Strive to write the kind of smut you like to read.

Think about what you enjoy during sex — assuming you have had sex before. If you haven’t, or if you haven’t had the kind of sex you want to write, THAT’S OKAY. Imagine what you think you would enjoy during sex. Strive to write your characters enjoying the kind of sex that you would want to have. If you haven’t had the sex you want to write, all the more reason to read more smut about that kind of sex.

Okay. So you know what you like, and you know the style of smut you enjoy reading. Let’s get started on writing something.

Mechanics of writing the sex itself

I’m more of a plotter than a pantser when it comes to writing. So my first step in writing a sex scene is to quickly plan it out with very blunt, non-fancy language.

A few of the points I hit in my outline:

Where are they?

Where do their bodies start, and where do they end up?

Is there a position or sexual act I really want to include? (E.g. sometimes I just really want to write Fenris going down on Rynne, ok? I have no shame.)

Are there any big lines of dialogue that I want them to say?

Are there any specific, unshakeable images in your head that you want to include in the scene — for example, maybe you just have this fantasy of Person A holding Person B’s wrists down on the mattress while Person B begs to be touched?

VERY importantly, whose POV is the smut scene being told from — Person A or Person B? Especially for a starting writer, I would advise picking one person’s POV and stick to it. The scene should focus on one person’s feelings/thoughts/sensations in the writing of the scene. A very common writer mistake is to switch POVs during a single scene, and one I made a lot when I first started writing smut.

All right. You have your major fantasy images, your main points, your location and your POV. Take all that stuff, and just throw it down in bullet-points in a doc (or notebook, whatever floats your boat). It doesn’t have to be specific, and it doesn’t have to sound good. It doesn’t have to be a lot; just the main points you want to hit.

As an example, this is part of the outline from my first-ever oneshot between Blackwall and Arya Lavellan:

**********************

********************************

As you can see here, I wanted to capture Arya’s anger, Blackwall’s guilt, and the fact that they, er, fuck like animals in the barn. (Sorry Dennet.)

Keep in mind that you don’t have to stick with your outline, either. Sex is flexible and spontaneous, and your writing of it can — nay, should! — be flexible and spontaneous too.

Armed now with this outline, you can start fleshing it out. This, admittedly, is probably the hardest part. What I might suggest is, again, to imagine what your characters are doing and write it out without trying to make it fancy. Focus on the content, not on the form. What does Person A do, and how does Person B react to it? If Person A skims their thumb over Person’s B’s nipple, how does Person B feel? What do they think? What do they do in return? Place yourself in your character’s shoes, and try to imagine if you were Person B, and Person A was touching you that way.

Yes, smut writing can be very immersive and require a lot of… imagining. [wiggles eyebrows] But that’s more than half the fun, no??

Once you have the basic acts fleshed out, take a break. Come back to it with fresh eyes. Look and see what it’s missing that you want more of. More explicit description of actions? More feelings or thoughts? Maybe more dialogue? Look at what you’ve got, and focusing on the content more than form, throw in more of what you think is missing.

My personal metric for knowing if I’m writing the scene to my satisfaction is — to be blunt: am I getting turned on while writing this? Later, when I come back to edit the scene, does it still turn me on? If the answer to those questions is yes, then I’m good. If it’s not, then I usually stop to think about what it needs. More feelings? More dialogue?

Add to it. Flesh it out more. Leave it and come back to it later, rinse and repeat. And then… ta-dah! Hopefully you have a smut scene! IT WON’T BE PERFECT, but it will be something, and you need to start somewhere!

What about form, though? What about the flow and the way it reads?

Think back to that smut you enjoyed reading. How did those writers phrase certain things? How did they flow from action to thought to action? I’m not saying to copy your faves, but some phrasings are always going to be useful and will come up across writers (e.g. sliding his fingers inside of her, feeling the heat of her around his fingers, taking his hardness into her throat, etc etc). Feel free to take inspo from phrasings you like — without plagiarizing, of course.

Okay, but what about grammar and punctuation??  

YES. This is important. I personally will stop reading something if it has too many grammar and punctuation errors. But I’ve always been a grammar nerd, so I can’t really advise on this!! There are Tumblrs and other websites focused on the mechanical aspects of writing, so perhaps do a search for those? Look up tutorials on Youtube? But I am always happy to proofread these things for friends, so a beta can be invaluable. Ask around in your local Discords/fic writer’s groups on Facebook, or your local favourite writers to see if they would do you a solid. 

All right. This is the end of my first little tutorial. Seriously, has this been helpful? Do you guys want more details on any of this? I have a few other smut-related topics that I’d like to write about, if anyone is interested; ‘intermediate’ and ‘advanced smut-writing’, if you will. Or if there are other writing topics you want to hear me blather about, just let me know!

 - Yours always, your friendly neighbourhood Pikapeppa xoxo

[tmnt-brave-new-world]

So, what exactly do you guys do now? Like, what occupation do the four of you have to afford the high life? I mean, I get the broad aspect of it. I guess I just really want to know more. My mun is being mysteriously closed lipped about it. And......do you guys really get driven around?

Good evening Miss Vicky,

Leo: “We each found our interests and talents opened up a several viable options that had lead us each to a “unique” position.” Leo led as he gathered his thoughts. “Keep in mind after we managed to stop Krang and those who worked closely with him, the world was vulnerable. As far as my brothers and I were concerned, we had fought too hard and for too long for someone to simply slip into the power vacuum we had created and to continue to harsh reality Krang had created for Earth’s inhabitants. Due to this we each chose to do what we knew how to do and could most easily adapt as challenges presented themselves.”

He paused for a moment as he thought about the hardships, they had each faced and managed to overcome as they slowly helped right the world and returned her to standing on her own. A shimmering blue jewel among the galaxy and other worlds that had become familiar with the planet and its amenities.

“During our years in the resistance we managed to acquire wealth and assets. We were able to accumulate quite the little nest egg using those. Along with our acquired influence it opened many a door which in the old world would have remained not only closed but permanently locked to us.”

“I became a strategic investor. Buying the remnants of properties, businesses and services and either helping them to return to what they once were or repurposing to better suit the needs of this new era and turn a profit. It proved to be very profitable and allowed for me to continue to churn out profits which allowed for me to seek other properties and businesses to invest in or connect the right individuals with each other in away that led to my ability to offer the initial capital for a small percentage of the quarterly earnings. It helped people to create jobs and led to a lot of normalcy for those who desperately needed.

One hand washes the other, and this in its essence has lead to my own sector of the Tartaruga brothers incorporated. I have a multi-billion dollar operation on Earth and several branches operating throughout the universe currently.”

 Donnie: “As Leo has said,” Donnie commented calmy, “our time resisting and fighting lead us each to our own talents. I spent a lot of time wearing many hats, which included, chemists, doctor, surgeon, agronomist, engineer, electrician, etc. to put it simply I spent a lot of time learning how to save lives, human and otherwise, and the best way to stretch our available resources in a way which led to people surviving. I also had to learn how to create medications which were so commonplace that many died without having them available. Most antibiotics don’t have a very long shelf life and when those ran out initially, we were in constant jeopardy of losing lives to the simplest of bacterial infections. My knowledge, and subsequent research lead to significant improvements and branching into many other factors, and shall we say break throughs.

Needless to say, the value of others wants, lead to my ability to fund the needs of the many. In my sector, I have several leadings areas including pharmacy, medical research, agrarian development, as well as generalized research and development in multiple fields from domestic to military. For obvious reasons, more detailed information is strictly classified.”

 Raph: Raph chuckled as Donnie glossed over his closely guarded research. He was willing to kill to protect his research and continue to control the aspects that allowed him to fund the bulk of his interests and common welfare of those he blanketed with his programs. “They ain’t lying. After the world came back from going to shit, it took awhile to get it back up and going. Additionally, there were a lot of people, generally those not from this world that were way too determined to make sure we failed. This led to a lot of infighting and groups struggling for control. That tends to lead to a lot of shady business if you know what I mean, and it wasn’t like we had any type of social services such as police, fire fighting, or anything else. I initially took charge in areas like these.

I took a lot of care to train groups so that they worked together and were prepared to handle whatever problems came. It took a lot of time to cultivate proper training programs and help prepare people on how to help a traumatized world get back to functioning in a healthy way. I still help do this on planets and areas that are in recovery.”

“That being said however, my primary interest and “job” if you want to call it that, is training mixed martial artist prize fighters for the world federation galaxy league. Simply put we aren’t the only species that likes to watch trained athletes test their skills against one another within their respective brackets, or on specially contracted prized fights. I used to fight for the league and earned a lot of titles and prestige. I won most fights and was often the favorite to win after a while. I’m semi-retired and only occasionally enter the ring now days. However, I take and train promising talents for the league and other groups. I have also trained personal bodyguards for a variety of individuals.  Different specialties come with different specifics and contracts as well as costs. It takes a specific might set for each, and a lot of time to drill into a thick skull.”

Mikey: Mikey laughed at the turtle in red, “Oh yeah, and you were the king of thick skulled back when we were young, and dumb.” He barely dodged the throw pillow that was chucked at his head.  “Let’s see for me personally,” Mikey flashed a big grin, “I happen to be a master of many trades. During our days in the resistance, I learned a lot of different tricks to help make the food rations we had on hand not only palatable but nutritionally sound while feeding a literal army of people! So when it was possible I spent a large amount of time learning how to take fancy old world recipes and revamped them with food sources that were still available or recreated them with off world goodies. I also still paint, and love to collaborate with others to create amazing new concepts!”

His face darkened for a moment as he thought back to the early days of the resistance. “There were so many people who in the blink of an eye had lost everything, and unfortunately it was insanely common to find kids who had either been separated from their families or were the only survivor. In a lot of instances they were traumatized and it took a lot of creative thinking to coax them out of their shells and help to reteach them on how to live. This happened fairly frequently with adults as well. Because of this and what seemed like a never ending shortage of textiles, I had to learn and create new ways to make things and often times help find things that brought the sparkle back to peoples eyes. Because of this however, I have a multimedia conglomerate that allows me to work in a wide area of creative outlets. The fashion world is a flippant mistress, but there are a lot of ways in which one can compete and stand out. It’s led to a lot of lucrative contracts with those who are “starving” for the next amazing piece of creatively, or at least that’s what they tell me. The great thing about taking high end contracts and commissions is that a lot like my brothers, the revenue lets me continue to reach out to others. I fund a program that includes shelters called “Uncle Mikey’s” for those who are missing, exploited, or just need help. I also teach cooking, and practical skills for those who need them, and they are streamed to community centers such as local libraries, after school programs, and the like, to try and continue to help those who never received a chance to learn to do things due to the world kind of going through an apocalypse level event.

 We hope this answers your question Miss Vicky. From the Tartargua Brothers collectively

[flying-elliska]

do you have any links to that online course on how to deal with anxiety? would be some big help!! and do u have any tips yourself? like on steps to take to get better etc? would really help

Hi anon 💗💕 sorry, I can't, because it's a specific Dutch program that my doctor had to register me for.

My first advice is of course to get professional help, I'm only doing this as a precursor while I'm on the waiting list for a therapist. Even though I know that's not always possible.

For free online options that can help I know about this anxiety management app called SAM. Another option is to get a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbook, especially one more specific to anxiety - your local library may have some. CBT is used to recognize, understand and dismantle the negative thought patterns that are often at the root of anxiety and depression.

As for specific tips, I don't really know because it tends to be very specific to the person and their background, anxiety triggers, etc. My anxiety is tied into my ADHD and my fears of boredom and having my brain malfunction. As a result I find certain types of frantic music relaxing (because they're stimulating) while certain types of more relaxed music (like reggae, for instance) makes me super anxious.

Doing mindfulness exercises can be very useful, to better understand your anxiety, as well as making a mood journal. Journaling in general personally helps me a lot too. But in general I would be careful because those things can also trigger more anxiety when done in ways that get you stuck in your own head or monitoring yourself obsessively.

Physical exercise has also helped a lot - my anxiety gets worse when I'm inactive for a long time. You don't need a fancy gym. I've been using the free workout sheets and programmes on this website. Also just walking is great, I find it very relaxing especially when listening to a nice podcast or audiobook. Oh, and crafts or anything that you do with your hands, that helps you be grounded and a nice feeling of having accomplished something.

Good luck anon I'm rooting for you 💗💕💗💕