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rin-bellatrix · 5 months ago

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Oasis

"When everything's meant to be broken, I just want you to know who I am." - Goo Goo Dolls

August finds himself in the middle of the Pandoran desert, left to clean up his business' loose ends. Though, he's not as alone as he once thought, coming face to (pretty) face with the grifter who stole his heart. It seems that Sasha has some of her own loose ends to clean up as well.

I love Sasha and August ok

I'm firmly in the belief that August needs to reclaim his full redemption arc (he started towards the end of Tales and well, we just never got to see the end result 🤷🏽‍♀️)

So here's my first "saugust" piece! (Pls tell me if there's a better ship name for them out there 💀) I've written them as bg characters in my rhyiona fics, bc we love a big ol' happy family affair, but this is their first solo spotlight on my blog 😌💕

they need more recognition, they're kinda like Bonnie and Clyde, love my lil outlaw couple 💖 so stinkin' cute 🥰 (not to be confused with everyone's favorite villain couple, jackisha, who I've also written for 🤭)

Ahem, anyway~ this is part one, so this is unfinished. More to come from this particular story ✨️

Also. Am I posting this in the last hour of the month of August, instead of getting my shit together and posting it sooner...? Don't worry about it~ ☺️

Enjoy~ 🧡💜

It was always sunny on Pandora. Or at least, it seemed to be whenever August had to venture out of the dark shithole that was Hollow Point. The white sub-giant star that was Pandora's sun seemed to be on full blast today, the curve of the horizon a warbled, dancing edge in this heat. Sweat rolled down the side of his face and gathered at his jawline before spilling off in incessant drops. He shook his head to get the sweat out of his eyes before leaning into his truck bed and grabbing two fistfuls of rough canvas.

He tossed another burlap covered carcass onto the small pile of bodies, grunting with its weight. His Ma might be gone, but that just left the family business up to him. Which meant cleaning up the mess when a rival gang thought that they could prove themselves bigger and badder. Not a chance. But it was best to dump the bodies farther away from the entrance to Hollow Point to avoid scavengers somehow finding a way to spill into his town. That was the last thing he needed.

Dusting his hands off, he slammed the trunk door closed and ripped an old rag out of his back pocket. Mopping the perspiration from his neck and face (minding his piercings), he squinted up at the ball of fire in the sky and cursed its heat. What he wouldn't give for an ice cold drink right about now, he was fucking parched.

Stuffing the damp rag back into his pocket, he rounded his truck to head to the driver's side. His boots kicking up sand, his mind already focused on securing a cold shower as soon as he got back home. Gripping the handle, he pulled and yanked the door open, one foot on the step bar ready to hop in, before he looked up and froze.

"Thirsty?" Sasha chimed, sitting relaxed behind the wheel, dangling a cold bottle that was dripping with condensation.

The sight alone had him wondering if this was a mirage, if the heat had really gotten to him and made him hallucinate this as his own personal oasis. But then her scent of orange blossoms hit him, and he took a step back in shock. The sweet scent that sometimes haunted his dreams was a startling contrast to the freshly decomposing bodies that he just unloaded from the back of his truck.

How did she even get here without him knowing...?

She was as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so if that was possible. Her locks were pulled back in a sleek style, much like the last time he saw her during that whole vault debacle. Her outfit looked clean and classy, a stark contrast to his current state of sweaty and sandy. She wore reflective sunglasses that kept him from seeing her eyes, only his own warped image staring back at him.

When she arched a pretty brow, waiting for a response, August had to reel himself in. "What the fuck are you doin' in my truck?" No one could ever say that he didn't have a way with words.

"Is that the greeting I get? After I came all this way to bring you a nice refreshing drink, because I know you always leave to come here without one."

It shouldn't move him that she remembered his dump sight. It should mean nothing that she remembered he always forgot to pack a drink. It wasn't a big deal that she came to drop off a cold drink. She was a con artist, this is what she did. It's how she wormed her way into his heart the first time. He told himself this, and tried to ignore the way his heart beat a little faster at the implication that she still cared about him.

Did she ever really care about him...?

"What's it to you? If I forget to hydrate, how's it any of your business?" He glowered at her, old hurt resurfacing as if it were just yesterday.

She watched him from behind her sunglasses, quiet as she struggled to find a new lie to fixate on.

"Listen, I don't care, get the fuck out of my seat and go back to wherever you came from. You've got nothin' here, unless ya want me to put a bullet in your brain."

Sasha pursed her lips, her free hand settling firmly on the steering wheel. "I'm gonna drive you back." When he opened his mouth to argue, she continued. "I just want to talk." When he remained suspicious, she reached up to remove her sunglasses, meeting his eyes clearly. "Please?"

Her eyes were so clear, the light jade so beautiful with her complexion. His mind told him to watch his heart, not to fall for her tricks. But his heart told him to go along with what she wanted, simply because it was her who asked. August considered himself a strong man - an intelligent man - but in the face of the woman he loved, he crumbled far too easily.

He grunted as he slammed the door closed, rounding to the passenger side of his own damn truck. He hopped in, the cab rocking with his momentum, the door shutting behind him as he huffed.

Sasha held out the bottle again, and he watched as a drop of water raced down the side and gathered at the bottom before splattering across his leather seat. He looked up at her and met her eyes again, ignoring the excitement that wanted to bubble to the surface.

"Is it poisoned?"

The pretty grifter frowned, before twisting the cap off and taking a swig, once again holding it out to him. "That answer your question, smart ass?"

He hesitated before taking the bottle from her. Glancing down as she shifted the car into drive and pulled off, he noticed the faintest glossy shine of her lip gloss on the lip of the bottle. As the truck rumbled through the Pandoran desert, he recalled how slick her lips were when she would kiss him after applying it. They way she giggled when he pulled back and groused about the texture. How she would joke with him, arms looped around his neck, if she should withhold her kisses then. And he would snag her closer by her waist, pulling her into him and grumbling a complaint against her wet lips as he kissed her through her laughter.

He eyed the residue of it on his bottle now. Then, he lifted it to his lips and drank deeply, imagining that he could feel a phantom press of her lips against his own. It quenched him like nothing else.

☆

TBC

☆

☆ borderlands masterlist ⋆ main masterlist ☆

©rin-bellatrix 2024

#saugust #sasha the kid sister #august the guy with the key #august the brawler #sasha x august #borderlands #tales from the borderlands #tftbl #i dont like their ship name but i couldnt find anything better #if better is out there pls lmk!#rin's fic #august and sasha pics from pocketavery #dividers by cafekitsune

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emerxshiu · 11 months ago

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FORGOTTEN LAND'S SECOND ANNIVERSARY :3

I AM SOOOO BACK

I started this drawing yesterday around afternoon and finished it just a few minutes earlier.

I went with a messier type of drawing instead of more clean like the elfilin one from yesterday, i find it fun doing it like this, mostly cause i dont have to worry about making it perfectly so i dont get as frustrated as normal. Id place this one as my second best digital drawing. im pretty sure i havent posted what i consider my best digital drawing here, tho i do have it in instagram, i might post it here one day, tho these two are way too tied up, i love how this came out, its not exactly like how i imagined it but its really close to it, and also itd say that since i dont tend to play around lighting that much, this was such a joy to draw and i cant help but stare at it a lot, at least until i start hating it because i made quite a lot of errors. i also changed my elfilis gijinka just a tad bit from last time, but its not that big of a difference, mostly.

ofc i had to draw elfilis for forgotten land's anniversary, i tend to deny it in my head but yeah they're my fave of the kirby characters even tho i hate them a bit. I wanted to draw some more doodles, like, elfilis eating cake, kirby car, a bunch of other stuff (not elfilin cuz i already drew him yesterday) but when i tried i couldnt draw anything more, guess this drawing burned me out a lot, huh?

you can definitly tell i spent all the efforts on him cuz if you look a bit closer to the bottom part you'll see its almost barely detailed, but i mean, they're the focus so make sense i guess for me not add that much detail there. um also, maybe because i dunno i had OVER 130 LAYERS jeez no wonder firealpaca was slowing down so much, i need to manage my layers better next time, tho i did do something i keep forgetting, wich is naming them (most of them at least) that was a real life saver

Also, antares (fecto elfilis' spear/cadaceus), as always, was a pain to draw, but this time its probably been draw the most accurate out of every other drawing ive made with it in it, i didnt notice it was like, a little curved when it reached the blade

some close ups since his face is a bit hard to see

silly :3

fun fact! actually, this is technically a redraw, somewhere around between february and march i started a fecto elfilis drawing for the first anniversary, but i couldnt finish it in time, and i never finished it

thats...quite the improvement! (i remember being so proud of it)

also his wings are like that cuz i did not want to draw the pattern, its way too hard, i literally copy pasted it, wait, i was talking about the 2024 version but i looked at the 2023 one and i just noticed it also has the pattern copy pasted, i guess some stuff never changes since i still abuse the ctrl+c ctrl+v to this day

Also i ended up making a huge error there, i was planing to add the phantom spears from orbital pulsar (the attack he does first when you battle them at lab discovera) but theres an innacuracy, when they do the attack, they always close their eyes, i had actually sketched him (well i mean both these drawings are basically the first sketch (2023) or second sketch(2024) with some color, shadows and lighting. i didnt do lineart in the 2024 one cuz i wanted to be a bit like the og i made (too bad i sketched that one with black since the og was sketched with white due to me drawing the bg first)) with his eyes closed but them decided to make them open for a reason i cant remember, maybe i thought itd look nicer? idk

ive had the idea of redrawing this for quite some month now so it was kinda already planned

background cuz i think it came out really pretty

doesnt have the little stars since without elfilis and the structures it looks fucked up. the actual sky in game is more blue, but the clouds have some orange, in the 2023 ver. i made the sky orange, and in the 2024 ver i wanted it more accurate, but i didnt wanna loose the orange sky, so i did a gradient. pretty...

also here's a screenshot i took when i was like halfway trough it, its barely noticeable but i changed his mouth in the final drawing

I really love katfl, like a buncha whole lot, its basically almost my first mainline kirby game. 100% the demo, finished the game in almost one day, i literally play it monthly, like, every month i put the card in my switch, start it up, get morpho sword, and go shred elfilis in lab discovera. i would probably not even be here on tumblr and the kirby fandom if it werent for it. and i love it so much i genuinly cannot express how much i like it and treasure it with words or anything

Thank you for reading my unnecesarily long rambles lol

I hope i'll post tomorrow and dont forget like usual

Jambuhbye!

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lucrezianoin · 1 year ago

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Welcome to my Wyllstarion propaganda! (text version)

This is a text version of my powerpoint Wyllstarion propaganda that you can find here. Each section is one of the slides.

The thread of wyllstarion video mentioned in the slides is here on twitter, plus the Wyll-about-Cazador-vid is here. I will post a new compilation of all their scenes soon here.

Currently if you want to watch a Wyllstarion playthrough you can check my bilibili, but I will reupload all with timestamps on youtube.

Also yes, Wyll does call his romanced player-partner "my star" and if that is not perfect for Astarion I do not know what is. And Astarion mentions "sweet" so many times (sweet = Wyll, but he also reveals he likes sweets) and Wyll deserves someone who is enamoured with his kindness.

(throws wyllstarion fanvideos at you)

Here is the text:

WYLL RAVENGARD Babe of Frontiers, heart of the gate Loves Baldur‘s Gate Hero at heart (and actual hero) Hates gods, as they never help people who are suffering Turns into a monster Has a whole thing about monsters who prey on innocent and how monsters populate BG looking like simple humans (politicians) Has to follow the orders of Mizora, who treats him like dog and calls him pup – he did what he could do to use these powers for good

ASTARION Mr Vampire Loves Baldur‘s Gate (same comment on it as Wyll, during House of Hope) Hates heroes (because no hero ever saved him) Hates gods Has a whole thing about the fear of turning into a monster Knows far too well the monstrous humans of BG (comments on some of his victims hurting him) Is Cazador‘s spawns and he is controlled by him, there is a whole dog imagery there (kennels etc.)

ASTARION ABOUT WYLL (All of these lines are directly from the game, my notes are in parenthesis. All the lines can be heard at this video thread on my twitter, the one I linked at the start of this post)

(Shadowheart asking Astarion whom he would drink from) Astarion: Ah! Wyll. No question. He's strong, fast, and righteous. I'm salivating already.

Astarion: Take Wyll, for example. A man of the people, very palatble, like a sweet cider.

Astarion: Wyll's the sort of prince-type I would have once dreamed of marrying. When I was about thirteen.

Astarion: Interesting. I always thought he'd taste a little too sweet. (keep in mind that playing as Astarion you can tell Halsin you have a sweet tooth, also Astarion will say „Wyll, get up you sweet fool!“ to a Wyll fallen in battle)

(Asking Astarion to be in OT3 with Wyll. For all the other characters but Halsin he says no, but for Wyll he says „Wyll would not want to“) Astarion: Come now, Wyll won't agree to that. He's stuck in the past, and that's coming from a vampire.

Astarion: You're looking well. It seems Grand Duking suits you.

(The next ones are Astarion about Wyll's horns:) Astarion: For what it's worth, I rather like your new look. It adds a sense of drama - a little more flair.

Astarion: Oh, you get used to them quickly enough. At this point you'd look strange without them. Besides, people care more about the good you've done than how you need your hats tailored. And you have done an awful lot of good, Wyll. During our time together and every day since then.

Astarion: Poor Wyll gave you the benefit of the doubt and it earned him a set of horns. Not that they don't look flattering on him. Almost everything does. Astarion: They do! Honestly, that man…

WYLL ABOUT ASTARION (Again my comments are in parenthesis)

(Astarion: Critical fail at charisma check to tell Wyll he is a vampire Wyll: luckily I am into that)

Wyll: A lesser man might sever that well-coiffed head from your neck. Good thing for you I'm not such a man. Besides - not even the Blade of Frontiers is immune to your not-inconsiderable charms.

Wyll: I'm half-inclined to sever it now, if only for your endless insolence. Good thing for you you're so godsdamned charming.

Wyll: Oh, the lad's quite the tease. But he's a charming sort of cad - well, most of the time.

Wyll: Astarion has a certain swagger, don't you find? An interesting fellow. Nice hair, to boot.

Wyll: The charming rapscallion that he is.

Wyll: I've missed you too. And your cunning tongue, of course. And did I mention your hair? I might have missed that most of all.

Wyll: By the stars' light and the moon's glow, it's so good to see you, Astarion.

Wyll: Oh, Astarion. I bet I'd find a touch of sweet under all that sour, if I digged deep enough.

(Wyll: Of course I should have seen Astarion was a vampire, he was so hot) Wyll: Elegant bearing, saucy voice - I should've seen it, the signs were all there.

THERE IS MORE! (For this section it is also all quotes and my comments only in parenthesis)

(Wyll about Cazador:) Wyll: Deep shadows have long haunted Baldur's Gate - and few loom so large as Cazador's. But I also know you can find light if you know where to look. And this I promise: you can always look to me.

(Astarion would love to marry a Grand Duke) Astarion: Power and prestige? Hail the Grand Duke indeed.

(The random outing they organize right in front of the others:) Astarion: Grand Duke Wyll Ravengard. Tell me, should I genuflect or merely bow? Wyll: Forget the bowing. I'd rather share a cheap brown ale and a hunk of fresh venison. You in? Astarion: I'll pass on the ale, but the company sounds delightful.

EVEN MORE Astarion‘s spawn ending is him becoming a hero adventurer – and what is Wyll‘s role, his life?? Being a hero! The Blade!

Astarion also asks Wyll twice about Cazador/killing vampires

Wyll would be the perfect target for his seductions because he is powerful (son of Grand Duke), he knows how to kill monsters, he is a hero

Wyll calls his romance partner „MY STAR“

Furthermore…. Astarion‘s fail-charm canonically works on Wyll!

EXHIBIT B Their romance scenes (the honest ones, in the case of Astarion, so skipping act 1) ALL involve hands. Wyll offering a hand (Wyll always offer, never take) and taking hands/offering hands for Astarion.

(The slides show 6 pictures from their romances: the dance where Wyll offers Astarion his hand, another one from the dance where he takes his hand; Wyll's hand offered kiss; Astarion's act 3 romance scene at the cemetery where he takes Wyll's hand; two pictures from Astarion's act 2 post-Araj scene where he takes Wyll's hands) (Not in the slides but Wyll not has another kiss where he offers the player his hand)

EXHIBIT C Think about the possibilities!!

Astarion being courted for the first time!!

Also Wyll having a thing for his nice cute monster romances and being seduced by a monster? Yes!

If Wyll is a Duke, Astarion can become one of the most powerful people in the city and he would love that

Also, Ascended Astarion and Duke Wyll have this WILD dynamic (I did not post the quotes here but check thread of videos)

Think about the comedic potential of Astarion and Ulder Ravengard interacting

And the angsty potential of Astarion becoming the husband of a Grand Duke and being finally in a position over who knows how many SCUMBAGS mistreated him

Think about Astarion‘s feralness and selfishness and how Wyll could actually benefit for being a bit more selfish

Astarion would never let Ulder forget what he did

And Wyll absolute need to BE NEEDED meeting Astarion‘s need to find a protector

There is so much more! I finished my time!

#wyllstarion #bloodpact #astarion #wyll ravenhard #mine #propaganda #meta #i guess?

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trickstarbrave · 2 years ago

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Asfkghjkl please please give the deets on Baldur (only if you wanna)

uhmmm sure i can hopefully it will be what u want

>uses he/him pronouns and mostly masculine terms so i guess i'd put him closer to the boy side of nb?? gender is hard i think if you asked him he'd say "i'm a guy??? i think??? i guess???? something like that. definitely not a woman"

>uses primarily one handed weapons. knows a bit of archery and also good with a shield. id apologize for giving so many of my skyrim ocs archery if archery wasnt such a useful fucking skill

>for his bg i didn't actually think it thru LMAO he is just on the streets most of his childhood so he learned to steal. this gets ppl to treat him like shit from an early age bc no one wants a scrappy thief running around your home or business potentially stealing from you

>very good looking. other characters are transphobic abt his appearance now but fuck them i love my pretty boys and will make pretty boy ocs until i die probably.

>has faced a lot of SA both pre and post transition and is pretty traumatized and thats mentioned a lot in the story early on esp disassociation from trauma so it might be triggering. i self projected a Little too hard. he learns to fight to defend himself and refuses to die

>obv not every single character was a horrible transphobe but baldur also like to keep to himself due to being burned before and theres also a lot of casual transphobia. he's a smaller guy rather than the typical buff nord warrior (a significant portion of that comes from malnutrition growing up though)

>he makes it all the way to sovngarde actually despite how frankly ill prepared he was

>like i need to stress even with the "blades" backing him and him doing active recruitment for them and getting them to higher numbers than the game allows (for more realism) he isn't taken seriously by most people and was super unprepared. they sent him to get the dragon stone and fight the dragon at the tower bc they were kinda just hoping he'd die. even the blades didn't rly take him seriously except for delphine and esbern and delphine wasn't happy this was their 'hero'. he was kinda scrawny due to not eating properly and not trained well enough. despite this he was a pretty terrifying warrior

>alduin acknowledges this and thinks if he treats THIS dragonborn like a dragon he shouldnt get a miraak situation this time. he gave miraak too much freedom as a priest as far as he is concerned. keep the dragonborn on a tight leash with proper discipline and rewards and he'll hopefully have a good champion on his hands instead.

>i made up some shit for this fic exclusively that is probably not lore friendly. which is dragon's CAN just make oaths they take seriously, but also alduin knows how to etch that oath onto their souls and claim them as his own. breaking the oath can have some dire consequences, but as a benefit you can get stronger and also be brought back from the dead by alduin because alduin is eternal and can't ever really die without seriously destroying time as we know it. normally its uncomfortable and dragons just put up with it but uhhhh baldur likes it a little Too Much

>did i mention this fic gets pretty bdsm? it kinda does. we have soul branding, soul sex i guess???, possessiveness, claiming, probably more im forgetting. alduin learns the joys of a very submissive and compliant sub i guess

>also added is like i said in another ask dragons in this au do just have sex. theyre pretty cautious, prideful creatures though. so usually there is some light combat/wrestling/debating over who is gonna bottom and 'submit'. dragons love dominating after all and who am i to take that from them. they'll do it to blow off steam reinforce hierarchy, for rewards, and also just for fun. dragons don't really need to reproduce and can choose if they get pregnant or not so it serves other functions socially for the most part

>in fact finding two dragons that ACTUALLY reproduce is weirder. they can in this fic but for the most part they don't. having kids with someone requires a level of trust and devotion that dragons seldom like to give up, but it does happen from time to time. those that do are usually mates for life and are pretty exclusive with one another. creation via reproduction is seen as inferior to just shaping the world however you want to (and THAT part is actually lore compliant with tes

>oh yeah and dragons are fucky with gender. they're literally dragons. demi gods to full on gods and cosmic forces of the natural world. what matters is if you're a drake or a jill (god i hate that term but its what we got) and that also informs your duties to time itself. theres drakes that lay eggs and jills with penises. also why dragons vary so much in appearance, they just pick how they wanna look. they don't give a shit. baldur having a vagina absolutely does not phase alduin, nor does his transition--its only right he change his body just as he changes the natural world with his thu'um, its his birthright by akatosh

>i know a lot of the above isnt abt baldur specifically but i hope it can inform you a lot on how his relationship with alduin goes and why it goes that way

>alduin names baldur his champion and doesn't hesitate to start taking care of him. he isn't aware mortals down in skyrim weren't treating him the best yet. he thought they should have been given he is their champion sent by the divines to defeat him according to prophecy yadda yadda so why wouldn't they treat him like a king and outfit him with the best gear they had at their disposal? but baldur well fed, well trained, and geared up is kinda Stupid OP, especially when backed by an army of fire breathing dragons and magic flinging undead. lol. this boy has no problems

>baldur starts conquering cities no problem. the wonders actually being well fed, geared up, and surrounded by colleagues that don't hate you can do

>alduin actually likes having sex with baldur just as much as baldur does with him. alduin theorizes it's because akatosh made baldur for him (to stop him, but same difference in the end), and the dragonborn is the most loyal of his followers so he doesn't really care

>the other dragons get jealous of it though. where is THEIR fun reward. why don't THEY get to fuck the champion. whatever alduin is being nice (by world eater standards) now so they can let it slide

>im actually thinking of alduin having baldur's armor designed after himself. walk up in armor that looks like the scales of akatosh's first born to show how much you belong to him. lol

>does alduin fuck him in a conquered city at one point? i can neither confirm nor deny.

#baldur #alduin #nsfwish???#yeah i guess it is #my ocs #if theres more questions i can answer but i just dumped a bunch of baldur information in hope it answers the question

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oracleofsecrets · 2 months ago

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More crafting chronicles {long post incoming}

I’ve had an idea for a while to make a little Navi (plain amigurumi didn’t seem Cool Enough) but I wasn’t sure how to do it until I got more into embroidery

The idea process and early development went kinda like:

yarn pompom body ->

wings done in wire work to be cut out ->

how attach?? Even if I got the wings somehow secured to the Pom the whole thing wouldn’t sit or hang upright ->

sew Pom to fabric instead then ->

Fabric being attached to can go in a 4x6 frame I forgot to return bc it didn’t show All 4x6 of whatever you put inside

So then came the Experimentation Phase

I wanted to see if there was any way to make the pompom with a gradient effect (white to bluish). The answer is not rrrealllyy? At least for how I want the gradient to Look (all around and not just on One hemisphere). I was also using a clothespin to make the Pom so that might have something to do with it…

Next trial was white yarn + dusting it with blue eyeshadow on the outer parts as I wrapped it. This did kinda work but the effect was lost after trimming (I did not realize how much trimming is necessary)

I did however spread the color all around to make it a nice light blue and spent like an hour combing it to be fluffy. Too bad I wrecked it days later trying to see if I could wipe off some of the makeup for a gradient…

Then I wasn’t sure what to sew it Onto since I don’t have a wide variety of fabrics to choose from. I did have a plain white cotton quarter that I went with, but I also didn’t want to embroider an entire background bc I want to give this to my brother for chrimbus

I remember seeing some posts in the embroidery Reddit about painting the parts of an embroidery you couldn’t/didn’t finish so I was like cool I’ll just do that for the background (hubris). Did a quick test on scrap fabric to make sure I could embroider through it without the dried paint like crusting all over the thread or something

That worked, so then I had to figure out how to paint for reals. I have not painted a full/original image since probably middle school art class. And all I have are cheap kiddie acrylic paints from Michael’s lol

Made a swatch matrix thing to get an idea of what basic combos/ratios of colors will result in. This is my first draft for testing mixing and how to fill up the space that’ll be in the picture frame. Mostly used sponges bc I’m just going for a vague bg reminiscent of n64 kokiri forest

Not bad, not great for an amateur first go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Then p much right after, I worked on the for Reals version that I’m much prouder of. I remembered to use the cyan-ish green paint for mixing and actually used a brush lol. And tried what I assume are basic painting techniques (cover area fully with a dark or mid tone color, then layer on lighter shades and potentially go back to some of the darker shades again for details)

The next day I did some final details—adding some dark green to the grass and making sparklies. Made those of holo face highlighter liquid mixed with metallic gold and metallic teal paints respectively, and “painted” them using the top of a knitting needle. I think I might’ve taken this after spraying a little sealer on it

I made a new pompom out of white yarn with the fork method but I haven’t cut the loops yet bc I wanted to borrow some lighter blue eyeshadow from my sister to dust with. But she’s all “nooo I had an allergic reaction or it gave me conjunctivitis so you can’t use it for arts and crafts”. So no photo of the Pom since it’s unfinished

Got started on the wings as well! I’m making it out of iridescent organza

Used my new UST projector and my previous Pom to get the right proportions on some game arts to trace the wings onto stabilizer (well, onto a junk mail envelope then onto stabilizer folded in half for perfect mirror copy)

I have 26? Or 28 gauge wire that’s teal ish, which is nice bc I’m working with shiny floss that doesn’t hold its shape the same as cotton floss so there are gaps between my buttonhole stitches securing the wire. Felt like I didn’t really get into the hang of a consistent buttonhole until the end of the strand (top of the shape). At least I’ll get in plenty of practice on these bottom wings before starting the top wings

Also this hoop is super nice. It’s one of those plastic ones with a metal ring you squeeze like a hand exerciser thing to fit into the inner groove of the plastic. I couldn’t figure it out when I’d tried it a while ago with like regular-density fabric, but it’s perfect for how thin the organza is. I couldn’t get it evenly tensioned with the wood hoops I had bc it would slip through the tiny irregularities in the wood shape

The backside better shows the thread color :3 also probably the neatest back side I’ve ever done, out of necessity. I hope it’ll cut out well… I’m worried it’ll get messed up bc of how thin the fabric is :/ or if I’ll be able to tear away the stabilizer without messing up the stitching either…

#long post #wip #embroidery #real pepper crafting hours #nottt really sure how it’ll go sticking the painted fabric into/onto the picture frame…#I might press the fabric under some books again to make sure it’s flatter

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blushinggray · 4 months ago

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Omfg I’m??? Going nuts???? Anyway Fourth Wing spoilers ahead in case you’re reading/planning on reading it

First of all… BRENNAN???????? Are you one piece sabo in another life???? (Like i mean come on, the big brother who disappeared only to turn up again as a revolutionary officer?) Omg there are just so many questions going through my head rn. Like how long has he supposedly been dead again? At least six years or smth by now??? And he’s been here working on the revolution the entire time???

Also how long/often has he been in contact with xaden and co.??? Has he known that xaden has been training his little sister??? I originally found it hard to believe that xaden had such a strong impression/liking to violet at the beginning when he was supposed to hate her for the death of his father. But he’s known this whole time that her brother was alive and that she had the potential to be a great asset to them, then that would make a lot more sense of how quickly he grew to like her

The storytelling is just!!!! So intentional and well thought out!!! I can see every hint being dropped and i can’t stop for a single second from taking mental notes bc i just might need that later to confirm the foreshadowing!!! Like i saw a few things coming, even smth like Brennan coming back/being alive, but the story was told and paced so well that i didn’t expect it at all when it finally came!!!!! But the lightning being hinted all the way back during their first kiss?? This i gotta go back and reread at some point.

But this writing is like a whole ass tapestry, with how yarros (the author) weaved everything together with so much detail, and pacing, and building. I really need to take a few steps back to look at the whole thing and then dissect every part of it just so i can really appreciate it. I was really rereading so many pages in the moment just to let them settle in a little more. My brain really needed to take its time to appreciate every detail and let it settle in. Which is kinda why I’m writing out this whole ramble of a post rn lmao (I was originally kinda just using it to share a couple thoughts without spoiling anyone/creating a whole thread on twitter but now that I’m here i just gotta get this all out)

Anyway, let it be known that i have, once again, fallen for the himbo side character — ridoc will now be my chosen bf of the series, until i meet someone new/more interesting. I mean, look at this golden-hearted doofus

Also? He is dtf? Do i have to line up somewhere? Bc i will

(Lol pls disregard the fact that these are all different light/dark themes. I read across different devices and have different bg lighting themes for each of them)

Though i can’t lie… i really did love Liam too 😭😭😭 he could be so sweet and funny in those moments that he let himself be young

He didn’t deserve the end he got 😔 but he will be in my heart always. Perhaps in some sort of happy au where i can give him all my love and build him shelves for his wood carving hobby/collection 😭

Speaking of scenarios though, i have been drawn to listening to NIKI quite a bit while reading this and i have a few dedicated songs to xaden/violet from her (an underdog woman with something to tell the world; quite fitting for violet, no?)

And i also imagining a scenario of [character] (ridoc? Possibly Brennan depending on how brotherly he ends up feeling to me) and maybe rider!reader or even civilian!reader where the riders come in to save them and they’re all kind of just gathered after an attack, sheltering together and reader is comforting some younger kids or teens or smth and sings them a song to just calm them down, and it ends up calming down a few of the riders too. Just reminding them to take a breath and take the time to feel comforted, even in all the chaos

(I love you Phil Collins, but this version is just a little more chill)

Lots of thoughts… lots and lots of them. It was literally 600 pages of thought provoking stuff. Also, i am really curious about how dragons fuck/get intimate now??? But it is more than i have the bandwidth to write out at 11pm after a full day’s work and another few hours of a night class. But I finished the book and i just had to put some of my thoughts out there while i still had them simmering in my mind (and before I started iron flame). Book 2 Ridoc, and brennan, here i come!!!!

#fourth wing #just some rambling and reacting before i start on iron flame #just know that it was so good and honestly the type of writing and buildup i aspire to write myself #also just in time bc my hold for iron flame from the library just came in 👍#the stars are aligning #i will have to bust my ass to read it though bc it is 300(!!) pages longer than fourth wing 🥴#uhhhhh new tag i guess #books #misc #Spotify

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hellsvestibule · 2 years ago

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Okay here we go! I did talk about this a bit under the Mephy process pics which I posted a while back, as well as my response under the og pic it’s just interspersed w my meta reasons for it. (Although, idk, for me, having a strong intent w symbolism and themes is often the first and foremost of whatever goes into a pic, everything is secondary to carrying the meaning. If it doesn’t have a meaning I just fuck around and find out.) and for that one it was recent and I didn’t start culling the like 20 versions of it like I did most of these... If you ever wanna see process pics you’ve gotta hit me within the first week of posting cause I often do start deleting the earlier copies eventually and ended up fewer examples than I wanted…

My process for backgrounds highly varies depending on the intent of the picture. Sometimes I have very clear intent in mind when starting a picture, but because the way I work is so painterly now, I find that I’m willing to change the background or composition at any point if I don’t like it.

I can’t find the older versions of this one, but I did post one earlier in the process, initially it was going to be a very clean image of her sitting bored on her throne. But I didn’t have a clear reference for the throne, and what I ended up with was boring, I found myself disliking it, and so went with the shattered earth bg sort of merging the scenery from her card art. You can see how I was working from more flat lines, adding layers of color exclusion and subtraction to soften it, then jagged lines to add crunch and texture and make it look like the image was more grungy and decomposed.

But the same holds true of flatter styles. The background is actually a part of the picture I work on and change at random. Nothing is sacred and things can be added or discarded at any point. This one here here I drew all these bugs individually on a separate canvas and pasted them at random. But I was working on his figure and background at the same time. For the butterflies, I drew the front and back wings individually then sort of composited them into a complete bug. Rather than drawing them individually at various angles. Bc I wasn’t going for that for this one

This one here I got so wrapped up in the background I ended up zooming out and trying to add more characters and had to pause on it bc it’s a lot more work to build a multi character scene when really I should have just posted my grunged up little meow meow when I was ahead sigh

A few more thoughts: if the composition looks good flat it’ll look good shaded. Strong Shapes are really useful for a background. Windows are particularly elegant, I have to fight the urge to put a window in every picture as a frame within the frame/for an excuse for backlighting. Because any way you can emphasize the picture being a contained space will bring a sense of dimensionality, which invites you to want to look into it as a little world rather than a singular drawing of a character which is ungrounded, in which case the appeal is more the character itself. Like, you drew a decent pic of the character i like. Vs. you drew an image w a composition that is confusing and distracting enough occasionally people who don’t “go here” might still get caught up staring at it. Or at least this is the type of response that always brings me a lot of joy.

On that merit though, if the figure is strong enough on its own, which sometimes it is, then sometimes a simplistic background is the best you can do, because you don’t Want to overpower whatever your concept is without reason. Here’s an example of me choosing the simpler and cleaner picture even though it lacks the Crunch simply bc you lost the shape of the wings and the opening line of inferno which was the whole point of the pic (even though I’m ultimately still torn on that choice and miss the spooky vibes of pic 1)

If background is the central focus to the picture, it’s probably better to work bg first or even set the scene up in a poser program for better lighting or composition. But it is t necessary to put that much background work into Every picture. If you don’t need a background, sometimes adding details is just going to make it cluttered and messy. My current process I generally Want to look cluttered and messy bc it’s the type of art I enjoy looking at, but specifically in a way where you are rewarded for looking closer, and any time your eye wanders you’re pulled back to something else, because the more things of interest happening in the picture, the more likely someone will stop to stare for a longer time and hit reblog, because you’ve tricked them into spending more time in your personal little hellscape. Which I also talk about on my reply to some tags the Mephy pic. My current mentality is, if this is a long term picture I’m pouring a lot of effort into, I’m my harshest critic and can easily slip myself into the bored disillusioned user scrolling tumblr going “who cares” so any time my eye wanders when working on it, if I find myself slipping away out of the picture I want to put something there to redirect you to the subject.

Here’s an example of what happens when i draw the lines without thinking about the background till the very end (managing to keep a separate layer for figure and bg which I don’t often). It looks silly when the character layer is turned off but it gives you a better sense of how you start with flats and simple gradients and add all the little bastard textures on it later.

If you have questions on any specific texture or technique from a specific image I can probably go more into that! I use a combo of mostly default pro create brushes and ones I’ve made myself which are easilly replicated if you have the program. But even if you’re using object or texture brushes you have to keep them at a minimum. They shouldn’t carry the pic just enhance it

I hope this is! interesting and or informative

I would really really love to know about your process in terms of the backgrounds and how you fill up the canvas, I think it always looks so cool and it always really adds to the pieces

Hi adet ty for the ask! Will reblog with a proper response with some examples in a minute, my iPad hates tumblr and is convinced asks are an illusion

#long post #the bitch of a hellsite is demanding I post it to this blog first Ah well #I will put it over in the worm hole in a bit #my art #process pics

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howtofightwrite · 2 years ago

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I've been replaying the Fallout series and it got me thinking. The protagonists of most of the games, 1, 3 and 4 if you go with a female Sole Survivor, are naive newcomers with zero combat experience, yet they go on to slaughter armies and change the fate of the wasteland. I know they're rpgs, but how would you translate a character like that into a believable, linear story? Can it be done?

So, there's two distinctly different cases here.

Fallout 3 and 4 (and really basically everything from Bethesda Games Studio in the last 20 years), are ARPGs. They have more potential for environmental roleplay than games you'd conventionally think of as ARPGs, like Diablo or Path of Exile, but Bethesda's Fallout games are primarily about the combat loop with subsequent looting and loot sorting as preludes to the next fight. While ARPGs can deliver an enjoyable story, they don't tend to travel particularly well outside of the game. To a large extent, the violence is the fun, and without that, you're left with wispy sinews of a story that existed to draw you from set piece to set piece.

The counterpoint to something like Fallout 3 and 4 would probably be Cyberpunk 2077, which, for all its flaws, is basically an ARPG with a strong narrative focus, and as a result, it would hold together a bit better as a linear narrative.

Ironically, one of the strengths in BGS's writing is something that really cannot translate to the page, the reactivity. While it's not frequent, Fallout 4 and Skyrim do a pretty good job of reflecting what the player has done elsewhere in the world when interacting with NPCs. It's not always consistent, but membership in the various factions, and some previously completed quests, do flag for dialog in the future. (When joining the Railroad, it's surprisingly difficult to get Deacon's line without any reactivity.) Unfortunately, there's no way to naturally convey this in a linear narrative because those prior events will always have happened.

In the case of these kinds of open world ARPGs, the actual narrative you could draw from that is more about the specific stories your character(s) experience.

Fallout and Fallout 2 are verydifferent experiences from the later Bethesda titles. (With, New Vegas sitting somewhere between these points.) Critically, these are both games where you can reasonably play a non-combat character. So, with both of the original games, between the Good Natured trait, and the skill tagging system, it's pretty reasonable that your character might not have a combat background. That's not a problem. It is a limitation of the character, but it is not an insurmountable flaw. The fundamental difference between the Black Isle Fallouts and Bethesda's is that there will almost always be alternatives to fighting.

You can play out the story of Fallout as a conventional gruff wasteland gunslinger, wandering through another post apocalypse, or you can take on the role of a charismatic con artist who isn't particularly adept at fighting, but tries to talk their way out of violence as often as possible. Somewhat obviously, this won't always work, and violence may occur anyway (also, a full pacifist run will strongly benefit from foreknowledge of what you're looking at, so that you can avoid quests with mandatory combat, and avoid a few fights that might appear forced but can be avoided through careful preparation.)

I'd argue that the latter is a more interesting story. There are a lot of cases in Fallout and Fallout 2 where the non-combat solution is a lot more interesting and amusing, than simply pulling a gun and starting a combat encounter, even if it can be seriously satisfying to just start carving your way through New Reno.

As for the character's proficiency with combat? Fallout and Fallout 2 will punish you for not speccing into combat, and then getting into fights. Again, this isn't a storytelling problem, if you have a character who starts their story with a deficiency, then it should hamper them for awhile. Eventually, this is something that a character can recover from if they live long enough. It's reasonable to have a character who can't do everything, and that includes being unable to fight. It's also reasonable for them to eventually overcome some of those limitations, through hard work, and commitment.

The original Fallout games were about a post apocalypse that was in the process of rebuilding. There's a lot of lawless territory, and places where petty despots hold sway, but there's also new civilizations getting started, and there are places for socially skilled characters within. It's something that can easily be lost in post apocalyptic narratives that focus on combatant protagonists. I don't think this is a problem, per se, but it's something that Fallout and Fallout 2 considered. You are free to pursue other roles (even if a number of those options in Fallout 2 are a bit... “shallow.”)

As for 3 and 4, the problem isn't so much that the various characters evolve into combat gods, it's how quickly they do so.

A play-through of Fallout 3 will take the player character from being a normal-ish teenager to a battle hardened slayer of men in about six in-game hours. (Which works out to about 18 minutes.) After that, your character will be ready to blast their way through entire camps of borderline feral bandits in pursuit of whatever shiny objects they may be carrying.

Fallout 4 isn't much better. The player character (whichever one you're playing) goes from domestic bliss to casually murdering the locals in less than a day (unless you choose to deliberately procrastinate, and rework Sanctuary into an armed compound, instead of trying to find your son.)

In both cases, like I said, the problem isn't that they become skilled combatants, it's how easy and fast it is to get them there. Again, this is a function of how those games are designed, and not a narrative consideration. The introduction to Fallout 4 already drags enough that most players are going to skip the pre-war and Vault 111 sequences on subsequent playthroughs, just load the exit confirmation save and reconfigure their character, if they want to go again. (Or use an alternate start mod.) And, without any external context, it doesn't make a lot of sense that within hours of touching a handgun for the first time, Nora is blasting her way through entire waves of raiders. The game is built around combat, and that's what we get.

If you want a combat focused, post-apocalyptic RPG sandbox with a more gradual power curve, I'd suggest looking at something like Kenshi. It's not going to give you a lot of dialog to work through, but it does have a real knack for dynamically creating stories as you try to avoid being eaten by bonedogs.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#how to fight write #Starke answers #writing advice #writing reference #Fallout #post apocalypse

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thechekhov · 4 years ago

Photo

Alright, alright, I caved.

After a slot opened up in me to be able to take on another show emotionally, I decided to invest in OwlHouse. I thought I would probably like it, but it won me over faster than I thought it would.

I’ve already watched a few episodes, but I realized that it might be more fun to do liveblogs, so here I am - with a liveblog...

I will be doing this episode by episode, and probably releasing them every once in a while. Everything will be under a cut, however, to save you all dash space.

If you’d like to follow, please track the #chekhov watches owlhouse tag!

(I’d also like to dedicate this post to the Tumblr Staff Rob, who did his best to restore this post for me when tumblr queue ate it.)

Without further ado...

Episode 1!!

Fair warning - this is technically not a ‘live’ blog, because I have already watched some of the show before deciding to do this, but I’ll still react to them to round things out.

Immediately, this reminds me of Little Witch Academia... Anyone? No? Only me? I feel like maybe I’m getting my wires crossed, but there HAD to have been some inspiration taken from there?

“No-- my only weakness! Dying!!“

Same, big snake monster. Same.

Oh, backup snakes? This girl is READY.

Please don’t mistreat the snakes.

Spider breath... This kid is on my wavelength. That griffin seems to be waiting to be put out of its misery though, and I don’t blame it.

My child... where did you get that pigeon head though.....

Nurse mother, do you REALLY think signing up your spider-summoning daughter for summer camp will actively make her antics slow down instead of ramp up to 60?

Awww, baby makes AMVs... But also, NO ONE TOLD YOU TO THROW AWAY THE BOOK??? I know it’s symbolic, but goodness, isn’t that a bit much???

wait a sec, is that Eda????

Love the realistic bilingual kid experience of replying in English when your mom talks to you in your native language. Universal.

Love this introduction of Eda’s character. She’s got that little green scarf on and everything. Like a tiny trash grandma.

Oooh, okay, let’s extrapolate...

Lots of bones everywhere. I kinda love the aesthetic here - it’s gross and visceral, kind of like what Luz was making with her school projects. Yet in the middle of it all we have a rather clear gothic looking structure. Is this a power imbalance in the supposed kingdom?

The five circles of stained glass seem to perhaps indicate something like Hogwarts houses? Several different types of magic?

But Luz has no reason to freak out as much as she is - she LOVES weird stuff! Haha... No, I kid, I kid. I get it.

“Am I in the bad place?“

Eyyyyy, gotta love shows referencing other shows. :)

“Oh dear child... I’m not like you.”

Wow, what a DRAMATIC reveal for some pointy ears. :) I love her.

We should all aspire to have such cool and stylistically well put together wanted posters. You can tell the commissioned artist really respects her craft.

Steven Universe fans watching this:

I’m looking too.

Okay, okay, enough shenanigans, let’s have some LORE.

I love this landscape. Teeth or bones, or whatever they are, this is one of the more unique settings we’ve gotten, though maybe I’m prejudiced because I love body horror and bones. The darker orange and red themes fit really well here.

Things I’m desperate for: Giraffe Lore

Things I’m more desperate for: Eda lore. Why do her limbs fall off? Is she a zombie?

Things I’m not quite as desperate for: Hooty lore. He can keep that to himself.

well hello there mysterious chekhov’s glyph which will DEFINITELY not be relevant in the second chapter (or end of season? Maybe? Idk it just seems important).

Ah, yes. That would have been my reaction as well, to be fair. Somehow I didn’t expect to see this guy so early on. I figured he would be a low stress early villain that got assimilated into the Found Family. Kinda psyched that he’s just there from the start.

....I’m just gonna presume this is all true and accept it at face value.

Old Escape The Cops Lady and Tiny Little Demon King, I need your backstory. How did you meet.

I love looking at background details, because like... you can tell the BG artists had fun. I particularly love how the 3 eyed toad doesn’t actually have any reward attached to her. Though the Knife Baby does intrigue me!

“I write fanfics of food falling in love.”

Why am I being called out...

“Noo! My weak nerd arms!”

Finally, a realistic portrayal of a protagonist thrust into a fantasy setting!

.....................

Okay but. If only humans could pass through the barrier... wouldn’t that mean a human had to have deposited those things in there? Do they have a human on staff in this weird pseudo-prison??? Suspicious....

Confession - when I initially saw ads for this show, I expected Eda to be a villain, not a loveable middle aged witch aunt figure. I am shockingly even MORE drawn to her this way. I expected betrayal. I expected her to be a lowkey threat?? But no. She’s just wholesome in the way a solid raccoon is.

“Eda, are you okay?!”

“Yeah, this just happens when you get older...”

“........does it..?”

If I had to pinpoint the exact moment this show won me over...... it would probably be this one.

I know it’s probably the wrong thing to focus on, but what is that insignia? Wings??? Like.... the kind OWLS HAVE?????

COINCIDENCE??? I THINK NOT!!!

I’m really loving the landscape here. And those fireworks are... hmm... intricate?

Gotta love the old tried and true Witch Apprentice Actually A Live In Intern trope. :)

Hold up...

Is that

Is that Hooty? I thought he was just a door....

Eda: This is my room for human stuff. I will also put my human in there.

. . .

Overall rating: I think this is a cute overall beginning. The prison break went hard! I enjoyed the characters and it kind of surprised me in a lot of ways. It definitely does a great job setting up a world with a lot more to explore while giving us a small taste of cool magic stuff and witchy battles. :)

Now on to Episode 2!!

Read the liveblogs in order by clicking here!

#the owl house #owl house liveblog #chekhov watches owlhouse

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angelanimedesaray · 4 years ago

Text

Wings in the Dark Chapter 6: Stories From the Dark

AN: I feel like this chapter should have been posted around Halloween, but there was NO WAY I was waiting that long XD Also its a bit short, I think, to me, it goes a little quick, partially because I didn’t want to have to write Levi wandering around this little town this whole time having all this meaningless chit-chat meant to fish information, I decided summarizing was best with detail where it counted XD

Characters: Levi, Fem!Vampire!Reader (Mentioned), Erwin, Various OCs and BG Characters

Pairing: (Eventual) Levi x Fem!Vampire!Reader

Warnings: Descriptions of Violence, Descriptions of Murder Aftermath, Description of Fatal Injuries, Description of Buried Alive, Descriptions of Injuries, Language

Word Count: 5188

<----Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter---->

*Levi's POV*

While taking such a sudden few days off might have caused a couple bumps in the way things were developing around HQ, but he knew Erwin would be able to handle it and smooth things over, so he stayed focused on the task at hand.

Stripped of any signia, symbol, or uniform resembling clothes that could suggest that he was part of the military, Levi was dressed in plainclothes, having taken a carriage out to L/N’s supposed hometown early in the morning. He still arrived with plenty of time in the day to investigate the town and see what he could find on-site, taking in the small, easily overlooked town that was more of a loose collection of homes bordered by farms, with a central farmer’s market to keep some local trade and business going. Any serious buying and selling probably consisted in a day’s trip to one of the larger towns within Wall Rose, but it seemed they had basic foodstuffs here. He managed to find a blacksmith tucked away in a corner between a small grouping of houses, as well as an old, empty building that had a weathered carpentry sign in front of it. So there had been more trade smiths around here, before the town gradually lost those businesses.

Talking casually with the blacksmith informed Levi that a ways past the farms, there was a home that was the reason for most of their outside visitors--people who could afford to would put their elderly loved ones in the care center, and there was a separate building for the mentally ill to live comfortably and get the care they needed as well. Visitors to the town usually consisted of relatives visiting their loved ones in the homes, or they were descendants that had moved away but came back for the occasional hometown or family visit.

Which meant Levi, having no ties himself and not knowing about the homes, stuck out a bit despite his best efforts. The communities of small towns were tightly knit and they knew their own, so it couldn’t be helped, and he would have to deal with the fact everyone was going to be curious why he was here.

While talking with the blacksmith, he also heard that the carpentry shop had been the family trade for the Frazier family--the family who lost the daughter sharing L/N’s first name. With the murder of their only child, there was no one to take on the family business, and the building had fallen into disrepair after the parents had gone to the home outside town.

That had caught Levi’s interest. They’d been in the home for years judging from the sign alone, and the impression he’d received was that only the well off could supply their own stay at the home, or their family members paid for it. If there were no children to pay for them, and they’d only been a small carpentry business in a no-name town, how could they afford to be in the home? He doubted it was by the grace of the community, though it was a possibility considering the tragedy that had happened here.

Moving on from the blacksmith so he didn’t ask too many questions in one place, Levi made a mental note to make his way up to the homes to investigate the still-living parents of the original Y/N. Making his way to the farmer’s market, Levi perused for any small town hidden treasures and struck up conversations, looking for a town gossip to get talking about the town’s history so that he could eventually hear the more personal tale of the double homicide than the technical report Erwin had scrounged up for him.

While trying to get the man selling the baked goods to be a little more forthcoming, Levi overheard a small group of children, three or four gathered around each other as one of the older children attempted to scare the smallest of the group with a surprisingly gristly tale.

“...clawed at the wood of the coffin, screaming for someone to hear her, too afraid to realize her screams took up what little air she had. Her fingernails broke and blood coated the coffin, her elbow busted open as she pounded and shrieked for help, but no one could hear her so far beneath the dirt. Some say she did manage to break the wood, but halfway through the dirt falling on her she couldn’t breathe, and body’s still frozen in her silent scream, so close to freedom, no one above ground aware of the terror she felt before she truly died. Now, so she doesn’t feel so alone, Screaming Sally’s ghost crawls out of her grave and drags children like you from their beds and drags them into her coffin below ground.”

The poor youngest was visibly trembling, tears of fright in their eyes before one of the other kids shouted and grabbed them, making the youngest shriek and cry as they laughed and continued to pick on them.

“Tch.” Levi turned to them, a glare in his eyes that he pinned on the older kids who should have known better. “Oi! Cut it out.”

Spooked by the scary voice, and even more so by the scary man they saw glaring at them, the older kids bolted, with the youngest running away once they were free of the older kids, most likely to run home and find comfort from a parent.

Levi turned his attention back to the stall in front of him, a woman beside him buying a basket of rolls as he scowled over the childishly cruel display he’d just seen.

“That’s one messed up horror story for kids to be telling each other,” he muttered, paying for a loaf of bread and waiting for the man to finish wrapping it for him. The woman beside him turned with a small shrug.

“All the children around here know about that stupid story about Screaming Sally. It’s been around for decades, and at this point, it’s almost a rite of passage to hear it eventually.”

Levi looked at her, sensing he might have someone who would be willing to share if he asked the right questions. “How did it start?”

The woman sighed, shaking her head. “Some poor caretaker for the graveyard by the woods about forty years back snapped after that double homicide and started trying to tell people one of the girls crawled out of her grave. Everyone knows it’s impossible, not to mention the grave was undisturbed when folks checked in the morning after seeing how sincere he was. They had to put him in the home because he kept insisting he saw it, and eventually the story turned into the Screaming Sally legend the kids are always sharing to scare each other.”

Levi’s head tilted slightly to the side, eyes widening momentarily in surprise as the unsuspected connection jumped out at him.

For the briefest moment, he was looking back up at Kenny years ago as Kenny shared some outlandish story to try and scare him. When Levi had called out it’s legitimacy and accused him of spewing a nonsense legend that wasn’t even possible, he’d suddenly appeared a little serious, a small frown appearing beneath the brim of that signature hat of his as he gave Levi the reply that now rang in his ears.

“There’s always a little truth to every legend.”

Pretending his surprise was over something else the woman had said, Levi took the chance to try and pry the local story from her.

“Double homicide? Out here?” Levi asked, suggesting that kind of thing never happened in places like this.

In his opinion, they were more likely to happen out here, since it was so damn isolated.

As Levi took his wrapped loaf, the two started to walk together, just a little further down the path as she indulged his curiosity.

“I know--it’s the darkest stain on this town’s history. Still unsolved, too--one of those locked room murders I think they call them. Y/N Frazier and Victoria Schultz. The Fraziers’ daughter had been out late the night before and came to her parent’s home to rest instead of going back to her own home. She was sick the entire next day, and her best friend Victoria came to visit her. Sometime between the moment Victoria and Y/N were in the room together to the time the Fraziers checked in on them a few hours later, some psychopath managed to find their way into the room, tore Victoria apart beyond recognition, and disappeared with the Frazier girl. Without the Fraziers hearing anything amiss! The police thought it might have been the Frazier girl, because it was the only possible explanation considering the bedroom door was locked and any attacker would have had to come in through the window, and neither girl made a sound, so perhaps Victoria knew her attacker--but Y/N’s body showed up on the edge of the woods a few days later, poor girl. They never found out who did it, or what exactly happened. It still haunts the people in the town who are old enough to remember it.”

As the woman spun the more personal version of the tale, Levi’s mind filled in the gristly details that had been in the report he’d read. How there had been hardly any blood left in the mutilated girl left behind lying on the bed, but far less in the room than there should have been, how L/N’s namesake had been found lying just within the forest’s edge, neck bruised and broken, as well as several bones, covered in bruises and lacerations. It was a closed-casket funeral for both. They had no leads, no one with a motive, no mysterious footprint or shadowy figure seen leaving the crime scene. They’d just been murdered out of nowhere, and nothing like it had happened anywhere near the town ever since. It was a sudden, violent anomaly in their history, and one that was going to leave a mark that would never disappear.

Levi said goodbye to the woman with the bread roll basket, standing in the middle of the road with his gaze turned towards the homes he’d been told about, a thoughtful frown on his face.

It seemed he had two reasons to visit this place: the Fraziers and the caretaker.

Once there, as curious as he was, Levi decided against visiting the Fraziers and asking about the events of forty years ago. From what he’d been able to dig up, it was likely something that still haunted them to this day, and he wasn’t here to terrorize the elderly.

He did, however, pry into who was paying for their stay at the home. Once at the front desk, he suggested that he wanted to pay for their stay, asking after the amount it would take and how often, before insisting whatever payments they were making themselves stop so they wouldn’t have to pay out of their own pockets. At that point, he’d been politely turned down, the secretary informing him that the Fraziers already had an angel donor who was paying regularly for their stay at the home.

“Can I get a name so I can talk to them about splitting the payments?” Levi asked, leaning forward slightly in anticipation.

“I’m sorry, but...angel donors are what we call anonymous donors who don’t have any ties to the family but still pay for their care. We don’t know who makes the payments, only that they’re made regularly and on time, so Mr. and Ms. Frazier can spend the rest of their days here. I have no name to give you, not that I could, considering that would be sensitive information,” the secretary said politely, though there was a bit of a chill in her voice brought about by Levi’s questioning. He ignored it, busy mulling over this new detail.

He had no evidence to support it, no reason to suspect it, but what if the angel donor was L/N? He knew she was looking for ways to cut costs with how she spent her money, it was one of the reasons she had the tea garden at HQ--it would save her money in the future by cutting costs she spent on things like tea. And her lack of personal belongings could also be from a lack of money to buy nice things for herself. What if the money she saved from her salary was going towards the Fraziers’ well-being?

Again, he had no evidence. It was just a thought, a far-fetched theory, but it was something to take note of and consider, just in case it wasn’t far off the mark.

Getting the hint from the secretary and knowing he was at a dead end as to who was taking care of the Fraziers, at least for what he would find here in town, Levi moved on to the next objective.

“All right, well, I also came to talk to someone in the psychiatric home. He used to be a cemetery caretaker about forty years ago.”

Recognition immediately sparked in her eyes, as well as a bit of apprehension. “We’ll need you to sign in, as well as put down a reason for visiting.”

“Fine,” Levi replied, taking the paper she slid over and writing Jacob, no last name--not that he’d have one to give even if he was using his actual name--and then wrote down social visit before handing it over. Her eyebrows rose slightly and her gaze flickered up to him from the paper, and Levi gazed back at her calmly, waiting patiently for her to at least direct him the proper way.

“Room seventeen. Follow me,” she said, leading them out the door--since they’d been in the home for the elderly--and a little ways away to the other building that acted as the psychiatric home. Once inside she led Levi up two flights of stairs and down a fairly long hall to let Levi into the room marked seventeen in white paint. “Mr. Briarton, you have a visitor,” she said after opening the door, allowing Levi to step into the room and take in a man in his late fifties, early sixties, suspicious pale green eyes narrowed at Levi as he stepped inside.

“I don’t knows you,” the man rasped.

“Jacob,” Levi said bluntly, stepping deeper into the room and staying conscious of the fact the secretary was temporarily lingering to make sure everything was going to be all right. “I came to hear your story.”

“Hah? Here to mock an old man?” Briarton sneered.

“No. Just to listen,” Levi responded simply. Briarton sized Levi up for a moment, then looked at the secretary still standing in the doorway and gave a small wave.

“We’re fine, Janice, you can leave now. I’s knows the rest of you’s is tired of hearin’ my tale.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Briarton.”

“Eh,” he grumbled, and Janice sighed and shut the door, leaving the two of them behind. “Why exactly are you’s interested in hearin’ my story? Everyone else says I’m’s crazy. Locked me up for it, too!”

“I’ve heard the town legends. Someone I knew used to say there’s always a bit of truth to the legends. So I’m here looking for the truth,” Levi answered, leaning up against the wall with arms folded over his chest.

“Hmm…” Briarton hummed, contemplating Levi’s reason before he sighed. “I’s guessin’ you’s already heard ‘bout the murders, if you’s here.”

At Levi’s nod, Briarton skipped over the events that came before, and went right to talking about the burial. “Closed caskets they’s were. Victoria had a pine box, Mr. Frazier insisteds on makin’ Y/N’s hisself, out of willow. We’s buried them midday, six feets down in the grounds, six feets dried earth on those boxes. I’s told they’s were both dead for sures, no comin’ back--specially poor Victoria. Schultz’s weren’t allowed to sees hers it was so bad. Course we’s all thoughts abouts it, we’s all hoped back then the killer’d get caught. People kept comin’ by till it gots too dark and I’s closed the cemetery for the’s night. My’s job was to make sure no ones messed with the graves, and I’s was patrollin’ like usual, and for the’s longest time, I didn’t hear nut-thin. But sometime in the wee hours of the mornin’, as I’s was comin’ up on the girls’s graves, I saw somethin’ movin on the ground on tops of one. I’s went to yells at them, to tell ‘em kids to scram, cause that’s what I’s thoughts they were. But when I’s got close enough to see a bit better, I’s realized they’s was comin’ up from the ground--outta the ground. I’s was frozen in place, watchin’ them’s drag themselves out of the dirt, clawin’ across the ground likes a wounded animal. I’s was tryin’ to scream, but I’s couldn’t makes a sound.”

Briarton stopped, his wide eyes turned towards Levi. “Do you’s know how heavy the dirts is on a coffin? How hard it is to break open a coffin? Impossible’s what it is! My’s brother once locked me’s in one to scares me, and my’s mother lost it whens she found out. I’s was kickin’ and screamin’ for what’s felt like hours tryin’ to break out, but all I’s got from it was bloody hands and elbows. Ands that was without the dirts on tops of it. But I’s swears this girl busted out and crawled outta hers grave. Even if she’s managed to breaks the coffin, she’d’da been crushed bys the dirts. But she’s still crawled outta hers grave. She’s stood up, covered in fresh bloods and dirts, and she’s shoved dirt backs into the hole she’s crawled outta like a drunkard, gaspin’ and wheezin’ and wailin’ like a banshee, an’ then she’s disappears into the night. An’ I’s ran for help, jus’ to get calleds crazy and locked up in here.”

Levi listened to Briarton’s tale in silence, studying the man’s face closely as he spoke to see if the man truly believed every word he was saying. The terror in the man’s eyes was real, though, as he spoke of the impossibility of the haunting image, and there was no trace of insincerity in his face as he spoke. He truly believed in the tale he was telling. Considering the impossibility of it all, Levi also doubted, but he wasn’t going to call him out on in--enough people already believed this man crazy, Levi wasn’t going to add himself to the mix.

He only had one question.

“Who was the woman who crawled out of her grave?” Levi asked steadily, though the crawl of his skin as he said it told him he already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear Briarton say it.

“Y/N Frazier.”

The day had cooled--in fact, it was starting to feel chillier, the sun frequently hidden by clouds that seemed to be gathering across the sky, hinting at fouler weather on the horizon. After taking his leave of Briarton at the home, Levi went looking for the now infamous cemetery--infamous in his mind, at least--and had made his way to the grave of one Y/N Frazier, where he now stood in silent contemplation, staring intently at the headstone that had engraved upon its surface the girl’s name, a birthday and date of death that showed she had barely been in her twenties, and a brief, “Beloved Daughter.”

He wasn’t really seeing the grave anymore, though. His mind was a flurry of thoughts, theories, memories, information...none of the connections he’d made here made any kind of sense to him, but there were far too many to be ignored. There was something here, something that seemed to be staring him in the face, but he couldn’t see what it was, so he couldn’t use it. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe Briarton really was crazy, maybe he hadn’t seen Y/N Frazier crawl out of that grave that night and he’d simply snapped like everyone suggested he had. But there was nothing to have caused him to snap, no trigger. Not to mention, the sheer coincidence was far too strong to be a coincidence.

So, he entertained the possibility that the bizarre and impossible happened, that Y/N Frazier somehow survived, a mistake had been made somewhere and she was buried alive, and managed to crawl out of this very grave. Ignoring the impossibility of that scenario still didn’t give him many answers. If Y/N Frazier was still alive, she would have been sixty, seventy years old by now. L/N back at the Scout Headquarters was in her early twenties, and very clearly /not dead/. So, L/N definitely wasn’t this Y/N Frazier.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be related somehow. If the original girl did survive, it would be possible for L/N to be Frazier’s daughter, maybe even grand-daughter, though that was starting to push the theory beyond what he was willing to suspend believing as impossible.

One thing the Screaming Sally horror story had made him remember, and that Briarton’s recounting had brought to the front of his mind to offer him another connection, was the conversation the other day between the rest of his Squad and L/N.

He remembered the tremble in her hand, the stillness in her posture, the flash of soul-deep fear, trauma, and pain in her eyes as L/N had softly stated that her biggest fear was being buried alive.

He had something big here, but he wasn’t sure where it fit in this messed up puzzle he was trying to solve, and was missing some key piece that connected it to something else. He needed more than ever to see what she was doing in the Underground when she snuck out at night--whatever it was, he was convinced at this point it was the missing piece he needed to make sense of all of this.

But first, he needed to do something that would give him a definitive answer amongst all these legends and tall tales.

It was a new low for him, he knew that. The entire ordeal felt wrong and filthy on an entirely new level, but it was something he had to do. No one else had thought to look, to disturb the grave of one of the murdered girls to see if there was any validity to Briarton’s claims, to the stories of Screaming Sally. Everyone brushed it off as nonsense and went about their day, probably because it was so certain, and it was easier to believe the horror stories were nonsense.

Levi didn’t have that luxury. He didn’t have the certainty, and the easier route was not the one he was going to take. He needed answers. So, he’d returned briefly to Headquarters in order to enlist Erwin’s help to give him the opportunity late that very same night to dig up the grave and settle once and for all whether Y/N Frazier had died. It would help clear up some of the questions and theories when he found her body in the coffin, and it might put them back at square one in figuring out why this place and this name had been chosen by Y/N, but it would help bring them back to a world that made some sense, and it would help weed out a few questions that these legends and stories had brought up.

He didn’t want to think of the implications if the grave was empty. He doubted it would be, but if it was...then this entire mess went far deeper than he could ever imagine.

Perhaps that was why Erwin agreed to help him, why he’d paid off the caretaker to make sure the grave was empty but leave the section Levi was going to be in undisturbed until Levi left. Erwin clearly hadn’t approved of disturbing a gravesite, especially the gravesite of a murder victim, but Levi had strongly believed it was necessary despite his own misgivings, so Erwin had relented.

Now, Levi was in a hole that passed his head, digging the last few inches to the willow coffin Y/N Frazier had been buried in, filthy and tired but determined to get to the bottom. Just a little further, and he would have his answer. He would see the bones in an undisturbed grave, fill in the grave once more, go home, wash up, hate himself for a while for doing this to confirm what he already knew, and then go back to trying to figure out why L/N seemed so deeply connected to this place.

He hadn’t found any bodies frozen on its way to the surface, so he could already rule out the legitimacy of the children’s scary story about Screaming Sally, at least.

The shovel Levi was using scraped against something solid, and Levi paused. Here it was. He’d found it.

Kneeling down, Levi started brushing away at dirt so he could find the coffin lid, fingers brushing against wood, hand brushing a little harder to smooth away dirt--

He had to pull his hand back as he unexpectedly came into contact with splintered wood sticking up into the dirt, piercing his hand and drawing blood as he jerked in surprise, breath catching.

No…

A few more careful brushes with his hand, and he was staring at a coffin lid that had been busted open, shards of wood buried in dirt, but the hole clearly enough for a person to crawl out of. He froze where he was as he stared at the sight before him, the odd, irrational fear that a hand was going to burst out of the hole and grasp his wrist strangely flashing through his mind before he pushed it aside. He wasn’t breathing anymore, an admittedly trembling hand reaching out to pull back the lid, just to double check and confirm what he was seeing.

The grave was, in fact, empty. The coffin was busted open with gouges that had old red stains upon them, as if it had been punched and clawed through from the inside.

His blood running cold and his breaths shallow, Levi had to fight not to think of the haunting image Briarton had described, the fear in L/N’s eyes, and the mental image of a woman trapped in this grave screaming and crying for help, having to tear apart her own body and defy all odds to crawl her way to the surface, tried not to imagine the terror of being buried alive like this.

Kenny had been right. There was always a bit of truth to the legend. He never imagined it would be this much truth, though.

When Levi returned to HQ, the first thing he did was clean himself up and get changed. Then, he made himself some of the tea L/N had gifted him, choosing one of the blends meant to calm in the hopes that it would help settle his nerves after what he’d seen.

Outside, he might still appear stoic, but inside, he was shaken.

Once he was clean, he had his tea, and he felt he had a better grip on himself internally and he was ready for the conversation, he went to Erwin’s office and very solemnly relayed his findings to the man, who looked no less disturbed by this unexpected turn of events than Levi had been. They’d expected some kind of secret while digging into the truth about L/N, they hadn’t been expecting a full blown conspiracy on this level.

Once Erwin was up to speed on Levi’s findings, they started to hash out some theories and details, both of them well aware that they were still missing something crucial as they attempted to make a broader picture with the pieces they were currently in possession of.

The running theory they were working with was that Y/N Frazier was L/N’s mother. It was the most logical connection they could come up with, even though it dumped a whole new slew of questions into this mess.

Why did Frazier run after she crawled out of her grave? Why not return to her home and family, alive and well? Why leave the town behind and everyone in it believing she’d died so terribly? Why never come back to tell who had attacked her and her friend Victoria? What happened that night forty years ago? How had she managed to crawl her way out of a grave? Why had she instead disappeared somewhere inside the walls never to be discovered or heard from again, hiding her true identity remarkably well? Or more importantly, how had she been alive? How did she survive those injuries? Had a mistake been made and she’d been assumed dead? Was the report faked?

How was the Underground supposed to come into play in all of this, and what part did L/N have in it as well? If Frazier was indeed L/N’s mother, was Frazier still alive and living in the Underground? Was that why L/N went down there every now and then? Why not bring her mother to the surface with her? Why, when she came to the surface, did L/N take Frazier’s first name and not use her last name? Why not use her real name? How did the events of forty years ago play into now, and how had it had an affect on L/N?

As always, whenever they uncovered something about L/N, it always came with a thousand more questions. They could theorize all they wanted, but it wouldn’t bring them closer to finding the answers that they craved at this point.

And still, despite the shock and the...unease he had felt to find the empty grave and realize the reality of what happened in that town--or at least part of it--Levi still felt like there was another reality altering twist in this dark tale that was unraveling in front of them that would be far worse. He still felt like they were far off the mark, that the still failed to understand the reality of what they were stepping into. More than ever, Levi felt there was something dark behind this, and he began to feel the first hints of malice surrounding these secrets.

Whatever L/N was hiding, at this point, Levi knew it had to be dangerous.

Erwin’s concerned eyes probed Levi’s expression as Levi gazed at the empty teacup in front of him, well aware that despite his feeble attempt to calm his nerves and thoughts, he wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight.

“Levi--” Erwin started to say in a grave tone of voice, but Levi cut him off. He knew what Erwin was about to say, and he already knew what he had to do next.

“I know. All I’m waiting for now is for her to make the next move. This time, she won’t shake me.”

Next Chapter---->

Levi Tags: @clary-quinn @humanitys-hottestsoldier@whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea

Wings in the Dark Tags: @regalillegal @animeluver23 @theshylittleelfgirl @queenthorin1 @dilucs-thighs @sociallyanxiousmouse

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

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#Yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #episode recap #S5 #Ep19 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Joey's fear of birds I've never heard about until this episode #Tea Gardner #Grandpa Muto #Tristan Taylor #Baby Dragon #This weird ass tranformer that Yugi is wearing.

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fandomscombine · 4 years ago

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Heartbroken Wingwoman

BG: You were hoping that your best friend, Cedric to ask you to the Yule Ball. Instead you were roped into helping him ask Cho out. It broke your heart, but at least this way while helping him out you could pretend that he was doing all the sweet things to you. On the other side of the picture, Harry was too heartbroken upon learning that Cho is going out with Cedric.

Angst. Cedric Diggory x Reader, Harry Potter x Reader (Platonic) [Or maybe more, if anyone is interested for a part 2]

WC:1383

a/n: We weren’t given names of Cedric’s friends so let’s pretend that one of them is called Lucas okay? Good!

I wanted to get all the angst fics out of the way before I post fluff pieces for the holidays.

Plus it is my first Cedric fic so feedback is really appreciated.

>>>MASTERLIST<<<

>>JOIN MY WRITING CHALLENGE!<<

Seeing him pursue another girl hurt.

Let alone helping him pursue said girl.

That’s right you are helping your best friend ask out one of the most popular girls in Hogwarts, Cho Chang.

You didn’t want to be in this situation. (Who in their right mind would?) But if it means spending more time with him, you would again and again.

Cause who would fall for their childhood best friend who already have pictures and memories of each other in their diapers. (Oh right you would!) Sure, this situation you got yourself isn’t ideal. You had seriously thought it was you Cedric was referring to, but alas it was not.

At least in this way, when coming up with romantic ideas to woo Cho, you would pretend that he was doing them to you.

You were once again silently scolding yourself for going through this agreement. Sighing, you leaned back against the tree truck, pleading for the voice inside your head to shut up.

Peace and quiet only lasted for a moment. A thump had cut through your relaxation and the next think you knew, a weight could be felt in your lap.

Opening your eyes, ready to unleash your irritation on whoever disturbed you. ‘WHO THE FUCK DARES-‘ Oh boy, here we go again. The very problem you were trying to forget was now laying face up, directing his brilliant award-winning smile at you- everything seem to melt away, you could spend forever just having him stare back at you lovingly and that wouldn’t be even enough. Stupid Cedric Diggory and his ability to make you forget about everything.

Cedric was saying something, but whatever that may be, sounds like cotton. If was as if the rest of the world is in a distorted underwater chamber when you were gazing into his eyes ‘shesaidyes,y/n! Cho-‘

And just like that with one word, the spell is broken. You were cut off your dreamlike state, sent back into the painful reality.

‘hmmm? Sorry what?’

‘I said.’ Cedric rolled his eyes. But even your inattentiveness, did not put him off his cheery mood. In fact, Cedric was more than happy to say the words out loud again. ‘Cho said yes!! She’s gonna be my date to the Yule ball!’

‘That’s… great ced…. really great..’ You tried to mask your pain. Unfortunately, the deliver was no great and you’ve only manged to pull yourself together to give a crooked smile.

‘Wait there’s more!! We’re officially together!’ Fortunately, Cedric was too busy being head over heels for Cho, had failed to notice your odd reactions.

‘Seriously y/n you’re a life saver!’ Cedric kissed your cheek. ‘With all this love advice, I can’t believe how in the whole are you still single?!’ He was baffled by this conundrum. ‘You sure you don’t fancy anyone?’

‘Oh believe me he doesn’t see me that way.’

‘Well his lost then, to not see such a wonderful beautiful woman.’

How this boy ruins you, without realising that his efforts to cheer you up is bringing up down.

‘Oh and by the way, how you got someone to take you to the dance?’

‘No why?’ You run your fingers through the grass, praying that he would get the hint that a date to the yule ball is the last thing on your mind.

‘Perhaps I could set you up with someone, you know as to pay you back for all you’ve down for me.’ Cedric adjusted his seating so that now you were shoulder to shoulder. ‘I bet by now you’re tired to be pretending to be interested in me just so I could practice asking Cho out! Oh I know I’ll ask Lu—'

Immediately your hand covers his mouth. ‘NO!!! No!!! I would rather go alone or with a group of friends

Taking your hand away he asks ‘What why? Why what’s wrong with Lucas?’

You sighed. ‘He’s a really sweet guy Ced, but he’s just not my type—A FACT I told me like a billion times already, yet he still tries.’ Poking at his shoulder to further drive the point home.

Arms up in surrender, Cedric concedes. ‘This guy you like, must really got your heart then does he?’

‘Yeahh..’ Gosh how this by be the kindest and caring human being ever yet fails to see that he is hurting his best friend. ‘Anyway, I have to go…I’m gonna be late for Divination!’ Gathering your things, you ran as fast as you can before tears fall from your face.

Leaving behind a boy not only an oblivious state but also in a confused one mumbling to himself. ‘But you don’t take Divination.’

In your haste to escape what would have been embarrassing scene with Cedric, you hadn’t released that you were headed towards some in maximum velocity.

Coincidentally, that said person also had their mind elsewhere and hadn’t been looking at where they were going.

Resulting in both of you to fall over.

‘Owww!’ You clutch your forehead, already feeling a bump forming. Though as you left go, you were surprised to see your palm bloody. ‘fuc--’

‘OH MY GOSH Y/N!!!’ The string of swear words about to leave your mouth was cut off by the one and only Harry Potter. ‘I AM SO SORRY!!!! HERE LET ME FIX IT…’

Dropping his broom aside, he directed his wand at you. ‘Episkey’ You could feel the healing spell doing its work, the warm sensation no doubt be the cut on your head closing.

‘There you go! Good as new!’ Harry exclaimed, wiping away the blood off your forehead. He noticed your tear stains, but he thought that it was caused by the collision and bit by having your heartbroken. Nevertheless, he tried to lighten the mood by joking. ‘No need to worry about a scar.’

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. Did this boy really make a reference to himself?

Harry held out his hand to pull you up. ‘Thanks... for the patch up, though it is your fault. You did hit me with your broom.’

‘Yeah sorry about that….again.’

‘Why do you even have your broom with you? Isn’t Quidditch cancelled this year because of the Triwizard Tournament?’

‘well yea, but I thought I take it out for a ride to clear my head.’ He replied truthfully.

‘The tasks getting you in a snag then?’ You gotta hand it to him to still be working on figuring out what the second task is even Cedric had stopped. Everyone’s focused on the topic of dates or so you thought.

‘Dates actually.’

‘Dates?’

‘Yea… Don’t make fun of me but I haven’t gotten a date yet. Well you see I did went and asked Cho but turns out she’s going with-‘

‘Cedric.’

‘-Cedric yea.. How’d you know?’

Seeing that he had confessed about being rejected by Cho, you thought it was only fair to tell him your truth too.

‘I kinda was hoping he’d asked me really, but what ended up happening was me helping him ask her out.’

‘wow…..that’s gotta hurt y/n…..sorry!! That was insentive.’

‘Nah it’s fine, I’m getting used to rejection anyway.’

As you rounded the corner, out of his sight. Harry had came up with a brilliant idea.

‘Y/n! Y/n wait up!’

When he reached you, he through caution in the wind- what more can he lose? This close to the yule ball, almost everyone is paired up. Harry would rather go with someone he knew and was comfortable with, then some stranger just to satisfy the requirement of each champion needing a date.

‘I just had an idea, you don’t have to agree but since every champion requires a date.’

Your brows arch at the statement.

‘yes I know, it’s compulsory. I swear. But I just thought being that both the people we wanted to go with are each other’s dates, I was wondering that maybe…why don’t we go together…. To the yule ball…Be each other’s dates to the yule ball?’

‘hmmmmm.’ You weighed out his proposition. ‘yea..yea! Why should we let a good party go to waste just because of them?!?’

‘Brilliant!’ Harry was smiling, Proud that for once in the past 3 weeks, he didn’t choke while asking a girl out. ‘I’ll pick you up at 7pm outside the y/h/h common room.’

If the reception for this is well, I might do a part 2. tbh currenty I have 3 possibe endings, but still can’t choose wish. so comment which you’d like to see!

Can be with multiple ending.

1. You/cedric, Cho/harry

2. You/harry, Cho/cedric

3. Cho/cedric. More Angst, remains platonic, you/harry both heartbroken.

Taglist [All/General]: @gruffle1

#cedric diggory x reader #cedric diggory #cedric diggory imagine #harry potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagine #cho chang #fandomscombine writes #cedric diggory angst #cedric diggory imagines

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