#i mean ofc they do they are designed to learn basically everything is new to them

[corpocyborg]

God, I will never not enjoy how surprised nearly all my younger students get when they find out how much I know about video games. Like... but you're my teacher... and you're nearly 30... and you're a woman... how can this be??? 🤯

[donnabenevientosimpingzone]

Alright, your poll made me curious! What are your new headcanons about Donna dating each of the newly mutated Dimitrescu sisters? (And, if you’re comfortable with answering it ofc, do you have any spicy headcanons too?)

Ooooooh okay okay ok ok ok- firstly I would like to preface by saying the newly designed sisters behave differently. Before I idealized them a little more than usual and they basically don’t act much different then normal, but this is the Cadou we’re talking about. As the captions say- the Cadou during the mutation heightens each sister’s respective sense so they do act more beastly and ravenous than usual.

Bela

- Becomes the most uncontrollable when mutated, if she doesn’t get it her way then there is no way, her anxiety reigns supreme

- Constantly by Donna’s side and needs physical reassurance; wraps her tail around her, a wing, wing across the thigh, anything

- Seems to constantly be in a state of fight or flight, girl will roar at a bee that buzzes just slightly too loud for her comfort, which means Donna has to be mindful of what may/may not set her off

- Donna has to let her repetitively check things, kinda like how your dog may sniff you a few times when you come home to make sure it’s you

- Often times if Bela is mutated, so is Donna. Spider Donna does a lot to comfort Bela, and neither of them quite know why yet

- As much of an anxious lil punk Bela is mutated, Donna finds it adorable. They’ve found their own groove with things, and while Bela is the one comforting Donna’s anxieties unmutated- she can return the favour here

- The progress of unmutating is like waking up after a night of drinking for Bela- she remembers bits and pieces but not everything- and ends up feeling awful about how she acts when mutated

- Theyre working on it together

Cassandra

- Cassandra is already a pretty hypocritical person, she’s the middle child, of course she’s going to act all whiny when she gets attention she wants

- But in her mutated form her mixed signals get even worse

- She’ll rub up against Donna practically begging to be pet, and then the moment Donna lifts her hand to do so- Cass hisses and runs away

- It definitely was a huge hurdle for the two of them to work over, but they’ve found ways

- Their love language is subtle. They may make eye contact from across the room, Donna may put out an extra plate even if Cassandra doesn’t join for dinner, Cassandra may take a nap on Donna’s bed when she isn’t there and leave it a mess to show Donna she did.

- Her mutated form does make a good mount though. On the lucky days, Donna gets to join her for hunts.

- Can spiral into uncontrollable rage if not careful, but somehow Cassandra always recognizes Donna and refuses to hurt her

Daniela

- the most conscious of the sisters when mutated, and therefore doesn’t act too differently

- The only real difference is just how eager she is to please

- Donna has to be pretty mindful with what she asks of Daniela while she’s mutated, because Dani is going to take it all literally and bend her back to make her request a reality- even if Donna says it jokingly

- They’ve come up with “safe words” so Daniela knows when NOT to basically start world war just to get Donna a lollipop

- Cuddles. All the cuddles. If Donna is also mutated, Daniela will hold onto her like a baby bat.

- Kisses are harder with Daniela due to how contorted her mouth has become, which makes her upset, so they learned to compromise by bumping heads like cats

- Tail wagger

As for the spicy headcannons- I will admit that I have thought of a few. These will be written more generally.

- they have prehensile feet, since their arms became wings- they adapt the bird strategy of making their muscular legs makeshift arms and hands

- Although they don’t have as fine of control, they tend to wrap them around the hips and legs, and use them to pin

- The tail is a very useful tool ya know.

- They have some control over the tentacles but definitely not entire control

- I have NOT thought about them as receivers so all of these are them as tops

Bela

- her split face is optimal for oral, and it tends to be her preferred anyways

- Tries to hold her beloved with her wings but it depends if it’s successful

- She has the longest tongue of the mutated sisters. Do with that what you will.

Cassandra

- she’ll use her pharyngeal jaws to keep her lover in place, she’s surprisingly gentle with them if she wants to

- Her wings are more used as tools to give her power, especially when she’s dry humping

- Really good with her tail. Do with that what you will.

Daniela

- has the best control of her talons, the bat-like wing giving her a thumb gives her the ability to finger her lover

- she has the largest wingspan of the sisters so they tend to just shield her and her lover like an extra curtain- she wants the meal all to herself after all

- She does have a tongue but it’s mostly pulled away due to all her teeth, when it does come out though- it has a grasping end. Do with that what you will.

[pigeonstab]

Hiiii! i recently (scandalous i tell you) discovered your blog and intently fell in love with your art style😭😭💜, do you have any art tips or the way you draw the skulls and body of the skeles or the lighting or just anything i would love to know. -anon 🪐💜

That's so sweet! ofc!

Well first off, I'm gonna say something no one likes, for skulls, practice is just the best thing to do.

Skulls (I'm talking specifically about Sans' skull not anatomically correct ones) were like the hardest thing to draw at first just because it's got weird proportions, I wanted to make sure the cheek bump out was the right shape and size both in width and heigh compared to the rest of the skull and honnestly it's just a mess, then you have to figure out where to put the features on top of that. So to me those are things to look out for, proportions and placement on the face also angles!!! drawing skulls from different angles is hard and you should use reference, either from real pictures or from different artists! (I often find myself trying to replicate skull angles by looking at Theskeletongames/Poetax's art who's like a god at making perspective work (though obviously if you do any sort of copy or tracing don't post it as your own, but that goes withot saying))

I think a circle is the best base, use the circle to draw forehead, then add the bump-out on the bottom half of the circle.

In terms of drawing the skeleton I'd say using reference is a good start but a few things to keep in mind is that the upper arm and the thigh are made up of one single bone, while the shin and forearm are both made up of two bones. also, Ribs go downwards from the spine

I also have a tutorial on how to draw sans (it is outdated now I think but it could still be useful)

Lighting!! Lighting is lovely, the way I learned is to pick somewhere from which the light is coming from, then have everything in shadow and carve out the light, think about the volumes you're working with, what will be hit by the light and what will stay in the dark, is there any object that's projecting a shadow on something else? etc

and general tips If you ever want to learn how to draw anyhting your way out will be volumes, break objects or anatomy down into simpler shapes, trace over something, from multiple angles, here's an example of me doing this.

for color one thing that helps me tons is figuring out values (this is mostly for digital art) value is the intensity of a color basically and you can check that by putting your colors in black and white, If in black and white your colors are too close together and you can't tell the difference between them it means there's no contrast and that can make a design hard to read, so use contrast to your advantage to lead the viewer's eye, make a more cohesive design and have an overall more appealing art peice

(everything I say here is to be taken with a grain of salt, these are basic rules that I feel are not only important but interesting, when you know the rules you know how to break them to make something new and creative)

thank you for letting me ramble about art lol <3

[wederyed]

I really love your designs for tissues and yinyang so much? Do you have any headcanons for them or are they just for fun?

TYSM!!!! AND YESSIR DO I!!!!

ok so for tissues i feel this is probably a pretty common headcanon (im new to the fandom) but that man has some chronic illnesses going on there. i feel as if he tends to need a LOT more rest than other people, which is why i designed him in sleepwear so hes always ready for a nap and always comfortable despite his illness. and while i havent drawn them with it yet, i do headcanon him to use a cane/other mobility aids as a result of his fatigue yk? also theyre siblings with soap just bc ofc. he/they aro manliker btw. and hispanic.

next yinyang!!!!! ill be going over my two designs, first off my conjoined twin one!!!! basically they were never able to be separated as most of their vital organs are connected and neither would survive the operation if they were separated, so theyre two peas in a pod. until the separation episode i think everything stays the same it was just some magic science bs yk yeah you know what i mean. ofc gave them some beautiful viltigo cause yk. black and white. makes sense. they can both control each others limbs with the others permission, and when one goes into “headspace” they basically just take a nap if that makes sense…

my D.I.D design is pretty self explanatory i think, i made him hispanic because theyre both just like me for real !!!!!! tbh i headcanon them to have more alters but yin and yang are the main hosts who cohost all the time yk? anyways both designs are aroace, yin is the aro yang is the ace LOL, neither have a specified preference other than the ideal man ever being tissues 🫶

relationship headcanon wise, they arent really specifically in a romantic relationship or a platonic one, i feel them being in a qpr makes the most sense. two bros who kiss. yeah. they both really enjoy helping take care of tissues (though yang will rather eat shit than admit that, he enjoys it because he wants to be more understanding and compassionate towards others, especially yin. yin is self explanatory why he enjoys taking care of tissues.) i think tissues is a real big people guy and loves meeting different kinds of people with different backgrounds, so seeing a guy whos actually two guys was super interesting and he wanted to learn more about them, plus hearing yinyang talk to each other while he rests is a highlight of the day, even if trophy tells them to stfu and get out of the room

anyways thats my ramble i hope you all enjoyed thanks for coming

[zonerz]

your alvi character is soooo cute and cool looking i love him…

OMG 🥺 TYSMMM He’s my pride and joy and I love him so so much!!! I have sm I still wanna do with him and I'm so so excited for KHML to get him back into the action! 🫶 Unfortunately that also means he will, on some level, being Going Thru It but that's a small price to pay for more content of my boy <3 <3 <3

I hope u dont mind me taking this moment to ramble abt his general deal and vibe bc I feel like my thoughts are all scattered throughout my art with him 😭🙏 Will add a cut and reading past is ofc optional but TYSM for the interest in general! His design is so fun to doodle and he’s got a whole Dreamhouse Closet of fits 👍

But!! Basically in UX my boy joined Vulpes and got his keyblade on his bday, Dec. 25th when he turned 13-14 or so :] he started out on his own and was pretty quiet but very compassionate which paid off in the long run and got him some good friends (both in the form of Ephemer and co. and then with my friends' keykids Vivian and Vial--highly rec checking out their art too btw !!! @thequibblingking13 and @thatalien404 I love Vial and Vivi so so much as well 🥺)

As he pulled in these new friendships (and in the case of Vivi and Vial, practically family/siblingship) Alvi ends up having that compassion fuel him to become more skilled with his keyblade, learn more about how to best guilt and use medals, the best ways to Raid, etc. in order to be able to both protect/keep the people he loves safe as well as to be a teacher. He loved exploring new worlds and helping people in general and I think would end up being the kinda general Big Brother FigureTM who other kids could run to with questions--especially as he got into his later teens.

He ends up learning quite fast and scaling up pretty exponentially compared to some of his peers and, in general, ends up fairly competitive with the weekly rankings and PVP (friendly still, but ready to give it his all) and with that, he ends up taking that protector role more seriously as he becomes more competent. By the time the War really comes around when he's like 15-16, he ends up sticking around to fight in the hopes of shouldering as much weight as he can in the place of others, as well as wanting to shield Vivi and Vial as best as he can.

Though things definitely do get murkier as he gets stronger. I think that he'd always been a bit more open/neutral to darkness as a concept. He knows it can corrupt but would use it in small increments, however those would become larger and be used more often as time passed in trade for more strength--more capability. It would culminate at it's most out of control/chaotic when fighting with the Foretellers (shoutout to Ira who reflected every light attack BTW. like okay bro. u asked for this ig 😐) where he'd really just let loose and give it all, though it'd leave him weak and also pretty freaked out. Plus the whole almost dying thing definitely adds to that 😭 so he'd rein things in dramatically after waking up from the war.

As for the amnesia about the war, things shift a little bit here and I think he'd sorta wake up to reality pretty quick, especially with the nightmares. He loves Chirithy but his was never the best at lying, and despite whatever bumps in the road he and Ephemer had, he doesn't anticipate that he'd ever lie straight to his face. So when he confronts Skuld and Ephemer about it all? Well, they hesitate enough to tell him something's up at the very least--as he suspected. He's sympathetic to his friends' new position as defacto leaders though and, being a pretty natural leader-type himself, knows how precarious of a situation it is regarding information on the war. It's horribly distressing for him to remember everything to say the least, and he figures himself pretty capable of handling it, so the thought of having so many of the other kids remember en masse and just start hurting despite it being over just leaves him feeling sick. He doesn't like lying either though, and it feels wrong to hide such a huge event--which the others sympathize with bc damn they're dealing with that conflict too 😭 But, ultimately, Alvi agrees to remain quiet about the whole ordeal--even to Vivi and Vial whom he shared everything with. Which creates. Problems. 😬

In the weird mundane time they spend in the digital daybreak before things start glitching and life is just continuing "as usual" Alvi ends up inadvertently pulling back from Vivi and Vial (as they can tell something is Up) and gets closer to all of the Union Leaders! I really think he'd get along well and have unique but fun friendships with each and every one of them :> There's already that like Besties Bond with Ephemer and Skuld, but I think he'd really love Ven, Brain, and Lauriam, too. He and Lauriam would be the tallest two of the bunch and I think would lowkey prod each other about it in a mini competition as they both continued growing, he would ADORE Ven and love carrying him on his shoulders and such, and I think would just be chill and funny with Brain. Put them in a room together and the sarcasm level doubles 🤝

When Vivi and Vial finally figure things out abt the War tho, and that Alvi was actively lying to them, ehm... 😬 Things begin going downhill FAST from there. He doesn't really have any good explanation for himself as he just wanted to protect them at his core, but it was still not the best way to probably deal with it. That said though, what's WORSE is how he responds to the question of whether he'd do it again and uh. Well. 🤡🤡🤡

So suffice to say, Vivi and Vial feel pretty damn betrayed and generally angry at him but Alvi has hope they can patch things up and get it all sorted out. But with each attempt to be more transparent about things, Alvi keeps having to clam up because a lot of the stuff he's been doing have been with the Union Leaders and needs to remain kinda lowkey, so he ends up being unable to really tell that much which just comes across as condescending at best for Vivi and Vial. And then the glitches start showing up 🧍‍♂️

Alvi, in the midst of trying to both apologize and explain once more to them both, gets pulled away to go help Ephemer investigate what's going on at the Clocktower. He leaves his little siblings with the promise that, the very moment he comes home, he will tell them everything and share everything about all the worlds he's seen since--just like how things used to be. They have his word! And it's still shaky ground but a potential light at the end of the tunnel! But, well, then he and Ephemer end up in Game Central Station and things get very out of hand very fast. The end of the game unravels faster than they can keep up and the last "interaction" Alvi has with his siblings is Vivi crumbling in her own fight across town as the feeling of Alvi getting that hit to the heart from Ephemer echoes through to her oTL

The end of UX makes me SO. AUGH. I feel like I've already talked a lot but there's just So Much in my head for my poor little guy and MAN. His end would follow the canon ending of the game pretty closely. He'd stick around with Ephemer and Skuld and help see the other Leaders off in the Ark with the intention to go grab Vial and Vivi and get them inside to safety before things go wrong again. One little thing I wanna draw or poke at somehow tho is that like, I think he'd give little mementos/gifts to the others before they send them off in the ARK. To Brain and Lauriam, he'd give them each one of his earrings, Elrena would get his neon bracelets, and Ven would get a moogle chain he always kept on his dufflebag :>

As for the final fight. MANNNN. I think that Alvi would be able to put on a pretty convincing act and, somewhat bitterly, kinda goes down the line of like "Well, I really am a liar lately, so what's one more?" and he'd go all-in to ensure Ephemer was pushed to his limit. WHICH SUCKS AND HURTS MY HEART TO THINK ABOUTTT. But he'd pull it off, and he'd get that shot to the heart, and I think in that fight it's poetic if he was fighting more in a stance like YX than usual. Smth smth foreshadowing also legacy etc. 🫶🫶🫶 He'd go out proud and happy, even if it was immensely bitter knowing the last memories his friends all shared with him.

Suffice to say I have SOOOO many thoughts abt him and I am SO excited for Missing Link to do a round 2 bc I have a rough idea of what I wanna do for his arc/character-wise on his second time around and I am also so hyped to get Brain back 🥺🥺🥺 I think their friendship is going to be so so crucial to Alvi in ML and I cannot WAIT to get into it!!! And OFC THE WHOLE RAISING OF XEHANORT??? MANNNNN. He would love Xehanort with everything he had. It's so bittersweet that he would've passed before Xeha started learning how to do a whole lot with the keyblade and got all manipulated by destiny bc like. Alvi would not be perfect, but he would've loved to train him himself. Which like also ik I'm #Coping and whatever but I'm just gonna say that Alvi, after passing in KHDR, is just chilling in Quadratum bc I'm sorry but he's far too stubborn to die and just leave his son behind so soon 🫶 I only have memes with them so far but I truly believe that Alvi and Xeha have a Like Father Like Son dyanmic thang going on. A long line of guys with something wrong with them 🫶💖

ANYWAYS IVE ALREADY TALKED SO MUCH AND COULD GO ON, APOLOGIES, BUT I LOVE LOVE LOVE MY LITTLE GUY AND ALL THE PREQUEL KEYKIDS SM ‼‼‼💖💖💖

[wrenqueenisboss]

Your New Family (SBI!Family x gn!reader) Part 2

Hello again, You guys really liked the first part so... here we are.  part 1

Warning: angst!! implied cursing

Time skip to when the twins are 21, y/n is 20, and Tommy is 18. So, a fifteen-year time skip.

- you have learned that the earlier you wake up the better - if you wake up earlier, you can get your breakfast in peace, and call dibs on the bathroom - so most mornings, you get up a couple minutes before your brothers to grab breakfast - Dadza is usually awake and is the one who made breakfast. He loves making pancakes with chocolates or blueberries - istg, even TECHNO asks for fun designs with the stuff       - Tommy = chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries, and maple syrup. He wants everything       - Wilbur = he either gets plain pancakes or pancakes with a decent amount of strawberries too       - Technoblade = chocolate chip pancakes with a couple strawberries on top. but he likes to create fun designs (secretly)       - Philza = blueberry pancakes with syrup       - you get whatever you want (ofc)

- ever since Philza first found you, Techno has been super protective of you - for that reason, he has mandatory training lessons with you - you’re actually really good, which surprises everyone (even yourself) - it’s hilarious, tho - you and Techno have actual conversations as you swing weapons made to kill at each other basically what happens: Techno: You’re sword skills are literal shit, I can’t believe we kept you Y/n: *laughing* *knows he’s joking* I mean, we kept Tommy so... Tommy, from somewhere else: I HEARD THAT! - you and techno have surprisingly deep conversations at random times too - I do think that c!Techno is socially awkward and has trouble holding a conversation, but I do really think that once Tech is comfortable with you, he’d have little to no issues - Also, the Voices love you, so he isn’t as scared of hurting you - in fact, he’d rather hurt himself a million times over that cause you a single scratch (the Voices are very protective of you) - You also help Techno with the voices - when they get really intense, you guys will sneak out to the forest right by the house and just sit and talk - sometimes, Techno talks more and you listen - sometimes, you talk more and Technoblade listens - but Techno’s favorite thing, is when you recite the Greek Mythology stories he would tell you (before bed when you both were younger) all the while, braiding his hair - if you were ever stressed, he’d return the favor; telling you and epic Greek tale as he braids your hair (assuming it’s long enough. if it isn’t, imagine he’s just running his finger through it repeatedly) - there was one time when Dream managed to kidnap you to use you as leverage against Wilbur. - everyone was shocked when you got kidnapped because you were such a capable fighter that something truly horrible had to happen for you to be taken - Techno was absolutely FERAL  - her nearly killed Wilbur in his rage       - “Your idiotic ideals and egotistical goals are what got our sibling kidnapped. If they die because you failed, I’m going to kill you, Wilbur. Remember, Blood for the Blood God.” - he fights tooth and nail to get you back - when he sees you again, he actually cries (much to his embarrassment and everyone else’s utter shock) - keep in mind, you’ve been tortured for information for two weeks straight so... you aren’t exactly in your best shape - when he pulls back from his bear hug to look you over he growls, eyes darkening - “I am going to kill Dream.” - You hug him with as much strength as you can muster and say “thank you for rescuing me. I’m okay now” - He is so protective, but also knows to give you your space after that incident - when everyone else betrays him or leaves him, you stay. He also stays with you. (It’s a mutual stay-ing) - you guys are always there for each other

- You and Wilbur have always been less close, but you still have an amazing relationship - You’re the first person he talks to about his new songs, and he gets so excited about them it’s so cute - He will not hesitate to play his guitar and sing to help you fall asleep - it’s like his unofficial job in the family. He helps Tommy, for sure, you when you need it, techno’s just shy and can’t ask (he enjoys it tho) and Philza can sleep just fine. - I also think that you and Wilbur would be such a chaotic duo - not as much as you and Tommy, but more scary chaotic (you and Techno together are just scary. No one wants to mess with you or him) - you and Wilbur would slowly accumulate varying degrees of blackmail for each member of your family - after you collect the blackmail, you go do crazy stuff and use the blackmail to not get in trouble, or not get as serious of a punishment - Wilbur is SO protective, it’s almost suffocating ngl - if you even mentioned dating someone, he’d want to know literally everything about them.  - I know it kinda contradicts the whole blackmail thing, but you and Wilbur actually are kinda chill. You know that you can always talk to each other and will always be there - which is why he feels so destroyed when he finds out that Dream kidnapped you to use as leverage against him - he was a MESS - wasn’t eating, sleeping, or taking care of himself. Philza had to force him to do so - He did everything he could to get you back without antagonizing Dream into doing something worse, which was a difficult and painful balance to maintain - when you finally were rescued, he couldn’t look at you (at your tapestry of wounds and scars) without nearly vomiting from the overwhelming guilt - because of this, your sibling relationship sadly collapsed - you were no longer anywhere as close as you once were

- you and Tommy are a nightmarish duo - you know how Techno is infamous for arson and murder? and Sapnap is infamous for murdering pets? Well, you guys do that for fun - and despite how annoying you are to other people, they would never dream of trying to stop you - Tommy looks up to you so much - I swear, you are his hero - you were the one that helped train him after his lessons with Techno weren’t going so well - despite being two years younger than you, this man would murder anyone who ever talked shit about you - he did get in trouble for that once - someone called you a name and he just snapped - your heart breaks when Tommy is forced into situations no one his age should be forced into, so you help him as much as you possibly can - because of the stressful time period in which you guys live, he has bad nightmares - he made you swear not to tell anyone when you walked in on him suffering from the after-effects of a nightmare. (you only agreed because you knew that was the only way he would actually tell you what was going on) - so now, you help him go to sleep by playing one of his music disks and sitting next to him in bed, just... talking - speaking of music disks, whenever you get sick, he’ll just sit by your bed for a while while the music disks play in the background - I 100% think that he’d play all the songs that the two of you loved from when you were younger, in the hopes it’d make you feel better (mentally, at least) - when Wilbur and Techno return from a patrol without you, faces clouded with heavy emotion, he deep down suspects what happened but still asks - “where’s n/n?” His voice gets a little more desperate when he asks again. “Where the f- is my sibling?!” - Wilbur flinches before answering and when he does... Tommy just stops functioning - his brain stops, blanks. He can’t believe it. His favorite sibling. His favorite person. His protector. His friend. The person he trusted. The person he thought would always be there wasn’t. And it wasn’t even my choice. That was the worst part. - When he hears that it was Dream the captured you, when he hears what dream is doing to you....? My mans is almost as scary as Technoblade - like everyone is low-key scared of how angry he is - Philza makes him stay home during the big rescue mission, so he spends the entire time anxiously pacing. - He has a panic attack and listens to his disks to calm himself down. This makes him feel even worse as you were the one who would calm him down from the attacks - anyways, once you got home he was so relieved he nearly collapsed - his heart broke when he saw all of your injuries - he let techno take care of you, tho, since he knew that his brother would be able to take care of you much better than he could

All in all, you have a wonderful family in the Sleepy Bois. As unfortunate as your past may be, you are so grateful that you were so abandoned in the snow; so grateful that Philza found you and took you home. So grateful for your wonderful brothers who would do anything for you.

tag:

@beeissdead

[erenthegreywolf]

Major JatP Spoilers (and really long)

I just fucking watched Julie and the Phantoms for the first time finally after just seeing memes/fanfics/posts and the entire soundtrack for it and I'm

I can't believe that show exists like it is so unbelievable how good it is I WILL go into detail rn -

So ofc I can't remember everything that happened, I was busy holding back tears, shouting fuck you at the tv, singing, and quoting fucking everything

and I mean I did happily yell gay when Willex appeared I love them (and when Reggie and Luke did anything I mean cmon) but I DID start up the show again to go through as I write this

the dahlias were a beautiful addition to the sets and I- THE RANDOM LADY gives Julie one when she's crying for her mom in the Orpheum alley??? PLEASE THAT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL

getting ahead of myself and very out of order ok ok BUT having all the context for the show really gives me a new perspective like

everyone is hurting so much and I could only fully grasp it now after seeing it and I mean 9 episodes did A LOT

everyone has noticed it before but Luke's missing person poster literally behind him as they eat the hot dogs is like?? the set designers were ON TOP OF IT and I love this little detail so much makes me freak every time because the attention to even the SMALLEST detail and it gave us some insight into Luke if we noticed

and do NOT get me started on the fucking ACTING everyone is so good at all of it, like how Madison portrayed Julie being just broken over her mom and Charlie going from loud to insanely soft and quiet as he says "I am… so sorry" and Jeremy being good ol' happy Reggie until the FUCKING "You guys are the only family I have" LINE and the Willex interactions are amazing Owen and Booboo were great together I could go on huyvyibh

THEN THE CALEB FORESHADOW??? AND IT GETS BRIGHTER AS JULIE SINGS WAKE UP????? and it is so fun that some of the episodes just pick up right where the last one left off

And the show outright saying yes, Alex is gay was so mindblowing to me like I don't think I have EVER seen a show do that (but I could be living under a rock) and when the boys tell Julie to give Luke a chance and they watch him as he watches his PARENTS on his BIRTHDAY it was so fucking painful and then THEN Unsaid Emily.

But first, when Julie asks "Who's Emily?" thinking she's someone Luke liked and Luke is so panicked to change the subject he can't even talk about her, how he cut Alex off when he went to explain I gycuvyv

And how they all react to seeing Bobby again and learning he stole all their songs like they are so angry and hurt by this and I understand fully why they want revenge when music is literally EVERYTHING to Luke

but like what it could be like for Bobby? he goes to a therapist still so he might not be over losing his boys still and just him completely taken aback that they're back? he can SEE them and they're playing music with what is basically his niece? how he's shaking after the Orpheum because he has actually seen his boys again after YEARS of them gone? now I understand why they're mad at him but it could have been Bobby's way of coping with losing all of his band and quite possibly the closest friends/family he has ever had

it hurt when they would jump to the boys at the club and then back to Julie alone at the dance, and when they did show up and found her just devastated that they left her hanging hurts SO MUCH worse, like she completely thought they'd show and they didn't and she said it was a MISTAKE god I cant

and now I'm circling back, having the context for Unsaid Emily is both amazingly beautiful and devastatingly soul crushing, all Luke EVER wanted was to connect with people through his music and show his parents that he COULD and CAN make it and PLEASE the music for this show was fucking amazing

and I am foaming at the mouth over Julie giving the Pattersons Unsaid Emily and Luke having to step out but INSTRUMENTAL UNSAID EMILY IN THE BACKGROUND I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS NOT IN TEARS BAWLING AND SCREAMING

Ok and how the love triangle wasn't forced like Nick knows and STATES that he missed his chance, there was no who does Julie want? nO it was always gonna be Luke (but I respectfully turn my eyes away tho i can appreciate more Juke now)

and the ENTIRE scene when Flynn finds the Sunset Curve shirt and talks about Rose sending the boys to Julie was so good

WILLEX HUG WAS SO PAINFUL AND WONDERFUL like Alex hesitates but then just does and Willie is surprised but then just hugs him tighter in return AND THEN ALEX SAYING HE'S OK???

but I loved Luke saying "Alex, no dancing" and Alex fucking dancing and AND JATP OPENING FOR P!ATD IBIYVBb and the entire scene of them waiting for and getting the call from the Orpheum was gold, just mwah mwah mwAH

AND STAND TALL WITH CONTEXT TOO??? i am so heartbroken and destroyed but utterly ALIVE over Stand Tall and really any of the fuckin songs from the soundtrack but Stand Tall, she thought the boys were gone but then they come back to her and i-

and the GARAGE SCENE PLEASE the boys crying and she literally TELLS THEM TO KEEP EXISTING and THEN "No music is worth making, Julie, if we're not making it with you" I CAN NOT WITH THIS HEARTBREAK NO REGRETS

but oh my GOD THE HUG and REGGIE'S SINGLE TEAR AND THEN LUKE LIKE "I think the band's back" fuck shit god DAMMIT I LIKE THIS TOO REGGIE

And sure, I will say that some characters annoyed me, like Tia Victoria and Carrie i mean i didn't like them but I understand them I guess?

Tia just kinda made me mad since they had to remove the plate from the extra chair for Rose from her and I-

And Carrie was just so mean to Julie it annoyed me mostly but Savannah played her really well like how she reacted when Julie went on the play Finally Free and how she STOOD UP IN AWE at Stand Tall jfebvibf

and yes yes I freaked tf out over the chemistry moment and when Alex danced with Dirty Candy or any of the Ray&Reggie moments or just Ray on screen in general (them distracting him by asking him about his CAMERA?? jhvyughbhu)

-

But in all, Julie and the Phantoms was such an amazing show. Kenny Ortega and Paul Becker and literally EVERYONE on staff did a wonderful job with this show. It has helped millions of people through different problems and gave joy back to those who might have needed it. JatP was literally gold and I don't think anything will be able to even come CLOSE to matching it for a long time, if not ever. That may be a bold statement, but the show was canceled and we're all still here, hoping and waiting for this beautiful masterpiece to come back.

I hate that JatP was canceled and I'm so utterly destroyed that these boys, Ray, Julie, Carlos, and everyone else might never come back. But what I can say is that I got to watch this little piece of Heaven and I am so glad I did. I ranted and I raved about all the little things I liked in this, and I definitely didn't point out everything I liked, but this post summed it up pretty well I think.

I don't think I will ever feel this strongly for something ever again. After seeing so much content for JatP and finally seeing it after months of wanting to, the hype and how I thought I would see this show lived up to the real thing.

Really, I don't know how to end this and I've gone from fuckin rambling nonsense to writing an essay?? have fun reading this? just get me out bye

[drabbles-of-writing]

Can we get more new age shenanigans of Luz and the detective/journalist?

ask and you 2 shall receive

Eda, chugging spiked apple blood: hows the detective stuff going Luz, face-down on the floor: I’m so going to get the FBI called on me Eda: welcome to the club!

the townsfolk have no idea of Luz’s Masterful Avoiding The Authorities Plan so when interviewed they give Very blunt and honest answers all confused like “you didn’t know this?? it happens all the time” meanwhile Luz keeps insisting that the crackhead shit the townsfolk is telling everyone wasnt THAT bad.

Detective: so the locals say your often seen with a group ranging between eight to eleven individuals. who are they, exactly? Luz, hanging upside down on her chair and without a care in the world: 🎶and I’ve got friends on the other siiiiide🎶 Detective: what does that even MEAN

since Luz is no help whatsoever and threatening her with legal action doesn’t do shit, the detective decided to spy on Luz to try and learn what kind of people shes associating with. in the first two nights he’s learned of four of her friends. a guy who appears to be excited about absolutely everything and not understanding social norms, another guy with green hair whos just as crackheaded as Luz but twice as sweet, a woman with a fishhook earring that everyone apparently fears getting pummeled by, and a dog with a smooshed in face that seems to communicate like any other canine but somehow Luz seems to understand what hes saying. he brings this evidence to Luz and demands answers n she just shrugs n goes “oh them? yeah they’re my friends. met them in the cult n they escaped with me” n ofc the detective then asks if he can see them for interviews and is momentarily unnerved when Luz laughs at him and is then thoroughly annoyed when she responds with “most of them wouldn’t go near you with a fifteen foot pole. the rest would give even more confusing answers than me” and left it at that.

the Detective at one point showed up at Camila’s house to ask her a few questions and was VERY thrown off-guard to open the door and see an old lady with rats-nest of hair just Hangin on the couch. they held eye-contact for a few seconds before she bolted out the nearest window. Camila ofc had to answer a few questions but her rule is that if the questions aren’t specific, she won’t give full answers. so he leaves basically only knowing that her name is Eda and shes Camila’s kind-of-gf and thats it. later overhears Luz complaining under her breath “damnit, moms gonna kill me” and turns out Eda is also her mother in a sense so that was some stuff for the Detective to piece together.

Luz is having a Rough Day w the Detective and is very clearly being a Dumbass In Distress™ and Amity basically Teleports over. since the Detective knows little to nothing about Amity (other than she hangs w Luz’s group), considering shes often too busy to visit the human realm, he IMMEDIATELY nabs her and starts shooting off endless questions. Amity works as a Council advisor and dealt w Lilith & Eda a lot so, you best believe she took it all in stride. He also notes a fancy ring shes wearing. Detective: are you married? Amity, oblivious to Luz trying not to laugh yeah?? obv Detective: may I ask who your husband is? Amity, who has had to hear questions like this since Forever, grabbing the Wheezing Luz n holdin her close: well I don’t have a husband, so my wife will have to do Detective: I- Detective @ Luz: YOUR MARRIED??  Luz, smug: I literally have a ring, dude Detective: well yeah but it has those funky designs on it!!! and your covered in odd tattoos n weird ear piercings!!!! I thought you were just being fancy!! Luz: its on my fucking ring finger

anyway needless to say the Detective bugged Amity a LOT about interviews upon learning this dumbass he deals with is somehow married to a rather sophisticated and put-together woman. Amity is very Elusive however and its a miracle in of itself if anyone can nab her for questioning. the Detective just stared @ Luz like “how tf did you get legally married??” n Luz calmly explains it was a good few years after she came back to the town and about a year or two before she started up the public appearances. so THEN the Detective had to figure out that Luz had been in the town long before the police had ever known, Camila was aware, Luz had been busy with something before now she wouldn’t disclose, and despite the fact she had no legal records whatsoever even after she came to the town she got married and has a marriage certificate, albeit written in a way the Detective had never seen before. Luz is lowkey enjoying him lose his mind trying to figure this out

[steamlore]

HighFleet - Shipbuilding Guide

Learn how to build ships that have better performance and higher cost-efficiency than built-ins!

HighFleet Shipbuilding

(Initially created August 5th 2021 for game version 1.1)Building effective ships in Highfleet can be extremely frustrating to new players; but is a very rewarding task. Player ships can significantly out-class built-ins in terms of cost-performance and efficiency. This guide is oriented towards players who are not cheating or have not racked up a giant score for new game mode. While the guide can help players who don’t care about fuel expense or cost efficiency, these items are an important consideration in the guide.

Ship Editor Basics:

Hopefully someday Konstantine will explain this ingame... I've had to tell dozens of players how to place multiple parts without going back to the parts menu every step... -You can hold shift whilst placing parts (left click) to retain that piece on your cursor, so that you can place another immediately. -You can create a disconnected segment of a ship, band-box select it, then right click lift the entire piece. You can place/rotate the entire piece… including shift-placement for very fast construction.

Fig.1

Fig.2 Incidentally, I discovered a placement bug with the antenna... -If your editor seems to have locked up, drag select your main hull (the piece of ship containing the Bridge) and right click to attach to your cursor. Place it somewhere empty and your game should be responsive again. This is assuming you are building a sane ship under 200k of cost, ofc...

Highfleet Ship Design Theory

Hybrids suck. Do not build hybrids. Some may find this controversial, but this seems really obvious, and quite a few other players agree with me on this. TacticalShips (that are designed to duke it out in ship vs ship combat) and Strategic/Support/Auxiliary ships should be built very differently.(Other than AAW pickets, but they are a special case and the angles your opponents will start from in Air Defense Mode are far more limited than in Ship vs Ship) Reasoning? -In ship vs ship combat, you get to pick which ships on your team get to appear. Thus, unless you screw up badly, there is no reason for your tanker, missile carrier or sensor ship to ever have to get shot at by cannons. -Tactical ships want to minimize cross-section, to minimize probability of getting hit and mass required for a given armor thickness. Lots of fuel tanks *greatly* increases cross section, mass, and engine count required to achieve a given design speed, making them inferior in combat. -(Good) Tactical ships should use mostly gimballed engines to have maneuverability in combat. This means they are less fuel efficient for a given mass of ship and design speed. -Electronics (Search Radar, ELINT, FCS Radar, IRST, and Jammer) do not function behind armor. They have reduced function through structure too, so don’t get too fancy with structural cages. -Support ships want to use as many static engines as possible, to maximize their fuel efficiency (as well as cruise speed for a given budget). It is my experience that a fleet of optimized tactical ships and optimized support craft is both deadlier/more durable in combat and more fuel efficient than a fleet of hybrids.

Fundamentals of Tactical Ship Design

Ships need to consider how they will fight, what class of targets they will be optimized against, and how they will protect themselves. Players must also consider their own limitations; saying “speed is overpowered and the best defense” might be true, but most players are not 11 Honor Lightning Pilots and therefore should probably not try to fight cruiser fleets in an ultralight. Similarly, if your aim is bad, pick weapon systems with faster reloading speeds and larger magazine sizes, and maybe pack more missiles.Thrusters should be placed towards the extremities of a tactical ship, for example, the corners on a boxy design. Thrusters high up above the center of mass of a ship generally improves stability, placing them below center of mass decreases stability. Increased stability makes landing easier, while decreased stability allows for doing backflips and other tricks while dodging. As stated earlier, tactical ships want to be as compact as possible for a given amount of capability (generally measured by speed/weapons/defense), this makes you harder to hit and easier/cheaper to protect with passive defenses. Unless you are the greatest pilot of all time, you will find yourself getting hit eventually. Losing your bridge = dead ship; losing the ammo usually results in an explosion that (depending on amount of ammo and size of ship) may instantly kill it, and having fuel tanks get hit may cause fires. Obviously getting hit in power, engines or weapons is bad and will lead to a decrease in the ability of your ship to fight, but they are less instantly fatal than an ammo explosion. Therefore, you want to protect your ammo and bridge as much as possible, then fuel and generators. Generators and crew compartments also have more hitpoints than fuel or ammo, which makes them a decent way to protect your explodey bits. While losing the bridge is an instant kill on that ship, it’s fairly durable and less prone to sudden death than ammo. Thus on small ships you protect the ammo even more than the bridge; i.e. hide ammo from expected direction of fire behind the bridge. For ships with relatively few and light weapons, it is possible to spread out your ammo so that some of it exploding does not cause a chain reaction. For ships with lots of heavy weapons, that becomes impractical and the ideal is to centralize your ammunition and bury it as deep as possible behind other components.

Fig2b, examples of what -not- to do. TLDR cram components as close to each other as possible, make ship smol as possible for same number of stuff. Put thrusters near the edges/corners for better turning. Put critical components behind less important parts to die as slowly as possible, the order of importance is Ammo & Bridge > Fuel > Generators > Everything else

Basic Design Challenge

Alright, put the above information into practice. Go build a simple ship with following (additional, make sure you incorporate the lessons learned so far) specifications: - Cheap as possible - 4x AK-100 - Solid top armor - Line of 2x1 Reinforced structure on each side - Thrust-Weight Ratio at least 3 - 2 static thrusters - No fuel tanks or ammo directly exposed - Range at least 750km You should have something that looks like this:

Fig.3 Ugly, and poorly optimized, but that can be fixed! This is a cheap and basic frigate sized bottom-fighter, one of the more powerful archetypes in Highfleet. Even with this crappy hull you can probably (with decent aiming/dodging) clear Difficulty 3/Small Tester with negligible internal damage… But your ship is nowhere near it’s potential. Heck, it can’t even land! How to improve this? Well, get ready to read alot of words and stare at lots of pictures… First we’ll overview the parts that go into tactical ships before we swing around to advanced design methods…

Turrets

There is no such thing as best weapon, only best weapon for a given situation for a given player. Thus players will have to decide what weapons to fit to what design. n 2A37 AK-725 AK-100 D-80 MK-1 MK-2 MK-6 A-220 Cal 37mm 57mm 100mm 130mm 180mm 180mm 180mm 220mmR Mag 50 14 4 4 1 2 6 6 RoF (burst length) 2000 (1.51) 350 (2.4) 400 (0.6) 240 (1) N/A 180 (0.66) 180 (2) 120 (3) Reload (per second) 20 (2.5) 10 (1.4) 7 (0.57) 10 (0.4) 6 (0.16) 10 (0.2) 7 (0.85) 20 (0.3) Turret Speed Normal Normal Normal Normal Slow Slow Very Slow Normal $$$ 3000 1500 2000 4000 4000 6000 24000 4000 Size 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 Ammo Req 1 1 1 1 2 4 8 4 Power Req 0.7 0.7 1 1 1.8 2.4 6 3 Crew Req 6 6 6 6 12 24 50 5 In terms of damage per shot (and anti-armor performance when using non-AP munitions), the weapons efficiency is: 37mm *Rocket launchers are very effective when they connect, but their rocket rounds start out slow, then accelerate, requiring a different lead reflex compared to firing guns. Their rockets are also easier to shoot down/dodge than cannon shells. 2A37 With good aim, the CIWS can be extremely potent against lightly protected opponents with it’s 2000 RPM and 50 round magazine. However, it takes 20 (!) seconds to reload it’s magazine, meaning once the readied rounds are depleted, holding down the trigger only fires 2.5 shots per second! Therefore if your aim is bad, it is recommended you open fire only when you have maneuvered into point blank range. (The 2A37 also my recommended weapon of choice for Air Defense ships and a good secondary battery for larger tactical ships to shoot down incoming shells and missiles) Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary AK-725 Commonly regarded as a mediocre weapon, the 57mm lacks the stopping power of 100mm+ weapons, or the ability of the 37mm to saturate the local airspace. However, it is the cheapest gun mount, and actually fairly strong in large numbers (8+) due to it’s large magazine size (14) and great reload rate (10 seconds, or 1.4 rounds per second), extremely friendly for gunners without a disciplined trigger finger. Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary AK-100 On paper, the AK-100 is inferior to the D-80; both have the same magazine size and logistical footprint but the other is higher caliber and does more damage, right? Yet the AK-100 is a fan favorite, while the D-80 is not. For one, the AK-100 fills it’s 4 round magazine in 7 seconds, while the D-80 needs 10. Next, AK-100 has a fire rate of of 400 RPM compared to the D-80’s 240, meaning a shot-cluster from the AK-100 is almost twice as tight as that from the D-80. Faster magazine filling speed and higher ROF also make it decent in point defense, when using Proximity shells. And of course, it is half the price of the D-80… Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary, Proximity, Armor Piercing D-80 For all the advantages of the AK-100, the D-80 offers non-trivially more burst damage up front and better anti-armor performance, as well as a larger proximity shell that has a bigger splash area. If you are a very good marksman and can reliably hit a ship zooming around while flying fast yourself, the D-80 will simply kill the opponent faster on the same logistical footprint. Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary, Proximity, Armor Piercing, Laser Guided MK-1 The first thing you’ll notice when using Big Guns is the reduced turret speed. It just rotates slower than other weapons, making it worse at high speed close range combat. It also requires more power and crew than the standard guns. Unpopular with most players due to it’s single-shot nature. Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary, Proximity, Armor Piercing, Laser Guided MK-2 Quite potent against enemy cruisers with Armor Piercing Ammunition, the MK-2 does cost the same amount as 3 AK-100s and uses more than twice the crew of 3 AK-100s, and uses almost the same power as 3 AK-100s… While there are arguments for not mounting the weight of 3x AK100, the 180mm guns are simply less flexible when not fighting heavy ships. There is some debate whether players should use 4x MK2 or 1x MK6… it depends on your aiming skills. If you are very confident of your marksmanship then 4x MK2 can be superior. Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary, Proximity, Armor Piercing, Laser Guided MK-6 At the cost of a decent frigate before you even factor in logistical footprint, the MK-6 has a higher cost than it’s paper stats show; 8x Ammo requires another 4MW in power and 40 crew to operate… and those crew quarters require power too… and the power generators require more crew. Altogether a MK-6 costs about 30,000 Gold and adds over 2000 tons of mass to a ship. This is before you consider how many more engines (and fuel and crew and power and armor to protect the huge volume!) it takes to keep the same design speed with that extra mass! To top it off, the MK-6 has the same rotational speed issues as the MK-1 and 2, but worse. Opening fire also causes white flashes and shakes to appear on your screen, making aiming more difficult. That being said, with good aim and proper ammunition selection you can obliterate an enemy cruiser in a few salvos. Extremely destructive armament, suitable for use on capital ships to fight other capital ships. Ammo Types: HE, Incendiary, Proximity, Armor Piercing, Laser Guided A-220 The only ship-based rocket launcher in game, the A-220 offers excellent burst firepower on a relatively low logistical footprint. However, due to difficulty of leading targets, increased ease of dodging and vulnerability of your attack to point-defense, it’s fairly unpopular with players. Ammo Types: I don’t actually know all the ammo types you can fit to Rocket Launchers. TLDR: Big guns only cost efficient vs big ships (unless you are Simo Hayha II). AK-100 generally adequate vs everything and can change ammo to be better at whatever it’s facing. Use A-220 if you are a hipster.

Landing Gear Design & Propulsion Selection

Landing Gear

Landing gear (“Legs”) require at least 2 parts for good articulation. They don’t have names as of 1.1, so I will arbitrarily label them:

Fig.4a Types A, B, C, D from left to right n Type A Type B Type C Type D $$$ 400 200 100 50 Power Req 0.4 MW 0.2 MW 0.1 MW 0.07 MW (*) Mass 238t 80t 18t 3t *Estimate When piloting a very light ship (say, under 750t) and with good control, you can just use skids to land. But generally most ships should use landing gear, tactical ships to gain an edge in repair speed, strategic missile/aircraft carriers for faster reloading of expended missiles/replacement of destroyed aircraft. I even put legs on my tankers and spyships; ships without the ability to land just don’t make sense in this world. However, especially on smaller ships, you want the lightest possible legs to avoid excessive thrust/power wastage. For brevity’s sake I’ll just show the types of legs I find appropriate for a given tonnage of ship, though if you are very gentle (zero horizontal motion, less than 9km/h touchdown) with landing you can make do with legs that aren’t quite up to par to save mass/power.

Fig.4b Ultralight

Fig.4c “Corvette Legs” 1x Type C + 1x Type D, suitable for ships up to ~2000t mass

Fig.4d “Frigate Legs” 2x Type C, suitable for ships up to ~4000t mass

Fig.4e 1x Type B + 1x Type C, suitable for ships up to 8000t

Fig.4f 2x Type B, suitable for ships up to 12000t

Fig.4g 1x Type A + Type B, suitable for ships up to 16000t

Fig.4h 2x Type A, suitable for ships up to 20000t For ships that are heavier you can use more than 1 pair of legs to compensate, or just land *very* gently.

Propulsion

The RD series are significantly more fuel efficient but require Large Hull sections. Due to their sheer mass of Large Hull sections it becomes inefficient to build small ships with RD series engines, and very expensive to build fast ships (even if large) with them. Faster, smaller ships will use D-30, NK-25 and D-30S engines for propulsion. Larger, slower ships should use the RD-59 and RD-51. As stated before, tactical ships will want to use mostly gimballed engines and support ships should use mostly static engines. While it is possible to propel a large ship with small engines, the large ship will have extreme fuel consumption for its mass and design speed, not recommended when fuel is one of your biggest expenses in the campaign. TLDR: Use small engines for small ships, strongly consider switching to big engines around 6000t of ship.

Defenses

Reinforced Hull Reinforced hull has the same hitpoint total as an armor block, but at one-fifth of the weight. It’s not perfect, though, because it doesn’t have the damage resistance of armor; you can see this when interlaced armor/reinforced structure triangles get hit by a missile; the structure triangles go deep red or die immediately, whilst the armor triangles (that didn’t fall off from the missing structure) go pink/light red.They Read the full article

[rmtndew]

Begin Again

Summary: Walter Marshall is a dedicated homicide detective doing his best to balance his work life with being a single father to a teenage girl. Fiona Sparks is a woman doing her best to take care of everyone and everything around her, except for herself. Neither has had the best luck with relationships, but once they meet, they’re willing to give it another shot, this time with each other. (It’s basically just romantic fluff) 

Pairing: Marshall and OFC.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Mentions of death, cancer.

A/N - This is a sequel to ‘All I’ve Ever Known’. I started writing this because I needed an escape for some personal stuff going on and my coping mechanism included giving Marshall all the love that man needed, and imagining him being the softest boyfriend to me, then passing those details on to Fiona (my OFC).

I also made a Spotify playlist for this story, if anyone is interested - Begin Again Playlist 

 Tag list - @hollydaisy23, @alyxkbrl, @onlyhenrys, @omgkatinka, @speakerforthedead0​, @gearhead66,  @thethirstyarchive, @oddsnendsfanfics, @littlerinoa, @agniavateira, @aaescritora, @justaboringadult, @beenthroughalot, @seriouslygoodlookinggents,�� @xxxkatxo

If you want to be added/removed from the tag list, let me know!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

The last Wednesday in October was a gray, misty, windy day. It was cold, the kind you felt more in your bones than anywhere else, with the sky occasionally spitting out sleet. I spent the entire twenty-minute drive to my job at Waverly Catering clutching the steering wheel so tightly that my hands were cramping by the time I arrived from white-knuckling it the whole way there. Usually, I would get to work early enough to enjoy the silence and finish off my coffee before officially starting my workday. That day, however, I spent the very little extra time I had trying to get my hands to stop hurting, then chugged down my coffee that had cooled dramatically to a gross lukewarm temperature. 

Before going in, I checked my phone. I always kept it on silent while I drove. My mom had a tendency to text me, make a dozen spelling mistakes because of auto-correct, then correct them one by one, leaving me with about thirteen separate texts to read. It didn’t use to bother me, I thought it was charming and very distinctly Mom. But when she’d gotten sick at the beginning of the year, every text she sent that I couldn’t read immediately made me panic, worrying that something terrible had happened to her, even when I’d just seen her at home a few minutes before. So for my sanity - and hers - I started putting my phone on silent until I got to work, or wherever else I was going. It was a habit I’d kept even after she’d gone into remission because her cancer may have been gone, but my anxiety over her wasn’t. 

That morning when I checked my phone, I saw that I had two texts, but they weren’t from Mom. 

Marshall:  Good morning, Fi. I hope that I get to see you today. I’ll be chained to  my desk with paperwork for a while. This is the first time I’ve not dreaded it. You’re my silver lining.

That was cheesy. I’m sorry. I’m bad at this.

And just like that, all of my stress melted away. The weather didn’t matter, my disappointing coffee didn’t matter, even the cramping in my hands didn’t matter. All that did matter was that Walter Marshall thought of me as his silver lining. Yes it was early days, yes we’d barely known each other a month, yes we’d only gone on two dates, but he made me happier than I’d been in a long time. I felt like I’d been holding my breath for two years, starting when my dad had died in a car crash, followed by my boyfriend Ezra breaking up with me, then losing my job as an interior designer, and capping off with my mom’s cancer diagnoses. Then Walter came along and it was like I could finally breathe again. 

Me:  Please don’t apologize. You have no idea how much I needed to read that this morning. Feel free to be as  cheesy as you want. And I hope I get to see you today, too, even if it  means you’re chained to your desk.

Marshall:  If I don’t see you for some reason,  can I call you tonight? I miss your  voice and you make me want to get better at this talking thing. 

I could feel myself blushing. Even over the phone he made me feel like a teenager with a crush. I had no idea that anyone could make me feel that way as an adult, but he did every time he texted me. 

Me:  Of course you can. Even if we do see  each other, you can still call, if you want? Practice makes perfect, and all that.

Marshall: I’d like that. Talk to you soon.

I sat back in my seat with a sigh as I looked out at the sleet falling from the gray sky, spattering my windshield, blurring out the image of the trees in the park across from me blowing and bending in the wind. 

It was going to be a good day. 

“You look...dare I say it? Happy?” Darcy said as I walked into her office.

I smiled. “You may dare to say it because yes, I am quite happy.”

“And what brings you to such an extreme emotion so early on such a disgusting day?”

I went to her desk and sat in the chair opposite her. “Well, for one, I know that you’re about to do me a big favor that I will forever be grateful for.”

“Fiona Sparks asking for a favor? I’ll mark the day in my calendar,” she joked. “What kind of favor do you need?”

“I need a copy of the peanut butter cookie recipe.”

“For what purpose?” 

“See, that’s where the happiness part comes into play and you, being one of my dearest friends, would love to see me happy.” 

“I would but I’m unsure how a cookie recipe is going to do that.”

“It’s not for me,” I said, smiling wide. “I met this guy -” 

“What? Who?” she asked enthusiastically, her eyes wide with excitement.

“His name is Walter Marshall. He’s our detective who never changes his lunch order.”

“You’re dating one of the homicide detectives? You can feel free to thank me later for giving you that order, by the way. But right now I want details: How long have you been dating and why am I just now finding out about it?”

“We’re not technically dating. I met him a few weeks ago for the first time and we went on two dates last week.” 

“You haven’t dated anyone in over two years, and then you go on two dates in one week?”

“Well, the first was just a coffee date. Saturday we tried having a proper one.” 

“Tried?” she asked, raising her eyebrow. 

“He wanted to take me to dinner, so we went to an Italian place, but before we could order, his daughter called. She was supposed to be at a Halloween party, but some of her friends had lied to her, I guess, and it ended up being a basement party with slightly older boys and she felt uncomfortable, so we went and picked her up. Then we all went for pizza together.”

“He has a daughter, which is some heavy baggage to begin with, but you met her on your second date? That’s a lot, Fiona.” 

“I know it seems like it, but it’s really not. She’s a good kid. And he’s an amazing father, which, oddly, just makes him more attractive,” I said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that his daughter was, understandably, a little iffy about me being with him when he picked her up until she found out that I’m the one who brings the cookies. She apparently loves them and I told her that I might be able to get her a copy of the recipe and that seemed to pave the way for her not hating me instantly. And she’s thirteen, so that’s a pretty big deal.”

“I have so many questions right now but I can’t sort them all out so I’m going to be annoying you with them all day, just be prepared for that. All I want to know right now is if you want the recipe laminated or not?” 

I let out a relieved breath. “Yes, please, if you don’t mind. And thank you so much, Darcy. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I do know. You never ask for anything, even simple things, so the fact that you’re willing to ask me for a favor means this is a pretty big deal,” she said. “He must be a good guy.”

I nodded. “He really is.” 

I arrived at the police station that morning a little before eleven. I’d left the shop early, worried the weather might get bad again and didn’t want to be late for my delivery. Thankfully the sleeting had stopped, allowing me to get there a few minutes early. A few minutes that I used up trying to pull my dolly through the parking lot. The lot had been salted, which was good in that at least it wasn’t icy, but the wheels on my dolly didn’t seem to like the brine mixture. They kept locking up on me. Between that and having to fight against the roaring wind, it took me an embarrassingly long time to reach the station door. Before I could push it open, someone opened it from the inside for me. I looked up, expecting to see Officer Bates. He was the security officer that was posted downstairs and always went through the containers full of lunches that I brought to the homicide unit every week. Instead, I saw Marshall.

“Hello,” he said with a smile. 

I immediately felt like giggling. The last time I’d seen him, we’d kissed. And seeing him right then, seeing his beautiful, handsome face, I wanted so badly to kiss him again. Instead, I felt myself grow shy as I blushed so fiercely that my cheeks stung with the new heat that rushed to them. 

“Hi,” I said. He pulled the door open all the way, then stepped back, allowing me to walk in. My stomach fluttered as I looked back at him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He closed the door behind me. “May I help you with your cart?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Would you let me help you take it back to your car when you leave, at least?”

I fought every instinct inside of me that insisted I say no. Darcy was right: I hated asking for even simple things. I never wanted to burden anyone. But since I’d met Marshall, I’d learned that his way of showing interest or affection was to do things for me. But he always asked first, wanting my permission. It challenged me, but in a good way. I didn’t need to always go it alone if I didn’t have to. 

“Um, yeah, I’d appreciate that. Thank you,” I said. “The wheels didn’t seem to agree with the salted parking lot. You could probably pull it a lot easier than me.” 

Marshall stayed with me as Officer Bates went through the containers I’d brought in. He wasn’t close enough to make anyone passing by question it, but it was close enough that my hand hanging at my side could feel the heat coming from his hand and forearm, that was visible from the blue henley that was pushed up to his elbows in a way that I found incredibly attractive. My fingers itched to seek out his, but I fought it. Keeping them obediently beside me. Once Officer Bates was done and gave me the all clear to take the food up, Walter walked me to the elevator and pressed the button to call it down. Then he held the door back, letting me in first before following me. After the door slid closed, he fell back half a step, putting him right beside me. His hand bumped mine, his fingers snaking through, gently holding mine. I smiled, knowing I wasn’t the only one itching for contact. 

I turned without a thought and placed a kiss on his shoulder. Then I paused, a moment of panic rising in me that maybe we weren’t at that level yet. But before I could move or feel too worried, he placed a kiss on the top of my head.

“I keep thinking about Saturday,” he whispered. 

“Me, too,” I said. I looked up at him. “It was...pretty amazing.”

He smiled. I could see his sharp canine teeth. They were oddly charming. “Yes, it was.” He laced his fingers with mine more securely, properly holding it. “I know I mentioned calling you tonight, but I hoped that we might have dinner again instead. If you’re not busy?”

“I’m exceptionally not busy tonight.”

“Good.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead before turning his head back to face the elevator door. “I won’t be able to finish all my paperwork today, there’s too much and it keeps multiplying like rabbits, so since I have to do it tomorrow anyway, I’m going to knock off here around five. Could I pick you up after that? Around five-thirty, perhaps?” 

I nodded, smiling. “That sounds great.”

The elevator dinged as we reached the homicide unit floor. He gave my hand a couple of gentle squeezes before letting it go as the door slid open. He stepped out, then held the door for me like he had before, letting me pull my cart out. He walked with me almost all the way to the break room before a shorter man with glasses stopped him. 

“Lieutenant Marshall, can I speak with you in your office for a moment?” he asked. 

“Of course.” Walter touched my shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said to me quietly before leaving for his office. 

I continued on and was met by most of the detectives waiting for me. Like usual, they didn’t talk to me much, just thanking me for the food before taking their box and going. I took my time, hoping that by the time that I was done, the man speaking with Walter would be gone before I brought him his lunch. When I was done, I packed up my cart before taking Marshall’s boxed lunch and walked down the hall, finding the door to his office open. I could hear him talking still and wasn’t sure what to do. I’d made a deal with him a few weeks back to always bring his lunch to his office whenever I delivered - the first time was because a uniformed officer looked like he was going to swipe it, after that, it was to thank him for rescuing me from a pushy creep while I was with my ‘friends’. We’d never discussed if I should interrupt while he was working. I chewed my lip, debating what to do for several seconds before deciding to just take a chance and knock on the door frame. The worst case scenario was that I looked like a very dedicated delivery woman making sure that all of my orders reached their proper owners. 

“Yep. Come in,” Walter called out in response to my knocking.

I entered his office only far enough to be seen and not a step further. I didn’t know if Marshall wanted people to know about us, so I was prepared to make a quick exit if I needed to. “I have a delivery for Detective Marshall,” I said. 

He looked at me and smiled, then waved me in further. “Harper, this is Fiona Sparks. Fiona, this is Commissioner Harper.”

“Hi. It’s nice to meet you, sir,” I said. 

“You, too.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “You don’t happen to be related to Rodger Sparks, by any chance?” 

I felt speechless for a moment. I hadn’t heard anyone other than Mom say Dad’s name in months. Finally, I forced myself to nod. “Yes. He was my dad. How - how did you know?” 

“We went to college together. You’re the spitting image of him,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about him passing away. I lost my wife around two years ago as well. A brain aneurysm.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t get any easier.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed.

He looked at me for a moment longer, then back to Marshall, who was standing patiently with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked back at me briefly before taking the folder he was holding and tapped it against Marshall’s shoulder. “You know what? This can wait until tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll bring it by in the morning.” He left Walter and stopped beside me before leaving the office. “I’m very sorry about your father. Rodger was a horrible sport when he lost at cards, but other than that, he was a great guy. And probably the smartest man I ever met.”

I smiled slightly. “He was a horrible sport at cards.” 

He smiled back. “The worst.” He gave me a wink. “It was a pleasure seeing you.” 

“You, too.”

When he left, he closed the door behind him. I looked at Marshall as he walked towards me. “Did I interrupt something important?” I asked. 

“No. He was just asking about a cold case.”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to come in since he was here. Next time, if you’re talking to someone, would you rather I left your lunch in the break room?”

He stopped in front of me. He was so close. He smelled like coffee and Old Spice. I swallowed thickly, trying to meet his gaze as he looked down at me. He shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “No. I’d still like you to bring it to me, please. If that’s alright?” 

“Yeah, of course. I just don’t want to get in the way of your job.”

“You won’t,” he said. “But I’ve let my job get in the way of other things for too long, so maybe it’s time someone got in the way of it for a bit.” 

“You have an important job, though. If you were a boat salesman, I might feel a little differently about disrupting your work.” 

His smile grew as he tilted his head at me. “A boat salesman?” 

“I mean a job where it wouldn’t really matter all that much if you were distracted every once in a while. If someone doesn’t sell a boat, it’s not that big of a deal. But if you don’t solve a murder case...that has very real repercussions. I wouldn’t want to be a reason for something slipping by in a case.” 

He put his hand on my cheek, directing my eyes back to his. “That won’t happen,” he said. “I take my job seriously. That’s never been a problem for me. My problem has always been figuring out how to balance it with the rest of my life, which I never could, and I neglected a lot of people because of it. Especially Faye.” He shook his head. “I’m still not good at it. But I had a case back in the winter that...put Faye’s safety in jeopardy, among other things, and it made me realize that I need to put more of an effort in my life outside of this job. Despite how hard that is for me.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “You motivate me to slow down a bit. And that’s a good thing.”

I took my free hand and placed it over his, then turned my face slightly and placed a kiss on the inside of his wrist. “I would be happy to slow down with you,” I whispered. 

Marshall had a smile that somehow showed in his eyes more than his mouth, and that’s how he was looking at me right then. “I’d like that.” 

A knock on the door startled me. I took a step back, his hand falling from my cheek. He then ran it over his face, almost like he was trying to scrub the irritation of being interrupted off it. Then he folded his arms across his chest before calling out for whoever it was to come in.

The door opened and a man stepped up to the doorway. He was wearing plain clothes like Walter, so I assumed he was a detective, too. He all but ignored me as he and Walter spoke. Half of what they said was in a jargon I didn’t understand, so I just stood there, head down, waiting. After a few minutes, the guy left, only halfway closing the door as he did. When Marshall finally turned back to me, I could see that he was frustrated. I knew he wouldn’t admit it, but me being at his work right then was only going to cause more irritation with every interruption we had. 

“As much as I hate it, I should probably get back to the shop. We have a big order going out tomorrow, so there’s quite a lot to do today to prepare for it,” I said. “Plus, I have a date with a very handsome detective tonight that I want to get ready for.”

The frustration on his face seemed to melt away as he looked at me with a smirk. “Is it anyone I know?”

“Possibly. He does work in your unit.” 

“Is that so?” he asked. I nodded. “Well, if I see him around, I might have to have a talk with him.”

“And what would you say?” 

“I’d tell him that he better be good to you because you deserve to be treated well.” 

My stomach fluttered. “You can rest assured that he treats me very well. Better than any man ever has.”

“All those other men were idiots.”

I smiled. “Maybe so.” 

He shook his head. “Definitely so.” He reached out and took his lunch from my hand, then turned and placed it on a filing cabinet behind him. “Will you let me help you to your car now?” 

I nodded. “Yes, please.”

He put on his coat and followed me to the break room. He pulled my dolly for me, moving it like it was as light as a child’s toy. Even when we made it to the parking lot, he didn’t seem to have any issue with the wheels fighting against him. Then he picked it up and placed it in my trunk with ease, despite how I very often fought to get it back in. I thought about telling him that he was welcome to help me anytime he wanted, but I was afraid it wouldn’t come across as a joke and he would feel obligated to actually help. 

“Thank you. You made my morning a lot easier,” I said after I closed the trunk. I looked at him. “I guess I’ll see you around five-thirty?”

He nodded. “I’ll call you when I leave here, but yeah, I should be there by then,” he said. “And I promise it’ll only be the two of us and no cheap pizza.” 

“To be honest, I quite liked the pizza. It didn’t taste cheap. And I really, truly didn’t mind Faye joining us, but it'll be nice to have dinner with just you tonight,” I said. “But that reminds me - I put a copy of our cookie recipe for Faye in your lunch box.” 

He smiled. “Thank you. She’ll be very excited about that.”

“You’re welcome. And let her know if she has any issues with it, she can call or text me.” 

The crease between his eyebrows appeared as he looked at me thoughtfully. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. I’ve made them enough times over the last year and a half to make every mistake you can with them. If she has a problem, I can probably diagnose it over the phone.” 

“You don’t mind her having your number?”

I felt my facial expressions mirroring his, but from confusion. “Of course I don’t mind. As long as you’re okay with it,” I said. “Unless you think your ex-wife would mind? I don’t want to step on her toes or anything.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think Angie would mind for that purpose, and I don’t have a problem with it. But I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“I don’t but I’ll leave it up to you. If you’d feel more comfortable being the middleman you can always call me for her.” I gave him a big smile. “And I can help you practice the whole talking thing. Then it’s a two birds with one stone kind of deal.” 

He smiled back, nodding his head. “And if she doesn’t need help?” 

“You can still call.” I shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to have a reason for calling. If I’m not at work, I’m usually pretty free. I may be cooking, or watching ‘The Golden Girls’ with Mom, but that’s about it,” I said. “I’m afraid you’re courting quite a socially boring person.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure if you’ve caught on, but I’m not exactly a sociable person, either,” he said. “So perhaps we make a good fit for each other.”

“Perhaps so,” I agreed. “We can be selectively social together.” 

“Sounds good to me.” 

I let out a sigh and watched my breath turn to steam in front of me. “I better let you get back to your paperwork and I need to go help Darcy at the store. We have over fifty loaves of bread to bake before the end of the day, so depending on when I get home, you may have to deal with your date smelling like freshly baked bread.” 

He squinted slightly. “I’m not really opposed to that,” he joked with a smile that showed off the sharp ends of his canine teeth. 

I laughed. “Good to know.” 

He gave me a short hug, kissing my cheek as he pulled back. “I’ll see you this evening.” 

“I’m looking forward to it.

[kiryuchaan]

Shinra propaganda things

Let’s start with your traditional "join the army" above-plater poster.

Tbh that one is pretty basic— portrays Shinra’s army as a sole defense/safety necessity with all the honor that warrants, with solemn-and-dermined-looking officers superposed with the city lights (& Shinra’s logo obviously). It doesn’t get truly bothering until you notice Stamp in the bottom-left corner.

That cartoony dog living "adventures" where he saves his friends, all spelled out in goofy fonts, was clearly designed with children as a target-audience. Nice grooming going here, Shinra.

What I found particularly uneasy is how Stamp stands out so very brightly on the apron of both the women in charge of Sector 5’s orphanage. Because Stamp is a successful character amongst children? Because those women trust Shinra to the point that they choose to put Stamp under the kids’ noses all day long?

Ooooor although I’m going into headcanon territory here, but what if those aprons were provided by Shinra itself? It just feels too strange a work outfit choice to be fully spontaneous. Shinra gets itself good publicity for supporting an orphanage, and ensures one of their emblems is part of the kids’ day to day environment.

What’s sure is that those women, loving and well-meaning women that care for orphaned children, have assimilated Shinra’s propaganda enough that they don’t see a problem with wearing the company’s mascot around those kids. A mascot that vehiculates military values and that has 0 business being showed to kids tbh.

Also Stamp is literally everywhere

Anyway next

Shinra’s slogans — "Shinra: Merging Innovation with Creation. What we do, we do for Midgar. And for you." & "We work hard so you can live well"— speak for themselves. All the more when it’s combined with the perfect nuclear family superposed with the utopian city of the future itself.

Even more ironic: the family version can be found in several places, but this one specifically...

...is in a break room in the first underground lab the team uncovers. The part where they learn Shinra has been conducting human experiments. "What Shinra does for you," indeed.

Then there’s the fact that Shinra controls the news ofc, which the remake didn’t invent compared to the OG. But let’s mention it for the sake of thoroughness. And that may not be Shinra-executed (although why not), but holy giant screen Sector 5, I doubt anyone here could miss their daily dose of propaganda if they wanted.

Finally there’s the cult of personality around President Shinra. The Shinra tower & especially the museum were... grandly straightforward and would arguably deserve their own post, so have a little bonus instead:

Found in Sector 7. Shot taken from below, stern expression and pose/attitude, Shinra’s logo in the background, everything inspires power & presents the President as a true man of steel.

It would’ve been interesting to see more similar examples of that personality cult in the day-to-day lives of midgarians. The museum was great but the entire level felt so far removed from the rest. Maybe a speech or a TV appearance from the President would’ve been a great addition to flesh it all out? Or maybe he’s meant to be a voluntarily evasive-ish figure.

I’m really looking forward to see the remake’s take on Rufus’ parade in Junon.

I’m 100% sure I’ve missed some things so please feel free to add more!

[ayzrules]

10 Signs That You’re in an Ayz Novel/Project/Writing Collab/Rp/~Thing~

tagged by @homesteadchronicles​ <3! tysm for tagging me - i love these things!!!

1. SILK & STEEL MOTIFS - [ mai, rowena, camila (ish), all of proper young killing machines! ] ever since i was 14-15 and obsessing over book!sansa / book!margaery, and only enhanced by my gail carriger phase. maybe it has to do with the fact that i’m too lazy to ever get into a physical fight myself? LMAO but i love writing snakey political girls who don’t really do ~fighty~ stuff but absolutely are plotting something and will manipulate/backstab their way to getting it. and ofc they hide all of that behind perfect manners & designer gowns & high heels ;D. normally about working with the system & bending it to their advantage for w/e reason (revenge is pretty common lol), not necessarily destroying the system & making something new/better. which segues into:

2. ICE QUEEN TROPES - [ izzy, mari, yinmei ] i first started writing these girls as a direct foil to #1; i would say characters in both of these categories are just as ruthless as each other, but #2 are more obvious/overt about it and v v v blunt. instead of working with & manipulating the system, these girls tend to be the type to just break it apart with a sledgehammer, hahahha. sub-category/spinoff being the too-old/tired-for-your-shit-so-pls-fuck-off kind of vibe ;DDD

3. THE VERY MEAN VERY TERRIBLE GIRL W QUESTIONABLE MORALS IS A MAIN POV AND ALSO MY FAVORITE AND NO I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE - [ tess + camila, kyvana, tselvya aka the murder princess trio of lay them to rest ] ummmmm no excuse except i might be not 100% straight lmfaoooooooo. i just can’t resist ruthless amoral girls in flouncy ruffles & floral frocks ok next (!)

4. TREE-HUGGING SHIT / POETRY IN NATURE - [ verdínqa, dulcifera, of daisies & ddt, a bit of run devil run ] i’m an envi sci nerd & study something similar w my degree program so no surprise :D ever since high school i’ve been into subverting the light = life & darkness = death trope, just after learning about shit like eutrophication & hypoxic waters etc where growth/a surplus actually leads to death, and sort of the belief that death in nature isn’t inherently bad for the entire system (ecocentric holism & alla’ that). and also a point that’s been driven home countless times by lectures, talks, books, webinars, what have you - the earth as just a planet will be fine even w all the anthropogenic shit going on, it’s humans who will be fucked. so that makes its way into my work a ton!

5. REINCARNATED QUEEN BEES -  [ jenny, chae ] idk there’s just something so iconic about that aesthetic. zombie girls in chanel & luisa beccaria ya feel. the absolute vanity/arrogance/haughtiness of your typical hs movie rich bitch TM meets oh shit im not really alive and also eating brains is gross (i once googled human brain nutrition facts. quora saved a girl but also my search history is wack lmfao)..... yea! :kermitdab:

6. DITZY PINK SIDEKICK WHO IS ACTUALLY PRETTY BOOKSMART - [ steph, lea, lyra ] to (sort of) go with above, i like writing the bubbly girly girls who can throw front tucks and scorpions and double arabians like nobody’s business but also aren’t your stereotypical ‘dumb cheerleader’ trope; they’re just thought of as ditzy because of how nice/sweet/outgoing they are. also 3/4 times they drive crusty mom vans. yes this is me projecting my own driving experience no i will not change

7. SARCASTIC IDIOT MEME QUEENS - [ chrissy, inferna/vicky, angie ] always obsessed with memes, usually obsessed with food/sbux, kpop, or both. these girls are fun to write bc it’s like, 2 brain cells and they’re all devoted to simping for girl groups or copping free food deals (yes i make them all blackpink fans yes i am basic no i do not accept criticism) which is just #same. usually tend to be pretty scathing & hotheaded, also with a bit of a too-tired-for-this-pls-fuck-off energy ;D and that’s highkey my entire internal dialogue so like..... :kermitdab:

8. GLITTER + GORE / MURDER PRINCESSES - [ robot unicorn attack & its spinoff ‘rua: guts & glory’, proper young killing machines, lay them to rest, this new hyper-girly pokemon yugioh-esque collab w loml <333 ] traditionally “”””””””girly/feminine”””””””” aesthetics meets murder/other very dangerous activities you should not try at home! 

9. FACETIOUS REFERENCES TO RL - [ gem quest, robot unicorn attack, lay them to rest, other things im prob forgetting ] basically i’m super facetious and also a clown and i like to poke fun at stupid things in my own life hahahah. gem quest is very modern meme culture meets high fantasy fairyland (& it was a collab with fanfan! so literally just my aes meets hers ;DDDDD) in the way i wrote it (references to twilight, phineas & ferb, kpop, other memes in the fairytale setting basically); robot unicorn attack is allllll about that petty celeb drama (just with a glitzy cyberpunk backdrop & also unicorns) LMAOOO & it does have tons of similarities to the kpop industry! & lay them to rest - aka murder princess aesthetic heaven - has me pulling out shit like ‘picstagram’ and ‘versacci’ (versace + gucci lol i’m so lame). one of the murder-y girls is a social media influencer/beauty guru. yeah!!

& last but not least-

10. MORE AESTHETIC THAN PLOT - [ insert everything i’ve ever written ] look i can NEVER come up with coherent plot lines WHATSOEVER but at least my pinterest is popping & my prose is all overly detailed descriptions of dresses & flowers LOL

tagging: @bebemoon @vampirkaninchen @morningstar1399 @now-on-elissastillstands @atimefordragons @tudorgirl @lend-your-lungs-to-me @bulletgirl @unholieds @artless-whimsy @interluxetumbra @clarienanaberry << sorry i cant splel ur writeblr @n-eusex + anyone who sees this & wants to do it!!! <3 <3 <3

[ofkingsnqueens]

madelyn cline, bisexual, female + she/her ― hey look, it’s hazel grace! they’re 25 years old, they’ve lived in shrike heights for twenty five years, and they’re currently working at jennifer’s. i heard they’re pretty stubborn, but i think they’re so hard working at the same time. can they make it out alive?

born and raised in town. her family is one of the wealthiest around.

she had a pretty normal childhood, but oh was she spoiled. she was daddy’s girl. mom was there, but she was... not exactly attentive. she just liked going shopping with her husband’s money.

in school, hazel was the mean girl type. the popular one, who thought was better than anybody else. definitely kind of a bully, but an immature one who would make parties and choose who she invited. idk. stupid stuff, not the meanest but u kno, childish stuff.

it only got worse when she was fifteen, and she caught her mom in the act with another man. and ofc she did not keep the secret, told her dad, and they got a divorce. hazel didn’t think it would go that far, but it did, and she always felt guilty. specially because the connection to her mother got completely severed. she still lives in town but has no contact with hazel.

she went party girl mad. slept around a lot, got drunk a lot, etc. which drove her father mad, and they also started having lots of issues. when college time came around, hazel insisted on going to new york, go after her dreams of being a fashion designer, and even though her father was against it, he couldn’t do anything to stop her.

hazel left without telling anybody. it was only a couple weeks left when she ran out of money that she called her father, but as punishment, he told her he would only send her enough for food, but she would have to work hard to get the life she wanted. and hard she worked.

college, internships, and several jobs later, hazel was living the life she wanted until a phone call changed it all. his father was ill. only a few months left perhaps. so hazel thought of coming to visit, but ended up deciding to stay longer. and longer, and longer, and hasn’t left.

she got a job at jennifer’s and when she’s not working she spends her time with her dad. she doesn’t HATE it, but she still has one foot out of town, ready to get her life back, but she’s not in a rush. she would miss her dad too much.

Q U I C K  F A C T S

she’s been gone for the past five years, and has been back only for six months or so.

she’s soooo different than when she lived here. she’s learned hard work and is way more humble.

she’s charismatic as fuck. will find a joke or a dirty comment about everything.

still kind of immature, but not so mean anymore.

she still judges people though. just won’t say it unless ur a bestie.

yes, her name is the same as the girl in fault in our stars. i didn’t notice until way later after i named her but thanks to the gods of time, that book did not exist in the 80s, so she’s safe from any mentions. 

C O N N E C T I O N S

someone she used to bully in high school

ex best friend, who got apart after she moved to new york. she didn’t even tell them. 

ex boyfriend. her first love, she romanticized it a lot, thought they would be together forever, but something went wrong. 

a girl she had a crush on. it was mutual, and they were not out, nor had any idea of what they felt back in the day. they probably kissed like once and laughed it off but now it’s like “lol jk... unless....”

hook ups/one night stands/friends with benefits 

new friends, specially if you work at jennifer’s. 

drinking buddies. they met at julio’s bar, she got drunk and talked all about her family, cried it out and now they’re besties but they don’t hang out unless it’s over drinks. probs very unlikely friends. 

since we have some older characters, someone who’s friends with her dad, who’s probably in the top fortys. he’s an influential man, so people know him. and they’d be sad he’s basically on his deadbed. 

this is very specific, but... whoever her mother got with. they’re married or about to get married. we could work this out with a wanted connection too. 

[vanityloves]

🎫 here's a gush pass! feel free to gush about whichever f/o you want, however much you want, then send this ask to 3 other selfshippers!

oh man, thank you jsjsj ive gotten a few of these but ive been too anxious to actually go off ab my f/o but, lets fucking gooooo!

can i talk ab the actual animation of the source material is that allowed?

they gave us this but we ended up with

WHICH LISTEN- I enjoy n love regardless. I just find the contrasts in phases fascinating and funny. I loved his appearance in phases 1 and 2; what a fucking iconic character design. The animation is so endearing and amazing- the thicker lines, the fluidity, the range. Like the first gif that shows the vibrations of the vehicle in his shoulders/shirt? The simplistic art style was nice and even if hes Hard On The Eyes, I'm like 🥴 ok ugly ❤.

Not like the newer mvs are any less quality content - its nice to see the use of thick and thinner lines and there's definitely a different feel to it - more child friendly or easy going? Idk how to explain it. Murdoc as a character is still very, Not Child Friendly, and Im always like :cursed emoji: when someone says that their 14 year old watches their videos like help, his dick is out in at least 3 dif vids (censored ofc but man).

They definitely lost me after the 4th phase though and many people argue that the band/music lost its meaning, which i can honestly agree with (esp when they didnt name officially name 4, 5 and 6. Im p sure ppl refer to 4 as We Are Still Humanz).

I was never an avid/active fan of keeping up with the characters and didnt really think they had any story anyways, i was like "feel good inc is sexy. melancholy hill's a banger" so honestly, finding out that these apes actually have lore was fun.

Murdoc being the given this tragic backstory made my eyes Zoom, and ofc I was like "oh youre funny looking and sad. I want you ♡." In a weird way, I take a lot of comfort that 'we both have shit parents' and 'no one really thought we'd amount to anything'. to be fair, i haven't accomplished anything yet, and even if hes a bunch of pixels who i know doesnt really exist, its kind of motivating bc he never gave up? A literal quote from him being "If there’s a dream in your heart, never let anyone tell you you’ve got no talent. Get out there, embarrass yourself, and prove to the world you’ve got no talent." With how many failures hes faced he never stopped trying to prove himself worthy of attention and fame and love, which is ambitious and kind of intimidating with how much confidnece he has.

Hes a complete bastard of a man and not even close to being a good person. He's definitely complicated but can be boiled down to "just an abusive asshole", which, hey, fair. I hate the way he treats 2D, its so toxic and terrible. Honestly, its inexcusable and he needs to apologize, grow and learn a LOT and god knows he needs therapy.

I think the most tragic thing ab his character is that he basically ended up like his father and to some extent, he acknowledges it. His bad habits and behaviors stem from abuse and neglect which doesnt excuse his actions but, "man hands on misery to man." I feel like theres a haunting part to his whole life - we don't know much about his mother and brother but from assuming things, I know they weren't innocent, clean, or soft spoken, let alone, kind. I think he has a "It runs in the family" mentality and gives into it bc there's no use in running from something so deeply engraved within him.

But as a man of contradiction, hes shown to care, despite "hating everything, including himself". To be short, his father was a failure and a man thats never worked for his own money, so he contradicts that and escapes that part of 'failure running in the family' by forming Gorillaz. I do think theres something way more ab his character in that regard. I think theres a lot that he needs to work on but he's escaped a part of that mindset, and his 'Plastic Beach'. I wonder what theyre gonna do with valley of the pagans thing.

I guess as a band, theyre not gonna show a lot of "behind the scenes" stuff like that. We wont know if he ever gets help, or apologizes, or even feels sorry - its up to us to decide which is a safe game to play on Their Behalf.

People are upset that hes actually cleaned up a bit and is shown to be nicer bc they miss having that disgusting, cruel man which again, I understand. He has always been the antagonist to the entire band. But as someone that likes to see people happier n mellow (or, boring) rather than doing shit and compensating for their depression, its nice to see that type of development (or downgrade, depending on how you see it).

This could be Their (read: jamie and damon) way of being lazy by making him 'mellow out w/ age' or whatever it is. It definitely seems to woobify his character and intentions but well, His Main Goal, Was To Blow Up. And Act Like He Dont Know Nobodaaayyy argargarg and guess what? He's already made it- he's successful, he's rich, he's famous, he's adored. Now what? Maybe this is just his way of taking it easy from here on out - who knows.

Gorillaz definitely took a turn after all the brand deals so it lost its meaning (since one of the phases had a 'fuck capitalism' message) and with that, Murdoc is no longer allowed to be the stank bitch hes was always meant to be, no more obvious sex and drugs, for the new gen 🥴 ironically a lot of songs 'today' are always complained ab being ab sex, drugs, and whatever, but they def needed to step on the breaks when Money/Companies got involved. So here we have The Wigglez 😌💕

ANYWAYS, I LOVE HIM LOTS, HAVING MANY THOUGHTS

[timextoxhajima]

NOO i swear you're not taking any of my time huhu i love talking to you😭😭 tbh i usually have time at nights but i'd rather use them to sleep or watch some tbz content bc my a test every 3 weeks schedule is still going but i have a lot more to do now so i'd usually spent the first 1 weeks with taking as much rests as i can 🥲

and no worries ur not making me feel pressured to reveal myself!!!! im just saying this bc i really wanna be friends w u,, but if i ever leave tumblr then i WILL OFC I WILL TELL U

hehehe yea i love trying new hobbies no matter how bad i may be at them just to find the feeling of joy when i feel like im truly enjoying them, and with writing even when what i write has nothing to do with my thoughts it really help in keeping my minds busy instead of drifting away into bad thoughts🥲🥲 i do video editing too sometimes, photography, but its kinda hard thanks to the pandemic so yeah,,, editing sunwoo video it is for me😭😂 i hope you found ur getaway too!!! or did u already?

I C THE NEW ENHYPEN POST OMG IVE BEEN SEEING THEM A LOT LIKE A WHOLE LOT EVERYWHERE not to mention im also a shawol so i know that ni-ki was one of the shinee kid?? in shinee's japanese concert😭😂 but i havent found the time to know abt the other members yet so--

ANW I RLLY LOVE THAT FOR UU its good that you're getting a lot more comfortable❤️ so does that mean you are currently on a holiday? yea coming back to uni really sucks sometimes i hated it a lot too but these days i've gotten a lot closer to my friends and i miss them so much now that we havent seen each other for months🥲

i'm pretty good! all the preparation has been kinda a lot and my research supervisor has been kinda laterep lately which is making me super anxious most of the time bc i really need to get everything done by august😭😭 but yeah writing has helped me A LOT in shifting my thoughts and making me feel better, i hope i am taking care of myself enough

how about you dana? are you taking care of yourself ? - 🍋🍋

omg just sleep LMAO just fkin sleep it's fine tumblr isn't worth your physical health HAHAHAHHAHA yeah your 3-week test schedule sounds disgustang fam idk how you do it so props to you

omg... tbh photography is a great way to ?? learn about life?? does that make sense lol i started photography in 2013 and now i've shifted more into filming, writing and editing so it was a very nice shift and transition for me. i guess my getaway definitely includes writing fics, i'm on a video production intern right now too so i get to shoot in studios and edit the footage later on. i was supposed to go on a chill photoshoot with a friend but covid said fuck you LMAO but i might get paid to help my freshies do their committee photoshoot at the end of the year so that'll be a blast. i love brainstorming themes for photoshoots and like templating designs - i think i'm an all-rounded creative person, as in into creatives [not boasting about... my creativity] but i definitely love the freedom in expression and i'm starting to realise that i'm picking up every single medium i could possibly utilise to exploit this freedom of expression thing: writing, dancing, filming, photography, creative designs, you name it LOL

yes niki was a shawol!! he went for a tokyo dome concert of shinee's and key hugged him while he cried LMAO he said it was like 2014 or smth which meant that niki was fucken... 9... stanning enha has been a JOURNEY for me because all this while i've been stanning groups that are generally older than me. even with skz jeongin i began to feel a tad awkward because he's younger, and with txt i basically couldn't whole-heartedly stan them because 3/5 of them are younger than me... then you have enha whose maknae is younger than my sister?! like... fam... how... why... am i that old now... omg

yeah i am on holiday! my sem ended in late april and since then i've been pretty much rotting at home, handling my intern projects, writing, learning some choreos for more covers and sobbing over kdramas owo the tissues wasted LMAO i love this break for myself honestly cause the sem was such a shitshow and i lost a friend or two over some nonsense and i had conflict with a couple of others too so while i do miss their nonsense, i really need the time away from these idiots who act like 5 year olds sometimes

omg i hope your supervisor knows not to pressure you too much, like work-life balance is a thing there right... >.>

i'm so happy you're writing that shit out. back before i began to write i felt so suffocated and i can't imagine my life if i didn't go into writing so i'm glad you found this portal to escape, even if it is for a moment!

i'm taking of myself... by keeping myself at home LMAO i haven't seen friends for like... weeks now, which is pretty surprising given the circumstances, because we're not on lockdown and you can still go out in pairs and i've had friends trying to get me out of the house to hang but i'm... so lazy... and frankly just uninterested in a social life now. idk how i shd feel about that, it's like the introvert rlly hopped the fuck out after i spent majority of the past sem acting like an extrovert.

if you consider sleeping at 4am every night taking care of myself then HEY i guess im fit as a pickle HAHAHAHHAHAHAH

[need-a-fugue]

We Grow Together - Chapter 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Summary: Relationships can be tough, especially when one person is a recovering-from-being-brainwashed-and-tortured former assassin and the other is an overworked mutant scientist. But hey, every couple has their struggles. Right? 

Warning(s): some angst, some emotional and mental turmoil… some bad language words... much fluff

Author’s Note: It’s Christmas in July! This is the second in the Supernova Series -- an AU wherein Bucky Barnes gets the girl, and a chance at a new life after finding Steve post-Winter Soldier. -- and it all begins with their first Christmas together.

“Yeah, I know,” he hears her say, voice muffled behind the door. Then, “I know. I didn’t forget,” after a long pause. She must be on the phone, he realizes when no other voice sounds in response. He knocks lightly before letting himself in.

“I will,” she says in an exasperated tone as she turns to face him, showing him a one minute finger. “I promise.”

He sets the grocery bags down on the counter and starts to unpack them while she finishes her call.

“Yes. I love you too,” she intones with a slight laugh. “Okay. Merry Christmas.” And she hangs up the phone. “What is all this?” she says with forced cheer as she turns back to face him.

“I’m making you dinner,” he mumbles, as he twists around, looking for somewhere on the cluttered countertops to set things down. “This place is a disaster.”

She pulls up a stool at the breakfast bar, rests her chin on her hand, and watches him work. His brow furrows in either confusion or disgust, or maybe both, as he shifts piles of papers and empty cans and bottles to make room.

He looks up at her and notices a melancholy, far off look in her eyes as she follows his movements. “Who do you love?” he asks simply.

She startles a bit. “What?”

“On the phone,” he states, pulling out a garbage bag from the cabinet. “You said, I love you too.”

He starts to toss the bottles and cans into the bag. “I’m recycling those,” she says, pointing to the trash in his hands. “Don’t throw them in with the trash.”

“Recycling,” he utters under his breath. It’s still a new concept to him. Of course so is all of the plastic people use nowadays. “You shouldn’t drink this crap anyway,” he says, holding up a few empty energy drink cans. “It’s poison.”

She rolls her eyes. “You sound like Natasha.”

He ties up the now full trash bag and stops everything else to gaze at her. She looks down, has for days. The holidays can have that effect on people, he’s no stranger to it himself. But he misses her smile. “So, who do you love?” he asks again, an impish quality to his voice.

“Just a friend,” she singsongs. “No need to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried. I just thought you might be talking to your family.”

She sighs, long and drawn out. “Yep. My family.”

“Or is it just a friend?”

“Same thing, I guess,” she says before propping herself up on the stool and leaning over the bar to look at the food he’s unpacked. “What are you making me?” she asks, clearly eager to change the subject.

“Christmas dinner,” he says with a nod. He turns around to flip on the oven and begins rummaging through the cabinets of the small galley kitchen. He comes up with a couple of small pots and a large roasting pan that she honestly didn’t know were even in there. Pepper had made sure that everyone’s apartment was fully stocked before they moved in. But she’d been here for more than two years now and had never come across those items before. Of course, she didn’t often go looking for cooking utensils. What would be the point in that when there was a perfectly good cafeteria downstairs and a common area upstairs that was always stocked with food?

“Christmas is tomorrow. And I think Tony’s expecting everyone in the grand hall,” she says, referring to the small ballroom just below the penthouse where their parties were typically held.

“Well,” he says turning to face her, leaning his hip against the oven, “tonight is our Christmas.” He shoots her a sly but genuine smile and she can’t help but return the expression.

“And you can do that?” she asks, leaning so far over the bar that she’s practically crawled on top of it. She’s looking through the piles of fresh vegetables and herbs that he’s laid out on the counter beneath the bar. “You know how to cook all of this?”

He walks over and lightly slaps her hands away. “Yeah, Tess. I can cook carrots and potatoes.” He side-eyes her as he gathers the produce and takes it to the sink. “You really have no idea how to cook anything, do you?”

She shrugs. “Never really came up.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I never really had to learn.”

She never talked about her family or where she came from or how she grew up. And other than a few questions here and there – because he was genuinely curious – he never pushed. It was obvious that her past was a bit of a sore subject, and no one understood that concept better than him.

She leaves her perch and comes to stand beside him at the sink. “You wanna wash these?” he asks, handing her some carrots. She takes them and runs them under the water. “You know how to peel?” he inquires, holding a potato in front of her.

“I can probably figure it out.”

He sets her up at the sink with a vegetable peeler – which she’d never seen either, oddly enough – and moves to the opposite corner to start prepping the chicken.

“Your mom taught you how to cook?” she asks quietly.

He nods, “She did. She said that she’d feed me ‘til I was 18, then I was on my own. And since she didn’t expect that I’d find a good woman to take care of me for a long time, I’d better learn how to fend for myself.”

Tessa laughed lightly. “Sounds like she knew you well.”

Bucky smiles to himself as he thinks back, remembering his mother’s words, her coy, crooked smile as she said them. “Yeah, she did.”

“I never knew my mom,” she says so softly, he almost doesn’t hear her. “Or at least I don’t remember her.”

Bucky looks over his shoulder at her and sees that she’s still bent over her potatoes, hyperfocused on peeling them just so. She makes no move to look at him, and he’s pretty sure that’s by design. It’s almost a test – seem too eager to know more and she’ll shut down completely, say nothing at all and she might never bring up her family again. He plays this game himself sometimes, not on purpose of course, but he’s noticed himself doing it just the same. Over the last year, since being brought into the fold here, he’s become more aware of how his struggles with his past affect those around him.

“Who raised you?” he asks, turning back to the chicken. It seemed safer to ask something like his than to push her on what happened to her mother.

“My grandfather for a while. Then Scott and Alex took us in.”

“Us?” he asks. He hears the peeler hit the side of the sink as soon as he says it, and he shuts his eyes, mentally kicking himself. She was talking and now he’s gone and ruined it. Is this how people feel around me? he wonders briefly.

She’s silent for a long moment as she retrieves the peeler and rinses it off. “Me and my sister,” she says finally, the words clipped short.

He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Maybe we come back to that later, he thinks to himself before asking, “Who are Scott and Alex?”

“My brothers,” she volunteers, this information coming out a little easier. “Well, adoptive. Sort of. After my grandfather died… no one wanted us. We didn’t have any other family. And no one would adopt a mutant.” She stops for a moment and he thinks that she might be done talking altogether. He’s just about to ask something else, anything else, just to keep her going, when she starts up again. “Most mutants don’t see their powers develop until puberty. I was four when it started. My grandfather never told anyone. But… I don’t know… I was just a kid… I don’t know how people found out. But Scott found us, or we found him. We met in a children’s home outside of Chicago. He was an orphan too. And Alex.” Bucky turns around to see her, watch her as she slowly, carefully peels each potato while talking about her brothers. “Scott was 15 at the time and he was just trying to find Alex, who’d aged out of the system.” She sets the peeler down and looks up at the cabinet in front of her, clearly gazing at nothing as she recalls, “He took care of us. He became our big brother. And when Alex found him and said he was taking him away to some school in upstate New York, Scott said that we needed to go with them.” She braces herself on the counter and shakes her head at the memory. “It was more… complicated than that, of course. But eventually Alex was able to become our legal guardian – after the Professor pulled a ton of strings. And then… well, I grew up at that school.” She turns around to face him, not at all surprised to see him watching her from across the small kitchen. “Hence not knowing how to cook.”

“So it was like a boarding school?” She nods. “I always thought you’d have to be crazy to go somewhere like that. I always figured they were like the Army, like basic training, only with more books and tests.”

She laughs a bit and leans back on the counter before saying, “Sometimes, maybe.” Then, shaking her head slightly, “It was a good place. With good people.”

He considers only briefly whether or not to ask the question begging to be asked. “So why are you here then? At Christmas… why aren’t you with your family?”

She looks at him long and hard before saying in a measured tone, “Same reason you aren’t with your family. They’re all dead.”

He sees the pain in her eyes when she says it, but he can also see the resolute tilt of her chin, the firm line of her lips. She’s doing all she can to make it seem okay, to fight off the sadness. That’s a trick he knows all too well. He looks away, knowing he can’t do anything to take away her pain breaks his heart. “I’m sorry,” he says simply.

She merely nods in response. “So,” she breathes out after a moment, “am I supposed to cut these up now or something?” She indicates the peeled potatoes on the counter.

He pushes off of the counter and goes to fill a large pot with water. “Nope,” he says, placing the pot on the stove and holding his hand out for them. “Now we boil them.”

She wrinkles her nose while handing over the potatoes. “Boil them?” she asks with a face. “That sounds gross. Are you sure we aren’t supposed to fry them or something?”

He chuckles. “Don’t you know how mashed potatoes are made?”

She thinks for a moment, making a totally new, completely adorable face. “From a box?”

“You’ve got a lot to learn, doll,” he laughs, shaking his head.

She scoots a bit closer to him and leans her head on his shoulder. “So you boil them and then you mash them?”

“Basically. Add butter and cream,” he replies, leaning his head onto hers.

“We’re not boiling the chicken, are we?”

He smiles wide. “No room in the pot.”

She steps back suddenly, cocking her head at him in an assessing way. “This isn’t my Christmas present, is it? A sarcastic cooking lesson?”

“You were expecting a present?” he asks, unable to hide the coy smirk on his face.

She rolls her eyes at him rather dramatically and he steps away from the stove to stand directly in front of her. His hands fall to her hips as he presses his forehead into hers. “Presents are for later,” he says softly. “It isn’t Christmas yet, remember?” He pulls back a bit and places a kiss on her crown. “And I’m not giving you a lesson. I’m making dinner.” He gives her a little shove with his left hand as he turns her toward the kitchen doorway. “You are going to take a bath,” he says, all but forcing her out of the room.

“Why? Do I stink?” she tosses over her shoulder with a wink.

“I don’t trust you in here. Go relax.”

She leans back over the breakfast bar on her way to the bathroom and says, “It’s been a long day. You might want to check on me to make sure I don’t fall asleep in there.”

He glances back at her and notices just how tired she looks. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says before throwing his chin in the direction of the bathroom in a shooing manner.

                                                          000

An hour later, she’s back in the kitchen, this time cutting up apples for a pie. “Can’t you buy this stuff in a can?” she asks before letting out a long drawn-out yawn.

“That’s disgusting.” He absently scoots a little closer to her, unconsciously drawn to the clean honeysuckle scent clinging to her damp hair. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.”

She snorts out a laugh. “Just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s better. I’ve eaten ready-made pie filling before. And it was delicious.”

He stops pressing the dough into the pan and turns to face her, a look of utter horror on his face. “You ate pie filling?” he asks. She nods without glancing up. “As in, just the filling?”

“It was college. I was poor. Those cans were cheap.” She tosses the last pieces of apple into the bowl between and them and cocks her head in his direction. “I had a can opener. I had a spoon. And I have to tell you, that shit is de-licious.”

He shakes his head as though he might be able to fling the thought of her eating that crap out of a can like a deranged homeless person right out of his head. “We’re never speaking of this again.”

They work in silence as she tosses the apples with the melted butter and sugar he set out and he checks the potatoes. It’s nice. He can’t remember the last time he cooked a big meal like this. And while he and Steve sometimes have to dodge each other in their kitchen while putting together meals, he hasn’t really cooked with anyone in a long, long time. Actually, this whole evening reminds him of cooking with his sister. Being so much younger, she was always at a bit of a loss for what to do. Like Tessa, she turned her nose up at raw chicken, couldn’t fathom how myriad ingredients came together to make food, and spent a good deal of time pilfering anything mixed with sugar.

“If you keep eating them, there won’t be anything to fill the pie with,” he says softly, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

She holds her hands up in mock surrender and takes a step back from the counter. He hears the apple crunch in her full mouth and can’t help but snicker as she attempts to choke down the evidence. “I’m hungry,” she whines then. “I can smell the food, but I can’t eat the food. It’s terrible.”

He dumps the apples into the pie pan before she can go back for more, sets the pie aside and washes his hands. “It’s almost ready,” he says, reaching for her. “You’re being very patient.”

She snuggles into his chest as his arms wrap around her. “Thank you for noticing,” she says with a smirk.

It’s actually more than hour before they can eat, but that isn’t entirely his fault. Yeah, the chicken took a little longer than he thought, but she’s the one who got a call and ducked out for “just a second” to check on something happening in the lab.

“Helluva second,” he says to her as she stomps back into the apartment almost an hour late. He has the table set and is sitting there with a beer in his hand and a smug smile on his face.

“I’m starving,” she drawls out, dragging herself dramatically over to the table.

“Why is anyone even up there?” he asks, referring to the research lab upstairs. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

She slumps into the seat across from him, rests her elbows on the table and drops her head into her hands. “It’s Stark Industries. Places like this are built on people who work holidays. Well, people who work all days, really. Every. Single. Day.”

“I remember having Christmas dinner with Howard,” he says, a far-off look gleaming in his eye for just a moment as he grasps at the old memory. “I think.” The memory is fuzzy, like so many others. But he’s sure that Howard was there, sure that he bought in turkey and roast potatoes and red wine – damn the rationing. He’s sure that he stood and gave a speech that lasted at least 10 minutes, even if he can’t recall a word that was said.

“Are these my plates?” she asks, pulling him from his reverie.

He looks up to find her examining the china closely, confused look on her face. He reaches over and plucks the plate from her hands. “They were in the top cupboard,” he says. “You’re probably too short to ever been able to find them.” He picks up his dish too and goes into the kitchen to prepare their plates. When she makes a move to get up to follow him, he turns and throws up his left hand in a stop gesture, waggling his index finger as a directive for her to sit back down.

“I’m not short,” she mumbles, resuming her head-in-hands position at the table. “I’m above average height for a woman.”

“Well then maybe you were too busy eating out of cans like a hobo to notice that you had fine china,” he intones from the kitchen.

“No one says hobo anymore.” She’s raises her head to look at the table in front of her, see if the silverware is at least the same that she normally uses. It is. The wine glass in front of her is a utensil she is more than familiar with. She perks up a bit, noticing the light liquid inside. “What’s this?” she asks, picking up the glass and taking a large inhale. Oaky. And… peachy?

“I don’t know,” he replies, returning and setting a full plate in front of her. “But the lady at the store said it was good.”

“It is,” she declares, as the just-dry-enough chardonnay slips down her throat.

The corner of Bucky’s mouth turns up in a small, crooked smile as he takes his seat across from her. “Good.” He looks over at her and watches her eyes close as she takes another sip. He can tell that she’s enjoying the wine, and he’s pleased about that, but he can also see the exhaustion on her face, the dark circles under her eyes, the puffiness of her lids. “Eat,” he directs, more than a little upset with himself for telling her it was fine to go check in at the lab.

She sets down her wine glass and picks up her fork with an excited, almost beaming expression on her face. They eat in silence for several minutes, Bucky eating like a normal person and Tessa shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth like a starving toddler.

“You’re gonna choke,” he says finally, laughing.

Her mouth is full when she replies. “No.” Then, following the massive gulp, “I didn’t know this was what mashed potatoes were,” she says with a big, dumb smile. “And the chicken too…” He looks down as the food in front of him, averting his eyes as an unwelcome blush takes over his face. “It’s soooo good.”

“It’s really not that hard,” he says, shyly shuffling the vegetables on his plate with his fork.

He feels the top of her bare foot slowly creep up his leg as she says, “I’ve never had a guy make dinner for me before.”

“Really?” he asks incredulously. Her foot continues to slowly stroke his calf, which only adds to the redness in his cheeks.

“Well, Steve made me pizza once. And chicken soup. Oh and we experimented with sushi one night,” she recalls, waving her fork in the air. “But I guess that doesn’t really count.”

He looks up at her pointedly. “It better not.”

“Does that mean that pizza and sushi don’t count as dinner or that Steve doesn’t count as a guy?”

“Yes,” he says simply, feeling his cheeks cool as the sound of her laughter fills his ears.

Her foot has made the move from his calf to his inner thigh, and while the blush of embarrassment may no longer be on him, another awkward-for-dinner-time feeling is starting to take over. “You have no idea,” she starts in a low, seductive voice, “how much I’m looking forward to filling my mouth,” she continues, leaning forward, her toes creeping along the inseam of his pants, “with that apple pie.”

Her foot drops suddenly as she leans back in her chair, popping another bite of chicken into her mouth with a smug, satisfied smirk. He rolls his eyes as a deep chuckle emits from his chest. “You are…”

“Amazing?” she tries, mouth still full. He shakes his head and purses his lips like he’s trying to come up with the right word. “Perfect?” she asks with a swallow.

“Definitely not.”

“Beautiful?”

“Not quite what I was thinking.”

She sighs long and deep. “Brilliant? Sexy? Smart? Loyal? Coquettish?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Honestly, I just keep coming back to amazing,” she says with a shake of the head.

He gazes at her from across the table, crooked smile slowly widening as she takes another bite and lets out a tiny blissful moan. “I was going to say a real jerk. But I like amazing,” he says with a nod. “It fits.”

“Yeah, it does,” she says with a smirk.

They finish the meal without words, just enjoying the food and enjoying knowing that the other is sitting right across the table. As soon as Bucky leans back in his chair, plate clean in front of him, Tessa gets up to collect the dishes. His hand comes up and takes hold of her wrist when she reaches in front of him. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and easily slipping his grasp. “Need another beer?” she asks, grabbing the empty bottle along with the plate. He nods happily and settles back in his chair.

His gaze drifts towards the window as she heads into the kitchen. “It’s snowing,” he says, almost to himself. He hears the clatter of dishes hitting the sink and cringes. “You okay in there?”

She appears suddenly around the corner, beer in hand, bright smile on her face. “It isn’t Christmas without snow,” she says, completely ignoring his question. She offers him the bottle and he grabs her wrist instead and pulls her into his lap.

“So what was Christmas like at mutant military school?” he asks as she settles herself in.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Quiet. Quieter anyway. A lot of the kids would go home for the holidays.” She takes a quick swig of his beer and lays her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know,” she repeats before going silent.

He brings up his right hand up to her head and runs his fingers through her hair. “I remember snowball fights,” he says. “And my mom yelling at me about catching pneumonia after coming home with wet mittens.” He chuckles a bit at the memory, but feels a surge of sadness at the same time. Because it’s one of just a handful of memories he still has of his mother, and of his childhood in general.

“Will you cook me Christmas dinner every year?” she asks softly.

He can hear the hesitation in her voice and it makes his chest constrict a bit. They don’t talk about the future. He’s still not entirely sure that someone like him can even really have a future. And sometimes he thinks she feels the same way about herself. But there’s not a doubt in his mind that if he gets a real chance at a future at all, she’ll be in it. “Every year,” he says, placing a gentle kiss on her head.

She turns in his lap to face him. “We could go have a snowball fight, if you want,” she says with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Work up an appetite for pie?”

He laughs heartily and she takes that as a yes, jumping up from his lap and running into the bedroom to find her boots. “It just started snowing,” he calls after her.

“I don’t care,” she yells back. Then, stumbling out of the bedroom as she struggles to get her boots on, “We can just take a walk until it builds up.”

He stands up and moves over to her, wraps his arms around her middle and pulls her in close. She hugs him tightly back, burying her face in his neck. He breathes in the honeysuckle scent of her shampoo, feels her fingertips grasp his shoulder. “I love you,” he says into her hair.

Without missing a beat, without even acknowledging that this was something new, something neither of them had ever said before, she grips him a little tighter and utters in return, “I love you too.”