#i never normally do full digital pieces but this tablet is making me feel a lot more confident

[erenaeoth]

Bolverk Bloodaxe from Banner Saga. Made his horns into war axes like a nerd/badass.

[sagechanoafterdark]

An Old Fashioned Remedy

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: language, awkward but he still gets laid Bucky, light fingering, some oral, sex, soft ending

A/N: I had the next chapter of Dead Men Tell No Tales finished last night and an unfortunate crash on my google drive lost the entire chapter. So enjoy this while I rewrite it from scratch for you guys. Thank you to my darling wife  @iwantutobehapppier​ for always reading my work for me first to make sure it’s up to par. 

It was around 3 am when you woke up out of a dead sleep. Eyes drifting to the digital clock on the bedside table before cursing yourself. Sleeping in new places didn't settle well with you, especially when you didn't feel like they were your own. 

It had been more than a month of living with the Avengers and you still couldn't manage to sleep a full night. 

Rolling over onto your back with a sigh you closed your eyes and tried to force yourself back to sleep.

It wasn't working.

So with a grumble, you kicked the covers off your body and made your way out towards the kitchen looking for a night remedy you hadn't done in years.

Feet tapping against the cold tiles your finger reached for the light switch and you jumped out of your skin at the shadowy figure standing in the kitchen.

"Fucks sake, Bucky," you cursed holding a hand over your heart. "You scared the hell out of me."

Wincing Bucky stood near the sink in a loose pair of pajama pants and a well-worn t-shirt with a glass of water held in his hand, "Sorry I didn't think anybody would be up. Can't sleep?"

The question piqued your curiosity, a month of living here and the two of you had only briefly spoken before. It was a polite conversation and nothing really out of the ordinary, except Bucky didn’t ask additional questions. From what you’d gathered Bucky only ever had surface conversations with most people, never asking additional questions less it was to Sam or another member of the team. 

So this? This was new.

Shaking your head no, Bucky snorted before taking a drink, "Me either."

"Actually I came out here to get help for sleep," you said, drifting over to the counter and reaching into the box on the counter. You pulled out the loaf of white bread from inside and wiggled it in the air.

"Bread? Really?"

Humming you pulled the bread knife out of the block before slicing yourself a thin piece, "It's one of those old-fashioned remedies. Doesn't work every time but it's better than counting sheep."

"Don't think I've counted sheep in a long while, doll."

"Well in that case you want a slice?" You offered, holding out the sizable slice and wiggling your eyebrows. Bucky eyed it suspiciously, brow drawn together and blue eyes flicking from the slice to you and back again. "What do you have to lose Bucky? Just try it."

He took the piece from you slowly, setting his glass down as you cut another slice and started eating it. Soft and pillowy with a perfect crust and flavor, this was quite possibly the best white bread you'd had in a long time.

"So bread huh?"

You nodded, "What I strike you as a chamomile tea kind of girl?"

Shaking his head Bucky smirked, eyes flitting down to the slice in his hand. “Nah, you’re strictly a, two melatonin tablets with a shot of tequila, type.”

You almost choked on your bite, snorting with laughter. Bucky smiled at you and it was then that you realized something. Was, was he flirting with you? With a sudden realization, you looked down at the slice of bread in your hand, it was taking much longer than normal to eat it while Bucky had been tearing his own slice with his fingers. You’d seen the man devour a stack of pancakes the size of his head before, that made zero sense.

Glancing up at him you pretended not to notice how his eyes would flick up and down your body on occasion. Oh my god, he was flirting.

“You this smooth with all the girls you have a crush on?”

This time Bucky choked, sputtering slightly and you smirked, leaning smugly against the counter and enjoying just how red Bucky’s face became, whether it was from embarrassment or lack of oxygen you’ll never know. “That obvious is it?”

“Only when you stare at me,” you said with a hum, tearing the last piece in your hands apart. “Tell you what. You’ve got until I finish my bread to make a move, otherwise…”

He didn’t wait. 

Closing in on you so you swiftly, slice of bread tossed onto the counter behind you while his mouth descended onto yours. Bucky leads with his tongue, sliding along the seam of your lips until they parted and the deepest of groans rumbled in his chest. Your hands slid over his chest tangling in the short hairs at the back of his neck, holding your hips before sliding down to your thighs and hiking you up and against the counter.

Your hands pulled at his shirt, lifting it over his head and tossing it to the floor as he did the same. His hands ghosting over your breasts, grabbing a rough handful, kissing the swell before his mouth took a nipple in a brief lick. Pinching between thumb and forefinger that had tingles shooting through your whole body and your hips rocking against him.

Looking up at you with heavy-lidded blue eyes Bucky smirked before capturing your lips again. The strength in his vibrainum arm jerking your hips roughly against his hard cock, straining and tenting the pajama pants.

“You know. I think. I just. Remembered. Another. Sleep. Remedy.” You managed to get out between kisses.

Bucky groaned against you, “I like the way you think, doll.” His hands pulled you tight against him and you wrapped your legs around his waist. The whirling of his vibrainum arm was barely noticeable as he lifted you from the counter and began steadily walking towards his room.

Getting there was not without incident. His grip slipping as your hips rocked against him forcing him to slide you against the wall briefly, his hand dipping below the band of your shorts and pressing a finger against your soaked folds. 

“Already ready for me huh,” he teased against your mouth.

“Shut up and kiss me again,” you snarked back, mewling against his lips when his fingers thrust into you a couple of times. His hands were shoving your sleep shorts down then wrapping your legs around him again leaving them crumpled in the hallway.

Then against the wall next to his door, Bucky managed to shed his pajama pants leaving you both in just your underwear. Before you knew it you were on the bed and honestly, it was a miracle you’d made it here. Bucky's warm body over top of you pressing you into the perfectly made covers.

Leaning back from you Bucky’s thumb traced over your kiss swollen lips briefly, blue eyes studying your face and growling when your lips parted. Teeth nipping at the pad of his thumb before his mouth was on yours once again, the warmth of his vibrainum hand caressed over your thigh briefly before pulling your panties down.

“You feel so damn good,” he said to himself, pecking your lips before trailing down your body. Soft caress of lips dragging down your chest and to the swell of your breast contrasting with rough drag of stubble covering his jaw. The tingle making you bite your bottom lip to hold back a moan. 

“You know it’s been a while since I’ve done this,” he mused, pressing a kiss against the soft inner edge of your thigh. “You gonna tell me how I’m doing, doll?”

Fighting the urge to wiggle you stretched your neck out, feeling every muscle in your body tighten in anticipation, “I’ll be sure to give you feedback.”

Kissing slowly up your calf and the sensitive skin near your knee Bucky slung your leg over his shoulder, before diving between your legs. The touch of his tongue against your clit made your hips jerk up against him and the breath shudder from your lungs and you decided there was no way he hadn’t done this in a long time. 

Lapping at your folds Bucky feasted like a man starved, fingers spreading you open as his tongue dipped into you. Tasting your sweet slick and moaning when you squeaked at the sensation. Tides starting rising higher and faster in you as he quickly worked you into a frenzy, cool metal fingers spreading you apart as one dipped inside and his lips wrapped around your clit.

“Bucky,” you shrieked, back arching off the bed and hips bucking against his mouth.

A second metal finger slid into you, pumping, curling, and probing against your soft velvety walls. Heart hammering in your chest, moans and obscenities spilling from your lips as Bucky took you apart. You were well and truly riding his face, hand tangled into his hair as he held you down with an arm wrapped around your thigh.

The coil in your belly ratcheted down tight, the combined feeling of his fingers inside of you and mouth on your clit too much. It snapped before you could warn him, thighs clenching around his head as your back arched and a high-pitched shriek devolved into a moan. Riding out the wave as it ebbed, Bucky’s mouth still lapping at you, fingers slowing with your release.

Legs dropping open you felt positively boneless as you caught your breath. Feeling him laughing against your thigh, lips pressing hot wet kisses against the skin, “Hmm, did I do good?”

Breathing heavily you wiped at the sweat that had formed on your brow briefly with a breathy laugh, “Buck, stop playing around and get up here and fuck me.”

Chuckling Bucky climbed over you again, capturing your lips again as his cock brushed over you, teasing against your clit before sliding just the head in. Your hands grabbed his hips to still him, “Slow Buck.”

“I don’t know if I can go slow,” he growled against your ear, his hips shifting as he sunk in a little further. His breath hitched in your ear as you almost held your breath, his thick cock stretching you perfectly as he seated himself deep into you. “Fuck your tight.”

Tipping your head you pressed a kiss just below his ear as he pulled back, rocking his hips into yours slowly. Your moan mixed with his as his lips brushed against the curve of your jaw. The moment more intimate than you’d expected it to be as he kissed you softly this time, not with the fevered hunger from earlier.

Slow calculated thrusts slowly began turning more jarring, his hips snapping against yours. Spread wide around his frame, a chill prickled through you as he pulled back for better leverage. Blue eyes blew with lust, mouth parted with kiss swollen lips quirked into the smallest of smirks. “Fuck me,” you encouraged with a breath, chanting it over and over again. “Come on Bucky fuck me.”

“You’re so mouthy,” he scolded, flesh hand dropping around your throat holding you in place. You gasped, clenching around him and making his hips stutter in their rhythm. “Like this?”

His hand squeezed around your throat, not choking you but just adding to the pressure in your body. “Yes,” you gasped out. The edge was again rising fast for you, eyes fluttering and muscles tightening as you worked your hips against his. “Bucky, I’m gonna cum.”

“Shit,” the curse slipped from his lips as his hand trailed from your throat down to your breast with a squeeze before dropping to your clit and rubbing in tight circles. “Me too, doll. You’re squeezing me so tight.”

You felt your walls tighten around him, fluttering as the coil in your belly snapped. Bucky leaned down capturing your lips in a sloppy kiss of teeth and tongue. His hips bolting forward in three long thrusts, fucking you through your orgasm as he followed quickly. Cock pulsing and twitching as he released inside of you, grunting against your mouth before kissing you deep.

Breathing heavily you felt light as air and if it wasn’t for Bucky’s weight you were sure you’d float to the ceiling. Rolling to the side Bucky pulled you with him, curling you against his chest as exhaustion began to prickle at the edges of your mind.

“Fuck that was….”

“I know,” you giggled, tracing a finger over his chest. “You want me to…”

“No,” he interrupted quickly, arm tightening around you slightly. “Stay here.”

You tried and failed to hide the lovesick grin on your face, “Alright. I’ll stay.”

Quiet stretched between you both and it was then you realized that Bucky’s radio was on. The station playing garbled morning news as the dial read it was just past 5 am. Tipping your head up you looked at Bucky, his eyes were closed, mouth parted slightly in rest.

He must have sensed you looking at him as he lifted his head, looking down at you with a lazy smile. Before dropping back down to the pillow with a contented sigh. You wiggled against him, head resting in the crook of his arm listening to the beat of his heart lull you to sleep.

“G’night Buck,” you mumbled into his chest.

All Bucky could respond with was a soft snore.

That morning Sam woke up promptly at six am. Went for his morning jog. Came back, showered, brushing his teeth, and dressed before leaving for a quiet breakfast. When he came into the kitchen he was surprised to see your tank top hanging from the pendulum light above the kitchen island.

“What the hell,” he wondered aloud, picking up the garment and noticing Bucky’s shirt laying there as well. Peaking down the hallway he spotted your shorts and Bucky’s pants laying in little piles just outside his bedroom door.

Wanda’s conversation with him just a few days ago ringing in his mind, “You don't have to be a mind reader to see the sexual tension between those two.”

Sam cursed to himself, “Now I owe Scott five bucks.”

[owl-with-a-pen]

Prompt where brainy gets very angry over something and nia just wraps her arms around his waist to give him a big hug from behind. That “it’s okay, I’m here” trope. Specific but I’m curious to see how you would write it x

- Okay so this gave me a cute idea that I decided to run with. Hope you enjoy!

Nia knew it was bad the second she saw Alex walking quickly in the opposite direction from the Tower’s lab.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” Alex warned as she passed Nia by, offering her a strained smile. “He’s in a mood.”

Nia winced.

Right. One of Brainy’s classic moods. The Super Friends had learnt to make themselves scarce when one presented itself. And, oh boy, did they present themselves.

Although Brainy had had a tendency to get moody before removing his inhibitors, this was way different. Anger was still so new to him in this sort of a capacity, and when he needed to focus on something – really focus - distractions were something he just couldn’t stand. Outside stimulus became too difficult to manage when he was in that kind of headspace. It was times like those that he valued his privacy, and would readily snap at whoever didn’t grant it to him.

Nia leant hesitantly in the archway to the lab, digging her shoulder into the brickwork as she watched Brainy worriedly from behind. He was tinkering with something on his workbench; his back and shoulders were rigid, and although she couldn’t see his face, Nia was certain she could hear a distinct crack from how tightly he was clenching his jaw.

It wasn’t good for him to hold everything in like this, but the alternative wasn’t exactly pretty. When Brainy had told her about the broken keyboard, the broken tablet and the very nearly broken TV, it had become clear to her that he’d needed a healthier outlet.

Kelly had spoken to them both about ways to support each other when it came to nightmares or outside stressors, but Brainy was more of a complicated case than Nia, simply because he’d never experienced these emotions before. He had no frame of reference for even half of what he was feeling, and that terrified him.

And so, as much as she wanted to respect Brainy’s unspoken wish, Nia knew she couldn’t let him stay holed up alone in his lab like this. It'd only encourage his emotions to grow even further out of check.

Her concerns were verified when Brainy jerked his hand suddenly, throwing the device he had been working on clean from the table, sending it to the floor with a jarring clang.

“Sprock,” he muttered tightly. He made no move to retrieve it. Instead, he gripped tightly to the workbench’s edge, leaning his full weight into it. He ducked his head, chest heaving with the effort of holding back this newfound rage.

Nia knew the signs well enough by now. He was seconds from bursting wide open, his most unruly emotions reaching an intensity he wouldn’t be able to filter out on his own.

Nia hated seeing him like this, but what hurt her the most was knowing just how helpless all of this made Brainy feel. He didn’t like what these emotions did to him, and most certainly didn’t want to act on his most violent impulses. It was why Kelly had offered her help in the first place, even suggesting some breathing exercises for when things got too volcanic for him to handle. Right now, though? Brainy was barely able to work those exercises through his lungs.

It wasn’t working. This tightly wound, it would be impossible for Brainy to come down organically. Nia’s heart clenched, the urge to do something for him so profound that she could barely stay put in the doorway. But what could she do? It wasn’t exactly like she could rip this anger out of him. She couldn’t control a person’s emotions, her powers didn’t work that way.

If only they could. If only she could offer him something…

Unless…

Nia frowned suddenly, glancing down towards her hands, the energy filters she wore as bracelets around her wrists.

Surely, it couldn’t hurt to try… right?

Nia pushed herself from the wall, heading carefully across the room. She managed her footing well enough that Brainy didn’t hear her over the laboured pants of his own breathing. By the time she was in reaching distance, she could see the tremors running through his arms, the pinched corners of his lips as he swallowed down the urge to unleash his most tempestuous emotions.

Nia didn’t think. Instead, she took that final step forward, sliding her arms around Brainy’s back, clasping her hands firmly together against his front.

It was a bold move, all things considered. After all, Brainy wasn’t always welcoming to anyone’s touch, not even her own.

Expectedly, Brainy stiffened the second he felt her arms around him, although he didn’t try to move out of her hold. “Nia-?” he managed weakly. “What’re you-?”

“Just breathe, okay?” Nia said softly, tucking her face into the private warmth of his shoulder. She could feel his pulse quivering against her cheek, sidling close enough that she was able to mould herself against the gentle curve of his spine. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

Her question was clearly enough to throw him off guard. Brainy glanced about himself restlessly before relenting, closing his eyes. “This rage,” he muttered. “It- it won’t stop. Every time I think I have a hold on myself, it comes bubbling back up.” He swallowed hard, baring his teeth. “I can’t stop it, Nia.”

“You got frustrated,” Nia said, holding her voice steady. “You just need to take a break. It’ll pass, I promise.”

Brainy choked out a strained laugh. “I- don’t know how it can. Not without…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to; Nia knew exactly what he was implying. Previously, these attacks had only ended in one way: with him breaking a particularly complex piece of his own equipment, which only furthered his frustrations later on when he inevitably had to rebuild it from the ground up.

Lena had encouraged him to let his emotions out, and maybe at first that had been helpful – cathartic, even. But, Nia knew Brainy. When not directed at a bad guy, the act of violence only made him feel uneasy, reminding him none too gently of the cruelty his ancestral line was capable of. He may have only ever broken inanimate objects when releasing his pent-up rage, but it didn’t stop him from ending every outburst with a tearful comedown. It was usually only then that Brainy would normally let her in, which was why Nia knew exactly how exhausting this was for him.

Every episode was taxing on Brainy, both physically and emotionally, and yet they never got any easier for him to manage. He just couldn’t catch a break. No matter how hard he tried, his anger was always prickling just beneath his skin, ready to burst through at a moment’s notice.

This time, though?

“What if I helped?” Nia suggested, spreading her hands tactfully across his abdomen.

“What do you m-” but Brainy didn’t finish. Instead, he sucked in a sharp breath, arching his back instinctively as Nia closed her eyes, allowing her dream energy to wash across her palms, encouraging Brainy to absorb it in earnest.

Brainy sagged into the desk immediately, the metalwork denting like putty between his fingers. He groaned aloud, his voice distorted against the crackling static of his modulator. When she was certain it was working, Nia summoned more energy, not just to her hands, but to every part of her, willing it to swirl and crackle in the air around them, transferring to Brainy's body in a whirl of blue fog. Brainy laxed further into Nia’s touch as a result, lashes fluttering as he tried to hold himself steady against the workbench.

Nia smirked, running her hands tenderly across Brainy's ribs before slipping them both behind his back, working her fingers carefully into her boyfriend’s shoulders. Her energy looped around every digit like electric blue coils as she continued to massage it through his muscles. The tension inside of Brainy unravelled all at once, enough that his legs very nearly gave out, but not quite. After all, this wasn’t the knock-out potency of her energy that she’d been steadily perfecting against her enemies. Instead, this was something new, a far weaker version Nia hadn’t seen much use for in the field. If anything, it worked as her own brand of Nyquil, instilling a drowsiness that encouraged total relaxation of the host in question. It wasn’t exactly something that could do much on the offensive. But, for this? Nia couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

“How does this feel?” she asked after a long moment, pressing her thumb experimentally into the base of Brainy’s shoulder blade.

“Good,” Brainy murmured, a pleasant shudder rolling down his spine. His voice was still distorted by a mechanised echo, and he showed no signs of trying to correct it. “Really good.”

“Good.” Nia grinned, kissing his throat. She kept kneading circles across her boyfriend’s back, tracing her fingernails down both sides of his spine. When she reached just above Brainy’s tailbone, she bit her lip, slipping her hands quickly beneath his shirt, pressing them against his skin.

Brainy's body ran far warmer than Nia's, even with dream energy burning through her blood. Brainy inhaled sharply at the foreign sensation of Nia's cold fingers before his eyes rolled to a close. The sudden lack of tension in his jaw caused his lips to part, allowing his lungs to unlock. Already, Nia found the steady rise and fall of his chest much improved, allowing him to breathe unrestricted for the first time since this episode had started.

Nia tucked her face against Brainy’s neck, pressing another kiss just above the collar of his jacket. Even her lips were alive with static, potent enough to cause Brainy’s throat to spasm. If the droning hum of contentment issuing from his chest was anything to go by, she figured he was starting to really enjoy this.

She grinned, looping her arms back around his front. “Still angry?” she asked.

Brainy’s eyes were half lidded when he shook his head. “I—thank you.”

“Anytime,” Nia said.

Neither of them were willing to separate just yet, so Nia stayed exactly where she was, feeding gentle waves of energy against Brainy's back the whole while.

Kelly had told them that there was no overnight solution for this, warning that at times, it might feel like they were barely making any progress at all.

Today, though? Nia felt like she’d made enough to be proud of.

And hopefully, Brainy felt the same way, too.

[soukokuwu]

"requests are closed??" that cannot stop me because i cant read!! ** URGENT ** power couple comfort needed asap chuuya is the diplomat for the inheritor of a newly departed yokohama media moguls empire who agrees to fold the power of the company to moricorp so long as chuuya agrees to a date yah i need this like stat plz

THE OTHER HALF.

✢ genre. fluff ✢ pairing. chuuya x reader ✢ synopsis. you’re going to inherit your father’s media empire, and mori wants in. his ticket? chuuya. ✢ author notes. an urgent request? you got it! in 2 days ehehe i just hope you like this <3

He stares at the pristine white on the walls of the lavishly decorated office corridors. It suits their reputation. Nothing fits the reigning media mogul of Yokohama like grandeur. He would normally express some sort of distaste for how much of these… beautifications are unnecessary, but Mori had already warned him: it is imperative to get on their good side. Political reasons, he added. As if the mafia doesn’t have enough political influence already.

Although why, of all people, he chose to send NAKAHARA CHUUYA as Port Mafia’s representative to head the meeting, Chuuya himself doesn’t know. A cold-blooded, hot-headed vessel of destruction.

Yes, very plausible, very sensible, he thinks.

Sarcasm. That was sarcasm.

Mori always had his reasons for every decision he made. Some are possibly very fucked up, but even Chuuya admits his manipulation tactics and puzzle-piecing skills rival that of Dazai’s. So he never questions his boss’s decisions. At least, not to his face. He just wonders what is hiding behind this certain choice (of making Chuuya go to the meeting, alone) and how twisted it could be.

Cruising through the halls makes him realise just how much he’d hate it if he was a normal human with a normal, boring desk job. The rooms he passes by, with their glass windows and deceiving transparency, are all full of people either typing away on their keyboards or speaking into phones with some sort of urgency. Yikes. No thanks, he would much rather work with violence and be on the frontlines than man a desk at a mediocre job with less-than-satisfactory pay.

The redhead guesses that they’re going to take him to the boardroom (which incidentally, he thinks, is quite an appropriate name for a meeting room — rigid, stiff, flat — full of smiles that are painted on and the chatter of mindless opinions crafted only to cater to the ones who matter. If that’s an indication of anything to come, Chuuya is already dreading it.) After all, they had scheduled a meeting for discussions with the director on future possibilities of working with the mafia.

Chuuya does admit though, it would be very useful to have the media on their side. Not only digital, but print as well. The possibility to spread propaganda and cover up crimes. This company has it, and Mori is hungry, eager to take over. (Or at least, to establish dominance over them.) Maybe that’s why he chose the gravity manipulator. To make them comply with the threat of crushing them with his brute force should they refuse. It’s harsh. Not that he would mind if it comes to that. There’s a certain satisfaction, a certain kick, he gets out of seeing everyone before him cower in fear.

Because it means he’s in control.

And Chuuya loves being in control. After all, he controls the very things that holds everyone in its grip — gravity.

Ironically, though. What he doesn’t have control over is his own feelings. Mostly unpleasant. A temper so fiery and an impulse so unexpected. Today, though, there is a turn of events. Because as he turns the corner to enter the boardroom, he spots a pair of eyes on him, observing him shrewdly.

No, it isn’t yours. But your father’s.

Wrinkled face wrinkles up even more as they eye him from head to toe, expressing obvious displeasure in the form of tuts and a deepening frown. Chuuya can just tell from how the man wears an expensive tailored suit — probably from a high end luxury brand that Chuuya can’t even pronounce properly — and how his tie is tightened so firmly against his neck that he probably always has a stick up his ass.

But a whiff of something… refreshing skips pass his nostrils and all the hostility from seeing the director disintegrates into — what is this? Chuuya can’t even tell, another irritating reminder he doesn’t understand his own emotions all that well.

And that, that is when he first lays eyes on you.

If you’re wondering, no, it’s not that cinematic moment where you walk in and he’s immediately blinded by the light you bring with you thanks to that invisible halo you carry on your head. Chuuya sees the world through anything but rose-tinted glasses. He is captivated by you though, somehow. Maybe it’s the way you stride in so confidently, with your blazer fitted against your body tightly — not too tight — you don’t want to give off ‘sexy’ vibes, do you? Not in the office. No, you just radiate some show of ‘proper’ and ‘togetherness’ that other ladies must be envious of. Or so it seems to him, at least. Then he wonders again, maybe it’s the way you so nonchalantly brush past him, your shoulder nudging against his, not a care in the world for who he is.

He thinks he’s got his reasoning, a feasible enough reason of why he’s intrigued — you’re young, you’re sexily sophisticated (he just knows you are), and to be a part of this meeting, you must have a sort of… power, so to say.

And then you just have to, don’t you? You just have to take a seat on that chair (in an angle that seems to cater perfectly to Chuuya), cross your legs just enough so your skirt rides up your thigh high enough to leave him wanting to see more, but not enough to be considered as a bold move of seduction. The kicker? That smirk you wear when you realise that he’s staring. He always hated that expression; the one that other people wear out of the satisfaction of their triumph. Especially when it’s against him. But then why does he think he can look at yours forever?

Not even five minutes into the ‘discussion’ and Chuuya already finds out you’re the director’s daughter, the one who would inherit the company very soon. (He fails to properly listen to the reason why because his focus starts to fixate on you, the surrounding all melding into one — the sights, the sounds.) To which you respond with batting your eyelashes at the redhead and wearing an innocent smile yet at the same time being shrouded in an air of… mystery.

The debate on just how much of the empire that Port Mafia would control in the future is not quite a negotiation. If they want to, then they can just force the director’s hand, maybe kidnap his daughter — Chuuya glances briefly toward you before focusing back on your father and the tablet (apparently the company made a sort of presentation that Chuuya can say he frankly doesn’t give a shit about) — but no. Even now, he thinks, he doesn’t want anyone to lay a hand on you. Besides, if your current behaviour is any indication, even if the mafia does come after you, you won’t be scared. You look just like the kind of person who always has something up her sleeve. You must take after your father.

“On that note, I will be leaving the final decision up to my wonderful young lady here.”

That manages to bring Chuuya back to his senses.

What? The old man is leaving such an important decision in his daughter’s hands?

Chuuya breathes in deeply. Stay level-headed. He’s got this, he tries to convince himself. Notwithstanding that he has made it this far only because of the training Kouyou’s given him on the art of appeasing old uncles and kissing their ass so that they give him what he wants.

Guess Mori isn’t as thorough as Chuuya thinks he is.

“Now, you can focus on me.”

Right on cue. As soon as the director leaves.

Look at that, he was right. You are confident. You are smug. You are observant. And annoyingly enough, you are in control. Because to do his job properly, he has to act like he’s wrapped around your finger. (He fails to realise he already is.)

Chuuya clenches his jaw, his brain failing to function in this pivotal moment, failing to filter any kind of acceptable responses. So he stays silent, mind going a thousand miles an hour just trying to form words, sentences, yet drawing a blank. And any normal person in your position would have spoken up by now, but you? You’re reeling in his inexplicability, silently. Observing him as though he’s an animal trapped in a glass cage for all to admire.

You lean back against your chair, the padded back bending backwards to support your weight. Your arms are crossed over your chest and the smirk has not left your face. If anything, it gets wider. Neither of you give in. You both keep your gaze locked on each other, and the silence grows on him. The comfort sneaks up on him. It’s weird. Is he dreaming it? Is he being delusional? Why is that he feels that with you, more is said through your silence than words? If so, being under your carefully appraising eye would be an honour.

Chuuya thinks, no no, he knows, he hears you muttering under your breath. He wants to retort, but words don’t find him. Only silence and stillness.

But it doesn’t last any second longer because you scoff in amusement and grab the paperwork regarding the partnership off the spot your father has left behind. Your eyes don’t leave his cerulean ones though. It’s almost as though you’re hyper-focused on him. Or is it the other way around? Maybe it’s mutual?

You do eventually break the stare though, to turn your back and walk out the door, but not before you stop at the edge, bidding goodbye with a lopsided smile and a “Park Hotel, 8pm, seventieth floor.”

Four hours seemed like a lot of time to prepare.

Seemed.

It isn’t.

Because now, at 7.56pm, Chuuya is still staring nervously at himself in the mirror of the hotel bathroom. A flurry of thoughts occupy his state of mind.

Is my tie okay? It’s not lopsided, is it? He thinks about your lopsided smile as he adjusts the black tie set against his red dress shirt. His black coat is replaced by a black fitted blazer. Then he wonders if you’re still in your work outfit.

Damn it, why can’t he get you out of his mind?

You’re a necessary ally, he thinks. That’s why, he convinces himself. Although, not really. If you are just another job, another person the Port Mafia needs to brainwash, then why is he so nervous about this date? His hands freeze in their motions as he questions himself.

Is this what it is? A date?

By 7.59pm he’s up on the seventieth floor, and the moment he steps out of the elevator, an usher tells him to follow. Wow. Having an already established media empire the moment you were born must have been a big bonus for you, hasn’t it? Chuuya imagines you’re spoiled; you’ve lived your whole life with the lavish luxury you currently stand to inherit now. But he gives you due credit. For your father to entrust the dealings of the Port Mafia to you, you must be very capable. Not that he has ever thought otherwise.

In the short hour that he had interacted with you earlier, he knows you’re anything but a bimbo. But you must have thought he was similar to one, huh? What with him being speechless over nothing.

Once he reaches the private room, he’s greeted by you already seated, right leg crossed over your left, fingers flipping through the menu, unfazed by his arrival. The door shuts behind him, and it’s back to this air of oppressed silence. Chuuya slowly glides over to his seat across from you, eating you up from your head down to your little tippy toes. You are less covered up now, your office suit giving way to a remarkably eye-catching black maxi, although he does admit, what catches his eye is that slit that runs up your thigh.

Now, now, you look sexy.

When he settles down, he notices the agreement from this afternoon sitting by the edge of the glass table, all complete save for his and your signatures. The numbers 70 and 30 briefly register in his head. The former, of course, rightfully belonging under you. He furrows his brows. That’s twenty percent lower than what Mori is expecting. How can he negotiate with you, then? What more can he bargain with?

But as he looks up from the document to you, you’re already observing him, wearing a flirty (with a side of smug, as he expects) smile on those lips of yours.

“There’s always a price to pay, Mr. Nakahara.”

Chuuya is slightly baffled. The other workers in your office are boring and own a one-track mind. But evidently you don’t belong in the same group as them.

Is this a game to you?

“Name it.” He does want to know what you’re seeking from him, and he knows he’s not nearly as witty enough to figure it out on his own.

You never give anything away easily though. Chuuya learned that much. Instead of giving answers you lean back on your seat, just as you did earlier, and revert your attention back to the menu.

“So, you are capable of speaking to women after all, huh?”

The rest of the dinner is filled with conversations that don’t pertain to what it should. Instead of discussing the deal, he gets sidetracked, oddly intrigued by what you personally find fascinating. Chuuya remembers that first wave of pleasant surprise wash across your face when he asks about what you like, what you do outside of work. You know, the common exchange. But it must slip his mind that you aren’t used to ‘clients’ taking an interest in you, as a person.

Neither of you realise the abrupt change in the tone of the evening. You both kind of just ease into it.

Chuuya memorises what you tell him; how you actually like what little time you have outside of work; how you talk about books as your escape, the way your favourite author’s name rolls off your tongue so easily even though it’s a foreign name. He notes how your eyes sparkle when he pays you a compliment about how your brain works instead of the usual comments you receive on your appearance. He also loves how you talk just that little bit faster when you’re excited about a topic.

But he also learns how your smile is forced when you talk about your family, or anything remotely related to your work. He notices how you bite your lip when you talk about barely having time to enjoy anything outside of work. And how until now you’ve been a slave to the company, having to learn and grind on knowledge about anything and everything that you need to know to run it. A shut-in with a twist, if he might label it.

Chuuya was wrong then, he realises. Your life has not been one of free rides; easy passes. It didn’t get easier because of who you are. It was the reverse. It got harder because more was expected out of you. Your life at home wasn’t any easier. Turns out your father was, and is still, a tyrant. You’ve never known to enjoy yourself.

“Until tonight.”

Only now does it dawn on Chuuya why you set this whole thing up in the first place. This way you get to have some time to enjoy yourself at a ‘date’ disguised as a business meeting, because then dear daddy won’t get mad at you now, will he? You’ve probably never experienced romance, have you? Given your tight schedules and overbearing parents. Chuuya must be your first.

He gets just slightly giddy thinking of that possibility.

And by the time your plates are cleared and the bill is paid (by your father, apparently, because you grinned and charged it to his credit card; Chuuya thinks it’s acceptable because from what he hears, the director doesn’t seem to be a very good man at all, why not charge it to the man?), he makes his mind up to really help you make full use of your night.

That’s how he finds himself ten minutes later with you standing on the edge of the neighbouring skyscraper, your fingers intertwined tightly with his. Your first exposure to his ability. ‘Holy shit’ were your exact words. Despite how you carry yourself in the office, it’s almost unbelievable how childlike you look now, admiring the sight before you. Losing all your childhood because of who you’re expected to be… Chuuya knows all too well what that feels like. Minus the bond that is family, of course. Although now, he guesses he can call the Port Mafia such.

“Forty.”

Chuuya arches a brow. “Forty?”

You press your lips together to suppress a grin, nodding at him. “Highest I can go for you, Mr. Nakahara.”

“My boss wants a half, though,” Chuuya grimaces in faux sheepishness. Of course Mori would be fine with a forty, but it’s fun having a back-and-forth with you. Or maybe this is his way of convincing himself this is nothing more than continuing a pleasant conversation.

There’s something in your reaction that gets him so curious. It’s how you grin yourself silly and can’t even manage to look him in the eye. Or the way you try to untangle your fingers, only to find Chuuya has gripped them even tighter. He doesn’t even have to ask for you to know what he’s thinking of.

“Fifty is for family only, sorry.”

He waltzes through the narrow corridors and carpeted floors like it’s home. It might as well be, he’s been here about as many times as he’s been to the Port Mafia headquarters in the same duration. It doesn’t look as tacky as it used to. Or is it just because he’s used to it? Or maybe the gradual changes all seem like nothing to him because he visits this place every single day.

Chuuya sighs. No matter, he’s got other things to worry about.

“No, forget about making your own notes. Negotiate. I want exclusivity on this.”

There it is. Your bossy, domineering voice.

He leans by the doorframe. Your subordinates all dub you the ‘boss from hell’. Personally he can’t see why. But then again, you’re an absolute angel to him. (He never gets tired of seeing the shock register on everyone’s faces when they see you be all lovey-dovey with him.)

Feels good. Being the exception.

When the conversation ends, you hang up the phone and turn over, finally noticing your boyfriend by the door. It’s like a switch turns in you; your hostility melts away and those deep downturned lines rotate into a smile. Even now, five years later, you still have a childlike innocence to you; he sees this right now by how you skip towards him like an elated dog seeing its owner is home.

Did he just compare you to a dog…? Out of all the things he likes, why did he — he mentally facepalms himself but shrugs it off. Like he’s said before, he has more pressing matters to think about.

It’s amazing to think how far you both have gotten. From being strictly business to unspoken feelings in a matter of hours, to where you guys are now. Frankly, he didn’t think it was possible for someone like him. He gravitates away and thinks back to the first time he stepped foot in here.

Huh, maybe Mori did know what he was doing after all. That man ended up being your matchmaker. Chuuya inwardly grimaces and shudders and the thought.

But you pull him back to earth.

Your arms snake around his neck and you hook your legs around his waist. Lucky you’re wearing a pantsuit today, because the last time you did that, i.e. yesterday, you were wearing a skirt and it rode up your thigh a little too high. Yeah, Chuuya wasn’t too happy when some of your male coworkers got to see a glimpse of your ass. But he can’t blame you, you were just that excited to see him. Something he finds remarkable given you’ve been together for four years.

“Didn’t think you’d come here this early,” you comment as you get down, your hands still round his neck. “What brings you by, Chuu? Or should I say, future boss of the Port Mafia?”

He gives you a peck on the lips. His nickname falling from your lips just sound so right. You’re right, he usually comes by after you both are done with work. That usually means 8pm onwards. (You both are pretty invested in your companies. Especially now so for Chuuya that he’s been announced a few days ago as the one to take over the mafia in the future.)

“Today I’m here for professional reasons, princess, to offer you a proposal,” Chuuya coos, a gloved thumb grazing over your cheek.

“Hmm?” You look up at him quizzically. “Okay, shoot.”

Chuuya grins at you, his eyes closing and forming into crescents. He opens them slowly as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I think it’s time for that fifty-fifty.”

✢ tags. @yokelish @gogolparadise @fyowyn-writes

[lucarioisinthevoid]

both puppets, Scraptrap, Scrap baby, music man, normal chica, mr. hippo, and finally nightmare fredbear. we need a good mix, you know?

(Thanks for the request, I will get jumpscared SO bad and I’m excited to find out by who. Edit: No longer excited, hated it, I needed to pay attention to the audio because of Chica and Marion, hope the chapter will be more fun for it. Full disclosure, in my first run I died ten seconds in due to Nightmarionne, so- I did a second one that escalated just as badly. I’m an idiot, RIP Henry. Warning for a tiny bit of torture at the end, not TOO prolonged, but it’s gonna be there!)

“Alright.” Henry sat there with Helpy in front of a giant spreadsheet, showing little portrays of all the animatronics. “Am I actually supposed to believe that Foxy can throw in all of his parts one by one? And then repair himself to attack me?” “Yep!” The little bear happily confirmed. “… I do not have a choice aside from accepting it, do I?” “Yep!” “And how do I tell that he is here?” “A little figure on your desk! If it’s Bonnie, Bonnie is out, if there is Foxy, Foxy is out!” “Why… is Bonnie in Foxy’s cove?” Helpy shrugged. “Funtime Foxy doesn’t share, so there’s only one cove.” MY GOD. THERE WAS ONLY ONE COVE- Irritated Henry frowned, but he chose to ignore it. “… is there a way for me to tell who is there in general? I feel like having to check every single place on the camera is somewhat difficult and rather unfair.” Before he could say anything, the sheet turned grey, only leaving a selected few of them bright and colorful. His eyes went from one portray of the Marionette to the other. “… why thank you.” Helpy looked at the selection, frowning a little. “Oh… that’s… that’s not good. Uhm, Mr. Miller?” The man had stood up by now, making his way towards the door. “… yes?” “… you should keep the global music box on for tonight. B-but not too loud!” “… thanks you for the advice.” With that he exited the room, the weirdly cold main area greeting him instead. Making his way right towards the office, his mind was buzzing with a few questions to himself. These questions were only amplified when he entered the now more normal seeming office, seeing a rather familiar face. “You.” “Me!” Cheerfully Scrap Baby responded. “Good to see you again, bitchass.” “Excuse me-“ “Apology accepted.” She put her skaters on the table, waiting for Henry to sit down on the other side- which he did, seeing as he hardly had another choice. “Look at you. MISERABLE. I love it!” “… and I enjoy seeing you all scrapped up, made out of trash and metal scraps. However, I have the satisfaction of knowing that you are in this condition because of me. You, however, do not.” Leaning over, the girl let her claw snap. “… you are a brave boy, Miller… let’s see how brave you’ll be when I test how easily I can behead you with my claw!” Henry’s hand was hovering over the button for the electronic shock and she noted, leaning back again. He had the shock, she had her claw… it was only a matter of time to see who could react quicker. A raspy, broken voice sounded from the back. “Wow… look at you two… getting along like a house on fire… I almost don’t want to interrupt… a l m o s t.” Instantly Henry looked down, flipping up the monitor to activate the global music box and reset the ventilation, as well as spotting the animatronic in the duct system and quickly placing a lure. The nightmarish animatronic chuckled. “Oh, Henry… don’t you want to look at me…?” “Seeing as it will take me life… no.” Despite his words, he sneaked a short glance at the creature- it was hard to ignore, so giant and unnatural, his curiosity was begging him to take a look. “… as much as I hate to be rude.” His head felt feverish, there was something wrong. Baby was from his old home. She referred to the things they had gone through together. Not that it was much, but it was there. And then there was the monstrous creature, one he knew could exist, but never came to fruition. This place of course wasn’t tied to time and space, but it seemed this place wasn’t even tied to a single-strained reality. It would also explain why everyone seemed to know him. That threw up a few more questions though, for example, if the souls roaming were actually- He could hear the global music box playing, as well as Chica’s rummaging in the back. When he lowered the camera again, he stared to the side, trying his hardest to not look at the creature, while keeping an eye on Baby and her position. “… you will look. Eventually. I know. You know. Why are you drawing out the inevitable, Henry? I thought you hated that.” “It is not inevitable.” Henry said, his voice full of confidence, but his eyes remained on the corner to the side. If he just kept the routine up, then- … dear god. The power was draining a little bit too quickly for his liking. Was the music box this much of a strain? It wasn’t too bad yet, if he kept things going it might would be tight, but not impossible- Out of nowhere an obnoxious voice sounded. "Uh-oh! How unfortunate! Uh-oh! How unfortunate! I know how much you like to fight, so I'll add a new problem to your night!" Snapping around, Henry spotted a girl- ANOTHER DAMN BALLOON CHILD- stand in a corner, snickering to herself, watching him with glee. “Wh-what!? Who are you?” But as he asked that, the entire screen started to rumble and quake, something was coming from the left, it was coming FAST, it must have been something INCREDIBLE RAGEFUL and in a blind panic he smashed all the doors to that side close. The lights flickered off for a second and the Balloon Girl disappeared- the creature however had been locked out. It felt like it was too close- his brain wasn’t supposed to react that panicked! Had that been Dave? Really? It sounded like- His mind was a mess. The Nightmarionette chuckled, now lounging at the right side of the office. For some reason Baby snickered too. “What is so funny?!” He hissed, quickly flipping through the cameras, checking the vents and airduct cameras, trying desperately to find who this creature had added- Then his eyes lowered down to the energy that was being wasted. Rapidly it decreased. No, no, the global music box couldn’t be draining THIS much power, right?! Was it even possible to keep the global music box playing all night? Twenty-four percent at two AM. No way he could do it. Frustrated he looked to the side, wondering who exactly would come for him once the lights were out. Would the puppet or Chica come into the office? Taking revenge for being deprived of their other form of entertainment? He hadn’t seen the Nightmare Fredbear for the entirety of the night, something that slightly disappointed him. The only nightmarish creature he was allowed to see was the one he wasn’t allowed to look at. Now it was actually inevitable to die- and the machines in front of him enjoyed it, obviously. The way they looked at each other made it clear they were deciding on who would get the honors. With a headache Henry glanced at his deactivated tablet. … if they were unlucky, then the newly arrived stranger would be the one getting to strike first. “Why are you so quiet, Henry? Bear got your tongue?” “… was there anything left to talk about?” Baby snickered. “Maybe you should cut that attitude. Or I’ll cut your tongue out… both would fix it!” “That is not a conversation worth having, at least in my eyes. I am open for a counterpoints, but us talking about it will not aid either of us. Correct?” Ten percent. It was still draining quickly, instantly down to double digits, and it just had turned to three AM. “Any last words?” Baby asked. Henry just tsked, closing all the doors and glancing at her. “Get it over already. Boasting is not a polite thing to do.” She clacked her claw. “You just want to get me shocked before going down.” “If that is what you think.” A few heartbeats now- Then the lights went down. … what a familiar noise indeed… Slowly it went darker and darker, the afterglow of the lamps fading fast. Henry breathed slowly, listening in, trying to guess who was approaching to kill him. From the side, the Nightmarionnette moved closer, putting a heavy claw on his shoulder, leaning down. Its bright white eyes and shining teeth were the only thing still seeing- aside from the stripes, vaguely. Henry stared inside them, without showing fear. “Henry…” “Yes, Charlie?” “… you left the right door locked up until now.” For a moment Henry was frozen, then he slapped his own face. “I am such an idiot.” “Now, now, do not damage the goods… that is my job!” Picking him up carefully, like a little doll, the Nightmarion let one of his claws move over Henry’s stomach- Henry just hanging in the grasp, stubbornly refusing to fight back. “… will I go to actual hell after this?” The machine laughed, it sounded a bit like a circular saw, a far distance away. “Henry! This IS your hell! And… the nightmare is just beginning.” With that he dug his claws inside of his body, right at the chest. It was a horrible crushing feeling, the pressure on his skin, of his lungs growing stronger and stronger until it broke open, blinding white pain, opening up- One claw peeled off the skin, the other aimed right for the heart, pulling it out until separating it with and abrupt RIP- … how was he still conscious, this was far too much pain, far too much damage, how was he- how was he still conscious... Fascinated the machine looked at the heart. “You have one! What a surprise. Now… to the real test.” It took it to his maw, shoving it against his teeth, opening it up, tearing it to pieces, as a long tongue slipped out, catching a few bloody drops, while another few dropped on the ground, joining the pool from where Henry was being held. “… I do like the taste…” With that it reached out again, reaching in- And that was thankfully the last thing he experienced before fading away. He woke back up on the couch, coughing abruptly, feeling close to dry heaving- Stumbling over, he got himself a glass of water. Then he sat down next to the sink, trying to breathe more regularly. … it would get better. He would get better.

[cozycryptidcorner]

Chapter Four

Read Chapter Three Here

Okay, so you might have had to immediately climb back down to grab your tablet. No big deal, just a sensor that would have alerted whoever is at the helm of movement, and you need to make sure that it won’t be pinging out in distress that someone is banging around in the atmospheric control ducts. You’ve already pestered Elias about the wireless network service, and he gave you the information of one that is most certainly being monitored very, very carefully, and absolutely would not be shared with a machine that keeps everyone from suffocating. More than likely, the atmo ducts have an internal system, one that you might be able to tap into with a handy-dandy wire plugged into your trustee tablet.

It’s the oldest trick in the book to the point where most people don’t even think of it, to begin with, and instead have all these fancy smancy firewalls that keep all incoming signals from coming close enough to touch the cyberspace, but forget that someone could just plug themselves in and immediately have the same kind of access for far fewer tears. The driders, apparently, are no different than your usual hits and have almost no sort of internal security to defend from any internal attacks, almost like they never thought that would happen. You run a quick codebreaker app, and within moments, you’re in, a two-dimensional map of the floor blinking onto the screen as the information downloads.

A little red tracker signals which station your tablet plugs into, showing your apartment label as 123412.5, which isn’t anywhere near as helpful as you’d thought it would be. What you had hoped was that all the rooms would be designated nice and dandy with the names of people and what they are used for, but nope. Gods forbid for anything to be remotely easy for you! Biting your lip down, you try to make sense of the numbers, thinking that maybe it has to do with your… birthdate? No. Birthplace? No. Your name, somehow? No. But something a little strange is that no other rooms on the floor have digits in any way close to yours. 346578, 346690, and 346744 are the ones right next to your apartment, which you don’t have to be a genius to notice they those are widely different from than the one you were given. While you can note the positions of rooms, you’re sure there’s some method of figuring which room is for whom, and maybe even a code for the names.

Sometimes the only way to crack a code is to look at a cheat sheet. You find the control panel for the motion sensors and turn them off. Instead of going around and barging into random people’s apartments (most humans don’t take kindly to that, you expect the driders to be the same), you decide to start poking around some industrial closets to see what you can see. Before you can begin worming your way through the ducts, though, a loud knock sounds on the door, your soul almost jumping into a different plane of reality from shock. Careful not to bang your head on the edge of the opening as you close it the flap, before silently hopping down the bookshelf and get to an acceptable altitude for your voice to be.

“Yes?”

“Ma’am? You asked me to tell you if I saw your servant. She just returned.”

“Oh!” You’re already pushing the bookshelf back up against the wall. “Thank you so much for letting me know. I’ll be out in just a minute.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.”

God, these stone floors are good for moving noiselessly. You don’t hear the drow maid as she retreats back to whatever chore she was doing, which means you probably couldn’t sense if she comes back. Good to know that you’re in a pretty vulnerable position, not that you didn’t know that already. Looking over the room one last time just to make sure everything seems reasonably normal, you unlock the door and leave, walking down the hallway and almost running into the Starward Matchmakers™ representative. After taking a generous step away to avoid getting mowed over, you let out a huffy breath.

“I was looking for you everywhere,” you bark, crossing your arms and glaring. “Where have you been? The prince showed up, I was floundering in the dark.”

“Oh, right,” she places a perfectly manicured hand on her forehead. “That’s what we’re here for, aren’t we. I almost forgot.”

It takes you a moment to process the fucking oddity of her words. She almost forgot? The Starward Matchmakers™ representative doesn’t forget, she remembers everything about everything. This isn’t good. “Where were you?”

“I- I don’t recall... oh, that’s right. I went out to speak with the prince’s assistant. Elias.”

This does not bode well. “Alright, let’s go back to your room. I’m going to take a look at your processing chip.” If you so much as breathed in ay which way to suggest that you wanted to peak at the Starward Matchmakers™ representative’s internal processors, she would typically take that as an invitation for a whack. But she doesn’t even raise her hand in a threat, only follows you to the wide-open door and inside without a word of protest.

Once the door is shut (the Starward Matchmakers™ representative is particular about her privacy), you gently tilt her head back, then fiddle around on the side of her neck until you find a control panel. Ugh, these newer models are so goddamn lifelike that most people can hardly tell the difference, but that means that someone unfamiliar with the mechanics is going to have a rougher time figuring out what goes where. After a moment of fiddling around, though, you find a corner of her artificial skin that presses down like a button, and out pops a chunk of metal and skin-like silicone. The exposed insides look like raw muscle, which was most certainly a conscious choice from the manufacturer. They want the androids convincingly humanesque down to the literal bloody details, almost as if they’re playing a game of gods.

It’s terribly stupid.

And incredibly inconvenient.

You reach between two of the twitching muscles with a finger, biting down on your tongue to keep from making any noises. After just a moment of digging through the twitching wetness, you find a button that you hope is a shutdown override, pressing it down until you feel it click. Instantly, the Starward Matchmakers™ representative’s eyes flicker as she falls back onto the bed, still as a board. Or a corpse. Calmly as a phantom, you stand over her, staring down at her blossom covered blouse as you try to build up the courage to rip open her chest. Only after taking in a generous breath do you bend over, fingers outstretched to work open the first button. Her eyes open just before you get the chance to even graze the fabric, and her voice, cool and devoid of emotion, speaks.

“Initiate full shutdown?”

You shout. Actually, it’s more of a quiet, rather undignified shriek, one that you would never openly admit to making. While you had expected to give some kind of voice command to open up her central circuitry unit, you didn’t realize she would do…. That. Look at you with those empty blue eyes, her light hair still in some kind of impossibly perfect style, her mouth moving but without her voice. And to think she kicked your ass a nigh forty-eight hours earlier.

“Initiate full shutdown?” Her prerecorded voice asks once more.

“No, no.” You find your footing, creeping back over to where you were. Maybe you don’t have to get all up in her business, after all. “Commence full system diagnostics.”

It takes a moment for the command to process.

“Commencing full system diagnostics. Estimated time of completion; 24.5 hours.”

Internally, you’re screaming. These fucking fancy pieces of machinery and their ‘high functioning’ abilities to perform like humans until one of them breaks a nail and it’s a week in the shop until everything’s better.

“Correction: estimated time of full systems diagnostics report will be completed in 26.77 hours.”

You’re going to grind your teeth to dust on this mission, you think, looking at the clock and trying to even your breathing. One day, just one day, and then everything is going to be fine. You’re fine. This is fine. Everything is fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.

When you leave her room, you’re careful to shut the door behind you, though you don’t lock it. You’d like to get back inside without revealing your advanced lockpicking skills, and you don’t really have it in you to request a second set of bedroom keys from the drow servant. Not yet, anyway. Without anything much else to do, you go back to your room, though not to try shimmying your way through the atmo ducts again. Instead, you throw yourself onto your bed with your tablet and do your absolute darndest to distract yourself from everything else until it’s time to eat. The prince doesn’t request your company for the rest of the day, so you try to keep your heart from bubbling over with anxiety and keep your eyes and brain focused on Funny Vine.26 Video Compilation 55, TRY NOT TO LAUGH OR SMILE.

Suddenly you’re awake, and it takes you a moment to realize that you must have fallen asleep at some point in the video. The tablet screen is off, you can’t see it in the blackness of the room, so you feel around for it until your fingers hit the hard glass-like material of a screen. Dim light fills the room as you press into the button on the side, the shadows long and looming. You sit up quick enough that a wave of dizziness washes over your skull, your heartbeat throbbing throughout your body and into your fingers. It’s already noon?

You slip out of your bed, biting your bottom lip, checking to make sure that your door is still locked out of a paranoid habit you developed while working freelance. The handle doesn’t budge. Even though the drow servant has a set of keys, you don’t think that she’s the type to break into someone’s room while they are sleeping. Letting out a slight huff of breath, you flip the lock, quietly opening the door to look before you leave just in case the prince is lurking out in the common area like yesterday. You don’t see him near the bookshelf, or over by the dining room, but that’s where your scope of vision unfortunately ends.

Taking a gamble, you step out, smoothing down the front of your shirt. The drow servant is working over by the cabinets, you think she’s cleaning something out, and she’s quick to approach once she catches sight of you. “Good morning, ma’am! Apologies for not waking you, but I suspected you wished to remain sleeping.”

You yawn, rubbing the edge of your eye. “You suspected correct, thank you. Has the prince… erm… dropped by, at all, looking for me?”

“His assistant called asking if you were available to accompany the keias on another walk in the gardens, but I informed him that you were asleep. You have been requested to contact the assistant at your leisure. I have food ready to warm up if you would like, ma’am.”

“Thanks,” you say, distractedly, “I would appreciate that. I’m... going to get dressed while you heat the food.”

“Excellent, I shall begin at once, ma’am.”

In a bit of a haze, you wander back to your room, debating on how to handle the day with the Starward Matchmakers™ representative down for the count in a vulnerable position. You aren’t absolutely certain, but the fact that the drow attendant, Elias, was the last person she remembers going to meet is highly suspect. No duh. This has got to be some kind of trap, or at the very least, a test. Until you get more information, it’s probably most beneficial to go on and act like nothing is happening. You get ready for the day, careful to select an outfit that would be considered more presentable to the public than the last.

You eat breakfast, something relatively familiar to your taste buds, and radio the drow attendant to let him know that you can meet the prince whenever he’s ready. The drow attendant politely informs you that he’ll get back to you on that. An hour passes. To say that you’re bored wouldn’t exactly be all the way correct, but you’re definitely going stir-crazy, half expecting that every time you turn your head, the prince would be crouched in any of the corners you currently aren’t looking at. So, instead of staying on the couch,staring blankly up at the ceiling, you grab your tablet and scoot on out of there.

While growing up as a miner might have aided in your abilities to handle tunnels and rocky structures, you never really had to deal with gravity in those situations. Really, the only thing you had to worry about were the buzzermites, little critters that didn’t need to breathe, but could a heavy number on any electrical equipment. Here, though. Let’s just say that the critters are more… predatory. Terrifying. So your little exploration expedition is weighed down by all the random excuses you have to come up with if someone gets a little accusatory.

What are you doing here, aw, nothing, totally not trying to figure out the algorithms of the room labels. Definitely not looking over the downloaded map right now and trying to figure out if that door is a closet or someone else’s apartment. Calmly, you count the number of rooms you’ve passed on the map, trying to correlate that to what you’ve seen, one, two, three, four, crash. Something spills out onto the floor, and you stumble backward in a few shaky steps. After just a moment, you manage to regain both your balance and focus your vision, finding that you nearly managed to mow over a drow servant and their cart.

“Oh fu- I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there!” You immediately help with the cleanup, bending over to gather what you can in your arms, noticing a surplus of decorative towels and sheets, all resembling each other in the same silver and violet pattern. A cart that had just made an untimely introduction the side of your thigh holds more of the same shattered-shaped, glittering embroidery, so you do your best to dump what you had gathered neatly onto the top of the pile.

“I should have known better than to try to haul twice the load in a single run,” they say, though their voice is somewhat strained. The drow servant doesn’t seem to notice you, or, at least, your species, just that your voice is apologetic and around the same height as most other of the serving class. It doesn’t help that they are desperately trying to balance the wave of pillows and towels that had tipped over on their head, their dusty gray arms wrapped around the fabric. You don’t think it would matter if their face were uncovered or not, since their attention seems to be solely on keeping the mountain from becoming unbalanced before they can gently set everything back on the already overflowing pile of the cart.

Already, though, some of the pillows fall over the edge once more. You hastily move to catch them before they fall, or at least to quickly pick them up off the floor if you happen to miss. “It apparently worked for a bit,” you gander, looking over their shoulder to see that one of the doors was open. A storage unit. You try to commit the odd symbol to memory, desperately trying to memorize the sharp angles and sliding curves of the script in the second it would take to not look too terribly suspicious. “Let me help you ease the cargo a bit, I think that if I carry a couple of things, it won’t be in any more danger of tipping over.”

“Oh, do you have the time?” The drow asks, clearly thrilled for the help, before they manage to get a glimpse of your face. Their jaw hangs open, only for a hot second, before their face pales in what you can only imagine is terrible panic.

“I mean,” you try to calm the situation down, “I don’t really have anything better to do, to be quite honest.” It didn’t seem like that had the effect you wanted it to, so you try, “you look like you’re in a terrible hurry, and I want to help, so I’m going to start walking, and you’re going to tell me which way I’m going.”

That seems to snap them out of their stupor. “Of- of course, if it pleases you, your grace. Straight up ahead, I will get the correct door to open.” All prim and proper, as though you hadn’t just caught them entirely out of sorts. Whatever training they must get must be ridiculously good for them to be able to snap back from that kind of panic, or maybe prior experience has taught them not to shed too many emotions.

Whatever the case, you walk, trailing to the side of the cart with the intention of catching anything else that decides to stray. And, to be fair to the drow servant, the room that the load is supposed to go to is reasonably far from the closet. The distance only helps to further cement the map into your brain, now that you’ve managed to physically see for yourself where two of the locations are. The servant holds out one of their wrists, their left one, you notice, and the keypad on the wall makes a satisfied beep in response. The door unlocks, and the drow servant turns the old-fashioned handle to let you in first, standing to the side.

You step into the room, mentally calculating how much you can snoop before it looks suspicious, and decide that you have to play it easy for now, especially with your only way out virtually down for the count, possibly infected with some sort of trojan virus. So you step away from the door, sticking to the wall, staring at the fairly similar, yet unique layout of the new and entirely different suite. The architecture is familiar enough that you can tell that it is, in fact, part of the same building and era, but changed just enough that you would know if you had accidentally wandered into it thinking it was yours. Interesting. You wonder if those designing the underground had a different spin on every suite, or if there are only two or three repeating designs. You suppose you’ll find out eventually.

“I’ll take those,” the drow servant says, gathering the bunch of cloth out of your arms and wandering off to what you assume is the restroom.

“Someone looks like they’re redecorating,” you say in a simple observation. Everything else about the room is completely stripped away, the humanoid-made couches missing their cushions, all the cabinets in the kitchen area open and empty.

“Not redecorating,” the drow servant says, then seems mildly hesitant to add, “the ambassador has been... replaced.”

“Oh.” You have no idea who they’re talking about, but now you know that you’re on a floor with a bunch of important people. Which you had probably known, you think you had a very brief, very rushed lesson about the importance of who will most likely be sharing similar accommodations. Still, hearing it from of a native is different than the hazy guesses offered up to you by an overpaid military official who barely knows what was going on twenty light-years beyond the border. You suppose that if someone… not you, of course, but someone wishing to wreak havoc could inflict a lot of intergalactic political damage just by briefly messing with the air filters on this exact floor.

Then you realize the choice of words being used. “Replaced?”

The drow servant shakes their head. “It isn’t my place, your grace.”

“Of course,” you blink, taking a step towards the door, “I’ll get out of your hair, then. Sorry about running into your cart in the hallway.”

“Oh- please don’t apologize, your grace, it was my own fault for being so careless with myself!”

“No, you were just trying to do your job efficiently, and I got in your way.” You’re already in the hallway, but you pause, and try to consider how they might feel if your job- no, if your life was on the line because you accidentally ran over the queen of England with a serving tray. “I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

There’s an abundance of relief on their face, but also a carefully hidden smidgen of suspicion, one you wouldn’t have been able to sniff out if you weren’t so well-versed in winning people over to believing whatever you promise. “I know what you’re thinking,” you say, holding up your hands in surrender, “you think that I want something in return, and you’re right.”

They bite. “What… what is it, your grace?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Y-your grace?”

“That, yeah.” You wave your hand. “It’s annoying. Just call me by my first name, ‘miss’ or ‘ma’am’ if you absolutely must. If the prince has some kind of weird fetish over being worshipped, you can do what you must in his presence, but when he’s not around, it’s fine to just be casual, m’kay?”

It takes a moment for them to fully process what you’re saying. “M-miss?”

“That’s it.” You grin, placing your hands on your hips. “You got it already. Maybe spread the word about this, too.”

They nod.

“Alright, it was nice getting to know you!” You offer a little wave, then get on out of there. Even though you managed to appear cool as a cucumber, your heart is hammering inside your ribcage. All it takes is this one servant to report your odd behavior, you’re sure, and it’s all over. You don’t know how exactly it would be over, but surely they’d figure out that you’re trying to do reconnaissance through the servants. It is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The human book, you guess, but still the book. Oh god, you might throw up. You need to eat something, maybe watch a flick to get your mind off the shakingly reckless shit that you’ve been up to.

No such luck though, because why would the universe see fit to ease your pain in the slightest? Why would you be so silly to think that? How could you hope for anything outside of the prince, standing in the middle of the common space like a goddamn apparition, waiting, apparently, for you.

“Oh, hey,” you say in what you imagine a perfectly normal nonchalant greeting should be like. “Your assistant didn’t tell me you were coming, so… um, I went for a walk.”

“You look unwell.”

Goddamnit, you probably look like you’ve wandered out of a nightmare. “I didn’t sleep great last night.”

“Was the bed not to your liking? Are the pillows too stiff or soft for your neck?” He immediately tenses, and you can feel a soft aura of bloodlust roll off him like a dewdrop from a flower.

You swallow thickly. “No, the bed is amazing. I just… couldn’t get to sleep. My mind wouldn’t settle.”

“Stress.” He says as though he had known from the moment you stepped through the door, and not as though he were, just moments before, ready to strangle whoever put together your room. “You’re stressed. This is stressing for you?”

The room tilts slightly, but you catch yourself before you so much as wobble. Yes, you’re stressed, you want to scream but don’t. There are too many variables, too many people for his anger to flow towards. You reach up and rub your temples, taking in a shaking breath, knowing that you’re on the precipice of a panic attack. Sitting would be deeply preferable, but you would have to shove your way past the prince, and you don’t think that the two of you are on that level of understanding quite yet. He might think- he might think-

You take another breath, deep, gaping, and balance yourself on the bookshelf. Don’t lie to me, the prince’s voice echoes in your head as you open your mouth to speak the single most used falsehood in the history of humankind. “I’m fine.”

“Perhaps you believe that,” the prince says, offering a steadying arm, which you hesitantly take, “but it appears that gravity sickness has begun to catch up with you.”

Lolth’s gravity is almost twice more than you are used to, Clementine had said once, drumming her short fingernails against a steel table, I give you one week at best before you really start feeling it all up inside those bones and muscles.

God, you hate it when she’s right. And you especially hate that barely three days have passed and you already want to lay down and go into a three-year coma.

“You need to expand your center of gravity,” the prince, at least, sounds like he knows what he speaks of, and he generously steps out of your way. You can take a few shaky steps forward and lay down on the couch, your brain swimming around in circles as your muscles twitch occasionally. Then, after a moment of silence, he reaches a hand down and gently pets your hair. “You mustn’t be so crass with your own health. I understand that ‘fine’ doesn’t at all mean its exact definition when humans use it in the same context,” he continues, the sharpness of his claws never once pressing hard enough to hurt, not even by accident, “however, I don’t wish for you to use it when it comes to your own safety.”

“Alright,” you agree quietly, your hands resting on your hammering chest. Then, in an even more subdued voice, you ask, “are…. you going to stay?”

His hands don’t stop their movements. “Do you wish me to leave?”

You have to think about it for a moment, because even though your immediate instinct is yes, please leave me alone, you bite your lip down and realize that you don’t want to deal with this all alone. You really don’t know what’s gotten into you, later you might convince yourself that you like the way his fingers move against your scalp and nothing else. Or, a deeper part of yourself that you rarely listen to whispers, you’re finally tired of dealing with this kind of shit solo. Whatever the case, you open your mouth, fully intending to send him away. But something else comes out instead.

“No, don’t go.”

[frimushroom]

CATs, the thought piece

So I finally finished this piece <3

The movie of the Broadway musical CATS has always had a special place in my heart.  A few weeks ago I tuned into original cast member Jacob Brent (Mr. Mistoffelees) doing a live commentary about the film. It was a great nostalgia trip-- an evening video-chatting a friend a few states away to commence our CATs tradition.

Little me’s obsession

But this is a thought piece not a fan letter. While I doubt anyone many are going to click through to this part of the post, I did something similar with my last fan art, it’s a brain dump. So far it’s helped a bit in working through feelings I have when I see my own art. I want to be able to enjoy what I do and this is a step in the right direction.

I took my time with this piece and I’m proud of that. I didn’t let it stop me from completing it and posting it. Continuing to adjust through sketching is not a weakness. Not being able to finish this in a session like a professional live stream artist does not mean anything. This is how one practices and being hard on myself will only continue to cripple my creativity and keep me where I am. It’s ok to not be doing this full time, think of it as building my callouses back up. In the end the final product is good and no one will think less of it but probably me if they saw all the in between steps.This piece took me waaaay to long. From the idea doodle it’s taken me several weeks, and I redrew it several times. I had to futz with the anatomy and trying to match the pose from the reference image. It’s frustrating to not have the eye for human anatomy, I should have these basics down a bit better by now. The feet and hands still feel a bit off. Everything seemed awkward, especially for a ballet pose. It makes me wanna take more still life classes after this quarantine is over. I need to practice and get the fundamentals back under my belt cause it’s embarrassing.

I took a risk- that’s a good thing! It’s ok for digital to not be my prefer medium and it’s normal to feel some discomfort in working with something while still learning. It takes time and practice. I can see things that need improvement without it taking away from the joy the subject matter and progression in my skills gives me right now. I’m not less of an artist for accepting praise without appending all my issues with the piece to prove that I have an artistic eye (or whatever my current negative thoughts are). Also look at how much you learned about photo shop. Working digitally still gives me a sinking feeling as I can see the glaring gap between where my paper and pencil is to my comfort with a tablet. I feel like I’m still treating the programs like MS paint. An earlier sketch of this looked so stilted. While digital allows for helpful layers and adjusting proportions earlier, if I’m not tracing scanned line art it just doesn’t seem to work right. It’s hard to not look at this and be swarmed by the need to practice more and how I shouldn’t be satisfied when looking at it because it’ll be complacency. The lighting, the glow effect, the skin tones look a little off, white space as a possible crutch to avoid details…

PRIDE! Why overthink this. I’m sure it shouldn’t matter to me if anything thinks into this is anything but a positive light. I also can’t read minds so there is no use spinning possible catastrophic scenarios.I feel like I’m projecting my queerness too strong in this. Obviously this is fan art and the actors aren’t my OTP or something. I realized, until the last time I watched this film that I never thought about cats with any sexual undertones, cause like I was a kid so that’s fine. But this time I watch it and caught all the queer vibes these two cats and it made me giddy happy-Is that weird? Tagging them in my post makes me squirm. The same way I don’t wanna be summed up by only a part of who I am, I don’t wanna boiled these guys down to their sexuality either. I always worry about were the line between fan appreciations to let them know, in case they needed the boost, that they were part of something that meant something to me…..and being a wierdo fan.

You don’t have to be a dancer to enjoy everything it makes you feel. It just means you have a greater depth of understanding an appreciation for the art. You aren’t less for it.I wish I had stuck with dancing as a hobby. This makes me sad that I stopped in grade school and only took it again as an elective in college. This piece reminds me of the magic I saw in it as a kid. Reminds me I couldn’t cut it as an athlete, my spotty memory wasn’t going to do me favors in memorizing choreography, and the podiatrist didn’t recommend I try point at all. I miss my flexibility; it makes me feel old and tired.

I’m proud of myself for putting myself out there and making this piece. It’s a good piece! I’m thinking about this too much, that’s normal. I wanna thinking about all the possible down sides to this piece, negative reactions in the form of a polite thumbs up, or just the thought of me looking at in a year and missing the joy I had making it in my unhelpful thought patterns. Also did I mention my last post got more likes then I expected and I’m freaking out a little?

*Deeeep breaths* and so it’s time to let all the thoughts go into the night. I’m happy with this one :)

Final piece HERE. #mental health#therapy#arttherapy#theprocess

[thebeethathums]

Broken Together - 1

Pairing: Eventual Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: A lot. Mentions of torture and death, mild cutting, depression, suicidal thoughts. (if I need to add others let me know)

A/N: I’ve been playing with this idea in my head a while and it just... happened. Wanda and Pietro are being held against their will after volunteering for the scepter experiments and it's taking some time for their powers to fully come into their own in this one. Also FULL WARNING this is dark. Those of you who read my usual stuff will know there is a certain Wholesome™ quality to them. This is not like that. Please read at your own discretion.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, dragging a hand over your face as if in an attempt to erase the exhaustion written all over it. It would be time to go soon. Stepping away, you tugged a long sleeve shirt over your head, letting the light fabric cover the methodically spaced needle track marks up both forearms. It had been a rough night in the lab and your handlers had left you alone when it became clear you had no further use for them for the day. After two years they trusted you were broken enough not to try anything and they were right… to a degree.

Strucker was a man obsessed but, as the man in charge, he was also spread unbelievably thin. A fact you were glad for as he had little time to oversee your practices and procedures. As long as he got results, how they came about mattered very little to him. You would take advantage of that for as long as you possibly could. You stretched your sore muscles and rubbed your temples to try and ease the tension building up there before gathering a few things: a lab coat for yourself, two new books you’d managed to procure, and an old digital stopwatch.

The door to your quarters slid open and you tensed. Seven A.M. on the dot. It was time to start another day. When you didn’t immediately respond, the agent in the doorway crossed his arms, brows raised as if to say ‘there are two ways to do this,’ and you quickly gathered your tablet and other research- you’d long since stopped fighting.

You followed the agent down the hall obediently, feeling the weight of emotional and physical exhaustion settling in on your shoulders. It was going to be another very long day but you were prepared. Nothing would go wrong. You had assured that in your late night tests and preparations. You slowly sucked the stale air deep into your lungs through your nose and then pushed it back out through your mouth, readying yourself with your mantra in your head- Endure.

In the beginning, you had refused daily. They would drag you out kicking and screaming, beat you within an inch of your life, and then return you to your room. You had been tossed on the floor every night in a crumpled heap but no matter the pain you convinced yourself you could withstand it. It was better than the alternative. That tactic had lasted a few months before they shifted to psychological torture. During those few brutal weeks, you still hadn’t wavered.

Every morning they had given you a choice: comply or suffer another day and again and again, you refused.

To you, the only options were: endure or die.

Originally, your captors had been perplexed when you hadn’t relented quickly. They underestimated your resolve. Why wouldn’t they? Before you had just been a scientist- soft and unfamiliar with the horrors they had subjected you to; blissfully privileged to a life without this level of fear or suffering.

In reality, they overestimated your will to live.

Depression had been a constant theme in your life in varying degrees and somehow, by some small miracle, it had allowed you to draw a line in the sand. Endure or die. You had repeated it to yourself over and over. Those were your options and in your mind either had been acceptable. The only fight in you then was the fight against what they wanted. That was all that mattered.

Or so you had thought.

The laboratory doors slid open for your bulky escort and he ushered you in, posting himself outside as the doors closed and locked with a finalizing click. You nodded a greeting to your two ‘assistants’ and slid into the chair at your workstation, glancing at the time. You still had a few minutes to before they arrived and you felt the doubts gathering low in your stomach. Every experiment day was the same. The doubts were impossible to completely shake and, somewhere deep in you, you knew the day that you could was the day they had truly broken your spirit. Today was not that day. You took another deep breath in and then slowly out, letting the memories wash over you to remind you why you were here.

They weren’t stupid. Once it became clear that you weren’t going to give in to their usual tactics, they regrouped. You hadn’t expected that. They wanted your mind. It limited their options- push too far and they may lose the brilliance that had drawn them to you in the first place. You knew this. It had spared you the fate of some the others they had taken through the years. You had been able to maintain the luxury of free thought. The last thing you expected was for them to find a way to use it against you.

That day they had come in and dragged you out as they usually did, but instead brought you to the viewing room of the lab. Strucker had brought in someone else. A researcher willing but lacking your insight and experience. You were forced to watch his misguided experiments on three separate test subjects and by the third, a boy who could not have been more than ten years old, you were openly weeping, pleading for them to stop.

The Baron had gripped your chin harshly, disdain in his voice as he seethed, “You caused this. You will watch.”

None of the three had survived more than a half hour. They left you alone with your thoughts for a full day after that- somehow they had gathered that your own mind would torture you more than they ever could. You had been so blind… so monumentally stupid. You had no control. It didn’t matter if you didn’t comply. The experiments would continue. They would find another scientist. The atrocities would still come to pass after you were gone.

When they came for you the next day, you went willingly.

In the time that had passed since then, your only goal was to complete what they asked of you with limited suffering and as much compassion as you could. When your first subject had lived past a week, the Baron had allowed you whatever you needed with only minor questioning.

The young agent who had volunteered to be your subject, Daniel, hadn’t much cared for your compassion or care.

He had only wanted power.

That hadn’t stopped you from administering substantial amounts of pain medication to ease his suffering when the experiment failed a month in. It hadn’t stopped you from holding his hand with a whispered prayer as the life slowly faded from his eyes. It hadn’t stopped you from mourning him that night in the solitude of your room with stifled sobs over how you had failed. It hadn’t stopped you from quietly craving his name into your wrist with a scalpel the next day to remind you of that.

You let out the breath you’d been holding when one of your handlers interrupted your thoughts to announce that breakfast had been brought. You didn’t know which. You never bothered to learn their names. They did as you asked for your work while supervising your progress for Strucker. You trusted them with nothing. Shaking off the memories as you stood, you silently took the tray with a fleeting glance at your wrist.

Three names.

Three failures.

You looked to the testing room as your current subjects were escorted in and determinedly worked your jaw- their names would not be joining that list.

Wanda looked up when you came in the with tray, a faint smile gracing her face as Pietro offered a grin, “Morning, Doc.”

You set the tray in the middle of the table and took your usual cup of coffee from it, forcing a small smile, “Good morning, Pietro… Wanda. Did you both sleep well?”

Nodding, Pietro dug into the breakfast as soon as you set it down and Wanda took just piece of toast, watching you closely. Things had gotten easier over the past few months since her new abilities had started to become more developed. They trusted you now that she could see your care was genuine.

She sat back with her toast, nibbling at it as Pietro told you about some nonsensical dream he’d had and you jotted down notes on a pad in front of you, your eyes lighting up in a way they rarely did anymore. This was the time she’d come to treasure. Even with the overall circumstance seeming bleak, at least you all could find comfort in small moments like these. Since they had been tricked into volunteering by Dr. List, these peaceful and normal moments came few and far in between. She appreciated the effort you put into making them happen as often as you could.

You slid the stopwatch across the table to Pietro when he came to a stopping point, “I know it’s nothing fancy but…”

He had already snatched it before you could finish, chattering away happily in Sokovian at a speed that you couldn’t easily make out what he was saying before he disappeared from his chair to test it out.

Letting him with a soft chuckle, you turned your gaze to Wanda as you slid the two paperbacks toward her, “And these are for you. One in English and one in Sokovian. I can’t guarantee they’ll be a good read but it’s something at least.”

She tilted her head at you ever so slightly with a light smile, “Thank you.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I did… I suspect we will need it for whatever we are doing today?”

Your eyes met hers, “Always better to be prepared for the worst but hope for the best.”

[autonomousbosch]

An Authentic City

The thought of meeting total strangers from online spaces has always seemed a uniquely terrifying prospect to me. Perhaps because of the anonymous culture in which I spent most of my time, social spaces have always had a speculative disconnection from reality, either due to pseudonymous or anonymous nature, that encouraged either a looser definition of reality or a heightened critical interpretation that suspends a great deal of ideas and concepts in a column full of at best dubiously accurate information. Reading things in a manner which holds that they may or may not be real forges a very bizarre scrutiny as welcome trade-off for allowing people to escape or at least make voluntary certain aspects of their existence. Even if something is lost in terms of identity, something is gained in the amount of new flexibility to experiment in ways that would otherwise be denied.

In most cases I think this is a healthy state of affairs, to take people seriously but maybe not literally. To care less about the physical form or immutable characteristics of the agent delivering information, or even ignore the ethical components in which some incongruence might cause a critical disconnect in a more physical space. To many people I think such a thing is a great liberation, to explore components of your character or interactions with other people that you could simply never have access to. 

Such is definitely the case with me. There are certainly elements I do not feel privileged or afforded in person that, without online communication, would simply be lost to me. Downwind of this is a deep concern that perhaps I’ve established some ostentatious front, some unreal impostor doing all this communication with total strangers who at best I hope to call friends. It should go without saying that in many of these instances, all that people tend to have access to are handles, forming brands; social media effigies and facsimiles in place of the tangible, observable features of their personality.

Absolutely stricken with this fear, I set out to conquer it Friday morning at 9 AM, but actually it became 10 AM. It turns out I also needed to let the dogs out before leaving and had forgot about this, so 10:30 AM. From where I live, it’s two hours and some change to Charleston, South Carolina, where I am meeting the second Jewish person I have ever met.

Opening Up

The details of the trip there were largely forgettable, the usual exorcism of nervous energy through listening to powerviolence and biting my lips or blastbeating my hands on the steering wheel barreling down the interstate at 80 miles per hour. Managed to arrive a small little coffee shop right at two or so hours in Charleston, a city I’ve never actually spent a ton of time in as an adult. Cities are extremely large and noisy, very busy. The sheer number of bodies moving through, in and out of them confounds my want for a relative intimacy. There is a paralysis to it all, that the small stretch of land I know so deeply is taken from me and replaced with a paralysis brought about by an over-stimulation of sorts. 

Somewhat still frightened at what things will be like, I walk in and have the sudden realization that we could not be more obvious as strangers demystifying some curious affect. There is a handshake, a smile, and a plea to go to the restroom. I shake some jitters off and greet Jay again (obviously Jay is not his name, but it’s his name for all intents and purposes). He offers me an espresso while I’m still in a quiet shock and of course I accept, I’ve never had an espresso before. 

We sit down at a small wooden bar facing out to the road and begin the process, making small talk the way normal people would. Maybe? The circumstances certainly don’t feel normal, a bit more naked than that in a way. There are things I’ve only ever typed simply because there is no incentive to say them out loud. A great number of things it occurs to me, never before have I felt so silly constantly mispronouncing things I love to chit-chat about or analyze in pseudonymous spaces. 

Jay’s demystification was also quite fun for me. I settled on wearing pineapple pants very much ahead of time just to make sure I was easily spot-able, on the other hand Jay was very obvious in a way that’s difficult to describe. Even down to the way he held his cigarette while smoking, it was obvious he wasn’t from around here.

We talked about our brothers and then about our families, when Jay told me about his parents and how his interest in psychoanalysis were no doubt cultured from youth. I think about epistemic lineage, how the things most people consider or think about have a highly cultured and traceable structure, and how this accounts for the lack of incentive to talk about anything deep or meaningful around my usual haunts, the places where I’m real. 

I’m discovering, slowly albeit, how good it feels even though I must seem pretty silly about things. After noticing the ideas I share in common with Hannah Arendt, something Jay had inadvertently introduced me to less than a month earlier, we read pieces of The Human Condition (I believe it was) on Jay’s tablet.

Out comes a small wooden plank with a shotglass full of espresso and a small glass of water. I instantly reach for the espresso when Jay tells me that the water should go first. For cleansing the palate obviously! 

Obviously, huh. Quietly I begin considering the depth of things that aren’t obvious to me. Jay is a very cosmopolitan person while the list of cities I’ve set foot in could probably fit as fingers on two hands. In fact, perhaps nothing could have articulated the contrast between two people quite so well. I’m very intensely self-aware of an unsophisticated classlessness that might seem like some sort of self-abasement to others but to me very much feels like just how things are. I do not travel, I do not read. I don’t really have much of an education to speak of. When I bring this up, people say that stuff doesn’t matter but this awareness is something that I don’t think is motivated by any kind of resentment, as I’m certainly not resentful of Jay. With a near immediacy I feel a deep sense of relief that I immediately love Jay. It’s just that there is an articulation I don’t feel like I have access to, a finite number on the experiences I will ever have to glean insight from or develop some kind of feeling on. An acknowledgement that at the root of humbleness is humility; a life lived in perpetual embarrassment at how much greater the world itself is than any singular person.

We go on about minutia and I feel so great finally getting all these words out of my mouth to smooth out the difference between whatever I am digitally and whatever I am physically. 

Authenticity

We arrive at a southern BBQ joint in Mount Pleasant just outside of Charleston. I’m even less familiar generally with Mount Pleasant but that doesn’t really matter, the idea is that no visitor and much less a friend could leave the south without experiencing authentic southern barbecue. 

In the American southeast, the only region that has truly figured it out, barbecue is pulled pork (sometimes pork shoulder, but best when it’s a whole hog), smoked and covered in a vinegar-based BBQ sauce which is, like all good things, created to taste. Being the lovely day that it was, I selfishly opted for us to sit outside. We roll over the menu and discuss beer and food, and in the process a waiter approaches us in one of the most puzzlingly aggressive manners I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s almost a caricature out of some film the way he stands, delivering the laurels of this restaurant as an imaginary photographer would zoom his imaginary camera directly onto his eyebrows, straightened with a purposed fury as he informs us that this place was rated the number 2 restaurant for southern cuisine in all the land.

We place our order for beer and food and our waiter scuttles away, after which I remark how bizarre it is for a genuine southern restaurant to have British staff, as clued in by his accent. 

I tell Jay the same thing I’m writing now, that this is doubtful because authenticity itself is such a strange concept. For southern BBQ, it’s much more likely that the authentic thing would be had by a merchant with a portable smoker on the side of the road of any given main street. What I’ve discovered since is how much more I had to say about authenticity. What I couldn’t articulate then, the thing that struck me so odd about our waiter, wasn’t that I have no faith that a British chef could not produce authentic southern cuisine but that authenticity is dubious itself, something I feel much more intensely and immediacy as we talk.

I had been scared for days leading up to then that I have constructed some version of myself that is if not a lie to other people, than a certain smoothing of the reality of things. People message me for advice lifting and exercising when I’m still a pretty overweight guy, all things considered. Maybe they wouldn’t do such a thing if they saw me. People talk to me about firearms, things I’ve owned and been intimately aware of for perhaps three years now. People talk to me about all manner of things I would never interject into reality, because I have no real confident voice in basically any of it.

Online I am allowed a layer of sincerity and affection I simply don’t have access to in reality. In no way am I less interested in these things, in learning about people, in empathizing with them or engaging with them. There is no irony to it, no disinterest in the aesthetics I commit myself to. I love Jay because of the contrast between us, because Jay can help me articulate things in a way I never would’ve been able to; to pattern match the observations I’ve had on my own to the language the institution itself has. Even beyond this, Jay is a powerful ally in that even though my core convictions aren’t always able to articulate, he is perpetually at the ready to really understand me even if the things I’m saying are frivolous (they might be! they usually are!).

Just like me, I have zero doubt from the killing intent our waiter had that what he is doing is not done simply out of a coerced obligation. Just as I can confront this now, I can also confront the reality that there truly is no separation between different versions of me. I am no impostor keeping up a facade I’m uninterested in when finally given flesh.

Contrast

Jay is an exceptionally well-read person. Maybe he wouldn’t describe himself that way, but this is what you’re going to appear to people who are functionally not literate.

We set out on foot (people do this in cities right?) to a nearby coffee shop, on the way I enjoyed the ways in which Jay illuminated how much of the thoughts I had about serious things had some psychoanalytical phrasing or framing, a comforting revelation in a number of ways. It turns out that in many ways simply thinking something in solitude is agonizing, the chance to share them and, what’s more, discover a great well of corroboration is no small gift and, if even for the moment, I’m happy to have received in part. 

I got a macchiato. I’ve never had one before of course. Jay tells me that the perfect macchiato should have an excellent balance of bitterness, something which I can’t possibly know and doesn’t really have any bearing on how delicious it was and how much I needed it in retrospect.  

The one instance I remember quite vividly however was perhaps the most revealing. We were discussing psychoanalysis and repression, and I asked Jay outright if he thought that repression had some relationship to metacognition. I’ve since realized I have developed an awful knack for picking out particularly interesting things people will say and then immediately interrogating them about it with an intent stare waiting for a reply. I don’t mean to be intimidating, I just dislike letting interesting moments pass unseized. His response was that he had no idea, that it would require a much more in-depth familiarization with someone and that this knowledge needs a certain amount of consent from the subject. It’s reassuring considering the nature of psychoanalysis, but what I’ve since wished I would’ve said after this moment where Jay looks out across the deck is that I feel a remarkable amount of insight from the distance between us. 

I care primarily about art. Not in the classical definition of things, but in the inherent artfulness of the world itself. I feel a deep conviction that people can do very little, take very few steps and interact with very few people without creating narratives of some nature, and that the best any person (projection, read this as me) could hope for is to be at the heart of as many beautiful ones as possible. To be a wonderful friend, a warm person. These are things I don’t consider myself now and certainly have a hard time meeting the standards of as much as I should, but they influence and inform my relationships with people so deeply that I would be remiss not to mention it.

Even in a pragmatic sense, I feel very much like an artist too inept to properly express himself at anything. I adore artists as I’m jealous of their singular dedication to one thing above the many joys of creation given to people. If I have arrived at any single correct thought, any astute observation, it stems primarily from this. Regardless of what else I am confronted with, nothing will make as much sense to me reflexively as art itself.

I feel this relative difference between us in small tokens throughout any conversation. When we talk about resentment, I feel it’s a problem of removing people of a call to action and creation while Jay reads it as part of a cognitive system. Both may be correct, but my observation is motivated by wanting people to explore and articulate themselves unencumbered. When Jay considers psychoanalysis to be something too strong to be engaged in without consent, I see art itself as something people simply don’t have the option to opt out of in the first place. Psychoanalysis has a rich canon of materials to draw from, but fiction and artifice have always held a unique position above all else; in many ways it’s through artistic and creative expression that we make us and pay tribute to the rich history of thought itself. Building an AK47 will remove the necessity of much of Mao’s work, much of Joseph Campbell’s bibliography is easily derived from mythical texts themselves. 

There is no feeling of these positions being at odds however, more a wonderful revelation of how well the two work in concert with each other; how easily the conversation sways and meanders without any hint of irrelevancy in sight. 

Friendship

Walking with Jay along the streets of Mount Pleasant to a used book store, he is sharing with me small bits of Lacan who seems like a pretty interesting fella. We talk about the development of bants in the western canon, which is the first time I ever mention Titus Andronicus out loud. 

We arrive at the bookstore which could not be more adorable, kitschy wallpaper on the glass resembling piles and piles of books hiding a store that is piles and piles of books. Of course I walk in with the desire for two books in particular, while we both silently separate to browse the bibliography on offer.

I do not find what I’m looking for, but I do find interesting artifacts my friends have enjoyed. While browsing I realize the necessity of these people who are newly revealed to not be internet strangers. They are real people. In front of me sits a series of novella-length writing by Albert Camus and I’m immediately reminded of the treasured relationships I’ve managed to cultivate somehow. The serious people I am obscenely happy to have had become an influence on my life, the cultivation of my person perhaps none of them are aware of regardless of my attempts to explain to them. Albert Camus, Virgina Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, I grab this list of books eager to learn more about the aesthetics my friends cling to so tightly that I might learn more about them.

Just as I make this consideration, Jay approaches me with the cutest pulp scifi book telling me that perhaps I’ve got too much and perhaps I should consider whether these are books I feel like I should read or if they’re books I’m genuinely interested in. I of course immediately ignore this advice.

Parting

I don’t know how to start things and I don’t really know how to end things. After making a decent trek back to our cars and a somber realization that work calls the very next morning, we decide to leave. I was determined to hand Jay a token of the south, some coffee I’ve come to love recently that he could only get from here, hoping he enjoys it. He tells me that we should meet again and, embarrassingly, the thought had never occurred to me. Something about this instance did (and still does) feel positively magical, that such a thing could happen twice was simply not a consideration. Of course I said yes! He suggested I visit New York City, which of course I said yes to!

What I realized parting, more than anything else, was how much time I had spent worrying when I should’ve spent time preparing. I didn’t think to bring shoes to enjoy a match of tennis, I didn’t think about the things most prescient to talk about with one of the most influential people in my life. The feeling of a deep frustration with the lack of time to be free to engage with the people I cherish and the things I hold dear, the accomplishments I want to make in no small part thanks to them. The question of authenticity, the real me is illuminated by the people I choose to become my treasured peers, influences that compel me to refuse to leave the totality of my passion inert and left to wither in an environment devoid of stimulation. There was never a separation between the person I felt I appeared to people and the person that I am, only a figure lacking definition and much magic is stored in that revelation.

Of course I simply can’t be done seeing their faces, hearing their voices, picking at their brain in a bizarre manner in which nothing has changed; the only people who exist then are the people we choose to hear. We are something old constantly becoming something new, and regardless of the influence we claim little will change us more in the long run than the influence we exert on each other. It’s precisely the indulgence of these influences that I deeply desire, more than the answer of the dubious nature of authenticity itself. 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 28: Marik Ishtar Canonically Only Weighs 121 lbs

Yo, I got hella sick this week and slept for what felt like 3 straight days, so because I’m still not fully functional (like I just found french fries in my front pocket of my sweatshirt and I have no idea when over the past three days I put that in there), in celebration of finally being awake, lets watch a lucid dream put to the screen, that’s right, it’s time for Yugioh.

Last we left off, Yugi has decided to throw this heavy chain and anchor over Joey’s neck--referring of course to the golden cursed necklace and not the actual chain and anchor that is hanging above them and about to kill them (but probably weighs the same but we’ll get to that realization later). I was really hoping that we’d get to see Pharaoh pull up in the corner like a little shoulder angel and just start shouting at Joey, but apparently you can’t catch the Pharaoh Dad curse that easily.

So apparently I missed THIS the last two episodes--but there’s a huge ass Death Clock above the anchor? Seriously, there’s been a time limit this whole time!?

I would be jumping into the ocean the moment I saw this clock, I just cannot even fathom the thought of playing a 20 minute card game. Like once my older brother--a different bro than my younger bro who edits this blog, this is my Chaotic Neutral bro--decided to shove 5 different Uno decks together to create an ultimate deck that was almost entirely wilds and draw 4′s and it was such an excruciating experience, that my Mother secretly threw the game away. Forever scarred.

Anyway, now that he’s strapped with Pharaoh in a Box, finally things got weird enough that Joey snapped out of it. First time he snapped out of it was because of a dragon...second time was the puzzle...he has yet to even kind of recognize Tea strapped in a bondage chair with a giant storage unit threatening to crush her--that one doesn’t seem to bother him.

Joey has a very selective memory, but he only seems to come to for about 10 seconds at a time and mostly just sweats a lot whenever he does.

(read more under the cut)

And as Joey pulls out the same piece he once threw out a school window and into a really fancy fountain, he has a very quick flashback to Season One. Or Season Zero, depending on which version you like better. (What school has a fountain, PS? Was that a quick donation from the Kaibas so the principal could shrug off some demerits?)

And so Joey puts the puzzle back together and back over his neck.

It’s fine. Go back to throwing fireballs at your best friend, but if you litter, then that’s just way too far. I mean the show has to stretch this out four episodes anyway, so despite their endless friendship love--Joey is still possessed and we have nothing left to give him unless Yugi just starts unloading belts.

Really confused at how this magic even works or operates when the puzzle is so far away from Yugi, but maybe Pharaoh has a battery life like a wacom tablet.

Man, so there really is no way to have any privacy when that guy’s in your head huh? Like can’t even hang up the puzzle when you’re on the toilet--no--he’s just...always around. This is the worst curse.

Back on the boat, the story boarding team realized that Marik is an underage teenager and cannot drink alcohol on TV.

I mean he didn’t even have a bottle of whatever he’d drink to fill that glass (milk, I’m assuming. Marik seems like the type of person that’d put ice in his milk.) But all that was drawn next to him was just one bucket of ice. Marik’s just back here stress chewing ice like a pregnant woman.

PS I just looked up Marik’s age with a quick Google Search and can we talk about something real fast--just real fast--JK I’m gonna talk about it a lot.

+++++RATHER LONG WIKIA WORMHOLE WEIGHT DISCUSSION FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++

Age‎: ‎16 <---which seems a little young, but OK, it’s an anime

Weight‎: ‎121.254 lb <------- EXCUSE ME, WIKIA!?

Height‎: ‎1.8 m ; 5.906 ft 

He is nearly 6 ft feet tall and 120 lbs!?

Y’all.

Marik HAS NO BONES.

As a reviewer, it’s not my job to go around saying if drawing Marik way too skinny for a normal human being is right or wrong, because that’s a discussion that you can find plenty of info on. I’m pretty sure the people who made this show never expected when they first drew Yugi’s crazy eyes and horrible hair that we’d have a generation that would point to it and say “that’s hot”

And I’m not saying any of these characters have eating problems either, because we’ve seen all of them eat healthy meals. The shocking thing is that they gave these fake characters--remember these aren’t real people, they are cartoons--a specific numeric weight.

Blood type I expect, other random anime tidbits I expect--but weight seems super duper random and so awkward. Like, why do we have this information? Was it on a card or something? Like did the intern who came up with this weight number even research like...how much a normal human weighs??? Did they pull this number out of their ass???? None of these numbers make any sense, and they have these for apparently every single person who has appeared on the show. It’s incredible.

Man, Marik’s still wearing Baby Gap over there. Which...that explains the very small hoodie.

...one sec, let me look at the stats on Yugi.

Weight‎: ‎92.594 lb Height‎: ‎1.53 m ; 5.02 ft

OH NO. Who did this!?

He can’t even ride a roller coaster yet! Well, that explains a lot of the need for so many belts on this show. Yugi hasn’t hit the big triple digits yet.

Oh, Yugi.

And since we’re talking about numbers, lets talk about that puzzle now that we’ve talked about Yugi’s body weight. And like, lets be real--this is a cartoon and so of course it weighs magically nothing in the physics of the show...but lets just see, using math, how much this is if a 7 inch isosceles pyramid were made of solid gold (assuming that there is no gap in the middle, because that’s the way I’ve personally interpreted it.)

Now I’m gonna throw out a number and if you disagree, that’s cool beans and I don’t care, I was an art major, leave your math in the comments. But my math: It’s roughly 60 lbs. Some people online say it would only be 2 kilo’s but I don’t know what planet they’re from. Gold is .7 lbs a volumetric inch

Of course this weight also depends on how heavy the chain is, but I mean...the chain is stronger than Joey Wheeler and Tristan combined hitting it repeatedly with a pipe. It’s gotta be a car-towing/superlock chain.

a 20 inch heavy duty tow/lock chain is like 15 lbs, from what I see on Ebay.

So that pyramid necklace, indeed, is 75 lbs--4/5 of Yugi’s weight.

Now lets say you think there’s a gap in the middle and each piece has about a half-inch thickness, we’ll subtract about 43 lbs.

That’s still a 32 lb necklace guys, it’s about a third his weight!

Now lets say this was gold plated--first off, it’s not. But, lets say it’s entirely copper AND it’s hollow. That necklace is still 7 lbs with a 15 lb chain which is 23 lbs.

So, in all, Yugi actually weighs more than most people on this show--but it’s only because of the necklace, meaning the strongest thing in Yugioh, other than the endearing power of friendship between Joey and Yugi, is Yugi’s neck.

I also looked up Seto Kaiba and it didn’t say his weight right away but it did say this

Favorite Food‎: ‎Filet Mignon with Foie Gras Sauce

Damn.

Why does Seto Kaiba crave freakin ducks? Someone please give this poor child some candy. Give the whole cast candy.

+++++++END RANT OF EVERYONE’S WEIGHT ACCORDING TO WIKIA. I’M NOT EVEN SURE WHY WE KNOW THIS?+++++++

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the boys are still babysitting Serenity, who has the pure muscle mass of 108 lbs, which is nearly 20 lbs more than Yugi Muto and only about 10 lbs less than Marik Ishtar.

She could probably lift Marik Ishtar. TBH with OP buff Wheeler stats like that, Serenity could probably punch out half the cast and does not need babysitting.

Duke Devlin is still following them around. I don’t really know why. No thugs are after Duke. Duke can just leave whenever he wants to, but he’s either so fascinated by Tristan’s predicament, or so enamored by Serenity’s soft hair and beautiful bandages, that he’s decided to follow along like Bakura in Season 1.

Except Bakura in Season 1 followed along because he wanted to screw them all, I’m pretty sure Duke won’t be doing that because I’m fairly positive that dice earring he got off of Etsy isn’t a millennium earring. I’m fairly positive he isn’t going to randomly kill everybody. I don’t know if this show could handle yet another villain dead set on destroying the world.

This love triangle between Tristan, and a girl who I didn’t think was real in S1, and Duke Devlin, the guy who was in a one-off at the end of S1 when the season should have already ended. So this is happening now. Interesting choice, show.

Serenity is like 12, right? Like her brother’s 14-16 and she’s like 11-13?

This show has a cast mostly full of people who are all the same age yet they keep shipping the few people that are either too young or waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too old. (except for Yugi and Joey, of course, who are the same age)

Duke Devlin, with this newly found responsibility, immediately walks a blind person into the street.

Anyways, speaking of ships that are way too old for this show, look who’s here and driving the dumbest convertible I’ve ever seen drawn.

And on the other side of town, the show edited out most of this violent nonsense for me.

Mai’s car, straight from fisher-price. I can’t stop looking at it.

So um...in the time it took to get Tristan, pick him up, turn around, and then drive here it was like...a 2 minute drive?

But, youknow, consider the Kaiba’s perspective. You’re watching this effed up duel straight from the bowels of Satan, and you hear a car pull up, and you’re like “oh finally, someone’s come to help us” and you turn around, and it’s a blue clown car full of Mai Valentine, Tristan, that random horny kid from the class across the hall, and some blind woman?

So Mokuba, who weighs less than one millennium puzzle at 61 lbs, actually makes an attempt to explain everything as quickly as possible and this is like the fourth time this kid has had to explain to someone else what the hell is going on.

Ah, and now everyone’s a bystander.

Almost the entire cast is here now, right? At least Yugi will die with an audience.

Bandit Keith weighs 187 lbs, PS. He is, so far, the only character I’ve checked who weighs more than Yugi with the necklace on.

Anyway, their weights are all awkwardly available online and I’ll probably go back to forgetting that this random info exists (much like I consistently forget that Seto is only 6′1″ although he’s drawn like he’s 8 ft tall)

Next week on Yugioh:

So how much does Yugi’s hair weigh when all that product is on there? Does Seto ever eat that Filet Mignon he craves so bad? Is Mai in fact renting that car and does it get busted here in the Abandoned Warehouse neighborhood?

[magma-paint]

Tutorial Tuesdays--Getting Started

Tutorial Tuesdays is a new block on my blog in which I give art advice and tutorials for anyone looking to improve their art. But before we get into the good stuff, a quick obligatory background.

I know it’s tempting to look at my art and the art of people you look up to and come to the conclusion you’ll never get to that level no matter how hard you try, but it is possible to get to that level. You just gotta practice regularly and before you know it you’ll have it down-pat.

These posts will be pretty long, so to save Dashboard space, I’ll put the meat of things under a Keep Reading link so you can visit them in full. Alright, with that out of the way, are ya ready kids? Let’s go get some art tools!

I only say this because I’ve seen people make fantastic things with very limited materials and people with some of the finest tools but don’t use them to their full capacity. Again, it’s not what you use, but how you use it. When I talk about art tools, I’m mostly going off of what I use since those are the tools I’ve worked with a lot.

Pencils. Your most basic writing and drawing tool. For sketching and drawing, I use a 0.7 mm mechanical pencil with a good eraser. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and I often stick it in my ponytail when I’m not using it so I have easy access to it. They’re also pretty cheap. For commissions and grayscale shading, I use drawing pencils that come in various hardnesses. The hardness of your pencil will be noted by a number and a letter. A pencil with an H stamped on it will be harder, won’t smudge very easily, and has a very light load when the graphite is on the paper. A pencil stamped with a B will be softer, smudges very easily, and has a darker streak on the paper. The number on the pencil following the letter lets you know how hard or soft it is (4H is a very hard pencil, 8B is a very soft pencil). Your typical No. 2 pencils from school are in the HB category, which is middle of the road. You can find them individually at art stores or in packs. Walmart in my town offers a package of 6 drawing pencils bundled with two animation colored pencils, two markers, and an eraser for about $9. Pretty good deal. Speaking of...

Erasers. A pink rubber eraser will do you just fine, though make sure your pencil has a nice one on it for finer details and while you’re drawing. You can use a kneadable eraser if you have one, they’re squishy, you can mold them to how you see fit and they don’t leave any crumbs to clean up, but I’m not quite fond of them.

Markers and ink pens. Let me tell you, once you use a pen like one of these, you’ll never go back to ballpoint, which often has far too many broken lines to be practical to use and make your lineart look like trash. I use a Fine Tip Sharpie Pen, preferably in the no-bleed variety so the lineart doesn’t sink into the opposite side of the page. Recently I’ve been using Brush and Bullet tip Prismacolor Scholar markers for comics and good drawings. They’re a bit erratic to use at first, but it takes practice.

Colored pencils. Now these are my go-to for coloring since they give a wide range of color, combinations, and effects. For best results, I stick with Crayola or Cra-Z Art since the color tend to remain consistent from box to box and you can get a big box of them for a pretty good price. Prismacolors would be nice, but they’re pretty expensive and I don’t quite like the feel.

Sharpeners. Electric ones you can just keep at home, but for on the go I recommend a small manual one you can throw in your bag. Bonus if you get one that has a shavings catch so you don’t have shavings making a mess of your space.

Ruler/straight edge. You’ll want one of these for comic panels, perspective guidelines, and, well, straight lines, though in some cases you might want to practice making straight lines without the use of it. I use a metal one, but a plastic will do you good as well.

And now, the most important thing of all, your drawing canvas!

For starters, I recommend you get yourself a good sketchbook. Nothing too fancy, just one of those spiral-bound ones ideal for sketching. For your really good art, copy paper will work just fine. Really any kind of paper (or even cardboard!) will work but I implore you to avoid using loose-leaf notebook paper. I cannot tell you how much it hurts to see something so beautifully drawn wasted on lined paper. Not saying you can’t doodle in your notebook and show off something silly you sketched, but if you’d count a drawing as your magnum opus, your drawing probably deserved being on blank paper where it can shine.

I was considering making this an entry for Digital Art tutorials, but I’ll put these here just in case.

I do a lot of digital art using my HP laptop built with a touch screen. It can’t stream for sh1t but it runs single player Steam games alright and I use it for homework a lot. Before this, I had a desktop computer and used a mouse. I would like to own a Wacom tablet in the future, but until then this setup is nice enough. Remember, it’s about how you use your tools, not the quality of tools at your disposal.

Now this is a scanner that’s used only for pictures/documents. You can’t print or fax anything with it, but it’s good for just pictures. I own an HP printer/scanner combo, but it is pretty finicky and no longer prints. Alternately, you can just use your cell-phone camera to take pictures of your finished piece, but I do not recommend doing so for comics unless you’re giving previews of one panel.

For my programs, these are the three that I use:

Good for doodles, already on your computer (probably), and I use this program to make authentic looking Homestuck drawings (like, you could mistake it for being an actual panel in Homestuck).

My primary art program. Operates much like Paint Tool SAI and photoshop. Very good for general art and comics.

Still learning this one, but it’s just like Medibang and is equipped with tools for animation.

And yes, these three programs are downloadable for free. I do want to try out Clip Studio Paint EX, but the cheapest I can get it is $80 when it goes on sale during the holidays. Normally, it costs $250.

Next time, we go over some drawing basics and some tips that will save your sanity while sketching. Stay tuned!

[hereissomestuffiwrote]

2020 Hyundai Elantra

Rental cars are so great- it’s like getting to sidestep your daily driver for a car mistress, or car gigolo. Not that I have any desire to do such a thing, as I’m in a perfectly healthy relationship with an older Volkswagen. But she needed a few days off, and with this virus business I didn’t wanna Uber, so a rental it would have to be. Wanting to save money to put towards the Jetta’s possible costly maintenance, I first checked Turo, which was crazy cheap, but all they had available were a bunch of 2012 Fiat 500s. Fun fact- when my Honda got stolen in 2012 I tried to rent a car from a company through my insurance- all they had available was a then brand new Fiat 500, but they couldn’t let me rent it they said, because it kept breaking down on them. Back in 2012. So no thanks on the same car eight year later. I moved on to Enterprise, and I decided to go with the lowest-priced deal possible, which promised a Mitsubishi Mirage or similar. I’m furloughed at the moment, so this thing would just have to get me home from and then back to my mechanic’s. I could deal with an economy car just for that. 

The plan was to meet the rental agent at the repair shop where I was leaving my car, sign some stuff, and then take off in the Mirage or similar. Wanting to socially isolate as much as possible, I decided to wait in my car until the rental agent and the employee who was driving them back to their office both showed up. First, I saw a brand new Hyundai Elantra with out of state plates and a barcode on the windshield pull into a spot. I figured that was the shuttle back, so I got out of my car, figuring my rental was right behind the Hyundai. And sure enough, moments later a Chevy Sonic pulled up. A Sonic is similar to a Mirage, right? I immediately noticed that the Sonic was absolutely filthy and kinda dented up, which, whatever, I’m renting from the bottom shelf, but also that the driver was an elderly man with no face mask. Huh. Well, okay. “Is that mine?” I cheerfully asked the man, who looked back at me completely bewildered. “No” he said gruffly, and then started taking some boxes out of his back seat. Oh man, should I have upgraded to Compact or Standard? Could Economy really be this bad? But just then- “Excuse me, sir?”, I heard from the direction of the Hyundai, “I’m with Enterprise! We have your car right over here!” It turns out they upgraded me two full vehicle classes- score! So the Elantra was mine, the rental agent’s shuttle was a Chrysler Pacifica that rolled up a few minutes later, and that dirty Sonic was a parts delivery guy. Oops.  

Even though I have a perfectly valid credit card and a perfectly legitimate checking account, when I signed the Enterprise agent’s iPad iFelt like Preston in Blank Check pulling off one of his many bullshit “Mr. Macintosh” transactions. Like, handing over a piece of plastic and scribbling incoherently with my finger on a tablet screen = unlimited access to a brand new motor vehicle? Whaaaat? But it seriously was that easy! Plus, COVID-19 precautions meant my agent just straight up left the keys in the ignition with the car running- one less point of contagion. He was super nice though, and wiped down everything before leaving the car to me. Of course, I pretended that we were both criminals and he was cleaning his fingerprints off a getaway car before handing it over to me for disposal. I also kept thinking about the rental car scene in the awesome buddy-comedy My Fellow Americans in which a little Hyundai is used as a punchline-

Spoiler alert- things go really, really well with the Lexus-

Jesus, what was it with abusing rental cars in 80′s and 90′s comedies? The poor things got less than no respect. 

Insane that twenty-four years later, the two brands really aren’t a whole lot different anymore. Side by side, my brand new Elantra and a Lexus IS don’t even look particularly dissimilar from one another, save for the latter one’s more pronounced gaping O face. Even with a more staid design, the Hyundai certainly doesn’t at all appear notably goofier or cheaper in comparison.

Once inside, the Elantra seemed like a nice enough place. I went to grab a CD out of the Jetta (Yes, like a grandpa I still listen to compact discs in the car, don’t judge) and then realized upon closer inspection that the Elantra didn’t even have a CD slot. Since I couldn’t understand the deal with the satellite radio- it seemed to me like the previous renter had only activated five stations, and they were all Catholic talk radio stations- I just defaulted to my favorite local FM channel. Whenever I’ve been given a rental car in the past, I compulsively have to see how loud the volume on the stereo will go before it starts hurting my ears. And I’m happy to report that the Elantra was capable of boosting “High” by The Cure to an acceptably window-shaking volume. With that important business out of the way, I could see what else was up with this car. It had a sportshift kinda gear box, I guess Hyundai’s is called SHIFTRONIC®. 

I messed around with it, it seemed responsive. Downshifts really did slow the car considerably, and upshifts seemed to make it go faster, but I don’t know, my foot was also on the gas, so maybe it was just a placebo effect? Either way, I’m a big fan of manumatics- it’s always good to look down and see the little S and the plus/minus. It’s a welcome bonus touch, like when a deli sandwich comes with a pickle. Even if you’re never going to want or use that pickle, it’s just nice someone made the effort.

Next, I needed to push this “Drive Mode” button and see what that did. Sadly, hitting it did not cause toothpicks to dispense from the sun visor and “Nightcall” by Kavinsky to boom over the sound system, lame. But, instead, it pulled up this dope TRON-esque graphic of the Elantra on the touch screen-

I just love it when digital renderings of cars appear on their dash screens. Second only to visual equalizers, they’re my favorite completely unnecessary yet supremely cool thing that a display can offer me. The fun cartoon in the Elantra explained that I had the choice of three modes- Smart, Normal and Sport. The Catholic talk radio renter had been driving it in Normal, no surprise there. I was on the highway at this point, so I decided to get crazy and punch it into Sport. And believe it or not, it made a huge difference! I once drove a Mini Cooper S with a manual, and while Elantra Sport Mode certainly wasn’t that vivacious, it was much, much more fun than Elantra Normal or Elantra Smart. Okay, full disclosure- I didn’t even bother to check out Elantra Smart- I spent too many years driving a Prius to care to see what the “nerd setting” felt like- I can imagine vividly, thanks. 

It wasn’t until I arrived home that I even bothered to see what the key situation was. Like I said, they were theoretically in it, as the engine was on, but not until pulling up near my house did I think to make sure that they were actually in the car. They were though, dangling from an ignition cylinder the way car keys are supposed to. I myself hate proximity fobs, push starts and such- they make me feel too disconnected. I have too many years of the muscle memory of my fingers gripping a physical car key, turning it, and feeling the vibration of the engine starting to ever get used to anything else. To me, that sensation also turns a key in my brain, and once that’s turned, it is like “Okay, we’re operating a car now, pay attention”. Without that ritual, I can’t focus on my driving quite the same way. I would imagine it would be similarly disorienting if suddenly all cigarettes just came magically lit right out of the pack, long time smokers would say “What the hell? I enjoy the act of flicking my Zippo, that’s part of the whole thing!” You know? Lucky for me, the Hyundai had keys-keys, albeit surprisingly budget looking ones-

My friend’s mom had a 2004 Elantra that he’d borrow and I’m fairly certain the keys for that thing looked almost identical. A quick Google search proved me right.

C’mon Hyundai! This thing was a two-thousand and twenty! And it wasn’t even the base model. Not even a switchblade? Or a buttons-built-into-the-top-of-the-key type deal? Nope. Key and separate fob, 1995 style. Oh well. Since I’m on furlough at the moment, I didn’t really have anywhere I needed to go, so I just left the Hyundai to sit until the Jetta was ready. When I got word that the VW was all put back together, I headed back into the countryside in the Elantra.  

Enhance! It’s hard to tell, but that’s a genuine Passat W8 all-wheel-drive wagon in front of me. 

When I got closer, I noticed that it was full of yard work equipment, and getting pretty beat looking. Sitting behind it at a red light, I noticed the two young guys in it were rocking out to music. It was warm out that day, so since we both had our windows down I could immediately recognize Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” slapping through the Passat’s Monsoon speakers. The two guys nodded along with it enthusiastically for a few moments before starting to laugh and changing tracks on either a mix CD or a Spotify playlist or whatever. Ohhhh, they were rocking out to it ironically. The plot thickened. If it was a mix CD, were they driving a borrowed car and laughing at someone’s taste, as my friends and I did when we commandeered a dad’s Lincoln LS and found “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins deep within the trunk mounted CD changer? Or were they a couple of Gen Zs cycling archaeologically through a Woodstock ‘99 playlist on a streaming device of some sort? I’ll never know. Anyway, bawitda-back to my story about the Elantra. I had to put a bank-busting $3.12 worth of gas into it so that it would have a full tank before dumping the keys into my mechanic’s after hours slot and happily reclaiming the Jetta. Not that there was anything wrong with the Elantra- as has been stated endlessly elsewhere, it’s truly amazing how far Hyundai has come over the last twenty or so years. I guess the rental company wasn’t as enthusiastic about the little car’s innovations or maybe they were just used to them, as I got a call from my mechanic a few days later telling me it still hadn’t been picked up. I called the rental people who assured me they would be coming to grab it, they had just been busy. Since my mechanic has plenty of land, and since my credit card had stopped being charged, I left the situation at that. I’ve heard nothing further, so for all I know the car either got collected or it’s still just sitting out there in the fields, now in use as the nicest chicken coop in all of the Amish Country. If that’s the case, those chickens are in for a real treat! Hopefully they’ll have more luck figuring out the satellite radio than I did.  

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

VideoFlow Review Discount And Bonus

VideoFlow Testimonial - Are you looking for more knowleadge concerning VideoFlow? Please read through my honest review concerning it prior to picking to examine the weak points as well as toughness of it. If you buy VideoFlow with my web link, you will certainly obtain unique as well as eye-catching perk packages. I constantly upgrade my rewards everyday.

Introducing VideoFlow

YouTube Advertisements for Beginners: Exactly How to Market on YouTube (Component 5)

YouTube Tips and Tricks to Live By

With numerous different ad options to select from as well as a lot of means to speak to potential consumers, it can be difficult to maintain your head over water on a vast platform like YouTube. Here are some pointers as well as methods to assist you be as successful as feasible with your dropshipping organisation.

Leverage Remarketing

Don't be content with revealing individuals advertisements just through YouTube targeting. Advertising and marketing to individuals who have actually already seen your site (remarketing) is a whole lot extra financially rewarding as they understand your item supplying better than newbies.

Add Interactive Elements

An additional YouTube tip would be including interactive aspects like a call to action to your ads. This offers customers an activity to accomplish so they are not confused concerning the intent. Whether it is subscribing to your network, registering to a webinar or visiting your web site to acquire something from you, it is always a great concept to provide people direction and objective in your marketing.

Establish Goals

Before you launch your campaign, as well as even before you produce your video or copy, you require to determine what you want to attain with this campaign as well as what success will certainly look like. If you invest $500 on the project, how many units will you need to sell to make back this financial investment while likewise making a profit? How much will your YouTube advertising price prior to you see project success? Goals can be sales, internet site views, ezine signups, channel clients, etc, so success can take on many types.

Set Frequency Capping

A YouTube advertising and marketing method that lots of people forget is frequency covering. Relying on the dimension of your target market, frequency capping can be a vital part of your campaign, or just a great to have component. This attribute enables you to set a restriction to the variety of times one particular individual will be revealed your ad. Use this feature to guarantee you do not frustrate customers or create any type of unfavorable sensations in the direction of your brand name.

Customize Your Messaging

Advertisements have actually come to be a part of everyday life yet just the ads that stand apart obtain noticed. Create YouTube ads that are fascinating and also individual to your audience to help them associate with your brand name. Brand commitment is much easier to infuse if a person can relate to it early in the education process.

Make Time Details Web Content

Individuals really feel highly for various things. Brand names that share these feelings are simpler to associate with. Football fans live for the Superbowl yearly in the United States, and so do brand names that invest thousands to promote throughout the occasion on TV, billboards, and also online. These brands care a lot regarding this time around of year because they know precisely where their audience will get on that day-- before a digital tool of some type, listening, seeing, and also engaging with this event. Showing your audience that you have the very same passions as them assists you become part of their life.

Sector Projects

Our final Youtube technique is around division. Campaigns can occasionally be as well generic to speak with any person. If your content is also obscure it can be difficult to influence people to take any actions or remember your brand. Think about the audience of an ad and go through the individual flow to recognize if you can section the audience and also ad even more to make it relatable as well as particular niche.

Conclusion

In the beginning, YouTube advertisements can really feel frustrating.

Yet YouTube's varied advertising and marketing formats offer online marketers with a powerful suite of tools to reach their target market.

What's more, with video clip web content expected to assert 80% of all internet website traffic by 2019, this marketing channel is well-worth reaching holds with.

Which kind of YouTube ad are you going to begin with? Let us know in the remarks listed below!

VideoFlow Review & Introduction

Supplier: Sam Bakker

Product: VideoFlow

Introduce Day: 2019-Dec-10

Release Time: 11:00 EST

Front-End Rate: $67

Sales Web page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/videoflow-review/

Niche: General

What Is VideoFlow?

VideoFlow is an easy to use video software application. It's maximized for tales, marketing videos and also normal membership or website-related Video clips. Users can shed inscriptions into videos, add video clip wrappers and also choose from a vast array of video to boost and produce eye-catching video clips that convert into sales.

VideoFlow is an online software program that allows its customers to import videos from their mobile phone, tablet or video device. Then modify & produce a premium 4k video. The software application consists of a wide variety of extra Boosted features that include:

Shed subtitles into video clips

Add video clip wrappers

Record Screen & Webcam

Computer animated logo designs, intros & outros

Client Job monitoring system

Sub-users

Job partnership & evaluation system

Animated text overtop your video clips

Scene shifts

Animated Emojis

4k Rendering

As well as much far more ...

All for an one-time charge including business legal rights to make sure that your customers can benefit marketing video clips they develop to services.

This software application is loaded with a large range of various other unbelievable features making it a 'Piece of cake' for your customers.

VideoFlow Testimonial: Characteristic & Perks

Shed subtitles right into your video clips Rapid

Videos with inscriptions or subtitles stick out in a newsfeed packed with visitors that scroll at hyperspeed. They engage individuals whether the noise's on or off ...

THIS IS CRITICAL: 85% of videos are viewed WITHOUT sound.

Literally EXPLODE your target market shedding subtitles into your video clips. More people absorb your whole message so they in fact get to your call of activity ... click ... as well as make you earnings.

VideoFlow uses an AI-powered learning device that makes subtitles automated as well as easy. Within minutes you can entirely burn your whole video clip with precise captions.

Fast Modifying Like You've Never ever Seen It Before:

VideoFlow Production is quick! The longer a video clip takes the extra it eats into your agencies bottom line.

You can not afford to spend days adjusting excessively complex settings or taxing totally free flow editors (Developed for Video Clip Artists).

So we crafted a brand-new way of editing and enhancing. And also it's faster than in the past!

With VideoFlow it takes just mins and also a couple of clicks of your mouse to completely customize any one of your videos, develop high converting scenes as well as utilize design templates to drain video clips at a fast pace.

Final thought

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Not only are you obtaining access to VideoFlow for the best rate ever used, but additionally You're spending totally without threat. VideoFlow consists of a 30-day Cash Back Guarantee Plan. When you select VideoFlow, your satisfaction is assured. If you are not totally pleased with it for any factor within the initial thirty day, you're entitled to a full reimbursement-- no question asked. You have actually obtained nothing to shed! What Are You Waiting for? Try It today and get The Following Reward Currently!

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[major-final-project]

Research (Digital Bridge)

Week 1

Whether it’s building a new playground or developing a mobile app for pet groomers, there are multiple ways to satisfy a project brief. However, in order to design a product that successfully delivers business value, it is critical to first clearly define the design problem.

Ask your clients these three key questions at the start of every project:

What is the business objective?

What is the context of product use?

What are the user goals? What is the business goal? This is the most critical question that some design teams still don’t ask stakeholders. Understanding business objectives help your design because it allows you to drill for more specific information. Follow-up questions can unlock a wealth of insights that influence the design approach: How do you know this is an issue? Who is affected by the issue? When and how often does this occur? What benchmarks do you have and what change do you expect? Imagine that your client aims to reduce tech support calls for an e-commerce site. If customers struggle to complete purchases, drilling into root causes might reveal that logging into an account is a major hindrance, or that the website refuses to validate shipping addresses. Interviews with tech support teams can also reveal pain points that customers are experiencing.

Understanding business goals also helps the design team focus and refine work through iterative user testing before full product launch.

For instance, if time on task is expected to decrease by 15% following an interface-lift, that’s a clear target to test against with prototypes.

What is the context of use for this product?

Answers to questions using where, why, when, how often, and so on, describe context of product use and elucidate multiple design decisions.

At a macro level, context informs what technology should convey the design. At a micro level, context places restraints on interactions and the visual treatment of the interface.

Imagine a food manufacturer who wants his quality control technicians to enter production data (such as oil temperature) on a kiosk-based laptop on the factory floor. On the surface, this is a simple problem. But would this be a wise technology choice if the technicians have to enter multiple production values every five to ten minutes? A tablet that the user can carry would be a better choice given the context of use, but if the client doesn’t volunteer such information, how could the design team know to make this recommendation?

What do users expect?  

Business and user goals can be very different. Successful design finds common ground to satisfy them both.

Business stakeholders are often biased or completely naive about their users, making it all the more important to conduct research directly with the intended audience. Understand not only what users need to do, but also what motivates them and what attitudes they have toward their tasks.

When business and user objectives are mapped out, designers should create user flows that support desirable user behavior while satisfying user needs and aligning with their attitudes.

For instance, Amazon prompts shoppers with additional products while at the same time offering hassle-free one-click ordering. Similarly, TurboTax has helped its success by using clean and playful design that supports users during a task they likely find tedious, unpleasant, or even anxiety-inducing.

(14 February 2019)

Summary: Do you need numerical data about your product’s user experience, but you aren’t sure where to start? The first step is choosing the right tool. Check out this list of the most popular types of quantitative methods.

Going into a new office can always be daunting and difficult to adapt however I was introduced warmly into the team, I then was able to stand in a meeting that was a company overview talking through the different company goals and the different teams working on different products and projects. It was quite insightful to see how the company is growing and is needing an organisation and structure to keep the company streamlined and in full open communication. 

I then sat with Ashleigh and Tina to discuss the placements outcomes and goals for my project deliverables.  I then presented them with my time plan and other project deliverables. I will then get this signed off and share the google drive with both Tina and Ashleigh. 

 For the first week, Tina wanted me to start off researching into different research methods and user research techniques. On this blog post, I will be putting in different aspects of research I will find throughout my research time.

https://usabilityhour.com/improving-user-experience/

Intro to User Research: 

It’s well understood that user research is what makes for the best user experiences but what are the right user research techniques for mobile apps? While, there is no doubt that any classic UX researchtechnique may be turned to mobile app user research – there are some techniques which have already been demonstrated to show proven value. Mastering these will help you develop better mobile apps that more closely mirror your users’ expectations.

Mobile is the fastest growing way of accessing the internet in the world. Mobile apps constitute the majority of activity on the smartphone platform. This presents huge opportunities for the mobile app developer but in order to get the user experience right; it also presents a big demand for high-quality user research.

The global app market is now worth more than $100 billion. That’s a significant chunk of change and to secure some of that market will require great user experiences from mobile apps. Mobile user research is the key weapon in the UX designer’s armoury to conquer some of that market.

When to do research

The first thing to know is that there is never a bad time to do research. While there are many models and complicated diagrams to describe how products get built, essentially, you’re always in one of three core phases: conceptualising something brand new, in the middle of designing and/or building something, or assessing something that’s already been built.

There’s plenty to learn in each of those phases. If you’re just starting out, you need to focus on understanding your potential users and their context and needs so that you can understand your best opportunities to serve them. In other words, you’re trying to figure out what problems to solve and for whom. This is often called generative or formative research.

Research goals:

Consider things like:

the stage of the project you’re in

what information you already know about your users, their context, and needs

what your business goals are

what solutions already exist or have been proposed

or where you think there are existing issues.

Where to do research: 

It’s often ideal to be able to perform research in the context of how a person normally would use your product, so you can see how your product fits into their life and observe things that might affect their usage, like interruptions or specific conditions.

For instance, if you’re working on a traffic prediction application, it might be really important to have people test the app while on their commute at rush hour rather than sitting in a lab in the middle of the day. I recently did some work for employees of a cruise line, and there would have been no way to know how the app really behaved until we were out at sea with satellite internet and rolling waves!

After determining your research goal, it’s time to start looking at the kind of information you need to answer your questions.

Quantitative data

Quantitative data measures specific counts collected, like how many times a link was clicked or what percentage of people completed a step. Quantitative data is unambiguous in that you can’t argue what is measured. However, you need to understand the context to interpret the results.

Quantitative data helps us understand questions like: how much, how many and how often?

For instance, you could measure how frequently an item is purchased. The number of sales is unchangeable and unambiguous, but whether 100 sales is good or bad depends on a lot of things. Quantitative research helps us understand what’s happening and questions like: how much, how many, how often. It tends to need a large sample size so that you can feel confident about your results.

Common UX research methods that can provide quantitative data are: - Surveys - a/b testing - multivariate tests - click tests - eye tracking studies - card sorts.

Qualitative data

Qualitative data is basically every other sort of information that you can collect but not necessarily measure. These pieces of information tend to provide descriptions and contexts, and are often used to describe why things are happening.

Qualitative data needs to be interpreted by the researcher and the team and doesn’t have a precise, indisputable outcome. For instance, you might hear people talk about valuing certain traits and note that as a key takeaway, but you can’t numerically measure or compare different participant’s values. You don’t need to include nearly as many sessions or participants in a qualitative study.

Common UX research methods that can provide qualitative data are usability tests, interviews, diary studies, focus groups, and participatory design sessions.

Persona development: 

[seekerofsigns]

“Will I Be Better Now?” Part 2 of the Make It Stop series If you like what you see here, please share or reblog!!! Art © seekerofsigns | signoffyre Please request permission to use any and all works.

Notes and description below the cut. ALSO A SIGNAL BOOST REQUEST.

Notes: Normally, I’m all about posting the positive side of non-hetero love. Post the pictures of kissing and holding hands and hugging and beautiful LBGT+ families. Show your PRIDE.

But in the current climate we live in, especially regarding the man who holds the second highest office in our nation, I feel it is important to remember that this above is still a thing. There are still kids out there being bullied into taking their own lives because they love differently than what has been screamed at us is the norm. There are kids being forced to live a lie. There are kids who exposed their truth only to be vilified and abused. The Vice President of our nation has advocated for conversion therapy. Elected officials still campaign for the removal of protections put in place to help and protect kids like me, all in the name of “religious freedom.”

I’ve known too many who have lost the battle of love in all its many forms vs. ideology and dogma that tells them they are less, an abomination, unworthy. I’m lucky myself that I survived my attempts at making the hate and shame thrust upon me stop. I’ve been the kid crying late at night begging for it all to go away, for me to be normal, because I was taught that what I was went against nature and the holy law of God. I went through the self-harm and the escapism of drugs and alcohol so I wouldn’t have to feel.

I came out on the other side of that with so many scars, both literal and metaphorical. Even now, when I’m mostly free of the environment that created such a mindset, I find myself tripping over guilt and a need to hide away at the damnedest times. It’s almost like a version of PTSD. I’ve been coerced into revisiting the site of most of my abuse through familial obligation and the anxiety and terror and fear still hit me like a Mach truck every time. I could write a novel of the lasting damage I carry, the horrors I experienced, all for trying to be true to myself and true to love. The second novel could be the road to recovery though.

The world is changing, and attitudes are adjusting. It’s so incredible to watch younger generations make such strides in inclusivity and equality. It brings me to tears watching the youth of today constantly bring about change and a more open, diverse, and powerful world. But we’re not there yet. Not as long as there are still kids out there driven to the point of no return. Who choose a permanent solution to what should be a temporary problem.

I am a single “parent.” I’m not actually a parent, but these wonderful humans came into my care, and they mean the world to me. They may not be mine biologically, but I do my level best to take care of them and provide them with a home where they know they are loved completely, that they are accepted, and that they are free to express themselves however they like. My two teenagers are encouraged to grow, and learn, and make their own choices. I guide as best I can. As for the beautiful baby girl...there’s never a single solitary doubt that she is adored, and cared for, and is so precious. We constantly get told how smart and happy and amazing she is.

But there are so many kids who don’t have that loving, supportive environment. We can’t ever forget about them. That’s what this piece is about.

I’m not the greatest artist. I know that. But I love to create, whether through pictures or words. And I just hope whatever message I’m sending reaches someone who needs to hear it.

Love is the way.

A huge thank you to my fantastic brother-in-law for being my model. Likeness used with permission. Painted over the course of several days in my free time.

SIGNAL BOOST REQUEST: As I stated above, I’m a single guy with three young people in my care. I’ve been self-employed as a consultant for quite awhile, and worked for one big client until recently when my contract was abruptly terminated due to shifting business model reasons. I didn’t have any other clients as backup, as the client I had kept my schedule quite full and provided enough for my little family to live off. I am in the process of searching out new clients or finding sources of income while I search out those clients, but I have a family to take care of and a roof to keep over our head.

If you enjoy my work, you can find prints on ArtPal. Or pure unbridled generosity and kindness can be shown through GoFundMe or PayPal. Any little bit at all helps, and my family and I would be incredibly grateful. Thank you so much in advance for being a light in our world!

And of course, please share!!! It means so much to me!

Tools: Photoshop 7 and Wacom tablet

#seekerofsigns #signoffyre #lgbt #lgbtq #LGBTQIA #gay #lesbian #transgender #bisexual #pray the gay away #lgbt rights #religious freedom #religious oppression #conversion therapy #discrimination #artists on tumblr #art #digital art #digital painting #emotional abuse #physical abuse #mental abuse #suicide #lgbt suicide #Christianity #abuse #child abuse #bigotry #gay conversion therapy #make it stop

[sammantlegraphics]

Final Evaluation

For this project, I made an editorial illustration for my final piece, the illustration was based on the themes of artificial, sentience and control. The illustration is for everyone and depending on who the viewer is, then the further they might understand it. I think the simplest understanding of my artwork would be robots controlling humans and I could see anyone from a child to adult being able to see that. I kept it quite simple in order to do that, almost everyone knows that puppets need to be controlled (excluding very small children maybe) and so by putting a person (representing us as humans) and a robot (representing AI) as the puppeteer, it’s an obvious indication that we’re being controlled by AI or could in the future be controlled by AI, as a warning to some and just an awareness for others - depending on how they view it because I didn’t necessarily say it was going to go bad or good, that for me was down to interpretation.

I began with skills I was more comfortable and familiar with, this helped to continue to develop my already existing skill - being drawing and then I went to develop it digitally, actually being my first piece of work like this. I’ve never coloured with a drawing tablet in Photoshop and I would say I’ve began developing my skills within that, I really enjoy working in that way. I think being able to add textures and effects that I could only do in Photoshop works really well and helps to bring your idea to a reality. Each style allows you to create things that can’t be achieved through the other method (analogue vs. digital) and I think depending on what you’re trying to create this could help you achieve what you’re actually after.

When looking back to the workshops, I mostly relate back to the Glitch and Mutation workshops. I used the idea of creating line work in an analogue way and then scanning it in to develop it digitally from the mutation workshop and I relate back to Tomorrows World and Glitch because I’ve taken something which is reality was for something else/had a different meaning and I took them and changed them to create a new meaning and to try communicate something new, for example, Glitch was originally just a normal photo of us, and once changed/manipulated, the image had a new meaning and in Tomorrows World the clips and audio were from other places and once combined the context had changed and a new meaning was created.

I research mostly artificial intelligence which ended up being one of the main themes/thing in my illustration. I researched the forms of AI that already exist and what ones could exist, I also looked at how they might exist - what they could feel and do and what kinds of AI there is/could be. I used this research for deciding what I wanted to illustrate the AI doing and also after looking at future shock I wanted to try incorporate that somehow and so I decided combining humans and AI into an illustration would best do this. So then I had to look at why people might fear AI and the most common fear is that AI will turn against us and take control which is what I decided I want to illustrate. 

From the feedback I got from peers I would say my work did communicate what I wanted it to quite well, I was told by several people there was a sense of intimidation, belittling and vulnerability (from the robot being so much bigger than the person) and dystopian, I was also told by another person that it seemed like almost an awareness rather than a fear because the AI is in human form - which is familiar (and it also helped keep a “thread of reality”), which was my intention, I didn’t want to make it obvious whether it was going to be a good or bad thing. I also think from that that if you look it and think more towards fear and dystopia then it’s being related back more onto future shock, but it’s down to the audience to decide that. I was also told I could look at maybe a full body AI rather than the top half, this could give an even more obvious sense of scale and the AI/robot being bigger, and a suggestion for moving forward that I was given was to animate it, which could be difficult but it would also be a really good chance to explore another way of working.

In this project, I’ve learnt even more skills within Photoshop and I have really enjoyed it and want to continue to develop these digital skills for the rest of the project. These skills will help me to develop my illustration work so I’m not limited to just analogue materials/processes, especially since I tend to go back to drawing a lot because I’m already familiar with it. Digital work allows me to work faster in some areas too which is helpful when there’s deadlines. With doing this it means my portfolio won’t be limited to only drawings as that doesn’t show a particularly broad area of work and I think it’d be helpful to show my capabilities of working within other areas - or at least experimenting in these areas.