#i wanna paint not code a website

[ddejavvu]

mei i was inspired by your glorious new spencer fic but in the most unhinged way

reader find this ad, and makes a custom nail polish based on... i think you know where this is going 🍆 (i just wanna see how he would react to it)

https://www.instagram.com/_blankbeauty?igsh=MW82c3dlMnFtM3dseg==

this post is 18+, minors dni.

Spencer catches your hand in his own with a crease in his brow, peering at your freshly painted nails.

"We don't have this color," He murmurs, recalling the hours of meticulous nail polish sorting he confines himself to when he needs something menial to soothe his nerves, "Is this new, angel?"

"Mhm," You hum coyly, "I bought it online the other day."

"Online," The furrow in his brow only gets more pronounced, "Sweetheart, I told you to be careful online shopping; it's easy to get scammed. And besides, why couldn't you have just bought nail polish at CVS?"

"CVS doesn't do this," You snort, reaching for Spencer's waistline. He's confused, but when your fingers scrabble for his zipper, the muscles in his thighs tense.

"Angel-" He tries, but you're already popping open the button on his pants.

"See?" You croon, slipping your hand into the waistband of his briefs and lining your nail up with the same shade on Spencer's cock, "S'the same, Spence. I wanted a pretty color, and the website said it could do any shade."

He's staring at it like it's offended him, but his dick is slowly stiffening against your hand.

His response isn't the most flattering: "You- you got the hex code for my penis?" But it's meant well, so you indulge.

"No," You gush, a giggle soft and sweet on your tongue, "I didn't need to, Spence. I know the color by heart."

[the-timewatcher]

A disgruntled Tumblrina (gender-neutral) made a website and why you should too.

Or "reject social media, return to personal websites".

PART 1: THE PART WHERE I CONVINCE YOU TO MOVE TO PERSONAL WEBSITES

So, the Web 2.0 social media infested landscape seems to be crumbling before our very eyes. Reddit's leadership is increasingly greedy, Twitter is sinking under the weight of Elon's massive, yet increasingly fragile ego, Tumblr is slowly turning into another lifeless corpo-fest, complete with the layout, Instagram continues to be vapid and soulless and Facebook seems to be going the way of MySpace.

(feel free to check the alt text on these, btw)

In these troubling times, where everything looks the same and you're expected to be milked for every dollar you're worth, what is a disgruntled Internet surfer such as yourself to do? Move to an untested alternative that's bound to get overrun by fascists thanks to poor moderation? Stay the course on the sinking ships you're used to?

Well, what if I told you that we've solved this problem way back in the 90's and early 2000's and were merely duped by the Big Zuck into forgetting our legacy? What if there was a cure for the sanitized, dull social media hellscape?

It takes a bit of work, when compared to just using a social media site, but even if your particular use case makes switching difficult (ex. an artist looking to promote their work), it's still a good secondary option to consider.

The core appeal is the ability to customize and individualize, make a corner of cyberspace unabashedly yours,

It can also be an exciting avenue of creative expression, giving whatever you want to say a unique coat of paint,

Most website hosting services are a bit more lax about what you can do on them, due to changes in the profit structure (rather than depending on advertisers and investors, they either have a premium option to give supporters perks, have another product, or, in the case of paid services, you renting that space IS the product),

If you want your website to be more accomodating and accessible, you don't have to file tons of feedback - do it yourself,

If you'd like to connect with other webmasters and promote each other's websites, we have webrings - sets of circular links that connect websites with something in common, be it a topic, aesthetic or friend group,

You're less likely to have your stuff purged by an ill-advised change in policy (especially if you have a backup of your files somewhere),

The more people do it, the less power those massive social media corpos have over the internet,

It can be a load of fun!

If I have you convinced, keep reading into part 2. If you just wanna see what I did, skip to part 3. If neither, feel free to continue scrolling. I won't hold it against you. You'll be missing out, that's all.

PART 2: SO, YOU WANNA MAKE A WEBSITE!

Good choice, here's some resources!

sadgrl's absolute beginner's guide to Neocities - what it says on the tin!

W3Schools - a more in-depth tutorial site, a learning resource so excellent it substituted for what I was supposed to learn in technical highschool (because our teacher just told us to go on W3Schools instead of teaching us shit)

A list of free layouts for your website - whether to use as a base to learn from or to simply take for yourself,

Neocities - the posterchild for free website hosting for personal websites. Doesn't allow video or audio, but you can get around that by linking those files from elsewhere. Beginner-friendly to a fault - once you have an account just drag and drop your files in,

Gitlab (& Gitlab Pages) - a more advanced option, but it has a few advantages of its own. Gitlab is a website hoster second and a version control service first - which is programmer speak for "keeps track of changes in your code and stores a backup of it online". it helps a lot when working on multiple devices or co-writing with a friend. And secondly, you can use Gitlab Actions to automate putting your website up (even on Neocities, like I do!)

My askbox - I am not joking, if you have any questions about any of this, I'd love nothing more than to help you out!

But with most of my indie web propaganda out of the way, it's time.

PART 3: Welcome to Timewatcher OS.

Of course, because I couldn't be normal when it comes to making a website, I had to turn it into a fake operating system. Each subpage is an "app", opened in a separate embed window. It has unlockable wallpapers (no pay2win, prommy). There's bideo games on it! I even made a music player for it so I can share my incongruent music tastes!

Like I said in my Tumblr bio, if I ever go radio silent for more than a month, it means I've gotten fed up with this hellsite and moved to my own homepage permamently. And I highly advise you make an option like this for yourself too! Lastly, if any of y'all would like to start a webring, do let me know in the askbox - I'm down to manage it if I'm not alone in there.

Anyways, I hope I convinced you to make a website, or at least check out some of the cool sites you've been missing out on! Hope to see you on the Old Web!

[whenemmafalls]

this was requested by a few people so, without further ado, below the cut i’ll explain how to make an edit of the eras tour poster like the ones that can be found here. i’ve seen different versions of these floating around twitter/tiktok/etc for a while but let’s be honest..the picsart ones don’t look as cute. i use photoshop 2020, but older versions should work just fine since this edit doesn’t involve anything too fancy!

now, i started with the original poster and carefully removed all of the images to create a base template that i’ve used for all the posters since. i don’t really feel like explaining how to do that because it feels kinda unnecessary when i can just link it to you. so go ahead and start by downloading my base template, which you can find here. 

once you have that open, you’ll want to gather your images. you’ll need nine images that should be at least 300x300px in dimension and one much larger image to serve as the center png. how big this needs to be depends how large the subject of the photo is, but it should probably be around 2000px. keep in mind that the subject shouldn’t be too wide either, or else it will block the surrounding photos when you try to position it. for example, the below image wouldn’t be a good option because her arm would cover at least one of the other eras.

once you have your photos picked out, you’re gonna want to drag the nine smaller ones into the document and crop/scale/position them so that there’s one in each square. remember that the template layer should be above the photo layers so that they’re contained within the frame. once you’ve done that, it should look something like this:

now it’s outlining time. first, make a new transparent layer and place that between the photo layers and the template layer. it’s really REALLY important that you remember to always paint on this transparent layer and NOT directly on the photos, as we want to be able to edit the photos later without also editing the borders. i used a website like this to find the color codes of the backgrounds on the original poster, so i’ll just put them here for you:

debut: #bcd5b8 fearless: #f4cb8a speak now: #cfb6d4 red: #a45865 1989: #c0e6f9 rep: #5f5c57 lover: #f8bad3 folklore: #d3d0c9 evermore: #ceb69c

you’re gonna want to select the paintbrush tool and set it to 20px and choose the “soft round” setting in the general brushes folder (this will make sure that you don’t have any harsh edges). then, change the color of the brush to whichever era you’re starting with, using the hex codes above. now you’re ready to go in and start painting! on your transparent layer, outline the edges of the subject of your first photo. you don’t have to be super precise with this because the soft edges allow for more error!

once you’ve done that, go ahead and change the brush setting back to hard round in order to fill in the surrounding edges, like so:

and voilà! pretty easy, right? now you just have to do that eight more times for each era, using the corresponding hex code for your brush color. and again, ALWAYS REMEMBER TO PAINT EVERYTHING ON THAT TRANSPARENT LAYER!!! pro tip: you can use the rectangular marquee tool to contain the square of the era that you’re working with so you don’t have to worry about staying inside the lines. once you’ve done that, it should look something like this (just ignore that the reputation background is too light, i used the wrong color and didn’t notice until later):

ok now you’re gonna want to download this lovely psd pack in order to color the photos (you could also color them yourself, but i’m bad at coloring so i took the easy way out). open that up, and drag the first one over for whichever era you’re starting with. position it so that it’s directly above the corresponding era’s photo and then right-click the psd and select “ungroup layers” (you wanna do this because you won’t be able to create a clipping mask from grouped layers). then, with all the layers of the psd selected, you’re gonna wanna right-click and select “create clipping mask.” this should make it so that the filter is only visible on that era’s photo. now just repeat that process for each era! once you’ve done that, you should have eras-colored filters over each image, like so:

now it’s png time! i’m not gonna explain how to make a png here because it would take too long and i’m such a perfectionist that the way i make pngs would probably get me locked up. however, here’s a really useful, in-depth tutorial on the subject if you’ve never made one before. go ahead and make your png and drag it into the document once you’re done. scale/resize/crop the png so that it fits nicely in the center of the document (and remember that this should be the topmost layer at this point, right above the template layer, so that it’s visible). it should look something like this now:

now you’re gonna do the same thing for the center psd that you did for all the other eras, by creating a clipping mask from the “midnights” era filter:

now all that’s left is the text! you have a few options for this part depending on what kind of edit you’re making. for the eras edit series, i made a png of each album title and positioned that in the center, like this:

i’ve also seen a lot of people making edits of these for their pets/grandparents/themselves, in which case you probably want to put a name of some sort in there. i made a sample of this to show you. first, you’re gonna want to download this font. it’s not the exact font from the poster because that one costs money, but this one looks almost exactly the same once you stretch it vertically. once you’ve installed the font, make a new text layer and write whatever word you want. change the font size until it roughly matches that of the surrounding words (remembering that it won’t be as tall). then, right click the text layer and select “convert to smart object” so that you can stretch it and then select edit > transform > warp. a number of dots should appear around the text, which will allow you to pull the top and bottom edges of the word so that it looks as tall as the original font. once it roughly matches the poster font, press enter to exit out of warp mode. the text will also look blacker than what's on the poster, so just right click on the text layer/smart object, select “blending options,” and reduce the opacity until it matches. this is what i got:

now you could stop there, but i like to mess with it a little (bc perfectionist) and go back and tinker with the paintbrush/clean up the edges and alter the brightness/contrast so that the images match each other a little better. after doing all that (and fixing the rep background color), this is what i ultimately ended up with (i also changed some of the images cause i didn’t like them):

and that’s pretty much all there is to it! i’ve never made a tutorial before so idk if i explained too much or didn’t explain enough but please please feel free to message me if you have any questions/require further clarification on anything!!! ok thanks bye!:)

[endious]

How’d you make your navigation post I think it’s called? Because I wanna make mine cute and aesthetic like yours but idrk how

EEK ! HIII MOOTIE <3 okay so this will be your best friend when making gradient texts. you literally just type in whatever sentence you wanna use, pick colors and then bam ! it gives you the code you have to copy and put into your post ! (you have to use html editor on the post on the desktop or mobile website in tumblr or the gradient wont work !) my borders/dividers ! (the thin lines i used to separate sections of my navi) are borders i made myself ! you can make them anywhere and however big you want them and with whatever color you like or you can go through the dividers tag on tumblr and find something that way ! i made mine in ibis paint and i like thin lines so i chose that !

sectioning is good too when making a navigation post ! for example i do, some type of art/image for the theme’s aesthetic, a short abt me section, warning of my blog (like 18+ mdni or whatever you choose), links to important posts that people should see, and sometimes i’ll add my url at the bottom of the post. i keep my navi short n’ sweet so ppl dont have to scroll through various things to get to what theyre looking for ! you could also check some of your fav blogs navigations and see how they did theirs and take some inspiration from a few !

[dzpenumbra]

3/25/23

It got late. Today was good. Yoga was a bit outside of my comfort zone, which was good in its own way. I ended up getting out of the shower with... what felt like "not enough time" to get to the skatepark, buy a board and ride a bit. Which is silly, honestly. This is like the third time that's happened. It was 5:30, the skatepark closes at 8. I'm not even kidding. And it's like... 10 minutes away, maybe 15.

It's easy to be frustrated with myself. I'm nervous. It just comes out as "I don't have enough time" or "it sounds complicated" or "I don't really need to go". I'm nervous about not knowing how the car sharing service thing works and fucking it up somehow. I'm nervous about making a good first impression. I'm nervous just in general leaving the apartment building for the first time in almost a week. I'm kinda tired of not saying it out loud, tired of being embarrassed about it.

I get nervous about shit, I get anxious about shit. Just like everyone else. More so than most in some regards, less so than most in others. It's part of being human. And I'm working really hard on like... letting myself have those feelings. As a fully-grown adult male. It's okay for a grown adult to be nervous meeting new people when they've been in extreme isolation for like... 4 years. It's okay for me to be nervous about walking into a police station and asking them where they don't want me skating. It's okay for me to be nervous about streaming. And... I'm a bit afraid that like... denying and downplaying those feelings... ends up inflating them. Because if you deny those "silly" feelings, they don't go away... you just end up with some "mysterious force" that's creating a barrier for you, and it gets stronger and stronger the more it's left unchecked.

So... I decided to look myself in the mirror and go "what am I nervous about?" And the big focus was on... the community car thing. So I went onto the website and did a refresher on how it works. It's pretty simple, actually. And that helped calm me down a lot. I didn't go. But it helped me reduce a barrier, and that helped a lot. So next time I have my sleep schedule lined up with their open hours, I can just hop in that truck and head over. One less barrier between me and meeting new people, and getting fun exercise.

Instead of going, I decided to listen to Baroness's Gold & Grey album and got more work done on my hoodie. The back piece is pretty close to done. I still have to figure out what to do with the outer ring, and I need to touch up some little final touches, and I might add a bit more shading... But it's pretty close. At least... the back piece is. As promised, here's the piece so far:

I'm happy with it.

I spent some time trying to figure out how to get Cubase to work with OBS, which was like chugging 2 bottles of Nyquil and trying to stay awake all night. I swear to fucking god. I do not know why this shit is so hard for me to focus on or learn, it's just... one of those few things in the world that just... saps the life out of me. Like... I can listen to some old guy ramble for 2 hours about geology, I can absorb a lecture on evolutionary biology, I can paint all those tedious details up above for hours on end, I can do nothing but run back and forth between two locations in minecraft for hours, I can do a lot of shit others consider boring. But... so far... my Achilles Heel of education is like... math stuff... and a lot of computer stuff. Which is ironic, because last winter I tried really hard to learn basic coding... and I did learn a bit. But... this is just... so hard for me to grasp. Like... my guitar and mic send signals to my Focusrite box, which goes through USB to my computer. Then the signal goes to... Cubase? Who picks it up exclusively and sends it into whatever fun plugins I pop on there, then it's sent out through the Focusrite into my headphones as a monitor. Then OBS comes in and says "I wanna listen too", so I set it to listen to the desktop audio, which is picking up the audio that's going into the Focusrite, and my headphones... all of the audio except... Cubase. Yep. I can listen to a video on YouTube, it picks up the video, I can hear and see it. I can pick up the raw guitar signal from the Focusrite, though I don't want it. But I cannot pick up the audio output from Cubase. And I've done it before in the past, I just... don't remember how. And it's just really fucking frustrating. And I constantly have had audio problems like this my entire goddamn life. It's never "plug + play" with any fucking music-making endeavor. I swear, half the time I've spent trying to make music with my brother in the past was like... trying to figure out latency issues, or patching, or routing, or figuring out something or another. Ugh.

So I said fuck it and scrapped the idea for now. I did 5 more runs in the desire path project. I mapped what is now a total of 20 runs, and plenty more to come. I was debating streaming that. But... honestly? I just kinda didn't want to. I kinda wanted to zone out and watch someone else's stream instead, until they started running 6-ad blocks every half hour or so and were paranoid about needing to censor the word "whorehouse" while playing a fictional character in an RP environment set in 1899. And that just kinda... I just can't really do it anymore with this "getting personally offended" while simultaneously claiming to be "playing a character" bullshit. Like... I shit you not, this poor woman got banned from the server for... brace for it... using the "wrong pronouns"... WHILE ROLEPLAYING A CHARACTER FROM 1899. And I just... I... I just... I feel like every entertainment pioneer from my adolescence who was brave enough to face the corporate and government censors and say "no, we're going to make the joke, we're going to share our humor and our stories". All of their work was for nothing. And we're just going back to fucking Psycho, where it was like... super controversial that they had a flushing toilet on a movie screen. It's regression, it's censorship. Beyond that, it's literally forced RP. It's literally forcing someone's roleplay, forcing your humor values, forcing your comfort zone on people around you. How about if you don't like a joke or find it distasteful? Just walk away. Just go RP with someone else. If you don't want to show the word "fuck" on your stream, if it pops up in a letter or something, just close it and move to the next scene, like... for fuck's sake this is part of the goddamn job. But the admins on this server... side with the ones reporting, apparently? ... And it has been a growing problem? Which really sucks. It's not like they're throwing together lynch mobs to go after black people, which was a very real thing that could very well be roleplayed and turned into a historically accurate storyline if done very delicately and tastefully - in fact, they have a side plotline of that in the game itself, I remember it vividly. I am yet to see a single authentic Asian character, and there was a huge influx of asians immigrating to the west at that point in history, and a lot of animosity, which would make for a really powerful underdog character, imo. It's just like... they want historical accuracy and immersion... and modern political correctness and censorship... and those two do not mesh.

See how fucking stressed this makes me? Because I really wanted to join the server! It looked really immersive and like a good way to both improve my acting abilities and meet new people. But good lord, not anymore I don't. Not if I have to be looking over my shoulder for a 3 day ban every time I say "fuck" to the wrong person. But if I blast them in the face with a shotgun, that's totally fine. ... I hate this timeline. So much. I miss the old internet.

So yeah... after I got a bit burnt out on the repetition of Minecraft, and the stress of watching the stream... I set OBS to record locally and started playing Valheim for the first time. Pretty much a blind playthrough. So... that was the bulk of my night. It's fun. I was thinking I might be able to make a sorta... Mr. Moon-style RP movie out of it, but... I'm not sure. We'll see how it plays out.

And that was pretty much my day. And now it's 5AM, so I gotta go to bed or else I'm definitely not making the skatepark tomorrow. Peace!

[martritzvonmercie]

for anyone interested here is a quick BACKPACK TOUR as well as all the info i have!!!

- this backpack IS official merch and came with a limited edition of drv3 for the playstation vita and playstation 4!! there were a bunch of other items like shuichi’s hat, the art book in hardcover, and drv3 headphones in the original bundle as well it’s actually really cool. i’ll link a website with the information about the original bundle!!

- i personally have been stalking the internet trying to find this item for MONTHS and got it when it suddenly popped up on the goodwill website!! it was quite pricey bc it’s REALLY HARD TO FIND THIS BACKPACK but i found a couple of sales and coupon codes and snagged it

for size comparison, this is my adidas mini backpack, it’s about mini backpack height and width but regular backpack length!! the material of the whole backpack is really thick and durable, better quality than i was expecting and certainly strong enough for everyday use!! the color is off-white and the painted purple logo is the only detail, you could easily put pins on the flap to decorate but i don’t think i wanna poke holes in it

the lock on the front is a button that you press down and slide out, it’s actually kinda hard to tell if it was originally lockable and it broke or if it’s just meant to be a button but either way it works and keeps it shut! there is also an additional zipper under the flap tho

here is the official tag!!! (sorry for bad picture) it doesn’t have a year but i believe this preorder incentive was in september 2017

and this is the inside, there is even a technology sleeve that’s pretty thick and good quality!! length-wise, my ninth generation ipad was snug in there so something bigger wouldn’t fit, but you could fit something a bit wider than that perfectly fine! however, most laptops wouldn’t fit, so the backpack’s a bit small for a school backpack, perfect for if all you need is an ipad and a few other purse items tho!

guys the backpack. it’s too big for her. she’s gonna need a different one guys

OK BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS MY KAEDE BACKPACK JUST GOT HERE TODAY AND I AM FREAKING OUT SNFNAKFKSKFK it’s a bit small to use as a school backpack but it’s PERFECT as a mini backpack and has a laptop sleeve that DOES fit my ipad… anyways it’s my everyday bag FOREVER NOW LOOK HOW CUTE IT IS WAUGHHHH

[splendidcyan]

i’m incredibly burnt out from college and inktober and life in general so for the next few weeks the only content i’ll be creating is memes of my ocs

[redgillan]

Under Pastel Skies - 11

Sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Modern!AU Bucky doesn’t need anyone, especially not a sugar baby. He isn’t that desperate… but she smiles so sweetly and she’s endearingly awkward, and he’s so lonely. She’s an artist, a painter, the type of person who always puts others before herself. Throwing caution to the wind Bucky offers her a place to live, a place where she can finally paint whatever her heart desires. He doesn’t need much in return; a friend, a muse.

Word Count: 6,696

Warnings: Unprotected Sex (non explicit) 

A/N: And finally... Just a word before, and it’s important, I wanted to put the explicit between two ‘*’ but I settled for one at the end because explicit means different things to different people. So whenever it starts to get too steamy for you, skip to the *. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your support!

Wannabe sugar daddies, don’t interact with this post. 

Bucky moved behind the kitchen counter when he heard the door close. You and your guests were in the hallway where you took their coats and asked them to remove their shoes. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He had to stay calm, you depended on him tonight.

“It smells nice in here. What did y-”

Bucky straightened himself up and tried to keep a casual, friendly smile on his face as he came face-to-face with Okoye. He had seen enough pictures of your siblings to recognize them.

She looked surprised to find someone else there. He raised his hand and waved, and she frowned at him in confusion. The rest of the guests stopped short when they saw him waving like a dork. You pushed through them and came to his side.

“Guys, this is my friend, Bucky,” you said. “He’s the one who invited you.”

“Thanks for the invite. I hope you like wine,” Scott said, extending his hand as he walked over to Bucky.

“I sure do.”

Then he shook Wanda and Okoye’s hands, telling them how good it was to finally meet them. Your sisters introduced him to their partners, W’Kabi and Edwin who preferred to be called ‘Viz’.

You led them to the living room while Bucky prepared the drinks. W’Kabi decided to stay behind and help Bucky carry the drinks to the living room. He praised Bucky for having such a nice home.

The conversation seemed to flow easily between your siblings, though as Bucky arrived with your drink, he couldn’t help but notice that you were not participating. You took the glass from his hand, smiled then went back to staring at the coffee table. He sat next to you and rubbed soothing strokes on your arm before he reached for his drink.

Okoye was telling everyone that she had decided to return to New York after King T’Chaka’s passing. His son carried the mantle of the Black Panther, surrounding himself with his father’s Dora Milaje, but Okoye wanted to live closer to her own family.

She was a Dora Milaje, loyal to her king, but she was also a sister, loyal to her family. She felt like there were no good choices, and it ate away at her until her king found a solution to her problem. His little sister, Shuri, was starting her own business in the United States and needed her own bodyguards. Okoye accepted and W’Kabi followed her.

Scott didn’t share much. He showed everyone pictures of his little girl, Cassie, and said he was now working at Baskin-Robbins.

Wanda was evasive about her life and whereabouts. She told everyone that she’d been backpacking across Europe and met Viz, a wealthy businessman, on a beautiful sunny day in Berlin. They’d been attached at the hip ever since.

“And of course, you’re all invited to the wedding,” Wanda said while Okoye admired the ring. “It’s going to be a small wedding. I just need my family.”

“Excuse-me,” you said, standing up abruptly. “I think something’s burning.”

Bucky watched you disappear into the kitchen. He glanced at the group again, no one was paying attention so he followed you into the kitchen.

He found you leaning back against the counter, your arms crossed over your chest, staring into nothing. He walked over to you and pulled you into a one-armed hug that you accepted with a pleased sigh.

“I don’t think I can do this,” you said, your voice muffled against his shirt.

“Is it a code ‘flamingo’?”

“No,” you chuckled, pulling away. You took a deep breath and leaned back against the counter again. “It’s just...”

You huffed, unable to find the words and grabbed him by the waist, seeking his warmth again. Bucky let out a surprised laugh as you squeezed him tightly. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and pressed you against his chest.

“I know it’s hard,” he said, kissing the crown of your head. “It’ll be over soon, angel.”

Bucky rocked you side to side in a slow, soothing rhythm until you were practically melting against him. He felt you take a deep breath, your nose buried in his chest. He didn’t want the moment to end, but you’d been gone for several minutes now, and the others would barge in the kitchen soon.

He pressed a long kiss to your forehead and gently pushed you away, his arm falling to your waist. You smoothed out the wrinkles you had made in his shirt without looking him in the eye.

He could tell you were thinking about something but before he could ask what was on your mind, you kissed the slight cleft in his chin and quickly moved away from him.

He smiled to himself, his heart beating a little faster.

You were transferring the dinner rolls from the pan to the basket when Scott poked his head into the kitchen. Bucky was still smiling to himself like a lovesick idiot.

“Everything okay?” Scott asked, taking a step closer to you. You turned to him and nodded. “It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Seeing each other again after all this time.” He leaned his forearm on the counter next to you and smelled the bread. “Baby Wanda’s getting married. Did you know they flew me first class? And the hotel is incredible. I feel like a prince.”

“Viz seems very nice.”

“I can’t believe Wanda backpacked through Europe,” Scott scoffed. “She hates camping.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Bucky watched as Scott leaned closer and whispered in your ear. “Listen, I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me and for Cassie-” Bucky quietly left the two of you alone. It was a private conversation and he didn’t want to impose himself.

He finished setting the table, and soon everyone joined in. Bucky was sitting with his back to the kitchen, W’Kabi sitting next to him. You took a seat across from him, Wanda sitting next to you. Okoye sat next to Wanda, facing Scott, and Viz took a seat at the end of the table.

The food was good, and everyone complimented Bucky on his cooking skills. He said that you had helped him a lot, but you refused to take credit for chopping up a bunch of vegetables. You gushed about his cooking skills and his delicious recipes. It made them salivate just thinking about it.

“And your house is amazing,” Scott said with a dreamy look on his face. “A place like that...” he sighed, “that must have cost you an arm and a leg.” The whole room fell silent, and something that sounded like a foot hitting a shin made the table jump. “Ouch, why did yo- oh.”

Okoye was looking at him with the widest pair of eyes Bucky had ever seen. She looked furious and exasperated at the same time. The others stared at their plates as the uncomfortable silence grew.

Bucky glanced at you, not surprised to find you smirking. You knew he lived for moments like these, and you knew he already had the perfect comeback. As he watched you bit your lip, trying to contain a little giggle, he couldn’t help but love you even more.

“It was the original price but I’m a good negotiator,” Bucky said. “Only cost me an arm.”

W’Kabi was the first to laugh at his joke, then the whole table broke into fits of laughter. Scott looked equally amused and relieved.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t-”

“No problem,” Bucky cut him off.

“Can’t take you anywhere,” Okoye said with a smile and a shake of her head. She turned to Bucky as everyone calmed down. “So, Bucky, strange name, uh? What do you do for a living?”

“My name is James, Bucky’s just a nickname.” He wiped his mouth and set the napkin down. “I’m a writer.”

“A pretty good one, judging by your apartment.”

“I’m all right.” He shrugged. “Literally.” Scott snickered at the joke.

“He’s too modest,” you said. “His books are best sellers. They’re autobiographical, he’s very sincere and honest and funny. He has a way of making you laugh about things that are pretty awful.”

“Yeah, we saw that,” Wanda said with a grin. “Are you working on anything at the moment?”

Bucky shifted a little in his seat. “Yeah, it’s uh,” he cleared his throat. “It’s a very important one. I don’t really want to talk about it. Don’t wanna jinx it.”

He wasn’t going to tell your family that he was writing a book about how he fell in love with you. That’d be pretty awkward.

“I understand,” Okoye nodded, then looked at you. “You’ve been really quiet tonight.” You shrugged. “I thought you were still living with Natasha. Do you still work at the hotel? Where is it again? Chelsea? That’s one hell of a commute from Brooklyn.”

“I wasn’t exactly living with Natasha,” you said. “I was crashing on her sofa. And no, I quit six months ago. I’m a full time artist now.”

“That’s great,” Scott said, raising his glass toward you in a silent toast. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Not too bad. Bucky’s friend is a professional photographer. He helped me set up my website. The pictures he took are amazing. I sold a few pieces online but I’m struggling to find gallery representation.”

“Hey, as long as it pays the bills.”

“I don’t really have to worry about bills these days.”

“What do you mean?”

The room got quiet again, and Bucky could feel the tension in the air, buzzing like static electricity. All eyes were suddenly on you, waiting for an explanation. Bucky knew you were not going to lie to them. He locked eyes with you, and braced himself for impact.

You set your fork down and folded your hands in your lap.

“Well, Bucky and I have an arrangement.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Scott cut you off.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush and I’m not going to use pretty words to make it sounds more appealing,” you continued as if you hadn’t heard him. “He’s my sugar daddy.”

“You’re joking. Please, tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope,” you replied smugly, popping the ‘p’.

A chorus of voices rose in protest. Okoye and Scott were shouting while the others kept glancing around wondering what had just happened. Wanda was strangely quiet next to you.

“Oh, shut up!” you shouted. “You left me alone. All of you. We were all grieving our brother but it doesn’t give you the right to fuck off when things get tough. Do you know how fucking terrifying it was when mom started to lose her memories? Or when the police drove her home at three in the morning after one of her spells? No, you don’t know because you weren’t there.”

Bucky had never seen you so upset before, and he didn’t quite know what to do but he felt like you needed to get it off your chest.

“I didn’t have friends or boyfriends. I went to class, then got home, hoping mom hadn’t set the house on fire. I took the first decent job I could find because she needed a new home and professional help. Without Natasha I would have been homeless.” You turned to Bucky. “I’m so sorry, I’ve ruined dinner. You’ve worked so hard.”

“It’s okay,” he replied immediately. “I’m with you.”

“God, you’re so nice,” you sighed, then turned to your siblings. “See? That’s the kind of person he is. I was lonely and lost, and I found him and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. He’s kind and sweet, he’s selfless and generous, and you have no right to criticize our relationship.”

Bucky stared at you, his mouth hanging open a little. Slowly he shook himself out of his trance and reached for your hand on the table. He had no idea you thought so highly of him.

“We needed each other,” you continued. “And I don’t care what you think.”

Dinner was officially ruined but Bucky didn’t care. He smiled at you, soft and reassuring, and let go of your hand when you smiled back. He was proud of you for speaking up, for standing up for yourself.

Bucky noticed Wanda and Viz exchanging looks.

“Okay so, since we’re sharing truth bombs,” Wanda said, shifting a bit in her seat. “I wasn’t really traveling through Europe. I went to Sokovia and after that, everything’s kind of a blur. I did things I’m not proud of. I wanted to forget,” she paused and sighed, “everything. I hit rock bottom, pretty hard, and checked myself into a psychiatric hospital. That’s where I met Viz. He helped me send you those postcards. I screwed up, real bad, but I couldn’t tell you guys the truth. I’m not really proud of myself.”

“I got fired from Baskin-Robbins for yelling at a costumer.”

“Okay!” Okoye exclaimed in her big sister voice. “Enough truth bombs.” She pointed at you. “I’m sorry you had to do this alone, it wasn’t right but we’re here now and we won’t let you down. As for the sugar daddy thing... well you’re a grown woman, you can do whatever you want. Bucky seems like a nice guy.” She turned to Wanda. “We are all dealing with our pain in our own way. I’m not judging you. We’re here for you, Wanda.”

“I know,” Wanda said, sniffing.

“And Scott, stop yelling at people.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Bucky turned to W’Kabi and Viz who looked proud of their girls, albeit a little uncomfortable with the whole situation. Someone started chuckling, he couldn’t tell who it was, but suddenly the whole table broke into a fit of laughter.

“How about some dessert,” he said. “Then you guys can fill me in on some childhood secrets.”

As he walked away from the table, he heard you warn your siblings to keep their mouths shut. They laughed in response, which made Bucky smile. Surely it’d take more than one outburst at a family dinner to fix your broken bond but it was a good start.

During dessert, he learned that everyone called you ‘Splotchy’ because you painted on the living room walls as a child. He learned that you always wanted to play board games with Okoye. Your favourite one was Mystery Date.

“She had a crush on Tyler, the beach date.”

“No, that’s not true, don’t listen to them.”

When they finally left, you spent a few extra moments hugging everyone. Promises were made, and Bucky couldn’t help but smile as he watched you wave goodbye to your siblings.

It was just the two of you again, and the mountain of dirty dishes and silverware. He told you not to worry about the dishes, but you knew if he went to bed he wouldn't be able to sleep, not when the kitchen was such a mess so you cleaned together.

He loved these moments with you. There was something very peaceful about the night; the dark skies, the soft lights, the quiet apartment, knowing people all around town where getting ready for bed. It used to make him feel tiny and isolated but now, with you, the night didn’t seem so frightening anymore.

A few weeks went by, and things were changing a bit. You spent your Saturday mornings with your sisters, bonding, and facetimed with Scott at least once a week.

Bucky also noticed a subtle change in Sam’s behaviour. He seemed happier and he wondered if his friend had already forgotten Natasha.

It was almost June, and the building’s swimming pool reopened as the weather got warmer. Despite living there for several years, he had never gone near that swimming pool until you dragged him out one scorching afternoon.

The rooftop was surprisingly calm, apart for the group of children playing in the pool. There were people sunbathing around the pool, enjoying a good book, socializing. You dropped your bag on the floor and laid out your towel on the reclining chair.

Bucky had never seen you in a bathing suit before and it caught him completely off guard, but what made him literally growl was seeing the little pendant of your necklace rest against your skin. He didn’t know why but it awoke something in him.

You both slathered on sunscreen before you went for a swim. Bucky recognized a few neighbours, and while they all knew he only had one arm, they had never seen him shirtless before. Bucky didn’t mind their inquisitiveness, as long as you were beside him.

“Do you think the kids peed in the water?” you asked as you rested against the edge of the pool.

“Probably,” Bucky cringed. “When I was a kid, my mom told me that there were chemicals that turned the water a different color when someone pees.”

“Ew,” you laughed.

After a while, he lay out in the sun, enjoying the feel of the sun on his skin. He could still hear you playing water polo with the kids when a shadow passed over him. With a frown, he pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead.

“It’s nice to see you, James,” his neighbour beamed, taking a seat on your unoccupied chair. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out here.”

“Hi.” He wasn’t surprised when his voice came out hoarse since he had been on the verge of falling asleep. With the grace of a walrus, he propped himself into a sitting position. “Yes, well, swimming pools are more fun when you’re not alone.”

His neighbour turned to look at you. “Congratulations, by the way. I didn’t know you were seeing someone. Must have been serious if you two moved in together. How long has it been since she moved in? Six months?”

“Seven.”

He knew he should have corrected her, you weren’t his girlfriend, but it felt good. It was just a harmless little lie.

“Does she make you happy?”

“I’m the happiest man on earth,” he replied with a bright smile, then slid his sunglasses back on his face.

His neighbour chuckled quietly. “I can see that!”

When you returned to your seat, his neighbour was gone. You hummed to yourself as you settled into your seat, big droplets of water running down your body. Bucky tilted his head down and peered at you over the top of his sunglasses.

“Where did you get that popsicle?”

“Jealous?” You licked your treat without looking at him. “The kids’ mom gave me one as a thank you for looking after her kids.”

“That looks good.”

“So good.”

“Mind sharing it with me?”

You pursed your lips thoughtfully, then held out your popsicle. As Bucky leaned closer, you pulled it away and jumped to your feet. The look he gave you was one of pure betrayal.

“Oh, angel, you should have never done that.”

He grinned to himself when he saw a shiver run through you. When he stood up, you took a step back. He strutted toward you, his grin predatory. The floor was slippery so you couldn’t go very far.

“Are you ready to share now?”

“No!”  

The popsicle melted down your hand, creating a mess. You turned your arm and licked the drops of popsicle juice from the inside of your wrist. It distracted you long enough for Bucky to wrap his arm around your waist, pulling you against him. You squealed and grabbed him around the neck to keep from falling while also trying not to smush the popsicle against his chest.

You waved the treat in front of his face and he tried to bite off the tip of your popsicle. It made you laugh, your body sagging against him. His face was close to yours. He was so close he could smell the artificial orange scent of your popsicle.

Your laughter died down and your breath caught in your throat when you saw the way he was looking at you. Without thinking, he went for it. He felt your fingers flex against his skin, urging him closer.

His lips were barely a breath away from yours when one of the kids repeatedly slapped your thigh, obviously oblivious to what the two grownups were about to do.

“Come back! We haven’t finished the game,” the kid whined. “Come on!”

Reluctantly, you let go of Bucky and took a step back. Your exhale came out shaky, and in your almost-kiss-induced trance you handed him the popsicle without saying anything before you followed the kid.

You turned back to look at him, one hand sprawled across your stomach, the other across your chest. He knew you were feeling it too: the butterflies, the racing heartbeat, that pleasant heat going through your body.

The difference between like and love.

A week later, he came home to an empty apartment. He climbed the stairs to your studio but you weren’t there. Instead, he found a canvas stretched out smooth and tight on the floor, and several bowls of paint arranged in a semi-circle around it.

He knew you were home, you wouldn’t leave without your phone or bag. Out of curiosity, he went up on the roof and let out a relieved breath when he found you.

You were sitting on the edge of the rooftop with your knees up to your chin and your arms wrapped loosely around your shins. You looked so beautiful in the golden hue of the setting sun.

He stood there, watching you as if he was looking at a painting in a museum. Entranced. You hadn’t noticed him yet, and a quick glance around the roof told him you were alone.  

Slowly, he made his way to you and took in your appearance: a short sleeve white shirt and a pair of denim overalls. The shirt was surprisingly spotless but the overalls were covered in dried paint splatters of different colours.

“I looked everywhere for you,” he spoke softly, trying not to disturb you.

“Did you?”

You straightened up a little but kept your eyes trained on the horizon. Bucky sat close to your feet and let his hand slip under the hem of your jeans to close around your ankle. A sigh slipped past your lips, and he let his fingertips linger for a moment on your smooth skin.

He knew you had a meeting today, and judging by the resigned look on your face, it didn’t go well.

“What’s on your mind, angel?” he said, caressing the top of your foot.

“I was thinking about the night we met. God, I was so nervous,” you said, laughing softly. “I told you that agreeing to meet you was like choosing between a pack of wolves and jumping off a cliff.”

“I remember,” he chuckled.

“I never told you how glad I am that I jumped off that cliff,” you said. “I’d never jumped head first into something, not knowing what was going to happen. Now I think I’m addicted to it. Before I met you, I was living for others. Everything single decision was thoroughly analysed. There was no mystery, fun, or impulsiveness. I put my entire life on hold, and now I see that I can’t do that anymore.”

“What are you going to do?”

You paused, searching for the right words. “I don’t know if I want to turn my passion into a career. Painting is my safe-place, and right now it’s giving me so much anxiety. I haven’t had the inspiration to paint in weeks.” You looked at him and pressed your lips together tightly. “And, if I don’t want to become a full time artist, then I guess our deal is off.”

Bucky stared at you, mouth agape. He really hadn’t seen it coming.

“Please, don’t be angry,” you pleaded. “I don’t want to stop seeing you. When he didn’t answer, you leaned forward and touched his face.

“I could never be angry with you, angel,” he said, kissing the inside of your palm. “I understand, and I’ll help you however I can.”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m still thinking about it.” You looked away from him and stared at the sky. “Do you know that feeling when you stand in a high place and you think about jumping? You don’t want to jump and you don’t do it, but there’s that urge.”

“I think I do.”

“It’s called ‘call of the void’. People say that it’s an affirmation of our will to live. That knowing we’re going to die one day makes us appreciate life even more.” You looked at him. “I want to jump but I can’t. I’m scared.” You lowered your voice. “I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

“You’re scaring me a little. You can’t talk about jumping when we’re sitting on the edge of the roof.”

You chuckled under your breath. “It’s a metaphor.”

“Let’s go home. We’ll make dinner together, put on some music and pretend we’re in a movie.” He got to his feet and held out his hand to you. “Please.”

You took his hand and let him lead you to the staircase.

Once you were inside the apartment, he removed his shoes and you removed yours. Silence settled between the two of you as you entered the kitchen. Bucky moved behind the counter while you stood close to the dining table.

When he chanced a glance at you, he saw you staring into nothing while you played with the charm on your necklace, rolling it back and forth on its chain. You often did that when you were daydreaming.

Bucky walked over to you and placed his hand on top of yours, halting your movements. You let go of the pendant and held his hand instead. He ran his thumb soothingly over your fingers.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he spoke softly.

“If I say it, it’s going to change everything.”

He pressed your joined hands against his chest, over his heart. “No, it’ll make it real.”

He let go of your hand and cupped the side of your face. You leaned closer until you were only inches apart. His thumb traced your cheekbone, then moved to trace the outline of your bottom lip.

He let you come to him, let you take that first step, and when your lips brushed against his, he closed his eyes and sighed. He kissed your parted lips; once, twice, three times, tiny little kisses against your trembling lips.

His kiss grew bolder, turning into something so intimate, so passionate and intense that tears gathered in his eyes. He pressed his mouth more firmly against yours, his large hand still cupping the side of your face. His bad shoulder jutted forward as if his missing arm wanted to touch you.

He let out a groan, frustrated that he only had one hand to finally explore your skin. Sensing his inner turmoil, you held onto his bad shoulder and pulled him against you.

His tongue swept into your mouth, moving in a slow and deliberate rhythm. A growl escaped him and he deepened the kiss, tasting, sliding, retreating and entering again. He poured everything he had into the kiss.

“Bucky,” you moaned after your broke the kiss, breathless.

Hearing his name fall from your lips, your voice hoarse with desire, sparked something inside him. He swiped his thumb over your bottom lip, feeling the softness and collecting the moisture that had gathered there.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, looking positively entranced. “My pretty angel.”

You pulled him in for another kiss and wrapped your arms around his neck, your slightly cold hands felt amazing against his heated skin. He pressed himself against you, letting you feel the rise and fall of his chest, the desperation in the jerky thrust of his hips.

He needed more but he wasn’t going to force you into anything. He was more than happy to stand here and kiss you for hours. He cupped the back of your neck and rubbed the sensitive skin behind your ear with his thumb.

“I’m yours,” he spoke against your lips, his eyes screwed shut.  

You pulled back to look him in the eye, searching his face. He opened his eyes and you saw nothing but honesty in the depth of his eyes.

You untangled yourself from him and took his hand. Slowly, you took a step back, then another, his hand still in yours. His eyebrows lifted slightly when you bit your bottom lip and gave him a coy look.

He nearly growled again, the wolf inside him eager to touch you, feel you, claim you. He stood taller, his chest puffed out and breathing fast.

You led him up the stairs to the second floor and turned on the light in the corridor. You slowly made your way down the corridor with him behind you.

But instead of turning left towards his bedroom, you turned right into your studio, and it changed everything. Your studio was your sanctuary, your safe place, and knowing that you were about to bare your soul and body to him tamed his inner wolf.

You hesitated at the threshold of the room and glanced over your shoulder to look at him. Bucky squeezed your hand to encourage you.

“I bought some body paint on my way home,” you said, letting go of his hand to step into the room. “I wanted to try something different, something more personal. I wanted to use my body to express my emotions, to create something raw and messy. My interpretation of somatic art therapy.”

You moved around the darkened room; bent down to adjust the canvas on the floor and made sure the bowls of paint were still full.

“I sat there and thought of my mom and Pietro,” you continued, barefoot on the canvas. “I only feel sadness and anger, and I don’t want to create something that makes me feel sad. And I realized the only thing that keeps me inspired is hope.”

Turning to face him, you held your hand out, palm up, and his eyes widened at your silent request. Without thinking twice, he joined you on the canvas. It was both soft and scratchy under his feet.

Bucky watched as you unbuckled the right strap of your overalls and slipped the second strap off your shoulder. You tugged your jeans down your legs and tossed them aside, leaving you in your underwear and white shirt.

Swallowing thickly, Bucky let his eyes travel up and down your body. He had seen you in your bathing suit before but this was different. Then he reached behind his neck and pulled his shirt over his head, baring his strong chest, hard abdomen and marred skin.

The room was dark; the pastel sky, visible from your studio thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, didn’t provide much light. The light was still on in the corridor, casting a faint golden glow over the room.

You took a step forward to examine his scars more carefully and Bucky took that opportunity to kiss you again, slowly, intimately. He peppered kisses along your jaw and down your neck, then went down on his knees in front of you and continued his journey down your body, pressing soft kisses to your stomach.

He accidentally knocked over two bowls of paint; the dark colours spilled out onto the canvas, chasing each other. His kisses made you light up with desire, your moans music to his ears as your hands came down on the back of his head.

When it all became too much, you gently pushed him into a lying position and helped him out of his jeans. His belt buckle made a faint clink when you pulled it open, and Bucky swore out loud when you planted a wet open-mouthed kiss right below his navel.

In the back of his mind, he knew he wasn’t going to survive the night. He let his head fall back against the canvas and closed his eyes shut. Your talented mouth sent sharp jolts of pleasure through him, making it difficult to breathe.

He could feel the paint stick to his back, creating the shape of his upper body on the canvas. It was strangely exciting.

He moaned, arching his back, and slammed his fist down on the canvas. His fist landed in one of the bowls of paint. It splashed paint everywhere. He looked down at you and saw tiny flecks of paint splayed like freckles on one side of your face.

It made you both giggle. As he pushed himself up into a sitting position, Bucky left a print of his forearm on the canvas. You climbed into his lap, straddling him, then removed your shirt and bra. You wrapped your legs around him, one hand on his upper arm, the other hugging his neck.

Bucky was sitting on the canvas with his legs outstretched and slightly bent at the knees. He held you against his chest, rocking back and forth, his arm around the small of your back. You sighed together, sharing the same breath.

“You have the prettiest nose.” You let your index finger run down the length of his nose, your finger wet with paint. “So pretty.”

Laughing softly, he brushed his nose against yours and kissed you. He changed the angle of his thrusts, catching you by surprise.

“Does that feel good, angel?” he asked, lightly biting your jaw. You answered with a short cry. “Look at me.” You slowly opened your eyes, your movements faltered a little. “You’re so beautiful like this. You drive me crazy, y’know that?”

“Bucky,” you cried out.

He felt you shiver when he moved his hand from your back to your face. He cupped the side of your face and you immediately pressed yourself closer to him, craving the warmth of his touch.

He stopped your movements and looked you in the eye. “I’d do anything for you. Anything. You’re my one and only.”

He laid you down as gently and safely as he could, and once you were lying flat on your back, he sprawled between your thighs. He supported his weight on his forearm, careful not to crush you. Your hands slid up his sides, and as your thumb traced over his ribcage, a violent shiver went through his body.

He had never seen anything more beautiful than watching you come apart; your eyebrows furrowed, your lips parted in a silent ‘o’, the way your body shook in little spams. Absolutely stunning.

Exhausted, he collapsed on top of you and hid his face in the crook of your neck. You wrapped your arms around him and slowly caressed his back.

After he kissed his way down the side of your neck, he straightened himself up into a kneeling position and looked down at you. Your naked body was on display, covered in paint and glistening under the moonlight. He wished he could take a picture, immortalize this memory.

*

He helped you up, and after another passionate kiss he led you to his bathroom, the two of you leaving colourful footprints all over the clean floor.

The bathroom's bright fluorescent light was harsh and unforgiving as you looked at each other in the mirror. Yet you were both glowing, streaks and dots of paint covering your bodies. Bucky turned on the water and waited for it to get hot.

He wrapped his arm around you from behind and rested his chin on your shoulder. “We look like we blew up a rainbow,” he said, smiling wide when it made you chuckle.

In the shower, you took turns washing each other, laughing and kissing until the water turned cold. You pushed his hair out of his eyes and smiled sweetly at him.

“We’re going to catch a cold if we stay here.”

“Mhh,” he replied, kissing your temple. “You’re right. There are clean towels on the shelf. Go, I’ll be right behind you, I still need to take care of my scar.”

“Can I help you?”

Asking for help wasn’t something he was comfortable with, especially after years of being babied by his ex-girlfriend, friends and family. After his accident, he couldn’t do anything on his own. He had to rely on others and it made him feel like a burden, like he was incapable of taking care of himself.

He knew it was all in his head but he couldn’t help it.

“It’s not exactly sexy,” he said.

“I don’t care. I want to help. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Patiently he guided you step by step through the process of cleaning his stump. You inspected his skin thoroughly, looking for irritation or any signs of infection, then washed it with a mild soap.

He had to admit that watching the woman he loved take such good care of his scar made his stomach fill with butterflies. You looked so focused, so attentive, that he could help but smile and try to kiss you.

“Bucky,” you complained, turning your head away, avoiding his kiss. “This is serious business, stop fooling around.”

He almost said it. I love you. But something was holding him back. He didn’t know what would happen next and it scared him. He didn’t want this to be a one-time thing, but he also realized that things were moving too fast.

“Okay, now you’re shivering,” he said, holding you close, trying to share his body heat with you. “Let’s get out of here.”

He wrapped you in a fluffy bathrobe and patted you dry. Then you carefully dried his scar and applied corticosteroid cream to his shoulder, massaging it gently into his skin. He slipped on his robe and you loosely tied the belt at his waist.

“We should talk about what just happened,” you said, playing with the belt. “What does it mean? What are we going to do? Can we-mph”

He cut you off with a kiss, long and hard and filled with passion. You smiled against his lips and finally pulled away.

“Is that how you’re going to shut me up from now on?” you asked with a grin.

“We’ll talk,” he said, pressing his forehead against yours. “But not tonight.”

“When then?”

“Tomorrow, I promise.”

You looked down at your hands on his belt and nodded. He tilted your head up and lowered his mouth to yours.

“Don’t avoid me tomorrow. Please.”

Your words felt like a knife in his heart, and it left him momentarily speechless. He took one of your hands and pressed it against his heart. “No matter what we decide to do, you’re my angel and I’m yours.”

You shared a long, silent hug before you both decided to call it a night. Once he saw the footprints in the corridor, Bucky felt the urge to clean them. He tried to resist but he knew if he didn't clean he wouldn't be able to sleep.

You understood –you always understood. That’s why he felt so comfortable with you.

Once it was clean, he joined you in the kitchen and made you breakfast for dinner, opening the cupboard and pulling out a couple boxes of cereal you didn’t even know he had.

He told you that he was keeping them for a special occasion. He remembered you telling him that it was your favourite meal as a kid, watching TV with your siblings every Sunday night, eating cereals.

“I can’t believe you remembered that,” you said, tears in your eyes.

The two of you sat on your bed, sharing random thoughts and spoonfuls of cereal. You giggled as milk dribbled down his chin and stained his robe. You wiped at the spot on his chin with your thumb and gave him a chaste kiss.

Your lips tasted sweet. Bucky pulled you in for another kiss, discarding the dirty dishes on your bedside table. You helped each other undress, then slid under the covers where you laid your head on Bucky’s chest.

“Bucky,” your voice cut through the quiet. “Do you mind-”

“Don’t worry, my angel, I’ll wait until you fall asleep.”

“Thank you.”

Part 12

[amphibizzy]

Hey not sure if you’ve been asked this before but can you explain how you edited the goober comic panel with index mode? I wanna do something similar but I’ve never seen it before

FIRST generally you want to shrink the art down to make the pixels visable. if i can make something 540px wide i will since thats tumblr clarity sized. i can scale it up later if i want

other programs might have an indexed mode where you can hopefully edit the colors. we are trying to learn advanced ways to do this in Krita (palettize and colorize filters??), but we arent ready.

youre trying to get the base count of total colors low-ish and the "palette" to recognize the right ones as early in the count as possible (the yellow wouldnt show up at only 12 colors unless i picked perceptual). u just kinda fuck around, theres a dithering option. its okay. 100% feels pointless to me and 0% can be cool

the wacky part. because the index mode kinda dulls n unifies the colors (which can look nice) it helps if you can have the original version in a separate window you can colorpick from, or if you cant, uploaded into a website that color picks hex codes on the fly from the upload that you paste in. get experimental. shift them hues

before manual changes to 18 colors (roughly):

colors after:

this can either be your final piece to make digital sketches nicer to look at, or a tool you can use to get experimental with your colors after making a sketch painting in preparation to paint it fully, etc

[maddgicalgirl]

Paracosm Resources <3

Need help bringing your paracosm to life? Try these free resources!

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

(Cont. below cut, or with real time updates on this google doc!)

Art Programs

FireAlpaca - 2D Art Program, Animation. Where I make most of my digital art, and paint the frames for my animations :) It is free to use, and easy to learn and use! It can make basic animations as well, such as gifs. It requires download.

Krita - 2D Art Program. Professional, free digital paint software :) I have not used it before, though I have heard good things.

GIMP - 2D Art Program, Photo Manipulation. It's free to use, but I do not like it/recommend it highly. But! If FireAlpaca and Krita don't float your stoat, try Gimp! For 2D art, but also able to emulate Photoshop to a degree ^^

Inkscape - 2D Art Program. Free to use digital illustration software. Makes 2D art :)

Of course, who can forget classics like good old MS Paint, and the new and exciting 3D MS Paint, which can both be used to create some really neat things! Classic MS Paint is available here in browser form! If you need that. I just think it's neat!

Art AI

Petalica Paint - Coloring Software. An in browser, watercolor manga style coloring software, which can (almost) effortlessly color in any of your line art pieces! I've played around with it for my Thorn illustration style piece, and enjoyed it! It is free to use, and can take user input to make the colorations more precise.

ArtBreeder - 3D Realism Software. Using Artbreeder, you can create lifelike images of your paras, planets, or potentially even fursona, using the intricate AI they let you work with for free! A premium version exists, but most functions are fully usable without - though I recommend donating ^^ You can randomly generate, or prune and shape what you make until its perfect! Slow to use and get the hang of, but very worth it! Artbreeder is also pioneering an intriguing animation software to go alongside their product! Browser based.

3D Software

Blender - 3D Modeling, Animation. The best (in my opinion) free 3D modelling software.

MagicaVoxel - 3D Pixel Art. Free to use! Could be interesting :)

MikuMikuDance - 3D Rigging. Anime style rigging and animation software, free to use, and certified internet artefact! Has stood the test of time, and is still used and loved today. Can support ports of many kinds of assets, including, I believe, those from Blender, and of course those that are downloaded. DA has a bunch of old MMD communities you can raid for assets!

Animaze - Face Rigger. Use 3D models and a webcam to watch your paras talk! Models can be made in Blender, downloaded online, or even from CHARAT V, CHARAT GENESIS sister app!

Character Creators

CHARAT GENESIS - 2D Character Creator. Browser based anime style character creator, with multiple crops and poses, and infinitely customizable options. It is legitimately insane. Has a 3D function called CHARAT V which can apparently convert characters made in CHARAT GENESIS into 3D models compatible with Face Rig and Animaze!

V-Katsu - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, intensive character creator, by the same people who made Koikatsu, and Koikatsu Party, two amazingly detailed 3D hentai makers. While V-Katsu is a SFW VTuber maker, if you're looking for NSFW anime content, you could always spend roughly $70 on the full NSFW versions. V-Katsu requires a translation mod (free online as well) which you have to install, or the ability to read Kanji <3 Works with VR tech.

V-Roid Studios - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, fairly in depth character creator, that allows for some degree of digital 3D hand sculpting, particularly with their amazing hair engine, to get your paras looks perfect!

And, of course, Picrew has thousands of character creators of various styles and quality uploaded by the artists who made them! Also, honestly I think we as a society should embrace making dinky chibis in Gacha Life. IDK why everyone is mean to the gacha kids, like we weren't all cringe at some point,

World Design

HomeStyler - 3D and 2D Room Designer. Make a model of an interior for a home or building, using real 1:1 furniture of IRL brands! Apparently this is free to use, though there is a premium version, and  it offers 3D and 2D models.

Map to World - 3D Planet Maker. Turn your fantasy world into a 3D model of the planet. Put maps directly on, or design the surface and textures of your world. Takes a lot of getting used to, but it is AMAZING. Free to use, and browser based!

PlanetMaker - 3D Planet Maker. Make a customized 3D planet! Free to use browser site! I have never used this, but I would love to mess around with it sometime! Allows you to add orbital rings, change textures, and more at the click of a mouse.

If on sale, I also recommend snagging a copy of the Sims, particularly 3 or 4, for character creation and world design. Maybe not the best gameplay without mods, but it's also a load of fun, and very easy to add custom content to! Minecraft also. But you just need Minecraft, in general. Beyond its ability to fairly faithfully recreate structures from your paracosms, it's just Good.

Game Creators

Maybe you wanna turn your paracosm into a cool game idk, just thought I'd put these here!

Construct 3 - 2D Game Creator. Beginner level game making :) Drag-and-drop if/then style programming.

GameSalad - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style/no coding, beginner friendly. Free version available!

Solpeo - 2D Game Creator. HTML5 based game engine for 2D and isometric game development. Some programming knowledge needed. Platforms supported: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9+. Free version available.

Stencyl - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style building/no coding skills needed. Has editable templates!

Scratch - 2D Game Creator. Very easy to use and totally free, though relatively basic!

Unity - 3D, 2D, and VR Game Creator. Make games with 3D software. Import your own assets (Blender compatible) or download free options, or buy the rights to models. Works for 3D and 2D games. Free version available, and now works with VR tech!

Unreal Engine - 3D Game Creator. Extremely advanced 3D game developer. Highly customizable. Free to use!

Twine - Text-based Game Creator. Use a map to make a branching paths text-based story game. Free to use.

Squiffy - Text-based Game Creator. have used Squiffy and it can make some really, truly incredible things. Can take a while to pick up, and learn how to use to its full potential. Free to use! Has an online and offline library of player creations you can get inspiration from!

Quest - Text-based Game Creator. I've never used this, but it seems cool! Use it to make interactive text-based DND game adventures in browser.

Ren'Py - Visual Novel Creator. Visual novel engine, that is well acclaimed, and of course, free to use!

Companion AI

Replika - 3D Companion.

Kajiwoto - Chatbot Companion. Customizable, learning AI you can shape into a personality. Communicates via Discord like chat box.

Organization

Toyhou.se - Character Gallery. A customizable library where you can upload all of your paras and characters for the public to view! Free to use, but requires a premium member to invite you!

Refsheet - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

Notebook.AI - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

World Anvil - World Building Toolset. Like character galleries, but for worlds and their lore :)

Scabard - World Building Toolset. Aimed at DnD campaigners, but I reckon it'll be useful for many!

YARPS - World Building Toolset. More focused around story and lore than Scabard or World Anvil, and looks beautiful! Still in its prototype stage, however.

Pinterest - Photo Organizer. Look at, collect, and sort images into boards. Personalizes your feed based on that, and is free to use and join! However, unlike their myriad of wonderful recipes, DIY tutorials, and the likes - a lot of the images are uploaded by second parties and not credited, so be careful reuploading anything you find! Also great for finding outfits and art inspo for your paras!

Generators

Fantasy Name Generator - Name Generators. Does what it says on the tin! Generates fantasy names. Is a lovely website, run by a purportedly lovely woman.

Fantasy Map Generator - Map Generator. Randomly generates a fictional map, which you can view in 2D or 3D.

Donjon RPG Generator - Multiple Generators. Can make maps, weapons, items, etc.

Seventh Sanctum - Multiple Generators. One of my favorites from high school! Does all kinds of things - the standard items, spells, and names - but also prompts, backstories, characters, and even comedy generators!

ShindanMaker - Multiple Generators. User created and uploaded, any kind of generator you can imagine, of varying complexity. And when I say any generator? I mean ANY generator.

Audio

Audacity - Record and Edit Audio. What can't Audacity do? I love Audacity to death. At surface level, it records audio. I've used it to record voices for my paras, and get audio for animations and games I've worked on. I cannot recommend it enough. Comprehensive editing, and with some investigation, it can do so, so much more than just record simple dialogue.

FL Studios - Compose. Compose music with an unlimited free trial. Upgrades available for purchase!

Indie Game Music - Royalty Free Music Library. Free to use Indie Game Music. What it says on the box!

AudioJungle - Royalty Free Music and Audio Library. Thousands of free to use audio clips!

Online Piano - Someone could use this, for recording, or just messing around. I've seen plenty of paras who play piano, this could just be used for fun!

Online Guitar - Same reasons as above, but this site looks kinda sketchy. Use at your own risk or reward! Audio

For real, if you ever need music, sound effects, or really any MP3 clips that can be used without infringing on copyright laws, just search 'royalty free' (music/audio/insert thing here) same applies for photos! Make sure the source is reputable, however.

Tutorials

W3Schools - Coding. Learn the basics of coding, for free, online!

Miscellaneous

Debut Video Capture - Screen Recorder. Record game footage and let's plays for free! Professional and home versions. I see a few of our community members have paras who run YouTube channels, and I thought these might help! It could be a nice way to connect your parames. YouTube quality <3

Pixton - Comic Maker. Comic making website. I have no experience with this at all, but some may find it useful!

Picfont - Image Editor. Puts customizable text on an image. I used these for @paraesthetics paracosm header edits <3 It has a premium version (???) but the free version has all functions, but it crashes regularly (honestly seems timed :/) but once you get it down, it's a very quick process, and you won't have to worry about that at all.

Itch.io - Publishing. You can publish your self made games here :)

Korsakow - ??? Described as, "The Future of Storytelling" and is apparently a way to create interactive films. I *just* found out about this, but thought I should include it for someone who may know how to use and appreciate it! Free? Unknown, at the moment.

Tips and Tricks

Animation Done Easy

Our forefather's of internet animation used MS Paint, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity. All of these, or their equivalents, are free on standard computers. I, personally, use FireAlpaca - which works just as well, if not better, than MS Paint for animation - but takes longer, and definitely lacks that retro feeling. I also use my trackpad to draw and animate everything, so its doable, but probably not totally comfortable, to animate like this for most people :)

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

[ask-elliotgang]

April 1st. a day for fools.

This is a large post that is mainly a text wall, but however shows more lore and backstory to Elliot. Content warnings for cemeteries, medication, mentions of abuse, mentions of homophobia and transphobia, dissociation and dead family. Stay safe when reading.

The sharp squeak of the water pipes closing from turning the shower waters off breaks him out of his trance. How long was he even in the shower for?  That. That doesn’t matter. 

The Pikachu dries himself off with a towel before wandering back to his room, pulling open his drawers to find clothes to wear.

He simply decides on what seems to be a very old pair of sports shorts, and a black hoodie. No shirt.

He goes to his bed where he kneels down on the floor and gets a box out from underneath it. It’s gained a lot of dust that he simply wipes off with his hand, before realising that the dust is indeed going to stick to his hand, he then just rubs his hand on the carpet to get it off.

Opening the box reveals a large yellow cardigan with a copper-like ring in the centre. He puts on the ring and the cardigan. It smells a bit odd but hey. That’s what you get for refusing to wash it. (He notes the slight scent of sandalwood still lingering on it and smiles.)

He grabs his wallet, house keys and a notebook that he kept underneath his pillow. He puts all of the things into the large kangaroo pocket his black hoodie provides before he exists his room and goes downstairs.

He doesn’t spend long in the kitchen, simply eating a slice of bread and drinking a bit of water. He looks around to check if any other inhabitants of the house are nearby before opening a cupboard high above the sink and taking a pill container out. Opening the ‘Thursday’ segment and pouring half the pills out onto his hand, quickly shoving them into his mouth as he puts the container away and takes another sop of water to wash the bitter taste down.

He walks out to the loungeroom where Ardel can be seen browsing websites on a crappy laptop, said laptop looks like someone has tried to paint a design on the exterior and with the cheery colours used, it was probably Luke or Mausa.

The electric rodent starts the conversation with his usual happy tone, despite being awfully forced for this day.

“Hey.”

“Sup.” The dark canine responds.

“I’m not going to be available today. At all. Have to do something important and I won’t be home. Just so you know.”

“Aight. What’s so important that it’s got you dressed up like a hobo lookin’ for more drugs than a pharmacy?”

Elliot looks Ardel in the eyes and drops his happy voice act. Instead replying in a deadpan monotone.

“It’s. That day. I’m spending the day with her for her birthday.”

“Her? O-OH. Oh yeah. Okay yeah I. I get it man. I’ll tell the others to not message you or anythin’ I got it covered. Bro code.”

Elliot’s face relaxes as he lets out a long sigh that he didn’t even know he was holding in.

“Thank you. I’ll be off now.”

He exits the lounge heading right to the front door, pulling a pair of black shoes off the shoe rack. He didn’t wanna step in glass or anything.

Now, the location he needed to head to was a good while away. Rustburo Cemetery. But hey at least on the way there he can pick up some flowers!

He gets a bundle of Yellow Carnations.

And before he knows it, he’s at the Cemetery. Walking in there with a default route he’s followed many times before. He could feel the cold air nipping at his legs. But he ignores it, choosing to instead zone out again until he finds a certain grave stone.

When found, he simply sits down in front of it. Cross legged.

He places the carnations in front of him and puts his hands together, fingers wrapped tightly between each other. And he sits in silence.

He didn’t know what to say yet. So he sat there thinking.

He thought for at least an hour before pulling the notebook out from his pockets.

“Okāsan. It’s me again. Um. Sorry I was a bit late today I uh. I don’t have an excuse. I just spent way too long in the shower. But can you blame me? Heh heh. Ahh that laugh was so fake. Sorry.

A lot has changed since I last came here to talk with you. I’m no longer paired up with that Lorien-san for the contest co-op program. The guy wasn’t even helping and just wanted to take my money. He also treated my friend Ardel-san and Luke-san like crap. So we managed to get away and I used up some of that spare fund you left me to spruce up this house that wasn’t used anymore so it’s now really good and we live there!

I met some of Ardel-san and Luke-san’s friends from before I even knew him too. They’re really nice and stuff so it’s fine. Uh. Oh yeah one of them, Intel-san, helped find some more Pokémon that Lorien-san were abusing. HE left them in poke-balls and hadn’t let them come out for years. Two of them ended up staying with us as they latched onto Intel-san emotionally. But they’re nice. They’re Burst-san and Edna-san. They act like big sisters to Intel-san and the others and it’s nice. Edna-san seems really mature while Burst-san is more open to be childish like Ardel-san is. It’s nice though having new friends and company.

Oh. And my friend Isa-chan? Her Okāsan kicked her out of the house. She didn’t like the fact that he daughter likes women apparently. Which is bullshit. Love who you love. But her Otōsan has her back and has been helping her. I sometimes give her money to try and stay sane. Cause she can’t really stay in the group house we have because of her sensory issues. Too many people around her constantly would stress her out. So she’s currently happy just sleeping in her Otōsan’s car or random motels they find. I really respect her Otōsan for the fortitude he’s kept up. He even managed to take me and Isa-chan to a waterpark for fuck sake.

OH! Yeah and Okāsan, Okāsan, Okāsan! You know that really nice girl who kept showing up to my shows and performances ever since the start? She was at the water park and I got to spend time with her and we’re even dating now! She’s so nice and lovely and honestly I don’t deserve her she’s just so good. Aaaah. I wish you could meet her. She’s gonna meet Obāchan and Ojīchan soon because. Hah I. Accidentally scheduled one of her stay overs on a Saturday and you know I where I have to go on Saturday. I know that Obāchan is gonna love her. Since she’s always been there for me. But. I’m scared what Ojīchan will say or do. Cause you know how he is. Fuckin... Bitch... I know he must have been nice to you since you were his daughter and I’m. Well. The leftover waste but hey. Maybe he’ll go back to being nice one day. Maybe when I’m gone or whatever. Do Liepards have a longer life expectancies than Pikachu? I’ll have to check that out...

But yeah. I brought you some Carnations. They’re yellow like us... And uh... I’m sorry for being such a horrible son. He’ll I don’t even know if you’d accept me as a son even if you were alive. To you I could just be an attention seeking mistake of a daughter... So. Yeah. I’ll stay with you though. It’s your birthday. I gotta.”

So he sat in silence. For hours. No matter if it was too cold. Or if it looked like it was going to rain. He sat there. In silence. Until the sun started to go away.

“Ah. I have to go Okāsan. It’s getting late and I don’t want to upset the spirits resting. So. Um...”

“Happy Birthday Mama. I’ll be back next year.”

- - - - -

Happy Birthday to Joane Anwir - April 1st

[firebrands]

#8 roommates au for stevetony pleaaseee ❤💙

save, saving, saved, g, 1.3k | “roommate au” + stony bingo prompt fill “chronic hero syndrome ” | on ao3

Steve pads out of his bedroom and stops when he sees Tony in the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he types on his phone. The kettle is beginning to sing, and Tony huffs and drops his phone before turning off the flame.

“It’s four in the morning.”

Tony looks up at Steve with a start. “I wanted noodles.”

Steve sighs and massages his temples before walking to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. “Do you rest? Ever?” He asks, after taking a drink.

“Why are you acting surprised, honestly,” Tony says, not looking at Steve as he tears open a foil flavor packet with his teeth and dunks its powdery contents into a steaming bowl.

Steve stifles a yawn and leans his hip against the counter. “You know,” he starts. Tony’s head tilts to his phone, which buzzes with a notification. Steve very gently lays his hand over it, making Tony look up at him. “You know, you don’t have to do everything.”

Tony’s lips quirk into a condescending smile. “But I can, so.”

Steve slides Tony’s phone closer to himself, and Tony lunges forward, reaching out for it. “Hey—”

“Go to sleep,” Steve says firmly.

“You know I can access my messages from my laptop,” Tony says, taking a step back and reestablishing acceptable space between them.

Steve smirks at Tony. “Thanks for the tip,” he says as he pockets Tony’s phone and runs to Tony’s room. Tony realizes what he’s done a second too late, and he fumbles around the furniture as he tries to beat Steve to his room.

Steve hugs Tony’s laptop to his chest, smiling triumphantly.

Tony narrows his eyes at the abject betrayal. “I have important stuff to do, Steve.”

“Yeah, like eat your noodles and go to bed.”

Tony scrunches up his face and walks back to the kitchen, dragging his feet. Steve follows, smiling all the while.

“I hate you,” Tony says, and begins noisily eating his noodles. “Do you want some,” he asks, tone flat.

Steve shakes his head in response. “No you don’t,” he says, a teasing grin still on his face.

Tony rolls his eyes and turns back to his noodles. “No, I don’t,” he murmurs under his breath.

***

“How was your day?” Steve doesn’t even turn to look when Tony enters the apartment, can tell who it is from the heavy sigh that follows once the door clicks shut.

“Which part of it?” Tony groans, dumping his bags on the floor then falling, face-first, onto the couch.

Steve reduces the heat on the stove and walks up to Tony. After a few seconds of being disregarded, Steve pokes him in the shoulder. “I’m making spaghetti.”

Tony makes a broken sound, then turns up to smile weakly at Steve. “You’re my favorite, you know?”

Steve grins. “Yeah, I know.” As he continues cooking, he can hear the tell-tale signs of Tony resuming work—whichever aspect of work that may be. Steve knows he’s helping with Stark Industries already, developing designs for his dad. But he knows too that Tony’s helping out with more than a few school organizations; from what he remembers, he’d offered to help automate student council elections, set up the website of the Herald, and was helping some mechanical engineering freshmen with their projects as a favor to one of their professors. On top of that, he managed to volunteer time for the advocacy groups, too—donating money and setting up partnerships.

Tony’s in the middle of a call by the time the food’s ready. Steve waves his hand at Tony, who is standing by the window, pacing.

Tony raises his eyes in response and holds a finger up, and Steve sits down with a sigh. Tony was doing too much. Ever since they became roommates, he was always doing too much, and a small part of him feels that Tony only suggested that they become roommates because Steve had asked. Which is to say, Tony never said no to anyone who asked anything of him.

“Sorry,” Tony says, sliding onto the seat opposite Steve and almost slamming his phone, face down, onto the table.

Tony rests his head in his hands, and sighs again.

“You okay?”

“Thanks for cooking.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve grins, and they tuck in. “You still have work to do?”

“Yeah I have a few more lines of code left to do for the website, and then I can send it off to beta testing. Then I can start revisions on the system for elections, and, well. You know. How are you, though? How was your day?”

Steve looks up from his food and cocks his head. “Fine. Working on a new painting.”

“Can I see?”

“Yeah, when I’m done,” Steve says with a laugh.

They’re silent for a while.

“You sure you can’t take a break tonight?” Steve asks.

“Oh, why? Something urgent?”

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head and sighing. “You just seem really tired.”

“Well,” Tony says, noncommittal. “You know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

***

It’s happened often enough that when Steve finds Tony passed out on the couch, he doesn’t make a fuss. Instead, just gets a blanket from Tony’s room and drapes it over him.

Today he feels a little kinder than usual, so he adjusts Tony’s head on the pillow, and leaves a glass of water beside him.

***

It’s another ungodly hour in the morning when Steve finds Tony working in the kitchen. When Tony sees him, he turns away and stifles a sniffle.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, rushing toward him.

“Yeah,” Tony murmurs, still turned away from Steve.

“Hey.” Steve gently turns Tony to face him, recognizing that Tony doesn’t have a cold—he’s crying.

“I’m just really tired,” Tony says, laughing despite the tears running down his cheeks. “But I’m okay.”

“If this is okay, then I’d hate to see what bad is,” Steve says, smiling a little. He hands Tony a paper towel, and Tony blows his nose noisily. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No, it’s fine, I really need to finish this thing,” Tony says, waving his hand around and gesturing vaguely to his laptop.

“No, you don’t,” Steve says, wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist. “C’mere.” He leads them to the couch and sits Tony back down. He doesn’t need to say anything—Tony immediately buries his face in Steve’s shoulder and lets out another soft whimper, like he’s holding it back.

“I know I sound insane because I took all of this on and I’m just—I’m trying, and it’s hard, and it shouldn’t be, and it wouldn’t be so hard if I just stopped crying,” Tony says, all in one breath. “It’s dumb, you can laugh,” he adds wetly.

“I’m not laughing,” Steve says soothingly, rubbing a hand up and down Tony’s back. He’s never seen Tony cry before, and it makes a lump form in his throat, but he pushes past it.

They sit like that for a while, almost tangled together.

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up like this,” Steve says, after a while.

“I know, I know,” Tony says harshly. He pushes himself off Steve’s chest and looks up at him. “But I know that I can, too.”

Steve shakes his head softly, and pulls Tony back, worried that at any moment Tony would scamper away and take his laptop with him. “You need to say no to people, Tony.”

“But I can do it,” Tony insists, but he tucks his head closer against Steve’s shoulder.

“I know you can.” Steve breathes in, steadies himself, and then runs a hand through Tony’s hair. “But not all at once.”

Tony sags against him, letting out a deep breath. They fall into silence, again, and the next thing Steve knows he jolts awake because his head was falling forward.

Tony’s still tucked against him, breathing softly against Steve’s neck.

Steve smiles to himself, settling into the couch and tightening his embrace around Tony. If this is what it takes to get Tony to sleep, then he doesn’t mind at all.

send me a number and i’ll write you a short au

[mar1garden]

Felinette Songfic: Explain it at the Coffee Shop

hey flowers!! i got an old song stuck in my head and wanted to see how well it would fit with a ship i adore, so without further ado:

Take my hand,

And hold it tight

Felix wasn’t sure what to think about his new school. The students were loud, the teachers were ineffective, and he was ahead in the syllabus anyways. There was one silver lining, however: a ray of sunshine named Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Marinette was there for him every morning with a coffee and a smile. He was out one day and she handed him the notes and homework the instant he got to school. He had never seen her show up that early before. They worked on the homework together, and at one point, she had reached across him to gesture towards something in the textbook.

He had fought down a blush for the rest of the day.

Look at the paintings,

I’ll be your guide!

When he had stopped by the bakery for the first time, her parents had wrappped him up in a big hug and thanked him for being there for their daughter. Felix thought that was absurd; if anything, he should thank them for raising the girl who was his only reason to stay in Paris.

She had come downstairs to greet him, a tray of coffees in her hands, a smile on her lips, and her eyes dancing mirthfully, and Felix had realized that he was fully and totally, as the kids say, whipped.

Don’t stop looking in my eyes.

He’d made even more of an effort to be there for her after that. He took to bringing an extra coat in his bag, as Marinette frequently got cold but wouldn’t let him lend her his jacket because then he’d get cold. Felix brought her fabric with cool patterns, chocolates he thought she would like. He brought her coffee every day at lunch, just as she had been doing for him at the start of the day for the whole year.

Are you cold?

Do you want to sit down?

It had been the end of winter when Ladybug had offered him a Miraculous. They worked surprisingly well together, and Pollen was sweet. She reminded him, distantly, of Marinette. Her like for sweets, her dislike of the cold. The thought made him smile.

When he returned the Miraculous, he said goodbye to Pollen quietly. He was careful not to let any lingering sadness leak into his voice, but he could tell that both Ladybug and Pollen knew how he felt. Ladybug apologized and thanked him as she swung away.

Funny. She reminded him of Marinette too.

The next time he was invited on patrol, he brought her a coffee.

I’ve been here a million times,

So I know my way around!

No one who actually knew Felix had had a crush on him before, nor had Felix ever fallen in love. He couldn’t tell if Marinette liked him back, or if she was just friendly. The redhead was no help; she cited the girl code and told him nothing of use. Neither the peppy blonde nor- ugh- Chloe was any help either. Chloe had groaned in disgust, and the smaller blonde had sighed wistfully and gone on a tangent about true love.

The dj had no clue, the rainbow haired one wouldn’t tell him anything, and most of the others were out of the question.

Finally, certain nothing useful would come of it, he asked the goth one. Juleka, as she had told him. She had actually been a fair amount of help: while she hadn’t told him if Marinette liked him, she said that if he asked her out, he should ask her to come to Andre’s with him.

Felix looked up Andre’s that night.

Don’t stop looking at me now.

He had worked up the courage to ask Marinette out, but he was pretty sure she didn’t even realize it was a date. He sighed internally, but then he caught sight of Marinette walking towards him.

His jaw hit the floor. She was gorgeous, dressed in an opaque yellow dress with a blossom skirt, a sheer pink flowy overskirt starting at the waist. The same sheer pink fabric formed ruffles at the top of the dress, looping around her exposed shoulders. She was wearing yellow tights and pink boots with a baby heel, and her hair was loose and curled softly.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

And she definitely knew it was a date.

I know you wanna go,

But please stay here with me!

After their date, Felix made even more of an effort to be there for her. He was at every fashion show, he helped her build her website, he secretly got her fabrics after she forbid him from “wasting his money on her hobbies.”

They weren’t officially dating, but they certainly weren’t not dating. They went on small not-not-dates, like her shows or his competitions for the number of sports he was forced to do. They also went on a few actual dates; the movies, ice cream again, skating. Coffee dates, too.

After a month of dancing around each other, Marinette had kissed him. She tasted like vanilla and coffee. It had left him floundering. Once he had regained the power of speech, he asked her officially to be his girlfriend. She laughed and said yes.

I could show you things

You’ve never seen!

The two were inseparable after that. This meant that Felix acted as a barrier between her and Lila more times than not, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t think he would mind anything as long as he had Marinette.

Two weeks after they started dating, they were planning on heading to the bakery for a snack after school, then going to the park to work on homework. Those plans were forgotten, however, the moment Alya had grabbed Marinette’s arm from Felix and yelled something about a Girls’ Night. Marinette smiled apologetically at him as she was dragged away.

The next day, he came over at noon to ask her how Girls’ Night had been. She had laughed and apologized for Alya, kissing Felix’s cheek placatingly. He had assured her it was fine; who was he to keep her from her friends? The two realized how attached at the hip they’d been and laughed it off. They distributed their time much more evenly after that, though they still took up more of each others’ time than other things.

Let’s go to an art museum,

I’ll explain it at the coffee shop!

After three months, they started going on bigger dates, but less often. A fancy dinner here or there. Tickets to a play or concert. Big things. Once school had let out, the trend continued, even as they applied for different colleges. Even as Marinette got into her dream school, miles and miles away from Felix’s.

Even as they went to their dream schools, miles and miles away from each other. They visited, they called, they texted. Felix and Marinette did everything they could to stay together despite the distance. And all the while, Ladybug protected Paris, teleporting back and forth, looking more and more tired as she swung over the city she had fallen in love in, noticeably lacking one of the key members of her team.

I know you don’t get it,

But there’s no need to fret it.

They had broken up. Long distance didn’t work for them. It was the most painful thing Felix had even gone through, and he knew, somehow, that he would never forget his first love. His only love.

Marinette still danced her way across his mind, from time to time. His heart tapped the rhthym of her ballet flats across a tile floor. He still checked his phone in the morning, expecting to see a text from her. Each morning, he got himself coffee. He tried to convince himself it didn’t taste like her.

It’s like a gift,

It’s about the thought.

It was years before they met back up. Years of disastrous relationships, of no one ever measuring up. Years after Hawkmoth’s defeat, after Chat Noir had disappeared and Ladybug had retired for the both of them.

Felix had dulled the tapping of her gait in his mind, had stopped doing a double take every time he saw midnight blue hair. He missed her so much that it circled back around, that he nearly didn’t miss her. He nearly missed her.

But it was the first time in years that he’d been in Paris. It was the first time in years that he’d revisited the places they fell in love. He was feeling nostalgic. He nearly missed her.

But he noticed midnight blue hair. He noticed the tapping of feet in the rhythm of his heart. He smelled coffee and vanilla and sugar.

Felix looked again.

Monet might be too much,

And Van Gogh might take a while,

Marinette was in Paris to visit her parents. She hadn’t expected his voice to call her name, hadn’t expected his face to fill her line of sight. Hadn’t expected to fall back in love with the boy she’d always held out for. Hadn’t expected the magic of the city to pull them back together, like a magnet and an iron bolt.

Hadn’t expected him to look at her like drowning man looks at land. Hadn’t expected him to ask her out for coffee.

This time, they didn’t move apart, didn’t draw apart. They stayed together.

Right where they belonged.

But thank you for coming,

I know that you’re trying

To do anything to make me smile.

[sarahwroteathing]

English 284 (1)

Word Count: 1495

Summary: Your proposal to teach a new class combining art and literature is accepted... under one little condition. (College AU)

Warnings: Language

A/N: We’re doing impulsive writing again because it worked well the last two times. Oof. Here we go again, folks. Image is of a painting mentioned in the chapter: “Ophelia” by Sir John Everett Millais. (Source)

Steve’s Perspective .

“Fellas, it’s happening!” you said, shoving the door of the lab open with your hip, laptop balanced precariously in your arms.

“Seriously? I changed the code yesterday! How did you get in here again?” Tony complained, letting his head fall forward onto the table with a dull thunk while Bruce scoffed.

“You changed it to my birthday, smartypants. Besides, my ID is still authorized on the card reader. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you enjoy my company.” 

You pulled a spare chair over to the table where Tony and Bruce were working, planting your own laptop primly on a stack of battered notebooks. Bruce’s probably. Tony abandoned paper ages ago. 

Despite the token protest, Tony was actually your closest friend at work, a pairing that completely baffled your colleagues. The specific brands of eccentricity displayed by English professors and Engineering professors didn’t tend to mix well. But the Dean of Studies, Pepper Potts, had recommended befriending Tony on your first day, and his quick humor and ostentatious confidence had effectively drowned out the imposter syndrome that plagued you during your first semester teaching. You’d met Bruce Banner only a few days later, and sharing lunches in Tony’s lab in the basement of the Engineering building had solidified into sacred tradition by the end of your second week. 

“Did you hear back about the new course proposal?” Bruce asked.

“Yes! I got the email notification on my way over here, but I haven’t opened it yet. Tony, tell me your wife isn’t going to break my heart.”

“We don’t talk about work at home. But I read your proposal, and it sounded… Well, I wouldn’t take that class, but it sounded like something Pepper would be into.”

You squirmed anxiously in your seat, logging into your email with a deep breath. You’d worked on this course proposal for the better part of a month, editing and re-editing the syllabus at least a dozen times. You had titled the course “The Painted Word.” A full semester class studying famous myths, plays, poems, and novels and the works of art they inspired. 

The idea formed when a picture of Sir John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia” i had sparked a lively debate among the students in your Shakespeare seminar. You’d spent the next week researching artistic representation of iconic characters and stories, and when you’d given a few of your classes the soft pitch of the course, you’d acquired more than enough signatures on the interest form to issue a formal request with the Dean of Studies. Being met with such enthusiasm had lulled you into a sense of security and excitement. In your mind, the course was already set in stone. Which is exactly why the email on your screen landed like a gut punch. 

“She said no?” you asked faintly, your eyes scanning and rescanning the first sentence. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm and the care and attention you put into your work, I do not feel that I can approve the course as you’ve submitted it.” 

You blinked owlishly but made no move to intervene when Tony snatched your laptop from its place in front of you. Bruce rolled his chair to read over Tony’s shoulder, and they wore twin expressions of puzzled displeasure which would have made you laugh if not for the current state of your professional goals. 

“She didn’t say no! It’s conditional approval,” Tony corrected, his expression clearing as he reached to roll your chair closer to him. “Look.”

I’m intrigued by the course description you’ve laid out here, and it certainly has no equivalent in our current course catalogue. I think we would be remiss to limit the course to the English Department and encourage you to consider an interdisciplinary approach with the Art Department. If you’re willing to collaborate with one of their professors so that students can benefit from the expertise of both relevant disciplines and gain credit with either department, I’d be happy to approve the course for the spring semester. I’d recommend getting in touch with Steven G. Rogers. He has taught a number of interdisciplinary courses during his time here, and I believe he would be a helpful resource for you. 

“She doesn’t think I can handle this on my own?” you asked, running your hands through your hair in frustration. “I have a Ph. D, dammit! I don’t need a babysitter.” 

“I’m sure that’s not what she meant,” Bruce said, reaching around Tony to squeeze your shoulder. “She just wants to open up the class a little more. You know the college has been pushing for more interdisciplinary classes.”

“Who the hell is Steven G. Rogers, and why does she think the sun shines out of his ass,” you muttered grumpily, determined to hold onto your bitterness just a little longer. 

“The sun couldn’t possibly shine out of his ass with the stick he keeps up there,” Tony said mildly, shocking a laugh out of you.

“Oh, God, tell me I won’t be stuck teaching with a stuffy old grump for a whole semester.”

“I’ve never had someone ask me to lie to them before. This is a weird feeling. Takes the fun out of it, almost.”

“He’s not that bad,” Bruce protested. 

“How do you both know this guy? I’ve never heard of him before in my life. This is - ” 

You broke off with a sigh, reclaiming your laptop and searching the faculty directory. 

“Why does this stupid website never have any pictures,” you complained, scrolling through his profile. 

“Be grateful. It would only make it worse for you,” Tony said with a smirk before smacking your hand away from the keyboard. “Wait, wait, wait! Does that say ‘Gentle Yoga?’ What the hell does that mean?”

“Yoga but in a sweater? On a pile of pillows and he braids your hair after?”

Tony snorted and started to respond, but you clapped your hand over his mouth immediately.

“Shut up. I heard it as soon as I said it. Don’t make it worse.” 

“It’s just low impact yoga. Lighter stretches. For people who don’t feel comfortable or able to do standard level yoga. We usually get a few students with sports injuries or disabilities.”

You and Tony both turned to look at Bruce, staring in silent shock for a few moments before speaking.

“...Did you say we? Why did you say we?”

“Bruce, do you have something you’d like to tell me?”

Bruce rolled his eyes, pushing up from his seat and crossing to his bag on the other side of the room, very pointedly ignoring you and Tony who were frantically scooting after him in your rolly chairs. 

“Bruce!” 

He had pulled out his phone and was typing something, but he pivoted to block your view when you tried to peek.

“I’m texting Steve to see if he has any open spaces in his teaching schedule next semester. You’re welcome.” 

“Why do you have his number?”

“Because we take turns teaching gentle yoga, which I’m pretty sure you’ve already figured out at this point, so drop it. And Tony has his number too by the way.”

“What?”

“Judas.”

“I thought you said he had a stick up his ass?”

“Well, the stick is sometimes useful, okay? And he’s not the worst person I’ve met. After a few whiskeys, he even approaches fun.” 

You let out an incredulous laugh, abandoning your chair to pace the length of the lab. 

“So you’re saying I should give this guy a shot?” you asked, massaging your temples against the stress headache that was starting to creep in. 

Bruce’s phone chimed quietly.

“He says he has an open space. Should I put in a good word for you?”

You wandered back towards your laptop, looking wistfully over your syllabus. 

“What are the chances this class will still be recognizable after his input?” you asked mournfully.

“You can change your mind and say no if you disagree with him. Find someone else,” Bruce said with a shrug. 

“And he’ll pull his weight?”

“He’ll pull all the weight unless you strongarm him out of it,” Tony said with a laugh. “Look, Pep knows what she’s doing. If she thinks you two would work well together, she’s probably right. Her last recommendation turned out alright, didn’t it?”

“You keep trying to lock me out of your lab,” you pointed out half-heartedly, but you gave a nod to Bruce who immediately started typing. 

“Yeah, well. Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“He said to send him the syllabus and let him know when you can meet to talk about it,” Bruce cut in, tucking his phone back into his bag. 

You let out a deep sigh, nerves already fluttering to life in your stomach at the thought of having to pitch this class to a colleague again. 

“What are the chances this turns into a huge disaster?” 

“I’d say about 50/50. Either way, it’ll be entertaining.”

“Tony!”

“What? She asked!”

---------------------------------------------

Alright guys, what do we think? Are you into it? Excited? How do you think the meeting will go? Do you wanna read more? Let me know! Asks, reblogs, and replies make the world go ‘round!

Part 2

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[sulfurousdreamscapes]

Continued from 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6.

When my parents are away for a while, I like to sleep on the roof. There's no bed there, so I carry a thick mattress up. Jamshid helped carry it for me. I tossed the pillow onto one end and stretched myself under a black-orange sky. If you looked hard enough, you could see a star or two.

"Do you regret all this?" I asked. "Getting into the suit and all... I'd regret it."

"I knew the risks," Jamshid replied. He was looking at the city... or what would be seen of it, given that we didn't exactly live in a high-rise.

"Did you?" I leaned back and looked at him with my head upside-down. "Did you know you'd be trapped in the suit for 30 years because of a coma?"

Jamshid sighed dryly. "No, I didn't know that," he said.

"What did you know? What did they tell you?"

"I'd read the literature," he said. "I thought I'd be invincible. Hits that could kill a man would just be scratches on metal for me. It was supposed to be really quick, too. Forty minutes, that's it. They didn't want to tax these things too much that early."

"Forty minutes?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jamshid said. "And five of those would be assembly and disassembly. It was a quick engagement, and we were the cavalry. A special surprise just when the enemy thought they had us on the run."

"Well, if it's any consolation, we won," I said.

"Of course we did," Jamshid said. "We knew that even back then. The enemy never really had a chance, but they fought fiercely. I thought I'd be back at the base in an hour. I'd be eating sausages in the mess. That hour never really ended for me."

I watched a tiny black insect crawl along the surface of the rood, tiny antennas feeling twitching and searching. It scampered away when my phone began vibrating with a call. It was Jodie again. I swiped yes.

"Hey, Roohi wanted to talk to you about your new dad," Jodie said, and handed her phone to Roohi's metal arm.

"Hey honey," Roohi greeted me. Her voice sounded less electronic, somehow. "I was wondering if your friend is still with you. I couldn't help but get curious, and I wanted to know if I could find out more about him."

"What can you find out about him?" I asked.

"I don't know!" Roohi laughed. "Anything. I just wanna go digging."

"Jodie's that boring, huh?" I asked, and Roohi laughed for half a minute straight. I got up with the phone and walked up to Jamshid. "What do you wanna know?"

"Could you check his serial number, honey?" Roohi asked. "Should be somewhere on his chest, over where his heart should be."

I scanned his chest. It took a while as I asked Roohi what to look for, and she told me what to look for, and I finally found what I was looking for. A small metal plate, the side of maybe three of my fingers. It had a serial number, a model number, and a bar code of some sort. Below that were the initials of the armed forces. The pink paint had narrowly missed the plate. Any further to the right, and it would be gone.

I took a picture of the plate and sent it to Roohi, who cut the line after a very curt thanks.

"Roohi's gonna dig up what she can about you," I told Jamshid, who just grunted. "Maybe she can find out something that could get you out of there."

"Please don't," he said, and laid his working hand on the chain link around the roof's edge.

"You don't want to get out of there?" I asked.

"I don't want to think about getting out," he replied. "Because then I have to think about not getting out."

I nodded and looked at the floor for a while. "But you know," I said. "That's the same as not thinking about success, because then you have to think about failure. If you do that, you'll never be successful."

"I don't want to be successful," he said. "I just want to not fail."

Before I could respond, he held up his hand at me, making a stop gesture. I shoved my hands in my pyjama pockets.

My phone buzzed again, and I picked up the call.

"So this was kind of hard, given how fucking awful government websites are," Roohi said without any greetings. "But I've got his name, rank, posting, origin. I did a few more searches, and I found his family, too. I know where they live now."

I looked up at Jamshid. "Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, still staring out at the city.

[purplesurveys]

896

Would you ever try Fear Factor for one million dollars? Why or why not? Yes. It would make for hilarious stories for get-togethers and I think that winning a million dollars that I could use up for the rest of my life doing some dumb dares for a few hours would be worth it. If you have a camera, when do you use flash? Only if it’s dim. I don’t like the effect that flash gives. What would you do with eighty-three crazy straws? Find an aunt or uncle with a kid who’s having a birthday party soon so they can use the straws as giveaways or something. If you use hair spray, what brand do you use the most? I don’t.  Is Catcher in the Rye in your library by any chance? It’s probably in another college’s library, most likely our college for the arts and letters. There’s no reason for it to be in a mass communication library.

What if there was no such thing as the word 'one'? Then that would imply that we have/have to have plurals of everything, which just sounds a bit bizarre to me.

What do you have automatic sympathy for? The 11,000 employees of the country’s biggest broadcasting network that was recently officially shut down by our – surprise surprise – government. These are people who weren’t even involved in the network’s franchise renewal status (which was/is the main issue), people who have families, people who relied on these jobs to get by during a worldwide pandemic, people who loved their jobs, people who found family in these jobs, It’s absolutely crazy how people can defend their stance against the network and justify the loss of 11,000 jobs. What is a cool disposable object? I don’t know who looks at disposable objects and thinks they’re ‘cool,’ but the first thing I thought of was my vape pen of choice, which are disposable. It has enough puffs to last several months with me so it’s more convenient for me to keep buying them than spending a large amount on a refillable one. Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan? Why? Hilary Duff as Lizzie McGuire is more nostalgic to me; I used to watch it nearly everyday. I never watched Lindsay’s movies other than Herbie. What do you think of the actor Michael Cera? No opinion but I remember the time when he was often used on 9Gag memes. Simpler times lol. Anyway, I haven’t seen any of his movies. What is the best thing about a Barbie doll? I think it’s really fun how they’ve come up with a bazillion outfits for Barbies and Kens. And different versions too – as far as I know there’s been a Filipino Barbie for a while :) What is something you'd say in your will? If I passed any time soon I’d like to include some things about my dogs and how they’re supposed to be taken care of. If we’re talking about what I’m putting in my will if I ever reach like 80, I just wanna make sure every person who’s been in my life and stayed for a bit is mentioned and thanked and I wanna make the list as expansive as I possibly can at that age. Idk, I’ve always been sentimental. Any thoughts on fake abortion clinics? What??? I don’t know what those are and what they do, but they sound awful. What was a username you'd thought wouldn't be taken but was taken? I’ve tried using my full name as a username in a few websites and seen them being taken. My first and last names don’t make a common pair, so I’ve always found it surprising. Cherry or peanut ice cream? Peanut. Not gonna lie, it’s an unusual flavor – but Asians kinda put peanuts on everything heh. What is your dream cellphone? Why? Whatever new phone Apple puts out because unfortunately I buy into toxic consumerist shit like that lol Would you rather be watching The Bachelor or The Bachelorette? Neither. From one to ten, how big of a movie buff are you? I’d give myself an 8. I’ve seen my fair share of movies and I can honestly say that my favorite films are not cliche picks, but I’ve also yet to see a bunch of classics that other ~movie buffs~ hail as being excellent movies like Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs, Rocky, American Psycho, etc. I also haven’t been watching movies as much as I used to, which takes down another point for me. Who is a celebrity you think will never get into trouble? The Irwin kids. I wouldn’t call them celebrities per se though; they’re in the spotlight for the most wholesome reasons. I’ve seen every segment Robert Irwin has had on Jimmy Fallon and it’s amazingly precious. What is an important holiday to you? Why? Probably the EDSA Anniversary because without it we’d still be under a dictatorship. Name a catty girl you really dislike. I wouldn’t call anyone I know that. What is a museum you would like to go to? The top 3 museums that I would love to visit are the Anne Frank House, the Met, and the Art Institute of Chicago. And wherever Monet’s paintings are, because he’s my favorite artist. Personally, do you look better with short hair or long hair? Short. Long, frizzy hair does not look good on me and on anyone else. What was the reason why you last blocked a person from your IM? He was a stranger who hit on me. I added him back only because we had a considerable amount of mutual friends and I thought that maybe he used to be a classmate or something, but he messaged me some shit that he had probably copy-pasted to 700 other girls saying like ‘hey do you mind if you and I talk? I find you really pretty’ like six seconds after adding him back. It was so fucking creepy and I never blocked someone so quickly. I was already in a foul mood that night so I also showed the brief interaction to Gab and I gave her freedom to curse the shit out of the guy if she wanted to. What is a cliche thing that happens a lot in anime? I don’t like anime and have never watched it. What are your views on the cartoon show Invader Zim? I’ve never seen that either. If you have some, what is tonight's homework about? I don’t have homework anymore. If you have one, what is your favorite sushi flavour? Cream cheese salmon rolls from a local place called Torch. What is the first thing you think of when I say 'Jack'? Rose. Do you understand JavaScript coding? A teeny bit, thanks to the theme customizations I used to do on Tumblr when I was 14. What would you do if you found a gun in your best friend's bedroom? Confront them, and maybe even scold them. I definitely would be angry. Not even just because it could mean they’re suicidal, but because I don’t believe in guns. What do you call your grandparents? I call both sets Lolo and Lola. When I say 'Go', you say: I just remember the song Green Light by Beyoncé because the chorus on that is her screaming ‘Go.’ What colour do you usually paint your nails? I never paint them. They’re pretty, but I never saw them as a necessity. What would be a cool earring design? People come up with cool designs all the time now though. I’m completely sure there are a million versions of this now but I would love sriracha sauce earrings haha. What do you think of raccoons? No opinion as I’ve never encountered them. Any thoughts on the actor Paul Rudd? NEVER AGES Who is the better liar: your mother or your best friend? Mom. Gab will lie to me sometimes but I can always tell. Are breast implants something you'd consider? Why or why not? I considered it when I was a teenager because people used to pick on me for being flat-chested, as if I had a choice as to what size my body would end up being. Also, flat chests were the butt of so many jokes in the early 2010s so it made me insecure for a very long time. Nowadays the environment is a lot nicer and I’m seeing many flat-chest positivity posts (if that’s even a thing) so I’ve changed my mind about implants.  Besides nightmares, what is the scariest thing about sleeping? Sleep paralysis. You can wake up from nightmares. Do you find the phrase 'nom nom nom' annoying? Not as much as ‘rawr’ annoys me. Do you look better with red lipstick or black lipstick? I look good in neither but I would go with red. When was the last time you had chocolate milk? Oooooh it’s been a while :( I feel like that’s something people have to start selling more, honestly. I don’t see chocolate milk being sold other than at the grocery or convenience stores and ugh, I just want more restaurants to add it on their menus lol. That being said, the last time I had it was in January, during a journalism workshop that we hosted in a school in Marikina. The teachers offered us that and a Fudgee Bar as thank-you snacks :)