#idk if I should tag that but when I was drawing these my thought process was that goat is just the lamb wearing the goats skin bc they have

[daemaid]

The goat fleece is funny. I thought the Bishops would acknowledge a new crown bearing caprine randomly showing up in place of the lamb that killed them but nope, they never make any mention of the goat (as far as I'm aware). Those guys just go along with it lol.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

official finish-this-sketch-how-you-want post idk what to call thisSAMPLE TEXT

hi! I miss drawing with people in a café and some folks mentioned they'd like to mess with my sketches themselves and that sounds cool so this is now a thing. if u play gartic phone this is basically the complement mode! but without the fucking ring noise that freaks you out right when you're getting into the flow of it

few things are 1/there's no hard deadline! take this at ur own pace if u do, but 2/I'll also be finishing this sketch and I estimate it to take around uhh 3 to 4 days? from the time this is posted. so if that's a structure u like then let's aim for something done in that timespan as well! and 3/if u finish ur piece and post it and want me to see it the best way to do that is to @ this blog! above all we go into this one determined to have fun and enjoy. I already bought u a matcha latte with oat milk sorry if u don't want that

here I got u today a sketch that's supposed to be Riz Gukgak (SY) (grey bg version and transparent version for ur ease of peruse)

remember to have fun & be urself & finish ur drink & see u in 4 or 5

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

I've had this chapter finished for a few days, and I must apologize for not posting it sooner.

Particularly considering the last time I updated this fic was a few months ago. I just couldn't find the will to do all the formatting stuff. But I have the will tonight, so here I am.

Also forgive me if I miss anyone in the taglist or add anyone that didn't intend to be there (kind of a new thing for me)

Please also forgive me if my formatting is a little fcked, my external mouse on my laptop is currently in the process of dying on me (it's confusing left clicks for right clicks and vice versa) and it's been quite a pain for the past couple days.

ANYWAY

MihawkxOC (started as OPLA but will progress in mixed live-action and anime/manga canon)

Previous Chapter Link

Chapter 1 Link

Chapte 8: Nightmares

Tag List: @sirenmelody23 @nerium-lil @ruledbyproblematique @sexc-snail (I think you asked in an ask a while back) @ruledbyproblematique (idk if you asked but I noticed you’ve reblogged quite a few chapters and it’s been a while, if it’s an issue I can delete)

Word Count:3.4k

Tags: Slow-burn, Enemies to Lovers, !!NSFW on this chapter!!, uh, if I think of more I'll add them or something

Summary: After having her sloop sunk by the Buggy Pirates and losing most of her worldly possessions in the process, the normally solitary mercenary Karimi Lionne finds herself teaming up with the rag-tag little crew that is the Strawhat Pirates to defeat them. She bonds with them far more quickly than she bargained for, and that quickly turns into a problem for the Kiku Kiku no Mi devil fruit user when she learns of Nami's plans to leave them high and dry, and Zoro issues a challenge at Baratie that he very likely won't live long enough to regret.

Karimi couldn’t fathom how she had ended up in her present position. She would have sworn under oath that minutes earlier she had been pacing the length of her guest room, fuming in anger with the warlord she had left behind in the den after he had humiliated her without a second thought to anything but his own entertainment.

That she had been finishing the glass of wine she had taken with her, pausing perhaps halfway through to shout a series of profanities into one of the heavy feather pillows on the bed.

That she hadn’t had so much wine that she should have any holes in her memory at all—and yet here she was, back on the sofa again, pinned beneath the jerk again, his powerful grip wrapped around her wrists and shoving them over her head, denying her the right of defending herself.

But he didn’t hold his knife in his other hand this time. No; he held the edge of her green dress instead, his fingers curled around the hem of the shimmering material, pushing the skirt up her thighs, up to her waist, at the same lazy pace that his lips grazed across the delicate skin of her neck, biting down lightly just below her earlobe, just hard enough to leave a mark and pull a whimper from her parted lips.

“You see, darling…” Her eyes slipped shut as he murmured in her ear, her heart racing as his hand crept back down from the hem of her dress now bunched around her ribs, his fingertips trailing a slow path down the plane of her stomach and slipping just beneath the waist of her panties. “I’m not so cruel a master as you think. You behave…” And just a little lower, her breath coming in short uneven bursts as he pushed her thighs further apart with his knees between them, the pads of his index and middle finger brushing past her slick entrance. “And you’ll be rewarded in kind.”

Drawing in a sharp breath as he pressed his fingertips against her and ceased moving his hand entirely. She opened her eyes and found his sharp yellow gaze boring straight into hers, her breath hitching in her throat, a small smirk curving his lips as he lowered his head until his forehead rested lightly against hers.

“Now be a good little bird and beg for it.”

And she did beg—barely coherent, barely even registering her own pleas as they left her in a breathless whimper, she shamelessly begged. Each time she tried to arch her hips toward his touch he simply shoved her with one hand back down to the sofa, still rubbing the pads of his fingers against her clit in slow, teasing little circles.

Pulling her closer and closer to the edge with every touch, every caress, every murmur in her ear or against her lips, until what few words she could form became nothing but incoherent whimpers and moans, until she could register nothing but slowly mounting pleasure—not his words, not the almost painful pressure of his grip tightening around her wrists, not the sound of his voice or the warmth of his breath or the crackle of fire or smell of smoke.

Smoke.

Crushing his lips to hers to muffle her sharp cry of alarm and relief when he pushed two fingers into her. She clenched her eyes shut, moaning breathily as his lips left hers.

Fire.

As his hand drew away from her, leaving her with a feeling of emptiness that bordered on pain.

Pain.

As something cold and smooth pressed against her throat—something sharp, cutting into the soft skin, and she couldn’t even whimper at the sharp pain, as if her own voice had been stolen from her, stolen like everything else, stolen by fire and vengeance and—

Another voice, but it wasn’t Mihawk’s. She knew it wouldn’t be before the words even broke through the crackling of the fire, growing louder and hotter with every passing second, licking and burning at her skin. It was a voice that had haunted her for years, a voice she would never be allowed to forget, that would continue to live with her even with its owner long since gone.

“Let this be a lesson to you about what happens to pirate whores and filth.”

Vesper.

Karimi’s eyes shot open the second the name passed through her mind, sitting straight up in the bed in the guest suite.

A dream. Just a dream. “Just a…just...” She couldn’t even force the words out beyond her rapid, trembling breaths, so Karimi simply leaned forward, bending her knees up and resting her forehead there, not daring to close her eyes. She knew she would see him, plastered to the back of her eyelids, she always did after he visited her in her dreams—his maniacal grin, the twisted purple and red scars that covered the left side of his face, his empty eye socket filled with fire, his white Admiral coat half-dyed crimson with blood and his bowie knife pointed toward her.

“Nightmare?”

“Ni…nightmare. Just a nightmare.” She swallowed between her halfway incoherent mumblings, her hands shaking as she gripped the bedsheets. “Just a…”

And she stopped breathing as she jerked her head to look over at the Warlord leaning against the post at the head of her bed on the right side, arms crossed, observing her with the air of a cat that had happened across an interesting insect.

“What...?”

Looked down at herself, every ounce of blood in her body rising to her head as she took in that she was still dressed down for bed, wearing only an old, slightly tattered tank top and a pair of thin lace panties.

And back at him again, fury and embarrassment swelling into an entirely new entity within her as she gritted her teeth in utter rage.

“What the fuck, w—were you watching me sleep?!” she shouted, quickly drawing her covers up over herself, and Mihawk lifted his eyebrows at her in mild alarm. “What the f—”

“Why in seven hells would I have any interest in—?”

But she was already grabbing a pillow from behind her, without thinking, and swinging it toward him. “Get out!!” she all but shrieked, and he clearly hadn’t expected the sudden attack, as the pillow connected and knocked his hat from his head. He caught it easily before it could fall further a foot and set it back atop his head, sighing as he straightened it and leveled his eyes with Karimi’s.

“That,” he said slowly, straightening out from his relaxed posture against the bedpost and taking a step toward her, “was a mistake.”

Karimi hugged the pillow to her chest as he drew closer, her face burning, her jaw set, but she had left one weak point completely open, and the moment she realized it, it was already too late. She cried out as he wrapped his hand around her neck, just under her chin, and jerked her from the bed and to her feet, up to her tiptoes as he brought his face within an inch of hers. She had to wince against the burning in her eyes when he tightened his grip, not hard enough to cut off her airway entirely but more than enough to make breathing a physical chore.

“If you have any value at all for your continued good health, you will refrain from doing anything that stupid ever again.”

He leaned in the slightest bit closer and Karimi swallowed, her heart only racing faster. Closer, too close, too close, nearly as close as he had been in that accursed dream—no, now was not the time to think about that.

“Do you understand, little bird?”

She bit her lip and nodded—with his fingers only gripping tighter and tighter around her neck, she wasn’t sure she could have formed a word if she wanted to.

“Good.” His eyes drifted down, away from hers, across her bare shoulders, lingering on her left arm a moment. She flinched slightly as he lifted his free hand and brushed the pad of his thumb down the column of uniform scars that spanned from just above her elbow to the base of her wrist, her shoulder tensing until he lifted his hand.

It came to settle at her hip for a moment, and she averted her eyes as far away from him as she could as his fingertips grazed across the waistband of her panties.

Then, without warning, he shoved her back toward the bed, releasing her neck so she stumbled backward onto the mattress, rubbing at her neck and gasping for air, watching him turn on his heel and start toward the bedroom door. “You have half an hour. Be prepared to sign our contract and set out when you make your way downstairs.”

He didn’t wait for her response before he pushed through the cracked door, leaving it hanging open behind him, Karimi sitting there in her undergarments and staring in shock at the empty doorframe. Still rubbing at her neck, she couldn’t help but wonder if she would even survive a year working for the man.

She wasn’t sure just how long she sat there before she pulled herself to her feet and set to pulling a change of clothes out from her meager satchel of personal effects, striding across the bedroom to close the door before any of the help could pass by and see her. She made quick work of changing her clothes, straightening her hat on her head, bending down slightly to tighten the leather straps around her right calf that held her throwing knives, reaching for the doorknob.

And someone knocked. She rolled her eyes skyward—it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, why the hell would he be back?

“Would you please just leave me alone?” she half-groaned.

Silence met her in reply, a long silence, and after a moment of deliberation she pulled the door open—and flinched as she found Kaya standing there, blinking at her in alarm.

“I—is everything alright?” she asked, baffled.

“Y—sorry, yeah,” said Karimi, grimacing in embarrassment. “His royal pain in my ass just left a few minutes ago, I thought—” She sighed irritably, shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter. I suppose we won’t be staying for breakfast.”

“You’re more than welcome to,” said Kaya, her frown only deepening with the concern in her eyes as Karimi shut the door behind her lightly and joined Kaya in the upstairs corridor. “It would make little sense to set straight out to sea without eating first.”

“Not my choice,” said Karimi, walking level with Kaya in the direction of the grand staircase. “I’d definitely stay a bit longer, if possible.”

“Then stay,” she said, shaking her head. Karimi sighed, grimacing. “You said it’s a contract—you’re not his…” She seemed then to notice Karimi’s grimace as she looked over. She lowered her voice a little when she spoke again, her tone a bit gentler. “Forgive me for asking, but…you’re not working for him by choice, are you?”

Maybe there was no point lying. Kaya had hit the nail on the head, after all—and really, Karimi had led her to it herself. After a moment, she gave a quick shake of her head, crossing her arms over her stomach. “It was my choice,” she said. “It just…didn’t seem like there was any other choice at the time.” She hesitated for a moment as they stopped at the top of the stairs, Kaya leaning her elbow against the banister, her brow furrowed in steadily mounting confusion and concern. “While we were at Baratie…Zoro thought it would be a good idea to challenge him to a duel. To the death. Winner takes the prestige of being known as the World’s Best Swordsman—I know,” she said, as Kaya pulled both her hands to her mouth, her eyes growing wide as saucers. “He’s alive,” she said, deciding it best to leave out the state he was in when she left. “He’s alive, and…I’m working for his would-be killer for a year, without pay. That’s the contract. I play errand girl for a year, Zoro gets to live in spite of his idiot challenge.”

“Oh—oh, heavens, Karimi—that’s—” Without any warning, she crossed the few paces between them and wrapped Karimi in a tight hug that made the mercenary tense and cringe slightly, as if she had been struck rather than shown kindness and affection. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“I somehow doubt it,” she said, briefly returning the hug with one arm before quickly backing up a couple paces, glancing down the stairs. She sighed irritably to herself at the sight that met her eyes. Mihawk was already standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the bannister, his back to the two of them as he flipped through a small stack of papers. No doubt it was the contract she had suggested herself, the words that would bind her in her own promise for the remainder of the coming twelve months. “And I wouldn’t anyway,” she admitted, shrugging a shoulder as she brought her gaze back to Kaya’s, the younger girl still frowning in sympathy. “I don’t break my own terms. Not a good look in my line of business.”

“No, I…suppose it wouldn’t be. And…” She hesitated a moment, glancing down to the foot of the sprawling staircase herself, her frown deepening. “I suppose working for one of the seven warlords could gain you some notoriety?” she offered.

“It could.” Karimi gave a small, humorless laugh. “Not really looking for notoriety, though. Luffy might be intent on racking up a bounty, but I’m definitely not.”

“Well...considering you would be under his employment, that should mean you’d gain some degree of immunity as well, wouldn’t it?” she said thoughtfully, curling her hand over her chin as both of them watched Mihawk roll the papers up and cross his arms. Karimi’s mouth turned down in a thoughtful frown at that.

“I guess it might,” she said. “Depending on what he has me doing.”

If, as Karimi had suggested upon first making his proposal, he did no more than send her off to complete government contracts he deemed unworthy of his time or effort, then she would likely be in the clear. She had made it six years on her own without drawing enough attention to possess even a small bounty—it seemed fairly likely that working for a Warlord might benefit her in that regard more than it would hurt.

It did hurt a bit to bid goodbye to Kaya again so soon. It was difficult not to scoff at the younger girl’s sentiment of don’t be a stranger—Karimi doubted she would be going anywhere she wanted or doing as she pleased for a considerable amount of time, if the contents of the contract were any indication. She followed behind Mihawk as she skimmed through them on the way back to the docks, her lips turned down in a frown.

As she had expected, the contract all but stated that she would veritably be his property for the remainder of the coming year—not permitted to protest any order she was given, expected to complete any task set before her without question.

“So,” she said as she stepped onto the small deck of Hitsugibune, folding the papers down slightly to look at him as he took his seat. He didn’t regard her, simply flipping open the newspaper he had picked up on their short walk through Syrup Village. “I’m a slave, then.”

“I thought we had settled on ‘indentured servant,’” he said absently.

She gritted her teeth to bite back a scowl, crossing the deck and pressing the papers against the back of his seat as she drew a pen from her bag. “Indentured servant,” she repeated coolly, rolling her eyes. “Yes. Right. That.” She finished reading through the last half of the final page, detailing that she would also be subjected to a rigorous training regime to ensure her work would meet his standards, before quickly scrawling her signature across the line at the bottom.”And where, O Master, shall I set our course for?” she asked, flipping the papers over the back of the chair, between his face and the newspaper.

He snatched them away, tucking them behind the newspaper. “Cocoyasi Village.” Karimi froze in pulling the rope from the dock, looking slowly over her shoulder. He didn’t look up from the newspaper as he went on. “You mentioned at dinner your friends might be headed in that direction. I’m curious as to what business they might have with the fishmen, considering all the trouble they’ve already managed to stir up.”

He didn’t need to look over to know the girl was looking his way, no doubt with suspicion laden in her green eyes. Even as she resumed readying his vessel for sailing, the weight of her gaze remained heavy—and her slow, cautious tone as she spoke up again spoke volumes. “You said—”

“I’ll be dropping you off,” he said, anticipating that she would make some protest regarding the green-haired moron who was so intent on challenging him. “I have business of my own to attend and will return to retrieve you the following morning. I expect a full report on their activities. You may assist them however you see fit, so long as it poses no threat to your continued good health.”

He flipped a page as she gave a snort of laughter. “That almost sounded like concern.”

“I wouldn’t want my property damaged.”

She gave another scoff before going silent, save for the occasional grunt of effort as she hauled up the anchor. That was good—he had expected more protest, more questioning. It seemed she had accepted the terms of their contract more openly than he had anticipated. He folded the newspaper over and lifted the parchment, his eyes drifting across the loopy scrawl of her signature.

Lionne. The surname again struck him vaguely familiar, little more than a ghost of a memory. His gaze fixed upon it as she shifted the sails overhead.

“You were looking at a bounty poster yesterday morning,” he said slowly after a moment. He heard her freeze again, ceasing in her movements. “If you damage my boat you’ll compensate for it with an extra six months added to your contract.” She gave little more than a small noise of frustration before resuming her work behind him. “Which one was it?”

“I wasn’t looking at any in particular,” she said, her voice level—but there was still a small degree of caution there.

“Is that so?” She gave a small affirmative hum in response. “I find that difficult to believe.”

“And why is that?” she sighed.

“After you chose to retire last night, I took an evening stroll to ensure my boat was secure,” he said. “And I noticed something interesting upon stopping by the posted bounties.” His tone remained casual, but a small smirk curved his lips as he heard her slow in her movements somewhere behind him—as he stood, pushing a hand into his pocket to retrieve the folded poster he had collected from the wall with a well-aimed toss of his knife to sever the top of the paper, from that high corner of the wall she had stared so intently at before changing the subject. He unfolded it as he stepped slowly around the edge of the chair. “Do tell me…” he said, flicking his wrist to unfurl the last fold, “who exactly is one Lyon D. Rollo to you?”

He held the poster out to her as she stood rooted to the deck a few feet away, her posture rigid as a statue as she met his eyes.

As her eyes darted to the sea water on every side of the ship, down to the deck itself, before flickering back to lock with his gaze again, avoiding looking at the poster entirely.

“Or...” Mihawk went on slowly, taking a couple steps forward to close the distance between them. He wrapped a hand around her wrist and lifted her hand, harshly enough that she flinched in alarm but not with quite enough force to hurt her, and shoved the bounty poster into her hand`. “...we could find out what happens if you choose to lie to me again.”

Previous chapter link again, for your convenience

First Chapter link again, for your convenience

[fainthedcherry]

Haven't posted these 2 lil bbys anywhere yet, I think!! Soo let me post something, to try to get back into the habit. I don't think it's a secret, that I hate social media and mostlyyyy do not like posting on it, plus it's hard for me to keep up with algorithms. I wanna be my own artist, without algos, to determine, whether people see my stuff or not. I guess it's an advantage, starting so small again. On some days, I was embarrassed to post stuff, on others I wanted to be seen by everyone under the sun. So let me just...Post something for the sake of myself.

(This drawing is almost a year old again, fresh posts will be rare from someone like me with low energy btw, to new people visiting my page by some sheer stroke of luck)

I made this back when like...I freshly changed my chibi style again, to something I'm more happy with.

I love drawing Chloe and Leo together but....I still yearn the day, where Finn and Marco overtake via "most images" category on TH. I just can't stand to see Chloe is my most-drawn character. I do NOT want to accept that fact. I want C.I.Ta or my boys to stay on top. I don't even LIKE Chloe that much, which I think, bothers me to the core, that she has so many drawings to begin with. My fault ofc, that she's so easy to draw as well. But that begs the question, why I keep putting my more detailed charas along with someone like her together sdfgkjsdg.

One thing I might need to get rid of btw, is my bad tendencies to CONSTANTLY write long descs. Like idk. Does anyone read these? Should I just..Stop adding these? Even though I love rambling? Does it stop people from looking at my art? You can let me know, if you want. I spend 1-2 hrs just...Putting down my process and my thoughts about a drawing down here. But I'm not sure, if people want that. Yes, it's my blog and all, but I try to keep it more professional and high-key here, unlike my Insta, which is just...My garbage dump basically, 0 fricks given.

Anyway, I'll see if I can schedule a posts for a bit, so that I don't just drop off the face-of-the-earth again. Between all the death that surrounded me and just overall, the many migraines I had last week, I am ever so mildly concerned, about my own wellbeing not getting any better, yknow? Also btw, I am a bit rusty with tagging things, so expect me to possibly get tags wrong again, but as mentioned in a previous post, how tf do you tag something properly anyway. There's no rules to tags, just basic human decency, to add the right ones and not be a scumbag bot-advertiser LMAO

[cosmolis]

interview with the vampire author!

tagged by the bestest @aevallare xoxoxo even though it took me ages.......

When did you start writing?

Before I could even write, I was already making up stories with my friends in the schoolyard and drawing horrible comics lmao everything was a storytelling opportunity for me

Probably a very common thing for writers/artists in general!!

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

i had a romcom binge reading phase this year and while i'm writing one right now I can safely say that it will never be my genre lol

also probably never a full-on epic fantasy, it would require too much plotting and world building and fact checking that i can hold myself to (also i cannot picture things in my head and i feel like this is a severe handicap for this genre??)

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I wish I could write descriptions & shitty characters as well as Donna Tartt, Magic/Horror As A Metaphor as well as Maggie Stiefvater and Weird Crazy Amazing Narration as well as Tamsyn Muir

(🕯️🕯️ Manifesting that for spooky season 2024 🕯️🕯️)

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

the messiest desk that ever was, with an average amount of 3 dirty cups, 4 notebooks, 1 nail file to hopefully stop myself from biting my nails and -1 pen because they keep disappearing somewhere? but idk where?

and so

much

cat hair

even though i feel like i´m spending my time vacuuming my desk

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I reread/rewatch the book/media that inspired the project and/or reread the whole draft from the beginning and/or I reread comments left by my betareaders

most of the time it's all 3

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

— not knowing who you are/who you want to be and being angry about it — complicated relationships with parents and/or oneself — the absolute need to bolt and leave everything behind without being able to say why — recently, grief & the vacuum left by failed dreams

no & i don't think they would surprise anyone who has known me for more than a week lol

What is your reason for writing?

Processing Stuff is the official reason but the real one is: making my close friends/beta readers want to throw stuff at me while also trying to figure stuff out that I should have figured out already

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

i love when what i'm trying to do finally clicks with people, the comments where they realise where i'm going but i'm not there yet in the story and they're so excited about it!!!!!!! YES YOU SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL!!!!!!!!!!

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

hopefully as someone who finishes projects instead of moving on at the 50k mark lmao

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

The fact that I manage to not get crippled by my own insecurities is an achievement in itself ngl

How do you feel about your own writing?

cannot live without it and yet cannot for the life of me be consistent about it, truly the worst part of myself

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

I always start for myself, but I need external input to keep going. I've always had writing partners / beta readers who were also close friends, so I don't think I could write without it being "social" in some shape -- i need to know that someone is FEELING THINGS

@ijja @whendawncomes ♥ ♥

[spyroforlife]

23!

23.What work of yours would you like to have the biggest impact on the fandom?

Ooh.. tbh that's a tough one because I don't necessarily WANT to have a big impact on fandom at all, I'm just out to write self-indulgent lil things I enjoy and hopefully get feedback from people who come across my writing and also enjoy it, I write for myself but I also love discussing my works with others.

Storytime but I once had a very impactful fanfic, though this was while I was in the Gravity Falls fandom and it was midway through season 2, a VERY active time to be in the fandom. I wrote a BillDip fanfic called Payment in Blood that was pretty much just spawned from me drawing some stereotypical dark!Dipper corrupted by Bill Cipher artwork, and I thought. Hey I could turn this into a story. So I did, and what started out as a needlessly violent and gorey dark fic written for shits and giggles gained a huge following, to the point that you probably couldn't be a BillDip fan in late 2014 to 2015 and not know about it. I had people giving me suggestions to incorporate into the storyline and popular artists were drawing fanart for me, and when I showed up in art livestreams people would get all excited about me being there and want to discuss the story with me

Of course in livestreams I always made sure to gently redirect attention back to the artist, it felt rude to talk about my own stuff while someone else is sharing their art process with us, but it was really overwhelming tbh?? It was a LOT of attention to have on me and I felt a lot of pressure to make sure the story was absolutely perfect, and I think by the end I was really running out of steam and struggling to wrap it up. I DID manage to finish the story, it even got a sequel, and looking back on it I'm satisfied with what it is. And the story inspired a lot of new stories and artwork and I love that so many people got inspired to create because of PiB. But I'll always remember that as a very strange time in my life

So I guess what I'm getting at is that while it's fun to THINK about having a popular work that has a lot of impact on the fandom and everyone knows about it, having experienced that before, I can honestly say I can take it or leave it. I LOVE when I can inspire people to make things, if someone gets an idea from something of mine and wants to spin it into their own story, absolutely! Please! And I love having discussions about the characters and their choices, and about my planning, and ideas that were considered but ultimately abandoned, etc. Having a popular fic is fine. But idk. I don't think I'd like it if a story of mine got so popular that other people who aren't interested are getting bothered about if they've read it. I wouldn't want discussions about it dominating a tag that should be more general. I certainly wouldn't want to get harassed over a story of mine, or worse, someone ELSE getting harassed just because they openly enjoyed it. I can handle rude Internet tough guys. But I would never want other people being attacked because I made something popular and people liked it and other people think that's bad

idk if that makes sense but yeah. Sorry if this is really rambly, it's just that I genuinely am unsure if I want to make an impact on fandom, instead I just kinda like being in my own corner and if other people wanna come into my corner and hang out, that's great! But I don't really need to make anything that EVERYONE knows about. While there's good sides to that, there's negatives as well, so eh. I just don't know.

But as an apology for such a long-winded answer. If I did need to choose one to have an impact. You know what.

Triple Life because omegaverse (sorta) Life series season is SUCH a ridiculous fucking idea and I'm so glad for the post that made me go "haha what if" and then actually write it. I think it'd be funny if people were doing like. Analysis and fanart and shit about this story of mine in particular. Look at my smutty Life series fanfic, boy

[mymelodyisme]

I appreciate your kind words hon as always, and yea im trying to...keep my head up but I'm mainly doing okay. Its just some...bad actions I've done and also weird nightmares been hitting me aswell. I've been saying to myself to never repeat what I did and just don't focus in on it cause if I do it's just gonna be worse and keep going back to it. Be kind to myself as you say, sometimes thats...very hard to do you know? But right now I'm managing and just focusing on other things to keep my mind steady and calm.

Once again i...I appreciate your sweet words and kind personality(also your rants is a bit fun to read too)

Also for your blister I really hope that goes away soon for you cause goddamm does that sound like a pain, I didn't even know you could get a blister like that.

Oh and also I love the forests despite rarely ever going in one in my life...I fantasize about living in one while being a big fluffy scary fantasy monster. I sometimes wish i was one. well I better get going now I'm at work, I'm just going to imagine my face/head is in your hands and on your chest while we're in the middle of a forest...its comforting and soothing.

-❄️☕️

My love!!! Okay. Idk what you’ve done or how bad your actions have been, but we often give ourselves a harder time than other people around us. You might just be being your own bully and you should think about that!!! Being kind I get it, sometimes you hate yourself, be honest about that too. It’s okay to look in a mirror and be say the truth. It can make you cry, and it’s brutal when you realize you’re saying it back to yourself, but I think it’s the first step. And sometimes being kind to yourself is just that. Being honest. And maybe it’s just buying something small like a coffee or a candy bar because you’re at the store anyways!

Maybe I’m just shallow!

I have a very strong worldview obviously, and I think I lean way more in the positive direction, but I guess you could just say I have faith in you, yeah? Also also also I have nightmares too! I, actually, love them! I keep a dream journal on my phone that you can read on here!! Its my tag: dreams as I wrote them. But the weirdest dream I’ve ever had was a pikachu who cut itself that I named emochu 😭

Oh oh and, telling yourself to not focus on something makes it worse. So when I was… 14? I was. A big fan of black butler. I could tell you anything and everything about it. Well because I was such a fan I made my own character who was a half human half demon girl named Melody! For people familiar with me, she’s still around she just exists in new forms, but anyhow, because she was a demon she had her own pentagram I drew. WELL come one random day my mom saw a pentagram where the ciel plushie’s eye should be right? And she had a major freak out. She said I invited the devil into our home and just it wasn’t bad. 🙁 I had to throw out my doll. And it stuck with me all day this idea that I brought evil into our home and when everyone was asleep I took the drawing I made, ripped it u pans threw it away. But I was panicked because !! You have to set it on fire right?? Well I didn’t have fire and I couldn’t do that so I 😭 I poured water all over the paper shreds and then tossed it, because the trash would be going away from our home in the morning. I ended up trying so hard to avoid thinking about what I’d done that it was the only thing I could see even when I closed my eyes. The more we tell ourselves not to think about the things we’ve done, the more our brain feels the need to process it. So, all I can really recommend is keeping busy or just try facing it! 🥺 maybe just think about me thinking faucet water can scare away the demonsTM 😭 the thought process was there. I’ve never told that story before so you’re the first! Consider that an honor. I’m a broken record I’ll tell the same stories over and over again. Also crying helps a bunch of writing down the awful feelings. I wrote my own sadness down in here and I feel better if only for a moment 🥰

Okay but anyways you’re probably tired of me preaching at you. I can’t help it 🗣️ I just try my best to be everyone’s cheerleader. Maybe it’s my own bad habit I can’t just ever be normal but 💅🏽 we push on anyways. My mom says I’m very “dulce” very sweet and candy like. And you know, you are what you eat 😭 but no actually everyone tells me I’m very sweet and don’t get it wrong I am but I’m also human I can be mean grouchy and awful like anyone else. But I am very nice too :) and it’s okay to admit when we do have good qualities (I’m practicing my preaching)

THE BLISTER IS AWFUL AND I WISH FOR ITS ABSENCE. 😭😭😭😭😭😭 maybe it’s feeling a little better today I can stretch my mouth again and tap the spot without too much pain but I also just woke up briefly to pee so who know what it’ll be like she I wake up wake up. (Update as I was writing this i can FEEEL iT)

I almost died in a forest once! 😂 so where I live there’s this conservation camp that kids get to go to when they’re like 12. And I went, obviously, and we finished our hike and activity really early so our leader asked if we wanted to go to one of the last day hikes since it was nearby. Well we went on this steep mountain side and I almost fell off, twice! Onto the running water below. Mm 🤔 that wouldn’t have been ideal so it’s great I didn’t die. And I got to see a waterfall at the end ♥️ you should meet me there, maybe we should be wearing bug spray but.. MEH even the bugs have to eat (I WILL cry if they touch me). We could hold hands and close our eyes while the water fall makes splashing sounds 🥰

They also had this hike (it was 4 special hikes for the last day you could only choose one) where you could collect quartz at the end and we were only allowed to take what fit in our hands and 🥹 I have big hands so I was able to fit like 4 or 5. One was super sharp and I lost it when we lost our house and moved, but it was my favorite and I think about it a lot.

ALSO WHAT TYPE OF MONSTER WOULD YOU BE

[cynicjovial]

I found your thought about your own art on the personal post tag. You said you werent happy with what you draw but you still like drawing. In this statement, there is something negative, but a HUGE positive! This means that every "wrong" drawing won't terminate your will to draw, and that's ideal. Now; when i read those confessions and saw your drawing, i noticed that you don't seem... secure in what you draw? (1/2)

I want to respond to this to at least notify you that I have acknowledged it.

I understand what you are saying and know what you are talking about, but I still have problems to apply that to myself also due to the fact that it still a little too vague to me in some points. Which drawings are the ones that feel insecure? Do my washi tape drawings look too safe? Can you make an example on one of my oil pastel piece to explain "moving in many directions"? It just... says a lot and nothing to me, maybe other people can get this immediately, but I can only look at my drawings and trying to figure out what is that other people see as wrong (not counting stuff like anatomy or skill errors) I know my last drawings are all same-y as I got a new set of gel pens and I'm having fun coloring with them but this is another thing. Most of the time making a picture is not putting my feelings down, is to try and replicate the image in my head because I wanna see it and it makes me happy. What I want to do artistically is to being able to make something and go "yep, this is nice and close to my vision!" I feel like what I'm doing already is going off with my feelings. I do vent art. I do tired doodles. Maybe my problem is not doing that enough and not posting everything on my social media. Idk I agree I do circle around my safe zone but it feels like to me and you whats that to me are two different ones.

This is one of my last "drawings" I did from exhaustion due to stress. I didn't want to draw but I forced myself to do it because I hadnt been drawing in days (you can tell by my latest posting schedule too). Maybe people want to see that and appreciate this kind of art more of the ones I'm actually proud of, I don't know, but making more of this would mean I'd have to feel miserable, and I'm terrified of the thought that I have to stop training in a certain way or ditch a type of drawing that I like doing because it's "not for me" or because I'm wasting my potential. Maybe Im too sensitive about this because years ago a group of friends told me why make pretty drawings when you should focus on making funny ones instead. it was a nice way to say "you're not talented enough to be on our drawing level but you are funny so you should stick to that instead of thinking of becoming an illustrator" and I know it was supposed to be a compliment but it's not to me. You are right I am insecure, about a lot of other stuff too

Is this a good piece or is it too all over the place? What is unleashing the process? Like I said at the start it's just not specific enough for me to understand the problem, I get the solution you're suggesting but not what am I supposed to recover from. My main problem I think that I don't get enough time to draw both what I should be doing and what I would like to do, and I know that makes my improvement very slow, and I think so that what you're trying to say is instead of trying to strengthen my weak points I should exploit more my stronger ones. And this is why I have issues understanding how not to "play it safe" I believe

I know this is a long rant but this made me think of my last drawings (and well that vent was like from march iirc) and my art in general and there is not a simple way to answer to this without bringing up my confusion. Maybe I'm also too detached to my feelings and the audience can see more than I do. I really don't know, sorry. But as for lately I'm liking what I'm drawing despite knowing that I can do better. I don't have the time to stress over it. I just wanna be happy.

[rationalisms]

Omg you discord post is exactly what I’ve been thinking as well. I’ve joined it for fandoms and school groups and irl community stuff and each and every time I get so anxious that I end up going ghost. Speaking specifically on fandom though, I recently deleted my account and the app (love being #free) because the one to one feel of involvement is A Lot. I love screaming into the void and shooting off a stupid post way too much so having to think through everything I say is anxiety like I don’t actually want to feel like I’m in a chat room? Idk but it’s the same with twitter, I use it to crack some jokes but the extra sense of familiarity that seems to come with frequent interactions overwhelms me and everyone else just seems to be okay with it. I realize that’s a box of a social anxiety thing in general though. Anyway not that you asked bit this is why I don’t think I’ll ever leave tumblr it caters so perfectly to the hermit in me lol

oh bud i completely feel you, it's an absolute nightmare for people with any amount of social anxiety. pretty much the only reason i use discord is for ttrpg organizational purposes, and for the one movie watching/music league group chat with my group of friends; any servers i've joined that are bigger than that i go through the exact same process every time: agonize over what to say for several days because everyone else already seems incredibly familiar with each other in a way that's so deeply terrifying and intimidating and then eventually just leaving again. which sux! i wanna Take Part In Stuff and meet people who share my interests but i'm a big ball of anxiety and that setting is my nightmare... so i definitely get you. and good on you for deciding that you're no longer getting anything out of it and pulling the plug! it can be hard especially with how much it's assumed that you have certain social media and FOMO and alla dat, so i'm glad you were able to draw a line and i hope it helps make you feel more comfortable.

i don't mind twitter as much because it feels more passive in a lot of ways. like, engagement can just be a driveby fav or even if you do reply or someone replies to you there's an inherent built-in acceptance of delay in response or even just like. Acknowledgement By Fav Can Be Enough. which imo is definitely not the atmosphere for discord at least ime. but it's still not great for fandom stuff for a ton of other reasons including the complete lack of archiving. and honestly, i abandoned my public twitter for my locked down private one for a multitude of reasons and the anxiety around having to keep up some sort of Public Persona is definitely part of it, so i absolutely understand you on that level as well.

tumblr has its own issues obviously, but like you i never felt the same sense of pressure or dread here. a big part of that is obviously the whole reblog system in itself, in that it's totally fine and even encouraged to just, idk , silently curate pretty pictures for a bit and at most commenting in the tags when you have something to say or w/e, but also being able to do the whole shooting random thoughts into the void whenever you want to instead. it's also much, much easier to curate my experience here than anywhere else lol. much more robust blacklisting functions available (albeit reliant on third party extensions) and if you didn't choose to put something on your dash then tumblr won't for the most part force it on you. so that for sure helps.

idk, i don't have the solution! because like, yes in many ways discord and twitter are suboptimal for fandom stuff but in many ways it's also down to the fact that i do obviously have pretty severe anxiety around these things and struggle with it immensely in a way that a lot of people obviously don't. which sucks but isn't their problem.

i still think we should all move to dreamwidth though. if enough of us hermits congregate there other people eventually have to follow, right? that's how we all ended up on tumblr in the first place :x

[hopeless-ro-simptic]

The Artist and The Dancer -Through Ink and Quill | A Classics Collab

This is my submission for @pleasantanathema ‘s 10k followers collab! Please see the masterlist here and give the rest of the creators some serious love! We’ve all worked hard on this and are so proud of @pleasantanathema for making it to 10k! 

Aged up! Edgar Degas inspired Shinso Hitoshi X Female reader

Word Count: Just under 10k! 

Warnings: NSFW, vaginal fingering, not safe sex, not super historically accurate, they fuck in a bathtub, references to loss of sight and repeated mentioned ankle injuries, angst, fluff, quirk use in a sexual manner, kind of body worshiping, praise. IDK how to tag stuff for warnings. It’s pretty tame. 

Quick background before we start: Degas is a well known impressionist painter from the 1800s, he’s super well known for paintings to do with ballerina’s, women bathing, and horse races. He also has a degenerative eye disease that I referenced as well. In this little...long? fic of mine, quirks are still a thing but heroes not so much. Shinso’s quirk is only mentioned twice, but reader has a quirk that allows her to make music from her body when she dances. This can be read as any body type/description of reader but it is mentioned that she is a ballet dancer, has some sort of hair to grab onto, and someone out there can lift her up. Also I tried to put breaks where sometime has either passed or we’ve gone back in time, and I tried to make it clear but hopefully it makes sense. We’ve got quite the backflash going on.

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Smack. Smack. Smack.

The telltale signs of a new pair of point shoes. No other sounds in the room other than those of ballet flats scuffing the floor, the bending and breaking of their fresh soles, and of tull swishing about with the movements.

Shinso truly loved these sounds, his eyes flickering from the blank canvas he set up in front of him over to the ballerina sitting in the middle of the floor, a frown tugging at your lips as you bend the new shoes in half, flexing them back and forth before smacking them harshly against the floor again.

No words were spoken as the two prepared, Shinso setting up his brushes and paint, getting comfortable on the rickety stool under him, the you finally deciding your shoes were to your satisfaction before you pulled them on, expertly tying the ribbons that you had painstakingly sewed on, before you started in on your stretches.

The light from the large windows that were set into the sloping ceilings of the attic gave the two plenty of natural lighting. Dust particles swirling in the air capturing Shinso’s attention as he shifted his lazy glance away from the stretching ballerina, picking up his paintbrush and getting to work on filling in the background of his canvas. His eyes flicking around the room and back to his canvas taking everything in at once.

There was a soft huff coming from the you that drug Shinso’s eyes over to your form, watching as you pushed yourself off on the floor before you stepped into first position, your eyes staring at the floor before shaking your head and switching to what Shinso had heard you refer to as fourth position, your eyes hovering just above his head for the briefest of moment before you dropped into your dance.

Music flowed through the room as you moved, entrancing the painter for several moments as the music lived and breathed in your movements. Dipping when you dipped, lifting as you jumped, swirling around the space like the perfect partner.  The string instruments that lived just under the your skin, filled the space with melodic tunes sounding like a live symphony was playing in the small attic that just held the two of you.

Shinso watched the dancer with awe for several moments before he forced himself to look away, picking up his paintbrush again, grabbing paint and smearing it across the canvas, letting the music flow in him and dictate his brush strokes as he captured the ballerina in front of him. He worked as you danced, his paint brush dancing along the canvas to your melody, filling in the empty spaces with a thick layer of paint, his eyes barely looking at his work as they trailed your steps across the creaking wooden floor, enchanted with your movements, with the way that your skin shimmered with sweat, how the tutu resembled flower petals reminding him of a fantasy creature that was too beautiful for the real world.

The discordant sounds of strings snapping melted into silence as you thudded to the ground with a curse had Shinso jumping from his chair, knocking his paint over onto the floor in the process. You were bent over yourself in the fetal position, clutching your ankle that was already swelling, the skin bruising as the moments ticked by. Shinso crouched down by you, hands hovering above you before they finally rested on your shaking shoulders, the sight of tears dripping onto the wood underneath you had his stomach clenching.

“Are you okay?” He had barely whispered the words when you snapped your head up, slapping his hand away, anger clear on your face as you glared at him a hiss on your tongue.

“I’m fine, don’t touch me.”

He sat back on his haunches, watching with concern as you struggled to get your breathing under control, sitting up, adjusting the ribbons on your shoes before you forced yourself into a shaking standing position, hesitating to put weight on your foot as you looked down at him.

“Well are you just going to sit there? Go back to painting.” Your eyes were harsh, your words like a whip that stung Shinso’s cheek as he looked up at you from his position, a frown settling on his lips as he pushed himself off of the floor backing away from you, his eyes shifting down to your swelling ankle. Annoyance at you burning on his tongue. Still he understood how important this was to you. How dancing was the reason you breathed, just as his art was his.

He couldn’t ignore the thoughts in his brain though as you stepped back into your dance, music swirling around you for several seconds, the notes sounding shaky and pitched only for you to drop back down to your hands and knees again when your foot couldn’t support your weight, the music ending harshly.

Shinso hesitated by your side, hovering as he watched you slam your fists into the wooded floor below, a scream of frustration echoing through the small attic as you crumpled onto yourself, shaking with the force of the sobs leaving your lips, the movement activating a soft hum from your quirk. It wasn’t until your fists grew bloody and you sat up with fevor, reaching for your ankle and yanking at the laces angrily did he finally step in.

“Stop… stop… Y/n I said stop!” Your eyes glazed over momentarily, your movements halting as the tired artist activated his own quirk, crouching in front of you, his grips on your wrist tight as he regarded you tensely before releasing his quirk, your shoulders slumping slightly.

“Y/n…”

“Leave me alone, please, it’s not worth it.” Tears were streaming down your face as you tried to quiet your sobs but failed, hiding your face into your palms ignoring the sting from where your knuckles were split.

“What are you talking about… y/n –“ His words were cut off as she weakly lashed out at him again with her own, her voice cracking as she cried.

“This is my third repeated injury in a year. I can’t dance anymore Hitoshi, I can’t – They replace dancer’s for less. You should just find a different muse, there are plenty of dancers at the theater, they already replaced my role for-.”

His grip on your wrists grew tighter as he pulled them away from your face, peering into your eyes as he did so, frustration so clear in his eyes as he regarded you.

“My muse, what are you even talking about? I will never replace you. You think I paint you because you are a dancer? I paint dancers because they remind me of you. Just the same as the horse races I paint because you love them so much.”

“But I can’t- my stupid ankle- I’m usele-“

“You are not useless! So what things aren’t turning out exactly how you want it to! You can still do this! You just need to-“

“To what? To what Hitoshi! What am I supposed to do if I can’t dance! What am I supposed to live for!”

“Me! Live for me.”  His own voice cracked in frustration, and you could see his eyes becoming glossy as they shifted around your face.

“Hitoshi… I-“

His lips were on yours before you could finish your statement, a squeak of surprise leaving your lips as you tensed in his grasp, only for him to pull away before you could react. His grip on your wrists loosening until he dropped them altogether, eyes focused on a chip in the wooden floor between the two of you as you gaped at him, your mind screaming at you to say something, to do something, anything to change the look of torture on his tired face.

“I’ll draw you a bath.”

And he was gone. It wasn’t for several seconds that you finally noticed the tape he had placed into your lap for your ankle, but the pain in your ankle had long been forgotten your eyes latched onto the stairs descending into the rest of the artist’s house.

--

Your fingers wandered along the clouds of bubbles, your mind lost in thought as you sunk lower into the warm water, your injured ankle resting gingerly on a towel on the edge of the bath. By the time that you had finished wrapping your ankle and had made your way down the stairs to the bathroom, Hitoshi was already gone, a note hastily scrawled out and left on the chair next to the bath.  

He had gone out.

Short, simple, practically no explanation for his disappearance.

It was his brevity that had you clenching your teeth over and over, your mood shifting from frustration to confusion to something else that you tried to ignore as you thought back to how this all started.

--

You had been working with the artist for almost two and a half years now, after having met him at the theatre. You had been in the corps at the time but was quickly becoming a favorite of the director, Aizawa Shota. To the point that when he had allowed the young artist to watch a rehearsal at his request, to study the movement of the human body as he had explained, he had pulled you aside and introduced you to the purple haired man as one of the options for the Prima for the next show. You had been elated at the time, noting the slight up tweak of the director’s usual frown as you tried to keep your own smile from splitting your cheeks open.

Aizawa had suggested that you work through your practice routine, allowing Shinsou to watch and sketch away on the sidelines, as long as he didn’t distract you. You prided yourself on your ability to focus and block out everything when you worked, but you couldn’t help but notice the way the young artists face shifted into amazement when music started to flow out from your movements, no instrument in sight. The way that he had all but dropped his pencil out of his hand, his eyes glued to your every movement, his previously bored face suddenly filled with complete enchantment.  

At some point in your practice, he had finally picked his pencil up and ended up with over half of his sketchbook filled with renderings of you. You had asked to see his drawings when you had finished, and this time the artist got to see the way your own face lit up at seeing his work, constantly drifting back to one sketch in particular where you had been suspended in mid-jump, the way he had captured you made it truly look like you were flying.

It wasn’t until you had gotten back home late that night and unpacked your bag that you noticed at some point before the artist had left, he had slipped the drawing in your bag with a note attached stating that he would love nothing more than to capture more of his ‘muse’.  

He had visited the theatre almost every day after that, Aizawa allowing the artist to watch from the sidelines, some form of art medium in his hands at all times, as long as he didn’t interrupt.

Several of the other performers at first had flocked to him with high pitched giggling as they asked him to paint them, or offering to preform for him themselves, but the artist practically ignored them all, acting like they weren’t there until Aizawa would step in and the girls would scatter in fear of being reprimanded or worse. At first you had wondered if Aizawa would get annoyed and ask the artist to leave, clearly it was affecting the others, but then you wondered if the dark haired director had a soft spot for the young man, spending a lot of his time around the him, and even cracking a few smiles at things that he had said. You swore that hell had froze over when you had heard the deep chuckle that was Aizawa Shota’s laugh for the first time.

When you had found out that the artist was the director’s nephew, you weren’t at all surprised, the similarities too obvious to not notice.

Days had turned into months, and it was no longer shocking to see dark lavender hair waiting in the wings, the others growing used to him as well and treating him as practically nothing more than a stage prop. The two of you didn’t speak much, if at all some days, conversations for the most part only pertaining to mutual admiration for each other’s work. But somedays the conversations would linger longer, questions of other interests such as food, music, and even sports coming in to play. That was when you had told him of your love of horse racing, how your aunt had owned horses that were famous for their champion bloodlines and how you had always enjoyed dressing up to go to the races, flouncy hat included.

Hitoshi had told you that he had never been to the races, and while you had been fake appalled and teased him mercilessly the rest of the day about it, you had assumed that would have been the end of the conversation, that much like you the artist would completely remove it from his mind and move on with the rest of his life outside of work. It wasn’t until the following Monday when he had waved you over to show you his sketchbook filled with drawings of horses and jockeys that you realized the artist in front of you had actually been interested in what you had been saying. The feelings stirring in your stomach at that realization had been… kind of nice.

Not even a week after that was the first incident. True to his word Aizawa had chosen you and one other girl to work on the Prima roll for the next ballet they would be preforming. You both would be learning the part, and he would decide along the way which one of you he wanted to go with, the other would be placed back into the corps. You had barely been on time that day, skirting into the wings of the stage and dropping down into hasty stretches, Aizawa shooting you an icy glare at interrupting his instructions he had been giving the group, that had melted a little at the end as you shoot him an apologetic one back. You never were late, and he could show mercy… occasionally.

Minutes later you were on the stage, running through the first number, allowing the orchestra to take their time setting up as your quirk worked it’s magic, the music flowing through the air as you ran through the movements with practiced ease. You knew your steps like the back of your hand, knew the timing of the music like it was your own heartbeat.  You knew that the next step, your partner would be stepping up behind you, lifting you up into a jump and gracefully bringing you back to the ground to move into the next series of foot work that ended in a pirouette.

But the pirouette never came, instead the sound of strings snapping, and shrill notes filled the air covering the sound of a body hitting the ground. The series of gasps and whispers sounded quiet in your ear compared to the sound of your own heartbeat, matching the throbbing in your foot. You could feel the tears springing to your eyes, refusing to open them even as shadows fell onto your form. It wasn’t until you felt a warm hand grip your shoulder gently coaxing you over did you finally force yourself to look up into the dark eyes of the director, his brow furrowed as he examined your foot along with one of the trainers that helped take care of the dancers.  You could barely hold back a scream as they guided you to move your foot, your vision blurring as the two shared a look between them that only made your insides churn.

Before they had wheeled you off to the local doctor, you had caught sight of lavender hair, a grim look on his face, his eyes never leaving yours.

You were beside yourself, wallowing really. A sprained ankle. A sprained ankle had you locked up in your small apartment, staring off into space trying to think of anything to distract yourself from what you really wanted. Aizawa refused to let you even step foot inside the theater until you were signed off on by a doctor. Insisting that you stay home and rest. Heal up. Get strong again so that you could come back and work. Because he expected your recovery to be swift. That’s what he told you. That he expected this to just be a minor setback and that you would be back in time to still vie for that Prima position you so badly wanted. That if you really wanted to be Prima, you needed to take care of yourself now so you could work later.

But you had seen the looks, heard the whispers of the others. A sprained ankle… for most would be a temporary setback, but for a ballerina it could be career ending.

Still, you forced yourself to look on the bright side, to focus on Aizawa’s words, to force yourself to remain in bed with the ice pack on your ankle even as you felt so antsy that sitting still one more minute might actually drive you mad. You can’t say you weren’t beyond excited when there was the softest knock at your door that had you immediately perking up.

“Come in, it’s unlocked.” You had had a few friends from the theater and otherwise come to visit, and while it was frustrating to listen over and over about how they wanted you to get better soon, it was still nice to have some sort of company.

But you hadn’t expected that a mop of lavender hair would peak its way through the door, a sheepish look on his face as he took in the room, eyes settling nervously on you.

“Shinsou… I wasn’t expecting you to visit.”

He stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind him slightly probably as to affirm to your oh so nosey roommate that nothing scandalous was happening. He pulled a set of flowers from behind his back, clearing his throat as he looked around the room for a place to set them.

“I uh… brought you these, but I see that I wasn’t very creative with my get well present.” You glanced around the room, taking in the dozens of bouquets that were scattered across every possible surface. He’s not wrong. Flowers weren’t exactly the most unique, but still you felt something stir inside at the thought of the moody artist picking flowers out at a stand. You didn’t fight the smile spilling onto your lips as you regarded him.

“It’s okay, I’ll forgive you for your lack of creativity today.”

He chuckled softly at that, looking at the floor and studying the wood grain, his eyes not meeting yours a smile tugging at his lips.

“Thank goodness for that, I think I’d be beside myself if my muse didn’t forgive me.”

His muse. The thought repeated like a mantra in your head for the next several weeks, somehow giving more reassurance and comfort than anything anyone else had told you over the course of your healing process. The artist had come by a couple more times since then, bringing sketchbooks filled with drawings and paintings of racehorses and a couple of the ballerinas at the theatre, asking questions about different poses that he had captured the ballerina’s in, wanting to know the technical terms and just talking to you about random daily life.

Before you knew it you were getting signed off by the doctor, a smile on their face as they let you know that you healed up wonderfully but still to take it slow and make sure to stretch your ankles properly before and after dancing.

Then everything went back to almost normal. You were back at the theater six days a week, though they had you slowly getting back used to the dance routines, refusing to let you do any jumps for the first several weeks until you were cleared again by the doctor at your follow up. One thing was different though.

Shinso came to the theatre less and less, and when he did he was growing more and more moody and frustrated. More noticeable still was the way that his art started to change, the way that he was less focused on making a clear and crisp rendition, the subjects growing blurrier and with abstract brushstrokes. Colors no longer having defined areas and being used to blend across the entire canvas in ways that you hadn’t seen before.

The young artist was also growing in popularity as well, though that didn’t mean he was any more friendly than before. In fact, you had seen him turn down many a parties and dates with a level of tact that was more than lacking.

At first it was just towards other people, the few straggler dancers that still vied for his attention, people that would get in his way when he was walking, random people that annoyed him at the racetracks when he would join you to watch the horses because they were breathing wrong.

Then he started to grow colder towards you. At first you thought he was just having a bad day, trying not to let it affect your own mood. But one bad day turned into two, then three, and the next thing you knew, you barely could be around the hostile artist without feeling like you were going to blow up yourself.

It was a particularly bad day. You had been avoiding Shinso all day, refusing to talk to him and trying desperately to focus on your role for the upcoming decision date that Aizawa had set. But with how loud the artist was growing with his yelling it was hard for even you to ignore. Even more so when someone brought to your attention that the argument was with none other than director Aizawa himself.

Still, you forced yourself to dance harder, to make your music louder and to block out the artists shouts. You blocked everything out as you dipped down, the music following the flow of movement from your body as you moved into a succession of spins and leaps. You were halfway through your routine, your solo, feeling good about the way your movements flowed across the stage, the music in the air sounding light and airy. Like you were flying.

But with the sudden slam of a door flying open and into the wall, the shouting of the young artist grew significantly louder breaking into your bubble of solitude making you fall out of your third spin, silence growing heavy as your music died down and you turned to watch the angry man storm through the theater space.

“Hitoshi, come back here and let’s talk about this rationally.”

“No, I’m done! I’m done! It’s useless! I’m useless! Everything in this world is fucking useless!”

“Hitoshi-“

“No, fuck you! Fuck you, fuck this place, and fuck -… fuck this.”

You watched in a mixture of shock and dread as Shinsou tore apart his sketch book, flinging pages into the air, yanking his portable paint pallet out of his bag and snapping it in half tossing it across the room and into the wall, paint splattering everywhere as pieces of the pallet shattered off in different directions. Shinsou tore his bag off of his body, the strap snapping as he did so, throwing it to the floor before turning and leaving the theater with a slam of the door.

The silence that followed was uneasy. Only broken by the whispers of the crew members and some of the dancers. You turned to Aizawa who was running his fingers through his hair, a look of distraught on his face as he kneeled down and started to pick up some of the scattered drawings littering the floor, his voice rough as he spoke.

“Rehearsal is over for today. Go home and get rest. I want everyone back here early tomorrow.”

You looked around watching as everyone collected their things, chattering quietly and sending glances back to the director and you as they left the theater. You felt frozen in your spot until you noticed a drawing near your feet, a drawing of you.

Bending down to pick it up you examined it, a frown pulling at your lips as you realized it was a quick sketch of you. Messy, compared to his usual work, but it mostly focused on your face. If you didn’t look for specific details it looked like you were laughing, holding onto what looked like it could have been a hat that you wore to the racetrack weeks ago, the wind blowing your hair in your face. The only thing that was actually clear in the drawing was your smile, the attention to detail in the way your lips quirked up had you pausing. It was different than the rest of the drawing, all focus being pulled to the one point, whereas the rest seemed almost blurry, vague.  

“He drew it from memory.” Aizawa’s voice had you jumping, looking up at the director, a blush creeping onto your face at your reaction. You had completely forgotten he was there, but the director didn’t seem to notice as he lightly tapped the drawing in your hands, his face pulled into a sad frown as he regarded it.

“Is that why it’s so blurry?” You took a deep breath, handing the director the drawing to allow you to start your cool down stretches. He didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to lock the theater up, nor did it seem he minded you staying for company. The last thing you wanted to do was cause another injury because you weren’t taking care of yourself after practicing so hard.

But the director just gave you an odd look, a crease appearing between his brows.

“… would you mind doing me a favor when you leave here? I have some things to take care of here and I’m afraid it will be much too late by the time I’m done.”

“Yea of course,” You tilted your head giving him a look of confusion.

An hour later you were standing here, staring up at the house in front of you, you couldn’t help but feel the anxiety creeping in as looked back down at the note in your hand, shifting the full and heavy bag on your shoulder. While you didn’t mind helping out the director, this wasn’t exactly something you wanted to deal with right now. But you agreed. So with a heavy sigh you rapped your knuckle against the wooden door three times, waiting, silently chewing your lip for a response.

“I told you to fuck off- oh… y/n?” He was squinting at you for a moment his frown turning to look of confusion, peaking his head out of his door and looking around the street for something.

“Aizawa asked me to bring this back to you.” You stood tall, pulling on the inner ballerina and forcing a face of bravery, ignoring the fluttering feeling settling in your stomach. This was the first time at his place, and the sight in front of you had you fighting to keep the blush out of your cheeks, a fight you were sure you were failing.

He looked absolutely wrecked. His coat was long gone. His usually crisp button up was opened, hanging loosely off of his frame, untucked from his pants. His belt already undone, shoes missing. Not to mention his regular ruffled and messed up hair was sticking out at odd angels and looked more bedhead like than normal.

Sure, you had seen the tired artist show up at the theater and even your home when you were out with the injury a few times looking a little sleepy and rumpled, the sight always making it hard to keep your eyes off of him, but this… this was a whole other level. He was gorgeous.

His eyes hovered on your face for a moment, only making your cheeks redder, but if he noticed he didn’t say anything, his usual snarking teasing gone as his eyes shifted down to the large bag on your shoulder his expression turning sour as he reached out and took it from you.

“You really didn��t have to… should have just thrown it all away. Or use it for kindling.”

“Don’t say that.” Your voice came out harsher than you expected, and you immediately caught yourself, biting you lip and hoping you didn’t piss the moody artist off even more. You did not want to argue right now.

“It’s true. It’s all junk-“ He tossed the satchel onto something inside the house, maybe a table or a chair, or probably just the floor given his attitude.

“I think it all looks beautiful.” You stated like it was a matter of fact.

His eyes looked up back towards your own, shifting around your face several times as he spoke his next question, squinting ever so slightly like he was having a hard time deciding what to focus on. You couldn’t help but feel self-conscious.

“Do… do you want to come in? I want to show you something… I know you don’t have a chaperon-“ He brought his hand up to scratch at his neck, looking back into his house as he spoke.

“Yes!” You flinched at how quickly and desperate that sounded, but the words were already out, and it was worth it when the artist in front of you let out a soft chuckle, giving you a slightly bewildered look before stepping back and allowing you in.

If your mother knew what you were doing right now, going into a man’s house, a single man’s house without a chaperone, she’d faint right there from shame. But you choose not to think about that as you stepped in, the door closing softly behind you as Shinso guided you through his home.

His home that was littered with art. Every surface, every wall, everything was covered with canvases and sketch paper. The floor even had some strewn along it, like it fell off the over piled surfaces and he never bothered to pick it up. Some of it you even recognized from seeing it before. Drawings upon drawings of horses and ballerina’s and even several portraits all along the place, some barely started, some halfway done, and so many that looked completed.

You saw oil paintings, gouache, charcoal sketches, even some wax figures. There were pieces of pastel chalks all over the place, paint brushes in water jars and coffee mugs, sketch pads everywhere you looked. What you easily counted as at least four different easels.

You felt like you were in heaven, your eyes skirting all throughout the room, taking in anything and everything. You felt like you were stepping into the mind of the artist in front of you, and you couldn’t help but gape in awe. But the artist didn’t stop, gesturing you to follow him as he walked back through his hallway, skipping straight past a set of stairs that led to what you assumed was the attic with the large windows that you could see from outside. Instead, he walked directly back to the house, opening a door, and letting you step inside. Leaning against the door frame, he nodded to the easel in the center of the room.

You felt giddy, a smile on your face as you skipped over to the easel, beyond excited to see what the artist was working on. You looked back towards him once more, to which he only solemnly nodded in response, making your expression drop slightly.

“Go ahead, I want your opinion on it.”

You just wanted him to smile and were tempted on making a snarky comment that would get at least some sort of response from him, even it didn’t last for more than a second. Instead, you turned back to the easel, gingerly lifting up the sheet that was covering it until it unearthed what was underneath, the sheet slipping to the floor as you stepped back, taking in what was in front of you.

You were silent for a long moment as you took it in. It was clearly a painting of a ballerina, as so much of his work was, but this painting, was by far the most abstract that you had seen. The colors all blended together, none of the shapes having a specific outline, the ballerina not even having a face, just blotches of color where you assumed the shadows somewhat outlined vague features.

But for some reason, it was the most beautiful work that you think you had seen. The way that everything blended seemed to invoke a feeling in your that you just couldn’t pinpoint to one emotion.

The ballerina could have been anyone, and the lack of facial expression and the fact that the only thing that was clear was that she was wearing a tutu reminded you of how it felt to be invisible back in your days in the corps. How you were just another background dancer. Mediocre in the sea of talent. So easy to blend into the background and be forgotten.  

But looking further into it she was gorgeous. Her pose was clearly one of a graceful jump, frozen in time, she looked like she was flying, the tutu making her look like a bird, the way her limbs extended and pointed just perfectly. She looked ethereal, like she wasn’t of this earth. She looked… free.

“Well damn. I didn’t think it was that bad.”

You startled, looking over to the painter who had the weakest of teasing smiles on his lips, like he was trying to make a joke but wasn’t sure if it was actually a joke or not. That’s when you felt the cool air stinging your cheeks where your tears had wet them. Reaching up you brushed your tears away a soft laugh leaving your lips as you looked back to the painting in front of you sniffling softly.

“It’s… I don’t even have a word for it.”

“Ugly, horrific, putrid? Maybe vomit inducing? That’s the same isn’t it?” You shook your head, pushing the artist’s shoulder softly as he came to stand by you, crossing his arms, as he regarded the painting seeming to search for a word to properly describe.

“Magnificent.”

His eyes shifted back to yours, his lifts quirking up into a smile slightly as his eyes shifted around your face again, trying to memorize your features. You smiled back, his eyes focusing on your lips for a moment before his own frowned and he let out a sigh looking back towards the picture and taking a step towards it as if to see it better.

“I’m going blind.”

You froze for a moment, staring at him in utter confusion, your eyebrows pulling together as you listened to him speak.

“That’s why everything is so… blurry, unpronounced. I’ve always painted what I saw, and this... this is what I see.” He gestured to the painting, your eyes flipping back to it and looking at it in a new light. Your brain working a mile a minute as things started to click in your mind.

The clumsiness. The way his art was growing more and more abstract, less defined, turning to simple brushstrokes of color. The way his eyes never seemed to focus very long on any one thing, his squinting.

His hostility.

“I don’t want to give up being an artist… I love it more than anything. It’s my passion, but I don’t see how I can keep going if I can’t even find my paintbrush half of the time.”

“Shinsou…”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“I’m not giving it.”

He turned and regarded you, looking hesitant, guarded. All you wanted to do was give him a hug, but from one artist to another… you remembered what you felt like when you hurt your ankle. The fear of not being able to do what you love. He needed someone to push him, to show him he still can. Not someone to coddle him.

“This…” you gestured to the painting, stepping towards it and tilting your head as you looked at it. “This is amazing Shinsou… this isn’t just a picture. It’s not just a rendition of life. This shows emotion. It impacts someone. This …This is art. If someone doesn’t like this, if someone tells you this is trash, or it isn’t art or you can’t be an artist. They are a fool. A complete idiot. And they are just jealous because even with full sight they can’t make something half of amazing.”

Turning back to the purple haired artist, you expected an argument, a protest, some lame excuse as to why he thought it was awful. But instead, he just looked at you for a long moment, before turning back to the picture, hiding a smile as he hummed a soft response, his voice cracking as he did. “Whatever you say my muse.”

From that day on, Shinso was back at the theater, back to painting you, a little less moody than usual. After your second injury, days after Aizawa had given you the role of Prima, which he had to give to the other dancer, Shinso had come to visit you daily, helping you around as you healed. Some days he would paint, sometimes he would bring a hoard of pencils, once he even brought just paper, taking time to fold up so many little figurines for your bedside table. After you had healed enough to start lightly dancing again, the two of you had decided to work out of his home. Allowing you the freedom to dance, without disrupting the theater, and allowing him to create art as he watched.

-Present Day-

The creak of the door had you glancing up from your bath that was starting to run cold, the bubbles still piled high more than covering your body from the artist who hovered at the door, ever the gentlemen and averting his eyes as he leaned against the door frame, staring at the floor with his hands in his pocket. The two of you had grown very comfortable with each other, to the point that outsiders would be appalled, but he was your closest friend. You were his muse.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

You noted the blush that was creeping up on his cheeks as he kept his eyes on the floor, your silence making him uncomfortable as he cleared his throat and started to speak again.

“I can call for a carriage to take you home, but you really need to get that ankle delt with first, at least let me wrap it for you.”

“Hitoshi…”

You watched him tense up, like he was waiting to get slapped even though you were across the room. The sight had your gut clenching, not in a good way.

“Come here.”

His head snapped up, his eyes wavering but focusing on your own in bewilderment as he choked on his own spit, reaching up and straightening his vest. But you just nodded your head, affirming your words, a slight smile on your lips as he hesitantly stepped towards you until he was hovering at the edge of the bathtub, his eyes focusing on your face, his stance relaxing as he recognized you weren’t mad at him.

You lifted up your hand, your smile widening as he took it in his own, rubbing his thumb across your soft skin, seeming mesmerized by the way your fingers curled around his own.

“I wish…” He started, his eye brows pulling together for a moment as he paused in thought, only for him to start up again. “I wish I could see you dance for the rest of my life.”

“Hitoshi…”

“I want to be with you y/n… I want to hear your music, and make you smile, and I want to draw you until I have no more paper, and even then I’d paint you on the walls. I want to be able to hold you and tell you how amazing you are and to get to see you live your dreams and fly like the angel you are. I want to be able to touch your face whenever and to memorize it that way because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to see your eyes or those lips. God those lips. I want the first thing I do every morning and the last thing I do every night to be kissing those lips.

I want to go to the racetracks with you every weekend and enjoy how relaxed and carefree you are, and to hear your little squeal when the gun goes off for the race to start. I want to be able to go get breakfast with you from that little café three blocks down and sit in the park and listen to the birds. I want to take late night strolls with you and feel the warm summer nights. I want to dance with you under the moonlight while we make our own music.  I want to stay up all night just listening to you talk about literally anything, and I want to see what you look like when you first wake up in the morning when I bring you breakfast in bed.

You’re not just my muse for my art… y/n you are the reason I continue to live and breathe. You are the reason I can still paint. You are the reason I get up in the morning and frankly the only reason I get dressed enough to go out in public, just so I can see you. You are my muse in all senses of the word.

Y/n… I.. I love you.”

You were stunned into silence, eyes wide as you regarded the man in front of you. This moody artist. Who constantly looked tired, and whose sense of humor was dark and sometimes a little rude and self-deprecating. Who you were pretty sure could draw you with his eyes closed because he had already done so thousands of times. Who stood by you even though you weren’t able to do the one thing you were good at anymore.

You barely even registered what you were doing yourself, but one moment you were looking up at the young artist in front of you, your fingers wrapped in his, and the next you were yanking his hand, pulling him into the over-sized bathtub on top of you, wrapping your arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair as you pressed your lips to his.

The sound of water sloshing about was drowned out by the sound of protest that came from Hitoshi at getting wet, which was quickly replaced with a sigh of satisfaction as he eagerly answered your kiss with his own, his hands resting on either side of the bathtub to help him keep himself up.

You separated your lips from his, a cheeky smile on his face as he moved to pepper kisses across your cheeks as you giggled trying to get a word out.

“I love you too”

“Yea? A grumpy artist? That never sleeps. And half the time doesn’t remember to eat. You sure?” He moved his hand to cup your cheek, which you leaned into rolling your eyes, before he leaned in and kissed your nose, moving back down to your mouth, pressing himself further against you.

You let out a content sigh in response, arching up into him, bring attention to the both of you that you were very much naked. You felt your cheeks heat up as his gaze flickered down towards your chest, leaning back slightly to get a better view as he let out a hum in thought.

“We should get you dried… dressed… should really deal with your ankle.” Even as he spoke the words, his hands slid under the water, hesitating on a little before they softly caressed your sides, one moving to grip onto your hip, the other resting on your rib cage, thumb dangerously close to brushing your breast. You watched as the man above you chewed on his lip, seeming distracted by the sight in front of him. You wondered what it looked like to him. You wished he could see it all clearly.

“Toshi… come here.”

“Hmm? I’m right here.” His focus never wavered from taking in your body, his own eyes seeming to glaze over as he kneaded circles into your flesh with his thumbs, his tongue running across his lips only to be replaced once again by his teeth.

“Toshi..” Your whispered out the nickname, your fingers lacing behind his head tugging him closer to you until he relented, pressing his lips against yours once, then twice, then groaning as he went back again for a third time, his grip tightening on your hip as his other hand reached up and tangled into your hair, water sloshing out onto the ground from his movements.

His lips were soft and plush against your own, moving a little clumsily at first but quickly getting his footing as he pressed further against you, angling his head just right, slipping his tongue against your lips asking sweetly for more.  You momentarily forgot how to breathe as you let him have access, a moan vibrating your throat as he swirled his tongue against your own, coaxing you back into his own mouth before sucking on your tongue lightly groaning in response to you.

You gasped, feeling his hips roll against your own, his wet clothes pressing against you just right, making your skin sensitive to the point that you were arching into him. Feeling your pebbled nipples rub against the scratchy fabric of his vest, the seem in his pants sliding along the space just above your clit, making you wonder what it would feel like if it just moved down slightly.  Separating your lips, he shifted so that his lips were against your ear, softly speaking to you, his voice growing husky as you felt him pressing against you, the bulge in his pants bigger than you expected for the lean artist.

“Y/n.” He pressed a kiss to the shell of your ear, his voice dropping even lower as his fingers at your hip shifted towards your thigh, moving closer and closer to the apex. “Let me take care of you, my muse. Let me make you feel as beautiful as you are to me.”

You nodded, barely containing a whimper as you felt his tongue run along the edge of your ear, his breathe hot against your skin, his fingers delving between your thighs, coaxing them apart so he could shift to be between them. His fingers splayed across you, sliding between, and separating your folds, his middle finger making a languid circle against your already swollen nub. His voice strained like he was trying to hold back groans of satisfaction as he breathed his words into your neck, pressing hot open mouth kisses to your skin.

“I’ve wanted to do this since the day I met you.” He buried his face against your skin, letting out a groan as you whimpered softly in response to his fingers slow and purposeful touches, fingers sliding easily across your bundle of nerves, circling and circling, from the water surrounding the two of you. “I’ve wanted to worship you until you realized just how amazing you were.”

Your own hands drug across his back, coming around to pull the buttons of his vest apart with trembling fingers as you pressed yourself up into his touch, trying to remove all boundaries between the two of you. He slowly sped his ministrations up until he found the perfect speed that had you mewling at his touch, grinding up into his fingers to get more pressure and relief, whispers begging for more leaving your lips like they were your mantras.

He focused all of his attention on your clit, lightly tugging it with the pads of his rough fingers from years of using them to blend out chalk and charcoal. His lips moving from your neck to your ear only to whisper soft encouragements and praises into you.

Finally, after what felt like too long you yanked his vest off of his shoulders, it pooling in the water, trapped on his arm, and quickly made short work of his button up shirt, cursing the fashions of the day and whishing there was an easier and quicker way to undress. As soon as you had access to his chest your lips were on his skin, pressing kisses, your teeth snagging against his neck pulling soft moans from the man on top of you as you sucked on the skin leaving marks.

“Please Toshi more. More.”

“Fuck darling..” his fingers left you for the briefest of moments, making you cry out in frustration only for his to sit up and tear off his shirt and vest, tossing them into a wet heap of fabric on the floor, the sound sounding just as obscene as the noises leaving your lips. His hands shifting to his pants, quickly untying them and pulling them off only for them to follow the rest of his clothes allowing you to see him in his full glory for the first time. He didn’t give you time to appreciate him though, his lips sealing against your own, forcing your eyes closed as his fingers returned to their new home between your legs, his hips rolling down against you making you moan with the heat that was coming from his dick rubbing against your thigh.

You nipped at his tongue, drawing more noises of pleasure from him as he coaxed you up and up, rubbing his length against you sensually as he shifted closer and closer to your cunt. You were both panting at this point, dizzy from the lack of air, but not caring as you pressed closer to each other, long forgotten the water splashing out onto the floor making a mess of his bathroom.

Your fingers dragged down his chest, nails leaving marks that he leaned into as you searched for your own toy to play with, finding it took both hands to hold in your grasp. You didn’t have to do much work, his thrusts doing practically everything as you guided his tip up and down your slit, surprised to feel the distinct difference of your own wetness compared to the water, his own fingers in the way occasionally as he strummed you closer to the finish line.

You couldn’t help the wanton moan that echoed through the house when his tip dipped inside of you and pulled back out, your eyes rolling back as you lifted your hips up to his own, forcing him further inside until he was practically at the hilt, your hands moving to grip his ass and pull him closer to you, legs wrapping around him and trapping him in place, his hips thrusting into you as he cursed against your lips.

“Fuck. So god damned perfect darling.”

He didn’t move for a moment, instead focusing on making sure you were comfortable in your positions, his lips devouring your own, a smile on his face as he whispered soft praises between kisses.  But that moment quickly passed, you being the first to roll up against him, dragging a curse out from his lips, him dipping his face to press it into your cleavage, a groan leaving his lips as you ground up into him with a whine.

Lips attached to your nipple, one hand still swirling your sensitive bundle of nerves causing you to cry out, the other pinching the other nipple between two fingers, rolling it in perfect unison as he suckled on you, tongue laving back and forth, the heat of his mouth making you want to scream.

His thrusts were slow and deliberate, dragging himself almost all of the way out of you, your walls clenching as he did to get him to stay, only for him to press back into you, bottoming out and pressing against your cervix with each thrust.

With one more flick of his finger against your clit you were gone. His name leaving your lips in short breathy cries as you arched up into him the pressure feeling too much as you clenched down around him, your grip tightening and trying to hold him in place. But he didn’t stop there, his fingers continuing to slowly circle your clit, helping you ride out the wave as he pistons in and out of you, your own name being said as a prayer.

He released your nipples as you came down, shifting his lips back up and slowly moving up your neck, sucking and biting on the skin as his voice reverberated around the room.

“You are so fucking gorgeous. So perfect. My beautiful muse.”

You could feel him starting to speed up his thrusts, making more and more cries leave your lips as you tried to keep up with him, already feeling pressure building up again.

“Toshi.. please, please… Toshii… pleaseee.”

“I know darling, I know. Fuck you feel so good. I’m not gon-“

His voice was cut off with a groan as he pressed his forehead to yours, fucking into you relentlessly as your walls fluttered around him. A hot huff, before he groaned out your name again pressing into you, his thrusts growing sloppy.

“Toshi please, I wanna cum again. Please.”

“Fuck- nng… Fuck. C- haa-“ He couldn’t finish his words, plowing into you, feeling the waves of what little remained of the water crashing against him, perfectly level with your clit making you arch back up into him with a whine as you tried to find a second release.

“Fuck. Darling… Kitten… cum for me.”

He buried his face into your chest, a long-drawn-out moan leaving his lips, sounding broken as you felt hot spurts of liquid squirting into you, your mind exploding with pleasure as his quirk snapped on, making you scream out his name, feeling aftershocks hit you wave after wave as you collapsed against the back of the tub, panting harshly, your mind hazy as you came down.

The two of you sat there for several moments, gasping for air, your legs shaking form tensing up for so long. After a moment or two, Shinso glanced up at you, his cheeks red, hair sticking to his face from sweat, an exhausted but content expression on his face.

“Are you okay my muse?”

You let out a snort, and a short nod in response, leaning into his hand as it cupped your cheek, him leaning up and pressing a chaste kiss to your lips a smile on his.

“You’re magnificent.”

“Hmm.. I bet you think so.” You leaned back, looking at the ceiling with a smirk feeling your body relax only for your attention to be brough to your still swollen ankle as you shifted it, pain shooting through your leg.

At seeing your face, Hitoshi sighed softly, shaking his head before pressing another kiss to your lips, pushing himself up and into a standing position, leaning over to grab a towel, his still impressive length swinging practically in your face making you blush.

“We really need to take care of your ankle. I’m serious this tim- Oh fuck kitten..” his fingers gripped your hair, his head dropping back as he closed his eyes, his dick twictching back to life as you ran your tongue along it slowly, a snarky laugh leaving your lips at his reaction.

“Kitten?” You tilted you head back, looking up at him a question in your eyes, his face turning scarlet as he looked away from you biting his lip, hiding a sheepish smile.

“Please let me take care of you… stop distracting me.”

You huffed a pretend sigh of annoyance, crossing your arms and rolling your eyes.

“Fine, if you must. But I’m continuing that later.”

He rolled his own eyes at you, stepping out of the bath and drying off before moving to also grab you a towel, helping you out of the bath as well, taking extra care to dry off every inch of you, making you lean your weight against him and not on your foot before he scooped you up, shuffling off towards his bedroom.

“I don’t want your injury to get worse. You still want to dance don’t you?”

You hummed a soft acknowledgement, wistfulness lacing your tone as he slowly placed you into his bed, helping set up his pillows to accommodate your leg better. He would get the two of you settled then call for the local doctor to come look at you. He just hoped you didn’t want to go home soon.

“As must as you still want to paint.”

His smile was filled with understanding as he brought over one of his shirts to you, helping you into it but leaving your bottom bare, covering it with a blanket before dressing himself only to sit on the edge of the bed, his eyes latched onto yours with a look of adoration you had seen so many times and mistaken for something platonic.

“You know, I’d love to paint you bathing sometime. You truly look like a goddess then.”

You blushed at his words, shaking your head laughing, a fluttering feeling in your stomach as you realized just how much things had changed so quickly.

“The scandal Mr Shinso! What would the papers say about us? My honor was already sullied months ago just by being here, but now you want physical proof that you’ve seen me without my knickers?“ You were joking for the most part. You didn’t care about honor. Scandals. Most girls would be ashamed to be rumored to have even kissed a man that wasn’t their husband in this time, but you loved him, and you knew nothing wrong could come of that.  Who cared what anyone else thought?

“Then marry me.”

You froze, staring at the artist who looked more sure of himself than any other time you had seen him. His face completely serious, shoulders relaxed, as he gazed at you like you were his entire reason for living.

Your lips split into a smile without you even realizing, your cheeks almost hurting from how wide it was as you looked down at your lap for a brief moment before meeting his eyes once again when his hand reached out to take yours, thumb rubbing soft circles.

“Yes. Yes I’ll marry you.”

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[gangrenados]

Color markers

Have you ever made a really self indulgent fic that it's almost embarrassing? Well here's mine, I just like to draw silly things in my skin idk it's artsy 🤷🏽‍♀️

Also I made the reader speak Spanish, why? Idk I just feel like it. Latina power papa, pura raza es lo que tu ves aqui

Fem!latina reader x Jason

PSA: Hispanic doesn't necessary mean latino, don't be a fool💖

Translation!

Ay mi amor = Oh my love

¿Seguro estas bien?= Are you sure you're okay?

Te quiero demasiado, es más, yo te amo mucho Jason Peter Todd. Yo no sé como, ¡pero dios mio lo que siento por ti es uf muchísimo! Mano yo no sé como explicartelo..." = I love you too much, in fact, I love you so much Jason Peter Todd. I don't know how, but my God what I feel for you is a lot! Dude I don't know how to explain it to you ... "

Te quiero doesn't have an English translation so yeah, weird.

Jason's head bounced lightly against the wooden headboard, making him grimace at the suddenly movement. The lack sleep was really getting into him or maybe it was the tranquility of the day of, he wasn't quite sure.

He shifted lightly, the pressure of your body making him take a sharp breath through his teeth." Jay, I'm sorry! Do you want something for the pain?" Your voice made him feel better somehow. God, he was so embarrassingly whipped.

"I'm fine, babe" he groaned as he fully sat up. Jason noticed the color marks resting all across the empty space your legs created by being apart. He frowned, realizing the colorful collage that adorned his right arms.

It didn't take much for you to notice his confusion, "You told me it was okay," you tilt your head to side as you grabbed his arms gently. Your eyes quickly narrowed over those colorful lines that rounded across his pale skin and mushed over the curvy areas.

" I don't know about you, but maybe I should become a tattoo artist one day."

Your heartbeat raced at the feeling of Jason's chuckles." Yeah, sure. I bet you would make a great job, princess" He joked, taking a more clear look over those doddles that went from little weird things like a cheese with a cowboy hat and Betty Bop cherries to more serious ones like eyes who dared to look somewhat realistic- as much as the skin allowed- and faces.

However, the one draw that caught all of his attention was a smiley face set a little bit lower on his wrist. The doddle was blushing with a shy smile plastered on it and a lot of pink and red hearts surrounding it. Underneath it 'te amo' was wrote in bright pink letters.

Jason didn't expect you to do that, in fact it has caught him of guard. Since the beginning of your relationship he always had the bad habit to question if you really liked or if you just decided to date him out of pity.

Jason didn't took your love for granted and that's why he felt that he had to work to earn it. That was the only way he could feel like he was worth your time and attention.

It might sound silly, but little acts like this always got the best of him.

He took away his arm from you, looking closer to this little drawing made the air caught on his throat. You did love him, after all you wouldn't have put that there if it wasn't true...right?

"Oh hey!" You gasped at the sudden hug of Jason. He rested his head in the crook of your shoulder, trying his best to not break.

"Ay mi amor," you put your hands on top of his, rubbing tiny circles in his bruises knuckles with your thumbs." ¿Seguro estas bien? I can make you some tea if want, just tell me..."

Those words just made his heart ache more." Why are you so nice to me?" That question passed slipped from his mouth without passing through his mind filter. Making him bite his cheek hard at the realization of his mistake.

Jason was really careful with what he says, especially when it comes to emotional stuff like this. He didn't wanted to give power to others to break his heart.

But now he has messed up and he just can't pretend he didn't said that stupid question.

You can't deny that that simple question made a quick flash of pain cross your body. It was hard to hear him said that, even after all of your attempts to show him how much he meant to you, how much you loved him.

You didn't get mad at him though, even if it hurts you knew the reason behind this was a series of unfortunate events that have left your dear boyfriend emotionally wounded.

Carefully you turned to him, breaking out of his grip and dropping some markers in the process. Jason's beautiful blue eyes looked at you with nothing but embarrassment, he didn't wanted you to look at him like this.

"Look, you're my boyfriend and I'll care about you no matter what, okay?" You said slowly, gracing his hands with lingering touches. Jason didn't move or tried to speak, he was as stiff as a stone.

"You're someone really, really important to me and I-" the words caught in your throat and it frustrated you that your mind had become blank due to this emotional moment." Te quiero demasiado, es más, yo te amo mucho Jason Peter Todd. Yo no sé como, ¡pero Dios mío lo que siento por ti es uf muchísimo! Mano yo no sé como explicartelo..."

You took a deep breath and continued."You're someone so strong and kind, I just can't explain this better and I'm sorry, but-"

Your speech was cut of by Jason's lips meeting yours, he wanted nothing more than kiss you. He needed it like air, as cheesy as it might sound.

Both of his hands were set at the back of your neck just to deepen the kiss and make you stay in place as long as you could.

Jason's mind rushed with a million thoughts before shutting down completely. This was okay, even when he felt like his heart would explode at any moment, nothing wrong could happen when he had you between his arms.

He hold onto those hopeful words to dear life in that brief moments of eager happiness between you two. Deep down he knew the angst and insecurity would take down his sudden found of calmness, but Jason wanted to push back those negative thoughts as much as he could.

Your fingers ran through his dark locks tenderly once the kiss was over; there was a little grin adorning your beautiful lips that made Jason confidence bust.

"I don't deserve a girlfriend like you"

" Maybe..." You shrugged off, wanting to play prideful just for a while." Nah baby, you sure do. I'm pretty good, right?"

"Yeah, you sure are." Jason said." I think you're getting a little bit cocky, don't you?"

"I guess I learn that from you." You pecked his lips before hopping off of the bed." I'm making you some tea, okay? I feel like that might help you..."

Tag list @bathroom-sand @aterriblelangblr @simpery @strangerthings14 @jyarumu0619 @kellieriddle96 @adarksoul098 @rosethegothamhistorynerd @duckmylife18 @panic-attheplace @malfoys-demigod @darkraven1983 @magicisabluewish @hamdehlesmis @lucy-roo @lovelyartemisa @missmaskedwriter @c0-77 @ginevraxrogers @imagines-fluff-yandere-smut @shadygoateeprincess @nervousfandom @ghost-bitch @silverw19 @thegirlwholovesbooksblog @hecatemacbeth7 @unknowntoanyone @mistalli @screechingghostbananafarm @waroncheer @lady-stirling @ghostly-ginger @greeknerd007 @la-femme-lupita @jasonsballsack @violettessuniverse @wondergal23 @dreamxcollide @thirstiestpotato @magicalbeanie @dreamingforthosewholost

[snowdice]

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 68]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Had an early doctor’s appointment today so I’m tired, and the tests done made things feel worse, so idk how long this is going to go, but I want to get at least a bit of my work done. Also brain is not running at full capacity... so if I just disappear it means I forgot I was doing something, laid down, and fell asleep and/or zoned out.

Chapter 31

Logan waited for a while after Patton left to check on Virgil, but the two never resurfaced. It was odd, Patton would usually remember to come back and get Logan or at least tell them where they were. With a sigh, Logan climbed to his feet to go find them. It took him a while to weave his way through the maze of bushes to them especially because they were suspiciously quiet (Well, suspicious for Patton. Virgil was often unnervingly quiet when alone.) Luckily, he knew the bushes enough after all of these years not to get lost and managed to find the two after a few minutes.

“Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.

 “Logan!” Patton said, his voice excited, but also quieter than normal. “We found a kitty!”

“I can see that,” Logan responded, taking a step closer. The cat hissed at him in response. The hissing was so intense and wild that he’d suspect the thing was feral if it wasn’t happily on Virgil’s lap having had it’s head in Patton’s lap before Logan had approached.

“No,” Virgil told the animal as though it could understand words. “That’s Logan. Be nice.”

The cat still glared at him and swished it’s tail back and forth threateningly. Virgil pet the top of it’s head and it broke eye contact with Logan to purr.

 Patton seemed delighted by the purring, reaching to stroke under the thing’s chin carefully. “We should give her a name!” Patton said.

Virgil frowned. “I thought her name was Ghost Kitty.”

“That is ‘Ghost Kitty’?” Logan asked skeptically. From what Patton had said about that cat, it was terrified of people and no one could ever get near it, even him. Now it was in Virgil’s lap?

“But that was a temporary name,” Patton said, “for before we officially met her. Now we have to give her a real name.”

“Do not give it a name,” Logan said. “You will get attached.”

 “How do you name a cat?” Virgil asked.

“Do not name it,” Logan said.

“You give them names based on their personalities, how they look, or even just because it’s a cute name,” Patton explained. “Like, remember Mittens? I named her Mittens because she has white fur and black paws!”

Virgil looked at the cat. “She’s completely black,” he said.

Patton hummed. “So, we could give her a name based on that like Midnight or Shadow.”

“Those are fine,” Virgil said.

“No, no,” Patton said. “I’m just giving you examples. You get to name her yourself.”

“This is a bad idea,” Logan said.

 “Just throw out some names,” Patton said. “Anything you can think of.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “Knife.”

“…Just Knife?” Patton asked.

“Nightmare.” Virgil seemed to think about it. “No, that’s mean.”

“How about things you like?” Patton suggested.

“Alfredo?”

Oh no, Logan thought, he was worse than Patton at cat naming.

“Good start,” Patton said. “Logan, do you have any suggestions.”

“Cat,” Logan said.

“Real suggestions,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and thought for a moment. “Aphrodite.”

“Catphrodite!”

Logan glared at him. “Helena.”

“Helenpaw.”

“Claudia.”

“Clawdia.”

“Persephone.”

Patton smiled at him, cheerfully.

“…Damnit!”

Patton turned to Virgil again. “Like that! They don’t even have to be serious. Like, uh, you could name her Madam Fluffywuffykins the Great!”

“Do not name her that,” Logan said, scrunching up his nose.

 Logan sat on the ground, the cat eyeing him, but no longer hissing. Logan gently guided them towards more sensible names despite Patton trying his hardest to drag them into stupidity.

Virgil still didn’t quite get it. He mostly tried to name it after foodstuff, and often not even appropriate foodstuff such as “Corn” and “Acorn Squash” and “Sandwich” and occasionally would drop in semi violent ones such as “Razor,” “Nightshade” and “Void.” Patton suggested names like “Fluffers,” “Bobette” and “Darling” as well as some that were puns. Logan tried to direct them towards more sensible ones like “Salem” and even went so low as to suggest the contrary “Snowball.”

 It quickly seemed to become less about actually naming the cat and more of a game. Patton had taught Virgil about playing with cats and had even gotten out a ball of yarn he cared around for his crafts. Both Virgil and the cat seemed to find endless entertainment with that. Logan hoped Patton had another ball of yarn that color because, he was never going to get that ball back.

The barrage of names fizzled out into naming things around them like “Leaf” and “Bush” until they stopped suggesting names altogether. Patton and Logan sat back and watched Virgil play with the cat.

 Logan watched as they stopped playing suddenly and Virgil and the cat squinted at each other. “Marisol,” Virgil said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “That’s her name.” He said it with a certainty that was surprising considering how he’d treated the naming process with confusion and caution earlier. If Logan did not know better, his tone of voice would indicate that the cat, or Marisol he guessed, had gotten bored of them coming up with stupid names and decided to tell him her actual name herself.

The cat made a sound and batted at Virgil’s face without claws to grab back his attention.

 He turned back to it and bopped its face with a finger in kind. It attacked his finger, but in a clearly playful matter as it still did not extend it’s claws and its teeth did not draw blood.

“That’s a great name, Virgil,” Patton said.

“Much more pleasant than any that Patton suggested all afternoon,” Logan said. He received an elbow to the side for his quip.

“A pretty name for a pretty kitty,” Patton said, scooting over to where Virgil was sat and attempting to pet Marisol’s head. Marisol, however, was too keyed up and batted at the hand.

 “I love you too!” Patton said.

Logan rolled his eyes, but he had long since resigned himself to watching the two of them play with and coo over the cat for the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, it started to get darker. Even after Logan pointed this out, it still took over an hour for them to relent and leave the bush maze to go to the door. The problem was of course, that the cat had managed to grow very attached to Virgil in the last few hours and she followed them all the way to the door with manipulatively heart breaking mews.

 “You’ve got to stay out here,” Virgil said, when they got to the castle door. He pet her ear softly and she shoved her head into his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere to put you.” He sounded horribly sad about that fact and Logan felt himself shift uncomfortably. “I basically live in a closet and Logan doesn’t like cats in his room anyway.”

Logan immediately felt unreasonably guilty, probably more so because Logan did not think Virgil was trying to make him feel guilty. “…Bring the dammed thing inside.”

Virgil blinked up at him. “What?”

“It will get cold soon anyway,” Logan said.

He frowned at Logan from where he was crouched. “But you don’t like fur in your room…”

“I will have to find a potion that works,” he said with a sigh, “and we’ll have to say it’s mine to the guards and Father since it will be staying in my room, but it is yours in every other way. That means you are going to feed it, clean it, and clean up after it.”

Virgil nodded immediately and swooped Marisol up in his arms. The cat went without complaint. “Thank you!” he said. “I love her.”

“I know you do,” Logan said, already regretting it already. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to even consider recanting the offer considering how happy Virgil seemed to be. They had a cat now, he guessed.

  Chapter 32

“What are you doing?” Helen asked a few minutes after her son walked into the kitchen and started looking around as though he were trying to find something. It was a few hours into the afternoon, and she and a few workers were already prepping for dinner.

“Uh,” Patton said. “Have you seen Virgil?”

“No,” Helen said. “Why.”

“Er… Logan and I sorta, lost him,” Patton said. He was wringing his hands anxiously. Helen put down the knife in her hand.

“What do you mean you lost him?” she asked.

“Well, see, we were trying to teach him how to play hide and seek, um, but then we didn’t think to tell him that he eventually had to come out if we didn’t find him, and now we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

 “He didn’t know what tag is?” she asked. That was just one more thing to add to the list of why Helen worried about Virgil and where he came from. Every morsel of information she’d managed to wring from Patton despite his evasions made her lists of concerns grow larger, even little things like him not knowing about simple childhood games. Actually, thinking of concerning things having to do with Virgil. “Wait, so he hasn’t eaten lunch.”

“Um, we don’t know that,” Patton’s mouth said while his eyes said ‘no.’

“He needs to be on a consistent diet, especially when he’s still taking the malnutrition potion,” she scolded.

 “I know, Mama, I know,” Patton said. “I’m trying to find him. I’d kinda hoped he’d gotten hungry and snuck down here. He probably wouldn’t want to risk being caught stealing food though.”

Helen grimaced. Yet another concerning thing.

“Wait! I have an idea, I’ll be right back.” Patton turned and ran out of the room. Helen frowned at the space he’d been and finished chopping the carrot on the cutting board in front of her. If it had been any other person in the castle missing, Helen wouldn’t have worried, but she had literally never seen Virgil without Patton and/or Logan by his side. Even when he’d gone to help Jeff can some fruit, Logan had reportedly hung around to read a book.

 Considering that Logan had never exactly been clingy even with Patton, she imagined that either Virgil asked, or Logan thought he should stay with him for his comfort. So, she was surprised that he was apparently hidden away somewhere in the castle where neither of the other kids could find him.

Still thinking about this, she walked over to the entrance to the cellar below the kitchen where they stored most of the vegetables, planning to grab some more carrots. She was confused for a moment when she heard movement from deeper in the pantry. She reached over and touched the panel near the door that controlled the magic lights.

 The newly illuminated figure startled as the lights came on, whipping around to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Virgil?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, taking a step back.

“It’s fine,” she said immediately, “but what are you doing here?”

He considered her for a long moment, but apparently, she passed some sort of mental test, because he relaxed, at least as much as he’d ever relaxed in her presence. “Where are we?” he asked.

Her brow knit together. “The cellar under the kitchen,” she said, “You don’t know that?”

He shook his head.

“The only entrance is from the kitchen.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him go through the kitchen at any point.

 “No, it’s not,” Virgil said. “There’s a tunnel.”

“A-a tunnel?” she asked. Actually, taking a closer look at him, he seemed a bit grimy. He had dust all over his front and dirt on his nose. She thought he might even have a couple of cobwebs in his hair.

“Yep,” he said.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

“It’s right over here,” he said. He took a couple of steps and pointed to the ground. There was an open square hole there that clearly had been made a long time ago but which she had never noticed in all of her time working here.

 “How did you find this?” she asked.

“We were playing hide and seek,” Virgil explained. “Logan said I could hide anywhere inside the castle. I hid on top of a dresser upstairs in some unused sitting room. There was a hole in the wall above it, so I climbed into it. Then, I crawled a little bit and it let out into a hidden passage in the walls. I wandered around in it until I found another hole in one of the walls. I thought it was a way out, so I squeezed into it, but it took me to a different hallway where I found an old room. There was a different hole in that room that had probably been covered by something because it was in the floor but whatever it was had rotted away. I crawled though it into a tunnel and came out here.”

 She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his explanation. “Well, it sounds like you went on an adventure,” she said, “but Patton and Logan have been trying to find you. You missed lunch.”

He tilted his head at her. “I know. I was supposed to hide.”

“Yes,” she explained, “but you are supposed to come out at some point if they can’t find you for things like food.”

“Oh,” he said.

“They probably should have explained,” she said. “For now, why don’t we get you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

Virgil frowned. “But I missed lunch.”

“You can still eat even though it’s not in normal hours,” she said. “You could even if you had made it to lunch.”

 “Really?” he asked, he looked tragically confused by this offer.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. “In fact, I insist you get something good to eat right now. How about I made you a grilled ham and cheese sandwich? Maybe some cookies too!”

Virgil titled his head. “You are Patton’s mother,” he stated.

Helen laughed softly. “He gets its all from me,” she said. “We should probably go find him and tell him you’re okay. He was worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him,” Virgil said with a frown.

“I know,” Helen said. “It’s okay. He’ll probably laugh when he figures out where you’ve been, and Logan will interrogate you all about the secret passageways.” He seemed happy about the prospect of seeing his friends. “Come on, let’s go upstairs for a bit,” she said.

  Chapter 33

Patton’s mom had already made Virgil sit down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and had handed him a sandwich by the time Patton barreled into the kitchen, Logan coming after him at a more sedate pace.

“Virgil!” he said, sounding surprised and relieved.

“Patton,” Patton’s mom scolded. “No cats in the kitchen.” Patton had brought Marisol in with him and had let her go as soon as he’d seen Virgil. She immediately plodded over to him and hoped onto the table to sniff at his face in greeting.

“But she’s the princess!” Patton argued.

“No,” Logan said.

 “Yes, she is!” Patton said.

“The stupid cat is not a princess.”

“Don’t be mean to your little sister, Logan.”

“I regret every life decision that has led me to this point.”

While Logan and Patton were distracted squabbling and Patton’s mom was distracted watching them squabble, Virgil tore off a bit of the ham in his sandwich and offered it to Marisol. Marisol gracefully took it from his grip and ate it.

“So, this is Logan’s new cat I’ve been hearing about?” Patton’s mom asked.

“Indeed,” Logan said, his lips thinned. He and Marisol were mostly amicable when alone with just them and Virgil, but Patton had a habit of cooing over the kitten and needling Logan into being irritated.

 “Mmm, yeah,” Patton’s mom said. She glanced over at Virgil right as Marisol basically slammed her face into his chin in a bid to get pets. “Your cat.” She shook her head. “But Princess Kitten or not, I do not want fur in dinner,” she said.

“Sorry,” Patton said, honestly not sounding sorry at all. Virgil was always a bit surprised when the insolent shrug garnered nothing more that a scowl that did not reach Patton’s mom’s eyes. “I thought she could help me find Virgil, but you already found him.” He turned to Virgil. “Where have you been all day?”

 “Found a tunnel,” Virgil said. He had to use one hand to hold Marisol back from his sandwich as he took another bite, but then gave her a bite of cheese.

“You found what?” Logan asked.

“There’s a tunnel under the cellar,” Virgil said. “It goes to an old closed up room and also to a set of secret passageways.” It was a bit of a security risk honestly, though clearly no one had used it in years by how dirty it was. He did plan to go back into it and make sure the sprawling tunnels didn’t go to anywhere more dangerous like the royal wing.

 “A closed-up room?” Logan said. He could see a bit of curiosity already building in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Where the door used to be seemed like it had been bricked over.”

“Really? Can you show me.”

“Sure,” Virgil answered.

“Ah, perhaps we should be a bit more cautious about climbing through random tunnels we don’t know the stability of,” Patton’s mom said.

Logan’s frown edged on a pout.

“Talk to your father,” she said. “I’m sure he can get someone who understands these things so you can safely investigate.”

“It was safe enough for Virgil,” Logan pointed out.

 “No, Logan.”

He sighed but seemed to concede. That was another strange thing about living here. By all rights Logan didn’t have to obey anyone except the king, but he often listened to those around him, not just the adults but Patton as well. It was interesting though it sometimes made the hierarchy hard to figure out. Virgil did sometimes stress out about the hypothetical situation where he got conflicting orders from two people, and he wouldn’t know which one to obey. So far it hadn’t been a problem luckily. They always seemed to work it out amongst themselves in some give and take social interaction that was a bit too complex for him to understand.

 Patton walked over to where Virgil was sitting. “I’m glad your safe,” he said. “We should probably put a time limit on hide and seek in the future, so you know when to come out.”

“Did I win?” Virgil asked. He’d honestly forgotten they’d been playing a game until Patton’s mom had asked how he’d found his way into the cellar.

Patton laughed. “I’d say so, yeah,” he replied. He leaned over to kiss Virgil’s forehead, but drew back immediately with a pinched expression. “You are… very dirty,” he said, rubbing his mouth.

Virgil nodded. “Your mom made me sit on a tablecloth,” he said gesturing to the fabric she’d laid over the chair.

 Patton snorted out a laugh. “We’ll get you into the bath when you’re done eating and you can tell us all about your little adventure.”

“I would also like to hear about your discoveries,” Logan said. “Though you are not allowed to sit on the bed until you do not have spider webs in your hair.”

Patton’s eyes widened and he jumped away from Virgil, startling both Virgil and Marisol. The latter hopped from the table onto Virgil’s lap. “Spiders?!”

Virgil tilted his head at him in confusion.

“He isn’t a fan of spiders,” Logan informed him, his voice amused at Patton’s reaction.

 Apparently deciding that she was no longer startled, but more confused by the noises Patton had just made, Marisol jumped out of Virgil’s lap to investigate, wrapping her way around Patton’s legs. He bent down to pat her back, though he still looked a bit startled.

“Your cat, huh?” Patton’s mom asked Logan once again. Virgil studied her. She had apparently missed Logan mentioning that he allowed Virgil on the bed. Or perhaps Logan was correct in his insistence that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal here. Virgil would rather not test that assumption, however, so was glad that it had been distracted from by Patton’s outburst.

 “Creepy, crawly death dealers,” Patton mumbled into Marisol’s fur, having picked her back up. Virgil made a note to not inform Patton of all of the different types of spiders he’d seen skittering around in the castle walls today. Maybe he’d talk about them with Logan once Patton left. He’d probably be interested. Virgil had seen some he’d never seen before! Logan probably could even help him figure out what their names were. “You’ll protect me, won’t you kitty?” Patton asked Marisol.

She made a little ‘burrrr’ sound in response, which Patton seemed to take a confirmation.

“Aw thank you, baby! Such a good baby.”

50234

Virgil popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Patton’s mom turned away and grabbed a plate stacked with cookies. She handed it to Logan. “Take these, and please get the health hazards out of my kitchen,” she requested.

Logan took them without complaint. “Come on, Virgil,” he said. “Let’s go get you clean.”

“We’re going to need so much soap,” Patton said.

Virgil looked down at himself. “I can go outside and get most of it off if you get me a bucket of water,” he offered.

“Virgil, it’s below freezing,” Logan said as though that had a baring on what he’d just said. Logan sighed. “No. Bathtub.” Virgil shrugged. “Honestly,” Logan said. He turned with the plate of cookies in his hand, clearly expecting to be followed. “You’re not going to catch your death pouring a bucket of water over yourself in the cold when there are literally over a hundred perfectly good bathtubs in this castle. For goodness sakes.” And well, Virgil wasn’t going to complain.

  Chapter 34

Patton, to be completely honest, was not all that interested in the room that Virgil had found. Beyond just the fact that it would definitely have creepy crawly death dealers in it, he really did not understand the intrigue. If it had just been him, he probably would have just let a castle worker deal with it, but it was not just him. Logan was ecstatic with the prospect of investigating a secret in the castle. People who didn’t know him well may not believe it considering he spent most of his time with his nose in a book, but he was an adventurer at heart.

 Thomas had been easily swayed into finding someone to help tear down part of the wall into the secret tunnel near the room (so no one would have to crawl through the kitchen cellar like Virgil). It had taken a few days, however, and Logan was practically bouncing off the walls waiting. Virgil, despite having already seen the room before, also seemed excited, though if that was because of his own curiosity or because he was just excited that Logan seemed so exited remained to be seen.

“They are silly, aren’t they,” Patton asked Princess Marisol. He was laying on his stomach on Logan’s bed and Princess Marisol had just put her little paw on his nose.

 “Yes, I agree,” he said. “Don’t they know that we’re literally going to be 2 feet away from the normal hallway?”

“It is not silly,” Logan defended himself. “Any number of things could go wrong.” He sounded far too excited about the prospect of something going terribly wrong. “The tunnels could cave in and block off the exit or there could be some unknown pathogen in the air.”

Patton did not ruin his fun by mentioning that Logan’s dad had definitely basically baby proofed the tunnels for them ahead of time. Instead, he just said, “Don’t let Virgil hear you say that sort of thing. It will just stress him out.”

 “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, waving off Patton’s concerns as he mulled over two different weird green planty things (potion ingredients, Patton assumed) before setting one aside and sticking the other in his bag.

“So silly,” Patton cooed at the cat. Logan let out a huff but did not choose to say anything about it this time.

Speaking of silly, Virgil came back from Logan’s bathroom then, and Patton tried not to giggle. “Is this right?” Virgil asked, sounding and looking confused. Logan, in his overexcitement about adventure had commissioned Virgil an outfit that actually fit. Said outfit, however, very much made it look more like Virgil was going on a safari instead of a two-foot detour from the normal castle hallway.

 “Almost,” Logan said, “Here, let me.” Logan started straightening everything out and flattening the collar, reminding Patton of an overbearing parent on picture day. Virgil accepted the fussing without protest. It was adorable. Well, the outfit was ridiculous, but still, adorable. “There,” Logan said. “I think we’re ready to go now.”

It was about time. Patton was sure people were already waiting for them downstairs. Patton got up and patted Princess Marisol on the head. She looked up at them with interest.

“You can stay here, sweetie,” Patton told here. She seemed to consider it and then hopped down from the bed to go rub up against Virgil.

 Patton guessed she was coming. It didn’t matter too much since Logan had given her a magical collar that allowed her to open most doors in the castle and everyone knew she was the royal cat now, so if she decided she wanted to come back to the room and nap, she could. (She was very aware of the power she held.)

She pranced happily by Virgil’s side all the way down the steps to the first floor of the castle. She was such a good kitty.

Well, she did hiss angrily at everyone who came too close to them, but still, a very good kitty.

 Patton did lean down and pick her up so they could actually talk to the man waiting for them at the large hole in the wall. Logan went to talk to the castle worker while Virgil half hid behind Patton. He was clearly listening very intently to the conversation however, at least more intently than Patton was. Patton was busy shaking his head fondly.

“Yes, yes, Princess,” he said to the cat. “I know we do not trust the strangers, but I promise this stranger is perfectly safe.”

“How do you know?” Virgil asked.

“His name is Chester and I’ve known him since I was 9.”

 This seemed to slightly alleviate Virgil’s suspicion, but Princess Marisol still seemed antsy. Patton really needed to start slowly introducing the both of them to more people.

Logan finished talking with Chester after a few moments and it was time to climb through the hole in the wall. He wished he saw in the tunnel whatever Logan with his excited eyes and bounce to his step obviously saw. Or even that was more comfortable in the dark closed in space as Virgil obviously was. As it was, Patton’s nose scrunched up at the thought off all of the spiders that could be living everywhere in the secret tunnel, but he pushed through.

 The entrance to the tunnel had been made only a little bit from the room Virgil had mentioned and Chester had led them through it after only a couple of seconds. As Patton had suspected, the room was already lit up and probably cleaned a little bit by the people who had cut into the wall, not that he was complaining.

Virgil was still clinging a bit to Patton’s shirt, though it seemed to be less out of anxiety at this point and more out of a desire to stick close. He was peering around curiously at the lit-up space. He probably hadn’t seen much of it in the dark when he’d been here before.

 Yet, his curiosity was nothing compared to how excited Logan seemed to be. Now Patton may have not been interested in the room itself, but he was entertained by how interested Logan was and was happy to encourage that.

“What do you think this place is?” he asked Logan.

Logan hummed contemplatively, eyes looking around. “Well,” he said. “It’s a bedroom clearly, and old. Considering the location it is in in the castle, the size, the decorations, and it’s likely age, I’d imagine it was a bedroom of a royal family member. This used to be the royal wing three royal lines ago.”

 “Bearing that in mind, there are a couple of likely possibilities for the origin of the room as well as the reason it was sealed up, but we will need to investigate more in order to come to an actual conclusion.” He had already placed the bag he’d brought on the ground and was going through it, pulling out things that Patton did not recognize. He also got a piece of paper and sat on the floor to start to sketch.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“I’m sketching the floorplan of the room,” Logan said. “I will then put a grid on it so we can investigate while being sure that we aren’t missing anything.”

 Virgil seemed uninterested in this part of the adventure, instead electing to go poking around by himself. Princess Marisol squirmed out of Patton’s arms to go follow him. Patton swore that he only looked away from those two for 5 seconds, but the next thing he knew he heard metal clicking against metal.

“Oh,” Patton said, eyes wide when he saw what Virgil was fiddling with. “Honey, you probably shouldn’t touch…”

The old but fancy looking chest that had been at the end of the remains of the bed creaked open. Virgil sneezed as a cloud of dust puffed out of it. “Huh,” he said studying the contents. “There’s a skull in here.”

 “Oh, I don’t like this adventure anymore,” Patton commented.

Logan was on his feet within moments. “Let me see,” he said eagerly.

“What if it’s cursed?” Patton pointed out.

“Then I’ll just break the curse,” Logan waved him off. “Oh, it’s just a horse skull,” Logan said, sounding disappointed. “And also what seemed to be potion ingredients. Though they seem very fresh considering the state of the room.”

“Maybe we should get someone else to…”

Logan already had both arms inside the chest and was pulling things out of it. “This chest must have some sort of stasis effect to it.”

 He started pulling things out to look at them before setting them on the floor with no caution. “Well,” he said, “that answers the question of what this room is.”

“It does?” Patton asked.

“Ah, yes, between the horse skull and the potion ingredients, this is obviously the bedroom of Princess Marianne Elicia. She was the third child of King Simon IV and was quite the fan of horses.”

“…So she kept a horse skull in a stasis chest in her bedroom?” Patton asked.

“Of course,” Logan said. “Back when her family was in power, magic was outlawed and had quite the stigma against it, but she ended up learning magic and become quite proficient.”

 “It’s debated what exactly happened when her father found out about her activities. Some sources say that she was executed silently by her father, but others say she managed to escape with the head of the stables but not before putting a curse on the country of Prijaznia. That is until she or one of her bloodline sits on the throne, every royal line will end in madness and blood by the 5th seated monarch before an heir is born.”

“Isn’t that something you should be worried about?” Virgil asked.

Logan shrugged. “It’s just a myth,” he said. “Besides I’m 6th in the line, so there really isn’t any concern.”

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“There are a lot of interesting things in here,” Logan said, still focused on the chest. “Not to mention the books. We’ll have to be careful with those though since they don’t appear to be in stasis.”

Logan pulled the horse skull out and set it on the floor making Patton wince.

“Marisol no!” he said as Princess Marisol immediately went to go sniff at it. He swooped her up in his arms. “How long are we staying in this creepy room?” Patton asked.

“Patton, we just got here,” Logan said.

“We just got here and already found a skull!”

“Yes! Exactly!”

Patton groaned into Princess Marisol’s fur even as she tried wiggle away to go back and investigate the skull. This was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 35

Logan was surprised when he woke up alone in bed. He’d grown to anticipate waking to a smaller body unrelentingly clinging to his in the past couple of weeks. Confused he sat up and peered around his bedroom. He wouldn’t have seen Virgil with the way he melted into the darkness if it he hadn’t heard the sound of purring coming from near the window. He could just barely make out a dark blob shifting up and down at the cat kneaded at a different blob sitting mostly hidden behind the thick curtain.

“Virgil?” Logan questioned. “What are you doing?”

 “It’s snowing,” was the answer.

“That is not an answer,” Logan grumbled at the ceiling. With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed. It was a bit chilly in here, he thought. The temperature must have dipped suddenly and intensely enough that the runes keeping the castle at a warm enough temperature hadn’t caught up yet. He pulled one of the blankets off of the top of his bed to wrap around his shoulders as he approached the window. There wasn’t much light outside, the stars and moon covered by clouds, but there were some lanterns lit for the night guard who patrolled the outside. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “It’s really snowing.”

 It had been colder but not quite cold enough for snow to stick the day before, so it came as a surprise when he saw snow was piling up quite high to the point where familiar paths outside his window had disappeared.

“I don’t like it,” Virgil informed him.

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“It’s cold,” Virgil answered. It was clear in his tone that in Virgil’s opinion ‘cold’ was a horrible insult to the concept of snow. Logan quirked a half smile and his attention was drawn to the fact that it was quite cold right here close to the window.

 Frowning, he pulled at the blanket around his shoulder so he could wrap it and his arm around the lump that was Virgil. He brushed the boy’s hand when he did so and found it was like ice.

“You’re freezing!” Logan said. “How long have you been by the window?”

“I dunno,” he replied.

Logan was already tugging at him. “You need to get back in bed,” he said.

Virgil obeyed the pulling at his arms even as he frowned. “I’ve been colder than this before,” he said.

“That actually doesn’t make me feel better,” Logan replied dryly as he shooed him towards the bed.

 He took the thicker blanket that usually stayed folded at the end of the bed and pulled it up over Virgil before climbing into bed beside him.

“There,” Logan said, rubbing Virgil’s arms through the fabric of the sweater he wore to bed. He was glad he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt at least. “The runes for heating the castle should catch up within a few hours, but until then this should do. Assuming we don’t sit by the freezing window for an undetermined amount of time.”

“I don’t like the cold,” Virgil told him.

Logan sighed. “Then why did you sit by the window?”

 Virgil shrugged and ducked his head a bit. Logan reached out to grab his hands to help him warm more but was surprised when one of the hands was much warmer than the other. He found his fingers were clutching a crescent shaped stone: the protection charm they’d made. Logan knew that he kept it in his pocket most of the time, but he didn’t normally see him holding it like this. It was warm to the touch, of course, indicating the safety of the room around them.

Logan looked over his face. “Are you…” he said. “Scared of the snow?”

 “I don’t like the cold,” he said once again.

“You’re scared of the winter,” Logan concluded. He looked at Virgil who was far too small for his age and seemed surprised at every casual act of kindness. It was clear that his basic needs were far from being met before he came here. Logan had to wonder what winter usually meant for him. His experiences were doubtlessly very different from Logan’s own. “That makes sense,” he acknowledged, “but you don’t need to be scared of it here. The castle is always perfectly warm and safe in the winter and Mr. Deknis and Ms. Heart work hard during the other seasons to make sure we have plenty of food. There is nothing to fear here.”

 He did not seem convinced.

“You don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want to,” Logan promised. “The castle is plenty big if you’d like to stay inside all winter long. It was made for the winter even without the magic devices that keep it warm. We have fireplaces and well insulated rooms even if those that ends up failing.” Logan pulled open the hand that had the protection charm just to transfer it to his other hand to warm it. “Though, while no one would force you to go outside, the snow isn’t always bad.”

“Yes it is,” Virgil said, his voice sure.

 “Not all the time,” Logan insisted. “Some people love the snow.”

“They’re stupid.”

Logan laughed. “It can be fun for a while with the right equipment if you have someplace to get warm again afterwards. Royal duties slow down during the winter and Patton tends to come up with all sorts of games for both the inside and the outside to pass the time. He’s particularly proficient at snowball fights, at least against me.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Play fighting,” Logan answered. “Like pillow fights, but snow.”

“I’ll stick with the pillows,” he replied.

“And then there’s a hill to sled down on the western side of the castle, and people like to build snowmen along the path.”

“What are snowmen?” Virgil asked.

 They’re temporary statues made out of packed snow,” Logan explained. “Typically, they’re made of three different sized balls of snow: the largest being the base and the smallest the ‘head’ though there are some variations. After building them one typically decorates them with different articles of clothing and objects found lying around. It’s usually sticks and rocks for the face and then things like extra hats and scarfs for decoration.” He smiled softly. “When my Pa was alive, we used to steal my Dad’s crown and fanciest robes. Sometimes Pa would steal it right off of Dad’s head and we’d run away. We’d find a secluded area of the castle yards and build the biggest snowman we could as quickly as we could before we got caught. He’d usually end up letting us keep the robes, but we’d have to give the crown back since some of the metals in it would rust when wet.”

 “That sounds…” Virgil’s nose twitched. “fun if you take away the touching snow part.”

Logan laughed. “It is fun,” he said. “Even with the touching snow part. Though, I admit that some of the ability for it to be entertaining does come from the fact that we could warm up afterwards with ease. You’ll enjoy Patton’s mother’s constant offering of hot chocolate during the season even if you never go outside, I’m sure.”

“Hot chocolate?” Virgil asked intrigued. His dark eyes shone brightly in the little light coming through the window. It was clear he could guess something about the drink just by the name and enjoyed the implications.

 Logan smiled fondly. “It is a hot drink,” he explained. “It’s a warm drink made out of milk and chocolate. I can get you some to try in the morning.”

Virgil nodded, eyes still wide with interest.

“For now, we should sleep though,” Logan said. “Are you warm enough? I can get more blankets.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good,” Logan said, reaching up and adjusting the blanket over them once more, tucking it around Virgil a little bit for good measure. “Goodnight Virgil,” he said.

“Goodnight,” he replied softly. Logan reached under the blankets to grab the hand that was still slightly chilly from the window between his own. Virgil’s eyes slipped closed after a moment as he nuzzle his face into the pillow. At some point they both drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 36

Thomas had already been well aware that winter was on the way, but he and the rest of the castle occupants had been surprised at how intensely and suddenly it had come on. Most things were ready for the winter, but not all of them had been initiated. The fireplaces that took some pressure off the castle heating runes were cleaned out and ready, but they hadn’t been started yet. The stables for different animals on the grounds had been checked over and staff assignments had been made, but most were still in far out fields. Staff that went home for the winter months had been dismissed, but there were a few stragglers that would have to be helped home before things got worse.

 He’d gone out to the main stable to talk to the three workers that were the heads of different areas of animal husbandry to make sure a plan to get everything to where it needed to be soon was in place. It took a while to figure out considering that they’d expected a little more time before the first major snowfall. Thomas also asked them to make sure all of the workers’ homes were in good enough condition for the weather. Ranch hands typically had homes on castle grounds but not in the castle themselves since they needed to be close to the animals. Thomas knew at least half a dozen of those who spent most of their times out in the fields were the type to forgot to maintain their homes because they preferred camping amongst the animals in the summer months and then would be in for a bad time when snow began to fall.

 There should be enough extra rooms in the castle if they needed a place to stay until repairs could be done.

Those conversations took a good couple of hours, before Thomas was satisfied. Before trudging back to the castle through the still falling snow, he made a point to stop at one specific horse stall in the main stable. The horse turned his head to see Thomas when he stopped in front of his stall and puffed out a rather disaffected snort before sticking his head over the gate so Thomas could pat his nose. “Hello, Mr. Apples,” Thomas said.

 The horse seemed to conclude he’d tolerated Thomas’s petting enough and ducked his head to nudge at his torso. Thomas rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I brought you an apple. Some things never change.” He reached into his pocket to grab the red apple he’d brought the white Arabian. “At least you don’t bite me anymore.” He paused, apple slice in hand and eyed the horse’s nose suspiciously. “Do not bite me,” he said even though he hadn’t felt the animal’s teeth in a decade. It would be just like Mr. Apples to wait until his guard was down.

 After a bit of scrutiny, he offered an apple slice. It was snatched out of his hand and there was a loud crunch as it was bit into.

“It’s snowing out,” he told the horse. The horse seemed to roll his eyes at the statement of the obvious. “I’ll remind again that if you run out in a snowstorm, I’m not running after you, so you’d be out of luck.”

Mr. Apples snorted.

“You’re old now. You’d probably not survive long enough for people to find you. Besides, you blend in with that white fur of yours. They’d probably walk right past you a few times.”

 He went back to nosing for treats as soon as he finished his first and Thomas sighed, pulling out another apple slice. “What are they not feeding you enough?” The gusto with which the horse snatched the apple slice was a very clear answer. “Well, we both know that’s not true.” Thomas fed the horse a third slice of apple when he was done with his second. “I have to get back to the castle now. Don’t be a devil horse.”

Mr. Apples threw his head a bit, splattering apple smelling foamy spittle all over Thomas’s front.

“Understood. Have a nice afternoon.”

 He left Mr. Apples in his stall then, knowing he’d be well cared for no matter how ill-tempered he could be at times. He’d been a king’s horse once, after all, no matter that said king had been dead for more than a decade now.

Winters were hard.

Winters were the times when things always slowed down at the castle, where royal duties were often thin. There were a lot of memories in winter.

The trip back to the castle was not particularly long, but it was also not particularly pleasant. The snow had not been cleared away considering it was still snowing which meant his feet and legs were wet and cold by the time he made it to the nearest castle door.

 He wasn’t sure if, when he entered, the castle heating runes had started to work in earnest or if he’d just been so cold that any measure of warmth was appreciated, but he was relieved to be out of the snow either way.

He decided to check up on the progress of the castle staff lighting the fireplaces. With any luck, they’d be lit already, and he could warm up even more. That in mind, he headed towards the main foyer where the largest fireplace in the castle sat to take off the chill brought in by the large front doors.

 The main foyer was bustling with activity when he snuck in along the sides, giving the guards stationed around nods as he passed. The main fire in the room was burning brightly, though only one of the two smaller ones near the side exits from the room was lit. The other one was still being set up with safety mechanisms. It was good progress and assuming other areas of the castle were being set up as efficiently, he assumed they’d all be set up by nightfall.

He’d need to go check around to be sure, but for now, he walked up to the main fireplace to warm his hands.

 He’d gotten into the habit when he was younger to every so often glance upwards. There had been a certain stable boy who had a propensity for climbing trees. These days, he usually found nothing when he did so, often not even consciously noticing that he’d turned his gaze momentarily skywards. Yet, today, he was startled out of his own idleness by dark brown eyes looking back at him from a small ledge in the shadows high above him.

He froze as he met the young boy’s gaze. Virgil seemed as surprised to be caught as Thomas was to have caught him.

 Slowly Thomas raised one hand and waved to the boy. He slunk back into the shadows at the acknowledgment. If Thomas peered hard enough, he could see a shadow stretch up towards the third-floor balcony in the darkness and disappear over the railing.

Interesting boy.

Thomas found himself smiling despite the oddity. They still had not found out much about Virgil. He would speak to Jeffers about many things apparently, but often could not be redirected to invasive topics and he was still a bit skittish around Helen. He hadn’t willingly existed in a room with Thomas. Thomas hoped that changed at some point. There was something about him that made Thomas like him.

  Chapter 37

Virgil had not spent a lot of time out of Logan’s room. What little time he had spent outside of it was either with Patton and/or Logan or tucked away in secret corridors he found in the walls where no one would stumble upon him. Yet, here he was willingly in a, well, not public by any means place, but one that was still more exposed than he was used to being in. Somehow, he was managing to not care at all.

It was helped by the fact that both Logan and Patton had been in the room at the start, but they had gone off to go… somewhere. Food sounded like it might have been the reason.

 He liked food, and usually he would have been all for going to get some, but between them promising to bring him back some and the fact that he was never going to move ever again, he’d decided to stay.

Princess Marisol seemed to be the only other rational being in the whole castle because she had also not moved since discovering the contents of this room. She was currently laying on his chest purring happily.

The fireplace was a wonderful invention. Now, Virgil had, of course, warmed up by a fire before when it was cold, but this was much different. There was a grate that blocked off the fire a bit keeping it from burning the person in front of it and there was a plush rug right by it, perfect for laying down on. Someone had known what they were doing when designing this room.

 He didn’t even care that the king had access to this sitting room as well as Logan.

…

Okay, so he did care a little bit, but he was ignoring that. He was probably busy this time of day anyway, right?

…

He really didn’t want to run into him after being caught watching the castle workers set up the bigger fireplaces. Kings probably didn’t like people sneaking around watching things from the shadows even when they didn’t know that the person sneaking around was literally sent to kill them.

Princess Marisol must have had a sixth sense for his anxieties (or he’d just started breathing faster and disturbed her) because she stirred a bit.

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She started up a calming purr as she moved to gently kneed his chest. “That sort of hurts,” he noted idly as she dug her little paws into his sternum. She responded by purring more. He moved his arm to scratch behind her ear.

Virgil still was feeling a little bit anxious about the fact that he was out in the open, though he very much did not want to leave the room with the nice fire, and Patton and Logan would be back soon anyway. He should find some way to distract himself, and, well, the best way to distract himself was to investigate his environment, and it had the added benefit of making him feel safer.

 He carefully turned to his side to gently deposit Princess Marisol on the rug. She gave an insulted ‘mew,’ but quickly forgot her ire to sprawl across the ground with her belly to the fireplace. Virgil got to his feet and eyed the room as a whole.

It was fancy, to be sure, but a lot more homely than he’d expect to be in the royal wing. Logan’s bedroom was much more extravagant than this. It was closer to what he’d expect in the home of a financially stable, but not well-off family’s home both in contents and décor.

 There was a nice, but older looking couch that was probably older than Logan, perhaps even older than the king. It was huge though and comfy looking. It had two chairs that weren’t quite matching but were close enough and a table in front of it that had slightly chipped wood. A seemingly random set of pillows was on it, none quite matching the rest, but all sort of earthy browns and greens. There were bookshelves stuffed with books of all different shapes and sizes, and a giant painting of a turkey of all things over the fireplace. The fireplace itself was probably the fanciest thing in the room.

 Most of the fireplace was made out of bricks, though it had a wooden outline a good distance from the fire, and there was an ornate iron grate in front of it with pretty little leaf designs. On top of the mantle were little figurines that grabbed Virgil’s attention. They were small little wooden things carved into animals. Some were painted and some left the wood to be exposed. There were a good number of horses, but there were also things like rabbits and birds. There was even a few creatures Virgil did not recognize himself. They ranged in size from only about as big as his thumb to about as big as his hand.

 He leaned closer to take a better look at them, careful to keep his legs away from the hot iron grate, though he could still feel the intense heat from how close he was. He did not dare touch them. The room may seem like it did not belong in a castle, but it still was in one, and who knows how expensive or important the little figures were.

He settled his chin on the edge of the mantel, getting as close to the decorations as he dared, his eyes locked on a little robin that had been painted orange and grey with a bright yellow beak and eyes that almost looked alive.

 He spent a good minute staring at the wooden creature, before finally drawing back.

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” a voice asked, and Virgil just about jumped onto the ceiling, but there weren’t any good footholds, and the ceiling wasn’t very high besides and wouldn’t give much cover. “And that is why I waited until you stepped back,” the same voice said and perhaps it sounded a bit amused, but Virgil was not focusing on that.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, cringing back. Why did he always have to be screwing something up when the king came upon him. Why did the universe hate him?

 “Oh, it’s okay,” the king said. He was still by the door, having only paused outside of the room instead of coming in. “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

He certainly had been doing something wrong even if he was allowed to get that close to little things that seemed so fragile (which he almost definitely wasn’t) or be in one of the royal rooms without Patton or Logan in sight. Virgil had come here to kill this man even if he didn’t know it. He was an assassin in one of the private royal chambers. If the king had any idea, Virgil would be dead

 He made as though to take a step into the room, but he paused when he saw Virgil take a step back and grimaced. “I’ll, uh, just be going,” he said. “You can stay. You can look at the figurines all you want.”

Virgil looked at the man’s feet and didn’t say anything. He hoped he didn’t take that as an insult.

“Okay,” the king said. “Goodbye.”

He walked off then, likely to his own private room. When the footsteps faded, Virgil bent down to pick up Princess Marisol, who meowed her complaints at being pulled from the fire. He snuck quietly back into Logan’s room.

Logan and Patton found him in the closet 10 minutes later.

  Chapter 38

It was a bad day for Virgil. Now, Virgil had been skittish for the past few days ever since Patton and Logan had left him half asleep on the sitting room rug and came back to him crammed into a closet with Princess Marisol for company. He hadn’t told them what had happened, but obviously something had, and he’d been jumpy ever since. However, today seemed even worse.

The snow outside had only gotten thicker in the last few days since the first snowfall, and it had put Virgil’s anxieties through the roof. Often literally.

This morning, Logan had a meeting with his Dad, and so it was Patton’s job to coax the boy out of his closet. He’d reportedly slept in Logan’s bed but had stalked off to huddle in on himself in the closet as soon as Logan had had to get up.

 Patton entered Logan’s bedroom to a greeting meow from Princess Marisol. She, at least, was still in bed, happily perched on Logan’s pillow. “Oh, sweetie,” Patton said. “You know Logan doesn’t like cat hair on his stuff. She just purred happily, and Patton didn’t bother to push the issue any further. Instead, he turned to the closet.

He tapped twice. “Hey, Virgil, honey. Are you in there?” he asked, though he already was fairly certain of the answer.

There was a pause and then Virgil called back. “Yeah.”

“Can I open the door?”

A longer pause.

“Can I open the door long enough to join you in there?”

[letoscrawls]

Hiiiii

I hope you're doing well!

I would like to ask if u have and advise about starting and art account on insta. I have a small one here on tumblr but people say insta is better for art accs. So I just create an account and start posting? Or do I promote myself in some way, maybe taking dtiys and other challenges?

Thanks in advance:D

Hi! thank you so much for checking on me! :) 

okay, i get this question quite often and i wish i could give you solid advice, but the problem with instagram right now is its algorithm. when i started my account it wasn’t that fucked up, so i don’t really know how it is for new artists who have just started their accounts now! but i can tell you that it really affected every artist, even the bigger ones, so please keep that in mind. if you “fail” to reach your audience it’s not your fault, instagram is literally sabotaging artists and i don’t know for how long it’ll be “the best platform for art”. so just to warn all of you, i don’t want you to compromise your mental health for a social platform that makes money out of our stress and insecurities, i’ll try to share what i think could work because sharing art can be really rewarding and shouldn’t be an ordeal so i’d be happy to help somehow!!!!!

so this is the “algorithm tricks” part: 

when i first opened ig, i remember my stories were viewed by at least 100 people for the first two days even though i had less than 10 followers, so i think that’s instagram way to encourage you to keep posting, so my first advice would be to post your art in the stories too, at least for the first week or something?? now, i know the algorithm is currently promoting reels, so if you’re skilled with those go for it! make videos of your creating process and stuff like that. it’s important to inform your followers when you make a new post bc the chances of it being noticed are higher, you have to do the work bc ig won’t show that post to most of your audience (did i mention that i hate whoever made this algorithm?? yes??) i’m not really sure about this but i think ig prefers the reels you make with their set of editing tools instead of just uploading a pre saved video (i think it’s their way to sabotage those who post their tiktoks), i’ve never tried them so i don’t really know what they’re like, but i’m pretty sure tiktok is way better. i read somewhere that IGTV aren’t ig big thing anymore, so i don’t think you’d get much engagement from them. in general i’d say to always promote your posts in your stories and to wait at least an hour before editing a post bc i think you’ll lose engagement if you edit it right after posting (i know, it’s so stupid).

the use of hashtags is the only thing that i approve, because it’s an helpful tool made by social media before it got so bad and they really help you to reach more people (that’s like their purpose, i just wish there weren’t dozens of other stupid rules to follow in order to be noticed besides hashtags). so using tags like “art”, “artists on instagram” and “daily art” along with tags related to the pic you posted (like the name of the character or the fandom etc) is really helpful, just don’t use unrelated tags bc it’s annoying and idk how convenient it is :P the last thing is promoting your posts by using the sponsored feature; i never used that because i’d rather eat a slug than give money to instagram, but if you have the possibility and you are okay with that then you could try!

now for the “artsy” part

artists have found many ways to bypass the algorithm and keep the community alive over the years, challenges are probably the best way to do so! dtiys are awesome, not only they help you get more recognition, but they also make artists incredibly happy! i should host one very soon myself, i’m looking for a pose and an outfit to draw one of my ocs in, hopefully you’ll see it soon! i cannot explain how happy it makes me to see people draw a character of mine, and it’s great to see them in so many different styles, so i highly recommend dtiys! usually the artists who host them post the entries in their stories too, so yeah, you should definitely try those! there are other challenges like art vs artist, memes etc, it’s incredible how creative the community is despite all! and lastly, draw fan art! contributing to a fandom with your art is so cool, personally i prefer it over original content most of the time, i feel the need to share my point of view and to let out all the idiotic thoughts i have when i consume some kind of media so i’m really biased, but every artist is different, so don’t force yourself to do something if you don’t feel like doing it! drawing something you don’t particularly enjoy because you want to get recognition is gonna make you burnout REALLY BAD, trust me, i personally think that passion>effort, so never forget to put your enjoyment first!!!! 

okay this took me a while and i hope it was helpful! good luck!!! i definitely forgot something dskfjhis

[cat-soda]

generic commercialized holiday, but put hearts all over it

“Here. Chocolate. For Valentine’s Day.”

Mihael blinks once, twice. His eyes flicker from the candy bar —neatly wrapped in foil and paper that said Dear Mello in stylized penmanship— to his boyfriend’s face and back again. “You… you got me chocolate?!”

Nate nods. “Linda helped me, as I was having some difficulty with the recipe…” He holds out the candy bar a bit more insistently, blushing, eyes cast downward. Mihael’s mind short-circuits. “Take it.”

He’s still having some trouble processing the thought that Nate is giving him chocolate. “I.” He stops.

The other boy immediately pulls back, face suddenly blank. “You don’t want it?” He says it like it’s not a question. He says it like he thinks Mihael’s rejecting him.

Mihael panics. “I want it!” he replies just a tad too loud, drawing attention from other passersby at the park. But Nate relaxes, holds out the chocolate bar once more. 

“Oh. That’s good. Otherwise it would go to waste.” He’s smiling like that, with the slight tilt to his lips, bright eyes turned toward the ground looking some kind of mix between fond and shy and affectionate, and—

Mihael’s melting. He’s dying, clearly.

He reaches for it, tries his best not to turn red when their hands brush against each other, then lets out a quiet, “Thank you.”

Nate nods again, and then they stand together in awkward, pink-cheeked silence.

“Agh!” Mihael face-palms.

“...are you alright?”

Scratching roughly at his head with his free hand with a grimace, he responds, “I don’t— I didn’t get anything for you.” 

“Oh.” Nate considers for a moment, twisting a strand of hair with his finger. “I don’t mind. Just be sure to make it up to me.” He looks up at Mihael, tilts his head. “Okay?”

Mihael swallows around the sudden urge to scream his adoration for his boyfriend at the top of his lungs, and says, “Yeah, alright. Whatever.”

---

a/n: ah yes, we all love a good middle-school style romance lol. takes place in some kind of au where theyre normal kids living normal lives, and fumbling their ways through an adolescent love life, haha.

(uh. addendum? i wrote this before the meronia event was announced. like. way before. this has been in my queue For A While. so idk if i should still tag it as that????? and idk if i have time to do any of the other prompts tbh. soz. we’ll see. good luck to everyone participating tho!!!!!!!)

[milkcrates]

#ShowYourProcess (part 2!)

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

thank you to @recapitulation for tagging me! you can find her process post here for her lovely yunmeng siblings gif <3 (i love love love the peachy tone you went with!!)

and thank you also to @ashenlights for the tag– here's her process post for her lwj piece (so serene! so pretty! i love it)

i got tagged for this wangxian piece i did recently. process under the cut!

1. Planning

-i made this for @/jingyismom so she could use it as a header. consequently, this piece took more brainstorming than others; usually i have a vague idea and i'm like, 'oh i should draw this!' but this time, all i knew going into it was that it'd have to be long and narrow to work nicely as a header.

-idk why but i just. can't brainstorm/come up with ideas digitally. i do all my thinking and exploring in my sketchbook first and only start the digital step once i know exactly what i want to draw!

-the point of this step is just to get my thoughts out on paper, so it's,, not very aesthetic lmao (sincere apologies to hanguang jun's face.)

^ figuring out composition, light sources, clothing, etc

2. Creating

2.1 - choosing colours

-i don't have any screenshots of the sketch layer but i do have the rough colour picking stage!

-i pick colours before lineart. that way i get a better sense of what colours to use for the lineart (bc i don't use just 1 colour for lines). picking colours at this stage also just gives me a better idea of the whole vibe and whether it's going in the direction i want.

2.2 - lineart

-i wish i had a cleaner version of the lineart to show you but i coloured on the wrong layer for parts of this so. this is the best i can offer ahaha:

2.3 - painting

-once lineart's done, i colour it in using the colours i picked before. i have the rough colours in a layer called 'palette', colour-pick from there using the eyedropper tool, and do the neater colours in a separate layer.

-i open a new layer for EVERYTHING. highlights? new layer. shadows? new layer. little bit of extra detail that literally no one will see? new layer babey!! i merge them as i go, so i usually don't have too many layers all at once

-i also have a "notes" layer where i just write little notes to myself so i don't forget to do certain things:

-this stage is my favouriteeee god it's just. so meditative to colour everything and refine all the details, shadows, the shape of the light where it hits the objects.... OOF

-this is the stage where 3 hrs feels like 30 min. i am lowkey addicted to this feeling

-i don't have any screenshots of, like, smack-in-the-middle-of-the-process so. instead i'm giving you the ~vibes~

-then i do some colour adjustments, up the brightness bc everything i do is too dark at first, and...

3. Posting

-...and post!! no queue we die like over-caffeinated artists!

-i had to crop it a little for posting but the above is the full version. (also i'm realizing now you can tell i used my own hand as ref for the orange ones bc they're all... left hands... oops lmao)

-i had a lot of fun doing this piece and i'm kinda sad it's done :') but now i can tackle the rest of my wips so woohoo! there's always more cql brainrot where this came from

...and that's it!! thank you again to lexi and ashen for tagging me, i had fun going over the process for this! <333

i already tagged some ppl in my other process post, so i'll just leave this open to whoever sees it– if this looks like fun, pls consider yourself tagged!! i love to see other ppl's process!

[brooksdavis]

SHOW YOUR PROCESS

to continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

i was tagged by @swanthief to talk about this edit which !!! wow really one of my biggest labors of love. thank you so so much! i tagged a few friends below the cut.

planning:

so when evermore came out i was kind of obsessed with it moment one? and immediately put it in my notes to make a caskett edit about it. i was yelling about it to some castle friends who doubted me so i, spite fueled whether it’s spite (lovingly) or spite (fuck you-ly), in this case being the first one, immediately sought to prove my point. 

when i do lyric/quote edits i like to be as literal as possible with every single LINE so i after agonizing over which part of the song i would include (i wanted to have ‘you’re so much older and wiser’ so damn bad you have NO idea, ended up in the caption i’m sorry) and it really shows here.

i wait by the door like i’m just a kid / the first time kate comes to his door in s1

use my best colors for your portrait / one of the heat novels plus the murderboard castle made for kate

lay the table with the fancy shit / i think this is s5? or 6? idk but castle makes dinner and kate is busy sgksjg

and watch you tolerate it / in s5 when kate is questioning where their relationship is going

if it’s all in my head tell me now / idk the visuals of them leaning on each other  in 3.09 just really gets across their i like you but i act like i don’t vibes

tell me i’ve got it wrong somehow / their s5 fight when she went to dc and kept it a secret

i know my love should be celebrated / in s4 when he said i love you and kate didn’t CALL SCREAM

but you tolerate it / peak s1 annoyedness, shoutout to my boy the pilot

you get the gist for the rest of it lol

giffing/arrangement:

some fucking how this took me One Day. one day after figuring out scenes and separating the lyrics, technically, but for the level of batshit effort i put in there’s no way it should have. this was just after i had learned the old draw shape/smart object/clipping mask thing and blending so there is a WHOLE LOT of that. arrangement happened on the spot, i didn’t have a particularly visual goal in mind, which, i almost never do.

posting:

i’m a crackhead who posts things the fucking moment they are done and i’ve worked through all my folders so probably like 3 am.

wouldn’t recommend because there are two typos. “bylines” should be “byline” and “footprints” should be “footnotes” but it was LATE okay.

tagging:

@markcallans for this edit 

@zoya-nazyalenskys for this edit  

@mazykeen for this edit 

@inejz-ghafa for this edit

@fitzs for this edit

@redbelles for this edit

@sallysimpsons for this edit

feel free to ignore this if you don’t wanna because lord knows i’m terrible at these myself BUT i thought this was really fun, and y’all are some of the greatest creators i know, though i am blessed to know way too many!