#it looks so weird with the c now!

[kumeko]

A/N: For the Gravity Between Us Vol 2! These two are so awkward with each other, I just want to shove them in a closet to sort it all out.

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Someone knocked on the door. Ochaco jerked her head up at the sound, tearing her attention away from the book in her hand. It sat heavily on her lap, her finger still marking the paragraph she’d been reading. Around her, her office was as messy as ever. Her notes lay scattered across the floor, magical tools abandoned and forgotten in odd corners, and there were at least three different mugs of coffee perched on various pieces of furniture.

Another knock reminded her of just why she’d looked up. “C-coming!” she yelped as she sprang off her chair, her thick tome falling to her feet with a loud thud. She winced.

Through the wooden door, rand a familiar, muffled voice: “Are you okay?”

Izuku.

Ochaco tried and failed to tamp down her blush. It was just Izuku’s voice. It was an ordinary question. She hadn’t even seen him yet. Yet, for the life of her, she couldn’t help but react to it.

This crush was starting to get out of control.

“Yeah!” she shouted, praying he couldn’t hear the blush in her tone. Stumbling to the door, she pressed her cheek against the cool, firm surface, hoping it’d get rid of the red. Her heart beat like a drum. She breathed in. She breathed out.

And then, as calm as she was going to get, she opened the door with a wide smile. “I’m fine! But if you’re here…did you get injured again?”

A sheepish Izuku filled her sight. As usual, he still had some of his armour on. He must have rushed here straight from practice. It’d actually be stranger if he hadn’t; almost all of his training bouts ended in injuries. He got injured so often that her office was considered the third most likely place to find Izuku, right after the stables and the training grounds.

“Well…” Izuku rubbed his neck, embarrassed. He held up his right arm. His white sleeve was rolled up, revealing a series of cuts and bruises encircling his skin. “Just a little bit.”

Ochaco paled. Izuku always surprised her, in the best and worst of ways, and she didn’t think she’d ever get used to his training injuries. She reached for him, trying to tamp down on that little spike of nerves she got whenever Izuku was injured. How was he always so calm when he was hurt? “Oh my god.”

“It looks worse than it feels,” Izuku added, smiling nervously. Despite his words, she could make out a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, the slight wince as he lowered his arm, the way his jaw tightened as he breathed. The only good thing was that the cuts weren’t bleeding anymore, though red stained his shirt and smeared his skin.

Ochaco gritted her teeth. Pull yourself together! She had been training as an apprentice mage for a year, had been treating Izuku for months. This wasn’t the time to panic. “That’s an understatement!”

She stepped aside, ushering him in. Quickly, she cleared a spot for him to sit. Izuku knew the drill by now and promptly plopped down on the chair. As he unbuttoned his shirt, he apologized. “Sorry about this.”

“It’s not your fault you got hurt…” Ochaco trailed off before eyeing him suspiciously. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d overworked himself. “It’s not, right?”

He didn’t look her in the eye. His voice was guilt-ridden. “I…I’m not sure.”

She covered her face with a hand. There was a reason the head mage had stopped taking care of Izuku’s training injuries. There was a reason it had all been relegated to her. The man always came in once a week looking like he’d lost a fight. And that was a good week. “You’re not sure.”

“I…well…” Izuku scratched his cheek as he struggled to find the words. “I kinda got a new blessing, and I was trying to use it.”

Her head snapped up. “Another new blessing?”

“Yeah…” He averted his gaze as he shrugged. “It just came to me.”

Ochaco doubted that. The god’s blessings were usually limited to one per person. Few people unlocked theirs after childhood, fewer still that had multiple blessings. Yet Izuku had not just one, but three, and all gained after he’d joined the knights just last year. Even the great hero, the Almighty Sir Toshinori, only had one blessing.

He was hiding something. This was more than just being a late bloomer. Even if he hadn’t been a terrible liar, she’d have known that. Something in her ached at the thought—did he not trust her? Did he think she couldn’t handle it? Her lips parted to ask, but she forced the questions back down.

She didn’t want to pry. And there was something more important to deal with right now. Ochaco grabbed a jar of ink and her paintbrush. After dragging a stool closer to his seat, she sat down across from him. “You’re overworking yourself.”

“Not really.” He carefully pulled off his shirt, revealing a toned chest. Scattered across his skin were the remnants of other long-healed injuries. “I’m just starting as a knight and everyone else is miles ahead. I have to catch up.”

Ochaco stared at the murky black ink. The hardest part of taking care of him was sitting across from all of that and trying not to react. Forcing her hand to move, she dipped the brush in the ink and shifted her focus back to him. And his very, very attractive muscles. “You’re…you’re still overworking yourself. You need to rest sometimes.”

Good. Her voice didn’t come out weird. Her hand remained steady as she started to paint runes on his skin. Good. Good.

Izuku breathed in sharply. “I rest,” he replied, sounding oddly squeaky and strangled. His body stiffened.

Ochaco peeked up. Red dusted his cheeks—that was new. He had never reacted like that before. She’d have to ask him later about it. Hopefully, it didn’t have anything to do with her brush; at her skill level, she needed to draw these runes in order to heal. “You don’t,” she replied as she returned to her work.

“I do,” he protested.

“Not enough,” she disagreed firmly. She met his eyes with a hard glare. “Don’t lie.”

“That’s…sorry. I’ll do better.” Izuku coughed, clearing his throat. It still sounded unnaturally high. “Um…how’s your training?”

Ochaco chuckled as she sat back, setting aside the paint. “Well,” she drawled with a teasing smirk. “I’m really good at healing now.”

“Wh—” Izuku froze as he understood the implication of her words. He flushed, the red spreading all the way to his neck. “Sorry.”

She giggled. Part of her wanted to tease him more. Ochaco rested her palms on his chest and closed her eyes. “Maybe I should specialize in it. There’re too many spells to learn otherwise. I can’t memorize all the runes.”

Power welled up within her and flowed out of her fingertips, jumping to each of the runes like lightning rods. It left her with an oddly gentle, bubbly feeling. If only her attack magic worked just as well.

“I know you can do it,” Izuku reassured, and she almost opened her eyes at the sudden praise. “I’ve seen how hard you work.”

I’ve watched you too. The words remained locked in her chest. Part of her was afraid of ruining the careful balance they’d achieved. Another part of her was just afraid of rejection. She’d spent so long looking at him, she didn’t know where else to turn.

But if she stayed like this, nothing would change. Ochaco pulled away and clasped her hands in her lap. Steeling herself, she asked, “This Saturday, you’re off, right?”

“Saturday?” Izuku bit his lip as he pulled on and buttoned his shirt. After mulling it over, he nodded. “Yeah, there’s no training.”

“Do you have any plans?” She swallowed nervously. This was it. This was the question she’d been wanting to ask for months.

“Not exactly…” He crossed his arms, thinking about it. “I mean, I could train—”

“No. Training.” Ochaco ground her teeth, shooting him a glare. Exhaling softly, she fiddled with her fingers. “There was this field I told you about, remember? The one with the herbs? I was…thinking of going there and—and do you want to come with?”

Izuku stared at her blankly. When his silence became almost unbearable and she was just about to poke him, he sat up straighter and nodded. “S-sure. You wanted to collect those herbs for a while, right?”

“Y-yeah.” That wasn’t quite what she meant, and she felt both disappointed and elated. “So you’ll come?”

He gave her a thumbs up. “Definitely!”

It wasn’t what she had intended, but it was still a date of sorts. Ochaco smiled brightly. It was a step forward, and she’d take it.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[chiropteracupola]

He’s red and he’s white and he’s green and he’s grey / My bonny young dragon, come hither away...

Keith Windham and Nuntius, out of Luzula's stunning Flight of the Heron/Temeraire crossover fic 'The Flight of Dragons.'

[andy-clutterbuck]

[howldean]

should i actually commit to buzzing my hair

[sashabarkovonly]

GOD HE MAKES SO WEAK - 😫

[trash-bin-ary]

HEY

🫵 YOU

Sit up while you eat. Drink fast, chew slow. Savor it. Stay safe.

Ah! okay

[crownrots]

last night episode really got me thinking about elsa and rhaenys’ relationship, both when rhaela was alive and after she passed and rhaenys and corlys took her in (bc why wouldn’t they 🤡 … uncle daddy and auntie step mom). It’s such a tumultuous ride tho … rhaenys initially harboring ill will towards her because she’s technically corlys’ first born to being incredibly instrumental in raising her bc she KNEW her sister’s time with her was going to be short.

i ran out of tags to tag spoilers so: h*td spoilers dawgs for last nights hour of torture.

rhaenys, even if she didn’t show it as much, thought of Elsa as her own and Elsa, despite not showing it, always looked to her for the mother she was robbed of far too soon. The two argued like a parent and child might, the flew their dragons together, laughed and drank and mourned with one another.

But there was always a little sting, a little bit of resentment especially after Laena and Laenor passed, because while her only two children perished… Corlys’ child still lived and thrived and she always had to remind herself that Elsa wasn’t privy to her lineage. Only thought Corlys’ treated her as a daughter because that was expected of him as her aunt’s husband.

It’s not until everything is really laid out in the open that she’s able to let go of that little chip on her shoulder, to let it fall away so she can fully remember and realize the promise she had made to her sister on her death bed all those years ago; she has done far more for elsa than even SHE realized.

and then THIS happens … and the fact that they don’t even get to say goodbye. the fact that the last time they saw each other rhaenys was only catching a glimpse of her hauling ass north because something had gone amiss once jace departed from there. she never got to tell her just how much she loved her and loved raising her. that any anger or resentment or callousness she showed her at ANY point of her life had been ill placed and accidental. she never got to REALLY tell her how proud of her she was. how much of a privilege it had been to raise her up into the woman and mother she had become. she definitely does not see her late sister when she looks at her, but rather sees herself.

and when elsa returns, and in her grief goes to the alter by the tide pools that she’s visited far too often in her lifetime she absolutely loses it. while normally she’d have whittled a piece of wood to look like who she had lost, she stands there and just looks at the line of pieces that are already there; her mother, her grandmother, aemma, laena, laenor, viserys, luke, and her own son, rickon…she can’t put rhaneys there, she just can’t.

and in her grief and rage she destroys it, destroys the one place of peace she’s had all those years. destroys her once place of reflection and one place she could grieve uninterrupted. she rips the alter of driftwood and stone apart with her bare hands, knuckles bleeding.

it’s not a place of remembrance or reflection. it’s a glaring reminder of everything and everyone she’s lost. the empty spaces, a place holder for who might have an effigy placed there next; her husband, her daughters, her only remaining son, her nieces, her nephews, her queen and cousin, her father … the list goes on.

and all the while her dragon watches, feeling every ounce of her grief tenfold, and it’s unlike the kind she’s shared with her before. but when it’s all said am done, just like when elsa was fourteen and had lost her mother, frosteye lifts one opal wing, battle scars from them turning the tide in north still healing, and invites her under. and elsa accepts just as she did before, crawling beneath the wing, sand singing her split knuckles, drawing herself into a fetal position and weeping like a babe.

but she knows rhaenys isn’t coming to check on her like before. she knows frosteye won’t chortle and shift at the high valaryian spoken so softly and clearly to calm her upon approach.

she’s surrounded by so many, needed by so many. but she’s never felt so alone in rhaenys’ absence.

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

This big boy took almost 14 hours (!!) which I think is about the longest I've spent on an art piece

[bunnihearted]

🐇☀️☁️🍦

[unproduciblesmackdown]

billions also comedy gold presenting winston as a scapegoat for abuse culture fans when it's like but hey it can't be actual scapegoating if you Enjoy It or consider it Justified or experience Reassurance from Its Opportunity For A Group Cohesion Substitute For A Cohesion Based On An Inherent Equal Degree Of Belonging, The Absence Of Which Allows For, Encourages, Reinforces, & Rewards Scapegoating

it can't be Bullying if someone's Weird or you Just Don't Personally Like Them or Nobody's Actually Stopping You, Maybe At Least If They Don't See Too Much Of It, Maybe Others Are Supporting It

it can't be Abuse if you're just doing things Normally or are Following Rules or Aren't Feeling Malicious And Aren't Getting Divine Revelations Otherwise and probably it's just that a lot of abnormal people are being whiny &/or unfair &/or the Real malicious ones. kinda just like how that scapegoat is the real person ruining everything and really just forcing you to treat them like this

[mariocki]

New Scotland Yard: The Come Back (1.2, LWT, 1972)

"This wasn't a sudden impulse. It was deliberate and calculated. He had to break in to get at the old man, and then - well, you saw what he did to him. I don't know if he's a psycho or not, but I do know he's a sadist and I know what treatment I'd hand out."

"Yeah, I can guess."

"It's the only way."

"You've a right to your opinion, just don't try and convert me."

"I wouldn't dream of it, I know what you think."

"I think it's just as well your job ends when we catch him."

[hollyhomburg]

wow not me being like "i don't think i'll be able to update next saturday 😞" and then literally writing 3.5k in one sitting. i'm not committing to anything or not saying i won't update but 😭 this just got alot easier to work on, the foundation of this chapter is like- ah so cute~

[chiropteracupola]

Who Accumulated All This Fuckin Shite Ribbon (it was me)

[andy-clutterbuck]