#it’s literally on lined paper with a bad pencil

[vegasporschetruther]

absolutely insane abt this by @poorly-drawn-mdzs

[lexiputellas]

Fractured Pieces - From the Broken Vows series

The dining table is a battlefield of school supplies.

Pencils roll dangerously close to the edge, erasers are scattered across the wooden surface, and Nora’s workbook is flipped open to a page she’s half-heartedly working on. You already know how this will end—she’ll finish her assignment, push her chair back, and run off without a second glance at the mess.

Then, you’ll call her back. She’ll groan. You’ll ask again. She’ll groan louder. You’ll threaten no screen time. She’ll sigh dramatically and say, 'Mom, in a minute! I’m playing.'

You already know the script.

Right now, though, she’s pretending to concentrate, tongue poking out slightly as she grips a red pencil and presses it into the paper a little too hard. You watch her from across the table, chin resting on your hand.

"Nora, careful. You’re going to rip the page."

She loosens her grip but doesn’t look up. "I know."

You hide a smile. She’s stubborn, just like her other mom.

For a few blissful moments, the only sound is the faint scratch of her pencil against paper. It’s peaceful, almost.

Then—

"Mom?"

There’s something about the way she says it that makes you pause.

"Yeah, baby?"

She finally lifts her head, eyes wide, brows scrunched together in that serious way that makes her look too grown for her little face.

"Why isn’t Mama here anymore?"

The question slams into your chest like a freight train.

You choke. Literally choke. Air catches in your throat, and for a second, all you can do is blink at her, heart pounding.

"What do you mean, baby?" You force a smile, keeping your voice light. "Mama’s always here."

Nora’s lips press together in a tight line. She’s not buying it.

"No, she’s not. You don’t sleep in the same bed anymore."

Your stomach twists.

"Abi said you and Mama are breaking up. She said that’s what happens when parents don’t love each other anymore."

Your jaw clenches.

"Abi said that?"

Nora nods, playing with the corner of her workbook. "Yeah. Her parents don’t live together anymore, so she knows stuff. She said first you stop sleeping in the same room, then one moves out, and then… then they don’t love each other anymore."

There’s an ache in your chest so sharp it’s hard to breathe.

"Sweetheart," you start gently, reaching across the table to brush a curl from her face. "That’s not what’s happening, okay?"

Nora’s nose scrunches. "Then why doesn’t Mama sleep here?"

You hesitate—too long. She notices.

"She just… needed to stay closer to training and the city for a little while," you lie.

It’s a bad lie. Even you don’t believe it.

"Then why can’t we live there too?"

You open your mouth, then close it again.

"Because… her apartment is small. It wouldn’t fit all of our stuff, would it?"

Nora stares at you. Unblinking.

"But it’s just for now," you add quickly, too quickly.

She tilts her head, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to work out a puzzle with missing pieces. You can see the gears turning in her little head, the doubt creeping in.

You swallow. This is going to come back and bite you. You know it will.

After a long moment, she looks down, dragging a finger over the edge of the page.

"Is it going to take long?" she asks quietly. "For her to come back?"

Your heart shatters.

"No, baby," you whisper, stroking her hair. "It’s going to pass faster than you think."

She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t believe you. You don’t either.

"I miss her," she murmurs. "Iris misses her too."

Your throat tightens.

"I know," you say, and it’s the most honest thing you’ve said all night.

She doesn’t push anymore. Just nods, picks up her pencil, and goes back to her homework. But the mood has shifted. There’s a weight in the air that wasn’t there before.

You glance at the clock. It’s late.

"Finish this last part, and then we’ll clean up, okay?" you say, trying to steady yourself.

"Can’t you do it?" she groans.

"Nope." You stand, stretching. "Your homework, your responsibility."

She huffs, slumping over the table dramatically. "Ugh. Fine."

You don’t answer, already walking toward the kitchen, heart still pounding. You grab the baby monitor, checking the screen. Iris is curled up in her bed upstairs, one tiny fist resting against her cheek.

She’s been clinging to you more than ever lately. So much so that even her naps are restless unless she knows you’re nearby.

You exhale slowly.

Maybe therapy wouldn’t be a bad idea. For them. For you.

Your phone sits on the counter, screen dark now, but you remember the morning—

Alexia had called earlier, just after breakfast. You had picked up.

"Hey," she had said, voice careful, almost too soft. "I wanted to talk about Nora’s birthday. What are we getting her?"

You kept your voice even. "She wants a new bike. Says her old one is too small now."

"Yeah, I remember her saying that," Alexia murmured. There was a pause, then— "Do you want to pick it out together?"

You blinked, caught off guard. That wasn’t what you expected.

"Uh… if you want."

"I think we should," she said, her voice careful. "I mean… it’s her birthday. We should do this together."

The words made your stomach twist. They were reasonable. Too reasonable. Like she was trying too hard to sound normal.

You hesitated. You didn’t want to do this with her. But you had to.

"Yeah," you said finally. "Okay."

"Okay," she echoed, softer this time. Then, "And what else? What should we get her?"

You exhaled slowly, pressing two fingers against your temple. "She’s been asking for more art supplies. I was thinking of putting together a little kit."

"That’s a good idea," Alexia said. Then, after a beat, "Maybe we can pick those out together too?"

There was something about the way she said it. Careful. Testing the waters.

You didn’t want to. Not really.

"If you want."

"I do."

Silence stretched between you, long enough that you could hear your own pulse in your ears.

"How is she?" Alexia asked. "And Iris?"

"They’re good," you said, even though good wasn’t the right word.

Another pause.

"And you?"

The question felt dangerous. Too close to something you weren’t willing to touch.

"I’m fine," you answered, because anything else would be too much.

Alexia hesitated again, like she was on the verge of saying something more.

"Can I pick you up tomorrow morning? We can go together."

Your stomach twisted again, this time sharper. No. That was your first instinct. But then you thought about Nora, about the way she still checked the front door at night, as if hoping Alexia might walk through it.

"I’ll drive there," you said instead. "We can meet at the mall."

There was a slight pause before she responded, hesitant. "Okay."

You swallowed hard.

A million thoughts raced through your mind, all leading to the same realization—tomorrow, you’d have to see her. Spend time with her. Go through the motions.

You weren’t ready. But you’d do it anyway.

For Nora. For Iris.

Because that’s just what you do.

[satorurize]

𐙚 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄¡!

cw. 18+ flithy smut, Sub!Gojo, Dom!Reader, Enemies to lovers, gojo is a virgin and the word loser is used a lot.

AcademicRival!Satoru believed he'll have a merry time getting paired with you for your upcoming assignment, afterall, you were fun to pick on and he adored the way the vein would pop on your forehead after he says something to completely throw you off the tracks. His plan was to make you do all the work while he gets on your nerves to pass his time.

Satoru prides himself in being jack of all trades, he's the captain of the collegiate basketball team, student body president, has 4.0 GPA in his astrophysics major and is on the dean's list, his stunning good looks were to kill for and to add to those never ending positive attributes he's filthy rich, if it wasn't so obvious by his sports car's raging engine whenever he drifts it around in the campus. Gojo Satoru was a star. Gojo Satoru was game.

Admirers and people lining up for him was no big of a deal, it is the routine when you're him. You're one of the many people who find him fascinating, find him attractive (which was something you would never admit to, even if a ceiling fell over you) but still, why was he shaking his legs underneath the table while he watches the furrow of your brow focused on the screen in his dorm room? He's way too distracted to read this paper about Aesthetics and Marxism—he only took up sociology because it was a humanities requirement within his course and also because he was utterly, out of his mind bored.

Feeling the burning gaze of his abnormally blue eyes, you slam your fist onto the table and anyone who was in their right mind would be able to decipher that your expression was twisted in unfiltered annoyance, the mask of a small, pleasant smile as your veins popped on your forehead was failing miserably. "We could get a lot done if you didn't think this was a staring contest"

"Wow, really? I did think it was a staring contest with how boring all this is" He mocked knowing it would only agitate you further, his eyes shamelessly trailed over the plushness of your thighs and how the skirt fabric sat on top of it, his thoughts were digressing, wondering about the colour of your pant—

"What are you looking at, pervert..?" You point it out to break the unholy chain of his thoughts immediately, his eyes widened by being caught off-guard, evading away to focus on the papers in front of him, lasering his eyes to aim at understand at whatever 'Russian constructivism' meant, his fist gripped the pencil tighter and tighter as he felt unbelievably panicked at being caught, the trance of embarrassment breaking away along with a sharp 'snap' of the pencil.

With a faltering attempt to maintain his cockiness, Satoru looked at you. "Just looking at how much of a loser you look, even broke a pencil because it's annoying how nerdy you dress" a painful roll of his eyes followed by, but his ventures to cover the way he felt were too poor and what was the parameter? The goddamned seductive smile on your pretty lips.

Gojo Satoru was game, but he was a fucking virgin.

"Lying is not going to save your ass, I can literally see the tent in your pants, what are you..a teenager..?" The mockery in your eyes and the superiority you had over him in that very moment was enough to make him let go of his guards and feel his knees buck. You were beautiful and he was so pathetically down bad for that.

"Unlike you, I have many things to excel at..who has time for something as stupid as this anyway" You had to give some kudos for the fact that his voice remained balanced despite the throbbing erection in his pants, and you made a face with slanting pursed lips that was to show him you believed him, although anyone could tell you didn't.

"what is with that face? You think you're better than me? What do you know about sex, having your cute nose burried in those stupid books all day.." And that statement makes you raise your brow, Satoru Gojo, called you cute? This was something, this was when he knew he messed up and you had all the power.

"Why don't I show it to you then? You wanna be a loser in this one area? Come on.. you're better than that, right?" Satoru gulped, the offer was beyond tempting, all those fantasies he ran his mind for while wrapping his hand around his cock in his dark dorm room, relieving himself while yearning for the warmth for your mouth and cunt—finally had the chance to be fleshed out to life. It was tempting indeed but what about his ego?

"Sure, I bet you suck at this too" He huffed a laugh with his faux confidence, only to be miserably proved wrong within a few minutes.

"Please— fuck! Your mouth feels so good.." He breathed heavily with an almost violent rise and fall of his chest, his legs sprawled wide as he was on the couch of his room and you, his beautiful arch-nemesis was skillfully using his cock like it was your personal toy. Satoru didn't feel he was being sucked off for his pleasure, he was being sucked off to be proven of the fact that you were in control here.

He reached his trembling hands to tangle within your locks as you let a thick glob of your spit fall onto his tip with a grin, tantalisingly rubbing it on your glossed lips. "Better than your stupid fist right?" And he moans at that degradation, his eyes marbeling with glassy tears, your pride swelled more than anything.

"Ever seen tits in real life? Or are you that much of a loser to have Inoue Waka as your wallpaper.." You teased further, unbuttoning your blouse and unfastening your bra from the front to spill out your breasts and Satoru's brain simply short circuits the moment the cushiness of your tits gather around his cock and he feels the tightening sting on his abdomen, dripping out loads of his cum onto your tits, painting you like the masterpiece you were with thick ribbons of his ejaculate.

You hum, licking a long strip from his base, swirling your hot tongue around his softening, sensitive frenum as he is limp by the pleasure.

"There's no way you're this good.." He spoke, almost sounding as if something unbelievable happened, almost angry.

"Such a good boy 'Toru.." You giggle in response, kissing his abdomen and he feels pathetically, helplessly in love with you.

Gojo Satoru was game, but you were a roulette.

[fairyhaos]

❖ moonstruck // kim mingyu

mingyu x f!reader, 2.2k+ words

tags: sculptor!mingyu, muse!yn, pining, ambiguous relationship, fluff, angst, mingyu is Down Bad

notes: title + vibes taken from moonstruck by enhypen cz it fits the feel that i was going for :P forgive me bc i know nothing ab sculpting/muses but i just had to write a fic where yn is devastatingly gorgeous and this js fit so well <3 happy valentines day!

summary: mingyu is a sculptor, and you are his muse.

When Mingyu arrives at his studio that morning, he finds you already there, lounging around like you own the place.

"Oh, sweetheart, you're late again. What's it gonna take for me to make you finally come on time? A kiss, maybe? A promise of a date?" You smile at him mischievously, eyes glittering in the morning light.

You're watching him amusedly, arms tucked behind your head, resting comfortably on the sofa on the other end of the studio. This is not necessarily a surprising sight: despite the fact that you do not, actually, own the place, it’s still common for you to be there before he arrives, playing with the various clay creations lining the walls or dangling your feet over the edge of the sofa, waiting for him to clock in for the day.

Mingyu scrunches his nose, and does not respond to the latter half of what you said.

“I’m really not late,” he says, setting down his bag and hanging his coat up by the door. “You’re just early.”

You hum contemplatively, kicking your feet out and crossing your ankles over the armrest on the other end of the sofa. The cracking, coppery leather grumbles discontentedly at your movement, but you hardly notice, stretching leisurely like a cat.

“Maybe. Or maybe time is a construct, and neither of us are early or late.”

Mingyu blinks at you, tilting his head. “It’s not even 10. Let’s not talk philosophy until at least 3 in the afternoon, please.”

You laugh at that, silvery and light, watching from your place on the sofa as Mingyu begins setting up his sculpting supplies for the day. 

“Whatever pleases you, my dear Mingyu,” you say, words lilting melodically with teasing. “As your muse, it’s my duty to be as pleasing to you as possible, after all.”

Mingyu just rolls his eyes, used to your teasing. “Of course,” he says dryly. “Though I’m afraid it’s debatable just how good you are at that, though.” He laughs when you huff in indignation, before pulling out his sketchbook. “You saw the sketches I sent you last night, right? Is there anything you want to comment on, or should we start right away?”

───────────── 🏛

You are Mingyu’s muse.

It sounds horribly cheesy, and definitely makes you sound like the romantic interest in some sort of historical-royal-heart wrenching-romance-novel, but he literally means you’re his artistic muse.

This wasn’t always the case. You weren’t always solely his—a few years back, you’d simply been one of the hired models for a class he’d taken back at university. But he’d been utterly mesmerised by you, and so in awe of your beauty that it must have shown on his face, because you’d always catch his eye as he worked, an elusive little smile in your eyes, like you knew exactly how he felt. 

And then one thing led to another, and suddenly he was meeting you outside of classes, and then he was seeing you even when that particular project had finished, and then he was still sculpting you after he’d graduated, and then, and then, and then…

And then here he is, now. 

It’s still something he can’t wrap his head around, even so many years later. How these one-on-one sessions started. How you became his official muse.

“This better turn out amazing, because my arm’s cramping up really badly right now,” you say, voice strained from having your head tilted back for so long, and Mingyu laughs.

“You’re the one who suggested this position,” he says, pencil lightly tracing your form onto paper. “I don’t think you get the right to complain.”

“I have plenty of right to complain,” you argue, opening one eye to glare at him. Mingyu just grins toothily back. “Ugh, whatever. Just hurry up, okay?”

“Hey, you can’t rush art,” Mingyu teases, but he finds his fingers complying anyway, taking longer, sweeping arcs of graphite against the page. He’s almost finished, anyway, with this pose being a lot easier than some others that he’s put you in before. Yet in some ways, it’s going to be even harder for him to complete.

He has you wrapped in swathes of silk, sat on the floor with your legs out in front of you, the cream fabric slipping off your shoulder slightly. You’re leaning back on one arm, the side of your head resting on your shoulder, face tilted upwards as if soaking in the sunlight, eyes shut and eyelashes fluttering gently against your cheeks.

The long, horizontal line of your body makes this a relatively easier art piece than ones he’s attempted before, and while the folds of silk are going to be tricky, that’s not what he’s worried about.

You look so… delicate. 

“Okay, let’s take a break,” Mingyu says, when he sees your arm beginning to shake. It’s not a hard pose, but he knows that keeping one position for too long puts strain on the best of people.

You groan with relief, relaxing your arm and flopping to the floor. “Thank God. Any longer and I would’ve definitely collapsed. Turned into a heap on this floor.”

Mingyu hums, adding further details to his sketch. “I think you already did. Don’t worry, sweetheart, you look pretty even as a heap on the floor.”

He can almost hear your eye roll, and he laughs, looking up from the paper to take in your disgruntled expression, only for the laughter to catch in his throat.

There’s no sign of annoyance on your face, and now he’s looking at you, he doubts you rolled your eyes either. Instead, your expression is strangely unreadable, eyes half-lidded, strands of hair falling across your face like curls of ribbons, lips softly pursed. Lying on the floor like that, hair and silk pooling around you as you blink slowly at him, you look like some sort of nature deity, watching him and observing countless things that Mingyu can hardly even begin to understand.

You’re gorgeous. 

Mingyu knows this—it’s why you’re his muse—but the realisation always makes his heart stick in his throat when he remembers. 

You’re still looking at Mingyu, gaze as dark as molasses, smoky and sweet and pulling him in, making his hands shake and his pulse sound loudly in his ears.

And then you smile, cheeky and playful once more.

“Oh, thank you so much, I’m glad you think so, honeybun,” you say, full of mock-relief, and Mingyu has to blink to remember what you’re thanking him for. “I knew I could always count on you to find me beautiful.”

You dramatically fling your arm over your eyes as you say this, the perfect image of a romantic, distressed maiden having their feelings reassured by the hero, before peeking out from under the back of your hand to flutter your lashes and smile at him.

And Mingyu knows this is an act, that this is just you teasing, but it’s a lot more difficult to tell that to his heart.

“What’s for lunch, by the way?” you ask, taking your arm away from your face. “I’m hungry.”

Mingyu swallows thickly, avoiding your gaze, not wanting you to see every thought written across his face. “It isn’t even lunch time yet. Why are you already hungry?”

“Hey, don’t deny me my right to eat,” you complain, subconsciously smoothing down the silk that’s wrapped around your body. Mingyu sighs internally, already anticipating the hassle he’s going to have to go through to get the folds to sit how they were before. “Modelling for you is hard work, you know.”

Mingyu just hums dryly. “Whatever you say. Unfortunately, break time’s up now, so you’re gonna have to eat later.”

You whine in annoyance, but make no move to resist when Mingyu stands up, walks over and begins rearranging the silk around you again. “Fine. For the sake of art, I guess I’ll go hungry. I’ll be the true tortured artist, or something.”

“Quit the dramatics. We’ll eat when it’s actually lunch time.”

“How about in ten minutes’ time?”

“No.”

“Twenty?”

“No.”

“Fine. You drive a hard bargain, Kim Mingyu.”

───────────── 🏛

So what exactly is it about you that made you his muse?

It’s a question that Mingyu gets asked a lot. By his parents, by his customers, by his friends: none of whom can ever truly understand what a muse is when it comes to art.

You’re not just a really pretty person. To Mingyu, you are—everything. You are beauty, passion, vivacity, intricacy, warmth, cold, colour, light, dark, fear, danger, happiness, love. Looking at you makes his heart twist in his chest, makes his head feel faint and dizzy, makes his eyes burn like he’s been staring right at the sun.

He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how. But being with you, looking at you, makes him feel so heart-wrenchingly alive, skin buzzing with the need to carve your visage onto paper, into clay, into stone, to keep you with him forevermore.

It shouldn’t be possible for one simple human to make him feel like this. And yet…

Mingyu has to pause from where he’s bent over your face, the proximity and his thoughts making his hands begin to shake. It’s not actually your face that’s in front of him right now—rather, it’s your face that he’s currently chiselling out of marble—but even just thinking of you and being inches away from something that he’s making to look just like you causes him to act like this. 

But there’s just something so terrifyingly intimate about his craft, about bringing your features out from cold stone, breathing life into the lifeless. 

“Why do you do what you do?” you’d asked him once, back when he was still at uni, back before you were his official muse, and he was struggling through charcoal sketches for an assignment he’d been putting off for days. That was, until you’d offered to model for him, and suddenly, the ideas flowed smoothly onto the page. 

(You’ve always been his muse, since day one.)

He’d looked up from his smudged fingers, watching you sit in front of him, backlit by the soft sunlight streaming in from the window. It made you look like you were glowing, gentle light emanating from your skin in a delicately beautiful way. Not as blinding as the sun, but something softer.

Moon-like.

You take his breath away, and Mingyu had ended up stuttering out some ridiculous answer that he can’t even remember anymore, but thankfully, you seemed to accept it, going back to posing in the pensive position you’d been in before.

If he were to answer the question now, without you here to steal all his words, the answer would be rather simple.

Because he loves it.

Carefully, Mingyu brushes a dusty finger over the jagged profile he’s carved into the marble. The edges are too sharp, the slope of your cheek too unrefined, but Mingyu’s heart only swells in anticipation and adoration for what he knows the finished product will resemble. 

It’s electrifying, seeing what he can bring to life. Like a mad scientist, an obsessed genius, he wonders how far he can go. What things he can make with his bare hands.

Whether he can truly make something that is so very you.

You’d been here earlier to model some more, but you’re gone now, busy meeting up with friends. You don’t normally come in to pose once he has a project fully underway, but he always asks you to come when he starts doing the face properly. Just in case he gets anything wrong.

(It’s all an excuse to spend more time with you, however. He knows your face so well from how often it’s appeared in his dreams, and from how it's carved in his brain.)

“Please try to make it a little bit like me, this time,” you’d teased, eyes shining like twin stars. 

Mingyu had simply laughed, waving you off. “Come on, my sculptures always look plenty like you.”

“Nonsense. None of them ever come close to the absolute perfection that I am.”

It had been a joke, but Mingyu had found himself looking up as you gave him a wave and then walked out without a second glance. He’d watched you go, watching the trail of moonlight you left behind in your wake, soft-scented and silver-lined.

There’s some truth to your words, however. Nothing he’s made has ever come close to perfectly replicating the warmth of your skin, the sweetness of your smile, the light that you exude just by simply being.

You’re so magnetic, a bewitching push-and-pull he can't back out of, endlessly drawing Mingyu in towards you like he’s hopelessly locked in your orbit and cannot even think of breaking away. 

That kind of thing is near-impossible to replicate. But, if it’s for you…

“This time, I’ll get it,” he promises to the empty studio. His words ring about the room like a bell, reverent and full of conviction.

Mingyu looks down at your half-finished face, still rough around the edges, but the curve of your lips looking oh-so smooth. With a shaking hand, he traces over the shape of your mouth, imagining how soft your real lips would be, how the tip of his thumb would press into the plushness of it.

Would you let him press his lips to yours in this way? Would you accept such an act of devotion?

Or would you slip away from his grasp, elusive as moonlight, ghosting over his senses before disappearing without a trace?

He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know.

Swallowing down his heart, Mingyu takes his hand away from your face, avoids your eyes, and carries on with his work.

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @kellesvt @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @starshuas @raevyng @isabellah29 @hrts4hanniehae @mcu-incorrect @dokyeomkyeom @suraandsugar @tulsa24 @melodicrabbit @dokyeomkyeom @hopeless-foolery

[canthelpit0]

Silent

Pairing: Matt x reader

Wordcount: 1.8k +

Summary: you’ve always quietly watched the triplets, silently wishing you could be a part of a group like them. Until you and Matt talk for the first time…

Warnings: selective mutism, anxiety, crying, angst, praise, no use of y/n, no oc

(Disclaimer: I’m not mute in any way. This was a request from an anon that I accidentally deleted. Hope you like it ! Requests are open)

I developed selective mutism pretty early on. My mom says that I didn’t talk even back in kindergarten.

But it’s been years now.

I can talk, and I can’t shut the fuck up for the life of me. I talk a lot, even have full conversations with myself.

Just not at school, or around new people. God, especially not in school.

It’s not like I want to be the ‘ weird’ mute kid. I would love to talk and make friends, I just physically can’t open my mouth and talk.

It even took months for me to utter simple words to my therapist, tho by this point I’ve known her for years and I’m pretty comfortable.

There are these triplets in my grade. We’ve always gone to the same school, but I don’t think they ever noticed me.

Well the first time I noticed them was in first grade, because there were three of them. Of corse my six year old self didn’t understand the concept of multiples back then, and I really wanted to ask, and talk to them. I really thought they were cool.

The first time I interacted with any of them tho was when I was in fourth grade and Nick had asked to use my dark green pencil since he only had light green and needed both dark and light.

Back in fourth grade I wasn’t just selectively mute, but also really shy. So I’d just looked down and stared at the desk giving him a small nod.

In freshmen year I shared a class with Nick again, he asked me for a pen, wich I gave to him.

Despite not having talked to him once in my entire life, he remembered my name. Wich isn’t too shocking since we’ve always been around each other, I was just kinda in the shadows.

He actually gave me that pen back. Most other people would’ve forgotten and just taken it, but Nick didn’t and I appreciated that.

I only ever interacted with Nick those two times. despite sharing a few classes with both Chris and Matt over the years, I’ve probably never even held eye contact with either of them.

I’ve been watching everyone.

Bullying isn’t really a thing. Sure there were some hurtful comments by jocks here and there but it really wasn’t as bad as in the movies.

Besides I think most people forget i even exist so they don’t even bother bullying me.

I’ve had my eye on Matt for a while. Not in a weird way. But Matt seems to pretty obviously have anxiety too. I don’t know if he’s open about it, I’m not in his friend circle.

But every time I’m feeling overwhelmed and we’re in the same room, I unconsciously glance at him to see if he feels the same or if I’m just going crazy.

Chris seems to be the loudest and most extroverted one. And while yes, Nick seems pretty extroverted too, Chris seems more… random? Bold?

I sulk in the back of the class my lips pulled into a tight line as I try to get myself together.

There is literally no reason for me to be feeling like this. Honestly no one has tried to talk to me today, nothing happened, I just feel so overwhelmed.

I raise my hand just slightly. I make eye contact with the teacher. Mrs. Evans. I literally love her, she’s so kind.

Her son is apparently mute too.

When I was diagnosed with selective mutism they thought it’d be a great idea to make me learn sign language just in case, and that’s just what I did.

Since Mrs. Evans son is mute, her son, as well as her and her husband also learned sign language.

So whenever I needed something I could sign to her. Not that I wouldn’t be too embarrassed too.

Our eyes lock. Everyone was working on some paper I should also be doing, but I’m too busy hyperventilating.

I let my hand drop on my desk and glance at the door quietly asking if I can go to the nurses office since I was too tired and ashamed to sign it to her.

She gives me a pitying smile but nods. I hate pity, but then again that’s better than getting told im faking.

I look around the class of students. I get up, as quiet as I can. I pack up my little stuff and quietly walk to the front of the class. I nod in appreciation and walk outside.

I stare at the ground while I walk down the hallway. I sigh.

I feel my eyes start to water and I bite the inside of my cheek.

Honestly I should probably go to the nurses office to get checked out, just so I can leave. But I don’t think I can handle communicating with another human.

I feel like I’m about to break down. I continue to walk down the hallway clutching the straps of my bag harshly.

I consider if driving home even is a good idea seeing as I’m about to have a mental breakdown. Or-

Suddenly I bump into someone.

I close my eyes trying not to cry right then. I don’t know who I bumped into but I want to apologize, but I know that I can’t, and since I don’t know who I bumped into I don’t know if it’s someone who’ll be mean about it or-

I’m taken off guard by a gentle brush to my upper arm.

“You’re good, it’s okay” I hear a soft voice say. I can feel my lip quivering, I feel like if I open my eyes the tears brimming at my waterline will actually fall.

“can you open your eyes?” It sounds more like a question, and that voice sounds painfully familiar but I can’t quite place it.

I want to tell him that I can’t, that I’ll cry if I do and I’ll feel even more embarrassed. But my curiosity takes over me.

So I slightly blink open my eyes. I don’t open my eyes fully, just enough to see the person through my tears.

It’s Matt, looking down at me all concerned.

I blink my eyes open. at the sight I watch his expression relax just slightly.

He himself looks overwhelmed, and honestly I don’t know if it’s because of how I’m acting, or if he had a shitty day himself.

“You okay?” He sighs slightly. I watch as he licks his lips and swallows thickly.

I take in another deep breath trying to calm down. I nod just slightly, but while I do the tears in my eyes finally spill.

I feel my hot tears run down my face. Matt’s eyes immediately widen and his mouth opens slightly like he thinks it’s his fault.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no please don’t cry.” He holds up his hands in front of my face as if he wanted to wipe my tears away but was holding himself back because he didn’t know my boundaries.

He looked miserable, like he was about to cry himself. And I just know that something this wouldn’t have him emotional like this on a normal day. At least I don’t think it would. But he seemed to be overwhelmed as well.

I scrunch my nose slightly sniffling in response. I glance back up at him and the sorrow in his eyes makes me want to sink into myself. I breathe out shakily.

Before I know it I’m bringing my hands up to my face and covering it. I tilt my head forward trying to stop crying, because crying in the school halls is just pathetic.

“I’m sorry. Fuck- can I touch you?” I hear his frantic voice. I appreciate that he asked first. I want a hug, but then again I don’t know Matt. But he just seems so genuine.

I overthink not responding to his question. My thoughts spiral at the sound of the sweet nothings and apologies leaving his mouth, only being back round noise.

Matt seems to notice that I’m starting to spiral. I feel his hand tenderly touch my wrist. I flinch slightly, and as soon as I do I feel him retract his hand.

Everybody deals with anxiety differently, some people like to be physically grounded others liked to be comforted some other way and I just knew that Matt was trying to figure out what to do without overstepping.

I’d tell him that it’s okay, or that he can hug me, but I literally can’t speak and I feel too embarrassed to let him see my teary face.

“I’m sorry, I’m-“ I hear Matt let out a breath. I know an anxiety breath when I hear one, he is panicking.

I decide to bite the bullet, what’s the worst that can happen. I look up slightly and peak through my fingers.

His hands are up and frozen. He looks almost frantic, Matt looks like the only way he knows how to ground me is by hugging me or something, but he seems unsure if that’s okay.

Despite myself I let out a little nod. Matt lets out another breath but this time he actually touches me, and I don’t flinch.

He holds my wrist and gently pulls my hands off of my face.

I let out a shaky sigh. I can’t help it when I let my head fall forward.

“It’s okay.” He says sweetly under his breath. He puts his hand under my chin as he picks my face up. Our eyes lock. I see the way Matt is also crying, tears running down his face too and I relax just a little.

He never seemed like the type to make fun of someone for crying, but especially not now.

“You wanna go to my car?” He says softly, not in a way where he is forcing me to do anything, but rather offering.

And honestly as upset as i am I have to weigh my options. Would I rather cry in the school hallways or in Matt’s car?

The best option would be to go to the bathroom, but Matt wouldn’t be able to come with, and honestly I would feel too bad leaving him alone at this point.

So I nod.

I feel Matt’s arm go around my shoulders as he hugs me for a moment. He turns me, and starts walking in a way where his arm is still around my shoulder keeping me close to him.

We walk out to the parking lot. I watch as Matt unlocks the car and opens the door for me to enter.

And by this point, if I go out this way so be it…

Before i can even register Matt is also getting into the backseat next to me.

We just look at each other for a moment. He breathes out another anxiety sigh.

“You want a hug?” And with that I don’t really know if he’s asking for me, or to comfort himself. But regardless I nod.

I feel his arms come around me and I sink into the feeling of his hug.

I’m uncertain if by tomorrow he’ll act like this all never happened, or if he’ll try to get to know me, because I’ve been wanting to know him for a while and I would more then gladly let him.

Masterlist

A/n: I know this is really short and I’ve been uploading a lot of angst recently. But I’ve been feeling sad, and every time I do write smut it’s for Kinktober. Soon you’ll get smut tho. Also this ended up a lot like crybaby. <3

‼️please don’t copy my work/idea‼️

Taglist: @muwapsturniolo , @sturnad , @iluvm4ttsturni0l0 , @evie-sturns , @me09love , @fratbrochrisgf , @spideylovin , @chrissgirlsstuff , @stunza , @whicked-hazlatwhore , @sturniooolos , @ecliphttlunar , @orangeypepsi , @klaus223492 , @char112244 , @sst7niolo , @slut4chriss , @mattsturniololoverr , @th3-3d3n-g4rd3n , @st7rnioioss , @t1llysblogs , @nonat-111 , @blahbel668 , @rockstarchr1s , @sturnsintrouble , @nayveetbhh , @tillies33ssss , @sturncakez , @strnilo , @somegirlfromasgard , @mattslovelygf , @sturnsmaeve , @sturnstvr , @lucianastrun , @jnkvivi , @jamiesturniolo , @chr1sgirl4life

[gsweazel]

your work is so beautiful!! can you share a little bit about your process when working with gouache and india ink?

thank you so much! and of course I can!!!

it’s a long one…details below!

I use gouache just because it’s what I have to hand, but watercolour would work well, if not better.

I start with a sketch, then a wash of the blue, covering the whole page - it can be messy because most of it will be covered with the black ink. at this point I like to go over the shapes with the blue just to vaguely define the forms.

I like to start with the darkest areas! usually this is around the studs, or the ‘seams’ (if there are technical names pls let me know 🙏). I try not to focus on one area too much at once just to keep everything proportional and remind myself of the overall form! India ink is fab because it dries so quickly, and as far as I’m aware it doesn’t lift once dried, so I can go over the fine details to add reflections and shading! when I do the shading, I treat the ink like watercolour - I dilute it heavily, going from light to dark. you can always add more pigment later!

I always forget to take photos as I go along, but hopefully this kind of illustrates what I’m yapping about

I was very silly and forgot to take my brushes with me to uni… buuuut from memory, I think it’s a ‘round’ brush? it can carry a lot of ink but tapers to a very fine point at the end, allowing for the teeny tiny details on the armour, as well as the larger washes of pigment. this is a4 paper for scale (I think that’s around 8.5 x 11 inches!) I use a bigger round brush for bigger areas! I also loosely sketch out the details in pencil before painting but the drawing is usually more ambitious than what I can realistically achieve at this scale - the squiggly lines were the hardest! I tended to depart from the reference at this point and make up some organic shapes. basically the smaller scale means it’s no biggie if you do make a mistake!

I use bristol paper - super smooth surface that holds the ink really well!

it’s a little different for my first knight though (below)! still started with the blue gouache wash, but I used fine liner pen. I think it’s either 0.5 or 0.3 - leaning towards the latter just because of the smaller details! this is a less forgiving medium imo, but super satisfying. I used black gouache to fill in the background for this one - I didn’t have any inks at this point. I’m working on a5 paper here in a moleskine notebook, so it wasn’t really meant to be damp.

also I am still bad at taking photos of my art - but I am getting better! I scanned the painting, then adjusted the shadows (just using the photos app). literally the only edit is turning ‘shadows’ down to -100, but you can see how much of a difference this makes! I’m including this because it’s always so disheartening when the camera doesn’t pick up the artwork properly. something I struggle with when using ink is getting an even surface with large areas of undiluted black, which is why I tend to adjust the contrast. if anyone has any tips on this I would appreciate it!

apologies for the very long post - if there’s anything else I can clarify please let me know!! I’m quite new to tumblr so sorry if the formatting of this post is a little off.

unfortunately I have just gone back to university, so it will probably be a while before I have some art to post - I also left all my art supplies at home… whoops! maybe this is a chance to improve my digital art!!

and thank you so so much for all the notes on my previous post! I read every tag on reblogs and they always make my day <3

[laudanine]

How to make a back-patch: Hancock edition

Hey guys! So the tutorial for the Hancock patch is here! So the standing rule on this patch is "you can use my art and make your own, but you are not permitted to make money off it." But man, make your own, go nuts!

Steps 1 to 5 are mostly about how I made the image itself. Steps 6 to 9 are about making a patch once you have your final image. Skip ahead if you need!

So here's the supplies I personally use for these patches -

Tulip fabric paint, black and white

Talc powder

Charcoal powder

Tracing paper

Paintbrush

Fine-tip squeeze bottles

Fabric

My computer

Tape

A thumbtack

A pencil

And to be clear, these are NOT the only options. I've done this with black or white acrylic paint instead of fabric paint, it works fine. If you don't want to bother with the squeeze bottles you can use a paintbrush instead. If you don't have talc powder, cornstarch would work. If you can't find powdered charcoal, you can crush some up like I did, or use graphite, or literally whatever. You get the idea.

If you're going to be using the fine-tip squeeze bottles, now is the time to put your paint (fabric or acrylic) into the bottles and thin them with water to your level of comfort. You WILL need to test the paint on some fabric first, to be sure you can apply it evenly and that it flows well. If you're going to use acrylics, I highly suggest you add a drop of retardant to the mix ALONG with water.

2. I find my images for the figure I'm drawing. Yes, we're tracing: this ain't fine art and we're not gonna be snobs. Here we have John Hancock from the game and John Hancock IRL Danny Shorago.

3. I trace my images! You may notice my two reference images are the same pose! I'm gonna trace the first one by taping my paper over my computer screen and drawing LIGHTLY.

When I had the basics for Danny's proportions down, I left the paper where it was and moved the image of Hancock underneath the paper and traced what I needed from that image. That gets me this double-layer image.

4. I decide which of these lines I want to keep. Even with the faces for John and Danny lined up proportionally the shoulders and neck length of the two figures are pretty different. I decided that I wanted to go with narrower shoulders, and free-handed in the ruffles for his shirt.

5. Now I merge the two faces. I have to get the skin texture from John onto the face I have, which is mostly Danny. I kept up a whole screen of reference images for this process so I could decide what I wanted to pull from where.

And I leaned hard into the skull for his cheekbones and nose. You can see I actually used a colored pencil to outline those skull-like elements before I chose my final lines, and used another piece of my own darn art to add a chin scar I just really like. It is NOT a bad idea to trace a SECOND COPY of this image AT THIS TIME. Your image will be getting really dirty and messed up in the future, so unless you want to start over, you should make a spare copy (spoiler: I didn't do that and had to do this whole thing a second time to make a second patch...)

6. Align your fabric and your tracing paper up and tape first the fabric down THEN the paper on top, separately.

7. Poke holes! Use your thumbtack to poke holes along the lines you're trying to transfer. The way I'm doing this patch most of the image is white lines on black fabric, with SOME black lines on white for his face, neck, and shirt. For that reason, my transfer process is gonna be in TWO parts, one to lay down the white portions and then later to put the black lines ON TOP of the white areas as needed. I don't have a photo for this step: poke holes, you know how to do that.

8. Apply talc/powder to the image and use a paintbrush to gently brush the talc over the surface. You can use the brush perpendicular to the surface to GENTLY push the powder into the holes from the thumbtack holes.

9. Peel off the paper GENTLY. As you can see, I didn't even poke holes for the lines in his face, just the outlines for what's going to be painted in white. What you have is a little connect-the-dots to apply white paint to.

10. Apply white paint and allow to DRY COMPLETELY.

11. Once the white paint it TOTALLY DRY you're going to repeat steps 7 to 9, poking holes in the locations that you want to have BLACK lines appear. For me that's the details on his face and shirt. Instead of talc, the powder I used was crushed vine charcoal. You can see I'm starting to apply the black paint along the lines of black spots of charcoal.

12. Add, like, words and stuff! Also clean up, and fine tune, etc. You did awesome, and if it didn't turn out, well you DEFINITELY made a spare copy like I suggested you do in step 5, right?!?! Right.

Some notes:

This process also works on tee shirts if you want, but definitely use the fabric paint and not acrylics or the paint will flake off when you wash the clothing. Instead of taping the shirt down, I suggest you thumbtack it to a board or to some thick cardboard to keep it still while you work.

If you don't have a computer/screen you can trace on then print the images you want to work with and tape them to a window to use as alight-box.

You don't need to use the charcoal, honestly. If the design is simple or you're feeling like a BAMF, you can skip the black paint and the black powder and just use the negative space of the black fabric instead.

Tracing, and I cannot say this clearly enough, is not cheating when you're not tracing someone else's art. Trace a face. Trace a figure. Trace a landscape. I don't care. If you're tracing any image, you're going to need to do a lot of work to make your shitty traced image (my step 3) into something that looks like art (my step 5). That act of work, that's making art. Congratulations.

If you made it this far and REALLY want to donate money to me over this, don't! Maybe donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund instead at pcrf.net because that'd be SUPER cool.

Hope some or all of this helped someone somewhere be a cool punk badass like everyone's favorite Mayor.

[huellitaa]

౨ৎ ⋆｡˚girly girl's guide to journalling 🩰 ๋࣭ ⭑

˚₊‧꒰ა benefits of journalling ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

• helps to regulate emotions

• understand yourself better

• a fun pass time! ♡

• analyse you, your habits, thoughts, etc

• de-stresses, relieves & relaxes

• productive & away from social media

• gives you control over something

• a way for you to get everything out, big or small, good or bad ♡

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 1: beginnings

ok! so journalling is mentioned a lot in the girlblogger, wonyoungism, self growth, loa etc etc side of tumblr but when i actually took that advice started it was really really daunting and i procrastinated it for aaaages. so this is here to help you start a fun girly hobby that will help you out on your journey 🩷🎀

♡ the most important thing when beginning ur girl journal is figuring out its purpose. is it to plan, is it to document, is it for healing, is it for personal development, is it for manifestation, is it to glow up, is it for creativity, is it just to have fun? it makes it a lot easier to think of ideas once you have a set purpose in mind, but obviously it can be anything you want, any combination of these, or something other than these. i personally do a combination of emotional healing, personal development, manifestation, glow up, gratitude & just having fun, but its whatever u want bae. <3

♡ okay! first plan of action; get a notebook. obviously. lined or plain, black or white, big or small doesn't matter. anything you feel most comfortable and most drawn to. ♡

♡ second, establish a range of pens, pencils, colours, etc. you're going to be using so you can keep consistent (if thats your thing) and make it all pretty! you can tailor this to you in any way; said range doesn't have to be big, you can literally just use the same biro and 2 colours, pencils, all the colours, one colour, or none if you want; its all yours! ♡

♡ lastly, i'd suggest to gather a bunch of stickers and materials and fun cute things ur gonna add in the pages of your journal, as it makes it pop off the page and look more visually appealing and layed and feel more interesting overall. i use stickers, coloured paper, ribbons, receipts, doodles, print outs, logos, labels, gems, sticky notes, and things i find from my daily life too. you don't have to do that much or any at all if you don't want to, but i highly recommend it! just for ur personal enjoyment ♡

one thing i'd suggest is trying not to keep a strict schedule on it, like "i have to journal every day etc" because i did this and it demotivated me sooo much. don't do that! just do it when you feel you want to! it's supposed to be fun, not a chore!

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 2: setup

♡ okay so! once you've got all the basics set up, i feel it should be pretty self explanatory from here onwards, but since this is a guide i'm not gonna leave u by yourself. this is optional, but if you're planning on making journalling a hobby or a regular habit, i'd say the first thing you wanna do is enhance & expand. find some plastic folders to attach or create paper pockets or little sections where you can put resources to stick in in ur journal so you have more space, customise, and so on. i feel this is very overlooked but its sooo fun and its really creative and and makes it so unique to you <3

♡ one thing i'd suggest too if you're doing this especially or just for any type of journal really is looking on pinterest for inspo!! this is for everything really. covers, layouts, page inspo, page ideas, customisation, journal prompts, shadow work, titles, doodles etc. i keep a board of these on my pinterest & it really helps <3

♡ one of the first things i did when i set up my journal a few months ago was do one page just an index of pages to make so i had a basic structure to go off of. this went from basic journal pages you see everywhere like about me pages n all that to the most obscure shit you could possibly imagine. this is helpful because it gives you a frame to work off of when you're at a loss for what to do in ur journal. i already have a post on this so i really recommend that if ur looking for ideas cus there's LOADS <3

another thing on pinterest; don't force urself to stick to a specific theme you've found or try and avoid doing or writing certain things in ur journal cus you wanna stick to a specific aesthetic! again, it's supposed to be fun, not a chore, and it's supposed to be completely unique to you, like a physical version of your inner world. its perfectly fine to take inspo, just remember its yours. you are your own person & you don't have to show it to anyone, it doesn't have to make sense to them, just have fun 🩷

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 3: resources

links ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

@prissygrlsorority's beauty binder

journalling index by yours truly <3

shadow work prompts for literally everything

@prettygirlmjmjmj's personal journalling prompts

@honeytonedhottie's diary guide

inspo ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

lots of love! <3

[favstxlenkssxs]

Teen/Younger Brooke Facts!

she was the kid who told everyone santa claus wasn't real and got weirded out when one her friends (at the time) started crying.

ate a worm on a bet worth a dime.

her brother would jump around with hobbies and sports and brooke would always pick them up after him and excel at them but by that time he'd have found a new thing and their parent's attention would go back to him.

her gpa is probably like 0.5, not because she's dumb but because she hates school so she has her essay titles as stuff like for my bitchass teacher and never does homework.

constantly in detention. has a permanently assigned seat in the room because of how often she's in there.

laughs when she doesn't know what to say it's uncomfortable/unsettling for a lot of people. mainly because she has an evil villain laugh.

almost stabbed a kid with a pencil for tearing her paper up. she was stopped in time by the teacher.

surprisingly she's never been to jail but all the town cops know her and what she's like so they're always itching to get her behind bars for something. they can never catch her.

brooke is literally never home. during the day she's at school if she feels like it and at night she's roaming the streets. her parents don't notice.

caspian tore apart her favorite ragdoll that she'd made. she tried to push him off their home's balcony.

she wears a lot of feminine-style clothing because it's all her mother buys her.

she found a stray cat and decided to feed it. she named it rust and took care of him until one day she never saw him again.

has a pocket knife that's always on her person. it's engraved with CR because she stole it from her brother.

Adult Brooke Facts!

she moves to an apartment in boston and works as a physical therapist.

her neighbors think she's nice just a little rough around the edges and she knows this. she keeps it that way because she's grown adjusted to her "quaint" life.

to get her anger out she does boxing and running.

brooke often hallucinates her younger self doing things she wouldn't do now. for example if someone cuts past her in a line she sees her younger self jumping forward to attack them.

it makes the lines between what she's done and what she could do blur badly.

she visits her brother's grave when her anger starts getting really bad and vandalizes it somehow. normally she'll carve something into the headstone or give it a few kicks/punches. if there are flowers there, she rips them up and scatters them on a grave with her name on it.

she still dresses mostly feminine.

she makes up a new story every time a curious kid asks about how she lost her fingers. ("i fought a tiger and won." "i didn't eat enough vegetables." "i ate it.")

she has a jar of candy on her dining room table as her centerpiece full of her favorite candies. she rarely likes candy though so they sit there a while.

she has shit all over her apartment, nothing's organized. it's just a miscellaneous collection of her favorite records, books, movies, trinkets, and anything else she likes.

it's her way of saying this is her home. she finally has something that belongs to her.

she only ever has nightmares about her brother's death. in those nightmares she's always her younger self.

@logansdogmotif @artificialroux

[inkagenda]

do you have any fun or random hensper headcannons???

i do!!! thanks for giving me an excuse to dump some of them :)

1) jasper is very affectionate but was really surprised to find out that henry is even cornier. once they've gotten together and figured their shit out, henry goes all out. he just constantly flirts with jasper, pulling out the "i'm in a band" line and sending cringey redflix and chill memes, even though they're literally already together.

2) jasper never grew out of his bucket phase; he just started keeping it to himself because he figured no one actually cared. henry noticed this, so when he sees a random bucket, he'll point it out, or he'll pretend to have a photo of a bucket pop up on his twitflash feed, just so he can get jasper to start talking about buckets again. one time, he even bought a miniature bucket and randomly gave it to jasper to use as a pencil case, and when jasper looked all confused, henry tried to play it cool and was all like "oh, i thought you still liked buckets." (jasper did, in fact, still like buckets (he kept the pencil bucket)).

3) henry is jasper's go-to when he's freaking out (which is kind of already canon tbh). in love muffin when omar spits on jasper, henry's there with a rag and a hand on jasper's shoulder. he's reassuring jasper, saying things like "it's alright, it's not that bad, come here," which makes me believe henry is just more gentle and affectionate than anyone else when it comes to jasper, which is why he's the best at comforting jasper. other people wouldn't speak to jasper softly the way henry does or give him hugs and comforting touches.

and then there's the quiet times when jasper has to calm henry down or try to make him feel better, and jasper is incredibly good at it. except there are times where he just can't always do his best because they're currently in a time where henry has only girlfriends, and jasper is his best friend, so even though he likes henry, he's there when henry ends up between girlfriends or in an argument. and when this happens, he always ends up doing something dumb to cheer henry up, like grabbing henry's hand and playing a game of thumb war or rock, paper, scissors. so he'll take henry's hand and place it on top of his own closed fist and then goes “you win… yay!” and lets go to pump his fists in the air. it's stupid, but it always works on henry.

4) when they lived in their apartment in dystopia, grocery shopping was quite literally a game for them. they sucked at it, so they had to make it fun otherwise they wouldn't get what they needed or do it right. but the games started to get physical to the point where they'd get kicked out, so they stuck to just making puns out of brands and stuff. but then they'd get competitive and physical again, so it's now a cycle.

5) and future married-with-kids hensper is just them timing each other and seeing who can speed-run getting the kids dressed or ready for school the fastest.

and idk if this counts as a headcanon but missy had a hensper phase!! when they arrive to a new reality, and henry is suddenly dressed in a tuxedo, he's just totally confused. and ray steps inside and he's like "kid, what the hell are you doing? get out here." and then he's just standing there thinking that he's the best man at jasper's wedding, until jasper walks down the aisle, and henry realizes what's happening.

(i also have one that's kinda the opposite way. it's the same concept, except henry is pushed through the doors and is made to walk down the aisle).

[ejzah]

A/N: What happens when I watch “Paper Soldiers”, a fairly angst free episode? I immediately write a very angsty fic borne from a few random lines of dialogue. I’m also back to borrowing random lyrics from Wicked.

***

Unlike I Anticipated

“Agent Blye continued to pursue,” Deeks muttered to himself, typing along with his monologue. He had about half of his report written when he fell Kensi’s gaze on him. Sure enough, the next time he checked his notes, he saw her watching him out of the corner of his eye. It was just the two of them now, in the quiet of the empty bullpen.

“Yeees?” he prompted. Kensi didn’t say anything. “Come on, I can literally feel you thinking. It’s super distracting. If this is about what that guy said to you, because I would have understood if you punched him.”

“No, it’s not about that creep,” Kensi told him. She fiddled with her pencil, pushed a couple of trinkets around her desk, increasing Deeks’ curiosity with every second she stalled. It either had to be something embarrassing or that he wouldn’t like.

“When we were talking about you being a public defender, it got me thinking. I was wondering what that was like?” She shrugged, and Deeks understood why she felt so uncomfortable.

They weren’t this direct. Not in this way. Not without jokes and work to act as a buffer. Not when it was just the two of them late at night.

He turned to face her. “What’s going on with you? First you’re imagining me at my former former job, now you want to know what it was like?”

“Sorry.” She held up her hands, instantly defensive. “God forbid I show some interest in my partner’s life.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that.” Brushing her shoulder to stop her from getting up and leaving, Deeks waved her back down. “Just, stop for two seconds, ok? What exactly do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Most of the public defenders I’ve run into through cases have either been jerks or seemed like they just stumbled out of law school,” she said.

“That is pretty accurate,” Deeks agreed. He’d worked with one guy who’d hated his guts from day one and a woman who’d shook every day she walked into court. She’d quit after two months.

“You put up with a lot at LAPD, right? Bad partners, Bates, working rough undercover cases all on your own with almost no support. So, the LA court system much have been particularly awful for you to just up and leave after a couple of years,” Kensi surmised rather shrewdly.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I just up and left,” Deeks hedged. “It did suck though.” He leaned back, addressing Kensi more seriously. He never liked talking about his time as a lawyer; he largely considered it one of the more miserable and disheartening points of his life. Which was saying something.

“I went into law because I wanted to help people. I had this idealized notion that I could—rescue kids like me before the worst happened. Or stop the people like my dad,” he explained. He smiled sardonically. “I guess I pictured myself as a modern day Atticus Finch.” He chuckled to himself at how poorly his own attempts at playing judicial savior had gone. Kensi would have a field day if she ever found out he shared a middle name with a literary attorney.

“So you weren’t stopping the injustices of the world?” Kensi guessed.

“I knew I’d have to defend criminals and generally bad people, but I, naively, thought I’d also get those cases with the wife who shoots her abusive husband or the teenager who needs a second chance. Instead, I had to defend truly awful people and watch their cases get dismissed because I had a better argument, or there was an issue with evidence, or the victim dropped charges. Nine days out of ten, I hated it.”

A moment too late, he realized just how much he’d revealed, and he swallowed self-consciously. Kensi’s eyes held a little bit too much sympathy and compassion as she watched him.

“So, I quit.”

“And you thought LAPD would be better?” she asked.

“Maybe not. I figured I’d at least have the opportunity to intervene where it mattered. I’d be able to make sure the chain of evidence wasn’t broken and maybe that mom wouldn’t need to shoot her husband because a cop actually listened to her for a change,” he said, his voice hoarse. His lips twitched in an approximation of a smile. “Then I jumped ship when Hetty offered the liaison position.”

“I’m glad you did.” For once, there wasn’t a hint of teasing in Kensi’s voice. “I hope NCIS is better than the courts or LAPD.”

“It is.”

“Good.” Kensi grabbed her pencil again, seemingly ready to get back to her paperwork, then paused, hesitating for several seconds before she added, “For the record, you did make a difference. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Deeks sat back, letting Kensi’s words sink in. He didn’t know if he fully believed her, but for the first time, the thought of his previous careers didn’t leave him feeling bitter and hopeless.

[apomaro-mellow]

Two in the Bush 4

Part 3

Steve was spiraling and only Robin and a tub of peanut butter chocolate ice cream was keeping him from completely going down the drain.

“Tell me there’s something out there that cools my loins.”

“That’s what suppressants are for”, Robin said. “Or a water gun filled with ice water.”

“No and nope”, Steve wagged a spoon at her. “I’m serious! They almost had me with the crib. The one thing I never EVER wanna be is someone who’s still screwing around with their baby daddies.”

“So you’re declaring celibacy?”

“No I’m…I’m still gonna screw around just-”

“Not with the father of your child?”

“It’s tacky, Robs.”

“Your brain is a maze that I do not want to traverse. But basically, you’re saying you don’t want to fall for them and you need reminders why not.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

Robin scooped some ice cream into her mouth and then took out some paper and a pencil. She wrote Eddie and Billy’s names on top and then drew a line down the middle. Then she slid it across the kitchen table to Steve.

“Here, a cons and cons list.”

He tilted his head. “Isn’t it supposed to be pros and cons?”

“You’re supposed to be reminding yourself why you don’t wanna bond with either of them. Not convincing yourself the opposite.”

Steve stuck his spoon into the bucket and got to writing. There were a million reasons why neither alpha could be trusted for child-rearing. No matter how hot and sexy they were, that fact remained. So Steve spent the next few scoops jotting down everything wrong and bad and unattractive about Billy and Eddie and there was quite a bit.

Steve honestly wasn’t even planning on telling them about the list but then Billy had to call him and ask him out for drinks.

“I’m pregnant.”

“No one said anything about alcohol.”

“You and I have literally never gone drinking without alcohol.” And half the time they’d gotten shit-faced but Steve wasn’t going to add that.

“Come on, let’s go out. You know you want to. The smoothie place down the street from you. I’ll be waiting.”

And before Billy could hang up and have the last word, Steve rushed out. “FinebutI’minvitingEddie!” Then HE hung up.

About half an hour later, Steve walked into the establishment with Eddie in tow, who had one hell of a shit-eating grin. Steve rolled his eyes as he sat down at the table Billy was at. It was bright and peppy in the smoothie shop. A different setting from the bar Billy worked in or the car shop Eddie was employed by.

“You know, we don’t have to do everything as a trio”, Billy said.

“This coming from the guy who tried to start a threesome after delivering my crib”, Steve griped.

“Which you were totally into”, Billy shot back.

“I’m so glad you started with that because I feel less bad about giving you both this.” Steve laid the list out before getting up to order himself a smoothie. By the time he got back, both alphas looked like they wanted to riot.

“I don’t take care of my hair? You really put that as a con?”, Eddie looked close to ripping up the paper.

Steve shrugged. “My baby’s gonna have good hair and it needs to be taken care of.”

“You didn’t mention how well I take care of my hair”, Billy said, leaning back in his seat.

“This is a con list, not a pro list”, Steve said. “And as you can see, there’s a lot there.”

“You put ‘daddy issues’ and ‘hasn’t talked to dad in years’. That’s the same thing”, Eddie slammed the paper down.

“You put daddy issues for me too”, Billy pointed out. “And this is starting to feel like a glass houses situation.”

“There is a spectrum of daddy issues and at least I’ve seen mine in the past year”, Steve said. “And it’s totally fine that you haven’t Billy”, he added quickly before the other could retort.

“Okay but ‘hasn’t worked anywhere longer than a year’ feels like it can go under ‘daddy issues’.”

“It also feels like that shouldn’t matter, I don’t know”, Eddie added. “So long as you’re employed.”

“Look. You guys wanted tangible, air-tight evidence for why you shouldn’t be fathers and I wrote it all down.” Steve took a long sip, daring them to challenge it.

“You gotta know by now this won’t work, right?”, Eddie grinned.

“We’ll see”, Steve said, taking another sip. “But for now. I don’t care to get a call from either of you, booty or otherwise, until you start working on yourselves.”

With that last word, Steve got up and walked out, feeling their eyes on him the whole time. Eddie nearly twisted his body to do so and when he turned back around to Billy, he saw that he’d been caught. Obviously.

“I was uh-”

“Hey, no shame. He’s the one who said ‘booty’ of course we’re gonna look.”

Eddie cleared his throat and looked down at the list again. “So we’re crossing everything off this, agreed?”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

“Alright, I gotta ask. What exactly is your stake in all of this?”, Eddie asked. Billy had helped with the crib, but he didn’t seem particularly excited about the prospect of having a kid.

Billy shrugged. “Steve was dead on about one of these things. My dad’s a fucking asshole and the fact I haven’t seen him in years is better for his health. ‘Cause I’m gonna kill him the next time I see him.”

…. “Okay, I’m starting to get why Stevie doesn’t want you near his pup.”

“If it’s mine, I wanna do right by it”, Billy finally admitted. “You?”

Eddie fiddled with the paper and sighed. “I really, really like Steve. And my dad wasn’t the best either. If I can break the cycle, then Steve’s the one I wanna break it with.”

“Then we’re agreed.”

“Operation: Make Steve Eat His Own Words is a-go!”

Part 5

[cecilyv]

wip wednesday

I'm making @liminalmemories21 write sports ball. Well, let's be fair -- I'm writing sports ball references and she's writing all the "wtf the are you talking about, none of this makes any sense," parts.

Buck/Tommy, 9-1-1

++

“So you found the picture.”

“When I was looking for the manual,” Buck agrees, “I didn’t know you played baseball. I played football-- “ 

Tommy snorts, “Of course you did.” 

And hey, “Hey!” 

Tommy squeezes his shoulders and steps back. “You kind of have a thing for running headlong into danger, Evan, I’m not sure if you noticed.” 

The end of his thought is muffled, like he’s talking with his shirt over his head, and Buck twists in his seat to watch as Tommy drops his shirt at his feet and starts popping the buttons on his pants, and “Oh, hey, no distracting me, you played baseball--” 

“I was drafted out of high school,” Tommy says, as he kicks off his pants and reaches for Buck’s hand, tugging him up, kissing him softly. “Enlisted in the army instead.” He shrugs and looks down the hallway, “Can I distract you now?” 

Turns out, the answer is definitely, yes. 

------

and:

Now that it’s all out there, Tommy really opens up about things Buck never heard him talk about before -- which mostly, it seems, is how much Tommy hates the Dodgers. But he puts his hatred aside for the good of the group -- he’s got a friend who made it to the show but is now on the training staff, one of the guys from his old Little League days. He sets Tommy up with a suite at Dodger stadium.

"Who," Eddie hisses as they bypass all the lines at the park heading for one of the boxes, "exactly does Tommy know?  Is he secretly a mob boss who moonlights at the LAFD?"

Buck does actually know the answer to this, and not because he'd wondered that once or twice too.  But letting Eddie dangle is more fun, so he just raises his eyebrows and shrugs.  "He knows a guy,” and Eddie sighs, and Buck tries to distract him, “Did you know Chavez Ravine used to be a neighborhood?” 

Ravi and Tommy bond about the unfairness of the Dodgers getting Shohei Ohtani for steal (like, a literal steal, Tommy spends 20 minutes trying to explain it to Buck, who just nods and backs away slowly) and decide that they’re going to the Angels game next time (heartbreak and bad seats be damned). None of them are actually Dodger fans, except Hen, who’s fully decked out in her blue and white and they try not to hold that against her. 

They all cheer when Station 118 is welcomed on the big scoreboard in the outfield. 

During the game, while everyone else mills around, grabbing food, gabbing, and halfheartedly cheering, Tommy sits with a clipboard, pencil and complicated sheet of paper that he dutifully fills out after every pitch. Buck sits down next to him, watches for a while and then Tommy quietly starts explaining the scorecard and all its abbreviations and rules. 

It does make the time go faster.

[kiiirtiiiniii]

I love your lineart, how clean and expressive it is! And your little Riebeck comics, they always make me so happy to see

Do you think you could talk a little about your process? I’m working on my own style right now, so I’m asking some of my favorite artists how they create, and how they learned how to create the way they do! Practice, but what kinds? How do you get such lovely doodles and art with such simple shapes?

WOW AAAAHHH thanks for the sweet ask!! I can absolutely do that!

The big overarching answer is exactly what you said & the answer no one wants to hear (I get it lmao): practice, straight up, preferably in a way you can sustain interest in so you can keep it up because inefficient is better than nothing.

I've been drawing since I could smear toddler fingerpaint on a page, so more than 25 years, and I took art classes all through highschool plus a few college level art classes. The things I think I'd recommend specifically over anything else are 1) exploring different mediums and methods (like charcoal on large paper & acrylics on actual canvas, and realism & abstract), even if you use dollar-store tier stuff (nothing wrong with that babey, that's what my fiance and I use for therapy painting!!) and 2) making sure you practice life drawing from photos at the very least, or live models if you can get yourself into a situation where that's an option.

To not just give you what is really common advice that almost feels canned at this point; the reasons I recommend these things specifically! Under a cut so this post isn't 300 years long. lol.

Even if you don't stick with charcoals or paints, trying them out a few times will give you the physical knowledge of how those mediums feel in action. Then, going back to mediums you prefer (maybe pencil and paper or digital like me), you'll understand better how to use the tip of the pencil at different angles, or the weird painterly brushes in your toolbar, and what things they can achieve for you re: sharp lines, gradients, gestural effects, blending, etc.

And again, even if you don't do abstract or realism or whatever style very often or at all, you'll know how it feels to slap shapes and colours down quickly and emotionally (nothing like capturing a raw feeling in colour), or the process of studying a photo so thoroughly you see and draw details you never noticed before (the way shadows are tinted by light bouncing around, for example), and you can apply that to something you find more engaging, like maybe character art (that's my MO I love drawing little guys lol).

Finally, life drawing, literally the most important way to practice and also quite possibly the most booooring. You have to find a way to apply it that makes you interested. I love making fast, sharp, innacurate lines, and I love taking my time drawing a perfect shape. I combine those by getting the essence of a pose down from a photo or my fucked up lil brain with gestural lines, then erasing and redrawing with more careful strokes until it looks right.

THAT specifically, is bad advice. Just erasing and redoing until something "looks right", but that's what I do and it's why it takes me 6 hours to sketch a comic page. But I'm not doing this for money and I probably never will, so it works for me. If it works for you, too, that's sick!! It's the lazy way to do it lol. You're SUPPOSED to do studies until you KNOW how things are shaped and how the lines should fall, so you can get it in a couple tries. More work for more payoff, right? That's how comic artists spit out like 2 or 3 pages a day.

A couple more things I found really helpful while I was learning (i say as if im not still learning and will be until i die): youtube tutorials (not joking) and blind-trace-reference-blind studies (I'll explain).

I don't have any reccs for you with the youtube tutorials because I did all that when I was younger and I cannot for the life of me remember who the hell I was watching, but it was a lot of different artists from professional to amateur to beginner sharing tips and tricks they found helpful. Top ten tips for artists kind of stuff. It's why I draw lightning bolt limbs and other sketch skeleton stuff like ball heads and guidelines to orient facial features. I hated that shit before I realized how much it actually genuinely helps.

Blind-trace-reference-blind studies are not called that but I don't know what they're actually called so whatever lol. It's really simple: you pick some specific thing (like a great white shark) and draw it 4 times: First blind, without a reference, purely from memory. Then, directly tracing a reference image (if you can). Then drawing normally from a reference. Last, drawing blind again without a reference. Then compare the first and last drawings for fun :3c

It's a good way to reassure yourself that you can improve and the studying and practice isn't useless, and it's also a good way to actually learn very specific stuff. The process can also be simplified down to blind-reference-stylize, where the last step isn't blind but instead drawing the subject in your style/simplified for speed and ease. I did this recently with hearthian mouths because they were pissing me off lol.

Very last advice: DRAW SHIT BAD AND OFTEN

Draw your favourite characters, draw your prescription bottles, draw your friends, draw your breakfast, draw them all really bad but try to capture the details even if it looks like shit, especially if it looks like shit. Fill a fancy sketchbook you got for your holiday of choice with garbage-tier doodles and never let it see the light of day. Scribble in your art program and then delete it!! Art isn't sacred, it's human, and you have to do it the way you do other human things like cooking and socializing; badly, often, and eventually well enough you can enjoy the results :D

Thanks again for the ask, hopefully I answered in a way that helps you figure things out and improve :] This was fun to answer <3333

[cimmerian1275]

Your art is amazing! I keep finding myself just going back to stare at your work. Like how did you do that with the colors? Or when do you stop adding bold lines and do more implied ones etc.

Do you have any go-to references or tips you always go back to or would recommend?

THANKYOU!! OHHHH ART QUESTION!!!! *cracks knuckles* i havent ever really explained how i do things before, so dont be shy to ask any follow up Qs if i dont make sense!

——————

Colors??? Ohhh man, aeh, thats a fun but hard one. I started off my art years ago with just pencil on paper, black n white style! So ive gone on my own little self taught journey over the years when it comes to using actual color in art and ohh boyyyy was it a challenge.

Theres definitely some tutorials out there that explain color theory waaayyyyyy better and are more helpful than me, but ill still explain it my way for anyone whos curious about the way i use colors instead <3

At first i was pretty bad, SO for example IF I WAS PAST ME..... and i drew a purple dragon, the lighting and background id add would be purple too. Thats bad. It looked good, yes...... But it wasnt the smartest choice of lighting/background to make it so similar to the purple character id drawn.

I couldnt really see what i was drawing because everything was the same color, same saturation. It makes present me cry a little inside that i used to do that xD and i had to figure out that overtime... i didnt want whatever i was drawing to blend in to the canvas, disappear, and be really hard to see because it was all the same shade/color.

SO, i experimented >:) i have a vague goal in mind when it comes to colors. I want things to be clear to see, colors to contrast and pop and flow! If your focal point/character is blue? I try to make the background the complete opposite color, or something that compliments blue like pink or orange.

BUT!!!! BUUUUUUT!! Its not as simple as that... it can look terrible if you pick an opposite color and itll clash in the worst way possible >.> THAT, im admittedly still figuring out as i go! But ive learned that when the colors are too bright and clashing, i can reduce the saturation/make them less bright. Perhaps if i used pastel colors instead? Or something closer to grey? Maybe if i darkened this one and lightened that one theyll still stand out but also flow a bit better.

I rely heavily on my gut feelings with colors too, ill test different options all the time and mess with filters to see if i get any cool results until i land on something that makes me go "woahhhh this feels awesome". It can take actual hours just trying to find the right combination of colors...

——————

This ones a great example of a good color combo!! I tend to lean towards warmer/softer colors in my work unless im doing a nighttime scene or something with cold/fresh vibes. The dragon here is a pretty light shade, and i went with a matching light background. I did that to give it a soft/calm look <3

When i look back at my art and any of my bigger/finished works, i notice i have a running theme of finding a nice balance between pastel/light colors and bright/saturated colors.

The saturated/brighter colors are usually used for the focal point, and the desaturated/lighter ones are for the background! I can also reverse that with a saturated/bright background and a light/desaturated focal point depending on the situation!

Heres some examples of what im talking about:

——————

MMMMMMM LINES! Lineart, i love it. My artstyle when it comes to that kinda flip flops around a little. But i often use a thinner brush and the pen i draw with has pressure sensitivity!! So lineweight kind of just revolves around how i literally move my hand against the screen.

But when it comes to purposefully making the lines thicker or thinner though, i use bolder lines for the focal points or areas with sharp details, so they catch the eye.

Thinner or less opaque lines for outlining markings or representing fur, scales, feathers, things like that :D

——————

Tips, refs and recommendations??? OHhhhh, everything i use is specialized for helping myself reach the style/quality of art i aim to make so it wouldnt entirely help others the same way.

But i can say that for refs and tips, i save EVERY little thing that sparks inspiration or looks like it could help me draw something i find difficult later on. I have files organized for that stuff! Things for ref sheets, anatomy, tmnt-related, a file just titled "inspiration" full of anything that makes my eyes happy when i look at it, and one for kingfishers (theyre a fav of mine when it comes to finding the inspiration to design a dragon).

Ironically, i dont often use typical art tutorials so i dont have any recommendations to share because i wing-it like the menace to myself that i am xD I probably should use tutorials though, im constantly trying to improve and those would actually help. Im just, too lazy 💀

Its a great habit to save stuff that helps/inspires you for when your stuck! And just go out there and follow all the artists who inspire you, even the smaller ones. Ive seen so many unknown/underrated artists who are able to draw a certain way that id love too, just gotta hunt them down and follow them so i can keep seeing their art <3

[bread--quest]

[ID: A sketchy pencil comic on lined paper of Sonder, who has large round glasses and curly hair. A line pointing to them says "Baby Sonder." Baby Sonder, holding a book and looking thoughtful, says "hmm... this 'great depression' thing sounds pretty scary!" She continues "hmm... according to my research..." "research" is marked with an asterisk leading to the footnote "reading books instead of learning social skills". Baby Sonder is shown standing in front of a large chalkboard (or something), with writing on it saying "adults = worried about money a lot," "not having enough money," "money: -job -savings -stealing? no money: -spending -losing -great depression," and "stock market??" She says "hmmmmmmm" in all caps. Then, raising a pointed finger, with a look of delight, she says "i've got it! if i get practice at being worried about money now, i'll be able to save lots of it for when i'm an adult, and then i won't have to worry as much later and i will (caps) win adulthood (end caps)". A little box indicates that it is now "years later." "Adult" Sonder (who looks exactly the same) stands there; smiling, but with haunted/distressed eyes, with an arrow pointing to xem reading "spent literally any amount of money." Xe says "why do i feel bad". End ID.]

i heard it was make a terrible comic day.... baby i've been making terrible comics for YEARS, i was BORN for this