#layer 51

[eli-little-workshop]

Second batch of doodles with @mcnuggyy 's poses; asked by @nimuerofour this time ;)

[ask-the-layers]

Also can Mun and I have a reading for this schoolyear please, Cana? Your reading was so accurate three years ago!!

"Hi Nimue! Usualy I'd love to answer you with a little reading, but saddly SOMEONE, decided to PLAY with my deck and the cards that haven't been eaten by the dogs, lost to fire or the fountain, seems to have vanished. I don't know when I'll be able to get a deck back, especially one like this, so you'll have to go into this year blind. But I have no worries for you. You're smart and kind, I doubt anything bad would happen to you. Do mind transports and riots, I did hear they're frequent lately..."

[atchamcrepin]

A still frame from the animatic I'm working on. The japanese text is just a lyric from the song～ 😺

[studiipolis]

⋆ written in the stars. ⋆

[iso-draws]

Skitters in, throws this onto the floor, and skitters out (I am going to take a nap now)

[ni0x]

Howler/@awo0o has the zoomies

[thefunnykaboom]

singular ipad found dead

[scorndotexe]

it's always "why do you have so many layers" and "how do you have 50+ layers" and never "how's the art going, are you doing things with some complexity to them"

[askgilliontidestrider]

Loading Responses…

[aaaaaaaaagenloser]

(Tw: kinda transphobia? Use of it/its for a character who hasn’t declared what their pronouns are yet. Arguments over whether a character is a person or not; that ties into the pronoun thing here. Bonus points for descriptions of canon-typical gore yipeeee)

An update from after writing this: oh this. Got. This one got away from me?? I think I started this at 4 minutes past the hour. It is now 43 minutes past the hour. shitt.

Update; it is now 17 minutes after the NEXT hour. 26 minutes after th last update. I have seen god in the past hour and she shook in fear of both my power and audacity. I have lunch with my family scheduled in like 6 hours and I have not yet slept. This wasn’t meant to be as long as it is but I was possessed and this is the result. I may edit it and make it smoother later but I’ll make that a separate post, I want this sleep-deprived chunk of words to be here as like a monument to the fact that I could have been playing stardew valley during this time but I chose to do this instead

TLDR: long ass story ahead written by a sleep-deprived and hyperfixation-driven author. Who is now going the fuck to BED

“We can’t just keep it! What if it has a tracking device? It won’t let us fucking touch it so there’s no way of knowing it has one unless it leads them right to us!”

“Ok, I hear you but think. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s been about what, three days? and that hasn’t happened, and they haven’t been violent towards any of us at all. They haven’t tried to go back either, so there’s no risk of them telling or leading Showfall where we are.”

“Why do you keep calling it ‘they’?”

“Well they can’t be an “it” now can it? …wait.”

“Ok can we figure out the gender of the thing in the other room after we figure out if it’s a threat to us or not. It’s not even a fucking person, you remember what those things did to you back there, don’t you?”

“Those people were not themselves, they were just doing what he wanted them to do—“

“They’re not fucking people! Those things are all part of Showfall, just like Hetch was! It’s just waiting for the right time to turn us in, or pull some shit on one of us like they did before.”

“They weren’t… they weren’t in control.”

“Yeah like fuck they weren’t, I saw it fucking happen!”

“You can’t just… Ok. Sneeg. Stop. You don’t speak for me, the one who, oh I don’t know, was the one that shit happened to? They were being controlled just like us—“

“No, no, not like us. We were wandering around and not knowing what the fuck was happening. None of us knew what was happening. We just went along blindly. Those things—on purpose—dragged you to that stupid wall and sewed wires into your hands—“

“Shut up, Sneeg—“

“No you shut up! You didn’t see it fucking happen! I saw them and Bitchface literally hold you down until you passed out! They were fucking choking you, they fucking—they nearly fucking killed you with just their hands, that’s not a little suggestion in the back of your brain, that’s on purpose! That is fucking deliberate, that is a thing those machines chose to do! You don’t remember, you weren’t conscious when they fucking stapled you to the wall and strapped your head in—“

Sneeg glanced at Ranboo for a moment in-between pacing as he ranted, and the far away look in their sibling’s eyes shut them up immediately. Ranboo was still present, thank fuck, but they were looking at their brother like he was holding up a knife to their throat.

“Fuck, Ran, okay, okay—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shit. Do you need Charlie?”

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

“…okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need me to get Charlie?”

“No, I’m fucking fine.” It did not sound like he meant that at all. His voice was less steady than before. “I don’t want him to worry about our… hitchhiker. He’s worrying enough about… well, everything.”

“The fact that it’s here, so close to us is the reason I’m trying to get you to see, Ran. What if it turns on him? What if it does that shit to him when we aren’t there?”

“We will be there.”

“And when it tries anything, we can kill it?”

“Sneeg!”

“You wouldn’t kill it, even if it hurt our fucking brother?”

“Of course we wouldn’t keep them around if they did that, could we at least just… just leave it behind? …wait, no, they couldn’t take care of themselves. If we had to leave it behind, maybe we should…”

Silence lingered for a bit too long.

“We should what, Ran?”

“…Sneeg, I was about to say that killing it would be a mercy.” The Hero laughed. “Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

The Taken didn’t reply.

“We have to help them. I don’t… I don’t want to be on the other end of a mercy killing. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—are you okay?”

“…m fine. It’s fine. Just. Can you stop acting like they’re any different from us? Please.”

“What do you want me to think then?” His voice was softer than it had been a few minutes before.

“Just assume that they… that they were someone. Just like we were before. And they didn’t… they didn’t do anything on their own, it was all Showfall.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s assume they were controlled, they didn’t mean to, so on and so forth. Why haven’t they talked yet.”

“I don’t think any of the drones even could talk. Wait, should we really be calling them a drone—“

“Shut the fuck up, Ranboo, we have got to figure out what to do with it. It probably doesn’t even know what is happening, what the fuck does it matter what we call it.”

“It matters to me! Do you want me to call you by your title? Do you want to call me by mine? …No? Then why are we treating them like all they are is what Showfall made them? We had lives before, we were someone, so they must have been too. They might not realize it, or… or act like it, but they used to be someone. They are a whole person, Sneeg. We have to help them, we can’t just leave them behind because that would mean we are giving up on someone just like us, and we cannot give up on each other. They… they would have hurt us by now if they were going to. And Showfall hasn’t found us since… you know, which means there aren’t any more trackers.

…okay, Sneeg?”

“…okay. If it,” he sighed at the look Ran gave them, “if they try anything, we have to leave them behind. I’m not letting a dumbass puppet be the reason we get taken back.”

“If they—ok, whatever, you’re not understanding. You can’t say one of us somehow wanted to be controlled, and they’re a ‘puppet’ but those rules don’t apply to the rest of us—“

“There is not an ‘us,’ Ran! That thing isn’t like us!”

“Guys?”

A sleepy voice shut the two of them up instantly. They had a split-second conversation with their eyes before looking to their brother. ‘We aren’t done talking about this’ ‘You’e absolutely right, so later?’ ‘Later.’ ‘We’re telling Charlie nothing happened?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Ok good plan.’

“Why are you two fighting? I’m tired, can we please go back to sleep?”

“We weren’t fighting, we were…”

“…talking about plans for tomorrow. And you can go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to be by myself.” Charlie looked at Sneeg pointedly, who sighed to Ranboo with a playfully annoyed expression.

“Well I guess I gotta go be a teddy bear again.”

“Have fun”

“Absolutely not.”

Charlie punched Sneeg in the shoulder lightly for that, who just giggled in response and led his little brother back to their room.

Which left Ran by themselves.

Some nights, he would join them, but some nights Charlie couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Ran, and the three of them had made a silent mutual agreement that Charlie trusted Sneeg more than he did Ranboo.

…Ranboo was okay with this. He wasn’t hurt by it. He didn’t cry on the nights he slept by himself.

He didn’t wish he could be the one Sneeg comforted sometimes. They were just fine.

They were fine, which is why they went to the living room where their… well. Their hitchhiker? They weren’t exactly a brother, or a sibling, more like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Or a flyaway hair. Okay, maybe Ranboo needed to get tbr fuck to sleep, alone or not.

But he found himself in the living room, where their hitchhiker slept. Or, didn’t sleep, as they seemed to not need to. They would sit on the couch and stare idly at the tv. That was what had started the whole conversation with Sneeg in the first place; Ran wanted to leave some kind of entertainment for the fourth person so they wouldn’t be made to sit in the dark for hours. Sneeg took this remark as a perfect opportunity to explain all the reasons why the former drone should be abandoned, but Ranboo would have fucking none of it. Maybe the couch potato (shit, he really needed to come up with a name for them—) didn’t seem to sleep, barely ate, and stayed still unless actually verbally told to move, but they were still a person. Ranboo was sure of it.

Their hand wandered up to the fresh scabs where their mask had been. The fourth person had a mask, one that hadn’t been touched. Despite usually staying still, the person—(Ranboo thinks they might just call this person Couch for now. Maybe it’s not accurate, and they’re tired, but it’s something. C, for short.)

C would back away any time the others would try to get near them. And they did in fact try, but despite how creative or sneaky they got, C always ducked away. It reminded Ranboo of the drone who had followed them with a camera, always one step away and never letting the Hero get too close.

The mask turned to Ranboo, who stared back quietly. C hadn’t talked at all, so Ranboo didn’t expect them to suddenly start now. He wasn’t even sure if they understood what was said to them, but Ranboo wanted to try anyways. Better to be polite.

“Do you like the show that’s on? I think it’s called Lucy, or something. I don’t know, Sneeg said it was funny. And it didn’t seem, uh- scary or anything.”

The mask didn’t speak.

“If you want to change it, the remote’s right there, um, I showed you how to use it before. And there’s like, instructions drawn on there. You can thank Charlie for that one.”

…

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

…

“Fuck it, can I stay here?”

The mask still didn’t speak, but the head hidden behind it tilted a bit at the sudden change in tone. Ranboo took this as an absolute win.

“So I just. I don’t want to be by myself. And I don’t think you sleep, I mean if you just sleep when everyone else is asleep that’s cool, but also if so how do you even? function? on that much sleep? It really isn’t that much but to be fair you don’t do much so maybe you don’t need it. …do you sleep sitting up? And just somehow wake up when we get close? I know, um. Sorry about that, again, we were just worried your mask had a tracker like mine used to.”

Ran laughed nervously. “I think I did convince them that it doesn’t, so that should stop now. If um. If we make you uncomfortable you still don’t have to be touched, it’s, it’s fine.”

Other than the head tilt before, there wasn’t a reply.

“Okay, since. You can’t talk, I’m just gonna… I’ll sit down beside you. On the couch. And if you don’t want me to be that close you can uh- you can leave. Or like, get up, and then I’ll leave. This is the only room with a tv, so I’ll let you stay here, but I can’t tell if you want me to be here or not, so. Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Just… move if you want me to leave, okay?”

Ranboo waited for a response that didn’t come, then sighed. “Okay.” He kept his hands up and open while sitting down, waiting for a few moments before tucking his feet under himself to get more comfortable. “I’m just gonna stay here, okay? Like I said, just move if you want me to leave.”

The mask had tracked them to where they sat now, but the person—C—didn’t make a move to leave. Ranboo turned their attention to the tv, keeping an eye on their couch partner in their peripheral vision. During a moment of audience laughter in the show—I Love Lucy, they remembered—C turned their head back to the television as they had been before Ranboo walked in.

Seeing as how C (they needed a better name than that—) didn’t speak, this was the closest Ranboo could get to being told “you can stay here.” So they did. A few episodes later, his head was on the arm of the couch and his eyes were closed.

Five turned its attention to the Hero, who was now asleep. He had said it was a person, which was almost hilarious. And the Taken and the Hero seemed to think it couldn’t talk? They had to know it needed to be given permission first: any handler of a Drone or Prop knew that basic rule. It would wait until permission was given: it knew how to obey. It wasn’t meant to speak to a superior unless it was told it was allowed. It would wait.

…in the meantime, it studied its handler, the Hero. The other Actors, their two other handlers, called him ‘Ranboo’ but Five knew that wasn’t his actual label. The Hero was his character in the last show, and so that is who he was. Five didn’t know if Actors had a number, but he had been called the Hero in the script, and so the Hero he will be until the script changes.

It hoped to get new instructions, a new script for itself, something, soon. It was tired of simply watching the Actors go about their incredibly off-script show. It was sometimes told to participate, and since no other superiors were nearby, it had to obey its current handlers. But it was told to participate, to stir eggs, to help clean the kitchen, to attack small webs in corners with a stick with soft spikes on the end. Those sorts of things weren’t it’s usual directive, and so it found itself…

It didn’t resent its handlers. They were doing their best, and they at least knew that they were meant to give it orders. It simply wished they were familiar orders. It wished the Hero had told it to play dead, or play chase, or play camera, or caught, or prop. It would even listen if it was told to power down until needed. At least then it wouldn’t have to be conscious in this boring and unfamiliar set.

.

Y EA I know they probably don’t like tvs. Shhhhhh. I didn’t think about that until like. I had already written the tv part. At this moment it is 55 minutes past th hour and I want these characters to go the fuck to sleep so I can go thr fuck to sleep /lh

And yeah Five only uses “he” for glran. That is intentional. It’ll be talked about and shit later. Something about being put into a role, something about showfall being transphobic, something something I want to go to bed

Powering down = “sleeping” for a drone. Different but similar. I’ll explain how it works later?, anyway The others hav e told Five to “sleep” but it doesn’t understand because it is only ever told to “power down” so it’s like error.sleep_not_found and it stares at them like “bitch you said the wrong. Thing. You’re supposed to know how to control me so you don’t want me to power down I fucking guess” and it’s gonna be really funny after that miscommunication is taken care of.

If you remember the Five Gets A Cold And Wants To Throw Hands With Everyone post, this is wayyy before that. These motherfuckers are fresh out of showfall. Don’t ask how they got a house. I’ll figure it out

I am! Tired! I’m not proofreading this!! Goodnight please give me your thoughts if you have them. I need to know I didn’t sacrifice tbis much sleep in vain /nf /lh (I appreciate words but you are Not required to give them. Love you have a good nigt/p)

[pallases]

maximum layers on procreate?? 😭

[thorsenmark]

Hoodoos, Reaching to the Skies Above (Bryce Canyon National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While walking to Queens Garden Trail with a view looking to the northeast to an eroded cliff wall with hoodoo formations at the top. This is in Bryce Canyon National Park. I used the blue skies above as a backdrop for this and to better highlight the formations present.

[iq-m]

Photopea my beloved

[amnhnyc]

Meet the Cephea cephea: a jelly so nice they named it twice. This ocean dweller is sometimes called the cauliflower jellyfish because of its resemblance to the vegetable. It can reach over 20 in (51 cm) in diameter! Jellies have bodies that include two transparent layers: an outer one for protection and an inner one for digesting food. Between the two layers, you’ll find a watery gel—in fact, their bodies are more than 95 percent water!

Photo: Derek Keats, CC BY 2.0, flickr

[reasonsforhope]

"Black-footed ferrets are North America’s only native ferret species and were thought to be extinct in 1979.

When the species was miraculously rediscovered in 1981 in Wyoming, these long, quirky mammals quickly rose to become the center of dedicated conservation efforts.

At that time, the Wyoming Game Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services brought 18 ferrets into human care to begin cooperative breeding programs, like the one at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia.

Between captive breeding, wildlife reintroductions, habitat restoration, and even genetic cloning, one of the continent's most endangered mammals is now seeing a comeback.

Perhaps the cutest manifestation of this conservation work is a new litter, born at the NZCBI on May 11. 

Since 1989, 1,218 black-footed ferret kits have been born at NZCBI, with 750 reintroduced to the wild. Currently, 48 ferrets live at NZCBI, including one-year-old female Aristides, who gave birth to the new litter of six kits last week. 

Last breeding season, NZCBI raised 51 ferret kits. Now with 2024’s season underway, animal care staff are closely monitoring the ferrets’ behavior through the institute’s Black-Footed Ferret Cam (a temporary live webcam the public can also view on the NZCBI website)...

Right now, the kits are still tiny, weighing less than 10 grams, with a thin layer of white fur covering their bodies. Their well-known mask-like markings and namesake dark feet will appear in the next few weeks. Then, they’ll start venturing out of their den and exploring the burrows of their habitat, akin to the tunnels they’d find in the wild."

-via GoodGoodGood, May 21, 2024

[paceprompting]

cinnamon buns

written for ‘christmas’ | wc: 736 # | steddie | rated: t | cw: no archive warnings apply | tags: post season four, pre-relationship, fluff, steve has a crush on eddie, and vice versa, christmas together

@steddieholidaydrabbles

Wayne always managed to get Christmas off. Every year.

Eddie didn’t know what exactly he promised in return to manage it, but ever since little eight-year-old Eddie Munson shuffled into the trailer to live with his uncle, every Christmas had been theirs.

Wayne always woke up first, setting out the presents collected throughout the year and hidden under his bed—and Eddie hadn’t peeked since that first year—nursing his first cup of coffee while in his pajamas until Eddie emerged.

When he was still little, he’d bum-rush the tree and tear open the presents, but soon the little traditions emerged.

Playing Rudolph and Year Without a Santa Claus on VCR tapes that survived years of rewatches, but no interdimensional portals.

Cinnamon buns from tins for breakfast, always burnt around the edges and covered in icing—but they split the best one from the middle.

And the last present was always, always Wayne’s. It took several years for Eddie’s wrapping skills to actually look like the box he was wrapping, but Wayne never said a word.

It was one of those Christmases that Eddie got his first set of dice.

Government hush money bought a decent house for them, with real insulation and top-of-the-line boiler. Just in time for Christmas. Wayne actually had a real hiding place for the presents this time, and no matter how hard Eddie had looked, he’d have to wait until next year to find it.

They could get real lights, too. Not just the couple of strings that wouldn’t overload the trailer’s generator.

They also had to, since those lights were carted off to some Area 51 with the rest of the things the government wanted to pretend had never happened until maybe they could use it to their own benefit.

One other thing had changed this Christmas, too.

There were three of them this year.

Eddie heard the crunch of tires on asphalt from the kitchen. He was supposed to be setting up the ham to go in the oven—which he’d never done in his life, yet he’d volunteered—and he’d only gotten as far as preheating the oven.

So, he headed straight for the front door, sans any sort of jacket or shoes.

Eddie had hated the cold most of his life.

When you lived in a metal box with shitty heating on a good day, the cold months meant shivering through showers, mainlining coffee just to be warm for a couple minutes and layering blankets because sweating was better than losing a toe.

But there was something about Steve Harrington in the cold.

Or, more specifically, in the snow.

He eased out of the driver’s side of the Beemer, running a hand through his hair. His shoulders filled out the blue denim of his jacket, which matched his jeans—which stretched over his pert butt.

Not that Eddie was looking. For too long.

Maybe Eddie liked the cold a little bit more now.

But the whole reason Steve had bent over in the first place was to bring out a few things from his backseat. He held them behind his back as he straightened, and Eddie pouted as he trudged through the snow onto the porch.

His cheeks were pink when joined Eddie by the front door, ducking his head as he offered a hello.

“Hey, Eds,” he said.

Eddie leaned over to try and peer at what Steve had behind his back, eyes widening when Steve brought out a Tupperware that looked like it had several stacks of cookies, warm enough to steam up the inside.

“For me?” he asked, raising his brows.

Steve let him take the cookies with no comment.

“No, I thought it’d be rude not to bring something.” He shrugged, and it took Eddie a moment to realize that his other arm was still bent behind him. Eddie stared pointedly, and Steve smiled before revealing a more Christmas-y gift—in red and green plaid wrapping paper and white ribbon. “This is, though.”

Eddie immediately swapped cookies for the present, holding it close with a wide grin.

Steve cocked his head, sliding his hands (probably cold) into his pockets. “You’re not going to open it?”

He propped his present on his hip and reached forward to grab onto Steve’s wrist. With probably wild eyes, Eddie met Steve’s gaze, waited until Steve leaned forward just a bit and said, with every bit of seriousness, “We haven’t had the cinnamon buns, yet.”