#maybe i should make realistic designs? or the closest i can get to it for refrence pics | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maniculum · 1 year ago

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Bestiaryposting Results: Choglaem

First, it seems that Tumblr's search function is flawed in such a way that just searching the tag doesn't actually get all of the results. So if you drew something for this round and it's not in this post, let me know and I'll put it in a reblog. Same applies to previous (and future) rounds.

Anyway, it's now time to look at the results for the Choglaem! Anyone who doesn't know what that means is encouraged to look at previous posts in this series, collected at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .

And here's the link to the entry people are working from:

Now, let's get into it. As before, these are presented roughly in the order that people posted them. (I'm going to go through the tag on Tumblr's regular search, then again on the alternate search method someone suggested, so any that only show up on the alternate source are going to be at the end.)

@embervoices (link to post here) decided to show that the Choglaem is bigger than all living things on the earth by... having it fight Godzilla. Perfect. Inspired. Love it. No notes.

@mobileleprechaun (link to post) has helpfully labelled their drawing for us, which I enjoy. Also the interpretation that the tongue through the blowhole is a lure used by an underwater predator is a good one -- honestly, putting something this large in the water just feels more plausible, you know? In their tags, mobileleprechaun describes this as "sort of a dinosaur snake tsuchinoko", and I had to Google that last one, so let me show you the best result from that ...

(If anyone else needed that word defined, it's a creature from Japanese folklore that does actually look a lot like a fat snake, but I'm pretty sure it's not just a fat snake. There's a (disappointingly brief) Wikipedia article about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuchinoko)

Anyway, the drawing is great! I have no idea why Saddam Hussein is there; you'll have to ask mobileleprechaun.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has given her Choglaem wings to aid in causing the air to become turbulent. The medieval stylization is pretty dead-on, I have to say; I swear I've seen those trees before. And I think this Choglaem may actually be the closest to the drawing in the Aberdeen Bestiary out of all the submissions we got, so coolest-capybara is clearly quite good at thinking like a medieval artist. The post linked above contains a brief explanation of her design choices and also a link to the medieval illustration that elephant is based on.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has once more done a very realistic-looking depiction of this week's beaſt. According to their post, part of their inspiration was an oarfish -- and I have to say this is pretty believable as a terrestrial version of an oarfish, so well done. I'm impressed by this one, which manages to look cool and dangerous but also kinda cute -- I think the tongue-through-the-blowhole part of the description makes all of them look a bit goofy in an endearing sort of way. The post linked above describes their design decisions, including a brief diversion over round pupils vs. slit pupils in snakes.

Silverhart also mentions that the nonsense-names I'm using sound like the names of mythical animals in a fantasy novel, so I feel I should confess what my process for randomly generating these names was. I've got a Goblin conlang that's been sitting in my pile of works-in-progress for years; I just fed the phonology from that into Zompist's gen program (link here), then picked out several dozen of my favorite results. So that's why they sound like kinda-plausible words.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) has drawn us a Choglaem who is having problems. Or, I don't know, maybe it meant to knot itself up like that; who am I to judge? Either way I think it's cute. Just look at that face. A brief overview of her design decisions is included in the linked post; I think the chicken crest is a pretty sensible call given the source material.

@pomrania (link to post here) has made some creative choices with their version. I like how they've decided that if the Choglaem kills with its tail, the tail should have something at the end rather than just... you know. A tail. That tracks. "The tail ends in a fist", specifically, however, was not something I saw coming. The crest looking like an emo hairstyle is funny, I think, and the angry elephant is great. The expression on the Choglaem's face is suspect to me; it looks like it's having too much fun with this. The linked post above includes an early draft, and itself links to a post with a detailed account of the artist's thought process and some additional sketches.

@miapcain (link to post here) has... wait, hold on, look at that border. That's gorgeous. Had to acknowledge that before moving to the inside of the frame. Anyway, Mia has given her Choglaem legs, which might seem odd for something described as a "snake", but actually isn't out of the ordinary for a medieval bestiary -- the authors tended to play a bit more fast and loose with their categorization of animals than we do today, and there are indeed examples of animals with legs being called "serpents" or "snakes". (I assume the artist knows this, I just want to share that with the rest of the audience.) Anyway, the drawing style is great; I like the stylized landscape and the muted colors. That elephant is definitely modeled after a medieval elephant -- I swear I've seen it before -- but I couldn't tell you which one offhand. Anyway. Love the vibes here. Not sure why the tongue is a vine, but it's a cool design feature.

@rautavaara (link to post here) has gone an entirely different direction with this one, and I can kind of see the steps. Snakelike creature, kills with its tail... what if the tail it kills with is a snake. As a result, we have this chimeric "bovid-lion-snake beast", as the artist describes. It definitely stands out from the crowd, and looks menacing as hell. Rautavaara continues with the cool frames and stylization, and I continue to appreciate them. Kind of an art-deco feel on this one.

@karthara (link to post here) gives us a big snake with a somewhat aquatic-looking fin-crest, grappling with an elephant in a very believable manner. That is a quality depiction of a snake fighting an elephant, no mistake. And like I said before, a kind of aquatic look feels right for something this big. The linked post contains a short description of the design decisions.

@gradling (link to post here) apparently also had the thought of "if it kills with its tail there should be something dangerous on the tail", and made the excellent decision to give the Choglaem a thagomizer. That's amazing and I love it. The crest also looks quite good. I don't have anything else to add here. Thagomizer. Brilliant.

@moustawott (link to post here) has done this very cool, kind of celestial-looking Choglaem. I like that its pose is evoking an infinity symbol. And, of course, it is in its natural habitat:

the skies

A brief explanation of design choices can be found in the post linked above.

@treesurface (link to post here) has managed to really evoke the size of this thing even though it's the only thing on the page, which I think is quite good. Also, the brief discussion of their design choices in the post linked is pretty interesting, and honestly that's what I want to highlight for this piece, so go check that out.

@scarlettbookworm (link to post here) has given us an elephant apparently in the moment when it realizes it's about to be attacked by a Choglaem. In order to allow their Choglaem to lurk despite its size, they've given it camo-pattern scales, which I think is clever. There's a pretty good explanation of their design choices in the linked post, which I think is worth reading.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) apparently did this with a fountain pen, which I think is very cool. I like the oarfish-inspired crest, and the very menacing face, and the elephant being ambushed. However -- and I realize I've said this like three times in a row now -- you should check out the linked post to read the artist's explanation of their design decisions. They describe it pretty thoroughly and I think it's more worthwhile to read their account of what they've drawn than it is to read mine.

@strixcattus (link to post here) posted this while I was typing this round-up, so this will be the last result from Normal Tumblr Search. They've given us another "there should be something dangerous on the end of its tail" interpretation and drawn their Choglaem with an ankylosaur-style club, which I think is excellent. As per usual, their post includes an amazingly detailed modern-naturalist-style description of the animal in question, which I always enjoy. It's exactly my jam. (That bit about where the largest Choglaem lives... is that a reference to something? It feels familiar.)

All right, I'm now looking through "#choglaem" on @findtags's search system, and it is a bit different, oddly. There are fewer results than in the regular Tumblr search -- only six of the above images show up -- but it also has one that doesn't show up on the normal search! Dammit tumblr.

@hairycarrot ... whom Tumblr will not let me tag? what the hell? [edit: the tag works now that i’ve posted this, but the editor seemed to think this blog wasn’t real] um... (link to post here). Anyway, they've done this neat stylized thing that kind of looks like pastels? I don't know art, that's just what it looks like to me and I like it. I also enjoy the Choglaem being coiled up like a spring -- I know it's because it's a constrictor and showing it in coils is a good way to communicate that, but I still like the look. Very pleasant-looking depiction of an elephant being ambushed by a giant snake.

All right, time for the reveal. Here's the Aberdeen Bestiary drawing:

Yep. That snake has legs and wings. So everyone who added limbs was in an appropriately medieval mindset. It doesn't seem to have a crest, though, and I don't see any blowholes. And it's attacking with its bite more than with its tail. Honestly, I think y'all read the entry much more closely than this artist did.

But maybe they were also working with more preconceptions.

Because you see.

This is the entry for the Dragon.

Yeah, that's not what I was expecting from a bestiary description of a dragon either.

The interesting thing about it to me is that it's absolutely not what you generally see in fictional depictions of dragons in medieval literature. The bestiary entry is very firm on the idea that it's not venomous, it's a constrictor, it kills with its tail -- and most medieval dragons I've read about are highly venomous. Some of them aren't even that large; they're dangerous for their venom rather than their size. So maybe this is a bit of medieval mythbusting -- "no, guys, real dragons actually don't have venom at all".

And yes, this means there's historical precedent for the green & black dragons in D&D; dragons being so venomous they spit, breathe, or blow out poison instead of having to inject it with a bite is a pretty common motif in medieval dragon stories. I think a lot of people think of those as just variants on the classic fire-breathing version depicted by the red dragon, but actually there aren't that many fire-breathing dragons in medieval stories as far as I remember. (I would do some research on this, but I wanted to have this posted like two hours ago, so you're just getting what I remember off the top of my head instead of proper sources, sorry.) To my understanding, the classic fantasy dragon breathes fire because Smaug breathed fire. And Smaug breathed fire because the dragon in Beowulf breathed fire. But the Beowulf dragon isn't actually representative in that regard; the venom-spitting dragon is more common as far as I've seen. (No word on lightning or cold, sorry blue and white dragons.)

Anyway, there's probably room to reintroduce the constrictor dragon that kills with its tail. What colors haven't already been used up in the various monster manuals, splatbooks, &c.?

I'm rambling. End of post.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #choglaem

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lovelylogans · 1 year ago

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the parent trap

CHAPTER EIGHT: let's get down to business!

The boys begin to plot. Camp Walden trembles in fear.

⁂

“All right, then, chaps. To business.”

Remus looks around their other-than-them-empty cabin. “Chaps who?”

“You, Cuppy, and Paddington, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Remus mutters, giving Cuppy a look like can you believe this guy?

“I figure you should learn the layout of the house—I think our plot will be waylaid rather quickly if you can’t find your way to my room, won’t it?”

“Sure,” Remus says, and so Roman flips around one of the many, many posterboards Remus has filched from the arts-and-crafts supplies.

“Here—”

“Whoa, did you draw this?” Remus interrupts already, standing from where he’d been sitting criss-cross applesauce on the ground.

“Well, yes,” Roman says.

Remus takes the time to examine the posterboard; there are photographs of the house from the street pinned to it, as well as the occasional photograph of a room, a basic floorplan rendered in strict lines that might make an architect jealous, but the illustrations of each room are… actually…

“You’re really good,” Remus admits grudgingly.

Even if just in shades of charcoal, the images of the living room, the stairs, the hallways—all of them are rendered in loving, careful detail.

“Thank you,” Roman says, pleased. “Dad taught me, since he’s always sketching gown designs—do you draw?”

“Paint and photography, mostly,” Remus says absently. “Nothing as realistic as this…”

“I had a lot of references,” Roman says, before tapping at the photo of the house from the street. “I see it all the time, anyway. Here it is: Seven Pembroke Lane.”

“Seven Pembroke Lane. That’s where Dad lives.”

“And—”

“—and Uncle Logan who’s not technically our uncle and Grandfather and you—me, I guess, in a few weeks—right. Okay. So you walk into the front door here…”

“—into the main entrance hall—here.” Roman taps a sketch; a big, sweeping staircase winding sneakily up the left side; a hallway leading forward, an arch to the right, paintings dotting the walls. “Umbrellas here—try your best not to let them drip anywhere, it drives Uncle Logan mental—”

“Don’t let umbrellas drip, got it,” Remus says. “Then the living room?”

“—and the coat closet, but I think you understand the gist of that one. Right. Sitting room. Grandfather always says it’s the parlor. We usually spend evenings after dinner in here; if Grandfather starts smoking, he’ll usually step out onto the stairwell. Dad hates it when he smokes in the house, so Grandfather tries not to smoke where he can see.”

“Grandfather smokes?” Remus says, intrigued.

“Mm-hm. Cigars and pipes. He has a lot of opinions on them, but he doesn’t expect me to remember anything about what makes a Corona different from a Taro, or when a cigar is appropriate in comparison to a pipe. Just smile and nod and agree with him.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who smokes cigars. Or pipes. Except maybe businesspeople on fancy trips to the vineyard.”

“Well, you’re about to meet someone who does,” Roman says. “Right next to the parlor is Grandfather’s study—that’s usually where he sneaks off to smoke, there’s a window he cracks open—he or Uncle Logan are usually reading in there. The paper’s a safe bet, we get four—”

“Four?!”

“Yes. The Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the Financial Times.”

“Two Timeses?”

“They’re not the same, but yes: two Timeses.”

“And they read them every day?”

“Well, those and Vogue, but those are getting into magazines anyway. Dad gets loads of them.”

“Lots of recycling and/or scrapbooking materials, cool.”

“And then up the stairs are the dining room and kitchen—that’s usually Uncle Logan’s area—Dad’s room—his is closest to the stairs—and mine, just down here. We take tea in Dad’s room sometimes, just because he has this little alcove that looks over the street—here—”

Remus is already scooting closer to look at the sketch, though; an image of a man with a teacup in hand, his head turned to look out of the window.

“What’s that on his face?” Remus says.

“Birthmark,” Roman says. “He says some people call it a wine stain. He goes to the dermatologist sometimes to make sure it’s all okay—something about blood vessels, I think, he doesn’t talk about it much. I’ve kind of got one, don’t you?”

“No—where?”

Roman obligingly pivots, folding down his left ear slightly so Remus can see a nondescript, vaguely blobbish shape of red.

“It’s kind of funny that the twin with the wine stain didn’t end up in the vineyard,” Remus says. “Also, we’re going to have to figure out a way for me to duplicate that.”

“I guess it is rather funny,” Roman says thoughtfully. “And I suppose I’ll have to cover mine, too. I’ll add it to the list.”

He briefly leans over to jot it down on another posterboard, turned vertical, with a list of objectives they have to achieve before camp ends, finding a place for it under trim Remus’s hair and dye Roman’s hair.

Except, now that Remus is looking at Roman’s ear...

“Uh,” Remus says. “And.”

“And?” Roman says, blinking at him confusedly.

Remus pointedly pinches at his own earlobe.

His own unpierced earlobe.

“Oh,” Roman says, his fingers flying to touch the little gold-and-fake-ruby studs in his own ears. “Oh!”

“Yeah, oh!” Remus says.

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes,” Remus says gleefully. “I’ve always wanted to get piercings!”

⁂

Roman gulps.

“You’re quite sure of this?”

“Oh, yeah,” Remus says, holding ice cubes to the backs of his ears, somehow breezily confident despite the fact that Roman is about to stab him with a needle. “I’ve read all sorts of stuff on piercings. I’d’ve done it myself at home, except Virgil might’ve killed me for not taking the proper safety precautions.”

“That sounds rather contradictory.”

Remus shrugs as best as he can without dislodging the ice. “That’s Virgil.”

“Will they be very angry, do you think?” Roman says.

“Well, there won’t be much they can do about it by the time I—you—get back home,” Remus says, as practical as it can be. “C’mon, go ahead, sterilize the needle! The quicker you get it over with, the quicker I can have my cool new studs.”

Roman whimpers, but he obligingly strikes a match, holding it up to one of his spare sewing needles so it grows as hot as possible, hopefully killing off any bacteria. He blows it away before it can burn his fingers.

“Apple,” Remus prompts, and Roman takes it, swallowing hard and taking a deep breath.

“Okay, on the count of three,” Roman says, voice wavering. “Remove the ice?”

Remus does so eagerly, turning his head to bare his ear, the little dot they’ve painstakingly drawn on to match Roman’s own pierce mark. Roman places the cube of apple under Remus’s earlobe.

“Okay,” Remus says. “Ready?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you?”

“I was born ready,” Remus assures him.

“All right,” Roman says, swallowing. Aim true, old boy. “One… two… three!”

He jams the needle through, then quickly draws back.

But not quickly enough.

The droplets of blood trickle down Remus’s neck, and onto Roman’s waiting hands.

Roman’s ear-splitting shriek must rattle the whole camp.

⁂

“Wicked,” Remus says, turning his head back and forth in admiration of how cool he looks, rocking a pair of silver-and-cubic-zirconia studs stolen from Roman’s extensive jewelry collection.

“Wicked?” Roman says, from where he’s lying reclined on his bed, a cool, damp washcloth over his eyes. Remus rolls his eyes; honestly, he’s acting like the one who got stabbed, twice.

“You know, now that all the bleeding’s stopped, it does look really cool.”

“And the bleeding has stopped?”

“I think I’d know if I was still bleeding,” Remus says. “You’re acting like I lost a pint, or something, it was only a couple drops.”

“Only a couple drops, he says,” Roman says, “you weren’t the one with it running down your wrists,” but at least deigns to lift the washcloth from his face.

“All right, now that you’re feeling less faint—” Remus cheerfully hops over to his trunk, pulling out his hair styling supplies. “We’re going to need to fumigate out this bleach! Back to the sharp tools, Sweeney Todd, I need a trim while we’re at it!”

Roman groans, dropping his head back onto his pillow.

⁂

If Roman thought they’d looked alike before.

Remus, beside him, fluffs a hand through his now-shorter hair; his movement is the only visible difference between them now. They’d both changed into Camp Walden-provided shirts and shorts, to avoid damaging of the clothes they actually liked with any of the bleach. Roman’s obligingly swapped his earrings to match Remus’ silver; Roman has sternly repeated the warnings the piercer had given him about letting things heal.

“You know, I was joking when I said Sweeney Todd, but you did a pretty good job with this,” Remus says. “It’s, like, perfect.”

“Yeah,” Roman says, preoccupied with the way the bleached stripe of his hair catches the sunlight.

Remus grins at him in the mirror. “Freaky.”

“Absolutely.”

“We’re going to completely fool them.”

“Definitely,” Roman agrees fervently.

⁂

“So I don’t have that detailed of sketches, Da Vinci, but I’ve at least got,” Remus unleashes his posterboard with a flourish, pulling off the topsheet he’d placed on top of it. “Tons of pictures!”

“It’s so green,” Roman says, looking awed.

“Well, yeah. Vineyard,” Remus says. “Kind of goes with the territory. Speaking of—the grounds!”

He taps a pointer against an aerial drawing, with vaguely accurate measurements.

“We hang outside a lot, especially in the summers,” Remus informs him. “We ride with Dad on Sprout—”

“Wait!” Roman interrupts, launching to his feet and pulling free a photo. “You have a pony?!”

“Sprout is a mare, thank you,” Remus sniffs. “Not some rinky-dink little pony.”

“And a puppy too!” Roman exclaims, seeing the picture beside him.

“That’s Sammy—he is, to quote Pa, a big ol’ sweetie-pie.”

“I can’t believe you have a pony and a puppy.”

“Well, you have Grandfather,” Remus points out. “And an uncle. I barely have an aunt—”

“We have an aunt?” Roman says.

“Yeah, but we don’t see her much—Auntie Linda‘s cool, she just lives in Georgia,” Remus says. He remembers Roman is, in fact, British, and probably has very little idea on what constitutes the country’s geography, and elaborates, “Across the country and down, and camp here is across the country and up. So she flies in for holidays and stuff, but you probably won’t have to deal with her outside of her maybe calling Pa.”

“Okay,” Roman says slowly. “Auntie Linda. We have an aunt, a horse, and a puppy.”

“Right, Sammy!” Remus says, brightening. “Sammy’s the best, he loves me. If he gets a little nervous about you, just feed him some bacon or salmon and let him up in the bed when Virgil isn’t looking, you’ll win him over easy. He’s a good judge of character, Pa says.”

Roman jots these things down into a little notepad.

“Sprout’s good with everybody; she’s a good beginner’s horse, so if Dad asks you to ride her, don’t sweat it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Roman repeats incredulously.

“They’re bringing in a donkey or something, aren’t they? We’ll go down and practice, you’ll pick it up in no time.”

“I’m pretty sure a donkey is different from a horse!”

“Well, the basics are the same.”

Roman gives him an incredulous look.

“Really!” Remus insists. “If you can keep your balance on a donkey, you can keep your balance on Sprout. Dad got her for me specifically because I was a kid just starting to learn how to ride. You’re gonna be fine.”

Roman pushes his hand through his freshly-dyed hair, looking a bit stressed, but obligingly jotting down the note anyway.

“Okay. Horse—we’ll practice—and bribe the dog.”

“Back to the grounds,” Remus says, turning back to his photographs. “We don’t help out much on account of that being child labor, but I know my way around pretty well and sometimes I demonstrate how to squish grapes for tourists.”

“Is that very difficult?”

“Nah, just get barefoot and hop up and down on it for a while.” At Roman’s wrinkled nose, Remus insists, “It’s fun!”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“There aren’t a lot of tours, but they happen sometime. Pa’ll warn me whenever there is one, though, and he never makes me go, so if you don’t want to go just say so, he won’t take offense.”

“Are the tours fun?”

“Sometimes,” Remus says. “Some business person gave me a twenty once ‘cause he spilled a chardonnay sample on me. Um, grape-squishing. I learn things like,” Remus sticks his nose into the air, “Why, what a lovely sauvignon blanc! Similar to the New Zealand method, you can really tell it’s preserved all of that herbaceousness.”

Remus pretends to survey a wine bottle, pushing an imaginary pair of glasses up his forehead to squint at the imaginary label, before he returns to an obsessive examination of his fake wine glass, whipping out a fake magnifying glass.

“Oh, what a lovely bouquet… I smell a hint of…” Remus swills an imaginary glass, inhaling noisily as Roman laughs, “That citrusy scent—lemon zest, I do believe—tarragon, some tree fruit—perhaps apple?—ah, how light and crisp on the palate—” a fake swishing, gargling, and noisy smacking of the lips— “Delightful!”

“How do you know all that?” Roman says.

“People at wineries always want to pretend like they know wine really well,” Remus says, “and I mean, I drink some—”

“You drink it?!”

“Not a ton,” Remus says with a laugh. “If I ask really nice, Papa lets me try a sample sometimes. Kids our age do that kind of thing all the time in Italy.”

“What if Papa gives me a sample and I don’t know what to say?”

Remus begins to tick the basic characteristics of a Parker Knoll chardonnay on his fingers. “If it’s a white wine, say something about a light profile, crisp aftertaste, aged with oak, hint of apple or lemon or pear. If it’s a red, say something about blackcurrant or blackberry, cherry, or some spice and vanilla. He’ll probably give you a white wine, though—chardonnay’s one of our signatures.”

Roman is studiously noting every flavor Remus says.

“Oh, and say something about how the California grape is the best!”

“California grapes are the best, got it.”

“And if all else fails, just make fun of the way people drink wine like I did. Not in front of a customer, though, Virgil will lecture us if it’s in front of a customer.”

“Lots of gurgling and lip smacking.”

“And swill around the glass and sniff it really obnoxiously, then you’ve got it,” Remus says. “Now onto the actual house…”

⁂

“No, no, you’ve got it wrong completely!”

Remus sighs, frustrated, stepping back from the five millionth time they’ve tried to practice this damn handshake. The sun’s started to set over the lake’s dock, for goodness’s sake, dying everything orange.

Roman, stressed, pulls at the new streak in his hair. “If you can’t do this, it’ll tip them off completely.”

“What did I even do that time?”

“You were a beat late!”

“A beat late! A measly little beat off, that’s what you’re so stressed about?!”

“I’m never a beat off with his handshake, I’ve known it since I was practically a toddler!” Roman insists. “We’re walking through it again.”

Remus groans but he gets into position.

“All right,” Roman says. “Now, I’m Uncle Logan. Here is my hand.”

Remus, moving slowly, takes it.

“Now up, down, once—up, down, a little faster, and again—”

Remus pumps his arm up and down.

“You stick out your hand—”

Remus does, and Roman slaps his on top of Remus’s, and Remus’s hand follows, and Roman’s last hand.

“And break down and hands together and clap-clap-clap—”

Remus gets this part just fine—it’s like playing the Tic-Tac-Toe clapping game. Hey, he should teach that to Roman!

“And down down down and hit your hip and snap jump—”

Okay, this is the part where Remus gets a bit muddled, but when they’re slowed down like this he does it perfectly.

“Bump hip, jump to switch sides, bump other hip—”

Remus is sorely tempted to bump hips with Roman so intensely it’ll make him fall in the water, just to bring some levity to handshake practice.

“Hands under chin and switch places and now shake hands again.”

Remus does it all. Pitch perfect.

“Again, but now to tempo,” Roman insists, and Remus grumbles but shuffles back into place to do it all over.

⁂

They’re curled up in their pushed-together beds again, sitting up, wrapped in their own blankets.

“Does Dad call you any nicknames?” Remus says sleepily, valiantly trying his hardest not to nod off, as they’ve both been doing for the past two hours. “Pa calls me a lot of nicknames.”

Roman yawns so wide he cracks his jaw, covering his mouth with his hand. “Some. Darling, dear, that kind of thing. Rome, if they’re shortening my name. What does Papa call you?”

“Everything,” Remus says promptly. “Sport, squirt, pumpkin, kiddo, honey, champ, punk. If there’s something that’s not a name that’s shouted through the house, it’s probably me. Sometimes Sammy, but mostly me.”

“He shouts?”

“Not in a mad way, just in a loud American way. Virgil and me shout too, by the way, you’ll have to get used to that. Come here, dinner’s ready, that kind of thing. Does Dad?”

“No. I’ve never heard him shout, except at unsafe drivers while we’re walking on the sidewalk. If he needs me, he’ll probably go looking. Our house isn’t as large as yours, I don’t think, there’s only a few places I’ll be if I’m not right in front of him.”

“That makes sense. You’re all squished up in a city block, we’re in the middle of a big old vineyard…”

“Mm,” Roman says, burrowing deeper into his blankets. “What’s dinner like, over there? What kinds of foods do you have most often?”

“Depends on the season. It doesn’t get super cold in California, but Virgil likes making a lot of soups and stews and stuff during fall and winter. My favorite’s his chili.”

“Chili?”

“What, you’ve never had it?! I guess it’s a pretty American food. Meat, beans, tomatoes, some spice, lots of cheese. Lots of chips and sometimes he makes cornbread to go with it. S’nice.”

“I suppose I’ll have to see.”

“What’s your favorite thing that—hey, who cooks in your house?”

“Oh, Uncle Logan, usually.”

“Huh. Really?”

“He says it’s all chemistry anyway, and he really likes chemistry.”

“What’s your favorite thing Uncle Logan makes, then?”

Roman pauses, considering, then:

“It’s very stereotypical of me, but I suppose it’s whenever he makes us a proper tea.”

Remus grins, propping himself up again. “What makes a proper tea?”

“That varies a lot from household to household,” Roman tells him. “But for us, it’s tea—usually an earl grey or an English breakfast—some sandwiches, some biscuits. If it’s a special occasion, Logan sometimes goes and gets some pastries from a bakery down the street… Oh, the jelly sandwiches! Those are my favorite; those sandwiches and his thumbprint biscuits.”

Biscuits, Remus mouths to himself, then, “Right, cookies! Biscuits are cookies. Okay, jelly sandwiches and jelly cookies—are you sure your favorite food isn’t just jelly?”

Roman grins sheepishly.

“Your favorite food is jelly?!”

“It’s a remarkable jelly!”

“Oh my God, and you think I have the weird eating habits,” Remus says, gently bopping his brother over the head with a pillow.

“You do have weird eating habits,” Roman says, bopping Remus in return. “I’ve seen the concoctions you put together at mealtimes—”

“—excuse me, trying to make decent huevos rancheros isn’t a concoction...”

“Oh, is that what you were doing? I suppose I didn’t make the connection when you just started piling every green vegetable they had into your scrambled eggs and the pieces of toast you tried to roll out onto the table and toast again on a candle…”

“Veggies are important in huevos rancheros! And it’s not my fault they didn’t put out any avocado or chilies or tortillas, I had to improvise…”

And so they bicker cheerfully into the night.

previous chapter | masterpost | next chapter

#my fic #my fanfic #tpt fic

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agumonger · 6 months ago

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i had to get into june finals week to, all of a sudden, come up with a 3D rig/simulation hybrid for gakkoros' chain that:

doesn't break that easily

responds to gravity and collision

doesn't jitter randomly (yet?)

responds to armature animation

stays fixed to his neck and doesn't fall off

allows each link to rotate more or less realistically

looks aesthetically nice

3d modeling jargon under the cut, in case you're familiar with it/with blender/just curious/bald:

i managed this with demon super ultimate's rosary earlier because its beads are spherical and therefore it doesn't matter if they don't rotate individually - same for danny's dog tag, which is literally just a silver string that can support beads thru geometry nodes (even though i decided to hide them for aesthetic cleanliness)

...however, when you have a link chain, each link will rotate differently, while also needing to stay close to the body and move in a responsive way that more or less simulates gravity

if this rig/geometry nodes/simulation hybrid is successful, i'll be so proud of it i might even make a video tutorial detailing how to make it, as it is a very unexplored "blue ocean" within 3d modeling: the very few tutorials on it only allow to make it static or with very wonky movement

my first attempt was a pure rigidbody simulation, but it broke apart a LOT, was super jittery, and didn't support armature animation (the model's collision suddenly becomes a prism before blender doesn't know how to handle collision in animated rigged characters and freaks out)

my latest attempt was with an armature bone for *each link* as well as IK (inverse kinematics - the end of a limb controls the movement of the rest instead of the other way around) parented to an empty (an object without geometry that only serves as some sort of anchor point thing), so that when i moved the empty, the end of the chain would follow it. it looked aesthetically pleasing when idle, but in extreme poses or animation it was a mess. it often opened up weirdly at the end too (where the dark gem is) also it was annoying to set up tbh... 66 armature bones!?!?

as for the new approach's downsides, it is *still* kind of a chore to set up, to be very honest - it requires parenting *each link* to the closest three vertices of the cloth simulation. the simulation itself must have very specific settings too in order to work, and... it moves super slow and will often crash blender while baking.

yet, it's still the ONLY approach that, it successful, makes it way better-looking, more stable AND easier to animate - you just do your animation as usual, go back to frame 1, and let the cloth simulation do its thing - bake if you like. that's it!

is this a Special Interest? maybe! after all, i was already aesthetically interested in jewelry at age 4 so. yeah

and yet, i'm not interested in wearing it myself. i just think it looks super cool in character design. but i feel like people often decide not to do so because we don't have many tools to make it work in 3D in a believable, non-jarring way

so, until some add-on comes to save us all, i've come up with this. still need to fully implement but it already gives me a really good impression. enough for today though, i should do some studying... ahh, i wish i could stay devving in android studio for hours like i do playing with my 3d blorbos in blender. pain. 3d modeling is so much more fun than making mobile apps with a laggy stinky emulator :(

btw, if you've read thru all this... thank you. you a real one xoxo

#long post #3d modeling #brainrot mode #am i onto some discovery here

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cindylouwho-2 · 1 year ago

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Recent Ecommerce News (Including Etsy), October 2023

Hello and welcome to my new format for ecommerce business news updates! Instead of jamming everything in one long report, I am now going to divide them up into 1) ecommerce site news, including:

Etsy news

all other marketplaces and website builders

payment processing

shipping

and 2) a SEO & online business news update, including:

social media

general SEO

content marketing

ads & stats

consumer trends & psychology,

graphic design tools (images, video etc.)

The new plan is to release the ecommerce one more frequently, and to do less frequent updates on SEO etc.

Remember, if you want to get more regular updates on these topics - especially Etsy - please follow me on Twitter, on LinkedIn, or on Bluesky. I also post major updates on Reddit.

Please let me know what you think of these changes!

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

Etsy has removed “Other” as a shipping carrier option for US and UK shops. I covered the basics in a short post, but the bottom line is, if you use a service Etsy doesn’t offer in the shipping option menu, you need to choose the one closest to it in delivery times. Buyers do not see the service used; you can still name it whatever you want for selections in the cart if it is an upgrade. The workaround is useless, of course, in the many cases where Etsy doesn’t offer any options that are close to true shipping times.

This change, coupled with Etsy’s recent policy clarification that items that arrive after the latest estimated delivery date are eligible for purchase protection refunds, means that anyone shipping without tracking/Etsy Labels, or orders over $250 (or $500 USD from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) is at risk of having to issue a full refund because Etsy does not provide realistic shipping times when listings are set up. Etsy is even promising buyers this upfront now; see my forum thread for more details. Etsy always claims they will update carriers for major delays, as they are doing again this year, but sellers rarely see evidence of that. On that note, per that last link, Etsy is also promising to “...amplify items with faster delivery options and items expected to arrive by the holidays to shoppers in December more than we usually do.” Note that does not necessarily mean they will add more localization to searches, as they stress shorter processing times, ready-to-ship items, and shipping upgrades as ways to be ready for those Etsy changes.

The UK is the latest jurisdiction cracking down on online tax cheats, by asking various online platforms to report seller income to the government. “If you make more than £1,000 alongside your regular job in the tax year then you need to register yourself as self-employed and report your income to HMRC. You then have to pay tax on this income.” This may also catch people who didn’t declare money earned before 2022.

Numerous shipping companies are not providing service to Israel and the Gaza Strip currently, and eBay is not allowing sales from the US to Israel. That link is being updated as new announcements are made.

ETSY NEWS

As mentioned above, Etsy’s Seller protection threshold will be raised to $500 from $250, from November 1 to December 31 only.

Support told a UK seller they will be able to opt out of Etsy’s Offsite Ads as of February 2024, due to the Digital Services Act. Don’t forget that shops in the EU as well as Switzerland can opt out now, but you do have to contact Etsy to do that. Note that some EU sellers are struggling to get Etsy to acknowledge the right to opt out now, with some Support staff stating it does not kick in until February 2024. Is Etsy’s legal department really that disorganized? Maybe I should come out of retirement…

Etsy says it has changed how it deals with automated flags of possible violations of its handmade policy. Listings will be deindexed instead of deactivated, and Etsy claims that anything that doesn’t get reviewed by human staff on Etsy by the 48 hour mark will be reindexed. I wrote a bit more about this on LinkedIn. Sadly, we aren’t seeing evidence of this new system yet, with plenty of lengthy handmade takedowns continuing.

Any changes to handmade flagging aren’t stopping the usual “bought drop-shipped garbage on Etsy by accident” news articles, though. Also, USB sticks of pirated movies are also a big “handmade” item now.

I covered Etsy’s new Share & Save program on my blog; it’s not horrible, but is also not worth changing your business plan for. Modern Retail referred to it as “...ask[ing] Etsy sellers to be their own affiliates." [soft paywall]

Etsy Payments - the marketplace's internal payment processor - is now available in Thailand & Ukraine; it will be coming soon to Japan, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and India. This means new shops can open in those countries, since Etsy currently does restrict new shops to countries with Etsy Payments (except for India). This is also a new source of income for the corporation, since Etsy Payments will be mandatory in these countries in 2024. Note that some of the new countries will require a Payoneer account, which has an annual fee in some countries if the business does not meet a minimum threshold.

If you are in Canada and have been asked to provide Etsy with your Social Insurance Number, this is due to the INFORM Act, and affects sellers grossing at least $5000 in US sales a year who do not already have a GST/HST ID number submitted to Etsy. I covered this topic with citations on LinkedIn.

There is a new Etsy gift receipt that includes a QR code for the shop, but unfortunately it doesn’t include the names of the recipient or buyer. I’m not joking. They say they are working on it, though! Because no one could have predicted that gift notes should have the name of the giver and receiver on them, am I right?

As promised in previous quarterly reports, Etsy has released a beta version of a price optimization tool. Here's what it looks like:

Thanks to Emily of EveryDayDabble for this screenshot.

For most shops, they will see very few listings analyzed at the moment, and sadly, it’s just as bad as the last time they did this many years ago. (Mine compares sterling silver to silver plate, for example, and also compares two very different types of clip-on earring attachments.) Currently not ready for prime time. Etsy forum discussion for your entertainment.

The third quarter results get released on November 1. I will post my coverage on Tumblr a few days afterwards.

Etsy has finally done something useful to stem the spate of scammers and hackers using Etsy Messages: a note explaining some scam elements, linking to a new Help file on the topic.

There is also a forum discussion thread with confirmation from Etsy staff. Even better, they now have a special section in Etsy Messages for contact from Etsy staff, and a “From Etsy” badge on those messages.

Sellers outside of the US report that the domestic pricing tool is broken, ever since Etsy introduced the “new” (and incomplete) listing experience earlier this year. Some report that switching back to the old listing page does not solve the problem. This means that anyone trying to add domestic tax to their domestic prices may be forced to pay that tax out of their pockets instead of having it covered by the tool. Etsy is so unconcerned about this issue that is stealing money from shop owners that forum mods are just closing threads without even commenting.

The Etsy Holiday Trend report says baking is still in, as is having a dinner party. “...[T]here has been a staggering 28,277% increase in searches for zodiac tea towels, a 5,980% increase in searches for natural linen placemats, and a 4,109% increase in searches for handmade barware or glassware.” Travel items are also up.

Etsy’s holiday cyber sale runs for 5 weeks this year, and they are asking for discounts of at least 25% off. Since regular sales can only run for 30 days on Etsy, they provide a link to set up this special event for the correct number of days. If you use Share and Save (see blog post link above) and run a Cyber Sale using the sale link above, and use the seller app and approved image to post your sale on social media, Etsy is entering you into a draw for $40 worth of listing credits. [That’s a lot of hoops to jump through for $40, all to make less money per sale, promote Etsy, and let them track you through the seller app.]

Use the hashtag #FestiveEtsyFinds on Instagram if you want a chance to be featured on Etsy’s feed.

If you had recent issues with listing edits not saving while using the seller app, you may need to update to a newer version to fix the issue.

I’ve seen some folks insisting that Etsy doesn’t use images for search ranking. If that were true, Etsy Ads certainly would not be showing irrelevant tags that are based solely on the photo, right?

Etsy Labels for (domestic) Royal Mail now come with a QR code, so you can print at the post office instead of at home.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS (minus social media)

General

Shein has partnered with Forever 21, likely as a way for the ecommerce site to grow in the United States. Forever 21 clothing will be available on Shein, and the opposite - Shein products in brick and mortar stores - is also possible. Shein opened a third-party marketplace catering to the US last month.

Goodwill is still struggling to compete in the ecommerce sector of used and vintage goods. [NYTimes gift link; no paywall]

It is interesting to look at the top ecommerce sites by traffic worldwide, but remember that data like this comes from estimates based on tracking some people’s browsing habits. Only the sites themselves know what their real traffic is.

Amazon

The big US lawsuit against Amazon was finally filed in late September. [Washington Post gift link; no paywall] “Fees, requirements and incentives let Amazon collect one out of every two dollars a seller makes on the platform, effectively resulting in a “50 percent Amazon tax,” Khan said. The FTC argues those costs are then passed onto shoppers.”

If you sell on Amazon Handmade, check your handling times, as Amazon is switching them to shorter times in some cases.

Amazon Warehousing Distribution is now available to businesses for shipping beyond individual customers. The new offering is called Multi-Channel Distribution.

The holiday return deadline for Amazon purchases made between November 1 and December 31 is January 31, 2024.

India Post and Indian Railways both have new agreements with Amazon intended to improve shipping options in the country.

South Africa is the latest country with its own Amazon site.

Look out for a big change in US search in January, as Amazon adds a generative AI tool. “Amazon’s new generative AI tool will be developed using human AI trainers, who will continuously review the quality of answers the bot provides. Additionally, the tool will have access to proprietary shopping data sourced from Amazon’s extensive product catalog, complemented by user behavior data, and purchase and review information.” [Some of what staff said at a company-wide meeting echoed Etsy CEO Josh Silverman comparing keyword search with a more immersive experience that compares to shopping through an experienced sales clerk.]

eBay

eBay sellers who ship to the EU will have to display their addresses and other contact information to EU buyers starting in early 2024, to comply with the Digital Services Act. We should expect a lot more announcements in this area over the next few months, as platforms scramble to comply.

eBay is testing a new tool that supposedly creates entire listings from just one photo, through AI. It’s only on the iOS app so far, but Android is in the works. The author tried out the earlier, simpler version, and didn’t think it offered much.

Very affordable Canada Post tracked packages within Canada are now available to eBay sellers in all categories, for parcels up to 200g.

Scammers are inserting fake listings on eBay that tell customers to click links to purchase. Even if the links do not lead to malware or phishing schemes, directing sales offsite is not allowed. Worse, the scammers are buying top-placed ads to get seen.

eBay has now extended their presale ship-by date to 40 days from 30. “Even with the extended time period, presales will likely continue to be a point of contention between buyers and sellers as many listings fail to meet all three requirements of the policy and eBay is still lax in enforcing the policy or removing listings that are not in compliance.”

Here are the highlights of the Fall 2023 Seller Update.

Poshmark

Poshmark is closing in India, Australia & the UK, to focus on the site in the US and Canada. The last day is October 25th.

Poshmark is following eBay in the “AI creates a listing for you” category.

Shopify

All Shopify websites in the US can now offer Amazon’s “Buy with Prime��, which “...enables merchants who use Amazon’s payment and fulfillment services to include Amazon’s checkout service and speedy shipping guarantees on items sold from their own sites.” The rollout should have been completed by the end of September.

Like most website builders, Shopify is sometimes criticized for poor SEO, but there are ways to improve your site if you really want to.

Walmart

Walmart held a “summit” for third-party marketplace sellers in Las Vegas, and wants more businesses to join.

The Walmart extended holiday return period began October 1; anything purchased from now until the end of December can be returned until January 31, 2024.

All Other Marketplaces

The Artisans Cooperative marketplace is in its final beta stage, with products from coop members now available for sale. The platform, which came together out of a sub-group involved in the “Etsy Strike” last year, will fully open with shops from non-members added very soon; there is a waitlist if you are interested.

Faire has entered a deal with Shopify that makes Faire the recommended wholesale company for the website builder, and Shopify’s payment option will now be the recommended option on Faire. Shopify also gets some Faire shares in the deal.

Mercari is also testing out a quick listing tool. All sellers need is a photo, title, and price, unless you want to add more. [Given how poorly machine learning and image recognition sometimes work, you will probably want to add more or correct some things, at least for the time being.]

Etsy-owned Depop says free shipping isn’t as big of a plus as it used to be, and offering it isn’t an option with Depop’s shipping labels, which are compulsory for Depop seller protection.

All Other Website Builders

GoDaddy has integrated Paze with both its Stores and Payments, but only to a few businesses at the moment as they test it out. Paze is a digital wallet.

Payment Processing

Buy now pay later company Klarna is moving into more shopping options, with an image recognition tool to be used in its shopping app.

Shipping

Royal Mail hiked prices as of October 2.

Many parcel companies have already released their holiday shipping deadlines:

USPS

Canada Post

Royal Mail

FedEx US (but includes international destinations)

If you ship into Germany and need a packaging permit for 2024, this Etsy thread explains how to get a discount.

#ecommerce #etsysellernews #etsy #etsynews #microbusiness #cindylouwho2 #marketplace

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sofastuffing · 1 year ago

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[this is trucksquared's art blog]

As promised, here's my critiques. I also did a really rough paintover to demonstrate easier than text

The shadows are quite uniformly dark. Light tends to scatter even into areas that aren't directly lit, so making the parts furthest away from the light sources (eg. the edge of the ceiling) even darker, and the parts closest to direct light (eg. the edge of san's shadow) a little lighter will add a lot of depth

You seem to have partially done this already, but I think you could go a lot further

An easy way to do this is by adding a clipping mask to your shading layer and using a airbrush

Another thing that would add depth is reflected/ambient lighting. This is especially true for sans, because his simple character design creates relatively large areas of flat colour

In the paintover, I gave sans' jacket two types of indirect lighting: the ambient lighting, which is blue because it's the opposite of the yellow direct lighting (so it's like... the frequencies left over from the direct light, if that makes sense), and the light reflected directly from the floor, which is warmer because the floor itself is orange

One big issue is that the beams of light from the windows are lighting up areas that wouldn't actually be directly lit, like the back of the columns and the walls around Frisk. Light beams are visible because of particles in the air reflecting them at the viewer, so if you're going for realistic(ish) lighting, you should make them somewhat transparent

You may have noticed that fixing this issue makes Frisk blend into the background more. You can get around this by making Frisk/the area around them artificially brighter—as long as you follow the rules of lighting everywhere else, it'll be clear that you're making a stylistic decision for the sake of a good composition

I do really like the colour palette you chose. The saturated shadows and strong lighting really give your piece a dramatic tone

Sans, Frisk and the columns are parallel to/on the horizon line, so the floor shouldn't actually be visible here. If you want to floor to be barely visible, you need to put the horizon line above the floor of the room (I'd say around Sans' ankles or knees)

I think the black bars are cool and cinematic

Here are some more minor nitpicks:

I feel like the whole drawing should be scooted a liiiitle to the right. It's not that big a deal though, and tbh I'm not sure why I feel that way in the first place (maybe it's a rule of thirds thing?)

The subsurface scattering on sans isn't really visible and I think a brighter, more saturated colour would really "pop"

i think adding a little highlight to sans' bald head skull would look cool and show texture

JUDGEMENT

The last corridor is probably a pretty common subject in UT fan art but I decided to attempt it anyway because I wanted to test my lighting and perspective skills~

#the unfortunate thing about giving critique is that you often have to make assumptions about what the receiver does and does not know #so my apologies if I over- or under-explained anything #but yeah I hope this helps!#not art™#another's art #advice #no id #critique #long post #shoe texture...

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junicai · 4 years ago

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drop offs.

| summary | During filming ‘Highway To Heaven’, there is a small altercation between the heel of Aria’s boot, a loose rock, and the edge of a cliff.

| word count | 3.2k

| warnings | near death experiences (only sort of), swearing

| era | circa. 2019

20. “Put your arm around my - or just fall on me, that works too.”

58. “Don’t tell me to calm down!”

The hot desert air blew roughly against the thin cotton of Aria’s shirt - fluttering the material and tugging it against the single button that was holding the fabric closed. The atmosphere was dry and dusty, hence the steadily growing pile of empty water bottles that was building up in the back seat of one of the staff vans that had driven the members to their filming location in the Mojave Desert.

Fanning herself, Aria knelt down to pull on the zipper of her boot, checking that it was still properly closed. Black heeled boots were, realistically, not the most suitable footwear for traversing the desert terrain, but the extra inches of height put her closer to Taeil in stature so she wasn’t going to complain.

However, the last thing she needed to happen was to stumble over a rock and twist her ankle in the middle of filming.

In an ideal world, she’d have perfect balance, even when teetering around on the four-inch, wide-based heel, (or just be four inches taller naturally), but with the wind as a major factor; Aria was stuck playing a balancing act with her body.

They’d been filming for the best part of the day, having arrived in the early morning to scout out the final locations and prep some of the equipment. The journey up in the van was tedious, and over two hours long, but Aria had made herself comfortable on Donghyuck’s shoulder twenty minutes after leaving their hotel, and promptly crashed out a few minutes after that.

Johnny had been the one to gently shake her shoulder, trying to wake her up without startling her while Donghyuck was attempting - and failing - to wriggle his way out from underneath her without jostling her too much. She’d crawled out of the car with a red mark imprinted on her cheek, that she rubbed at harshly when it was pointed out with a giggle by Jungwoo.

The crew had covered the solo shots first - using the time in between each shot to touch up make-up and hair, or in some of the members’ cases, explore the desert and chase unsuspecting lizards through the undergrowth.

Aria had squeaked when a flash of muddy green had darted past her foot, jumping back an inch and then another foot when a sprinting Taeil brushed past in hot pursuit.

She turned back to look at Taeyong who was watching from afar with a huffy look on his face, throwing up his hands when Taeil finally stopped running and turned around defeated.

“Hyung! It keeps going towards you but you’re not catching it!” The leader complained, walking towards him.

Aria raised her eyebrows in disbelief, moving away from the duo that seemed dead set on bothering the unknown creature to stand beside Mark at the edge of the road. “What exactly are they chasing?”

“Lizards.”

“Lizards?”

He nodded.

Humming softly, Aria shook her head and knelt down again to tug at the zipper on her boot. After a careful yank, she stood back up, having been satisfied that it was still tightly closed.

“Is that hurting you or something?” Mark questioned, looking over at her.

“Oh no,” Aria waved him off. “I don’t know, I’m just paranoid that it’s going to come undone. Bad feeling about it or whatever.” She shrugged. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“It’s not pinching you or anything? Because I’m pretty sure there’s band-aids in the back, I can grab you one if you need it?” Mark pressed on.

“No I’m alright. If it bothers me later on, I’ll get one myself okay?”

Mark frowned, still not satisfied.

Aria stood up on her tippy-toes to reach around Mark’s neck, swinging her arm around it. “Markie~ I’m okay! See?” She jumped lightly, hopping on one foot and then the other.

Conceding, he smiled at her, poking her stomach. “Race me.”

Aria hardly blinked. “You’re on.”

“I’m coming!” Donghyuck screamed from the other side of the road, pausing momentarily to check that there were no cars coming up on the otherwise deserted road, before crossing and moving to stand in between the other two maknaes. “Ready?”

“Always.”

“On your marks!”

“Get set!”

“Go!”

The trio set off at a run, dust flying up behind their shoes.

At an immediate disadvantage because of her designated footwear, Aria began to slow almost immediately, the other two boys racing ahead. She cupped her mouth in her hands, starting to call out to them to slow down, they were cheating, but was halted by another voice calling for her from across the other side of the road.

The race was halted as Aria was called for her own solo shots. She pouted at the boys, but claimed that because it was interrupted, then there could be no winner called, and they’d have to do it again later on.

Donghyuck and Mark readily agreed, and Aria left towards her specific filming location with a flutter of her fingers towards the pair.

Now, don’t get her wrong. Aria loved filming their music videos. Watching a creative idea and physical representation of their songs come to life firsthand was incredible, and the costuming, the hair design, the make-up, was all mind-blowing to her. Her hair roots were always crying at the end of a promotional period, but she genuinely thinks she’s never looked as good as she did with the soft, bubble-gum pink hair they’d bleached the strands to dye for this promotional set.

The bright lights and the group shots, dancing a new routine together for the first time in a professional setting that wasn’t the practice room - it was exhilarating.

What was not exhilarating, was the occasionally precarious filming locations that the directors decided fit the theme so well that it would be idiotic to pass up on.

That lead to situations like the current: Aria, Jaehyun, Doyoung, Johnny and Taeil all clustered together at the edge of a rather substantial cliff edge, leaning out over the ledge to see the camera that was filming them.

Aria had a firm grip on the back of Johnny’s shirt, trying to find a groove that she could wedge her heel into to prevent herself from falling should the rocks move from underneath her feet.

The ground was dry, and there was little to no purchase offered from the dust that coated the rolling pebbles. Additionally, the lack of grip on the bottom of her black boots wasn’t helpful, and Aria found herself scrabbling for even a semblance of grip.

“Aria!” A voice called out from the bottom of the cliff.

She leaned over to catch the eye of the cameraman. “We can’t see your face, you’re too far back. Can you shuffle forward a bit?”

Teeth pinching her bottom lip, Aria nodded hesitantly, sliding a hand up Jaehyun’s arm in a silent request for help as he was the one sitting closest to the edge of the cliff.

He took her hand in one of his own, the other moving to grab her elbow as she slowly stepped forward and out onto the front area of the protruding cliff. Here, Aria could feel the complete lack of substance beneath her feet, and although she knew it wasn’t true, it felt like the rock she was standing on was paper thin.

Her weight wobbled to-and-fro for a moment, and Jaehyun gripped her arm tightly.

“Careful.” He warned.

Aria let out a shaky exhale, peering down over the cliff edge. “Is this okay?” She called down.

A hum. “Maybe a little bit more? You’re slightly blocking Taeil at the moment. Just be careful, the rocks mightn’t be stable enough out there to support you, so go slowly.”

Aria didn’t think the rocks were stable enough to support her where she was standing currently, let alone another few inches out, but she began to tentatively step out regardless. Her hand clenched around Jaehyun’s.

Slowly, she moved out further, stepping out onto the edge of the cliff with one eye half closed, expecting the ground to shift but feeling nothing. Blinking in surprise, she then felt confident to transfer her entire weight forward, which was a mistake.

A small circular rock shifted beneath her heel, and Aria’s support crumpled out from beneath her.

She let out a shrill shriek, hands grasping at air behind her. She pushed herself against the falling ground, hoping for the cliff edge.

“Shit!” A strong hand tangled in the material of her shirt, pulling her back none-to-gently into a hard back, arms immediately coming to wrap around her waist and hold her there; steady.

Aria’s breath came in hard pants.

She was shaking rapidly, hands quaking as she tucked them underneath her own arms, eyes fixated on the ground where the rocks she had been stood on had crumbled. They had collected in a neat pile at the foot of the cliff - only a three metre or so drop, but substantial enough that one of the larger rocks had split into half, and the other rocks had cracks lining their sides.

God.

That was an awfully long way down.

Is that what she was standing over?

It was like she was removed from the situation. Aria was looking out over the cliff edge - but it wasn’t her viewpoint. Like a film camera, being watched on a small silver screen.

Where was the film crew?

Had they moved the equipment out of the way in the rocks in time?

Was there a camera buried beneath the pile of rocks?

“-ia, Aria- Riri!” A shout in her left ear, pulling her attention away from the swirling thoughts of oh god oh shit oh god oh s-

“Hey.” Jaehyun had spun her in his arms, dragging her eyes away from the cliff edge and catching her face in his hands, making her face him. “Hey. You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re safe. You’re okay.” His voice had a quiver to it, and his hands had yet to release their painfully tight grip on her arms.

She barely even registered it.

Aria’s voice broke out in a whimper, and as her eyes widened to slowly begin filling with tears, Jaehyun pulled her back into his chest, letting his hand come up to rub soothingly along her back. “It’s okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you baby, you’re okay.” He soothed.

Her heart was ricocheting around her chest like a boomerang.

At some point, she had sunk to her knees and Jaehyun had followed her down, having pulled her away from the edge of the cliff immediately. She knelt slightly, before sinking bodily into his arms, and Jaehyun continued to murmur comfort into her ear as she buried her face in the loose material of his white shirt.

Her head pounded like a rushing river, too many thoughts too make a lot of sense of any singular one. Behind her eyes, the image of the rocks kept flashing, the feeling of the ground collapsing from beneath her feet, falling, the wind rushing through her ears, falling, a hand grasping the back of her shirt but the grip slipping through loose fingertips, falling, falling falling.

The pair stayed like that for a while - how long, Aria really wasn’t sure, she was more focused on trying to get herself to stop shaking like a caffeine addict going through withdrawals.

The rocks beneath her knees bit into the skin, but she welcomed the grounding feeling - a small bite of pain nipping through the overwhelming rush of emotions threatening to overtake her and swallow her whole.

Slowly though, her breath came back in measured breaths, calming from the harsh panting that was previously pulling at her lungs.

Taking stock of where she was, Aria began to register the other bodies around her. In the time it had taken for her to re-gather herself, Doyoung had settled behind her, hands hovering like he was afraid to startle her with a touch. Taeil was nowhere to be found, but upon a questioning look from Aria, Doyoung was quick to explain in a soft voice that he had followed Johnny down to get the back of the van set up for her - pulling out an ice-pack from the trailer and gathering the blankets from the other vans.

That had Aria moving to push herself to her feet, shaking her head. “No, no, I’m okay. We still have the group shots to film, I can do it. It’s fine.” She argued weakly.

Jaehyun pulled her back down into her lap with a firm grip. “No, it’s not fine. If it were fine, then you wouldn’t still be shaking like a goddamn leaf.”

Aria consciously clenched her muscles to stop the tremors running through her arms like shockwaves. “M’not.”

Doyoung sighed, raising a hand to run it over Aria’s mildly disheveled hair. It would have to be restyled later on, but the windswept look was something that they were aiming for, so he didn’t think it was too bad, all things considered.

“Baby, it’s okay to be scared after that. No one’s expecting you to do anything more today.”

“But it’s fine-”

“You could have died, Akari!” Jaehyun was shaking as well, something that Aria had just noticed. He dropped his head to rest on her shoulder. “You could have gotten seriously hurt. So please. Just, sit down in the van right now, okay?”

“Jae, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, hyung!”

Aria took in a stuttered breath. “B-but I’m ok-ay-” Her voice cracked slightly, tremors returning full-force.

The two boys returned their focus to the girl in between them, exchanging a meaningful glance that meant nothing to Aria. Doyoung wrapped his arms around her as well, and soon she was caught in a hug between them, finally letting the tears pool up in her eyes.

“I-I’m o-kay,” She stuttered out, fists gripping someone’s shirt - she didn’t care too much who it was at the time.

“Yeah,” Doyoung pressed a kiss to the top of her head, tightening his arms briefly. “You’re okay, baby, you’re okay.”

It wasn’t until sometime after, once Aria had managed to pull back the tears and had calmed the shaking to some degree, that Jaehyun gave her a soft prompt to stand up. Her legs were like a newborn foal beneath her, knees shifting and she leant out to grip at Doyoung’s arm again as he moved away.

“Here, here.” Jaehyun pulled her towards him. “Put your arm around my - or just fall on me. That works too.” His concerned tone was undercut by a ribbon of teasing, although it did little to mask how reluctant he was to let go of the young girl, even for a moment.

“Shush.” Aria straightened up herself from where she had face planted into his chest again, her knees having betrayed her to gravity, but this time made no complaint when Jaehyun’s arm retook its spot around her waist.

Together, with the aid of Doyoung, Aria made her way down the dusty cliffside, moving over to the van with an open door, and some of the members waiting around it anxiously.

Yuta was the first to break away from the group, making his way over to hoist Aria into his arms - paying no mind to her stuttered exclaim of hey! His arms slipped beneath her knees, and he lifted her gently, taking the weight off of Jaehyun’s staggering frame.

Upon reaching the van, it was like telepathy. Yuta turned to let Jaehyun take the weight of Aria from his arms - he already knew that the younger boy was shook up, and wouldn’t be comfortable unless he was physically touching Aria in some shape or form for the next few hours - while Taeyong was patting Mark on the back and alerting him to Aria’s arrival.

Jaehyun slid in first, before Aria was placed gently onto the blankets, Mark piling in behind her and proceeding to wrap her in another hug. This time though, it wasn’t her that was shaking, and she could feel the soft quiver of Mark’s hands as they pulled loosely at the bottom of her shirt.

Together, the two boys replicated the hug that Jaehyun and Doyoung had wrapped her in a few minutes ago.

“M’okay.” She whispered.

“You almost weren’t.” Came his huffed response.

“But I am.”

Mark gave no reply.

“God-” Jaehyun choked out a laugh, running a hand though his hair. “Never - and I mean never - do that again.”

She looked down. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Mark’s head had snapped up from where he had buried it in her shoulder. “For causing a cliff-collapse? Because I’m pretty sure there’s someone who needs to apologize for that and it’s not you its the director.”

Aria winced. She had watched through the sliver of the car door that was still open as Taeyong had cast a cold look over to Yuta and Johnny, the three men exchanging a nod before moving away from the vehicle and over to where the staff were finishing up with Donghyuck’s solo shots. The second youngest member had been a few minutes walk away when it had all happened, so he hadn’t been privy to the theatrics of it all; something that Aria was ultimately grateful for.

She wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to breath ever again if Donghyuck had been one of the men wrapped around her right then.

Either way, the three men had made their way out of view of the car, and Aria didn’t envy anyone who was on the other end of their glares. Taeyong had looked pissed, and honestly Aria was growing too tired to care.

After the shaking had died down, it was like her muscles had atrophied in under a minute, and suddenly she was left weakened and with the want to curl up in a ball to sleep.

It seemed, however, that Jaehyun had already prepared for this, and was moving Mark and himself around to allow Aria to curl up comfortably in the back of the van - her head in his lap and her feet in Mark’s.

“M’sorry.” She whispered again, just about to fall off into sleep.

“You’re okay, baby. It’s not your fault. We’re all just happy you’re okay.” Jaehyun murmured, petting her hair lightly.

“Thank you,” Aria turned her head to breath the words into Jaehyun’s stomach, hand coming to squeeze his arm. “Thank you for catching me.” Her voice broke slightly.

“I’m not about to let you down on my watch. And that includes falling to a potential death.” The weak attempt at a joke brought a watery laugh from Aria’s lips nonetheless.

“Can I say I saw the highway to heaven now?”

A soft chuckle, and another pet through her hair. “Sure, baby.”

With Jaehyun’s hand running soothing circuits through her hair, and Mark having worked off her boots - tutting lightly at the red marks that they had left - Aria drifted.

head full of cliff edges and falling.

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airi-p4 · 3 years ago

Text

Ice Dreams - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | ...

Lukanette Figure Skating AU? Lukanette Figure Skating AU.

I’ve been planning this for more than one year already ( @mamanabeille knows ) but Freya’s recent art for me fueled me to finish the first 2 chapters (out of more than 60...)

Header art is traditional art drawn by me about one year ago - Full pic HERE.

Summary

Despite being very talented and loving to skate, Marinette is determined to quit Figure Skating after the lack of decent results and the great amount of stress and pressure on her shoulders.

On the other hand, Juleka and Luka are average skaters in pairs category who, after years of hard work, have finally started showing some good results. But suddenly, Juleka is forced to retire, leaving Luka at the verge of retirement because of his need for a partner.

Can Juleka convince Luka and Marinette to give figure skating a second chance? Can they form a bond strong enough to reach the top and accomplish their dreams? Could something more than partnership spark between them?

AO3

________________________________

CHAPTER 1: Marinette

Figure skating can appeal to people for many reasons: the competitive part, the artistry, the music arrangements, the performances…

For Marinette figure skating was everything- her whole life.

When she was happy, she would love to skate. When she was sad, skating never failed to cheer her up. She was athletic, flexible and talented, gifted by both technique and artistry, as well as tenacity to work hard and never give up. Skating was an irreplaceable part of her life.

WAS.

In past tense.

Because even when it’s pleasant to watch the beautiful programs the skaters have to offer, there’s something that never changes during competitions: the scores are what really matter. Fail one element and you're screwed. Keep the program perfect but with minimum difficulty, you're off the podium. Do perfect in practice but fail in front of the judges: it's over.

This was Marinette's case.

Recently, consistency always failed her in competitions, and it had been a letdown to see how the past seasons had been going blank for her, without any outstanding accomplishment, despite her being on top almost all of her childhood. Her effort, and full potential didn’t show off on her competition results.

Marinette's parents and her coach, Miss Bustier, associated her disappointing results to her mentor’s and grandmother’s passing. But Marinette was well aware that the main reason behind her failures wasn't only how much she missed her granny; the real cause had a girl’s name: Lila Rossi.

It had already been 2 years since Lila joined her training classes under Miss Bustier's teachings. And everything had gone downhill after that.

It's not that she hadn't already been enduring bullying from Chloe Bourgeois, but Lila's bullying was at a whole different level.

The pressure, the expectations, the stress, the bullying, the injuries and damaged property, the struggle her parents went through to pay for her classes and competitions, how she had to sew her own dresses because she didn’t have the money to buy them, how she almost had no friends left... Everything piled up for years and made her finally crumble. Her skating consistency was affected and led only to constant failure.

In the end, she was exhausted, and no matter how much she loved ice skating, she reached her limit. She surpassed her limit.

Lila Rossi had won.

For two weeks now, since her last failure at a National Competition, Marinette had been skipping her skating classes. Coach Bustier was always exceptionally kind to her, and had been considerate (in her own way) this time as well, suggesting she take a few days to rest and get back again when she felt confident again.

But Marinette didn't intend to return under her coaching. Instead, she had set her mind to resign from her classes and, probably, even quit figure skating too.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

The most talented skater of the decade was seriously considering quitting skating for good. And it made her sad, but she couldn’t see any other way out of the spiral of failures she was caught in. No one was there to get her out of the dark hole she was buried in.

She certainly didn’t expect a second chance in figure skating.

_________________________________

During the days she didn't go to her classes, Marinette always spent her time at the Miraculous Ice Skate Rink, where her 'grandfather', Master Wang Fu worked as a manager, taking care of the installation and the opening and shutting down hours, along with the material to rent and the tickets for open to public times. Being her mother’s uncle, she had been babysat by him and his wife since she was a little kid. It was, in fact, Marianne Lenoir, was the one who taught Marinette the skating basics and the one who made her start practicing and love figure skating since she was 3 years old.

Marinette loved her grandparents a lot, and the passing of Miss Lenoir still pained her everyday. After her tragic loss, they became even closer, especially when Master Fu gave Marinette his late wife's earrings as a memento - he knew she would have given them to her at some point, since she loved the dark-haired girl a lot. And with no children on their own, Marinette was the closest they had to a daughter or granddaughter. Marinette had promised to treasure the earrings. They had a ladybug’s design engraved on them, only visible when light illuminated themfrom a certain angle. They were very mysterious and unique, and Marinette had loved them since her eyes had fallen on them. After becoming their owner, not even once she took them off. She felt the luck on her side as long as she wore them.

Except, that wasn’t the case anymore.

Marinette had her own theory of how Lila might have corrupted them when she touched them once, since all her luck was now gone from her side from that moment onwards.

On the ice, Marinette skated a little. But when she attempted to jump, a memory of her last competition crossed her mind and she fell down. Instead of standing up like always, she stayed seated on the floor, tears falling down her cheeks.

"Marinette! Are you ok? Did you get hurt?" asked Fu, worried. Rushing (as much as his old legs allowed him to) to aid her.

"Master-! I- I-... I can't skate anymore!" She broke down to cry even harder.

"That's not true, Marinette. You're just feeling discouraged now because of your recent results in competition. It's normal to feel like that. It will be ok"

"No Master… It's not just competitions… It's everything… Lila, Chloe, my coach, my parents, my friends…and I miss Granny Marianne so much... I'll never be able to follow her steps now… I should just be realistic and give up..."

"Don't say that, dear. You have luck on your side. Like a ladybug. Lady Chance. You are talented enough to overcome this. I’m sure Marianne would be proud of you, even if you don't follow her steps. And you know? There's no need to compete if you don't feel like doing it. Many people just skate for fun or minor competitions. I’m sure the future has good things prepared for you. You just need to keep moving and you’ll find the right path to follow. And whatever you choose to do, we'll be proud of you. The doors to this ice rink are open for you to come whenever you want to"

That's right. She could skate without competitions. She could focus on something else and have skating as a hobby. Maybe she could make a living out of a figure skating outfit designer…

It was settled. She was quitting. And she was telling her parents tonight.

"Thank you, Master. I know what I want to do now" she answered, giving him a heartfelt hug. Fu smiled at her and patted her back a little, happy to see her smile was back on her face and how his granddaughter's tears had finally stopped.

___________________________

Marinette was very nervous when she arrived home. She tried to sneak to her room without being noticed, but her mother had been waiting for her, with a deeply worried expression on her face. Marinette gulped. 'She has probably found out I've been skipping my classes' she thought, but her mother's mind was focused on something else- more serious. Something the girl didn’t expect or could have imagined.

“Marinette. Calm down and listen to me. Are you still friends with Juleka?”

Marinette blinked: that was not the question she expected. She sighed before answering, confused about her mother’s unusual distress.

“Yes, mom. It’s been a long while since we’ve last seen or talked to each other, but she is my friend”. She paused for a second. “Why do you ask? You’re scaring me...”

Sabine Cheng took a deep breath before answering “Marinette… Juleka is at the hospital”.

Marinette’s mother’s grip on her shoulders wasn’t strong enough to keep the girl from jumping in shock, neither stopped her from panicking a second later.

“What!? What happened to her!? Is she ok!?”

“Calm down, Marinette. She’s ok. She just fainted. She…” Sabine paused, hesitating, before continuing with the explanation. “She’s been diagnosed with an eating disorder”

Marinette felt a rush of mixed feelings forming inside of her: but between sadness and worrisome, anger was the first emotion to come out of her body.

“No…! No way! I’m sure it’s all Chloé’s fault! She used to make mean comments about her body since we were little. Her ideas must have grown bigger in Juleka’s mind! Just because she was taller and larger than many of us…! And now Juleka is…! Juleka is…!”

The spiral of emotions she was feeling ended up falling in the form of tears, again, in a crying whimper. Sabine, worried for her daughter, cupped her cheek and let her cry until she calmed down a little. It was not easy for her to wait patiently to ask her what she had really wanted to know after she had heard about Juleka’s condition, but she knew the girl needed to let it out, even if it hurt her to see her daughter crying like that. It almost felt like there was something more behind the salty water spilling from her eyes, but she remained silent until her sobbing sounds ended, being engulfed by the silence of the living room. When the wait finally was over, Sabine Cheng spoke again, looking straight to her eyes.

“Marinette, I need to ask you something. And please, be honest with me" Marinette gulped and nervously nodded. "Are you eating properly? You’re not throwing it out, aren’t you? I know you’ve always been thin, but I can’t help it but worry about you… You know how common eating disorders are in figure skating… And with what happened to Juleka and how discouraged you look recently…”

Marinette tensed at her mother’s question, more offended than shocked. “Of course not, maman! I’m properly eating what you put on my plate! I would never waste what it takes you so much work. I’m grateful I always have freshly baked bread on my plate”

Marinette’s mother relaxed at her daughter's answer, hugging her.

“Good. That’s good. I’m so glad. So relieved. Thank you, Marinette”. She spoke again after breaking the hug. “I think you should pay Juleka a visit. Here’s the room number and the hospital address. You should be there for her”

“Thank you for telling me, maman. I’ll visit her tomorrow morning”, the girl said, grabbing the paper with Juleka’s hospital contact from her mother’s hand.

“Good girl. I’m proud of you”

“Thank you, maman…” the twin-tailed girl managed to answer, feeling both happy and nauseous for the trust in her mother’s eyes. The thought of seeing disappointment on her parents' face terrified her.

‘No… I definitely can’t tell my parents yet…’ she thought.

_______________________

When Marinette arrived at Juleka's hospital room, she wasn't alone. The door was partially opened and she saw a blue-haired boy standing beside her. As soon as she knocked on the door, the boy noticed her and approached, with an interrogative and sad expression on his face. He was handsome despite his sad expression, Marinette thought, distracted for a second.

"I- I'm- Juleka...?" She managed to say, and the boy just nodded.

“Juleka, you have a visitor. I’ll let you two talk privately" he said, turning his head to the girl in the bed. "Thank you for coming,” he solemnly told Marinette before leaving the room.

“Thank you” she said when getting inside, without looking at him.

It had been a while since Marinette had talked to Juleka. It had been more difficult to keep in touch after she switched to pairs skating some years ago, even if they still exchanged messages and hung out together sometimes.

“Juleka, how are you? I heard you fainted and…” Her feet moved slowly towards her friend as she greeted her, but she gasped when she saw her figure: she couldn't be healthy looking the way she did.

“Marinette. Thanks for coming” Juleka weakly smiled.

“Juleka, look at you! You look so skinny! You have to eat! You shouldn’t listen to what people or magazines say, it’s dangerous! You need to be healthy.”

“I am healthy" she assured her, but Marinette's worried eyes made her admit her problem. "But… you’re right. There’s no need for me to keep throwing out my food. I’m retiring from figure skating”

"What?" Marinette gasped, and Juleka reaffirmed her words with a nod. “Oh no, Juleka! I know you loved it… I’m so sorry for you…” The baker's daughter sympathized.

“It’s Ok, Marinette. Thank you… I’m actually more worried about my brother. We were a team and now his dream is crushed because of me… He can’t compete without a partner and… I’ve wasted everything…”

“Oh, Juleka…”, she warmly hugged her friend.

Not wanting to talk more about her eating disorder, Juleka asked Marinette a question.

“What about you, Marinette? How are things going? Are you getting closer to your dream? You were always first place no matter what! I bet you’ve been improving and setting even higher scores by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could even land a triple axel!”

“I can land it, actually! It’s just… for some reason I can’t seem to land any of my jumps lately during competitions… I keep failing over and over… and then there’s Chloé and Lila… You know… I’m thinking of quitting…” she said in a sigh.

“Oh no, Marinette! You can’t quit! You are the most skilled and talented skater I’ve ever seen. Your scores as a child were in another league! You are bound to make history in figure skating, I know you do. You can’t quit!”

“It’s not a matter of skill anymore, Juleka… It’s a matter of results and wasted effort. I just… I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep my parents overworking to pay for my skating classes with me failing every single jump in competition. I can’t look at their disappointed looks every time I fail their expectations. And Lila’s bullying only keeps escalating while my coach never believes anything I say… I’m not motivated anymore. I don’t have the strength to keep trying...”

Marinette looked devastated as she spoke. Quitting figure skating couldn't make her happy. Juleka knew she would be feeling even worse than herself. She didn't like to see her friend like that.

“Are you sure, Marinette? Because I think it’s a waste. You could win an Olympic gold medal if you aimed for it. It’s just… so frustrating…”

“Juleka…”

After a long silence, Juleka set her determination and faced a surprised Marinette with a serious look on her eyes.

“No. Marinette, I can’t let you quit like that! Look at me. I’ve been forced to quit because of my condition. I wanted to keep skating! I didn’t want to stop! And yet… you say you want to quit. My brother says he wants to quit. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!? You have no consideration for me or for yourselves!" She yelled and then paused to take a deep breath. "Marinette, look at my face and tell me again you want to quit! Can you do it?”

“I-... I want to… " Marinette paused, unable to lie. "I want to keep skating!" She finally admitted. "But I can’t anymore, Juleka! I’ve tried to endure it, I’ve tried so hard! And yet… Nothing! It’s just useless. What’s the point when I’m starting to feel that skating is not fun anymore?”

“Oh no, Marinette, you can’t say that! You can’t give up your dream so easily. Who was that skater you admired? Your grandmother? Miss Lenoir? You dreamed of being like her someday! Graceful, elegant yet strong; sliding on the ice like if you were an angel coming from heaven, announcing salvation to all the graceful public crying tears of joy at your beautiful movements. I know you can do it, Marinette. You just need something or someone to…" Juleka paused for a moment. "Wait, I… I have an idea. Why don’t you try pairs skating for a while?”

Marinette was taken aback at her friend's suggestion.

“What? What are you talking about? I told you I want to… to quit…”

“No. Listen to me. You just need to try it out. You try, and I won’t oppose you quitting if you decide to do so after you’ve tried it out.”

“What’s the deal…?”, Marinette said, unconvinced.

“I want you to take my place. I want you and my brother to help each other recover your motivation, your goals, your dreams. We just got a decent score for international competitions and I… I messed up. He did his best and improved a lot. He could score high, to the top maybe, with the right partner… and I think you’re a better fit partner than I could ever be” she said in a weak sigh.

“But- I don’t even know your brother. And I’ve never done pair skating before! And most importantly- there’s no way I could fill in your place! Nobody can! I'm sure you’re important for your brother, and he doesn’t even know me! He won’t want me to pair with him anyway” Marinette protested.

“That’s my part. I’ll convince him to give you a chance. So I need you to give pairs skating a chance, too. You both still have a second chance in figure skating. And I bet you can reach the top in a few years'', Juleka smiled. Her eyes showed conviction in her words, but Marinette had doubts.

“Are you sure he-?” she started, but Juleka cut her, knowing how the question ended.

“I’m sure. Just give it a try. For me. For our friendship. I want you to skate on my behalf. Please... I’m begging you, Marinette. Just one week. One more chance. I’m sure you won’t regret it. No, I promise you won’t”

“Ok, Juleka… I’ll do it. Just one try. No more. I’m quitting if I can’t keep it up. Or if your brother doesn’t like me…”

“He’ll like you. He just needs to meet you.” she smiled in reassurance and Marinette hugged her.

Marinette, noticing the time, broke the hug and spoke again. "I have to go now, but I’ll come again next week. Get well soon, please”

“Thank you, Marinette. For coming and for accepting my selfish request. I’ll send you a message later.”

“Of course, you are still my dear friend, Juleka. Get well soon, ok?”

“I’ll try… Thank you for coming”, she answered, waving her goodbye. ‘Now I need to convince Luka…' she thought, eyeing her friend crossing through the door.

#my fic #fic: ice dreams #lukanette figure skating AU #airip4 #lukanette fic #endgame lukanette #my art #I can't believe I'm already posting this #it's been sooo long #Blame Freya for rushing me XD #lukanette #Pro LukaMari

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the-horsemen-ride · 3 years ago

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what about headcanons for isaac himself?

Canon compliant/realistic: While many of the other kids and the monsters have just kinda been dreamed up by him, pretty much all the secular creatures (I mean the ones not based on religion) were made up by him and his dad and this even applies to some of the kids and religion-based enemies. Some of them weren’t really developed as creatures for whatever little project he had going on but instead reflect other things he drew or at least began to think up that were personified in this “dream” of his.

I’m thinking he had thought up the horsemen to some extent - maybe thinking it would be cool to draw them or something- but if anything they really took form in the Basement.

I actually know how he’d come up with Death and Famine - the former is kind of obvious but I have something more in depth for the latter that I don’t intend to share until I draw it out. I guess I can see him coming up with Pestilence as well because he’s straightforward.

Comedic: While he still is scared of this place he’s grown more accustomed to it and is honestly a bit casual abt it now- as long as some godawful shit doesn’t happen he’s ok, he’s p much accepted the state of misery he’s in. Which is depressing when put that way but at this point some instances where he used to be terrified he’s just kind of like “😐”

But the funnier thing is that Isaac can actually get pretty tired of and pissed off at people. Like he can genuinely be sarcastic and stuff. It doesn’t happen too often but sometimes he’ll get fed up with the shit he deals with and go all like

That and he does actually have a lot of knowledge on pop culture and Things He Should Not Know about due to overexposure and having a fascination with some more morbid stuff but he doesn’t always realize if something is kinda fucked bc Yknow. Accustomed to it all.

Even more Depressing than usual: Isaac isn’t used to having nice things and will assume any kindness or good thing is too good to be true. He doesn’t think he deserves it. Hell many of the genuinely good times have made him more upset because he feels he doesn’t deserve it or he gets caught up in how it may end.

My city now: I don’t really have much super canon-divergent hcs for Isaac. I guess the closest thing I have is that as an adult he’d pursue a job as a cartoonist/comic book artist and he’d make comics revolving around all his creations- an epic multi-volume one abt the basement kids and a smaller spinoff about Bumbo. Things for the former would differ slightly than how things went down in the basement but overall it’s the same premise and all he just takes himself out of it and adds a bit more to some of the designs or whatever.

#the binding of isaac #headcanon #tboi isaac #snarky Isaac hours #but seriously I feel like as timid as he is #he would probably get a little impatient and snark abt it once or twice

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palmett-hoes · 4 years ago

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Hi,I was wondering if you had any art on what foxes uniform looks like? I often see art which does not look like their jersey at all? I mean in the book, it’s like they have so many guards to place over themselves then shouldn’t they look bulkier?

i'm very flattered you think that i'm an artist, but you are sadly not correct

maybe some day...

but anyway on the topic of fan art in general, yea i think that most artists draw exy gear way too formfitting, but also like,,, while i'm not an artist, i have attempted an art,, and i remember putting a ton of effort into figuring out body and pose and then getting to clothes and being like,, you want me to cover all of that in giant bulky clothes so you can't see the body at all? but i worked so hard on that :(

so like i get it even though i do know it's wrong

but anyway onto ""correct"" """padding"""

nora was apparently a big hockey fan actually, so she knew what hockey players look like and how contact sports are played. so the sports that exy is based on are probably considered more than most people assume they are:

Exy was a bastard sport, an evolved sort of lacrosse on a soccer-sized court with the violence of ice hockey, and Neil loved every part of it from its speed to...

and i mean,, the books have whole chapters that are just gameplay. nora knows her shit

i would say that most fanartists seem to design their exy uniforms around the "soccer" part of that, probably because it's the least bulky and looks the most like regular clothes, so it's the easiest. you draw a human body the way you know how and add clothes on top of it

but soccer doesn't have body armor the way lacrosse and especially ice hockey do. they both require a lot of really bulky armor and that armor completely changes the silhouette on a person. it's very different than drawing normal clothes, which is why i assume most people avoid it

nora does describe exy armor in detail:

... He traded out a t-shirt for shoulder and chest padding. He did a couple twists to make sure the straps were snug enough without being too tight, then tugged his jersey on overtop. He could put on shorts around the others, so he returned to the main room to finish dressing.

He traded jeans for shorts first, then sat on one of the benches to hook his shin guards into place. He covered those with long socks and put on scuff-free court shoes. He pulled thin cotton gloves on, snapping them closed just above his elbows, and strapped arm guards onto his forearms. He left his outer gloves by his helmet where he could carry them down to the court and pulled his bangs up under an orange bandanna. The last thing to put on was his neck guard, a thin band with a tricky clasp. It was a pain to deal with and occasionally made him feel like he was choking, but it was worth putting up with if it'd protect his throat from a stray ball.

and this description is basically a one-for-one for hockey and lacrosse armor. if you don't know what that looks like it's fine - god knows you couldn't PAY me to watch sports - but if you're a fanartist i definitely think you should check out some reference photos

hockey armor breakdown, probably the closest to exy armor because hockey is heavy contact and one where you can get smashed into a plexiglass wall

and then here's some pictures of hockey players so you can really get a sense of how blocky the armor and the uniforms are

sadly, not very sexy, and takes a totally different approach to body construction than a lot of ppl are probably familiar with

if you want to expand your artistic skill though i would highly recommend drawing more realistic exy armor! and playing with distinctly different human silhouettes in general

#aftg #tfc #exy #ask #anon #anonymous #my posts #im talkin

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not-poignant · 4 years ago

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Hi Pia! I'm a huge fan of your work and deeply enjoying FFS rn, it really shows the love and care you've put into this world and characters and it's an amazing read 🥰🧡

Idk if you've actually answered this question before or if it's a bit too much? So feel free to skip it. Do you have any advice on how to write a therapist and sessions with them? And to go along with that, a therapist&patient relationship that doesn't feel inauthentic but that's a healthy one?

I've had to visit both psychiatrists and psychologists a couple of times along my life, which has almost always been a positive experience to me, but when I get down to business and want to write a character going to therapy, I fall into a bunch of the psychoanalytic clichés US films have hammered us down with, even if I'm not from an Anglophile country!

Thanks a bunch in advance!! Ilu, have a nice start of the year🧡✨

Hiya anon!

I have a few thoughts about writing therapy sessions so I’m just going to put them down in no particular order.

Firstly, I don’t actually think it’s always a good idea to write therapy in stories, and a lot of the time I avoid writing it even when a character is actively seeing a therapist. This is particularly true in The Wind that Cuts the Night where all we see of Alex and his therapist are snippets, and nothing more than that, because therapy sessions would slow down the pacing, focus and value of the story.

Where possible, characters don’t see therapists, but talk to people in a way that is therapeutic, usually with love interests or members of the ensemble cast (Augus and Fenwrel in The Court of Five Thrones, Jack and Eva in The Golden Age that Never Was, Jack and North in From the Darkness We Rise/Into Shadows We Fall, Cullen and Cassandra, Cullen and Bull in Stuck on the Puzzle). All of those characters need therapy, but writing therapy sessions tends to slow down the pace of a fic pretty dramatically, and even I had misgivings about writing Efnisien’s sessions with Dr Gary at first because I’m acutely aware of the fact that:

1. Therapy sessions can be draggy and boring 2. They often take away important emotional realisations from other characters, ruining potential hurt/comfort and character relationship development moments with your actual cast / love interests 3. Fiction is meant to be fiction, not reality. 4. A lot of therapy sessions are actually not that interesting to sit in or write or observe, which is why writers do often find themselves falling into certain cliches while writing them to make them more interesting. Even I cut out huge chunks of sessions to get to the more interesting parts, lol. 5. You can write a character going to therapy without writing the therapy. You can just choose to have the character remember bits and pieces of the session later as it’s relevant to their life. 6. Therapy is different for everyone, and some readers (myself included) don’t enjoy reading it when the therapy is a kind that doesn’t resonate or feel right.

So you really need to ask yourself why you want to write therapy specifically, because a lot of the time it gets boring or - as you point out - falls into cliched territory. Writing a character going to a doctor a lot in detail for regular injections is boring. Writing them thinking about how they have to do this in brief while their love interest is sympathetic to them getting those injections is more interesting. Writing a character suffering from an illness that they need regular injections for, with their love interest comforting them? Interesting.

Falling Falling Stars is a unique fic in that Efnisien has no one before he meets Arden, except for Dr Gary and Gwyn. If you’re writing an FFS style fic, writing therapy sessions might be appropriate. It might be worth really thinking about the kind of fics you want to write, why you want to write therapy, how that will affect your pacing, etc.

If you’re still dead set on writing therapy sessions, then I have some suggestions re: writing more realistic/healthy therapy and how to find that knowledge yourself, and I don’t really know how to shorthand some of it:

1. Get books on therapy that are designed for the therapist. These are often expensive, but sometimes libraries stock them - and university libraries in particular will often have photocopy abilities (or you can just photograph the pages you need) because these books look at how sessions should be structured. Books with case studies are ideal, since they often show dialogue chains between the client and therapist. Books that obviously deal with the mental illnesses you’re planning on writing about are the most ideal.

2. With a view to this, learn about different therapeutic modalities (for example are you trying to write psychology or psychoanalysis or both? Are you writing social work? Are you writing cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, expressive therapies, narrative therapy, transcendental therapy?) Be aware that different modalities have different session structures and learn what they are. Wikipedia is your friend, but your closest friend will be actually acquiring textbooks on the subject. This is a pretty significant financial barrier at times, I’ve been collecting books like this on psychology since like 1997.

3. Learn about your character’s mental instabilities that require them to go to a therapist and then look up the most recommended forms of therapy for your character’s specific issues. Will they suit your character? Why/why not? Will they have a therapist who realises and switches modality if it doesn’t suit? Or will they be lucky and find someone who helps them straight away?

4. All therapy sessions have a structure to them. And therapy often has a narrative arc through the course of therapy over many sessions. They should generally have the attempt at a beginning (greeting / setting up the problem to be discussed), middle (highlighting the source of conflict or inner conflict) and end (helping the client to focus on less stressful things, possible homework assigned, and potentially talking about future work/sessions). Learn this structure. Even if you’re not writing the whole session, you need to know where in the session you’re writing, beginning/middle/end will be different tonally. Structures will be different per therapeutic modality, and a therapist that knows many different modalities (like Dr Gary) will often be using slightly different structures each time depending on the character’s mood/issue.

5. In a healthy therapist/client relationship there will be the ability to discuss boundaries, grievances and the therapist won’t be revealing much about their personal life at all (unless anecdotally it’s super relevant and even then it will be deliberately vague). This is one of those things that will - in many cases - make for more boring sessions on the page, depending on the ‘client.’ For example, if you’re writing someone seeing a therapist for the first time, it might realistically take months or years before they start showing progress or trust. That’s not interesting (there’s a reason ‘therapy fiction’ isn’t a genre), so of course it’s tempting to shortcut into more dramatic moments.

I would say if you’re finding yourself leaning towards more cliched or dramatic forms of writing re: therapy, your writing brain may sense that the entire scene/s may not be suited to the story, and is trying to find a way to make them more interesting to yourself and the reader. If that’s not the case, then a lot more research is needed! It’s time to sink many hours into actually understanding what you’re trying to write. This doesn’t matter as much if you’re writing unrealistic or unhealthy therapy, but it’s 100% necessary when you’re trying to write healthier therapy depictions.***

Also a couple of sessions of experience is a start, but you might want to watch or find a way to watch more therapy sessions, because you’ve missed out on experiencing longer arcs, different modalities etc. (This is where my hands on experience with 19 therapists since 1995 is actually really helpful, lmao - I’ve had close to like 800~ sessions by now, with good and bad therapists; I cannot pretend that hasn’t given me a knowledge base that most people don’t share). You can still learn that stuff via research, MedCircle on Youtube is a good place to start, since it offers 30 minute snapshots on what CBT and DBT sessions will look like etc. and has some great playlists.

Most fics I’ve read don’t do a great job of depicting therapy, but the Babes!verse series by @rynfinity has probably some of the most realistic and still really interesting sessions I’ve read as an ongoing arc. The series is long, because it needs to be re: what it’s dealing with, but it’s great, and I definitely recommend looking at another example of how an author tackles these sorts of scenes. Out of the Mouths of Babes / The March of the Damned are the two intertwined series.

I apologise if this sounds discouraging overall, or daunting, but I just want to stress there’s a reason that I’m often not writing therapy in my writing, as anything more than the occasional scene with a non-therapist, or snapshots that are reflected on and that’s it. Falling Falling Stars is the exception to the rule, and unless you’re writing an exception to the rule as well, it’s really worth reflecting on the first six points I wrote - it’ll save you a fuckton of time and research. And if you go ahead with it, I wish you well! :D

*** Also disclaimer: But I still am writing very indulgent therapy that is not beholden to being either a 100% healthy or 100% realistic depiction. The fact is, real therapy sessions are pretty boring for observers except for maybe ten or twenty minutes in the middle at times.

(ETA: It’s just occurred to me that therapy fiction does exist, esp. in the mass media, but that it is - afaik - all unrealistic, dramatised or unhealthy. But if you want to watch a great show - I highly recommend In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne, just by aware that it is depicting, for the most part, unhealthy dynamics which are more character studies than anything).

#asks and answers #pia on writing #pia on psychology #it's even worth being away that clinical psychologists often frown on psychoanalysts #and psychoanalysts often frown on the rigidity of clinical psychology curriculums lol #dr gary works within both schools and is a bit of a rebel in that sense #anyway yeah like #even i was really wary of writing too much dr gary #and only really gave into it indulgently #when people revealed they were enjoying those scenes and dr gary himself #but like #i would hate him as a therapist #he's pushy and sometimes pretty impatient #even what i write re: therapy #is not necessarily a reflection on what a real life person would experience #in the same circumstances #Anonymous

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t-o-m-hollands · 4 years ago

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Can you post a little blurb abt the Paris couple and how they’re doing a few years later? Like, did they have kiddos, did they ever choose to get married, did they ever move back to Paris together in a lovelier apartment, how’s timothée’s art (can he still produce masterpieces without being sad?), what do they usually do on their free days, did they ever full on talk about that gut wrenching letter he wrote years ago, did she keep that letter, did they ever quit smoking, did they furnish the house the way they wanted to, did they paint their walls and get bigger beds, do they have designated sides of beds?

Hi! 💗💗💗☺

God I love these questions so much, but I’m sort of done with the Paris universe you know? Like, I don’t think I can write just a blurb for them because I feel like their story is told now.

BUT! I reeeeally love these questions so I will answer them below the read more!

Concerning if or not they have children... Look, I don’t know what it is about these two but I can’t imagine them as parents? So I’d have to say no, and if they did they had them later in life. They are not cut out to be young parents. Like, god, can you imagine? They’d definitely be those obnoxious parents that never set any boundaries or rules what so ever to their children so they just roam free causing havoc. Like especially since they’d be parents in the 1950’s-60’s. If they had a kid born in that time it would be a boy and he’d have been absolutely unable to handle any sort of rules and become a rock ‘n roll star in a band in the 70’s.

I do think they would get married. Not immediately, y/n having been married already once, but they would in the end. Something small and very bohemic but chic. Definitely a small courthouse wedding, were Y/n wears something chic but minimalistic - like a satin dress or the suit Bianca Jagger had on her wedding day (hat included), and then they’d have a big riot of a party at the villa with most of the village, and the entire wedding budget spent on champagne to go around to everyone. They don’t wish for any wedding gifts but everyone brings something homecooked to eat so there’s food for everyone. The milanese jazz band makes a glorious return and plays the entire party.

I think they’d live in Paris a few months of the year, like december to may. They’d buy a new, more expensive apartment, probably in montmartre or maybe even the 16th arrondissement , since they have plenty of money partly because of Y/n divorce but also after the inheritance. I think they’d also go to italy and travel there a lot and maybe even stay a summer there by lake Garda or something. And once they’d go on a skiing holiday to the alps but Timothée is so not a skier so they don’t do that again. They also go to Monte Carlo sometimes.

Timothée would probably still keep the artist studio to paint in, but only have it as his work studio.

Timothée’s would go through like 10 different stages throughout his career (his blue period, just like Picasso’s, being widely admired). Then there’s his landscape phase (a phase he later in life will completely ignore and flat out deny happened, going so far as lying about not having painted certain pictures when art dealers ask him if they are genuine or not. He’ll flat out lie and say it’s a fraud made by a lesser artist). Then there’s his sketches phase, a brief phase but after his death some of the most sought after of his entire work (probably because there’s so few of them). The thing I think he’d most be admired for in the art world would be his use of colours (and most critiqued for his anatomy, he’s all sharp angles). But his longest phase would probably be sort of like Brassaï photos but as paintings (does that make sense? I don't know, I was Obsessed with Brassaï photos when I was in art school). Like dramatic but realistic paintings of Paris and Nice’s nightlife.

And i’d say he was a better painter when he stopped moping around. He’d use his flair for the dramatics in his paintings instead of in real life.

On their free days the live pretty much like they live in the last two part of Paris, except they are more openingly loving towards the other; and also they talk more. Like, they’d spend breakfast together and then they go off doing different things like read or lunch with friends or paint. Then they have dinner together and talk and spend the evening together or with friends. Since neither of them really have a set schedule their free days are more when they just decide to take off and go to Monte Carlo for a few days and gamble some money away and eat like kings and queens. Also, they’d discover a love for cinema, and often go there in the evening to see the newest Bergman movie or Godard. They’d go to the theatre a lot as well and without fail lovingly argue everytime about their vastly different opinions about how each shakespear play should be handled (their most divided opinions are on Othello and Macbeth)

Also, omg, Waiting For Godot actually came out 1953, I could have written that into the story!! GOD they’d argue for HOURS about the meaning of that play.

I think talking about The Letter is like poking at a bruise for the both of them. But yes, they’d talk about that. They’d also talk more about her marriage, and about William’s book. But the letter, absolutely, but it would take a while into the settled relationship before it was brought up. She’d definitely keep the letter, because she has conflicted emotions about it I’d probably have to spend a good 1,5k words on trying to explain, but she doesn’t want to throw it away. She hides it in a book (probably in a book of anatomy, which Timmy never understands why they own, and she keeps in the section showing the anatomy of the heart. That feels like something over dramatic enough (also fits with timmy writing in the letter that he has a Frankenstein's monster kind of heart)).

And hahahaha yes I hope they quit smoking in the end. In the early 50’s smoking was still considered to be actually healthy (!!!!) but as they get older and more information about the dangers of it get out to the wider public I’d say they’d try to stop. Probably somewhere mid 1980’s they’d quit for good.

Y/N has FULL control of the decorating of wherever they live because timothée is just too bohemian in attitude and can literally sleep in any dump. Y/n on the other hand is a very aesthetic creature and finds a love for decorating. In fact, she might even start up a small interior design business in her 50’s and do very well at it. She definitely puts up colourful and patterned wallpaper in every room, they are not a household that does white walls. The only place she doesn’t have control of the design is probably timmy’s studio, there he decides and it shows. And oh god yes, they most certainly got a big and comfortable bed together. The mattress is new but the bed frame is an antique from… rococo period maybe? Or maybe just a neoclassical one? Not sure on that actually. But its big and comfy.

For some reason I see them both as people who trash around alot in their sleep? Like, they start out with designated sides in bed (timothée sleeping closest to the door) but during sleep they’ll end up all over the place? Arm and legs just tangled together everywhere? Like absolute toddlers??

Oh god that got longer than I thought…. But that was so much fun answering, thank you a million times for sending it in!!!💗💗💗💗

#angel tag #these were so fun answering!!!

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crdenhart · 4 years ago

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10 Movies You Should Watch This Halloween 2020

It’s the first full week of October, so Halloween is in full swing! This year, I continue my tradition of recommending some excellent films to watch during the Halloween season but with a COVID-19 twist for many of the movies on this list. Here are the 10 movies you should check out this Halloween:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

“My family’s always been in meat.”

This movie recently got a 4K remaster making it look even more gruesome than ever! The film feels so real compared many other slasher horror films with the deaths coming out of nowhere and the killings being hyper-realistic. They even used real skeletons for the making of some of the scenes! The sound design also is something so terrifying; you’ll never want to listen to the sound of a chainsaw ever again!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

“Let’s do the Time Warp again”

One of the most fun horror movies of all time celebrates its 45th anniversary this Halloween! I like how the film satirizes the B-movie mad scientist genre and Tim Curry gives a stellar performance as Dr. Frankenfurter. Also the songs are so fun and catchy and will get stuck in your head forever! My favorite songs in the movie are “Science Fiction Double Feature” and “Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul.”

Hausu (1977)

“My fingers are gone!”

“House” is the title in English. This trippy Japanese haunted-house movie is a real treat for the eyes! The film is so mesmerizingly weird with its flashy colors and cartoon-like special effects. Definitely one worth checking out if you are looking to feel terrified and strange at the same time!

The Hunger (1983)

“Forever and ever!”

David Bowie as a vampire... yes please! The makeup and effects are really good in the movie especially in the scenes as Bowie’s vampire character ages rapidly from lack of drinking blood. The film has some creepy sequences, including some intense scenes in which it seems as though Bowie’s vampire is going to claim another victim and a scene in which Susan Sarandon’s character comes across several coffins of vampires. Definitely one of the scariest vampire movies of the last 40 years!

Ghostbusters (1984)

“Who you gonna call?”

We didn’t get the highly-anticipated Ghostbusters: Afterlife this year because of the pandemic, so to tide us over until it comes out, this Halloween would be a good time to revisit the original horror-comedy classic. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and the rest of the cast give some of their most memorable performances in this movie. Growing up I used to watch this and its sequel in the ooze-green boxset that included a couple animated episodes; highly recommend tracking a copy down if you want the best Halloween viewing experience.

The Exorcist III (1990)

“I have dreams… of a rose, and then falling down a long flight of steps.”

This movie might be one of the best horror sequels ever made! George C. Scott gives a fantastic performance in the lead role as do Jason Miller (returning as his role of Father Karris from the original Exorcist) and Brad Dourif as the Gemini Killer. I saw many of the filming locations when I visited DC back in 2015. A majority of the movie takes place in a hospital, which is usually scary enough on its own. There is an especially frightening scene involving a possessed patient and surgical scissors! This year marks its 30th anniversary, so this Halloween would be a good time to check it out if you haven’t seen it in a long time or are a fan of the original and never saw this one (you can actually skip the second one as this film makes no direct references to that movie). There is a director’s cut that was released a few years that provides some good deleted scenes and extra dialogue, though overall I prefer the theatrical cut.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

“Michael Myers is my business!”

This 6th entry in the Halloween series celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Lots of fans consider this the “worst” of the Halloween movies, but I find lots of good merits in the film, especially the producer’s cut released 2014 which features several extended and alternate scenes. I really like the Halloween (holiday) scenery of the film making it feel like it really takes place on October 31st unlike most of the series particularly in the scenes taking place at the Halloween carnival (the “red rain” scene being a highlight). The cinematography and suspense also are superior compared to many of the sequels, probably the closest the series has ever come to capture the style of the first two films. I also like how the film explores the mystery of Michael Myers more so than the other ones giving him a reason for his killing nature other than he is just “evil.” This movie is the last time Michael Myers is actually scary and not just a “killing machine” or some dummy for Busta Rhymes to kong-fu fight (ie Halloween: Resurrection). This also marked the final appearance of Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis as he died in real life shortly after filming his scenes. Definitely check out the producer’s cut if you have never seen the film or you have only seen the theatrical cut as it makes it one of the best Halloween films.

Goosebumps: “The Haunted Mask II” (1996)

“That’s no mask! That’s your face!”

Everyone is wearing masks these days, so what a fitting episode of Goosebumps to watch this Halloween! This is one of my favorite episodes along with the first one from 1995 (which was on my 2018 Halloween watch list). The scenes set in the basement of the costume shop are so creepy; something about abandoned places, especially in the dark, have always frightfully fascinated me. I used to watch the VHS of this movie every Halloween at my grandparents’ house and always hope they would do a 3rd one. Maybe someday!

Cabin Fever (2002)

“I don’t want any of us getting sick!”

Everyone is worried about coronavirus right now, so this Halloween would be the ideal time to check out this slasher in which a deadly virus is the killer. Really creepy shots of people getting infected and dying from the virus; the movie will make you a germaphobe! Interesting note that David Lynch was originally going to produce the movie but backed out during production, however Lynch’s frequent composer Angelo Badalamenti provides some of the music for the film.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

“We’re all dying. The world’s just one big hospice with fresh air.”

This sequel to The Shining was released last November nearly 40 years after the original, but it was well worth the wait! The film visually maintains the same style and tone of Kubrick’s original film while expanding upon some of its themes but without giving too much information as to ruin the mysteries surrounding the original. Like some of the other films on this list, there is a director’s cut which fleshes out scenes and characters; highly recommend it!

As a Halloween treat, here is a shot from my new spiritual horror film Sister, which should be released sometime this coming year! Happy Halloween everyone!

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the-resurrection-3d · 4 years ago

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so what was ever good about acotar anyway?

For some reason, I’ve been very tempted to reread ACOTAR lately, and so I’m going to just make a quick list of what I remember specifically endearing the book to me back when I first read it in 2016 so we can compare notes later. This will, however, also include some retroactive criticisms now that we’re four years on from ACOWAR ruining everything forever.

Twigger warnings for discussions of abuse, csa and neglect, as well as me using my complimentary R Slur Pass.

For some context:

>Be 18yr me in 2016.

>Be in your first semester at college.

>Be so fed up with YA romance that you avoid books just for hinting at them in the summary.

>Be also brainstorming a series with your roommate called The Cuckmaster Saga.

This is probably going to sound embarrassing, but I’m being completely sincere when I say that part of why this book excited me was simply the novelty of finding a YA romance book that I liked.

I’d fallen out hard with YA in general by this point in my life, partially because of a string of fairy tale “retellings” that clearly gave zero fucks about the source material beyond using the iconography in its marketing. Folklore had been my special interest for a while, and my excitement for the series and all its little extra niche references coincided with finally getting to study folklore in a true academic setting.

Which leads me to point one:

I love the idea of combining BatB and the Tam Lin ballad. I know some people have complained about this, but honestly, I enjoyed finding a retelling that mimicked the mix-and-match structuring of a lot of folktales. ACOTAR isn’t even the messiest or least coherent mash-up by a huge margin. Unfortunately, this aspect of the series severely lessened as it went along — remember when we all thought ACOWAR was going to be a Snow White retelling and then there was just one scene with poisoned apples? Lmao.

[If anyone wants an author who does YA mash-ups that are actually YA, I’d recommend Rosamund Hodge, whose books are always interesting in their sheer weirdness even when the story itself slightly falters. I mean, I wrote a whole 20-page thesis on her Red Riding Hood/Maiden Without Hands retelling and still didn’t cover everything I had thoughts on. (Tragically, however, I must inform you all that she is a Catholic Reylo. Rest in pepperoni.)]

It is fucking hilarious in retrospect that SJM clearly knows a bunch of different folktales and folkloric creatures but thinks it’s believable for shadowsinger powers to have no theorized origin “even [in] the rich lore of the warrior-people” (ACOFAS 65). Bro fuck outta here.

But this leads into point two — Feyre and her family. It’s very obvious that SJM based Nesta and Elain’s dynamic with Feyre off the common folktale trope of having the youngest sibling be the only competent person in the room (and Katniss Everdeen). I thought it was honestly a lot of fun to see this trope done with some interiority; you can practically hear Feyre seethe about what useless hoes her sisters are between every line. I genuinely giggled through these parts on my initial readthrough.

I’ve seen some people complain that Nesta and Elain’s behaviors aren’t realistic in this situation, but au contraire! Nesta and Elain’s actions in book one are (...almost) perfectly realistic. Without revealing too much, my grandmother grew up in poverty with a few older sisters, and yet my great-grandmother would make her do all the work and constantly force her to give up her possessions (like her car) to the older sisters whenever they wanted them. Even to this day, when they’re all in their 70s and 80s, one of these sisters still relies on my grandma to do basic shit like balancing her checkbooks. I’ve also observed similar dynamics play out plenty of times between an adult child and an overindulgent parent, with people literally ruining their lives and bodies all for the sake of sitting at home all day buying furry porn off the internet.

Nesta and Elain are basically the psychology of this type of person split in two — Elain the soft, delicate, perpetually victimized front they put on for the world, and Nesta the ice-cold, bitter, and aggressive bitch they truly are.

Honestly, the only thing I would change about this set-up is either keep Ma Archeron alive or give Papa Archeron more personality than a plank of damp wood. What’s truly missing here is a parental figure enforcing this fucked up dynamic — I don’t remember it being clear that Feyre’s always had this role, just that she took it on after her mom’s death. Making it clear that Feyre’s always been forced to be this way — alongside giving the mom more characterization — would have gone a long way towards making this dynamic feel more realized and less like the narrative using trauma and pity as a shortcut towards reader engagement.

Then again, that would require SJM to have a female villain in this series who isn’t a rapist, and quotes I’ve seen floating around from ACOSF make it pretty clear SJM doesn’t know same-gender sexual abuse even exists.

Anyway.

Point Three (or rather 2B): Feyre realizing she doesn’t have to hang around her family just because she feels obligated to love them was a fucking banger. I loved it so much; having a story, especially a YA story, that showed you aren’t obligated to love a family that treats you like shit was so special to me. Especially since I was also leaving my family for the first time, and going home to visit them every other weekend felt like being hit point-blank with a Psyduck blast.

Thankfully, my relationship with my family has gotten a lot better, but I’m still really disappointed that Nesta and Elain were forced back into the story, rather than them reaching out to Feyre and making amends because they wanted to do better. The closest we got to this was the revelation that Nesta almost made it to the Border by herself after Feyre was taken, which was definitely badass, but also unfortunately the only Nesta scene I’ve liked in this entire fucking series. If SJM was going to force Feyre to regress into being Nesta and Elain’s tardwrangler again, then she should have followed up on Amren’s line in ACOWAR that Feyre treats Nesta and Elain the way Tamlin treated her.

“I asked them to help once—and look what happened. I won’t risk them again.”

Amren snorted. “You sound exactly like Tamlin.”

[. . .] and I said, “She’s right.” (169-170).

But I’m sure everyone who’s read ACOSF knows how well that’s going.

Point Four: the femindhjdfhfdh I can’t even write that with a straight face. I mean let’s be real, I too enjoy seeing female characters I like become queens and all that other stuff, but it was clear to me even on my initial reading of ACOMAF that it was all shallow and designed to help delineate good guys from bad guys without much in the way of nuance. It certainly took me out of the experience a little, but at least it ties into the books’ themes of recovering from abuse and shacking up with a Certified Women Respecter.

My actual point four: Truthfully I only bought this series for the meme of having the first shitty love interest getting cucked in the second book. ACOWAR gave me some complicated feelings on Tamlin, and I honestly think he should have just stopped appearing in the series after that — BUT, having him be dragged back in once per book just to call him a cuck and cockslap him around a little bit is fucking hilarious. Pointless! But hilarious.

I also think that this kind of arc is a great critique of the standard “happily ever after,” acknowledging that in real life, you’re much more likely to just pass from one abusive household to another because you don’t know what healthy love, communication, and boundaries are. (Arguably many folktales are the fantasies of women who are well aware of this reality but want to imagine a world that’s otherwise). I definitely have a lot of problems with SJM’s claims of “sex positivity,” but acknowledging that Feylin used sex as a means of avoiding communication was another great touch.

I wish that this whole King of Hybern shit was completely cut just to focus on these themes more; it’s very clear SJM only included it because fantasy series = BIG EPIC WORLD-ENDING STAKES!! I've read maybe ten pages of Throne of Glass, so I can't speak for how she handles epic fantasy there, but I know for me and a lot of other stans, the Hybern plot had licherally nothing to do with what we liked and connected to in these books.

But I must soften here, because I totally empathize with feeling like big stakes are “necessary” for a fantasy story and that no one would want to read your books without them. YA fantasy is the reason why TV Tropes coined the term “romantic plot tumor,” after all. (Source: I’m making shit up.)

What else… what else… uhhhhh. I think that might be it, at least for substantial things I don’t have to qualify too much. I of course have plenty of little things I used to like but have now been tainted because ACOWAR ruined everything forever and ACOFAS danced on the graves (such as how I liked Lucien but everyone in the books shits on him now to the point it’s stopped being funny). But this post is too long anyway.

#long post #anti sjm #abuse tw #csa tw #r slur #neglect tw #what's been eating feyre archeron?

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misschiuahua · 4 years ago

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Marjorie

Explicit - Part 3 of 3

Marjorie had come to a bizarre conclusion. She’d thought about it a lot -she didn’t have much to do -and it sounded absolutely ludicrous, but there was no other possible answer.

Walter had fucked her because he’d wanted to.

And it was a bizarre conclusion, because it made no fucking sense. Walter was a synthetic; he was supposed to be pure logic.

How the hell was he bullshitting her to get laid?

It was not possible. She had to be seeing this all wrong. If Walter had basically offered to eat her out and then fuck her, he had to have a reason.

There was no other explanation.

As he was acting normally the next day -even after he checked her ankle again -she decided he did have some reason. Maybe it wasn’t clear to her, but he had to. Maybe he did it because she was hurt and he wanted to give her some nice endorphins.

Marjorie could almost buy this explanation; only because it made more sense than he wanting to fuck her.

She put the -ridiculous -idea in the back of her head and things seemed to go back to -what she considered -normal.

She caught herself looking at Walter more often, even fantasizing more often -and she’d been doing that plenty before.

But you know… Things were pretty normal.

Marjorie had periods of time when she felt like shit. Things were much better now, but it didn’t change the fact that she was stuck on this ship, seeing years of her life just passing by. She felt as if her life was going down the drain and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

Those were years she’d never get back.

Walter seemed to know when she was feeling particularly down; probably because she got really quiet. In those days she’d spend a lot of time in her room, and Walter would have to get her for her regular activities (he insisted they were important, so he never let her skip them).

Three months after they’d last had sex, Walter asked Mother to call Marjorie to the bridge. The woman sighed, but went.

“You’re not feeling well.” He told her as she entered the bridge.

Marjorie sighed once again. “It’s not that bad, ok? Some days are just harder.”

Walter was analyzing her carefully. “Is it because of the wait?”

“Yes. I’m not getting these six years back. I’m going to turn 30 in here, I’m going to lose more birthdays here. I feel like my youth is being wasted.”

Walter nodded his understanding. “What if we make plans?”

“Plans?”

“Yes. Find you the perfect place to build your house in Oregae-6, choose the color of your walls, plan your first steps on the planet. That way you won’t spend time figuring it out once you get there.”

It was such a silly thing. Marjorie wasn’t sure she wanted to spend more years planning and re-planning for that.

But then again, what else could she do?

She accepted the idea mostly because she didn’t have anything else to do, but Walter seemed actually interested in the whole process.

He showed her the images they had of Oregae-6, and let Marjorie choose the place where she’d build a house. She didn’t even know if she could actually do that -just claim a piece of land in the new planet -but she chose it carefully.

It was up a hill and it would give her a great view of the closest lake. There were also lots of trees around, and she’d always wanted to have a chalet by the woods.

Then once she started thinking about the house itself, Walter once again brought up images. They really discussed materials that were available and could realistically be used, but that lasted less than a day. On the second day, Marjorie was planning a mansion with pink marble columns and Walter was encouraging her.

One week later she was on the bridge, abusing her privilege with the hologram table to build an underground indoor pool with a water slide in her imaginary home.

This was how Walter found her.

He took one look at her project. “The hill does not have the appropriate terrain for that type of construction.”

Marjorie gave him a look over her shoulder. “Yeah, because that’s the problem with this project.”

Walter smiled at her and went around the bridge to take care of his business there.

They hadn’t done anything since that time she fell. It was exactly like after the first time, they didn’t even mention it.

But…

There was this little devil on Marjorie’s shoulder, pressing her to see what would happen if she gave Walter a suggestion, just a hint of something.

Maybe nothing would happen, but Marjorie was pretty sure it would.

She changed the pool project for the bedroom project. This one was the realistic one; it was a simple bedroom, with a bedside table, a bed and a wardrobe. Marjorie wasn’t really into decoration -she didn’t even know what color she wanted to use on the walls -so she mostly copied from the images Walter showed her.

She gave the bed a look, then threw a look at Walter over her shoulder. “Do you think I can get a bigger bed?”

Walter turned to her and came closer. “Is it not big enough?”

“It’s okay.” It was actually a great bed -a double bed -and Irydiana never really needed that much space in beds -although the cot she currently slept on was a bit too small -but that was not the point. Her eyes turned back to the design. “But a bigger one would be better.”

She felt Walter coming closer, until he was behind her, but not that close. “Why?”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and her face on her hands. Posing might be pushing it a bit, but Marjorie didn’t really feel the need to be embarrassed. “More space to sleep and relax.”

“Good sleeping habits are important for your health.” Walter spoke in that enciclopedia voice of his, but his hands weren’t that proper, as they settled on her waist.

Marjorie didn’t mention it. “Yes, that’s the point.” She hummed. “Besides, bigger beds are better for everything.”

He was quiet for a while, but his thumbs were rubbing circles on her waist. “Everything?” He finally asked.

Marjorie gave him a look over her shoulder. “Yup.”

Walter nodded like it made a whole lot of sense to him.

Marjorie moved, straightening her back, but Walter’s hands didn’t leave her waist. “What are those hands going to do now?” She decided to ask, her back against his chest.

“Whatever you wish, Marjorie.” He told her simply.

“Am I getting cranky again?” She teased.

Walter’s hands squeezed her waist for a minute. “No. I do not feel sensations like you do, but I discovered an interest in your pleasure.”

Marjorie tilted her head to try and look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I find your reactions fascinating. And even more so that I’m the one who makes you feel so.”

Marjorie thought about it for a minute. “So you like giving me pleasure?”

“I’m not sure the term ‘like’ can be applied to me.” He admitted. “However, knowing I can do this for you carries a certain… Interest for me.”

Well, would wonders never cease? Because as much as Walter was going around with the words, it sounded exactly like he enjoyed giving her pleasure. Enough that he felt satisfied -perhaps even proud -of what he did to her and wanted to see more of it.

Who would’ve thought that technology would get them to this point.

“So you really wanted to do it that last time, hm?” She teased. “It wasn’t because I needed the endorphins.”

“You did need them.” He pointed out. “But, yes, I wanted to have intercourse with you.”

Marjorie chuckled. “Let’s not call it ‘intercourse’, ok? Sounds weird.” She put her hands over his and made him slide them under her T-shirt. “Now let’s put those hands of yours to work.”

“Yes, Marjorie.” He answered by her ear.

His hands slid up until he was touching the curve of her breasts. Marjorie had given up on wearing bras a good while ago, and she could only see benefits so far.

Walter touched the underside of her breasts, skimming their curves. Marjorie let her body rest against his, sighing softly in pleasure, even as she waited for him to do more. Then his hands captured her breasts more firmly, as if feeling their weight, squeezing a bit.

“What should we call it then?” He asked.

“What?” Marjorie asked, a bit confused.

“If not ‘intercourse’, what should we call it?” He asked, even as his fingers pinched one of her nipples.

Marjorie bit her lower lip, let the sensation course through her before answering, “We call it ‘fucking’.”

“As you wish.” He agreed.

Walter pulled one of his hands out from under her T-shirt, and used it to tilt her head so he could kiss Marjorie. She threw her arm back to hold him there as they kissed, excitement building up inside her.

While one of Walter’s hands continued to tease her nipples, the other one pushed Marjorie’s pants and panties down a bit, just enough so he could get to her pussy. He teased her clit in slow circles for what felt like forever, until she was mewling in his mouth and trying to press harder against his hand.

Finally his caresses became firmer and faster, but he didn’t linger there. Instead, he went lower, traced the entrance of her pussy before sinking a finger into her.

“More.” Marjorie demanded against his lips.

Walter -as usual -complied easily (perhaps Marjorie could teach him how to tease a bit more later). He fucked her with his finger for a while, before putting another one in.

He let go of her breast and used the second hand to play with her clit and he fucked her with his fingers. Marjorie was moaning, her hands grasping at his jacket as her hips moved on their own, looking for more and more.

When she came, her cry echoed in the empty room, and Marjorie might have felt embarrassed, if she hadn’t felt this good. besides, there wasn’t really anyone to hear it.

Marjorie noticed he was holding her, so she could take a breath. She gently pushed his hands away and pushed her pants the rest of the way down, kicking them to the side, then pulled her shirt off.

She leaned over the table, sticking her ass up. “Come on.”

But Walter was standing there, giving her position a considering look. “I won’t be able to see your reactions like this.”

Marjorie snorted. “I’ll make sure you hear them then.”

Walter seemed satisfied by this. Marjorie heard the rustling of fabric, and soon the tip of his cock was pushing against her folds.

Marjorie’s forehead fell against the table once he was fully in. “You feel so good.”

Walter’s hands went back to her waist, caressing it. “How do you mean?”

“Perfectly thick and long.” She told him amidst a moan. “It feels so… Don’t stop!” She whined.

“Keep talking.” He requested.

Marjorie chuckled. “Fuck me properly and I will.”

Walter took her request quite seriously; his grip on her waist became firmer, and his hips snapped against hers.

True to her words, Marjorie was mostly screaming praises and encouragement to him, saying how good it felt, how she wanted more of it. Walter seemed particularly interested in the moments when she couldn’t finish a word because of him, and he focused on making her do it more often.

He switched up between fucking her really hard -making her claw at the table and barely be able to keep standing -and fucking her real slow. He would pull his cock almost all the way out, just to push it roughly back in. He held her pinned flat against the table as he fucked her.

And when Marjorie thought she couldn’t take this any longer, he slid his hand around her hip and rubbed her clit furiously, before pinching it.

She came like a rocket.

Walter dropped his jacket over her and stayed closed in case she needed help standing up.

“Pull a chair.” Marjorie asked, her voice muffled as her face was hidden between her arms.

Walter did as asked and pulled a chair and took a seat, before pulling Marjorie to his lap.

She chuckled in surprise. “You have really good post-sex manners.” She told him, resting her face on his chest.

“Thank you.”

She hid her smile on his chest. They stayed in silence for a while, Marjorie trying to get her breath back and Walter letting her.

“I like the idea of a big bed.” He finally said.

“Do you?”

“Yes. Would I be welcome in it?”

“Well… Can I keep doing this to you once we reach Origae-6? Technically you belong to Weyland Corporation.” She pointed out.

“If they have a problem with that, they can send someone to seize me back.”

Marjorie dissolved in giggles. “I guess they can.” She put her hand on his chest, where his heart would be if he were human. “Yes, you’d be welcome in my bed. And you don’t need to wait months before fucking me again.”

“I see.”

Marjorie squealed as he got up suddenly, holding her in his arms. But he just settled her down on the table.

“Is this table made to withstand such abuse?” She teased.

“I can fix it if necessary.” He pushed her legs open and stepped closer. “Can I proceed?”

Marjorie laid back, a grin on her lips. “Please do.”

At least the rest of this journey would be much more interesting now.

#My writing #part 3 #posted on AO3 #alien covenant #walter #OFC #Walter x OFC #smut

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