#me and my sibs do fashion shows every time we get a bunch of new clothes and try them on we get home

[spectrumscribe]

Okay, I just thought of this since I only actually got around to watching the other rottmnt episodes yesterday but like since they look like they'd love it (well at least Raph and Mikey) maybe have the turts spend a night with April dressing up all cute and like putting on makeup and nail polish (Maybe with them wearing old big clothes April found or owns? Or after acquiring a whole bunch of clothes through whatever means). (Mikey and Raph just really loved dressing up and I loved it too)

this one was too cute a prompt to pass on. and congrats on joining the brand new rottmnt fandom! we’re growing in numbers with every day that the proper release date draws closer. :3c

“It’s making my eyes itchy.”

“Shh, you look great. Now- keep holding still, I have tocurl them.”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“Not if you hold still.”

“Those look like they’re going to hurt me.”

“They won’t, promise.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve used them on myself, Leo. They don’t hurt.”

Leo’s lips stay in a bracing grimace though, rigid all overwith tension as April gently curls the fake eyelashes. She giggles at howscared her friend is, considering that Leo walks around with a giant sword mostdays and has faced plenty scarier than makeup tools. He’s a total dork, justlike Mikey, who is watching the process with wide eyes; leaning on his armsover the side of the bed, looking up at the both of them.

“Soooo… does ithurt?” he asks, poking Leo’s leg.

“Nnnnooo…?” Leo says slowly, blinking as April takes awaythe curler. He’s still grimacing. “Still super itchy, though.” He blinks rapidly,testing out the lashes. “God, how do humans livewith hair on their faces like this?”

“Haha, you look so weird, Leo. I wanna go next.”

“I think I might stick with eyeliner, April,” Leo says,touching the tips of the lashes. April smacks his hand away before he canunstick the glue.

“Take a look before you decide,” April says, holding up acircular desk mirror. Leo takes the mirror from her, examining himself in it ashe turns his head side to side. The thick black eyelashes stand out against thestreaks of red markings on his face, accentuated further by the eyeliner they’dalready applied earlier; before April convinced Leo to give eyelashes a go.

“I look… soweird,” Leo says after a moment. “Turtles really aren’t supposed to have hairon their faces. It’s… kinda a nice-weird, though? Itchy, but nice.”

“My turn,” Mikeyproclaims, clambering onto the bed and shoving Leo out of the way. He percheson the comforter with an expectant expression, eager as anything. Leo grumblesand unscrunches himself from between Mikey and the wall, climbing off the endof the bed and getting some space.

“Can I have the reallythick ones? They’re glittery,” Mikey asks, pointing at the costume eyelashesApril saved from Halloween one year. “If I’m gonna have itchy eyes, I wanna getmy money’s worth out of things.”

“Sure thing, hon,” April says, opening the packet. Mikey isless fidgety than Leo had been, probably by virtue of having seen his bigbrother go through the experience first. April’s started to realize that aslong as at least one of the brothers has done something before the rest, theother three will gladly follow lead. Even if whatever they’re doing is a badidea.

They also, sometimes, feel more comfortable doing somethingafter April’s done it first. That factmakes a strange squishy spot of warmth in her chest. Her relationship with thebrothers has really started to feel closer the past months; easy andcomfortable.

April doesn’t have any blood siblings, so in a way, it’s beena novel experience having the brothers in her life. More and more, they… feellike actual little brothers to her. Sitting here in her room, her small makeup bagspread across the bed and having spent the past half hour delicately painting eachother’s faces- it feels familial and warm in a way, like they’ve doneit a hundred times before. And that’s proof enough of how close April’s gottenwith the brothers.

The appreciative noises Mikey makes to himself when he getsthe mirror, after the job is done, makes April smile fondly. “I feel like abird of paradise,” Mikey says, fluttering his new eyelashes.

“You definitely look like one,” Leo says from the floor,having moved into the same spot Mikey had been. He laughs when Mikey winksexaggeratedly, still showing off his new look.

April uncurls her legs, sighing in relief as blood flowsback into. “Aight, I’ve been sitting too long. Up, up. I gotta check if theother two haven’t made the microwave sentient yet anyway.”

Her friends do as she asks, getting out of the way andfollowing April from her room. There’s no smoke coming from the kitchen, orsounds of laser blasts, which April is steadily becoming familiar with viafriendship with Donnie- but there isthe sound of someone lecturing someone else with a frustrated tone.

“Do you see this? It’s a vegetable. You have a mouthful ofcanines. You don’t like vegetables.Carnivores do not eat carrots.”

Mayhem’s crickety voice responds with a rolling chirp.

“You. Are a carnivore. I aman omnivore. I eat carrots. You eat meat. I saw you inhale fivehamburgers in one sitting just last week. Go steal someone’s fastfood and leave my carrots alone.”

“Oh my gosh,” Mikey giggles. Leo is laughing into his palm,and April feels herself grinning. As they come into the kitchen, Donnie isstanding in front of the counter with his hands on his hips, sans his battleshell in a rare instance of vulnerability limited to only specificcircumstances. IE: spending time with his family and April in a safe setting.

Mayhem sitting in front of the scowling turtle, tailflicking back and forth playfully as they give an innocent look. There’s acollection of chewed on and spat back out carrots littering the counter aroundtheir paws.

“Are you berating my pet, Donnie? Seriously?” April laughs.

“They keep stealing the snacks,” Donnie accuses flatly,pointing at Mayhem. “They are. A thief.”

“Ohhh, and such a cutelittle thief,” April coos, coming over and petting Mayhem. They purr like alittle engine, chirping as she squishes their cheeks and scratches their big ears.

“You’re biased,” Donnie scoffs.

“They do keep my feet warm at night,” April admits happily.Leo and Mikey both ignore Donnie’s disgust with the veggie snatcher, joiningApril in giving Mayhem the attention they’ve probably been trying to get.

“Guys?” Raph asks from the next room over. “Hey, there’s afew good movies on Netflix and I dunno which-” Raph’s shell scrapes the wall ashe tries to squeeze through the doorway, and he cringes and cuts off. “Oh,shit, shit- April, I’m really sorry.”

April sees the damage done, a deep gouge into the whiteframe along with a few other smaller scratches. She just sighs, picking upMayhem and cradling the strange little creature. “It’s alright, Raph. It’snothing my cousins haven’t done already- or me, too, actually. I got up to someserious shenanigans as a kid.”

“I either bump my head or I hit the wall; your home is so tiny,April,” Raph complains, though he still looks deeply apologetic. April noticedfrom the get-go how careful her large friend has been in her home. Despite the excitementabout April’s parents being away for the weekend and the five of them gettingto hang out here, April suspects Raph is actually fairly uncomfortable movingaround in such a small, breakable space. Thus, his expression of regret and howhe’s holding all his limbs close to himself.

“It’s cool, no worries. They probably won’t even noticeanother scratch,” April promises, handing Raph Mayhem for a cuddle. Now thatthe two of them have gotten warmed up to one another, they get along just fine.After the third time Mayhem attacked Raph- back when the little creature firstcame to them- they’d come up with the hypothesis that Mayhem was mistaking Raphfor the big muscly monster guys that’d been chasing them. Some treats, a calmspace, and Raph sitting down instead of standing over them fixed that easily.

Mayhem purrs contently in Raph’s arms, easing the slightdiscomfort that’d been in his expression. Donnie, through the conversation, hasdrafted his two younger siblings for busboy services, and is sending all theirmovie snacks into the living room.

“Nice lashes,” Raph says to Mikey and Leo as they pass.

“Nice hat,” they chorus back, and Raph grins, still pleasedwith his wide sunhat. When the brothers had first arrived, they’d stumbledacross the bags of clothing donations April’s parents have been collecting fora community event. Raph, for obvious reasons, hadn’t fit a single piece ofclothing.

While the other three had been playing dress up, and while Aprilhurriedly bullshitted an essay so they could really start the fun, Raph had saton the couch and tried not to act too disappointed about being left out. Donnie,who’d been sporting a nice work jumpsuit and ill-fitting rain boots at thetime, was the one who fixed that.

“It suits you,” he’d said with purposeful kindness, placingthe sunhat on his brother’s head. It hadn’t been a beat later and Mikey and Leooffered the wealth of chunky necklaces in addition; finding a way to includetheir oldest brother in the dress up game.

Raph put the necklaces back in the end, but hasn’t takenthat hat off since it was put on his head. April has a feeling she’ll just giveit to him permanently, because Raph keeps touching its brim with a happy littlegrin.

“Can we watch this one?” Mikey asks, selecting an animatedmovie from the trending section. “It dropped like, yesterday, and I didn’t geta chance to watch it yet.”

“I saw the trailer, it looks decent,” Leo says, floppingonto the couch next to Mikey. April takes the third cushion of couch, while Donnietakes the loveseat. Raph sits on the floor, leaning carefully against the armof Donnie’s chair, so he doesn’t rip the fabric of it.

“What’s it about?” Raph asks.

“The future and robots and a generic rebel girl,” Donnie replies.“From the looks of things, at least. It’s pretty obvious from the title card.”

“What? I sent you a link, Don,” Leo says, vaguelydisgruntled. “You didn’t watch it?”

Donnie shrugs. “You send me a lot of links, Leon. I can’tclick on them all and keep up with myprojects.”

Mikey pats Leo’s shoulder as his brother sulks momentarily. “I’lljust play the trailer right now for everyone, ‘n’ then we can decide if wewanna watch.”

“No!” Donnie abruptlyshouts, lunging at Mayhem on the coffee table. He unsuccessfully picks them upand drops them on the floor in order to save the carrots, as Mayhem canteleport and tends to ignore people trying to put them where they don’t want tobe.

The trailer starts playing as Donnie tries again to shooMayhem off his carrots, only for the creature to teleport out of reach and landin April’s lap. Purring and holding a baby carrot in their mouth. Donniemutters, “I give up,” and slumps into his loveseat as his brother laugh at him.

“You are a very bad baby,” April tells them seriously, thoughshe’s smiling indulgently. They just chirrup in a distinctly unrepentant wayand spits their chewed carrot on the carpet. She’ll have to clean that uplater.

April scritches their ears with a roll of her eyes, settlinginto the squish of being on the couch with Leo and Mikey; ready for the nexthalf of their hangout night.

Commission info & Kofi link.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 19, part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Chilling in Yiling

We start off with Wei Wuxian hanging out in a busy area of Yiling, which is a really dumb place to pick for a fugitive rendezvous.  

He's wearing a fashionably distressed brown robe, and a woven disguise hat, that makes him invisible to his enemies until the moment he takes it off, kinda like the mask he wears in his second life. Unfortunately he is a polite boi so he takes off the disguise hat when he goes indoors to get a bite to eat, and promptly gets smacked down by Wen Zhuliu. 

Xiao Zhan's stunt double is really good at this wire-pull+table-smash move; this is the second time Wei Wuxian goes crashing through a table (the first one being when Yu Ziyuan was beating him). This time he clutches his now core-less abdomen, in a move we're going to be seeing a lot of, going forward. Abdominal surgery is a bitch. OP can personally attest to this.

Wen Zhuliu provides some comic relief by looking at his hand in puzzlement; he clearly can tell Wei Wuxian has no golden core, but he isn't going to bother telling Wen Chao that.

Wen Chao gloats and steps on Wei Wuxian's hand while Wei Wuxian stares at his shoe and OP wonders, not for the first time, how they make rubberized zig-zag treads in Ancient Fantasy China.

(more after the cut)

This is all happening in the Yiling Wine house where Wei Wuxian will later share the most important meal of his life, the one in which A-Yuan lays claim to Lan Wangji, ultimately giving LWJ a reason to live long enough for Wei Wuxian to be resurrected. If that doesn’t deserve a good Yelp review, nothing does. 

Dream a Little Dream of Me

While Wei Wuxian gets ready for his big whump scene, Jiang Cheng is dreaming, and looking absolutely breathtaking in this deceptively simple robe, that's made of a really complex fabric, that catches the light all over its surface.  The lighting here is warm and romantic, giving everything a nostalgic glow.

He looks around the courtyard in his dream, and sees Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian come running in the gate carrying kites. 

A child fetching a kite was the first casualty of the Wen attack on Lotus Pier, so this image may already be a little fraught for Jiang Cheng. In this initial image of his family, Jiang Cheng isn't present as a child, but then his junior self comes running up, to be warmly greeted by his mother.

Jiang Cheng's reaction to the scene playing out in front of him is not a simple one. We've seen him externally expressing his trauma at the fate of Lotus Pier and his family - his anger and his despair - and this dream shows us his private, interior trauma. 

His body has been repaired by Wei Wuxian and the Wens, but his psyche has not.

This family interaction can't possibly be one that ever happened. It's too lively, too affectionate, too comfortable. The family he was part of as a young adult was cold, angry, cracked.  Families don't change that much in 10 years, unless there's a major trauma that alters things in a fundamental way.

Even the glimpses we got of his childhood contradict this image. This warm group is not the family of "I sent your dogs away" or "wait in the cold until Jiang Cheng lets you in" or "I won't tell Clan Leader Jiang what happened" or "I'm only 11 but I'm in charge of soup and bedtime already"

Jiang Cheng smiles at the affection he sees enacted in front of him, but quickly moves to grief. When a toxic person dies, you don't just lose the relationship you had with them; you lose the hope for a better relationship. Perhaps Jiang Cheng has always imagined this version of his family; now nothing like it can ever come to be.

The pleasant scene vanishes into nightmare, as his mother starts bleeding from her eyes, ew. This is like Nie Mingjue when he qi deviates, but dream Yu Ziyuan is perfectly chill about it. 

Jiang Cheng is not perfectly chill about it. 

He turns around to see Lotus Pier burning. When he turns back, his family has been replaced with Wen Zhuliu, who is particularly gleeful as he reaches into Jiang Cheng's chest and melts his core.

Jiang Cheng wakes up on the mountain, alone (as far as he knows), and quickly stands and boots up his new golden core.

It's purple, because of course it is. King. The nightmare is gone and he smiles, maybe for the first time since the attack on the pier.

In a moment that is probably going to feel really embarrassing in hindsight, he kneels and bows toward the mountaintops to thank Baoshan Sanren, who is totally not there. 

Wen Ning, on the other hand, is there, although we only see a little bit of his belt and robe as Jiang Cheng walks off to Yiling to meet his brother.  This entire plotline walks a very weird line in which the audience is told just enough about what’s really happening to be confused, but not surprised.

Do the Whumpty Whump

After some initial roughing up, Wen Chao has his dudes stand Wei Wuxian up so he can question him without actually getting any information out of him at all. They take turns calling each other dogs, with Wei Wuxian saying that when Wen Chao talks he just hears a dog barking. (Of course if he really heard a dog barking he'd be terrified) 

Then he says "isn't that right" to Wang Lingjiao, and Wen Chao gets super pissed; don't disrespect me to my woman. 

He has his minions do a Nancy Kerrigan to Wei Wuxian's knee and then kick him for a while.

Then they kick the shit out of the camera operator.

Wen Chao is really not about fighting his own fights.  He also keeps threatening to have Wen Zhuliu melt Wei Wuxian's core, and Wen Zhuliu keeps popping up his hand and then putting it back when Wen Chao changes his mind, which gets more hilarious every time I watch it. Feng Mingjing’s physical embodiment of Wen Zhuliu is endlessly entertaining, even in scenes where he has literally no lines. 

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost

Wei Wuxian continues to goad Wen Chao, telling him that more torture is good because then he'll die with loads of resentment. He says that after he dies, he will come back as a ferocious ghost, which is...almost exactly what happens, except he stays alive for the ferocious part. 

They go back and forth about the feasibility of this whole haunting plan. Wang Lingjiao is the voice of reason, for once, arguing the "ghosts aren't real and anyway fuck this guy" position.

Wen Chao thinks that he can’t haunt them because of cultivator security hardening procedures soul-calming rituals, but Wei Wuxian wasn't born into a gentry family so didn't have the anti-fierce-ghost treatment that other cultivators get.

This is the only time in the whole of the show when Wei Wuxian says, himself, that he's the son of a servant. He's using his reputation as a commoner to bolster his threats. 

Wei Wuxian is working hard to put on a scary-guy persona, which works pretty well on Wang Lingjiao but not as much on the rest of the group. Three months from this time, however, he will have become the scary, vengeful creature he's currently spitballing about.  He will also become way, way better at torture than the people who are currently mistreating him. 

Wang Lingjiao and Wen Chao go through a whole sequence of ideas about what to do with him. For whatever reason Wang Lingjiao doesn't insist on chopping his arm off even though she's been craving it for ages. 

She does gleefully burn his burn some more, causing it to bleed directly into the giant obvious bag he has hanging from his belt leaking resentful energy. Which the Wens do not take away or search.

Wen Chao, incidentally, starts calling him Wei Ying during this encounter, which is rude of him. Tch.  Finally Wen Chao decides on a plan, which involves sword-flying effects so terrible that no soul can survive them.

Jiang Cheng is looking for Wei Wuxian in town, wearing a woven hat like Wei Wuxian’s.  This...is not a disguise. If you want to be inconspicuous, maybe take that giant piece of silver off of your head.

He hears random people talking about the Wens being in town, and then he apparently looks up at the sky and sees the Wen dudes flying on their swords with Wei Wuxian, but it looks so ridiculous that Jiang Cheng's mind cannot process what he is seeing.

While they "fly," Wen Chao delivers a massive brick of exposition about the burial mounds, while Wei Wuxian looks genuinely frightened. The VFX of random, undifferentiated mountaintops and clouds do nothing to sell this menace, but the exposition is actually pretty good, creating a real sense of disturbance and threat.

Then they toss him in, and we go from the terrible VFX of sword flying to a visual effect that they mercifully did really well throughout the show - the black resentment smoke. This time it catches Wei Wuxian and holds him for a few moments, before dropping him the rest of the way to the ground. It also apparently pulls the turtle sword out of his belt bag, but we don't see that part.

They Say That Every Man Must Fall

Having seen Wei Wuxian at his lowest point (so far) and dream Jiang Cheng also in deep distress, we go to the Dafan Wen sibs, who have also reached a breaking point. Because they helped Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, they are traitors to their clan - unquestionably so - and are being punished for it, with Wen Ning having been tortured in addition to being locked up.

I see my light come shining From the west down to the east Any day now, any day now I shall be released

You know how Lan Xichen successfully argued for Wen-Clan-Member Meng Yao's life and status, because Meng Yao betrayed Wen Ruohan to help them? Even though Meng Yao killed a bunch of Nie guys? Wen Ning and Wen Qing also betrayed Wen Ruohan and helped the Sunshot Campaign, without killing a bunch of guys. They should have been treated as allies by the four other clans, but they got diddly.  

I’ve Been Dead Once

We return to Wei Wuxian in the burial grounds, where he's lying on the ground surrounded by resentful energy and by strained, desperate voices calling his name. This whole sequence is remarkable, since it effectively communicates the horror he's experiencing, through little more than Xiao Zhan's face and good sound design.

I hang around dying to be tortured  You'll never be alone in the bone orchard

The voices call four versions of his name. A variety of voices call him Wei Wuxian, Wei Gongzi, and Shixiong, which (I think) is what the young Jiang disciples would have called him. And in the midst of those voices, Lan Wangji's voice, low and calm, saying "Wei Ying." Upon hearing that Wei Wuxian starts to drag himself up.

For a show with definitely no zombies in it, they sure do use the visual language of zombie films for Wei Wuxian's first motions after hitting the ground. Starting with twitching fingers, then gradually pulling himself halfway up and crawling, lurching across the ground. Wei Wuxian comes slowly back to life, the very first member of his army of the dead.

He makes his way across the ground toward the floating turtle sword. Along the way he accidentally grabs the world's most bowlegged thigh bone; the lack of sunshine in the burial mounds puts the skeletons at risk for rickets.  All of the skeletons in the show are exactly what you would expect from the practical effects team that made the demon hand and the animatronic dog.

The turtle sword is roiling with resentful energy, and is talking to Wei Wuxian as he crawls toward it, asking if he wants revenge. And what a coincidence, he DOES want revenge. 

He grabs the sword and plunges it into the ground in an explosion of resentful energy. (Ground: why you gotta take it out on me?)

The sequence ends with the most compelling, ominous shot of Wei Wuxian's face...a new man. 

Soundtrack: 1. I Shall Be Released by Bob Dylan 2. Beyond Belief by Elvis Costello  

Writing Prompt: The Day Wei Wuxian arrived, from the POV of a Burial Mounds ghost. 

[desireebarefootblog]

Shutterbug (censored)

Kara and Rayne who have more-or-less adopted me (along with Mikka) into their SL family have upgraded our house to fill with Mikka and me, and our new SL sibs, Kelli and Cody.  I’ve been busy filling the new house with all the things.  I spent a good deal of Saturday with Kara and Rayne moving all my stuff from the old house into the new.

In the middle of the moving and chatting, Kara and Rayne told me they were expanding and changing the “plot” (sort of like the digital property in Second Life) and adding things like a Seedy Porn Theater and a new Club and just a bunch of fun stuff to attract people to our Shameless corner of Second Life.  I got so excited!

See.  A while back, when Mikka and I moved into the first house there was this room that wasn’t being used.  We had a front room, our bedrooms, and a bathroom and this room in the middle, that was just empty.  I had this idea to start a Photography/ Movie studio.  And I started researching and practicing.  I hope I’ve gotten better.  *I’m pretty sure* I’ve gotten better.  The pics at the top of this post are examples of work I’ve done over the past week.

So when Kara and Rayne outlined their plans for their plots, I asked if we could carve out a spot for this studio.  They said Yes, and arrangements were made.  I’m decorating the studio now.  I’m also coming up with plans on how to utilize the space.  So, in service of this whole endeavor, I’ve created a Flickr account at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barefootdezzy/

please!  go take a look when you get the chance.

I’m trying to figure out an efficient way to cross Flickr with Tumblr with Second Life with Twitter (I guess a Dezzy needs to start a Twitter account too.)  It’s being rather healthy for me (and my person) to branch out into creative hobbies that don’t revolve around pixel sex.  I will only know for certain after time passes and my profile starts showing Years in world instead of Months, but it might be a factor in Second Life Longevity. Almost all of the people I interact with in SL that have been in world for the long-term, they all have things they do in Second Life that go beyond hoping on poseballs and emoting moans.  They own clubs, they DJ, perform live music, make fashion, build sims.. the list goes on and on and on.

It makes me happy that I’m discovering for myself an outlet for my creativity and interests.  Because I like it here and my person, they like having me in SL to share the experience with.  I’ve given myself a new “title” when signing up for the out-of-SL services like Tumblr and Flickr.. etc. I’m the Emotional Support Toon.

As always

Wear your mask Wash your hands You are loved You are worth keeping safe!

P.S.  The original draft of this post was flagged and locked by Tumblr for violating their Content Policy.  I don’t begrudge them having a Content Policy.  This is *their* business and *their* platform and *they* have every right to block,  censor, silence, and ignore all the things they want.

P.P.S  But, this does mean that as I start sharing my artistic efforts into social media, I realize that I need a new platform that is less afraid of conservative social bullying. I’ll pick up and move Barefoot Tracks as soon as I find a new place to write and share.

P.P.P.S And at the risk of sounding like a bucket of sour grapes, Tumblr, dear, pookie, this is your loss.  I’m an insightful, respectful and goddamn funny writer.