#probably gonna first mock up a design

[bluebellthesponge]

thinking about making my own shirt but make the design pop art…like make my own stencils and get fabric medium to add to my paint and just diy it entirely ya know

[taurasiscntybun]

Home for the Holidays

- DT x younger femme

- 18+ minors dni

-Fluff and Smut

-Warnings: Age gap, Mommy kinky, public sex, oral sex, strap on, praise kink, risky sex, breeding kink

-5.9k words (giving yall a long one to make up for lack of posting don’t yell at me)

- inspired by a h*rny idea dm from @taurasicomplex

“You have to behave Dee, I’m serious.” You sigh and turn in your seat to look at her. She hums in response and drums her long fingers on the steering wheel.

“You like it when I’m naughty though baby.” She teases and steals a glance at you at the red light.

“That may be true but my parents are already in a tizzy over the age difference; I don’t want to give them any more reason to dislike you.” You say with a sigh. Diana was closer to your parents age than yours and it had been the topic of plenty of heated family discussions. Now you were bringing her home for the holidays; meeting everyone at once.

“I know baby, I’m not gonna do anything I think will piss off your parents. I even wore this stupid ass sweater for you to show I’ve got Christmas spirit. But if they already hate me, what can I do?” She accelerates the car and you stare out the window again, not sure of a good answer. The twinkling lights of your ridiculous matching Christmas sweaters seeming to mock your intense thought. Diana had refused to wear the sweater at first; a giant rudolph with Christmas lights strung through his antlers, the Christmas lights that actually turned on.

“Well the good thing is. my cousins will be there and they’re all very excited I'm dating a professional basketball player, I’m sure they’d rather I be dating someone with an NBA salary, but whatever.” You joke, and Diana snorts a laugh.

“It’s not like you’re in need.” She raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly at your designer dress as you swat her arm.

“You bought me this for my birthday, you old witch!” You protest, but the laugh is evident in your voice.

“And you look fucking sexy in it; I should have made rules about when you can wear it. Although the giant reindeer covering your gorgeous tits is a bit of a bummer.” Diana groans, and you bite your lip. It isn’t a revealing dress but it certainly flatters your figure and shows off your legs. You’d made it even more modest by adding your sweater on top. Obviously you had to walk in looking the best; you hadn’t seen most of these people in a year. You probably already won bragging rights by dating a multi gold medalist, but it didn’t hurt to look the best too. The road opens up and Diana places her right hand on your thigh, not scandalously but as a casually intimate gesture; wanting to touch you as much as possible.

“People like you Dee, I’m sure they’ll warm up fast.” You cover her hand with your smaller one and turn to look out the window again.

“Everyone keeps staring at me.” Diana says through gritted teeth as she walks with you to the kitchen, a large stack of dishes in her hand.

“Well you’re the first girlfriend I’ve brought home, you’re significantly older, and you’re a professional athlete… there’s plenty of reasons for them to stare.” You answer in a resigned tone as you sit your pile of dishes in the sink.

“They could at least try to be normal.” She grumbles and scrapes her food into the trash before joining you at the sink.

“Well subtlety isn’t a family trait obviously.” You grab the sponge from the counter and squeeze dish soap on it.

“Your parents don’t have a dishwasher?” Diana asks in astonishment. You laugh and shake your head.

“They do, but it’s a shitty one so everything needs a bit of pre-wash. Personally I think that defeats the purpose, but mom is happy. It just means big meals like this are a pain.” You swipe the sponge over the first dish.

“If you hand me them I’ll load the dishwasher.” Diana offers, having spotted the old appliance. You nod and hand her the dish. You two continue in silent domesticity.

“Alright the washers full babe, we’ll just have to do another load” Her arms wrap around your waist from behind, pulling you flush against her. You let out a quiet gasp and turn to look over your shoulder at her with a grin.

“Are you sure you know how to load a dishwasher? You’re a hazard in the kitchen usually.” You tease and spin around to face her. Diana’s hands quickly travel down to grope your ass through your dress.

“Not being able to help cook means I’ve cleaned up after plenty of meals, baby.” She leans forward slightly, forcing your back to arch against the sink.

“Well I’ll trust you then.” You concede, your tone breathier than you’d like. Diana squeezes your ass again and nuzzles her face in the crook of your neck.

“If you’d move in with me like I asked you’d know I can load a dishwasher.” She grumbles, her words muffled as she leaves open mouthed kisses up down the column of your neck.

“We…we’ll talk about that later, Dee, and this…” Your words trail off as Diana sucks lightly at your pulse point, her hands kneading your ass.

“Now we’ve gotten through dinner, are we allowed to leave? And we will talk about it later” Her words are gruff with impatience, the warmth of her breath ghosting across your neckline.

“N..not yet… we have the Christmas cake.” You stutter and grip the counter tighter, your breath growing shallow as her kisses move lower towards the collar of your sweater. Suddenly you hear voices approaching and you straighten up, Diana pulling away but keeping a hand on the small of your back.

“I think they’re gonna come looking for us, baby. Now tell me about this Christmas cake we have to be there for.” She gives your ass one last pat.

“Yeah I know, it’s a whole thing, basically there’s a coin somewhere in the cake and whoever gets that slice has luck for the year. So we all have to sit at the table and eat.” You explain and join the rest of your family in the dining room.

“That sounds fu-“ Diana is cut off by your mothers voice

“ ‘bout time you got back in here.” She calls, clearly a little annoyed at your delay.

“Sorry mom, but we loaded the dishwasher. And yes we cleaned them off first.” You placate and take your seat at the table, Diana next to you. She subtly scoots her chair a little closer to yours before sitting.

“Yes, well in your girlfriend's forty-two years you’d think she’d learn to load a dishwasher a little faster.” Your father mutters under his breath, clearly the most disapproving. You feel Diana’s hand on your thigh reassuringly. She’s told you the age comments don’t bother her much, but it bothered you. It didn’t matter how much older she was, you loved her and she cherished you like the most precious thing.

“I do keep telling you to get a new dishwasher.” You say out loud, calling him out for his comment.

“Oh well. It’s fine now, they’re here and we can cut the cake.” Your mother titters and brandishes a knife.

“Of course mom we’ll all be respectful at the table.” You shoot your father and other whispering family members looks. The cake had been your contribution to dinner, making sure the most fun aspect was vegan for Diana. The knife hovers over the cake as your mother glances at the table one more time before cutting; the spongy cake giving way immediately.

“The whole coin thing seems fun; what’s the success rate?” Diana teases and the table seems to take a breath of relief that she isn’t bothered by your fathers comments.

“Oh I don’t know, last year I got the coin, a couple weeks later I met you.” You answer before anyone else has a chance, turning to look at her.

“Your dad got it two years ago and had a promotion at work, so I’ll cross my fingers.” Your mom says and divvies out the small plates of cake to the table. Diana’s hand slips higher, her pinky teasing the hem of your dress.

“A good two years in a row? Maybe if I find it you’ll move in with me?” Diana asks, her voice barely audible as she leans over to whisper in your ear. You glance around the table at your odds.

“Fine.” You took yours and Diana’s plates from your mother, standing slightly to lean across the table. Diana uses the opportunity to slide her hand under your dress. The plates clatter down in front of you, rougher than you intended but the jolt of desire shooting through made your brain slow down.

“This is different from last year, did you use a new recipe, honey?” Your aunt calls from across the table, a fork full of cake paused at her mouth.

“Oh yeah, uh it’s a vegan cake so Dee can have some.” You state confidently and softly run your hand down her arm, the sleeves of the sweater pushed up to reveal her freckled skin. She squeezes your thigh in response, her pinky almost grazing the hem of your panties.

“Huh, I just think with family tradition..” your aunt starts but you cut her off.

“We’re still doing the whole tradition; I just made a cake that will include all of us.” You retort with an air of finality on the subject. Diana’s finger traces your panties as if rewarding you. She looks at you with warm eyes and gives you an appreciative smile.

“I’m glad to be included.” She says innocently her hand shifting so her ring finger circles your clit. You suck in a harsh breath and shoot her a glare. She ignores you; taking a bite of cake, her finger not stopping its maddening circle.

“D…Dee” you whisper and look up at her with wide eyes.

“Hmmm? Taste your cake baby, I wanna know if you got the coin.” She answers loudly, using her free hand to take another bite. You pick up your fork and take a moment to try and still your trembling hand. She smirks at you, middle finger moving to run up and down your clothed slit.

“Well I’m not the lucky one this year, and honey, the cake was great. I didn't even notice it being vegetarian or whatever.” Your dad proclaims and pushes his empty plate away.

“V..vegan” you correct and try to steady your breath. You know your skin must be flushing as your panties continue to dampen under her touch. Your dad makes a non-answer huffing noise and turns his attention to your uncle next to him. The rest of your family continues to talk, their voices and small laughs drowned out by the feeling of her nimble fingers against you, just a thin strip of fabric separating you.

“So what’s the plan for Christmas morning usually?” Diana asks and takes another bite of her cake. Her middle finger hooks in your underwear and she slowly pushes it to the side. You jump in your seat and paste on a smile as she finally touches your cunt.

“Honey, are you ok?” Your mother asks and looks at you concerned. You smile and quickly shovel more cake in your mouth.

“O..oh look I didn’t get the coin.” You say in a slightly high pitched tone. Diana teases your sensitive clit and you bite your lip.

“I got the coin!” Diana says happily and holds up the coin proudly, pulling her hand away from you like it was nothing. She subtly wipes her hand on her pants.

“Congratulations honey! I hope some of that luck rubs off.” Your mother looks from Diana to you and winks. Your brain stumbles to catch up as your pussy throbs for her touch.

“Oh my god! Yay Dee!” You compose yourself and lean over to hug her, deciding it was an appropriate amount of PDA. She grins happily and pats your arm around her lovingly.

The couch sinks under Diana’s weight and she immediately pulls you close to her. She takes a sip of her red wine before sitting it on the end table. After dinner everyone had either left for their hotel or had retired to the living room with a glass of wine. Since your parents were hosting, you and Diana would be staying in your childhood bedroom. Your family was nice enough to set her up a pallet of blankets on the floor to sleep on, of course in reality she would be squished in the full size bed with you.

“Yeah I’ve been to six Olympics.” Diana answers your cousin's question you didn’t hear, too focused on how your body feels on fire with need for her.

“That’s so cool, is it true there’s like anti-sex beds?” He leans forward in his chair, suddenly interested in your girlfriend.

“I googled you before you came, you’re pretty good at basketball.” Your dad tells her and reclines in his chair. Diana smiles politely at their words, used to this kind of questioning.

“Uh, yes they have cardboard beds, but I don’t know if the rumor is true they’re anti-sex beds, and thank you, I try.” Diana answers easily, her arm draped over your shoulder, fingers playing with the ends of your hair. You glance up at the clock on the wall hoping it was late enough that you could excuse yourself for bed. You needed a cold shower. As if reading your mind Diana drains the last of her wine and speaks.

“You know I’m pretty tired from the drive here, I hope you guys don’t mind if I head to bed early. Wanna be well rested for Christmas you know.” Diana says and stands from the couch. Obediently you stand up with her, your mother pauses her conversation and looks up at the clock.

“We’ll uh see you in the morning?” You smile and notice Diana already heading up the stairs, clearly not caring for approval.

“Oh…ok well, goodnight sweetie.” Your mom furrows her brows but no one else presses the subject as you follow Diana up the stairs. Out of sight Diana pushes you against the door to your room, her lips immediately finding yours in a frantic kiss.

“W..wait Diana we.. we can't, my whole family is down there.” You protest weakly and fumble behind you for the doorknob. Diana kisses up your neck, hand tangled in your hair.

“You’ll have to be quiet then baby, don’t want your mom to hear you call someone else mommy.” She whispers in your ear, her voice low and husky. Finally you find the knob and you stumble into your room. She quickly follows and closes the door behind her, twisting the lock. It doesn’t take much for you to give in; you wanted her, your body aching for her touch. She was right, you’d just have to be quiet. Diana walks you back against the bed.

“First, I’m taking off this fucking sweater.” She unceremoniously tugs the light up sweater over her head, balling it up and tossing it into her suitcase.

“Take your dress off baby.” She instructs, her tone hushed and starts to undo the buttons of her shirt. Quickly you rip off your sweater too and fumble behind you for the zipper of your dress. Your fingers trembled with excitement.

“Too slow” Diana softly chides and reaches behind you to drag the cool metal zipper down your skin. You tug the dress off as she sits her shirt to the side and unbuckles her dark jeans.

“I don’t know if you’re going to be mad or excited..” Diana speaks softly and bends over her suitcase, digging around a moment before pulling out a… familiar sight.

“You brought the fucking strap to my family Christmas?!” You whisper yell and she raises her hands placatingly, the object in question still in one of her hands.

“Baby, I think it’s gonna come in handy, don’t you?” She asks and starts to pull her jeans down. “Come in handy so you don’t have to cum from a handy.” She jokes, clearly proud of her wordplay and you snort a laugh.

“We can’t make noise Dee.” You warn softly, but don’t say no. Diana gives you a wild grin and steps out of her jeans and boxers, walking back to you on the bed in a few quick strides.

“Th..the headboard” You whisper worriedly and glance over at the wooden headboard.

“Don’t worry baby, I’m not gonna move an inch. I’m gonna lay on the bed, and you're gonna ride mommy’s cock.” She hooks the harness in place around her hips as she speaks softly. Diana pushes you back onto the bed, her taller frame covering yours as she trails kisses down your neck and collarbone.

“Take everything off.” She whispers in your ear, her voice laced with her own need. You nod quickly and unhook your bra, and Diana pulls it off you, same with your damp panties.

“Fuck baby, I’ve been thinking about this all day.” She groans and sucks one of your nipples into her mouth eliciting a moan from you. One hand braces herself on the bed and the other grips your inner thigh as she speaks. You arch your back, pressing your chest more into her.

“It was so sexy seeing you stand up for me, I think you deserve a reward.” She says against your skin, swapping to lavish your other nipple with attention. Her tongue circling the sensitive flesh before sucking it into her mouth.

“Diana… mommy please.” You moan and writhe under her.

“Shhh baby, you don’t want anyone to hear do you?” Her fingers run down your slit and she gently presses her middle finger into your wet pussy. You bite your lip, stifling a moan.

“Gotta test how wet you are for me.” Diana’s voice is soft as she thrusts her finger maddeningly slow.

“M..more please” You whisper and she chuckles, adding her index finger and scissoring them open.

“Fuck” You whimper quietly at the delicious stretch.

“You’re so tight baby, gotta get you ready.” She groans in response, flicking her tongue over your nipple. Diana moves her thumb to your clit, her fingers moving at an achingly slow speed.

“Please.” You beg softly and she grins against your breast. She speeds up her thrusts, curling her fingers inside to tease your most sensitive areas. Diana kisses and sucks from your breasts to your mouth, kissing you passionately, her breathing almost as ragged as yours.

“M..more, mommy” You whisper, your voice strained with whiny need as you break the kiss.

“You want my cock baby? Ask again properly.” Diana half growls, her voice a deep whisper as she pulls her fingers from your wet cunt. She sucks her fingers into her mouth, cleaning your arousal off them.

“Please mommy, I..I need your cock…please” you whine softly and she nods.

“Good girl” Diana rolls off you and pushes herself into the middle of the bed, her back against the headboard, thick dildo jutting up from her hips.

“Come let mommy fill you up baby.” She pulls you toward her and you obediently straddle her hips, her big hands holding your waist and stopping you from sitting.

“Remember you have to be quiet or mommy will have to stop.” She warns and slowly guides you down onto her cock. Diana watches in rapt attention as the dildo pushes into your wet heat. You bite your lip to stop from crying out as you fully seat yourself in her lap; your pussy stretched full.

“Shhhh just like that babygirl, such a good girl.” Diana whispers and reaches for the small remote she’d tossed on the bed. Clicking a button a small vibration starts against both of you. Diana stifles her own moan and starts to guide you up and down her cock.

“So fucking pretty.” She groans softly and pulls you towards her a bit. Diana brings her lips to yours hungrily, half to taste you and half to quiet both your noises. She uses your slightly shifted hips to her advantage and thrusts up into you slowly; meeting your downward movements with her own in a sensual rhythm. One of Diana’s hands wanders from your waist to your abdomen, and pulls you down so she’s fully seated inside you, and then pushes on your belly.

“You feel how good I fill you up baby? Your pussy is mine.” Diana whispers against your lips before thrusting her tongue back in your mouth. You let out a low whimper, your body tightening with your impending orgasm. The combination of the slow thrusts and vibrations making the pleasure build quickly.

”Cl..close” You whisper into her mouth, your body trembling. You feel her lips curl into a smile, her own breathing coming out in short pants.

“Good.. good, fuck, so good baby. I’m close too” She says in a breathy tone, her thrusts growing more erratic as she approaches her orgasm.

“Fuck, I’m gonna fill up this pretty pussy so full baby” She groans and you slide down her cock one last time; your pussy spasming around her as your orgasm slams through you. You open your mouth in a silent sob as she starts to move you up and down again, chasing her own high.

“I’m so close baby, fuck you’re such a good girl for me baby, I can’t wait until we finally get home after new years and I can fuck you into the mattress.” Diana speaks through gritted teeth, clearly trying to control her noise. You cover your mouth with one hand, not trusting yourself to keep silent, the only sound in the room is your shared pants, quiet moans and the subtle squeak of the bed.

“Fuck! So good for mommy; I’m gonna fill you up so good, fuck, so breedable for me, a perfect little cumslut. Fuck you’re so good, take me so good” Diana groans, her words hardly making sense as she babbles in pleasure, her body stiffening then shuddering under you as she climaxes. After a long while of breathing in unison, she helps you roll off her, your cum dripping out as you do. She pitches forward, collapsing on your chest then rolling over and pulling you into her arms; both of you slick with a light sheen of sweat. Diana smiles up at you, a genuine grin showing her dimple.

“I don’t think I want to be done with you yet baby, you’ve been so good and quiet for me, can you go a little longer?” She mumbles, and buries her head in the valley between your breasts.

“C..clean up?” You whisper back and pull her head away to look at her in question.

“I’m going lay back, and you’re going on all fours, I’m going to eat your sweet cunt while you clean me up too.” Your eyes flutter shut as you picture it.

“Oh fuck, Diana.” You whimper softly, and she lays on her back, lifting her head to grin at you.

“Come here.” Diana says in a soft but demanding tone. You obey immediately, turning and climbing over her, backing until your hips hover over her eager face, your own above her cunt.

“You have the prettiest pussy” She groans quietly and blows a breath on your sensitive folds. Your legs wobble and you sink your head between her open thighs to stabilize yourself. Diana follows your actions, burying her face in your cunt, sucking hungrily at your dripping entrance. Her strong hands hold you open as she devours you. Wanting to match her hunger you thrust your tongue in her core, twisting and curling to tease her inner walls. Her hips buck to meet your face and she moans against your cunt. Both of you were already sensitive from your orgasms, and it wouldn’t take much to send either of you over the edge. You brace your hands on her strong thighs, keeping her legs pushed open. Changing to sucking you move up her folds to her clit, sucking the sensitive bundle of nerves into your mouth and flicking your tongue.

“I’m not gonna last much longer baby.” She rasps, lapping at your core, her hips grind against your face as her orgasm approaches. You continue your gentle sucking and lapping at her, wanting to send her over the edge but not make her over sensitive. Diana seems to have no issue with making you cum to the point of pain, her mouth and tongue moving furiously, all the way from your clit to your sensitive asshole.

“Oh my fucking god, oh fuck mommy I’m cumming. I’m cumming.” You start to cry out but stifle your moans in her pussy, suckling at her core as she arches off the bed under you, her pussy spasming around your tongue as you continue to lap at her, cleaning her up once more. Your own core throbbing as you cum, your body trembling above. Diana mirrors your actions, licking your cunt clean once more before pulling away.

“E..enough baby, come here.” She says, her voice gruff from her release. You swing your leg over her and turn around, the whole process slightly awkward as your body recovers from your back to back orgasms. As soon as you’re close enough, Diana gathers you in her arms; pressing a kiss in your hair as she holds you against her chest.

“You’re so fucking amazing baby” She says in a sleepy tone, and you wiggle to pull the covers over both of you.

“You’re so fucking amazing too” You reply in an equally sleepy tone. Diana pulls away and tugs her sports bra over her head, finally completely naked. Immediately you shove your head between her tits, kissing roughly at the slightly sweaty skin. She inhales sharply as you do.

“Such a greedy little thing, now go to bed baby; don’t wanna end up on the naughty list on Christmas Eve.” Diana teases and nuzzles her face in your hair. You fall asleep like that, listening to the steady beat of her heart, her breath ghosting across your skin.

“I don’t understand why we had to stay with your family until New Years” Diana mutters turning to look down at you as she snacked on yet another plain cracker. Your family had tried to include her, deciding after a while that they did like her despite the age gap. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to know the difference between vegan and vegetarian; proudly showing the meatless charcuterie board before the party, of course it was still covered in cheese and honey. You started to explain, but Diana had stopped you, thanking your father for being so thoughtful. It filled you with joy to see Diana put in so much effort for your family; you were used to her not giving a fuck what people thought so it was both endearing and a bit jarring to see her try so hard.

“Well mom misses me, I’m her baby girl and dad loves having the family all under one roof even if he doesn’t show it.” You say and heap cheese onto your own hors d’oeuvres plate. She was right, it had been a long week, while you loved your family it was a difficult dynamic. They treated you like the kid coming home for the holidays, meanwhile they treated Diana as a peer. It shouldn’t bother you, you were their kid, of course they were still going to treat you like a child. Still you couldn’t wait until New Year’s Day when you and Diana could finally leave and start the drive back to Phoenix.

“If your cousin starts listing NBA players and asking if I could beat them again I think I’m going to cuss someone out.” She complains and takes a long sip of her Cabernet.

“He, uh, means well? I think he just doesn’t know anything about women’s basketball and is trying to talk to you.” You pick up a cracker, stacking a slice of cheese on top then dipping it into the honey.

“The charcuterie board was a nice gesture, I’ll, uh, explain later the difference between vegetarian and vegan later.”

“I mean, the thought would count a lot more if there were more things for me to actually eat.” Diana bends down to whisper in your ear, her tone a half teasing grumble.

“I swear to god, your mother even put butter on the fucking vegetables.”

“Duh, how else would you make them good? I know you’re limited, but I made the candied yams, mashed potatoes and sugar cookies for you; but I uh, didn’t tell anyone I changed the recipes to be vegan.” You pop the cheese covered cracker into your mouth and she raises her eyebrows.

“When did you do that?” Diana asks, sipping her wine.

“While you were being forced to play basketball with all the men today.” You say, rolling your eyes; of course your family members had gone home and googled Diana, returning for new years celebration with a host of new questions and of course bringing basketballs. She’d spent the better part of today trying to fix your little cousin's jump shot.

“God that was exhausting, I’d rather run laps” She mutters and finishes her wine, sitting it the empty glass back on the kitchen counter.

“So now we’ve done the polite snacking with your close family; we have to have an actual New Year’s party with who?”

“Well uh with everyone else so all the relatives and friends; that’s when we’ll have the real food.” You glance up at the clock.“About an hour before everyone arrives, I should go get ready.” You motion down to your casual jeans and flannel. Then to her sweatpants and tee shirt.

“I guess you want me to change too?” Diana groans and straightens from her lean against the counter.

“If you could wear a nice button down and trousers maybe? I’m going to wear the black sweater dress I got the other day.” You say before shoving the last of your cheese cracker in your mouth. Diana grabs your empty plate and her wine glass and places them in the sink.

“Fine, fine. I think I have a white shirt I can wear.” She complains, and follows you up the stairs to your room.

“Quit acting like no ones ever done your makeup before.” You scold and grip Diana’s head in one of your hands, turning her back to face you.

“Yes I have, I’ve been having my makeup done since before you were even born babygirl, but no one was this fucking rough!” She complains and you roll your eyes, shifting in her lap a little, her hands come up to rest on your waist, stroking absent circles with her thumbs.

“I could have done my own makeup you know, I am capable of concealer and mascara.” She teases and you huff.

“I wanted to try winged eyeliner on you but every time I get the pen even near your eye you flinch like I’m holding a knife!” You grip the top of her head and use your finger to pull her eyebrow up.

“Yeah all the pros do it just like this.” Diana snorts and you smack the top of her head gently.

“Be still, I'm concentrating; and stop. talking.” You chide and start to draw a small wing with your eyeliner. She sighs but doesn’t move. Satisfied with the first eye you sit back and look at her.

“Fuck Dee, you look incredible.” You say reverently, and she grins, batting her lashes at her teasingly.

“I feel like the eyeliner is probably getting lost in my crows feet” She tries to turn and look in the desk mirror but you stop her.

“Oh hush, and close your eyes, I need to do the other one.” You repeat your actions, giving her nearly perfect small wings and tight lining her eyes, making their caramel hue pop. You kiss her nose, leaning forward and she wrinkles it.

“You look beautiful.” You whisper in her ear and kiss right below her ear. Diana shivers and squeezes your waist.

“Stop teasing baby, you know I don’t have enough time to fuck you before the party… and.. thank you.” She responds and shifts in her seat to get up, helping you crawl off her. Diana takes mascara out of a tiny makeup bag and crouches to look in the small desk mirror, pausing a moment when she sees her eyes.

“The eyeliner is nice, baby” She somewhat roughly drags the mascara wand through her lashes, miraculously getting none on her skin. You squish in next to her to apply your lipstick, a red lip stain that was supposedly everything proof. Diana pulls away and looks you up and down, red heels and a black sparkly dress, the picture of New Year’s Eve. She matched you in a black button down and black slacks, paired with some ‘classy’ Nikes. You blushed under her rapt gaze and she smiled before holding a hand out to you. Taking it, the two of you walk down the stairs to meet with the rest of your family for a late dinner.

You rested your head on Diana’s shoulder, the champagne causing a fuzzy feeling in your brain as you watched the countdown on the TV. Two minutes until midnight. You pick your head up and look at her.

“Come on the deck with me real quick, I want to talk to you about something.” You say in a hushed tone; Diana knits her eyebrows in puzzlement but stands up after you. She slides the deck door closed before speaking.

“What’s up? What’s wrong?” She asks and takes a step closer to you, her hands resting on your forearms as she looks down at you.

“Nothings wrong Dee, if.. if you remember a few days ago you said if you found the coin in your cake I had to move in with you?” You say and look up at her; her brown eyes search yours before speaking.

“I wasn’t really going to make you if you’re so against it.” Her words are soft, her vulnerability peaking through.

“No, no.”

“Damn you could be nicer about it.”

“No, I mean yes.”

“Are you moving in with me or not?” Diana finally clarifies.

“That’s what I’m trying to say; yes, I want to move in with you. I can figure out breaking my lease when we get back” Diana pulls you into her arms happily, peppering your hair and face in kisses. She opens to speak. but gets cut off by the loud cheering inside the house and the sound of distant fireworks.

“Happy new years, baby, I love you.” Diana says in a soft tone, bringing her lips to yours in a gentle kiss full of feeling. You pull her down closer, deepening the kiss to pour your passion into it. Finally you pull away breathlessly.

“I love you too.” You respond and rest your forehead against hers.

“Honey champagne!” Calls your mother from the doorway and you both turn to look at her.

“Oh” she says and you turn to look at Diana; smeared across her face is your ‘smudge proof’ lipstick and you’re sure you look worse.

“Thanks we will take some champagne.” Diana plucks the two glasses from her hands and passes one to you. She clinks her glass against yours, deciding to ignore your scandalized mother.

“To new beginnings in a new year baby”

[doodlegirl1998]

hori constantly acts as if he isn’t the writer and has full control of the story and it pisses me off to no end. gonna drop some examples below. these are from the street wear profiles from the manga.

sen kaibara - “I love his Quirk, so I can’t wait to portray it more.” he’s acting like something/someone is actively holding him back from doing so.

tetsutetsu tetsutetsu - “I hope I get to show him in action more.” once again, acting like something is stopping him. side note, why tf did he give him that name. it’s just so lazy. and it’s not even funny. just annoying to say and annoying to write.

hanta sero - “He’s mostly just for one liners in the background, but he’s a good guy, and I’d like to feature him more. At some point. For sure.” and then proceeds to never do that.

this might just be me being bitter abt all the amazing characters he’s completely disregarded and disrespected. this might just be me not understanding what it’s like being a mangaka. but it still bothers me.

i just hate how he’s created this insanely interesting world and amazing characters and never expands on anything bc he’s too busy sucking bakugos dick.

speaking of bakugo, as someone who has narcissistic tendencies, he’s a textbook case.

he obviously has some sort of inferiority/superiority complex and a mild to severe case of a god complex. at best he’s dismissive of people who he sees as inferior to him, at worst he’s downright cruel.

his “nicknames” are all just fucking insults aimed at peoples insecurities.

raccoon eyes/horns: mina was probably bullied for her appearance and then her so called “friend” exclusively calls her names that poke fun at her appearance.

bird brain/bird face/other bird names: tokoyami has probably heard it all at this point but once again bakugo making fun of heteromorphs.

dunce face: denki has shown to be insecure about his intelligence and once again his so called “friend” mocks him for it.

tentacles/arms/octopus: again, mocking heteromorphs.

tail: i’m beginning to see a pattern here.

ears: ok how has no one pointed out how most of his nicknames are him basically just calling them slurs.

i don’t think bakugo has ever called someone their actual name. maybe a handful of times? but it’s like a massive event when he calls someone by their actual name.

exclusive calling people insults isn’t exactly heroic.

anyway rant over i just needed to get all this shit off my chest.

Hi @the-jello-bowl 👋,

There could be something to be said here about how the editors may have had a hand in Hori not exploring all the characters he may have wanted to.

But, even if that is the case, not all of the blame would rest on them.

Hori clearly did not plan ahead for a lot of MHA. He is very good at coming up with good character designs and concepts as well as bringing life to them but seems to be at a loss after that is done. The cast bloating is key evidence of this.

It is sad to see all these interesting characters be swept to the wayside in favour of Bakugou, who by contrast brings nothing of interest to the table.

Bakugou is a narcissistic abuser in my opinion. He uses cruel nicknames, not as lighthearted jibes, but to bring others down - especially his friends.

Other than the instances you mentioned, I want to bring attention to one that belongs to Bakugou's supposed best friend, Kirishima, who he calls only "shitty hair." We learn in his backstory that Kirishima changed his hair to be like his idols as a symbol of his growth prior to U.A. Therefore, being continually called "shitty hair" would hurt Kirishima deeply. He also tells Bakugou to stop, and yet Bakugou does not care.

The time I can think of when Bakugou called someone their actual name is that time he used "Izuku" instead of the usual "Deku" slur. And even that is bad because instead of asking for the right to call Izuku by his first name, usually reserved for close family, Bakugou just does it.

Typical narcissistic, entitled and stagnant Bakugou. We hate to see it.

I wish Hori didn't waste so many manga panels on this idiot.

[luciawithoutj]

Hey hi hello!

I have some things to say about new merch and jo merch in general so this is gonna be a litrle longer post and actually I think I should cange my semiotics theme (which is already about jo) about how bad their merch design is.

First of all little disclaimer: this is all my humble opionion based on what I learned in my one year of being graphic design student and an artist and designer on the internet for last 4-5 years. Before going to uni I learned most of about art and graphic design stuff by reading books and watching tons of yt videos. Second of all this critic is just coming from place of love for this band because I see so mucb potential and they could do some amazing merch designs if they give it a chance and I am fully aware how expensive the touring is and why they had to cut the quality of merch products.

So far my favorite jo band merch designs are cds (that probably required some designer to make), condoms (because they are really funny, genius, nicely designed and unique merch that fit the vibe of the band and matches their songs as well) and the new tshirt from last merch drop (which design is made by one slovenian fanartist : link.

Main reason that made me want to speak up is seeing that this merch drop will only have 100 products (my friend said that could mean 20-ish shirts per size) which how big this fandom has gotten in last year is pretty really dam limited. For a limited product I am really disappointed and I hoped for more. For such a limited product that design is the most default design they could have gone for and I am so sorry for Damon because his work is goregous, amazing, breathtaking and I could talk about it for ages and how inspiring it is but this shirt design isn't serving.

If they wanted to do bare minimum of design with those 5 images here is some of my ideas (unfortunately I don't have time to visually show them to yall on a mock ups because of finals that I should be studying for instead of writing this so try to imagine what I am trying to say and demonstrate). First is just simple instead of white choose black shirt or even better a thisrt. If you want it to go a stepp further is using their name logo font (font name is Avaline btw if anyone wants to download and use it for their designs :))) and either put it how they did when they promoted the everybody's waiting or to write idk therapy sessions or anything related to the band or it can even be some inside joke.

Something like this would make design just a bit more intersting but still bare minimum but amazing for regular merch. If they want to go a step further but want to keep the long sleeves (this idea was suggested by few people I talked too) they could put pictures vertically on the sleeves. I would find it a bit cooler if it is on the right sleeve out-side and then they put their band logo (the heart one) on the left side of the shirt where people's hearts normally are.

After exams I would definitely like to try to make some designs and just limit myself with this 5 pictures and play with typography and photoshoop to make something interesting.

Another I want to mentioned is how in my humble opinion if you are gonna sell limited edition either make it really pretty or good quality or really cursed and funny with inside jokes.

I think people (and me first) would eat tshirts (but also other merch designs) with some cursed designs or just texts that say "sparklative" or "slay pose" or "I feel SloveNACE" (this 3 were suggested by amazing people in tumblr discord server) or even let Jan photoshoop their faces on most random picture. This 5 guys with their gen z humour could make and do some hilarious merch like how amazing idea the condoms are.

Last thing I want to say is how many amazingly talented fans are. I mean even Damon was so shocked and moved by amount of talent and art made in this community. Furthermore I know (some of them as online friends and mutuals, others as just artists from same fandom) who are also either graphic design students or they work in art/graphic design/entertainment fields and some of them (including myself) would be so happy to even make few merch designs or art for them for freee or for a ticket for their show. Personally I would die from happiness if I get a chance to work with my favorite band that inspires me so much everyday to the point people at my uni think I am from Slovenia and know slovenian because of how much I include them in my uni work and how much fanart and designs I made because of them in last 6 months.

I just think there is so much potential guys might not be aware of (Idk honestly because who knows what is going on backstage in their lives). But yeah they could have even asked Damon to help them with composition of the pictures on that shirt or even hire Racik to make some pretty art or any fanartist honestly. Here is just few links of my favorite fanartists who also do a lot of graphic design related stuff (and also some of them sell their products on their own websites/redbubble/etsy/inprint/etc) :

Tia <3

Roxanne

Vic

jo.kam_ (previously mentioned her design)

Lemon

yelecx

Racik (ofc)

There is probably more but my brain for hell of it won't remember any names so feel free to add in the comments or tags more artists <3

I could probably go more in depth and give more ideas how to improve merch designs the cheapest and best way as possible but still trying to keep the quality good as it needs to be. I know there is still gonna be people fighting for this shirts and people are still gonna buy their merch but just it hurts my art/designer soul seeing this bad designs when there is so much potential and they have amazing fans and amazing crew and they work with so many talnted people and they themselves are so talented and their music inspired so many and so much.

Thanks everyone for coming to my TedTalk. <3

Actually now I am thinking and from just talking about jo work from design and semiotics perspective for that semiotics seminar I could just focus on their merch design and go more in detail about it and if yall want when it is done and I translate it in english I could share it here for people who want to read about it. Let me know I guess.

Also if someone is interested my art and design insta is lucia.without.j and my redbubble is lucia-without-j and my dms are always open if someone wants to chat or complain about anything art, design, joker out or any other fandom I am in related.

P. S. I am so sorry for any spelling mistakes and if what I said doesn't make sense. English isn't my first language.

[suzukiblu]

Day seventeen of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

“I think it's pretty normal to give someone a phone when you want to talk to them,” Tim lies. Bruce gives the other Bats burners sometimes, though. And also communicators. And Robin’s loaned plenty of allies communicators before, including Superboy. So it's normal in their circles, whether Kon actually knows they're both in said circles or not. 

“. . . I like the green one,” Kon says after a moment, which is a little bit of a surprise. It's a nice sort of deep, leafy color, Tim guesses, but he would've expected Kon to go for black or red or blue; maybe yellow. 

He wonders how green Hawaii is, come to think of it. 

And how much green Kon regularly sees these days, living underground in a lab. 

“Okay,” he says, then gestures towards the phone case display with his smoothie. “Let's get you a screen protector and a case too, just in case.” 

“You don’t have to,” Kon says. “I mean, I am gonna have my TTK on it.” 

“Yeah, but that only works if nobody knocks it off the table or something when you’re not holding it,” Tim says. “Besides, better safe than sorry, right?” 

“Um, okay,” Kon says. Tim leads him over to the phone cases, and Kon glances them over indecisively, clearly paying more attention to the price tags than personal preference. Tim decides distraction is the better part of valor, in this case. 

“I don’t recommend anything superhero-themed, for the record,” he jokes. Kon snorts. 

“That’s called a feint, thank you very much,” he informs him mock-primly. “Nobody’d think a superhero would actually have the balls to go around with a superhero-themed phone case.” 

“They’d think Superboy would,” Tim says in amusement. 

“. . . okay, fair,” Kon allows, making a face at himself. Tim laughs. 

“How about that one?” he suggests, pointing towards the second-most expensive one on the rack–so Kon will know money isn’t a concern, but also so Kon won’t realize he’s specifically doing it to make sure he knows money isn’t a concern. 

“It looks like a tire tread,” Kon says wryly, which is a fair assessment. It’s one of the heavy-duty cases, so it’s pretty bulky as it is, and the pattern on it is a little tire-like. 

“The ones down here have glitter, if that’s more your thing,” Tim replies in amusement, pointing again. 

“Glitter is more my thing,” Kon says, leaning over to peer down at the indicated row. Tim probably should’ve expected that response, considering, except also he would absolutely never have expected Kon to willingly admit to liking glitter. At least not without being concussed first. “Hmmmmm.” 

“That's a nice one,” Tim says. Kon’s looking at a green and blue case with bright gold glitter swirled all over it in abstract designs; it looks a bit like ocean water, if you look at it the right way. It’s definitely not going to be anywhere near as durable as the tire tread one would, but Tim isn’t particularly concerned about that anyway. He was gonna get accident insurance no matter what. Statistically speaking, Kon will probably go through more than a few of these. He hasn't had the same phone for longer than three months since starting up as Robin. Something always seems to happen to them. Usually a supervillain. 

“Too bad they don’t have anything with a cute little goat on it,” Kon jokes as he straightens back up, regrettably letting go of Tim's hand to take the green and blue glitter-case off the wall. “You know, commemorate our first date and all.” 

“That was not our first date,” Tim says, mildly disgruntled but mostly flustered by the idea. “I'd have planned a date a lot better than those morons planned their dumb heist. And bought you something from the gift shop, if nothing else.” 

“Could've just kept the goat, I guess, but Superman would've made me give it back anyway,” Kon muses idly as he looks over the case in his hand and takes another sip of his smoothie. “This is for the right model, right?” 

“Should be,” Tim says, though he double-checks anyway. “Yeah, no, you're good. Lemme go grab a clerk so we can get the plan set up. We'll just go through my name, I can probably set up autopay for the bill easier that way.” 

“Um, sure,” Kon says, biting his lip for a moment and then glancing sidelong at him. “So is this our first date, then?” 

“No,” Tim says, though technically it probably is. But given how Kon’s been acting about the idea that Tim would actually be interested in dedicating actual time and attention to him–“I'll take you somewhere nice for that.” 

“Somewhere nice?” Kon says, hiding a very unsubtle grin behind the phone case. It'd work better if his stupid pretty eyes weren't sparkling for it, Tim thinks in resigned accusation. Kon doesn’t ask what “somewhere nice” means, but Tim is already trying to figure out what restaurants he knows that might appeal to Kon’s palate. If he likes Hawaiian flavors . . . there’s some Asian influence in that, right? He thinks, anyway. Japanese, at least. Maybe Filipino? Polynesian? Any other influences or parallel cuisines he’d have to look up to figure out, though. 

Tim knows absolutely no Filipino or Polynesian restaurants, much less actually authentic Hawaiian ones. He could definitely do Japanese, though. Japanese would be easy. Just going to a restaurant isn’t much of a date, probably, and he can’t take Kon on patrol or anything like he and Steph used to do, but they could maybe go shopping in a nicer boutique or something? Or go to a museum for actual entertainment instead of just business, if Kon would be interested in something like that. Admittedly, it’s hard to picture him being particularly into museums as a concept, but it might be worth a try. 

Maybe he’d like the aquarium or planetarium more than something involving art or history or science, though. Those are a little cooler than just wandering through a bunch of random exhibits, Tim thinks. Or at least, they might appeal more to Kon. The ocean, or stars and planets, or . . . like, whatever, he guesses. 

He’ll have to do some recon, probably. Light interrogation. Figure out what Kon would be the most interested in. 

Or they could just go to the beach. It’d require a little bit of travel on his part, but likely wouldn’t be a big deal for Kon; he could just fly. Though in retrospect Kon’s probably spent about half his life on a beach, so maybe that’s not interesting enough. And the Jersey Shore probably wouldn’t measure up to Hawaii in his eyes, either. 

Hm. Yeah, Tim's definitely going to have to do some recon. 

Tim is possibly putting in too much effort here, considering Kon is going to lose interest in actually flirting with him in about five minutes. Kon never seems to really properly date anyone, as far as Tim's seen; just flirt around a lot. So he should be prioritizing shopping and apartment hunting, really, before Kon gets bored of the flavor of the week and wanders off. 

Tim Drake is not exactly an exciting date, so . . . yeah, Tim’s not expecting Kon to stay interested for long. He’s just got to take advantage of it for as long as it lasts to leverage Kon into letting him buy him that cul-de-sac and go from there, that’s all. Kon seems to stay friendly with the girls he flirts with even after things fizzle out or fail to go anywhere, so he assumes it won’t be any different with Tim Drake. As long as Kon’ll let him keep paying his way, that’s all that’s going to matter. 

Tim is really going to need to frontload that, though. Establish him paying for Kon as the new status quo very quickly and get Kon used to it before he loses interest in him, so he won’t feel awkward about accepting it by then. Or so Tim will already have signed all the paperwork and it’ll be too late for Kon to protest; whichever. 

He’s definitely going to have to frontload it.

[srhunt]

Resident Evil 4: Who is the Merchant?

One of my favorite characters in Resident Evil 4 is the Merchant. From his shady design to him asking “what’re ya buyin?”, he’s just a fun and interesting character. He’s not very fleshed out, we hardly know anything about him. But seeing that blue/purple flame is always a comfort knowing that the Merchant will offer me a safe space to catch my breath.

As with any character shrouded in mystery, lots of people like to theorize about who the Merchant is. Some of these theories are better than others, so I wanna do a quick speed run of a few I’ve heard and then offer my own.

He’s Luis’ Grandfather: Probably the most outlandish one I’ve heard. No matter which version of RE4 you look at, both state that Luis’ grandfather is dead. Unless y’all are suggesting that he’s the ghost of Luis’ grandfather which would explain how he moves so quickly from spot to spot.

He’s a Ganado: This one I sort of believe a bit more than the first one. Evidence that he might be a Ganado is that at different points of OG RE4, his eyes randomly start glowing red. It’s really creepy if you don’t expect it. At night, the Ganados eyes also glow red. But I feel like the remake disproves this idea with the use of the blue flames. The blue flames have the power to freeze plaga, as seen with the Armadura (the Knights). The Merchant has always had a blue flame near him. The remake changes his main flames to purple, but he still has a blue flame lantern on his table. I feel like he uses that as protection from las Plagas.

Now onto my own theory;

The Merchant is a rebel against Los Illuminados.

Not in the sense that he’s gonna sneak in to kill Saddler himself, but in the sense that he only deals weapons to people who are also against the Illuminados.

The Merchant, though very knowledgeable on weapons, is not much of a fighter. If you bring any enemies near him, he will throw his hands up in a defensive position and won’t talk to you until they’re gone. Why doesn’t he pull out one of his various guns to help Leon? Because that’s not how he rolls. He’s more like the Q to Leon’s Bond.

The remake doesn’t offer a ton of new info on the Merchant, but it does give us some insight on how he feels about the Illuminados through his requests.

In his request fliers, he describes Los Illuminados as “religious lunatics”, an “evil” and “blasted cult”. He calls the blue medallions “wretched things” and wants them gone. He deems anyone who joins the cult as “traitors”.

More evidence that he’s against the Illuminados comes from something he says right before you fight the final boss.

“I can hardly contain myself! You're really gonna do it, stranger!”

He’s giddy over the fact you’re about to go kill Saddler and destroy the cult once and for all.

Even going back to the original, his shooting gallery featured Ganados as targets. It’s not that strong of evidence, but it’s worth noting.

He specifically has a hatred for Ramón, the one who single handedly ruined the efforts of generations of Salazars to keep las Plagas sealed underground. In his request called “The Disgrace of the Salazar Family”, he calls Ramón “detestable” and wants the portrait of him in the throne room defaced. You can’t damage this portrait with any weapons, so you chuck an egg at it. It’s a very small act of petty revenge, but it’s one that hits Ramón where it hurts. Ramón has a very fragile ego, getting violent towards anyone who mocks him. So someone coming in and smashing an egg onto his portrait is bound to make him furious. This hatred is even present in the original game as the Merchant has a target of Ramón in his shooting gallery, and you get the most points for destroying it.

Some people say that the Merchant is only looking out for himself and will sell to anyone, hinting that he might’ve sold the Illuminados RPGs and other weapons towards the end of the game. But I think it’s safe to say that based on how he talks about them in his requests that he would not do business with anyone associated with the Illuminados. (It’s probably why we never see him do business with Luis. Even though he no longer works for the Illuminados, he did at one point and the Merchant can’t trust him.)

In fact, I believe that they didn’t get the weapons from him, but that he got the weapons from them. What better way to fight the Illuminados than to steal their weapons and sell them to people willing to use those weapons against them?

“Why doesn’t he just give you the weapons for free then?” He’s still a merchant. Man’s gotta make a living. When 99% of the folks around you work for the enemy, it doesn’t leave a ton of people to do business with. Leon and Ada are probably the only sane customers he’s seen in a long time.

Another thing we can pick up on is that the Merchant might not be working alone. A few of his lines include the words, “we” and “our”.

"We've been saving that one for the right customer!"

"We're starting to get an idea of your tastes, friend."

“You've exhausted our normal range of services for this weapon.”

I don’t believe he’s using it in the royal way, because he uses those words sparingly. He still uses “I” and “me” when talking about himself. So it’s possible that he does have other people working with him. Maybe they’re the ones who take the weapons from the Illuminados. If the Merchant isn’t much of a fighter, he’d be the wrong person to send into the lion’s den to steal weapons. What if he got caught? So it’s possible that he has a network of spies who confiscate weapons from the Illuminados and bring them back to the Merchant to sell to other rebels.

In the Grave Robber request, the Merchant calls the twins “traitors” for joining the cult. Is it possible that these twins were once part of the Merchant’s network of rebels but then either got caught and infected with the plaga or converted of their own free will?

Another piece of evidence that the Merchant isn’t working alone comes from Resident Evil Village. The Duke, the merchant of that game, quotes the RE4 Merchant;

“What're ya buyin?—Haha, just something an old friend of mine used to say."

An “old friend”, he says. Could it be that the Duke and the Merchant worked together to undermine the Illuminados, eventually parting ways after Saddler’s defeat?

So the TL;DR is that I believe the Merchant is a part of a resistance against Los Illuminados. He has a burning hatred for the cult and anyone associated with it. He is not much of a fighter, so he does what he’s best at; BUSINESS!! He gets his wares from allies who steal from the Illuminados’ supply, which is how he met the Duke. Once he has the merchandise, he sells them to people who are also against the Illuminados. He even sets up a free shooting gallery so that his customers can practice their aim. What good is it to sell guns to folks with terrible aim, right? After Saddler’s defeat, the resistance disbanded, and the Merchant returns home.

But hey, that’s just a theory. 😉

[anime-owo-kage-san]

Please, let me indulge in these thoughts for a while.

But, what if Charlie thinks of writing a play for the hotel to perform? Maybe a play about redemption, and within the play has a sinner transform into an angel after getting redeemed.

At first she asks Vaggie to play the sinner to angel part, because she already has angel wings. But, Vaggie insists maybe Angel Dust should play the role, since he’s the hotel’s first (and only, if we’re talking ‘post-canon’) guest.

Charlie over excitedly agrees, before Angel could even have his say and starts sketching out his ‘angel costume’.

Angel Dust doesn’t know why, but one look at the costume design made him feel a little self-conscious. Which is weird because he never gets self-conscious! (Unless it comes to his feet.)

But then again, after all the sexy, skimpy and lacey clothes he’s worn, wearing an angel costume that Charlie designed to be so flowy and stereotypically pure white (an exaggeration to what the angels they’ve seen actually wore) and the fluffy wings—made him strangely… ‘undeserving’ of the role.

The idea of wearing this on stage, in front of everyone, after being known as a pornstar all his afterlife, makes him feel like he’ll just be mocked from the irony.

Phone Call Scenario In My Head:

Angel: *just finished a porno shoot and in the middle of putting on his robe*

*phone starts ringing on a desk away from him*

Random guy: “Uh, Angel… Your phone’s ringing…”

Angel: “Put it on speaker, for me. It’s probably just Cherri again.” *still tying his robe*

Random guy: *picks up phone and puts it on speaker*

(Through the phone) Charlie: “ANGEEEL!!!”

Angel: *turns his head* Charlie…?

Valentino: *eyes narrowed, bc he’s still pissed about last time*

Charlie: “I’m. So. FUCKING EXCITED FOR THE SHOW TONIGHT! You’ll be on time for rehearsal, right? You’re the STAR after all!” *squeals*

Angel: *suddenly remembers the show and his face slowly turns pink* “U-Uh yeah…. Don’t worry, I-I just finished up work… I’ll be there….”

Valentino: *raises his brow at Angel* “Show…?”

Charlie: “Okay! Oooh! I can’t wait to see you in the costume! It’s finally finished! Please, come back as soon as possible so we can see how it looks on you!” *definitely jumping up and down on the other side*

Angel: *tries to hide how weirdly shy he feels* “Pssh! Doll face, I’ll look good in anything! I…. I’ll be there…”

Charlie: “Okay! See you later!”

(Call ends)

Valentino: *makes his way to Angel while smirking* “Well! It looks like this hotel you’re staying at isn’t as ‘clean’ as the princess, makes it sound.”

Angel: *looks at him confused* “The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

Valentino: “Oh, you know… That flustered look on your face, says it all! You’re not one to be embarrassed though, amorcito. Pray tell, how sexy is this costume of yours, that even you couldn’t help but flush?”

Angel: *only half paying attention, still thinking about the costume and embarrassed* “It’s…. not, anything like that. Look, I’m done with work. I’m just gonna go.”

Angel: *grabs his phone and leaves before Val can say anything*

Valentino: “Dumb whore. Performing shows somewhere else.”

So, sinners come to watch the show, after seeing Alastor’s advertisement of it —Which didn’t give anyone much context. All they knew was that Angel Dust was performing a show at the hotel, and the show was free!

Valentino shows up just to be a ‘porn critic’, because like everyone else, he still thinks it that type of show.

Angel Dust, who was peaking at the audience backstage gets more nervous, and hides in the dressing room. He was already wearing the costume, but he doesn’t want anyone to see him wearing it.

Sprinkle some Huskerdust into this; Husk is the one who convinces Angel to come out, and build his confidence back up. (Maybe some cheesy, wholesome words about how despite being in hell, he’s “Hell’s only angel, for him —didn’t think this far).

Angel: *peaks his head out the door* “What about Flat Tits?”

Husk: “That doesn’t count. She was from heaven. So for me, you are hell’s angel…”

Angel: “What about Charlie’s da—”

Husk: “Christ! Would you get out here already. Before I stop attempting to compliment you.”

Angel: *laughs lightly* “Yeah, okay. Sorry…”

And the show goes on. Sure, just like Angel expected, the majority of the audience were commenting on the choice of his role. But, he didn’t care anymore. Whenever he looks to the side and sees Husk giving him a supportive smile, he regains confidence and continues on with the play.

[bel1ewrites]

The Alcohol Helped (Tara Carpenter x Reader)

a/n: sorry about the drought.

Description: It's too hard to stay away.

WC: 1.8k

Warnings: sorority setting, mentions of drugs and alcohol (underage drinking), drunk Sam and Tara, idiot reader with top energy, I changed the ages of Sam (22) and Tara (19) to fit the narrative better

COLLEGE parties are never as fun as you think they’ll be. Maybe it’s the lack of alcohol in your system, possibly the absence of mind bending drugs that makes them seem kind of, well, lame. Being the designated driver always reminds you of the pure stupidity that flows through sweaty, half clothed twenty-somethings with a knack for getting themselves into trouble. 

“Oh president!” slurs your new assistant. Sam had secured her position after being one of the least insufferable people you’d ever known. Her first night in the house was spent drinking and watching all of the Pitch Perfect movies with you well into the early morning, and her second night was spent signing all of the new members up for random websites after acquiring their emails. 

“Hello, Samantha.” 

She giggles at the formality, drunkenly mocking the way you said her name and gripping your shoulders, looking into your eyes with serious intensity. “My sister loooves you.”

Tara. A new addition to the sorority. She didn’t even really have to rush due to her sister being your second in command. She was all doe-eyes and sickeningly sweet smiles, raven black hair and the kind of face that had recently begun to creep into your dreams. Truly the picture perfect active. 

“Does she?” you’re smirking a little, arms crossed and back pressed against the cool, probably germ infested wall. Vibrations run through you with each pump of the bass in some mind-numbing song. 

“Mhm,” she hums, a dopey look on her flushed face. She lifts her hand from your shoulder and boops you on the nose. “We were dancing with Chad, and Chad was all,” her voice deepens in an attempt to recreate his, “‘You’re soo beautiful Tara blah, blah, blah, we should blah, blah, blah’ but then Tara was all,” this time her pitch rises, “‘No, Chad. I’m totally… no you’re like my brother blah, blah, I’d never do that with you blah, blah, blah I wish Y/N would blah, blah, until I blah, blah, blah.”

“First of all, stop saying ‘blah, blah, blah’ before I punch you, and second of all, what did Tara-”

Speak of the devil, she’s stumbling towards you, drink sloshing around and spilling over the sides of her cup. Her cheeks are red, her eyes wide and sparkling. 

“Sam, come do another shot with me,” she’s begging, tugging on her sister’s arm. It’s a weak tug, fueled by her foggy mind. She hasn’t noticed you standing there, too preoccupied with her mission to get more alcohol in her system. 

“I don’t think you need another shot,” you cut in. Typically, you didn’t really care what the members of your sorority did in their spare time, so long as it didn’t interfere with their performance. Tara was nineteen. She was old enough to do as she pleased for the most part, and even if she technically wasn’t old enough to drink, she was still an adult who could make her own decisions. That being said, you couldn’t help but feel protective over her, brushing it off with some half-assed excuse about how she’s Sam’s sister. 

Round, brown eyes blink up at you as she processes your presence. 

“I mean,” she stutters, “let’s go uh… form meaningful connections?” 

“Nice one,” you’re running a hand through your hair, slightly damp with the perspiration that comes with a night full of standing and watching. 

“Well,” Sam starts with a little laugh, “I’m gonna go somewhere else.” Her figure retreats, blocked soon by the current of shifting bodies. 

Tara sways lightly on her feet. Midnight black strands of hair fall from her ponytail, framing her face with a flaw free air of carelessness. She’s wearing a cropped tank top and baggy jeans that make her look shorter than normal and sit perfectly on her hips, smudged eyeliner resulting in a strenuous difficulty for you to keep your hands in your pockets. 

“You know what we should do?” she’s grinning, eyes droopy. “We should dance.” Her hands reach for yours as you attempt to maneuver out of her range, aware of what a bad idea this is. 

You tell yourself you tried, but ultimately you fail to keep her off of you when she grabs your forearms and places them on her shoulders, backing up and effectively pulling you away from the comfort of your wall. With your arms resting casually over her shoulders, hands limp and unmoving, she sighs happily and clings to your torso. 

“You’re the perfect hug shape,” she mumbles, words muffled with her face against your ribbed tank. She’s breathing you in and humming.

“What does that mean?” Your voice is low and what the two of you are doing couldn’t possibly be defined as dancing. She’s hugging you tight, hands around your waist, and you’re holding her to you, one arm curved around the back of her neck and the other still hanging off her shoulder. There’s a comforting sway, the both of you rocking side to side soothingly. 

“I mean,” her hands are moving on your back, “You have such a sturdy body,” fingers slip beneath the hem of your shirt, “muscular and soft. Tall-” (“Everyone’s tall to you,” you interject.) “-and you smell so good all the time. It’s like some sort of sorcery. You’re like a hot, good smelling witch or something.” She’s fumbling over her words but you’re barely listening, focused intensely on the way her nails run over your bare back from under your shirt. 

Tara Carpenter has her hands under your shirt and it’s so hot where you stand but you’re shivering and pulling her closer. Tara Carpenter is scratching your back and you're stone cold sober but you can’t think through the fog in your mind.  

“I love this shirt on you,” she groans. She’s groaning and her hands are on your naked back and you’re holding her to you and all you can think about is her.  

“Yeah?” your voice shakes a little.

“Mm,” she nods against you. “It’s sexy.” 

It’s your turn to groan. It’s too much and you’re dangerously close to cracking under the sexual tension. 

“I’m gonna go get Sam.” you gently nudge her off of you. “I think you’re both in need of a glass of water and a bed. “

She’s frowning when you walk off. 

—-----

By the time you manage to drag Sam away from her game of beer pong and into the car, Tara still hasn’t spoken more than two words to you. She sits silently in the backseat and picks at her hands with intent whilst her sister insists on taking aux to listen to the Tangled soundtrack the whole way home. Every once in a while you glance in the rear view mirror and catch her eyes before she looks somewhere else again. 

As soon as the three of you clamber out of the vehicle and through the door, Sam heads for the leather couch in the common area and falls face first into it. You hang up your keys and watch Tara stumble slightly as she makes her way to her room. 

It’s silent, the sound of the heater kicking on fills the space around you along with your racing mind. Had you taken it too far with Tara? Did you make her uncomfortable? Maybe you should bring her some water and leave her an Advil for the morning. 

“Tara?” you call from outside her room, water and medicine in hand. She’s still awake, light on and soft music playing, muffled by the shut door. Beneath the light thrum of the melodies you can hear soft sniffles and little whimpers that make your heart drop in your chest. 

Tucking the pill bottle beneath your arm, you turn the knob and slowly crack open the barrier between you and her, still not peeking inside. “Tara?”

A pause. “What?” her voice is watery and you finally gain the courage to step inside. 

Her room is so impossibly her that it’s shocking. Soft white walls covered in bulletin boards, a few shirts scattered around the floor in a mess that seems intentional. It’s contrasting with the current state of her. Her eyes are puffy, cheeks still flushed from earlier, deeper now with the addition of tears. With the comforter pulled up over her neck all you can see is her face.

“Tara,” her lip quivers, face crumpling. “What’s wrong, baby?” Placing the things on her dresser, you rush to sit on her bed and rest a comforting hand on her forehead, moving the hair stuck there out of her face. She only cries harder.

“I’m sorry,” the bed shifts as she turns to lay on her side and face away from you.

“For what?” Confusion filters through you. If anything, it’s you who should apologize. 

“Making you uncomfortable with everything I said earlier,” she replies, body curled into a ball beneath her blankets. “It was really inappropriate of me.” 

Uncomfortable? The only thing that was uncomfortable was the metaphorical boner you got every time you were in her general vicinity, and that had nothing to do with anything she’d said. 

“Wait,” it clicks in your mind, “when we were dancing?”

She nods. 

“Tara, I wasn’t uncomfortable,” you rub circles on her upper back through the layers, “Hell, I was too comfortable.”

The gears in her mind turn weakly and she turns to look at you with wet eyes; asking, “What’s that mean?” with a sniffle.

“It means we were swaying and you were rubbing my back and calling me hot and I had to step away before I did anything irrational.” She’s on her back now, staring up at the ceiling fan silently. “Not because I don’t want to do… irrational things with you- it’s just that you’re Sam’s sister and I don’t want to complicate anyth-”

“-Sam’s the one who told me to go for it,” Tara informs you. Her tears are gone, their pathways dry on her face. “Said she’d had enough of our eye-fucking back before she’d even had her first shot.”

Agape. Your jaw is agape and you close it before opening it again like a fish out of water, struggling to find a response. Sam was the reason you’d tried to keep your distance; stuck to admiring from afar and aspiring to be close. Was the attraction that obvious?

“I only got the courage tonight because I’d caught you staring at me all week,” she finally smiles, “But the alcohol helped I guess.”

A noise of pure embarrassment emerges from your throat and you fall back against her mattress, crossing your forearms over your blushing face. Clearly you needed to work on your stealth abilities. 

The surface you lay on dips with movement. Tara’s warm hands wrap around your forearms as she struggles to pull them away. It’s truly laughable how little she moves them. She manages to uncover your eyes, her own sparkling with unknown emotions, a warm smile on her lips. You peer up at her with a hidden grin on your face. 

“So,” you start, “a hot, good smelling witch, huh?”

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Hiii, do you have any tips for drafting out embroidery patterns? I've got one in mind, but drafting it out and color picking is so nerve-wracking!!

[Hi!!!! this got kinda really long so I'm gonna crop it under a read more. And I honestly don't have any real training/instruction in fiber arts so this is just how I do things, and probably others do them very differently!]

Haha so my fandom embroideries are VERY different from my non-fandom personal pieces in this respect. For non-fandom things i just kind of throw myself in like WAHOO FREEFORM LETS GO and go for a kind of messy colorful approach that ends up as things like this:

Versus my fandom stuff is way more structured and designed to fill space, be very precise, etc. So for those I do go in with a digital mock up of the design I make in photoshop, that I then color in, and then as my last step translate to thread colors.

For my Dragon Age series. this has been because I'm specifically trying to mimic the stained-glass style of art you see in parts of the game like the dialogue wheels, some icons, windows, etc. The icons in particular were really easy to copy into embroidery because they already come in handy circles:

This is mostly because I have desperately wanted to pick up stained glass work as a hobby for like 6 years now. As in once every 3-6 months I put everything I'd need to start doing it into an online shopping cart and look at the price total and then sadly close the window because I just don't actually have any space I could do it in (I live in a 2bed apartment so i have no garage or yard or anywhere it wouldn't make everything else a mess or be a hazard). The day after one of those events I impulse bought and completed a floral embroidery kit from the craft store and kinda was like... ok, well, I did this once how hard can it be to use this medium to mimic the hobby I wish I could be doing? Plus, it's only like 60 cents per color! I can afford that! So I took the first design I wanted to do, the romance icon, and basically redrew it sloppily in photoshop, then freehand-copied the design onto fabric and stitched it the next day:

I learned a lot from this piece and changed my approach a little. Here you can see I tried shading in the parallel direction to my thread, which looked messy and added texture, so now I shade horizontally to my thread direction instead.

But it gave me a basic approach for turning the Tarot cards or DA Keep tiles (or any other art!) into embroidery patterns, which I couldn't copy as directly into this really smooth stained-glass style. There's a basic process I follow when doing these conversions that generally follows the same order, which I'll go through below.

STEP 1: SHAPES

The first thing I do is pick the shape of my display frame which is usually a circle, but could be an oval or rectangle too, since I hang the finished pieces on my wall to have nice way to show them off. I like to fill the whole space so knowing the size and shape of what I want the finished project to look like is a good goal for me. Since I am doing fandom pieces I want to be recognizable, I do stick pretty close to the "original" character design/art, but you can absolutely change as much as you want and freehand draw your own interpretation instead. If you're doing original art just substitute the below composition notes with "sketch out roughly what you want it to look like". I personally do my pattern drafting digitally as I find it easier, but you can do this part by hand too.

First, I keep the reference image I'm working off of open next to me while I work, and draw in the shape of my frame (here, a circle). If I'm adding in the little border to be fancy, I add a second inner circle. I keep these as their own top layer so I always know I'm working within the final "frame" and don't spend time designing any section that will fall outside it. Then I will take copies of the reference image and knock the layers down to 25-50% opacity, and start moving them around underneath the 'frame' layer until I like the way their positioning looks as a composition. Sometimes elements of a card I want to include don't all fit in, so I'll chop the section out and add an additional layer to throw in (like the background circle things in the Hermit design below). Or I'll just freehand things like adding much bigger diamonds behind Solas in my Hierophant design because I did NOT want to do 1000 tiny ones. Then once I'm satisfied with the general composition, I'll use the plain ol circular brush tool to trace out the major shapes of each element. I try to keep in mind that I can't go too small, and curvy lines are more difficult to fill in than straight ones. I usually do a rough messy version first, make it mostly transparent, and then a cleaner and more precise one over that.

(you can see parts of the rough one on the left and the fully 'cleaned up' on the right for the Hierophant design)

Now: depending on what you are doing next with the pattern, this might be where you stop and start coloring. If you are planning to freehand your design or just trace it onto fabric (or even print it onto fabric here), there's no need to do more than this kind of lineart! However, if you are working digitally and want to create a scalable vector so you can print it at different sizes, you can use the pen tool in photoshop to trace your design and make a "work path" of the lineart. However, another note: THIS PART IS VERY FRUSTRATING AND TEDIOUS BECAUSE THE PEN TOOL WAS CREATED BY THE DEVIL TO TORMENT US. It is so so so easy to accidentally delete a line or even the whole path and not notice later on. Ask me how I know 😭 Anyway I'm not going to include a pen tool tutorial because I don't even know how to use it well and have to google or watch videos every other time I try to use it. But if you can muddle through it gets you some really clean lines that eventually look like this:

With the work path selected, you can select the brush tool/size/color and use the "stroke path" option to create lineart of the vector. Then you can save this as a transparent png file for use at different sizes and for printing and it looks so nice and clean! one of the big benefits to this is that you get really fine lines that are easier to be precise with stitching on. This is extra perfect if you are printing the design directly onto your fabric (which you can do with an at-home inkjet printer for designs under 8inches wide, as long as you stick a piece of stabilizer on the back of your fabric and cut it down to printer sheet size--this is what I do and can make another post about that process if people want haha), or if you are printing onto transfer paper like you can buy at craft stores.

This is where I end the lineart for my designs. After I have this, I move on to the next phase, which is...

STEP 2: COLOR

For interpreting my designs into thread, I start by thinking of it as flat colors first. You can't "shade" as easily with threads as you can with things like paint or brushes in digital art (though you can A Little, which I will get into), so to start color planning I pick the "main" color each section will be in the piece.

For the existing icons this was simple--I kept the same sections as the original designs, so for each I just color picked or eyeballed the color in photoshop and colored it in (but you could do this on paper with pencils, markers, whatever as well--they don't need to match your threads exactly and usually won't, it's just to give you an easy reference to follow as you go). For the tarot cards which were more complicated in coloration, I just did my best and went with what looked good next to each other, even if it was a little off the original art. It will be off more later anyway when you have to pick threads so don't stress it too much honestly. I will often make layers with different color options and turn them on/off for direct comparison to try to determine what I think looks best as well, like below where I was debating between more blue/desaturated for the background or brighter colors.

I do wanna note I have regrets about the color selection, shapes, or shading in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my finished pieces. But no one else ever comments or probably even notices! One aspect of this hobby is just learning to be satisfied with what you've made and using what you learned to get closer to your preferences next time. I'm only going back and redoing some of my designs' colors because I want to make it easier for others to choose on the patterns I sell, more than I care for just for myself. Also since I'm doing this lineart/stained glass looking approach where I go over the distinct shapes with black thread at the end, it means I get these clear delineations between sections you might not necessarily have in your own pieces, and that's ok.

Ok right. Now while shading/coloring in detail is hard with thread, you CAN make whats essentially dithered gradients. "Dithering" in the concept of art means using 2 (or more) colors to give the impression of a third color, or to gently scale between the existing binary rather than a hard line. Think of it like blocky pixel art or gameboy game images. If you're doing needlepainting, you use really small stitches close together to get this effect, which translates to "smaller pixes"--if you look at the jellyfish in my first photos that's a very messy casual version of that. If you want a better example, I recommend looking at @ammocharis 's pieces like these in her pinned post, which are truly amazing! I simply do not have the patience myself 😂 For my stained glass style, I work only in very long straight stitches, so I can only shade in one direction and have to be a little more precise with it.

So for shading, I think about in each section which direction my threads might go. Then perpendicular to that direction I pick which side will be the light one and which the darker one. Sometimes I color this in on my pattern mockup, but sometimes I don't! Or I'll only do it for certain sections to make sure I don't forget. Like for my Tower design I only colored it as flats, and waited until I selected threads to decide how the shading would go. I am currently working on a smaller, simplified version of my Hierophant design and I did add shading digitally for that one just for fun. But it's not as important as having the flat color version you can use to quick-reference how you want your design to go while you're stitching. You might also notice I don't actually color my gold--I just throw in a stock image of gold foil for that layer so I can't confuse it with any of my yellow thread sections.

Here's a close up where you can kind of see what I mean by the "dithered" effect between colors--some are more obvious (like the red on the far left or middle orange) and others pretty subtle (dark grey to dark red on the wolf face):

Now, while I use single layers of satin stitches for this, and just alternate thread colors increasing/decreasing as I go, you can accomplish the same thing with short overlapping stitches like with needlepainting, or with clusters of french knots, or whatever else. But in GENERAL you are going to be able to trick people into seeing gradients out of dithering best when you are using the same type of stitch for that whole area. So if I was using multiple stitch types like having french knots, daisy chains, ladder stitching or whatever else for some sections, I would keep those to contrasting areas/colors. A fantastic example of using different layered types of stitching to create more intricate color/texture in an embroidery would be these incredible tarot card depictions by @hattedhedgehog, which I like even better than my own embroideries. Here's his take on the Tower card as well for comparison to mine (I'm so in love with it!!!).

But anyway, at this phase, your design is actually still digital--the above is just to explain how it translates later in the process. The next step is...

STEP 3: THREAD SELECTION

I will admit here I am not great at this part. I am constantly second guessing my thread colors, and can spend over an entire hour in the thread aisle at the craft store agonizing over choices. Really, I think this is just one of those things that takes practice and you get better at it over time. What I have had the best luck with is actually printing out a reference photo of my design/the original artwork and taking it with me. If you already have threads you can do this part at home too, but DMC alone has over 500 colors and I definitely don't even own half that so I like to torture myself by looking at them all together on the thread racks. Plus Anchor and Artiste and whatever other brands there are out there. One approach is to just sit there and pick out what you want for each section and line it all up together on top of your printout. Or in the case of my Tower I laid a bunch of options out on top of my template in the hoop to guess how they'd look in the frame.

For me since I am also doing this dither shading thing, I also need 2-3 colors per sections depending on its size. Sometimes it's easy and the threads have a color just a little darker or lighter right next to them in the numerical lineup! Other times, there is no good match, or it looks too far away to shade nicely, or I want one to be a warmer or cooler tone than the other... which means a lot of standing and fretting to myself over it. I actually take a lot of photos at this stage because it can be easier to see how they will look in the end from a photo than in person to me? Idk why. Plus then after they get scrambled in my bag I remember wtf order I meant for them to go in later. But as long as you're not preventing other customers from shopping themselves, you can spend as long as you want staring at thread in the embroidery aisle and they won't kick you out unless it's closing time, so take your time.

Now, IN THEORY, you can sort of combine steps 2 and 3 by color-selecting from your threads and using that to color in the design. However I have tried this and it led to mixed success because the photoshop eyedropper brush simply isn't actually that exact (in my experience, it desaturates compared to what we actually see). And because then you have to have the threads on hand while you're coloring... which means you might buy ones you don't end up using if you don't like them. So I prefer to just use this as a refinement step where I pick threads based on the design colors, then will re-color the design a second time to match those threads more closely to be sure I like the effect.

I've even used this as a tool when I needed to adjust my color choices mid-project, by digitally coloring over over my WIP:

Or here's a design (but I haven't posted the finished piece yet bc it's a gift so shhh) I made with certain color tones initially, but after buying thread I re-did the color mockup to be more vibrant, because I liked those threads better in the store:

Once you have your thread, you can make yourself a little reference chart with the colors you intend noted on the sections you want them, like below:

(note: i didn't end up sticking to these colors because I ended up dying my own thread for several sections. And then forgot I made this entirely and picked new ones because I put the project down for a year between design and stitching. Sigh).

Or for my Solas pattern I did this in a really detailed way, which i am sorry but i have redacted because... i have it for sale now and don't wanna just give that away haha. But if you buy the pattern from my shop this is one of the files you'd get with it, for ease of reference. I do also include a text-only list of them as well.

Now I don't go to this much trouble for all my designs, just the ones I put up for sale (or plan to). You can also just make a text list of your color plans if you want. Though for fun I also have been using my scrap thread to make these little "color palette" keyrings for my finished pieces, so if I ever remake them or update their patterns I will know what the original colors were, plus I can compare what i used to other threads if I wanna change part of the design up. This step is absolutely not necessary and I'm just doing it because I'm selling the patterns now, but they are kinda fun to look at.

And don't forget.. if you start a section in a certain color and decide you don't like it, you can just cut the threads and pull them out! I did that with my original hierophant piece actually. I had an entirely different color for one row of diamonds i thought just clashed way too much with the others, so I used photoshop to paint over it with some alternate options until I found one I liked better. Then I cut away all the old threads and put in the new color. It can be a little harder to fill a piece the second time since the fabric will have stretched out a little, but as long as you're using a good stabilizer it usually doesn't move too much.

You can also just make test swatches on spare fabric to test before you add them to your real piece. I wish I'd done this for some color transitions that didn't end up looking the way I wanted, but I am simply too lazy most of the time. My exception is usually for metallic, satin, or sparkly threads, because I want to know how they feel while embroidering. But if you're really worried about a certain color or shade it's a good thing to remember you can just do.

SO yep, that's my general process for drafting patterns. I start with the shapes/design, then do my flat color version, then I pick my threads. Makes it sound easy and short when phrased like that :) But I can honestly spend 8-10 hours just on making the lineart and coloring it in. If I was better at art, probably this would be less, but I'm working with what I've got (not much) 😂 I think all aspects of this are also something that gets easier over time, but it will probably never look as bad as you worry when you start out. I think all my pieces look awkward and rough right up until I do the finishing steps and move them to the display frame sometimes.

I hope this was helpful and answered your questions!! Feel free to post/share your WIPs to ask for feedback or advice ever too :) I've only ever had people in the embroidery community on tumblr be encouraging and helpful to me, and I'm happy to answer any questions myself when I can or if parts of this were confusing

[realityjoey]

PRACTICE (RILEY ANDERSON MC x EVAN BUCKLEY)

The 118 was out in the training yard, helmets under arms, ready to take on a challenge they hadn’t faced since the height of COVID. Everyone’s fitness levels and routines had shifted during the pandemic, and with life finally back to some semblance of normal, Bobby had announced they’d be doing retraining drills to sharpen their response times.

“Alright, listen up!” Bobby clapped his hands, gathering everyone’s attention. “We’re running a search-and-rescue simulation. You’re all pairing up. One of you will go into the practice building and pretend to be unconscious. The other has to bring their partner out. Fastest time wins.”

The group exchanged glances, already sizing each other up.

Chim leaned toward Hen. “Wanna show these rookies how it’s done?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Hen grinned, cracking her neck in preparation.

Meanwhile, Eddie nudged Buck, who was already glancing Riley’s way. “I see you’re already locked in with your partner,” Eddie teased.

“Obviously,” Buck said with a grin. Riley, standing a few feet away, caught Buck’s smirk and rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“Are we ready to win?” Riley teased, adjusting the strap on her helmet.

“Is that even a question?” Buck shot back, giving her an exaggerated look of mock disbelief.

“Right, partners: decide who’s lying down, who’s rescuing.” Bobby’s voice boomed across the yard. “I’ll call out when it’s time to switch if you get a second run. The clock starts when your partner goes in—time stops when you both get out.”

Buck instantly raised a hand toward Riley. “Dibs on rescuing first.”

Riley snorted. “Coward.” But she didn’t argue. “Fine, but you’d better not take all day in there, mate. I’m not getting dirt in my hair for nothing.”

“Like you can resist a dramatic rescue by me,” Buck teased, nudging her shoulder. His eyes glinted playfully. “I’ll carry you out princess-style if you ask nicely.”

“Get lost,” Riley scoffed, though the corner of her mouth curled.

Riley stepped up to Bobby, giving him a sharp nod. “Where do you want me?”

“In the second room on the right,” Bobby instructed, his face unreadable, though a hint of amusement flickered in his eyes at the easy banter between Buck and Riley.

Riley strode off into the dark practice building, the heavy metal door clanging shut behind her. Inside, she found the designated spot—a dark room with overturned furniture and simulated debris. She lowered herself to the floor, stretching out flat. Lying on the cold, rough surface, she grumbled to herself about Buck taking his sweet time and let her head rest on her arms.

Meanwhile, outside, Buck waited for Bobby’s whistle, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. Eddie and Chim, standing nearby, were already cracking jokes.

“You think you’ll be able to resist making a whole dramatic scene when you find her?” Eddie smirked.

“Probably not,” Buck admitted, grinning.

The sharp whistle cut through the air, and Buck shot forward, sprinting toward the entrance.

Inside the building, it was pitch-dark, with smoke machines filling the hallways to simulate a real rescue scene. The eerie hum of silence pressed down, but Buck was laser-focused. He knew Riley would be annoyed if he so much as stumbled or hesitated—she’d never let him live it down.

He burst through the second room on the right, scanning for her. When his gaze landed on Riley’s figure lying perfectly still, he couldn’t help but grin. She had her arms crossed and looked too relaxed for someone meant to be unconscious.

“Oh no,” he muttered under his breath with a smile. “Poor unconscious Riley. Whatever will I do?”

He crouched beside her, slinging her arm over his shoulder. In a low, playful voice, he whispered, “You’re supposed to be unconscious, but I know you can hear me, Anderson.”

Riley fought to keep a straight face but failed, a tiny twitch tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“You’re gonna regret that,” Buck whispered smugly as he stood and hauled her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Oi!” Riley hissed, breaking character for a second. “I swear if you—”

“Shhh, unconscious people don’t talk,” Buck said, adjusting his grip as he started moving.

Even with Riley’s weight balanced across his shoulders, Buck moved fast, navigating through the smoky hallways with precision. Every step was deliberate, every movement controlled. The building’s maze-like design didn’t faze him—he trusted his instincts.

As they reached the final hallway, Riley finally gave up pretending. “If you drop me, Buckley—”

“You mean when I save your life in record time?” Buck interrupted, smugness dripping from his voice.

Riley rolled her eyes but didn’t protest further, secretly impressed with how smoothly he moved.

Buck burst through the exit, Riley still slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The rest of the team, waiting outside, burst into laughter.

“You could’ve carried her normally, you know!” Hen called out, grinning.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Buck grinned as he set Riley down on her feet, slightly breathless but triumphant.

Riley straightened her helmet and shot him a glare, though there was a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot who just won,” Buck shot back with a grin, reaching out to tug her closer by the strap of her helmet.

Bobby glanced at the stopwatch in his hand, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Good time, Buck. Impressive.”

“See?” Buck whispered to Riley. “Told you.”

“Alright,” Bobby called out, waving the next group forward. “Switch roles—your turn, Riley.”

Buck groaned dramatically. “Be gentle with me, will you?”

Riley shot him a wicked grin as she adjusted her helmet. “No promises, mate.”

She took off toward the entrance with a determined stride, leaving Buck to mutter under his breath, “What have I gotten myself into?”

As the whistle blew again, signaling her turn to rescue him, Buck flopped onto the floor inside the building, ready to be “unconscious” this time. And if he knew Riley, she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to make her revenge memorable.

And honestly? He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Buck lay flat on the cold floor of the practice building, trying not to grin as he waited for Riley. It wasn’t easy—he could already imagine the payback she had planned. If there was one thing he’d learned in three years of dating her, it was that Riley Anderson played to win. And after his playful antics earlier, she was definitely going to make him pay.

He kept his breathing slow and steady, pretending to be unconscious. The only sounds around him were the low hiss of the smoke machines and the distant clink of metal from somewhere in the training structure. Time ticked by slowly, his anticipation building with every passing second.

Then he heard it: the faint thud of boots approaching. Here she comes. Buck suppressed a grin, forcing his face to remain slack and lifeless.

Riley rounded the corner and found him lying prone on the floor. For a moment, she stood over him, hands on her hips, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

“You look pathetic,” she muttered under her breath, though her voice was laced with fondness.

She crouched down beside him, and Buck fought the urge to crack an eye open. Instead, he stayed perfectly still, knowing Riley was probably smirking at him.

“Alright, Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered, giving his cheek a couple of light slaps. “Time to get you out of here.”

She grabbed his arm and started to haul him into a sitting position with surprising ease. “God, all those hours at the gym finally paid off,” she muttered with mock effort. “Your massive arse is gonna be a nightmare to drag out, though.”

Buck bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Riley slung his arm over her shoulder and braced herself, muttering under her breath as she prepared to lift him. “Okay, Buckley, let’s see if you bounce.”

Before Buck could react, Riley hooked her arms under his and yanked him upright with more force than he expected.

“Ow!” Buck yelped, breaking character. “That’s not fair—”

“Unconscious people don’t talk,” Riley interrupted with a grin, throwing his own words back at him.

Buck glared playfully at her but let her take control. With surprising grace, she got him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, the way he’d carried her earlier.

“Damn, Anderson,” he said, impressed despite himself. “Where’d you learn to lift like this?”

“You’re not the only one who’s been hitting the gym, mate,” she said, smug. “Now quit talking. I’ve got a drill to win.”

As she carried him through the dark, smoke-filled hallways, Buck couldn’t help but marvel at her strength. Even though he wasn’t exactly light, Riley carried him without slowing down, navigating the maze-like layout of the building with ease.

“You know,” he muttered, bouncing slightly with each step she took, “this is kinda nice.”

“Oh yeah?” Riley asked, her voice dry. “Enjoying being manhandled?”

“Definitely. Feel free to carry me out of every burning building from now on.”

Riley snorted. “You wish, Buckley.”

As they neared the exit, Buck noticed she was speeding up. “Hey, Riley… you’re not going to—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Riley sprinted the last few feet to the exit and unceremoniously dumped him onto the grass outside.

“Oof!” Buck grunted as he hit the ground with a thud. Laughter erupted from their teammates.

“Nice technique!” Chimney called, grinning from ear to ear. “Real graceful, Buck!”

Eddie was doubled over, laughing so hard he had to clutch his side. “Oh man, that was beautiful. Anderson, you’re my new hero.”

Buck propped himself up on his elbows, rubbing his back as Riley stood over him, hands on her hips, grinning down triumphantly. “Told you I’d win.”

“You didn’t have to throw me,” Buck grumbled, though there was no real annoyance in his voice.

Riley leaned down, her smile widening. “You carried me like a sack of potatoes. Consider us even, love.”

Buck shook his head, laughing despite himself. “You’re impossible.”

“And you love it,” Riley quipped, giving him a wink.

Bobby approached, glancing between the stopwatch and the two of them. “Not bad, Anderson. You shaved a few seconds off Buck’s time. Looks like you two are tied for the lead.”

Riley extended a hand to Buck, helping him to his feet. “Looks like we’re gonna have to do a rematch, then.”

Buck’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh, you’re on.”

The rest of the team groaned good-naturedly, already anticipating more chaos from the couple.

Hen clapped her hands together, calling out, “Alright, who’s next? Eddie and Chim, you guys ready?”

As the next pair prepared for their run, Buck and Riley drifted off to the side, still catching their breath. Buck nudged Riley with his shoulder. “You know, for someone pretending to be unconscious, I did most of the hard work back there.”

Riley scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that, mate.”

They stood together, helmets tucked under their arms, watching their teammates tackle the challenge. Riley’s hand brushed against Buck’s, and without thinking, he laced their fingers together.

For a moment, everything around them—the drills, the smoke, the teasing banter—faded away.

“Good job, partner,” Buck murmured, squeezing her hand.

Riley tilted her head toward him, her smile softening. “Right back at you.”

And just like that, they were ready for whatever came next—whether it was another drill, a rescue, or just more teasing from their friends. As long as they had each other, they were unstoppable.

[mingtinys]

Fraternizing with the Enemy

pairing : yoon jeonghan x gn!reader

fluff , humor

warnings : language

word count : 1.8 k

requested ? no

a/n : you know that one prompt ?? "take me laser tagging and then push me into a corner and kiss me. then shoot me and walk away." yeah. that.

"What color are you thinking?"

"Hmm," you scan the dark room, taking note of who's grabbing which color vest and who's already formed alliances. "Depends, do we make it a fair fight?"

Jeonhan shrugs. His voice is hushed as he leans in closer until his lips brush up against your ear. "It'll probably last longer if we do."

Noticing Seungcheol and Wonwoo already fully equipped with blue laser tag vests, you chew at your lip and contemplate your options. Having those two on your team would likely guarantee a win. But you suspect the younger members might cause quite the backlash about how that's basically cheating.

"Then maybe red?"

"Can we please try to make the teams fair?" Chan pointedly announces not even two seconds later. He's looking specifically between you and Jeonghan and seems rather pleased with himself. Head held high like he's just thwarted your nonexistent evil plans.

"That's what we were doing genius." Jeonghan deadpans.

Seokmin who joins in next. "Yeah, no, I agree. You two can't be on the same team, it isn't fair."

"Oh, but Seungcheol and Wonwoo is?"

"Hey," Seungcheol narrows his eyes and jabs a finger in your direction. "Don't throw us under the bus just cause you can't be with your boyfriend."

"Okay, okay," Joshua intervenes. "Why don't we just pick teams? Jeonghan, Y/N, would you like to do the honors?" He motions for the two of you to kick things off.

"Fine," you sigh. "I pick Wonwoo."

"Woah, who said you get first pick?" Seungcheol whines, clearly miffed his own plans of hand-picking a full-proof team have been foiled.

"Jeonghan, babe, can I have first pick?"

"Of course, angel."

It's rather childlike the way you turn back to Seungcheol, lips pulling up into a satisfied smirk as you cock your head and give a short "Hmph." He grumbles something vaguely incoherent about how the two of you make him violently ill.

At the end of it, despite the copious protests that arose during your draft, the teams are solidified. With you, Wonwoo, Joshua, Seokmin, Chan, Minghao, and Jun being team red. And Jeonghan, Seungcheol— which caused quite the uproar, Mingyu, Soonyoung, Seungkwan, Jihoon, and Hansol being team blue.

You're all equipped with your respective LED vests and futuristic-looking laser guns as you file through the door to the maze-like arena. For the most part, it's rather dark. Carpeted black walls stretch tall with various multi-colored neon designs decorating them and glowing under the UV lights. It looks like there are two floors and ample hiding spots. You're already formulating battle plans in your head when you feel someone yank back on your vest.

A small oof leaves your lips and you nearly lose your footing. You whip your head around to yell at whoever has their finger hooked into your shoulder strap. "You're an asshole," you sneer over your shoulder when met with the grinning face of Jeonghan. He grabs at your waist with one hand to spin you and with the other, tilts your head back with a finger under your chin. You know what he's doing. So just before he can fully close the distance, you hold your hand in front of your face and his lips connected with your palm.

Jeonghan pulls away rather quickly, betrayed.

"Sorry, I'm not supposed to fraternize with the enemy."

"Enemy?"

You nod up at him with mock doe-like innocence and he lets out an amused scoff. "Oh, is that how it is?"

"Afraid so." You wipe at fake tears under your eyes and Jeonghan raises a brow. "This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you."

"You're unbelievable."

"I'm gonna take that as a compliment." You chirp.

Jeonghan crosses his arms. "And to think, I was going to offer you a truce."

"Don't need it."

"You know, it's actually really cute when you think you can win."

He pokes at your side and you slap his hand away, which only makes him more persistent in his teasing. His toothy smile is extra glowy under the UV lights as he giggles at your failed attempt to push at his chest. The effectiveness of it is severely diminished by the bulky blue vest he's wearing.

"You're so annoying," you groan before turning on your heels and jogging to catch back up with your team. "Have fun eating my shit Yoon Jeonghan!"

"Loser buys ice cream, so get your wallet ready!" He calls after you, but his voice is drowned out as soon as you round the corner to the red base where your team is bickering. Minus Wonwoo, who's watching the others with an amused expression.

Minghao catches your eye mid-argument with Chan and sends you a pleading look. "Y/N, would you please tell Chan he's not in charge." Chan's jaw drops at that. "All I did was suggest a plan!"

"Using Seokmin as bait isn't exactly a plan." Wonwoo pitches in.

You rub at your temples, already getting a headache from the group, and look to Joshua for help. He chuckles, then waves his hands in front of the group to get their attention. "Okay, calm down, Y/N has something to say."

"Yes, Captain." Seokmin barks, saluting you with the gusto of a wartorn soldier heading into battle and not a round of laser tag. You're decently impressed at how long he holds it.

Your plan, which consisted of a few of Wonwoo's ideas and one of Joshua's, actually holds up pretty well against Jeonghan's team. You were spot on in predicting he'd send Seungcheol and Mingyu out first while the others hide away. You also knew Soonyoung would likely make his way to the top floor and were able to send Jun and Wonwoo after him, scoring the first point of the game.

Unfortunately, Jeonghan figured you'd send out Seokmin and Chan to scour the bottom floor and they ended up getting hit pretty quickly by Jihoon and Hansol. And somehow, Seungkwan managed to sneak into your base and shoot Minghao, who was guarding it with you. Luckily, Joshua was turning the corner at the same time and shot Seungkwan before he could get you as well.

All in all, your two teams stay pretty consistent in terms of points.

There are only five minutes left in the game when Jun, Wonwoo, and Seokmin come jogging into view. Jun immediately slumps against a wall to catch his breath while Wonwoo recharges his vest.

"Who got you?" You ask, a little in disbelief someone was able to catch up with the taller man.

"Jeonghan." He huffs out, winded.

"Same." Seokmin sighs, hands on his knees, sucking in ragged breaths.

Jun raises his hand. "Me too."

"He's deadly." Seokmin continues, eyes wide as he grabs hold of your shoulders. "We need you out there Cap! You're the only one that can stop him."

In the distance, you hear a string of curses and a few moments later Chan sulks into the small base with Joshua in tow. "Jeonghan?" Minghao asks, already knowing the answer.

"He's a monster," Chan whines, sliding down the wall next to Jun rather dramatically.

"We've only been able to get him once," Joshua explains, recharging his lives once Wonwoo's finished.

You sigh. The last thing you wanted to do was go up against your boyfriend. But it looks like there isn't much of a choice. "Fine, but you all have to keep going after everyone else. Especially Cheol and Kwan. Jun, you can take my spot helping Minghao guard the base."

"You're our hero, Y/N," Seokmin groans out, granted with significantly less enthusiasm than before, while he pumps his fist in the air.

You jog out into the labyrinth, weaving between walls and ducking when you hear Soonyoung's maniacal laugh as he darts down a corridor. All the while keeping a sharp eye out for your boyfriend, who could really pop out at any given moment. It's not that you don't think you can beat him, but you're pretty sure he knows you better than you know yourself. So trying to trick him would be near impossible. An ambush though . . . that might do it. The only problem now is finding him before he does you.

Then, you hear a voice, it sounds like Mingyu's. Even though his words are hushed, you're pretty sure he's talking to Jeonghan. Your pace slows as you reach the end of a long L-shaped wall. Using the edge of it to peer out while keeping your body shielded. You can't see them, but the second you pop your head out their voices cease. Which looking back, should have been red flag number one.

The next thing you hear is footsteps. So you duck back behind the wall and take a few steps back, eyes glued to the opening in front of you.

Suddenly, there's a flash of long black hair and two hands on you. One grips your wrist and pulls it out to the side, causing your grip on your laser gun to loosen. It falls to your side, swinging idly by the singular cord connecting it to your vest. The other cups the back of your neck rather gracefully, thumb lingering at the curve of your jawline. Their touch is warm and familiar. Jeonghan.

He walks back, your feet shuffling hurriedly under you to prevent from tripping as he guides you. Your shoulder blades meet the wall, and judging by the look on Jeonghan's face, he's pretty happy with himself for being able to cage you into the corner so efficiently.

"What are you—"

Jeonghan's lips are against yours before you can finish. His hand on your neck guides your movements to mimic his, tilting your head back. It's truly embarrassing how easily you melt against him.

He drops your wrist, letting his hand fall to your waist, pulling you flush against him. You brace your palms against his chest, fingers curling around the straps of his vest. You feel him smile into the kiss, slowly beginning to pull away and chuckling as you chase after his lips. In fact, you're so caught up in trying to grab at him that you're completely oblivious to how his hands have slipped away from their hold on you until it's too late.

You've not even had a second to recover before an electronic pew emits from Jeonghan's gun. A sad tune plays as your vest flashes red before going dark completely. Your jaw drops.

Shock.

Disbelief.

Betrayal.

Jeonghan's lips are pursed into a thin line, fighting back an evil smile.

"I'm gonna kill you."

Your threat is rather empty considering there's only a minute left in the game. And Jeonghan knows it. He just laughs, stuffing his hand into his pocket as he nonchalantly strides back to his base.

Cheater.

[starryredpandawrites]

The newest bendy bites be absolutely peak I’m all the more for it (I would love to rant forever about this but sadly sleep is needed for a brain to function so this will do)

First of - first Aid

The transition between food in the cycle and how it works for healing… (besides Henry… is not like this for some reason, he literally just has a passive constant healing effect in Batim it’s never acknowledged nor questioned even then Dark revival speaificly set up, idk if it will be the same in The Cage, admittedly kinda doubt it but it would be just an extra layer of fucked if Joey designed Henry to heal form his injuries at a rapid enough pace where he can get hurt, heal back up, and get hurt again without “dying”) gigantic rant aside. It’s unclear if the Ink demon can even get hurt physically enough for the sake of needing food to survive - or simply based of the fact he’s a gigantic ink monster that’s also a living breathing being that gets hungry and needs to eat a lot just to keep himself vigilant and perhaps not as “mindless” (cus like… he can’t starve to death, surely and sadly the Keepers would have found that out quickly) like say Batim pre “evolving”

It’s sadly not a topic that’s explored even then getting consumed is perma death in the cycle by itself (Inky, the widow king, Shipohoy Wilson & Steve respectively I belive to be the only ones we know can achieve this in DR)

My gibberish aside- Inky & Bendy would know that getting hurt in the cycle you’d need like a nice snack of a whole meal just to recover. Audery having fallen and scrapped up her knee on her way home from work and bleeding isn’t gonna magically fix itself in the real world. And that may very well take a good few attempts to really stick, yet even the cartoon logic and probably flexibility of Audrey’s body that few take advantage of will probably cause her to get less hurt but like… Shipohoy still snapped her legs at the top femur - bones are infact still in there. So Audrey would either have to teach him how wounds work, maybe some anatomy and what is really bad for a body to actually break or damaged and what is truely severe and what needs prioritizing (like how to hurt people who hurt his sister and make it hurt truely last)

Still, it could be something he’d mock her for probably in being clumsy and getting hurt, but I can also see him being worried about her for it. Not knowing what to do and feeling frustrated or helpless at food nor working anymore, so having to think and do other methods to ensure that she is safe and out of harms way. Could progress into learning more of the inner workings of animals to or simply Audery also returning the favors figuring out how to help Bendy in either of his form if he ever gets messed up. Just stuff like that

Thank you!!! I love rants but I'm glad you've chosen to prioritize sleep, haha. Also, these are good good thoughts, thank you for sharing 🥰

There would certainly be a tall learning curve for Bendy regarding injuries in the real world.

I imagine the Keepers would have done everything possible to kill Bendy and obviously it just doesn't work, including starvation. He doesn't need to eat, but he enjoys it a lot. It's his first and favorite hobby lol

He can get injured/stabbed/crushed but he heals really, really quickly. Like Henry, he would have a passive healing factor but much higher/faster. He doesn't have a lot of experience getting injured except for the Keepers.

I'm thinking he'll either have the same healing factor as in the ink world or it will be somewhat slowed. Leaning toward the latter because the idea of Audrey having to teach him first aid is cute. Imagine he trips and scrapes his knee and freaks out that he's still bleeding even tho it's been more than 2 seconds. He thinks he's dying and Audrey has to explain that injuries don't get magically healed here. She bandages his booboo and gives it a lil' kiss. Then, the next day it's her turn to be baffled because the injury is completely gone and she has to revise her statement about magical healing.

Imagine he actually believes her kiss healed him and she's just like, actually, I may have been wrong about you not being able to heal here, oops

Audrey is definitely more resilient than the average person but not invincible, like you said. She might able to bend her finger back pretty far but she still has bones that can break.

If Audrey ever got hurt he would totally do the thing where your sibling falls and your first reaction is to laugh your head off until you realize they're still on the ground and the worry hits. Then he would try to fix it by bringing her a snack. Audrey has to explain multiple times that injuries take time to heal in the outside world and he is very mad about it. Eventually, he would get used to it but secretly starts keeping a list of reasons the ink world is superior to the real world. He never shares it because it's a much shorter list than he expected.

Quick tangent, I don't think he's so naive that he wouldn't know what death is, but I do think he might forget how it works. Imagine he kills something, a bird or a deer and Audrey finds its half-eaten remains. She would scold him for being wasteful and he'd be like, If I eat all of it then it won't come back. Audrey has to remind him several times that death is permanent here and that deer isn't coming back no matter what.

Queue anxiety about Audrey permadying and she also has to remind him that the cycle is wayyyy more dangerous and that her chances of dying there (and possibly getting consumed) are way higher than in the real world.

Fun thoughts, thank you for the ask 🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍

[alsturnio]

ARE WE REALLY FRIENDS? part one

this story will contain angst and fluff. other tws will be mentioned later

NOBODIES POV

y/n stirred from sleep as the soft rays of the sun filtered through the curtains of her room. rubbing her eyes, she reluctantly peeled herself from the warmth of her bed and stretched. with a yawn, y/n sat up, glancing at the clock beside her bed. "7:00 AM," the clock read. she mentally prepared to get ready for the long work day ahead of her. she had lived with the triplets, which was helpful, but them and y/n had to go to a meeting discussing a future tour. swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, y/n planted her feet on the cool hardwood floor and with a deep breath, she shook off the last remnants of sleep and pushed herself to get up and out of bed.

her room was bathed in a soft, golden light, casting a warm glow over her room. poster adorned the walls, polaroids of her and her friends hung on a string of lights, and a cluttered desk stood in one corner.

y/n shuffled across the room, her steps still heavy with sleep, and made her way to the bathroom. splashing her face with cold water. she then brushed her teeth and headed over to her closet to pick her outfit. she chose something simple, since she was just having a meeting and could do the rest of work from home. she threw on a pair of black varsity fresh love sweatpants, a brand that one of her bestfriends, chris, made and designed. she threw on a sweater and made her way downstairs. and was greeted my a familiar face, chris.

“hey sleepyhead” chris giggled while y/n shuffled over to the pantry. “shut up” she replied hiding a smile. “i hate how early this meeting is, laura couldn’t have made it 8 PM instead?!”. “you’ll be fineee” chris said dragging out the e.

CHRIS’ POV

me, my brothers, and y/n were heading to an 8 am meeting, i could tell y/n was not very excited, but honestly, who was. all we were gonna do is discuss a possible tour in the near future. i wish it was later in the day because im so tired from filming last night.

i sat in the back of the car with my bestfriend y/n. y/n is the one person i can really talk to and not feel judged, she is the only person who actually understands me. of course, me and my brothers have an amazing relationship but with y/n it’s just different. i have lots of other friends like nate and madi but y/n is definitely my closest friend, i mean, she lives with us after all. i slowly feel myself start to doze of so i just lay my head on y/ns shoulder. i felt her body tense up but it’s probably because she wasn’t expecting it so it just shocked her.

Y/N POV

chris just layed his head on me. i know what your thinking “y/n he’s your bestfriend it’s not a big deal”. yeah, he’s my bestfriend, but try bestfriend that you have had a major secret crush on for the past few months. at first i thought it was just our bond growing but it feels like chris is getting more touchy and it’s hard to tell but it feels like he’s trying to flirt with me. i could be overthinking all of this but it’s really stressing me out. i don’t know what happened to suddenly make me feel this way towards chris but it’s definitely hit me like a truck. the only person who knows is madi, she’s another one of mine and the triplets friends, i’m pretty close with her, but definitely not as close as i am with chris. i wish i could tell nick or matt about my crush but they might get super mad.

we arrive at the meeting and madi sits next to me. “sooo, how was the car ride with your boyfriendddd” madi said in a mocking voice, giggling. i shush her and say “he isn’t my boyfriend,stop! pay attention to the meeting.” while laughing. madi laughs and just directs her attention back to everybody else.

we finished the meeting and now heading back to the triplets house, chris sat in the front on the way back and i was kinda sad. we invited madi to come over but she was busy. i was pretty bummed until i got a text from her.

madz🤍

chris was staring at you, like the whole meeting girl.👀

y/n💗

ugh stop feeding into my delusions😥 no he was nottt!

madz🤍

i’m literally not kidding, i wish i had a pic

y/n💗… is typing

stop because i’ll scream bu-

my typing was interrupted by my phone getting snatched out of my hands. “hey, who ya texting, they got you smiling all goofy” chris said while taking my phone. “STOP GIVE IT BACK.” i said trying my best to lean forward so i could reach him in the front seat. but he was holding it too far away.

[fountainpenguin]

"Picture of your face in an invisible locket... I had a bad feeling. But we were dancin'... swaying as the room burned down." (x)

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New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 32 - “Starve (Etho, Scott)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

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I am once again bringing you scenes of Etho cuddling up to SnifferMyFeet while Sniff growls reminders that even though he has Joel's memories and misses being Boat Boys, he wants Etho to treat him as a separate person.

If I had a nickel for every chapter Etho's touched this man and thought of Joel, I would have 8 nickels. I'd have 40 cents. That's as much as 1/4 of our story. And that's terrible.

#smalletho - Etho once again working through his touch starvation and Boat Boys Issues™ Many references to Joel, but he doesn't appear. Large flashbacks of him and Etho in next week's chapter, though! <3

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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This preview section jumps into shippy vibes- Proceed at own discretion.

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Etho - Fox

Status: Holding out a hand

Self-taught programmer, full-time hero

💙  🧡  💚

So, uh. That string tidying, huh? You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you want to do that with an endermite hybrid. They're the best in the business and they'll mock you the whole time you set up. Sniff's smug and giggly about it, too, as Etho pushes him down on the bed and hangs back to study him. He's really tattered the code on the bottoms of his bare feet. I mean, shoe code gets tattered too, but usually those soft parts of a skin design hurt more.

"You gonna use your mouth?" Sniff asks, eyeing him up.

"In a shocking turn of events, the programmer has tools for fixing loose code. They're in the other room." Etho takes Sniff's wrists and pins them above his head for a second, then takes his ankles and stretches them out. Classic textbook pose for the work, even though they'll probably move to the carpet for obvious reasons before they start; he doesn't need weak pixels dropped all over his bed. "Stay," he commands, and Sniff sticks out his tongue and double flips him off without moving his arms. So Etho can't be mad.

But he does lean over, sliding one hand beneath Sniff's cheek, easing it behind his head. He curls it back around and lifts it just enough to scrape his palm across Sniff's brow, beneath his floppy dark brown hair. It's thick and feels like swamp plants in his hands. He still smells like well-treated water. Chlorine. Like one of Gluon's hotel builds with the fancy pools. Or the waterpark server. Never did find out why. Etho breathes against him without pulling back. Despite the wet scents, Sniff's warm soul's like fresh-baked bread against his hand.

"Oh my goodness… You're so pretty. You are so pretty…"

The metaphorical light fades from Sniff's mismatched eyes. Etho pulls back, waiting for a pinch or slap. Sniff turns his face away. Only his Joel side's visible at this angle as he squirms. "Get your eyes checked, Eefo… I saw my reflection when I got my water. I'm stitched together with hand-me-down parts. You don't mean that."

"What if I do, though?" He crouches lower by the bed, bringing a hovering thumb to Sniff's scalp. Sniff glances at him, then away. So Etho breaks that barrier. Slowly, the thick part of his hand eases down to touch Sniff's head. Sniff scrunches up his eyes again, giving the faintest little nod. Etho holds very still a few seconds (Sniff's pixels are so loose on his skin, which was the whole point of this cleaning project anyway) before he speaks again. "I'm sorry you can't see that yet. Body issues are tough; I've got issues too. Sometimes my fox traits get away from me… Been thinking about modding out, but it takes centuries of paperwork." His next stroke of hand (a circle on his head) is firmer, sharper, and Sniff mutters something under his breath as his cheeks freckle up with blue again. Cute. "If it were legal, I'd probably just unthread. I'd miss the bullet paths, but you make vex life look so easy. So good." He draws his hand around in one last loop, then eases it down Sniff's cheek (on his Grian side) to his neck. "Hey, take a closer look next time you're out. There's a lot of interesting people out there. Some wear faces that aren't even humanoid. Have you met MumboDrone or iCam? … And you know, it's just a skin."

Sniff putters his lips, staring towards the ceiling. His fingers lift, dancing across the backs of Etho's knuckles. "You just want me to stay late again. Gods, you're so lonely… Listen, fella- I know my strings are a wreck. I was an endermite before a vex; be pretty messed up if I couldn't tell. I'll let you clean me up, but I'm not playing sleepover. You can't make me."

"Mmhm." Oh man, I want to press my head on yours. He really wants to, noses brushing, hair tufts scraping, but he refrains, you know. He's kneeling, balanced on his heels, and Sniff's saying 'Yes' to the hand but looking unsure. So he won't. "Stay as long as you want to. Just let me clean your code and then you can leave. I promise I won't be mad."

"You smell like bread dough…"

"Yeah? My code wouldn't taste too good right now. Squeaky clean."

"Oh, that's too bad." Absentminded. Distracted. Etho eases back his fingers.

"Are you okay?"

Sniff clicks into focus again and then swishes up, sitting on the bed instead of lying down. "Yeah, thanks. I'm good, actually. The water helped."

"All right. I'll be right back with the cleaning stuff." He leaves without another touch, pausing only to switch off the portal still glowing in the corner. He leaves the desk lantern glowing like it is. It's fun, in the dark. The light's so low, it's like a fox's den in here.

The nice thing about being a programmer? He has no end of scrapers and combs to choose from. He pays the living room a visit to get the tray from the coding desk's drawer and some rolled-up pieces of carpet (ignoring the less than subtle smirks Beef and Pause give him as he strolls by). Etho brings the whole tray to his room and sits on the bed with Sniff, just talking to him and explaining how effective these tools are for different things. Sniff seems to recognize a lot of them, which is no surprise, honestly. Since Joel doesn't do logouts, he has a whole cleaning routine. It takes him forever.

"You know," Sniff says, digging through the tray, "using combs is cheating, actually. I can do the cleaning with my teeth still attached. I bet foxes can too. I mean, it's code work; all the code-eating species can do it." He flicks his gaze to Etho, who kneels across from him, tail waving in the air. Etho doesn't answer, so Sniff goes on. "You know what's fun? 'mite bundles."

"'mite bundles,'" Etho repeats. "Like… Endermites inside a bundle? Is that fun? That's a new one to me." Where is he going with this?

"Yeah, it's when you put endermites in with some of your supplies and go out on adventures. When you want your supplies, you have to dump everything on the ground and try to use your stuff without getting bit. If you get bit, you have to send your coords to server chat. Easy way to get killed, so you'd better not. You can play it in Between, too. Pig has an endermite living in his studio. For every time it bites him, he has to keep his weapons in a chest for an hour when he gets home. It means I can do whatever I want to him, really. Usually he just runs. Sometimes we duke it out bare-fisted. Have you ever seen him with a black eye and a tooth knocked out? Just me, I guess- It probably doesn't carry when he leaves the server. He looks so goofy when he smiles; I'm chuffed to bits with that. Gods, you wouldn't believe the bruise he left on me this one time he pushed me off an end ship. He smirked about it for days, no joke. No, actually. Can't believe his head even fit outside the server."

Etho smirks back, hidden in the mask and hidden by his fingertips. His chin rests against his hand. "What'd you do to him? You didn't let him get away with that, did you?"

"Hell no! I picked up a shulker and I slammed him on the head with it. I bet you didn't even know you can peel 'em off the wall- they're so clingy. What'd he do then? I think he put down a bed and blew himself up trying to get me with it. Oh, he's so lame. I like him so much."

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[kob131]

Okay, I know this is gonna sound petty and ridiculous but fuck me, give me this.

I dunno if I've ever stated why I dislike the hype around Palworld so much.

From what I've observed, it seems like a bitch basic survival game with unoriginal monster designs. It also seems to be inconsistently buggy as shit, since apparently you can still end up with the game crashing to desktop on launch and there's a bug that causes you to DELETE YOUR SAVE DATA that's been in the game since launch. I know this, I check the reviews regularly. But the unoriginality to the point of absurdity, the lack of any kind of polish and the numerous bugs seem to all be excused because 'GAME FUN!' It doesn't matter if the game would have been mocked if it were ripping off a different artstyle; or if the game is the quintessential cheap knock off of other popular Steam game (Ark) or if the game is the THIRD Early Access game going onto FOURTH from a developer that hasn't even finished their FIRST open world, 3D survival crafting game with monster collecting (Craftopia): It's all okay because 'GAME FUN!' and 'IT MAKE POKEMON FRESH AND FUN AGAIN!'

... You know. The exact same arguments given by SCARLET AND VIOLET FANS.

Yeah, this is why I hate the hype so much. Because I spent time trying to understand and get why people hated SV so much despite liking the game a lot. Promoting criticism of the game's bugs despite not GETTING those bugs myself. Trying to give credit to people who annoyed the piss out of me- Turns out I was giving too much credit. Because they went ahead and gulped down the SV slop just under a different name and genre.

Same issue. Same defenses. If you removed the subject from their defenses, I don't think I could differentiate between a Palworld and a Pokemon SV defender.

I love SV. I put more time into that game than even Pokemon Black, despite the fact that I fucking hated that game as a kid by the 300 hour mark vs. SV still being fun to me after 500+ hours. But yes- the games should NOT have released in the state they did. In fact, they probably needed more than a year of development because the artstyle of the game isn't very cohesive and would have made it look like shit 5 years from now without the cohesion every OTHER game had.

But apparently all my efforts were pointless because all GF had to do to get people slurping their dicks was publish SV under a different name and studio and market it as 'Fuck Pokemon'.

Because this fanbase has no standards, just blind spite and nostalgia.

[blueberrywhale123]

Guess what I watched?!

This was sooooooooo amazing! A beautiful story and a wonderful cinematic experience honestly! Not to sound like a movie reviewer 😅 I just want to gush.

I was totally not interested the first few times the trailer popped up on my ad feed on youtube but the first time I sat down to actually look at the trailer I was hit with the colors and the designs and suddenly I was six-years-old sitting with my dad while he showed me and my four-year-old brother our first piece of transformers media. It was an old cartoon with the bots on cybertron and I never really got something like that again with the other movies or shows that came out aside from the ones one find after digging.

So I instantly decided that even just for nostalgia's sake I would go see it and I was dragging my siblings with me. Even if the movie was a horrible cash grab that turned the characters into unrecognizable slapstick jokesters I would watch it because I wanted to be six-years-old again.

But!!!

LO AND BEHOLD this was incredible! Right from the start when they showed and talked about Primus being the planet I felt hope rising in my chest (MY EXPECTATIONS WERE ON THE FLOOR OKAY) And it just KEPT GETTING BETTER!

Ik from the trailers it seems so silly and stupid but it's NOT! This movie (imo) knows exactly when to be funny and when to be serious. It is for kids - don't expect anything super grown-up - but don't expect something that's aimed for a three-year-old.

Orion Pax (Optimus) and D-16 (Megatron) were the beating heart of this film in my opinion. I was gut wretched watching their friendship deteriorate and seeing Megatron slowly be born. I told my brother as we sat in that theater (which was 98% empty btw😭) that I really thought that the creative team really seemed to love Megatron because there was so much care put into his character and his change wasn't mocked or incomprehensible - I understood him the whole time even as I hated watching the downfall.

And ORION! He was amazing! I loved watching him go from a cocky selfish little guy to this inspiring leader. Even before the main conflict pushes him into the forefront as a leader you can see these hints of that quick-thinking and desire to protect those around him. The aspects of a leader are there - they just needed the right circumstances to pull them out.

There were so many of my babies in it too! It was nice to hear Bumblebee talk!!!! And he was precious! Elita was nice even tho I will admit that I'm not super deep into Transformers so I wasn't truly familiar with her. But I just about jumped out of my seat seeing Starscream, Soundwave, and Shockwave on screen talking and just being soooooo cool! They could just stand there and I would have been in heaven (not really that would have been a disservice to them but besides the point!)

ARCEE WAS THERE!!! I WAS SO HAPPY!!! Me and my brothers were scouring for Ironhide and Rachet and we were grinning like idiots when we saw Jazz oh my gosh! I'm pretty sure that we saw Cliffjumper too!

And Ariachnid was sooooooo scary my gosh I was so happy!

This just felt like a film that truly cared and loved and RESPECTED the source material!

Anyways I'm writing this because I think people need to watch it. It's good even if you don't know a thing about transformers too! My little sister came with and loved the movie even though she's probably seen 1/4 of a transformers movie. I know I'm no bigshot poster so it's not gonna reach a lot of people but if any little bit counts then ...