#send me thoughts and ideas!

[demaparbat-hp]

Them sleeping together (not sexually)! Thank you so much for feeding me with those gorgeous arts. Love you so so so much❤️

It's a long way to Ba Sing Se.

[cubedmango]

「安達が魔法使いにならなかった世界線の話」 + 「もしもの話」 — english translation

[funkbun]

a classic hector blunder

[st4rking]

tfw you, as a mind reader, have to team up with a man who thinks too much

Slight spoilers in tags

[thesunnys1deup]

I was genuinely bawling my eyes out when I drew these, it's crazy man I haven't cried in MONTHS Anyways, remember to be kind and patient with yourself if you're going through a rough patch. And let your friends know if you're feeling bummed out or lonely while dealing with this rough patch alright?

[laser-tripwires]

alright, R3 trailer analysis time. strap in.

y'all thought i was kidding about doing a shot-for-shot breakdown of this thing? i wasn't. let's go.

alright so we open on hardison walking down a hallway, tossing his phone from one hand to another (some things never change), looking up, and unlocking a door. from the jump, this is interesting - hardison is very present in this trailer, but we know from Aldis's recent comments in interviews that he's not going to be in this season a ton. i'll talk more on that later.

he opens the door to find parker hanging upside-down over a display case holding a small golden owl - we see later it's the target of their heist. she tells him not to trigger the floor alarms (once again, some things never change). we cut away before we can see hardison's reaction, but given as Sophie has the owl later on in the trailer we can infer that things went within some measure of fine.

exterior shot now, of what looks like the louvre - the alarm sounds could be hardison setting off the floor sensors but i honestly doubt it and i think we can chalk it down to trailer editing; again, given as we see them attempting an on-foot exit with the owl later on in the trailer, i think what goes wrong isn't the owl stealing but is something else. we'll refer back to this image a good few times as the trailer goes on.

so, what does this tell us so far? a few things. one, they're in paris, which means that so far this is from the pilot episode - parker and hardison are dressed as waiters, put a pin in it. it's very likely that this is right at the beginning of the show, and the trailer is going to stay with this plotline for a while. right now, i'm very much just recapping what's shown on screen here, but that'll change as we start throwing in more elements and stuff to chew on. stay with me, this post is long, and this is just part one.

okay, so, cut to a grey bakery van speeding down the street. which immediately raises some questions - we know from the mastermind job that the team do have brick & basil trucks in paris. this is either a stolen vehicle for a getaway or there's something else going on.

sophie, eliot and parker are inside the truck. sophie's wearing a blue suit and eliot's in a dark checked shirt and black tee - again, put a pin in it, we're gonna be using outfits to pinpoint down some stuff as the episode progresses.

then, eliot says "We gotta find a way out of Paris, now." - which again confirms to me that this is from the pilot episode. i didn't go to electriccon, but i'd bet any amount of money that these outfits are the same as the ones they were wearing in the opening scene of R3x1 shown there.

i think it's really interesting that eliot says they need a way out of paris - not france, not this car chase. he doesn't say they need to lose these guys or that they need to get out of the country; apparently, whoever's chasing them is looking in paris specifically.

cool wing mirror shot of the dudes chasing them - black cars, guns, shooting, bullets bouncing off of the back of the crew's truck. oh boy. dunno about y'all, but these guys do not look like museum security to me. couple more shots of the car chase next, which i ain't posting here because quite frankly tumblr's image limit already wants me dead.

we're on a public road and france has pretty damn strict gun laws - narrows it down to law enforcement (no uniforms, no insignias, so possible but unlikely), organised crime (afaik we've never pissed off anyone in the wider paris area, but it doesn't rule it out) or private security. they're probably private security.

parker swerves, while sophie and eliot get thrown around. once again, some things never change. we get the start of a line from parker in the audio. i'll talk about it in a sec.

it's from here that, for me, this is going to imminiently all stop being straightforward. welcome to the next several thousand words of your life, entitled Lottie Bitches About Trailer Editing.

we get a better look at the guys shooting at them, now. definitely not law enforcement - but those are leather jackets and jeans rather than the nice pressed suits that RiZ and their ilk likes to put guys in. whoever this is, they're either ameteur (unlikely), organised crime (again raises the question of "who") or well trained and trying to blend in (raises questions about the firefight in the middle of a street). the team are in trouble.

but i'll also point something out - we can see from the angle here that these dudes have handguns. to quote everyone's favourite murder encyclopedia: "A handgun is unreliable over the distance from the street."

whoever these guys are, if they're trying to take out the team, they very probably weren't expecting their attempt to escalate to a car chase.

now, we see parker saying the line that started in audio a few seconds back - "This was supposed to be a quick little weekend heist." she's in the same outfit and appears to be in the same truck, so this is from the same episode, but those of you paying attention will have noticed the sudden apperance of a hardison directly behind her, and some white sheet thingies that weren't in the last shot. this isn't in the same immediate continuity as what we've just seen.

given as we see in a few secs that hardison was in the back(?) of the truck during eliot's lil fight scene, i'm imagining this line is from after eliot's done his lil fight. it's a great example of the kinds of trick edits we're about to see a lot of throughout this trailer, and if you weren't paying attention you'd think this would be one continuous scene.

next is more of the car chase. car chase is car chasing. i'm remembering the S5 and R2 trailers - speeding vehicles make for good television, apparently. makes for fluff for my post, though, and image limit. so. i'll just say that we didn't see roadworks on the last wideshot we got, so confirms that this chase is long and covering some ground. seems like a basic thing to point out, but as we've already seen with that parker line - trailer editing is deceptive. that's why i've been stating the obvious so much; the more baseline reality we can establish, the stronger a foundation we have for when the trick edits get worse later on. i told you this post would be a lot of me bitching about trailer edits.

alright, eliot awesome time now! and our next line: "Drop me off." he's still in the front of the truck right now, provided that bit of webbing we see next to him is the same bit of webbing we can see behind parker and hardison for the 'quick little weekend heist' line. so this probably - probably - comes imminently after the 'we need to get out of paris' bit earlier. i have no idea what he's lifting here - some kind of sack or cardboard box? unclear.

we hear eliot say "This won't take long." it's in VO - but probably continues on from the last line. trucks stops, cars pull up. notable that the dudes leaning out the windows with handguns are now inside the cars, assuming that this comes after that bit of the car chase, which i think it likely does. pretty reasonable to assume that the next bits are all in order.

black screen, punch dude into car door, black screen. fun trailer editing for emphasis! this goon is wearing a beanie and a similar black jacket to the other guys, though his isn't leather. given the door he's stepping out of, it's likely that he was the driver who we couldn't see in the previous shots.

BADASS CAR SLIDE. this dude is one of the ones we saw shooting earlier - and, fun fact, this was the first screen any of us saw for R3. last filmed scene; most of the show was filmed in order with the pilot first, but some of the stunt stuff takes longer so they just gave up and flew everyone out to belgrade for this bit specifically, given as the electric entertainment folks had to be there for filming The Librarians: The Next Chapter anyway. if you go looking i think christian still has a video up on his facebook with the stunt coordinator from when they wrapped this.

another black screen then, because trailer editing. gunshot sound effect but we see that eliot's fine. still on the same dude here but a few seconds later in the fight, eliot slams him into the car. dude falls, fade to black, and then we cut to eliot opening the truck door (presumably just after this fight, given how haggered he looks) and we get what's easily the funniest line in the trailer from hardison: "There's my special little guy. How was your first day at school? Did you make any friends?"

...and a facial expression from eliot that i can only describe as 'dammit hardison'.

cut back to our louvre image, now in red and surrounded by some other pictures (we can see the eiffel tower, a skyscraper that turns up later in the trailer, the nola headquarters and a river i can't quite place yet) - this red and teal blue seems to be the colour scheme for all the promo this season. text sliding of "The Team Is Back" turning into "The Scheme Team Is Back" - first time i saw this i was expecting us to go into a bunch of different team nicknames, but we don't. which makes this interesting, because we haven't ever heard that moniker for the crew. i like it, it's cute!

from here, the trailer changes slightly and we go from an almost-chronological throughplay of the pilot into an avalance of clips from the season as a whole. means my job gets a lot harder. but on the plus side, cool titlecards for everyone! this is actually the most we get to see of random miscellanious episodes, so make the most of it.

first up, sophie! blowing out some kind of insence match thing, wearing a hippie-style denim dress reminiscent of tara's outfit in the future job. doesn't exactly narrow down what the grift is, because this kind of personality will be of great use in many circumstances, but means we're for sure in for a fun ride.

next up is parker and this is where stuff gets complicated.

there's a number of things here. one, parker's sniffing money - obvious, adorable, once again some things never change. two, she's in a blue waistcoat and shirt with a red bowtie, which we'll see her and hardison in multiple times throughout this trailer, making the second distinct plotline we can kinda almost follow.

the question of when in the show this is from is up in the air - but, given as among other things that stack of bills parker's got her nose in appear to be €200 notes, i'm currently guessing it's also the premiere. we'll keep looking back for this as time goes on. with the exception of some scattered clips, there really doesn't appear to be that many episodes mixed in to this trailer. i'm reminded that the s2 of a show called The Ark, an electric entertaiment show that came out last year, mixed up basically only the first three episodes and the finale for it's trailer (with again the exception of some scattered clips). we know hardison is in the premiere, episode two (put a pin in it) and probably the finale. i'm going to keep coming back to this because it's by far the most interesting question in this trailer, and luckily also one that we'll probably get an answer for relatively soon.

nothing unusual in the next few shots.

we've just a grumpy eliot in his natural habitat of punching people in what appears to be a kitchen. like sophie's, this isn't an outfit we see elsewhere in the trailer so we can assume it's from one of the as-of-yet-inscrutable midseason episodes. the apron eliot's wearing has a fleur-de-lis on it, meaning this is either in france or nola and because of the aforementioned non-reccuring of this outfit with the information i currently have i'd say it's just a random shot from some episode down the line.

next is bree, bree, my darling bree. we do not get enough of her and harry in this trailer (explained partly by electriccon peeps telling us that the two of them aren't in at least the opening of the premiere episode). nice to see she's still got the ace sticker on her laptop that she had last season.

then harry, playing what looks to be pool or snooker in a dark room. we see later on in the trailer that the team has installed a red games table, so it's likely that like breanna's titlecard this is at the nola headquarters. i'll be honest, when i saw this i almost reflexively ticked off the "harry does a terrible accent" square of my bingo board.

it was at this point when writing this post that i hit tumblr's image limit for the first time, and realised that that was going to be a problem. last and certainly not least of the title cards come hardison - in the same silly blue waistcoat thing as parker. we're going to come back to this exact shot later with a dialogue line, so i won't say much on it now.

cut to hardison at a briefing saying "We fix things," and a reaction shot of the crew, which we can tell is a straight shot reverse shot because of sophie's shirt. hardison's line continues on in VO with: "We stop bad guys nobody stops." behind him, we can see two headlines, one that's presumably 'lawsuit to be heard in court' and another that's 'activist strikes [...] blow for local [...]'. standard briefing, with the glaring exceptions of the fact that A) hardison is basically begging here - no reason for a big speech like this unless he's asking them something extremely important and B) eliot's in an arm sling. put a pin in it, we'll come back.

the next couple of shots are a blowoff and a seemingly unrelated moment of parker and harry saluting to someone offscreen.

the bad guy getting put in a car by some cops is actually the moment in this trailer i'm the most confident on. poster in the background says rio de janeiro, which is interesting. a while back, john rogers said on social media that they did an episode on water shortages in central/south america; i'm betting that's this dude. in terms of what episode, the premiere has a credit for "rio pedestrian", but given as that seems to be solidly set in paris i don't really know. cool that my stalking of a showrunner's bluesky has for once provided some useful foresight, though.

now for parker and harry here, which seems to be disconnected from our previous shot. harry's in his regular lawyer suit, but - as many people have pointed out - parker's costume here is extremely reminiscent of her MiB look from the first contact job. even the same hair. it's a cool look. she and harry are also saluting, which just raises... so, so, so many questions. i'm open to any theories or ideas people have for this - personally i'm just praying for another top secret government agents con.

alright next up is the most solidly baffling sequence of editing in the entire goddamn trailer, according to me. i'm taking this a little bit out of order so i can explain properly.

so, wideshot, eliot and harry playing pool/snooker (seriously someone tell me how to tell the difference) on the new table. breanna's talking, i'll go into what she says in a sec when i move into talking about the con. we cut from there to harry and sophie and then to bree putting some stuff on the screen (pin. it.) and then to sophie wondering what she's going to wear.

now.

notice anything?

bing bing bing! that's right, the random sophie and harry reaction shot has harry and sophie in completely different outfits than all the surrounding shots. why? fuck you! no idea. i did say that this post would be mostly me bitching about trailer edits. see why i made a whole point about establishing baseline reality? yeah.

right, let's talk now about the stuff breanna throws up on the screen, because it's some of the most interesting shit in the trailer:

"The scum of the scum," huh? we've got location markers on five dudes here - one unknown, one in transit maked over nola, and then guys in paris, montreal and karachi. paris, makes sense. nola, makes lots of sense. montreal and karachi? we've never so much as mentioned either of those cities.

this is clearly a breifing from some episode that we don't have a whole lot of information on. the dude located in paris makes me think it's somehow connected to the pilot episode, but i couldn't tell you how.

next shot, a sign saying mumbai airport, and sophie stepping out of a car in a blue summery dress in front of an airplane hangar. given as mumbai isn't really anywhere near any of the cities the bad guys from a second ago were hanging around, i'm willing to bet that this is an entirely different episode. we do come back to it once or twice throughout the trailer, though, so keep your eyes peeled.

right. the next sequence is A) important and B) fast, so i'm going to tackle it all in one block.

we've got a wideshot of a skyscraper with what looks to be the golden gate bridge in the background (making me think this is san fransisco, though it could just be a generic bridge). from there, we zoom in through the windows to parker dancing through some red lasers before reaching a keypad and pulling her balaclava off with an "I'm in."

now. a few things.

one, we've only seen red lasers once, and we've only seen parker run a solo break-in in a balaclava once. both happened in the inside job - the lasers in archie's flashback, and the balaclava as the episode opens. obviously, those are both aesthetic things, and given as parker's talking on her earbud we know she's probably with the team here. but it for sure pings my 'this is from a parker episode' spidey senses, especially given as - with the singular exception of that very crucial flashback - all the laser tripwires we've seen in the leverage franchise so far have been blue.

(oh and so i don't forget - @independent-fics sent me an ask saying that this scene looked like it was in the nola HQ, but i honestly think that's just them using it as a filming studio. won't be the first or the last time, and the zoom in from the skyscraper sure implied this was an external con. sorry.)

right, so, we've almost reached the bit of this trailer with actual. y'know. themes. i told you we'd come back to that hardison shot i skipped over earlier!

"I don't wanna do this anymore."

"You don't wanna crime anymore?"

and just. wow. yeah. so, we're in those blue waistcoats - meaning once again that i think this is either episode one or the finale, though e2 is still also a possibility (i'll explain why later). that's the same safe parker was standing in front of for her titlecard, so i think this probably takes place a few seconds prior to the liberation of those euros from earlier.

i wish we saw hardison's response to this. we're setting up a proper big arc for parker this season, from the looks of it. the question of retiring is one hardison's answered before - he's gone on record saying he never wants to get married, could never retire. i reckon that those things might both have changed, especially if the electriccon folks are right with the proposal spec. given as we do see parker happily pull that money out not long later, whatever he says can't be that devastating. i guess we'll find out.

but, speaking of devastating...

"I don't like watching someone I care about take punches meant for me."

now. before i dig into the meaning of that - and i will, i'm trying to analyse as well as summarise here - let's just look at the facts of the scene. given the outfits and the fact they're in headquarters, i think this is pretty soon after hardison's breifing that we saw earlier. because it's thus also probably the start of an episode (or possibly the end of the premiere?) that again narrows us down to pilot, e2 (THE PIN IS THERE I WILL GET TO IT I PROMISE) or finale. i'm saying e2 at this point, tentatively. depends on if we see eliot being injured or not.

oki-dokey, time for the analysis. i've had quite lengthy conversations about this with both @ghostlyarchaeologist and @aardvaark (and plagurised said conversations heavily in this section), and we're all kinda coming to the conclusion that... well, yeah. let's look at it from eliot's side: he didn't expect to live this long. no-one expected him to live this long.

i'm remembering the drop in sophie's face after the big tearful til my dying day thing in long goodbye. she knows eliot's gonna die for them. eliot knows it too. he's okay with that, he's not happy with it but it's as good an ending as he can hope for. and now we're over ten years later and "I'm afraid there's no such thing as a fair fight anymore." no-one can take him out. eliot knows how good he is but the truth is that he's goooood. and he's lucky, and he's smart, and he's surrounded by loved ones. he could grow old. this doesn't have to end on the wrong side of a bullet or a punch or a knife.

but in order for that to happen, he needs to let himself rest. which he won't, because there's always more to do. maria's right - he thinks that as long as there are bad people doing bad things, he doesn't deserve to be happy. maybe that's not how he consciously would explain it, but it's sure the rulset he's been living off for the last while, since we ticked over some imaginary expiration date. and it sucks, even if he's not really wholly in the wrong.

you noticed now that we're briefly cutting back to the first fight scene we saw, with eliot against the goons in paris and an unfun looking punch in the gut. if this brief montage is intending to show causality, then it again implies that this hardison scene is at the end of e1 or sometime in e2, especially given the following scene being our blue waistcoats again, and my current bet that those are premiere outfits. for something more fun, have hardison failing a vulcan nerve pinch:

i love the incredulous look on the guy's face. not how you do it, hardison! we can see parker breaking into a safe in the background here (or possibly breaking out of the room they're in?) and luckily for our overenthusiastic trekkie, eliot swoops in once hardison's down.

note: the arm eliot's using here is the one that doesn't end up in a sling. if my guesses are right about the ordering of all this and this is e1 with hardison's breifing being end of e1 or the beginning of e2, then this makes sense with eliot's arm injured in a preceeding fight. although, again, with nothing solid to tie the blue waistcoat continuity to any other scenes, we can't know for sure.

"Seriously dude, you try the Vulcan Spock thing again?"

"It's gon' work one of these days."

(not if you do it like you just did, it won't.)

and with that, i'm going to finish off part one here - there's a minute left of the trailer but i'm a little bit sick of dodging around tumblr's image limit! we've still got a lot of ground to cover, including a truly ridiculous number of parker awesome moments and a few returns to a lot of stuff we've already covered so far (i promise i will take out all those imaginary pins).

endless thankyous to everyone who chipped in with help and theories and rubber ducking and more than a few sanity checks - @lindseymcdonaldseyelashes also deserves a mention because any time i'm citing electriccon i owe my info to her. part two can be found here. i've been lottie, my main is @the-tomorrow-road, and you can follow me here for endless streams of leverage crazy. the con is on!

[nibbelraz]

if sqh has god powers still its entirely accidental. something he previously never explored in writing and never thought about but 'has an answer to'. one day one of the an ding kids is reading smth and they ask him about it cause shizun knows a lot of random stuff! and hes like hm oh yeah the thousand petal flower of adoration can also be cured by exposure to sunlight ahah its like a sunflower. of course no one wants to read about *sunbathing* though so- ah dont mind his ramblings. the words in the book change. well. ok guess we should ask him about more things. see what they can subtly change themselves via shizuns weird word powers (esp as they're the ones who are probably exposed to it the most as the sect pack mules). qingfang is still super fucking pissed. THOSE BOOKS CHANGED A F T E R HIS EDUCATION-

IM OBSESSED WITH THE IDEA HE'S JUST ACCIDENTALLY CHANGING SHIT THAT WAS ALREADY FILLED IN BY THE SYSTEM. Because we'll he's the original God before the system took over so technically if he decides what something is officially the world has to go by God's words right?

I'm also crying at the fact he has NO idea this is happening and that the disciples have figured this out first, but they not only don't tell him, they go see how far they can get away with it.

I feel like this is gonna end with Shen Qingqiu finding out because he would definitely learn more stuff about the world first and then realizing certain things have been changed when he KNEW IT WASN'T

The potential tho for Mu Qingfang to be death staring down Shang Qinghua to change how certain things are cured, but they were there in the original text, so...those are a bit harder to change then when they were autofulled by the system- and then Qingqiu and Qingfang beat him

[himbohysterectomy]

clinical trial (game) spoilers

firstly before anyone gets mad at me for policing their enjoyment/engagement with a piece of media this is NOT the intention here, do whatever you want forever and have fun ok? keep doing what you're doing so long as you aren't hurting anybody.

Also this is mostly about fanart cause I don't really read fic so idk how applicable it is over there but it still might be, idk.

_

I have noticed an overwhelming amount of sappy flowery fanart of lee and angel from clinical trial just being cute and lovey and it is strange to me. it feels to me like glossing over the actually interesting substance of the game in favour of generic wholesome content instead.

like i 100% understand the appeal stemming from that desire to be wanted and desired so intensely or even obsessively as well as that desire to feel protected by someone, and in turn wanting it to end up being healthy and wholesome and working out for the both of them. but I feel like what that ends up with in most of the fanart i see is just like. a normal ass couple?

of course we are set up to see the characters and their interactions as very cute and wholesome. and they are! it works wonderfully for setting up that gut-punch of a twist towards the end of the game. they spend a very long time building up to it and it works very well and is well worth the wait.

but like. hello. did we all forget the horror elements of this cute little horror game?

lee is obsessed with angel. he kept angels gum. angels blood. angels hair (which btw, when/where did he acquire that much hair?? lol). he made a doll of angel (which to be fair to him when you actually hear him out it is probably the most reasonable and wholesome part of that whole shrine). he for sure fucked that jacket. he took multiple pictures of angel out and about, meaning that be absolutely, undoubtedly stalked angel. he killed for angel and did not regret it one bit even when he was confronted about it.

him keeping the gum from the week 2 appointment means that at the very latest he became obsessed with angel the second time that they ever saw each other. we have no idea how long he was stalking angel for.

there is zero chance in my mind that their relationship would be healthy and wholesome, at least not all the time. even if they work on shit together and lee actually seeks therapy they're not gonna just... fix each other with the power of love.

frankly lee is unwell and does not know how to form healthy relationships. he could mask that side of himself pretty well during their appointments but even still not perfectly. if they move in together it's going to be a lot more difficult to keep himself in check all of the time and not be Kinda Weird about angel sometimes. there were already some red flags when they only saw each other once a week.

ultimately, it isn't that i want people to stop drawing wholesome and sweet accept ending fanart of clinical trial. of course not!

what i'm getting at is that i wanna see more freak shit!!! get fucky with it!!! draw them being obsessive and unhealthy! if you're gonna fantasize about this fucked up couple at least do it the justice of depicting it in the way that it was set up to be sometimes! they didn't take the time to set up that wonderful twist for it to just be ignored!!

draw lee struggling to not be obsessive or possessive or overprotective! draw lee secretly still keeping things that angel throws away, or stealing small things that he thinks angel wont miss! draw angel having to keep him in check and scolding him like a dog!

give that man his red flags back or so help me god!!! they're what make him interesting as a character - without them he's just Some Guy.

the art that actually got me to play clinical trial was this wonderful piece by @ glimfag/hecctwo. it is absolutely amazing and symbolic and perfect. it leans into the idea of angel also being kind of a freak like that, and why not!! in the accept ending angel knows everything that lee did and is capable of and chooses to be with him regardless.

maybe angel's kinda into it!! maybe angel's drawn to this idea of being the prey of a stalker! maybe angel wants a man that can be kept on a leash! maybe angel likes being the center of his whole universe because angel likes to have that power over him, especially after what angel has been through! maybe angel wants a guard dog! maybe angel likes knowing that he would absolutely kill again if angel asked him to!!

by all means keep drawing wholesome shit all day long but please don't shy away from showing the unhealthy side of their relationship, especially on lee's end! i promise that you're allowed to enjoy "problematic" things - you're capable of critical thought, so have fun with it!!!!!

[puppppppppy]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[im-kinno-hello]

and if i made a comic about them making a blog for the weird demon dog they found in the woods just because they are being brainwashed by it and it told them they need to spread the word of what word they don’t even fucking know?

[paintpanic]

Res AU Joronia drawings. Character rambling and bonus doodles under cut.

This AU takes place a good while after the events of Triple Deluxe happened. Since then, Taranza's mostly recovered mentally from everything. He was able to move on from his grief and (somewhat) forgive himself. Now that Joronia's in his life again, seemingly back to her former self, some of those wounds he'd thought were fully healed have started to ache again. He still feels ultimately guilty for what happened to her.

He's thrilled that Joronia's been given a second chance at life, but is somewhat wary deep down. This feels to good to be true, that she's just back with seemingly no strings attached. The other shoe could drop any day now, and he could lose her all over again. Fearing this, he wants to make the most out of what could be a short time to be together again with his friend.

Joronia senses that there's a distance between the two of them now that wasn't there before. It shouldn't be surprising; he's probably still hurt from what she did. Other people definitely are. She's determined, though, to work hard to make it up to everyone she's hurt, and to prove to them (and herself) that she's not really like that, that she's capable of being better.

The Mirror's influence twisted her mind and her perception of reality. It made her feel like she was inadequate, and that everyone else were enemies to be subjugated. Now, she's supposed to be normal and better, but she still feels like there's something wrong with her head. She still doesn't feel good enough, and it still feels like everyone hates her. It's hard to trust herself. She's not sure if it's some lingering effect of the Mirror, or if there's just something inherently wrong with her now. She's scared.

She's afraid that something will happen, that she'll revert to how she was as Queen, and that she'll hurt Taranza again. Someone who'd always helped her, who'd stuck with her even when she was absolutely horrible to him, and who's kindness she's relying on again now, staying at his home as she worked on getting her life back together. She's a burden on him, and she always has been. She hates it.

Still, her deepest, most selfish wish is that they could be real friends again.

---

These two need to have a long, honest discussion about their feelings toward each other and themselves. Both of them are absolutely terrified about that prospect, though, because they each think that the other secretly resents them to some degree. If they actually talked through it, they'd quickly realize that they both want the same thing.

[damthosefandoms]

“Issat it?" Soda stands on his tiptoes to look over Darry's shoulder at the card in his hand. "It's real? A real driver's license?"

"Why wouldn't it be real?" Darry says, although he knows Soda's probably thinking about Two-Bit's fake ID he's been showing off lately... as if anyone would fall for it. Keith's fourteen. Darry's fairly certain he isn't even shaving yet.

Soda's moved on, anyway.

"You can drive us down the Ribbon now! We can pick up girls!” Soda cries out excitedly.  He tries jumping on Darry’s back and Darry shrugs out of the way, shaking his brother off so Soda tumbles back to his feet.

“Girls, huh? What kinda girls you pickin’ up over at the middle school, Sodapop?” Darry jeers, but as usual the chatterbox has an answer for everything.

“Cute ones,” Soda drawls, grinning ear to ear. “Blondes, even.”

“Who’re you, Two-Bit? You ain’t picking up no blondes. ‘Sides, why should I cruise around with you, shortstack? I got friends my own age for that.”

“What, like Paul? You always hang with Paul. More’n any girls, even. How come’s that, Dare? You got the hots for him or somethin’?" The kid has the guts to smirk. "Paul's blond.”

Darry instinctively swings at Soda. He ducks and Darry pulls him into a loose headlock.

“I ain’t got the hots for no one, kid, you shut your damn mouth ‘fore I shut it for ya—”

Soda elbows him in the gut and uses the opportunity to run for his life, cackling like a maniac. Darry’s left standing there, heart racing, but for some reason he's pretty sure it’s not from the thrill of messing around with his little brother.

[fizzytoo]

the next location on the sibling-bonding roadtrip takes us to an airbnb campsite in plumbite cove, copperdale!

[rayleeschobel]

I made a linocut from sketch to carved in one day

The other day, I sat down to work at 2:30pm, feeling guilty about starting my work day so late. I got into the flow state for the first time in a while though, and next thing I knew, it was almost 11. In two sittings (took a break to eat dinner), I went from sketch to totally carved print.

It got me thinking about how I always feel guilty for starting later in the day, although I still do plenty of work. It's not like there's anything wrong with having a schedule that's not 9-5, especially when my most productive hours are mid-afternoon. Also I know I shouldn't feel like I need to do 8 hours of work daily, but hey that's what I get for growing up with a workaholic dad.

But more so it made me a bit introspective about the whole process of artmaking. Like, in the span of about 8 hours, I created something that otherwise wouldn't exist. It's such a basic but overwhelming idea. That I sat down, took an idea I had, and made it into something physical. I often think about why I make things- because I love the process of printmaking and learning- but I don't often think about the bigger picture of being able to transform something as abstract and far from reality as a thought into something that can be observed, held, and shared. Even trying to put the feeling into words doesn't feel like it can do it justice. It feels like something ethereal, made more amazing by the idea that anybody can create something. I guess it makes perfect sense that something so foundational to being a human would also make me feel so connected to myself and the universe.

Anyway, here's the linoleum carving and it printed on fabric and newsprint :)

[alpacacare-archive]

hey guys is anybody here. hello

@smarties-art

[missviviii]

a/n: shsusbsihsw i can’t— this idea has been plaguing my mind 😭

.

“A Duel For Your Hand.”

warning(s): swearing

summary: mizu knew you ever since she was a child. you two were friends, and she grew feelings for you. one day, you had to move. until one day, you saw her again, and complained to her about how your father was marrying you off to some noble.

mizu x fem!childhood crush!reader

——————————————————————————

Long ago, when you were just a young lady, you befriended a child just your age. An outcast, but you still talked to her. Your father was a swordsman, and one that has received a blade from Master Eiji. Your father respected Eiji, often times still visiting the old man for memories and to train with him.

You were never really close to your father, but you were close to Eiji. Often times, when your father was away for business, you’d be staying with Eiji and helping alongside him here and there.

One day, you ran all the way to Master Eiji’s place to show him something cool that your father had given you. You opened the door, only to find another child around your age, a little bit shorter, holding large iron tongs while Eiji was doing his thing.

“Master Eiji, guess what my papa got me!—“ You looked over at the other child, who was staring at you very closely and almost surprised. What’s a pretty, young lady like you doing here? You were dressed nice and seemed to be far too delicate to be around sharp blades.

Eiji held up his finger, then motioned for the child to hand him the tongs. “I see you have ran all the way from your home to show me…let me guess, another hair pin?” You eagerly nodded, running over to his side and squealing about the gift your father had given you after he had returned home from whatever business he had.

“So..who are you?” You curiously asked as you turned around to face the child, who was still looking at you in awe. You noticed her blue eyes, which seemed to be so clear and mesmerizing. They were like the color of the water—so blue and pretty.. Noticing that she was staring, she cleared her throat.

“M-Mizu. Uh, I’m just staying here..” Mizu said as she scratched the back of her neck. Oh god, was she falling for you already? Well, why wouldn’t anyone—you’re so pretty and you look like an angel in her eyes.

Days turned into months. Then months turned into years. Each time that you could go down to Master Eiji’s place, you’d always be a ball of sunshine with something to talk about. Whether if it’s some hair pin your father gave to you, or a new skill you learned, you’d always talk about it to Mizu. That was until you had to move away.

Here you are, mumbling and grumbling in the cold weather while stomping your feet in the snow. Now you were a grown woman, and one that was forced to learn all the arts of being a ‘perfect wife’. You threw the charms in your hair and the hairpins to the ground, frustrated that your father had set you up with a dumb, old nobleman. You had to excuse yourself from the room and immediately ran outside to attempt to calm yourself.

“Damn, angry much?” A voice spoke out from behind you. You turned around, your first instinct was to throw one of your hairpins at the person. But they caught it with two fingers, just inches away from their eyes behind those tinted glasses. The person smirked, pulling down the tinted glasses to reveal their blue eyes. “My god, is this the treatment I get when I finally find you again?”

That voice. It was Mizu! Absolutely delighted, you immediately gasped and ran over to her, immediately tackling her into the snow while hugging her tightly. She chuckled, hand on your back while you wrapped your arms around her waist while wailing. “I missed you so much! Oh my god, you can’t believe the bullshit my father is putting me through!” Mizu only smiled, sitting up against a tree while you sat in front of her, complaining and wailing about how your father’s trying to marry you off to some man! That part made her a tad bit pissed off. A beautiful woman like yourself being married off to someone certainly not worth your time? Fuck no. Is she going to duel this guy to perhaps steal you away instead? Yep.

“Seems like you want out of this, right?” She said after you finally stopped complaining, now just curled up beside her and leaning against her arm. You nodded immediately. You now just noticed she has grown. You used to be taller, but now she’s the taller one! And my god are her hands—wait, are you growing feelings again? “I want to see this man. I’m going to kill him, you’re not marrying some snobby asshole today.”

Much to your annoyance, Mizu had fought her way through your guards and marched on into the estate with ease. You followed after her, trying to get the guards to stand down but they won’t and Mizu ends up knocking a few of them off. More mess for the cleaners to deal with. Until she kicks down the door to the room your father and that suitor was in. “My god, this is the guy? You couldn’t even find a suitable man for your daughter?” Mizu groaned, rubbing her temples in annoyance before she pointed her blade at the guy. “I want to duel you. For her hand, of course. Don’t worry, your loss will be swift and it won’t hurt all that much considering how you have no real talent.”

“You? Some beggar boy against me? Princess, do you have any idea how stupid you are?!” The man yelled, standing up and kicking over the table. Your father glared at you, also yelling at you how unladylike it is so choose white trash over a real man.

Ah, that ticked Mizu off, and you already had a feeling this guy was about to get his ass whooped.

Nothing better than to sit on a rock in your backyard, watching in amusement how your drunk, clearly reeking of alcohol and a snobbish piece of trash of a suitor was holding a sword against Mizu. Mizu stood there, circling the man carefully while her blade was pointed right at him, waiting for him to strike.

One, two, three You counted down, and Mizu strikes just as you hit three. You watched very intently, leaning forward as Mizu absolutely decimated that poor man. “Beat his ass!” You loudly yelled to cheer on Mizu, in which you received a slap on the back of your head by your father, who wasn’t at all happy. Mizu glanced over at you and smirked, determined to win your hand in marriage.

“Got you,” Mizu casually said as she swung her leg out and tripped the man, making him fall face first into the snow while the tip of her blade rests right beside his head. He groaned in pain as his body collided into the snow and grunted, yelling about how Mizu was no man, but a monster from hell.

“You did it! I mean, of course you did!” You loudly shouted as you ran over to her side, pulling her into a big hug while she wrapped one arm around your waist. You looked up at her, finding a small smile on her lips before she kissed your forehead.

“You’re mine now, Princess.”

——————————————————————————

a/n: sishwjsibesjhsbs