#sorry if the script is not legible :(

[misfithive]

The Fault in our Stars x Wilmon

[darlingbabyboo]

I've been thinking for a while about a particular one shot request and I read it last night on another fandom, so now I kinda wanna see it with TR.

So here it is : How would some of the guys react to us doodling on their hand during some boring class? (Mikey, Draken, Takemichi, Mitsuya, Haitani brothers and the Kawata twins)

Sorry if it's too much! It doesn't have to be anything big, just a small reaction would be more than perfect, since I love your writing so much. 🥹

Baby, What Are You Doing...

Summary: the guys react to you doodling on their arms

Notes: some small blurbs about the guys. These vary in length and I was lowkey running out of ideas while I was writing but I tried my best to stay original! Also, not edited bcs I don't got time for that, you see a mistake, no you didn't <333

Mikey is kinda out there so he probably wouldn't even notice you were writing on his hand, but when he does he eats that shit up. He's lazy so he doesn't like going to get tats but he loves some ink. He will praise you and start requesting things like you're a professional artist. 'Please babe, I want a dorayaki on my forearm.' You bite your lip to hide your blossoming smile, 'you know I'm not a professional artist, right?' Your boyfriend shrugs and smacks a kiss to your cheek, 'you are to me babe!'

Draken notices right away what you're doing and is probably a bit confused at first. Like, do you want him to get another tattoo??? He'll do it hun, just ask. You two are relaxing in his bed, just enjoying each other's presence. He's surprised when you pull out a Sharpie and start doodling your name on his arm. 'Honey, what're you doing?' You give a sheepish grin, 'sorry, is it a problem.' He looks at the doodle, and you start to relax when you spot no disgust in his eyes. 'No problem hun,' he turns to you, 'think I should get this my next visit?' You squeal and wrap your arms around his neck as he looks at the doodle in wonder, more love sprouting in his heart.

Takemichi is a loser (affectionate) and he would never get a tattoo because he can't stand that pain, so he will take take that doodle and he will hold it with pride. 'Sweetie, I love it so much!' He wraps his arms around your waist and you can feel his smile against your stomach. You giggle at his wonder at some shitty stick figures along his arms. 'It's really no big deal' You say, running your hands through his hair, 'you don't need to be so happy.' He shakes his head, 'it is a big deal,' He insists, 'I've never seen anything better!'

Mitsuya my love, my heart, my will to live. He will be gassing up so much that you'll probably start believing that you're the best artist in the world. He's just such a supportive cutie pie <3 'Darling, this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen,' You laugh at the amazement in his eyes as you scribble your name in mock script on his arms. It's barley legible, but Takashi doesn't seem to care, 'you sure about that?' The smile doesn't drop from his face as he looks at you with hearts in his eyes, 'I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'

I'm sorry but Smiley is probably the biggest asshole when he catches you doing this. He loves it, I promise, but he's a jerk 100% of the time, it's hard for him to turn it off. He raises an eyebrow when he sees you uncap your sharpie and start to draw something on his hand. 'What the fuck is that supposed to be?' He mutters. You laugh awkwardly at his harsh tone and drop your Sharpie, 'sorry, I just saw some cute videos about people putting their initials on their boyfriends wrists and I thought-it's stupid sorry-I don't know why I did that.' You duck your head down, burying your face into his chest, feeling that your body's on fire. Smiley looks at the half-finished doodle on his wrist. 'Don't stop baby, shit's pretty cute.' He presses a kiss to the crown of your head, 'I might get it tatted up.'

Angry is so flustered when he sees you doing this and he loves it so much okay. He feels like wearing it is a testament of how strong your love is. He will ask you (nervously) to do it every day because he doesn't want it to fade. 'Oh my gosh! Souya, you scared me, what're you doing there?' He stands awkwardly in the corner of your room, playing with the ends of his sleeves. 'Sorry... I didn't want to scare you... I just...' He pulls up his sleeve and he sees the fading bunny on his arm. 'I don't wanna bother you, I just-' 'Don't worry baby, I get it.' You cut him off, cupping his cheek and placing a kiss on his cheek. You pull him towards the bed and tell him to wait, 'I just need to get my Sharpies!'

Ran won't notice I'm sorry. He sleeps most of the day and he already has so much ink that some doodles won't pop out to him too much. It's only until he notices you doodling on a piece of paper one day and compares it to what's all over his arms that he starts tweakin'. 'Angel have you been inkin' me up?' He raises an eyebrow at you, confused. You hide your smile, 'of course not, I have no idea what you're talking about.' He narrows his eyes, '...okay.' Not completely believing you, but too sleepy to question things. 'Wanna take a nap?' You feel the Sharpie in your pocket and bite the inside of your cheeks, 'I'd love to!'

Rindou will eat that shit up, oh my gosh he loves it so much. He's like the extreme version of Angry and Mikey. He wants it obvious, and he wants it bold. 'C'mon princess, your name on my collarbone, I need it.' You raise an eyebrow as you straddle him, 'in red though, that's a bit... much.' He shakes his head, 'no, no, it'll be perfect.' You shake your head in exasperation, your boyfriend is a big dummy, but he loves you with every part of himself.

[wynnyfryd]

Trailer park Steve AU part 54 (12.1)

part 1 | part 53 | ao3

cw: angst

Chapter 12

Steve drives to Chicago.

He wakes up to an empty bed and a sticky note by the kitchen phone, words scribbled over so the only legible thing left is the word sorry underlined in jagged black, and his breath sticks in his chest and he can't be here anymore. Epiphany ringing like a gong, sending ripples through his marrow, because the walls are closing in and Eddie decorated those walls — splattered himself over every inch of this place, and now he's just the newest haunt in a line of ghosts that Steve can't shake. He thought he’d gotten rid of them, but now he hears them louder than ever. In the hiss of the faucet, in the buzz of the fridge; they’re moaning in his bad ear and rattling his bones, and he can't be here alone with them he can't be here he can't—

So he drives.

Gets in his car with nothing but a spare jacket and a crumpled pack of cigs. If ever there was a time to pick the habit up in earnest. Eddie’s van is gone, and Steve’s heart is bruised; it's bleeding out inside him, pumping fresh hurt with every beat, so he lights a cigarette with shaking hands and heads north. Takes the back roads to the on-ramp of I-65, drives for hours; drives for years, speeding down empty stretches of highway with nothing but roadkill for company.

At some point he rolls the windows down until the icy wind makes his cheeks burn, but he can't really feel them. Can't feel his face, or his fingers, or his heart.

All the world is snow and asphalt, and Steve Harrington is alone.

He tries to drown it out with music. The radio mocks him with swooning quartets love songs — 'put your head on my shoulder' and 'life could be a dream' — and all the tapes he can reach belong to Eddie, so he pulls over on the narrow shoulder of an overpass bridge and screams and screams and screams while he chucks the cassettes over the edge.

Fuck Eddie.

Fuck him.

"FUCK YOU!!" he shouts to the foggy nothingness.

The words dig in sharp; pocket knife twisting in the space below his kidneys.

The fog doesn't respond.

Back in the car, his thoughts turn to his mom. Because he's driving to her, he knows — knew it in his splintering bones and haunted blood the moment he left town. He's driving back to his first ghost, as if confronting the original will somehow exorcise the rest.

Miles pass in silence, and Steve paints over the canvas of what-ifs again and again, oily streaks in the underpainting as he tries to set the scenes just right: quiet, tearful confrontations in his aunt's formal living room, graceless screaming matches out on the front lawn. In one version he never makes it past the guard at the front gate, and in another he just eggs the stupid lion statues leading up to the house while his mom silently weeps from the top of the stairs.

He doesn't know if his mom would laugh at that.

He doesn't know her much at all.

And that fucking hurts; that sits like acid in his lungs, because his mom was his first friend. When he was little — before the housekeepers and nannies, before his mom started tailing his dad on business trips like a trained dog on a leash — they spent so much time together. Trips to the playground, to the library, to the pool. He'd perch himself on her vanity when she got ready in the mornings, use her hairbrush as a microphone to sing along to 50s doo-wop, and she'd giggle and call him her little superstar, so he'd come up with stupid dance moves just to make her smile more.

He misses that. The script, the routine. How he'd spin around in his socks on the slippery bathroom tile and look up at her with her big hair full of rollers and her big eyes full of stars, and he'd say, "Hey! How come your eyes are all twinkly?"

And she'd grin and pinch his cheek and give the same answer every time: "Because you're the light of my life."

"I wish I knew what you'd say now," he whispers to the empty car.

For a moment he envisions that she's sitting there with him, that she's filling the blank space where the boy who broke his heart should be, but he can't remember her cadence well enough to mimic it; can't put words in her mouth when he no longer knows her lines, and with something a bit like horror and a lot like despair it occurs to him that he can't remember what she looks like. There's an apparition in his blind spot, but it's formless and unstable. The shade of its hair keeps changing; the texture, the length.

When he tries to make it speak, it shrugs and dissipates.

—

part 55

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

[letters-from-dekarios]

(it is something of a miracle this letter is legible at all. It's clearly torn from a notebook, and written in a blocky, slow hand, like the author was unused to holding a pen. Many of the letters are capitalized at random, seemingly because they were easier to draw. It also smells strangely of fish and old lake water)

gALE

HI

HAlsIn Is gooD

HElp mE WrITE HI

mIss You AnD TArA

I ATE A sEA Bug ToDAY IT WrIgglED

loVE You mIss You

HUSH

(there is a post script below in a much neater hand)

Dear Gale,

Hush wanted to write a letter to you for their writing practice today. I'm sorry for the smell, they tried to also send you one of the crawfish they caught in the lake.

Hope you're doing well, would love to have you visit.

Halsin.

(Hush is a 15 yr old feral half-elf, barely. A druid that was raised by wolves, spending months and even years at a time in wild shape permanently warped their body into something... Other. They had very little contact with other humanoids before being taken by illithids. They learned to speak common from Gale and the others. Despite their grotesque appearance, Hush is extremely cheerful, with a personality somewhat like an overeager hunting dog. Hush loves Tara very much, but Tara does not necessarily love Hush back. At least when in the same room.)

Dearest Hush,

And Halsin, too.

I am glad to hear you are both doing well! Hush, your days sound all the more exciting each time you write to me. While I’m stuck grading papers, you’re off capturing the wildest of sea creatures. I do hope the sea bug was tasty enough for you!

I appreciate the sentiment and the attempt to allow me to share in the joyfulness with you. I can assure you, Hush, however, that you need not be disappointed you cannot send crawfish to me. I will be visiting soon and you can share it in person.

I love and miss you, too, Hush. We will meet again soon, I can promise you such.

Thank you, Halsin, for all your help. I hope you are doing well, too. I’m sure the likes of Hush have been tiring on your old soul, but you always had a knack for managing the youngsters.

From the desk of,

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒌𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒔

text reads: gale dekarios

[diino8081]

i have uncovered something large and dangerous

this will be a long post. there will be a summary at the bottom but it's a few paragraphs long.

(this is about people who are using the genocide in palestine to take advantage of other people's kindness to donate. essentially it's about scammers lol)

update: this is false info, check the comments, i'm sorry. i take full accountability for my error

edit: actually possibly untrue, also an update on one of the accounts listed at the bottom: helpfamily is vetted

--------

i am copying these words off of my notes app so they may be a little messy. i hope they are still legible.

i will add in any additional notes with colour text

-- i had received an ask and so searched the user's page to check it's legitemacy

noor678

most things do seem pretty legit

however in their ask they said the campaign was documented by 90-ghost. i checked 90-ghost's profile and searched for noor's username but came up empty

i then searched the reblogs of their top post, both empty reblogs and comments with tags since that's usually what 90-ghost does when vetting. i came up empty handed

but that's just one post

-- i check the reblogs of the other posts

ok now upon checking, i have seen that all 3 of these posts do not have any reblogs from 90-ghost

additionally, this account is new, being created on the 27th of july.

-- i return to their pinned post and read through it again

WAIT HOLD

i may have uncovered something

i copied this phrase from noor's ask:

"I write to you with a heart full of hope and faith, and I ask for your urgent help. My family is in great danger due to the war, and I am running a fundraising campaign to save them."

and i put it into the search bar and it appears to be copied word for word from an account called "mahmoud66262"

now, mahmoud as well states that their fundraiser is documented by 90-ghost, nabulsi and el-shab-hussein

i have searched all 3 accounts for mahmoud's username and came up with nothing

mahmoud does however have a second account

perhaps they reblogged that one

-- forgot what i meant by this but they do in fact have a second account

mahmoudbalousha4

nothing on 90-ghost's page

nothing on el-shab-hussein's page

nothing on nabulsi's page (but there was another mahmoud)

now, i'm not sure if this is because they moved account after being terminated/banned but if they said they were vetted by these 3 people then surely their username would appear on these accounts

i tried as well to just search "mahmoud" but still came up empty except on nabulsi's page

i have reason to believe this is a large scam ring who are all verifying and vouching for each other.

to summarise:

noor678 sent me an ask stating that they need help and that they were documented by 90-ghost. i scrolled through the reblogs of their posts to try and find ghost, absolutely nothing.

i copy a part of their ask, search it. a secondary account copying the words from the paragraph verbatim. i check that account, see they too are vetted by ghost, now with nabulsi and el shab hussein. like the previous one i search and there is nothing.

they have reblogged multiple other posts from an account with a similar username. i check both of these usernames on each person's account where they've apparently been vetted. absolutely nothing.

an update: -- still in the note

i never actually continued to scroll upon searching for the ask paragraph. there are multiple other accounts giving asks with the same script.

"I write to you with a heart full of hope and faith, and I ask for your urgent help. My family is in great danger due to the war, and I am running a fundraising campaign to save them."

the accounts in question:

noor678

helpfamily*

mahmoud66262

nourbader2019

*helpfamily is vetted

another account with similar words, only slightly changed, is mohammedalanquer. they say:

"I am writing to you with a heart full of hope and faith, asking for your urgent help. My family is in great danger due to the war, and I am running a fundraising campaign to save them."

this one however, is vetted legitimately by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi and is #174 on their list. the ask i've seen is from 13/7/2024

i have reason to believe they have copied the words and are using them to attempt to scam others.

if i am wrong, then sure. but this does seem really fishy.

-- end of note

i have noticed as well that some of these likely-scam fundraisers have gotten revenue from this which is unfortunate but we can stop it by being more careful and verifying before donating.

instead of seeing someone saying they're vetted and just trusting them, check for sources first. (reblogs from large accounts, vetted fundraiser lists, searching parts of the ask to see if it's copied).

some scammers have scripts they go by, a common one is if it begins with "this is a long shot call" or talking about insulin. (note that not all insulin asks are fake, it's just a common theme the scammers go for)

scammers as well will create their accounts, post their donation post and then only reblog things after that. they may usually only be a few days old too.

i think i'm going to leave this post here. do with this information what you will.

have a great day

[rottingmanifesto]

16 or 36 for anything you feel like writing currently! :D

Trying out some different formats. Hope it’s legible. Fair warning that I got way too carried away with ‘total control’, so it’s under a cut.

16. in dreams

Journal, Lincoln, 1st person.

Keep havin’ weird dreams. Can’t explain them very well, all I know is I keep scaring the hell outta a few of the guys when I jolt up. Davis suggested I see the Chaplain ‘bout it. Pretty sure it’s not demons, so unless he’s got holy-water-melatonin, I don’t think he can help.

One of the dreams is about Danny and Nicki arguin’ over their old man’s body. Cancer or poisoning or something of the like. Not sure why I’m there at all, I just am. Both keep beggin’ me for an answer. I can’t. Someone’s cut out my tongue and noises don’t help. He’s dead, they’re arguing, I can’t do anythin’.

Father said something offhandedly in a letter about my nightmares being chronic. Happened when I was a kid, stopped for whatever reason, an’ now they’re back. Never told him I was having any, but that’s Father for you. He jus’ knows things. Didn’t tell Sammy or Ellis though, both seem to think I’m fine. Not sayin’ I’m not. Just don’t think it’s worth tellin’ them, worryin’ them over stupid shit like dreams. Got bigger issues than that.

36. total control

Script-ish, John and Connor, 3rd person.

J: You were supposed to die.

A: Yeah, firing squad. I remember. Hard to forget.

J: Would’ve preferred a hanging, actually.

A: Didn’t know the United States still used that method.

J: I’m sure they’d make an exception.

A: (mild discomforting laugh) Of course they would.

J: (faltering, lowering gun, searching for words)

A: Maybe you should set the gun down. Your hand’s twitching. Don’t want a misfire.

J: Shut the fuck up.

A: What, I can’t look out for you? What happens if you twitch and kill that friend of yours out there?

J: Don’t bring him into this.

A: Lincoln, right? Hear he’s taking after you very well. Brazen and theatrical.

J: Yes, because you’re a master at subtlety.

A: Comes with the job.

J: Jesus Chr—a fucking warhead isn’t subtle.

A: Neither is hanging a man from a Ferris wheel. Or, you know, (signaling to cheek with J’s given-cigarette) this.

J: That was self-defense.

A: Sure. Of course.

J: Can you just go one fucking sentence without being an asshole, or is that above you?

A: Give me a reason to, and I will.

J: I have a gun and you don’t.

A: That’s not enough, Johnny, and you know that.

J: Don’t call me that.

A: Sorry, I’m delirious from the blood loss. I thought you were that kid I helped so many years ago. He looked an awful lot like you, too. (painful cough, takes a drag to cover up whatever expression he has on his face) Forgive me, Mr. Donovan.

J: You know, I used to believe in you back then. (voice breaks, begins to pace, having his back to A) Thought you represented everything great about this country.

A: Don’t I still?

J: You don’t. You’re just as fucking greedy and selfish as everyone else. (wheels around to face A, pointing a quivering gun between his eyes)

A: Exactly. That’s the real America. The one that doesn’t care about drafted soldiers drowning in mud, or those who come back seeing shit and knowing they fundamentally aren’t right anymore. The one that doesn’t care about people like your friend out there. The one that would sooner hang you for being a homosexual than me for being a so-called “traitor”.

J: So you’re justified with selling a goddamn nuke, is that what you’re saying?

A: (still fucking smiling) Your comprehension has improved some. Congratulations.

J: (crouches down to be eye-level) So the money was just to sweeten the deal, huh? To ease your conscious— (he presses his hand into A’s wound as harshly as possible, causing A to jolt in pain)— when innocent people inevitably fucking die?

A: We both know I won’t be the last person to do so. If it isn’t the NVA, it’ll be someone else. It’ll keep going until the United States is destroyed.

J: (begins to pace again, silent, blinking hard to avoid tears)

A: I was going to end it, John. I was going to make everyone free from this bullshit. Including you. Including your friend. Including everyone else who is subject to America’s tyranny. I was going to do what you’re too cowardly to do! I was going to end it all!

J: (whips around sharply) Are you finished?

A: (panting, out of energy, the pain finally overcoming the adrenaline and pride, he realizes he’s no longer in total control.)

A: It appears so.

[sarandipitywrites]

NaNo update 11/14

today i learned lienzo is dyslexic. why do i gotta learn about things this way, man? WHY CAN'T YOU JUST TELL ME

in other news, broke 25k today. i'm ahead of schedule, huzzah!

Lienzo squinted at the text. It was handwritten in a tight, spidery script that mashed into itself as it trampled across the page. Only the headline was clear. "...Runes?" "Yes! With the use of runes, or sigils, one could hypothetically..." Lienzo tried to pay attention. He truly did. But with no legible text to follow and the beast prattling on, building his explanations on foundations Lienzo barely possessed, if he had them at all, his mind swirled like kelp stuck in a boat's propeller. "...Lienzo?" "Yeah! Yeah, I'm listening. Runes. Areas of effect. Reduction of..." His mind was blank. His cheeks reddened. He slumped forward onto the desk with a moan. This was why he'd stopped going to school when he was eight. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for it. "I'm sorry. I've been talking for far too long. I'm going to make coffee; do you drink it?" Coffee. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to afford it. "In what my maza calls 'disturbing and grotesque amounts.'"

[another-corpo-rat]

a language of its own

i planned for this one to be tooth-rotting fluff. spoiler: it is not. because god forbid these two stay on script for me

Adam Smasher/OC Summary: In the wake of Hanako's coup, a lot of things are uncertain. Loyalty, mostly.

.

“Do I need to remind you what ‘do not disturb’ means?” Victoria’s voice is flat, her eyes not lifting from the document she’s re-read thrice already, certain it’s more interesting than an intern cowering at her threshold like a cold pup. She can hear their gulp, how they shuffle their feet awkwardly in place. Lily, then. A mouse of a girl who’ll get caught in some trap before long.  

“I- I’m sorry Ms Crane,” the gentle voice is confirmation. Really, she would be better working for some holo-company. “But he wouldn’t take no for an answer—” She doesn’t need to look up to know who the he in question is either, simply letting out a heavy sigh and rubbing at her forehead to ease a brewing headache.

“Let him in.” She flicks her gaze up merely to confirm and, yes there stands Adam fucking Smasher. In a Gemini frame granted, so the sight is not nearly as impressive even if he still manages to fill the doorway. No, what’s impressive is his collection of ratty t-shirts he insists on wearing because God forbid he wears one of the many button-downs she had gotten.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Clearance says otherwise.” A clearance she’s surprised he has considering he was grounded, for lack of a better term: confined to a Gemini frame and unarmed until further notice. A slap on the wrist really for his apparent siding with Yoriunbo. Though Victoria has to wonder how long Hanako will prolong the punishment now that the medtechs have marked him as mentally sound enough to return to the Dragoon; what was riding a delicate balance is slowly tipping against the heiress. Already whispers were brewing that she was afraid of Arasaka’s war hound. It wasn’t a good look.

“Why are you here?” She tries instead, locking her desktop’s screen as he steps into the room, too purposeful in his stride towards her desk.

Paranoid, her own thoughts hiss at her. It’s soundly ignored: paranoia has served her well in its small doses, it keeps her on her toes, sharp. It tells her there’s something off about his being in the room, even if she can’t quite pinpoint what as her eyes continuously draw over his horrendous jacket.

“I’m fucking bored.” He drawls out as he circles her desk. His eyes drop from her blackened screen to trail their own path across her scattering of notes, barely legible chicken-scratch a far cry from her usual script. Her own follow a few seconds behind. Nothing too incriminating – she doesn’t think she’s left anything about biopods lying around.

“So you decide to bother me?” A grin bares his teeth as he leans into her chair, the weight of him almost pulling it back. Yes, is the needless answer as he curls a loose lock of hair around his fingers and tugs lightly.

“You’re the safest option.” A final, hard yank before he lets go. Far too obvious in intent as he leans to read the specific paper she’s been hunched over. That grin falters, pulling into something harder when she lays her arm across the bulk of it. “What’ve you been working on?”

Something pricks at the back of her neck; sharp and needling as her throat dries. Pressing her tongue against the point of a canine, she reaches for a casual tone rather than a bite.

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, Smasher.” Immediately she knows it’s too practiced, too formal, the narrowing of his eyes confirms it. The bite would have been better. Calling him Adam would have been better. The material of her chair gives a protesting groan as his grip tightens on the headrest. She almost protests herself, but bites her tongue - better the chair than her, and that is riding on a very thin line. One she’s not quite sure how to tip the balance of.

The focus on the risk to her neck keeps her distracted as his other hand snakes around, snatching the page from under her arm. “Adam!” Her outrage is met with a sharp laugh. Smug in his victory, amused in her pitiful attempt to steal it back.

He snaps the paper rigid in his grip, holding it above his head and reading through. Ignoring her undignified little hops, or the nicks her chrome nails leave when they glance against his skin. His eyes narrow, the thoughts twisting obviously in his head as he lowers the paper.

“You studying to become a neurologist now?”

“In a sense.” A hiss as she snaps it out of his hand and returns the paper to the small hoard of loose sheets, putting herself in the space between him and her desk. As if that’d stop him. But she may as well make some effort; there was too much information laying around and she only had herself to blame for the security risk.

It’ll be pinned on her, might even give Hanako a means to remove her from her project. She’ll throw a stink if it comes to that, for the entire breach the heiress facilitated unknowingly or not by allowing Smasher to keep his permissions. Clearance, he said. A clearance he had the moment Yoriunbo made him head of security, and yet here he is exercising it now.

“So, the princess is still letting you work. I gotta wonder why.” She eyes him as he prowls about her office, rolling his shoulders before he plops himself comfortably on the leather sofa against the opposite wall. It’s not the usual way he’d sit, with an arm thrown across the back and his knees spread wide. No, he hunches forward now, tries to pin her under his gaze.

“Because it’s useful. Simple as.” Her innate need to be difficult has her mirror his demeanour; arms crossing as she leans against her desk. Chin lifting to look down on him. It earns her a clenched fist.

“Mhm, funny that.” Something in his eyes harden. A warning that has her own gaze flick to the door. She wouldn’t get there in time. Not with him so close to it. “How you manage to make a big breakthrough just before things went to shit for ol’ Yoriunbo. Great fucking timing there.”  

“It’s not like you to dance around an accusation, Adam.”

Not like him to make a move in this particular field either. He’s well-versed in the dance of career corpos; the machinations and manipulations. Yet he normally leaves that domain for her to play in.

“Fuck it in with the games, Crane. You know what I’m accusing you of.” She does: as well as she knows the barely-concealed anger that mars his tone now. And though he’s not in the Dragoon, the want to soothe him is an innate thing, a skill honed more for her benefit than his. She presses it firmly under heel.

“You think I would manoeuvre myself in a way that would likely set me against you. That I’d stand aside, content with my new lot under a new CEO, and leave you to rust.” She pauses, not to consider her next words but the very idea. Yes, actually, that does sound quite like her…

She hums derisively. “If it wasn’t you, then yes. There’d be some truth to that.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I’m yours in plenty of other ways, what makes this so different?” Something crosses his face then, a confusion she thinks, marring the hard set of his lips and easing the clench of his fists. There’s a tension in his shoulders, obvious to her now that she’s looking for it.  

Has it been there since he stepped through the door? She wouldn’t know; as much as she prefers this newer frame she can’t read him well in it. Not like she can in the Elvis suit, or even the Dragoon.

“It’s an out.”

“It is.” An out to the contract tying her to him; leverage for her to pry herself from his grip. She could never hope to replace Hellman and his niche little hole, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t dig out her own with OIZYS. There’s a versatility she’s yet to explore, lingering on the edges of her attention: all the failed branches and threads to be twisted into their own projects once the parent is perfected.

She watches him as she agrees and – yes, there’s that tension. It rolls through him like a wave, most notable in how he works his jaw. Like he’s biting down. “One you wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about. But,” It’s dangerous. Stupid. She moves towards him, stopping in the space between his spread knees to cradle a square jaw, tilting his chin upward to meet her eye.

His hands rest on her hips, heavy in their press.

“Have you considered that I like being where I am?” She softens her tone, lets fondness ease her gaze as her thumb trails against the rough line of his jaw.

And again, that confusion. It’s beautiful to see up close; the slight, brief furrow of his brows that narrows already hardened eyes. As ill-practiced as she is reading this suit, he’s as out-of-depth emoting in it. Nothing is subtle, it’s as if every relevant muscle is being yanked by a string until he finds the expression he wants. He finds a neutral expression now. Blank to match his dry tone.

“Careful, you might get me thinking that you care.”

“Oh, now I can’t have that.” She smiles as she brushes her lips against his, pulling away the moment his grip tightens and he tries to wrangle control. There’s a mere whisper of space, warmed by her caramel-scented breath.

She’d let him devour her in a heartbeat. Let him make a mess of her and the office alike if the timing wasn’t piss-poor; if Hanako’s eyes weren’t sharp in their search for anything to pry at. They were already treading a delicate line, too blatant, too public and yet not public enough. The stupidly bold part of her wants them broadcasted. “I’ll need to make you certain of it.”

His jaw slackens, grip loosening enough for her to step away without having to pull from him to retreat to her desk, hiding the bubbling in her stomach behind a smug twitch of the lips as she lets that settle in the air. It’s as close to a confession as she’s willing to give and even then it feels too much, her blood thrumming and a buzz rising in her ears at a very obvious misstep.

Her eyes veer to her scrawl of notes, to the page at the top – the one he had read. She doesn’t sit. Instead leaning over the desk, attention crawling over the annotations of an old case study: Phineas Gage and his wondrous survival. Nothing about biopods in that. Good. She can at least look busy, even if her fingers tap erratically against her desk and she worries her bottom lip between teeth. It’s a pointed effort not to glance up when she hears him move, following the sound of his steps in their wide circle of the office until he stops opposite her.

His hands warm and calloused, engulf hers. Pressing them into the desk to stop her tapping as he leans forward.

“Likewise, Blondie.” He’s gentle as he presses a kiss to her forehead, thumbs ghosting against the back of her hands. If she looked up, his expression would have been an uncharacteristically soft thing; eyes warm yet uncertain in the gentler motions. She didn’t look up.

He pulls away as quickly as she did, and with far less grace in his own retreat as he calls over his shoulder; “I’ll see you at home.”

She can’t answer beyond an affirming hum, biting back a too-wide smile and trying to crush the odd feeling in her chest. There’s no real effort to that crush. She gives up on it as soon as the door slides closed.

[jamiekb]

more things that i loved (and got to explore) from the Welcome home update

i had already made a post about my first thoughts and stuff, this is just me playing around again

More things!!!:

ok so the 'you' section in the neighborhood now has a little heart. huh i think that's the first time his voice is so distorted in the audios

oh my god even on their illustration page, on the welcome home section, clown changed the banner. looks so cool!!!

hey the telephone was part of the original concept art!!

now forth with the secrets that people have been so kind as to share

finally get the last video. there's something about barnabys voice that just doesnt let me pay attention to what hes saying, maybe its just too calm. that definitely has a different tone from the others at the end, you good Wally??

now past the password page

why is the banner called sneezing??

ok now i get why they say the question answerer went insane

probably nothing but i do find it funny that the 'it's in here' text gives you the 404 page. also are you calling Wally it?

so he can just communicate with people involved in the project i guess??? i do love that he just cant write in a normal way, still the name of a picture

can you not touch ink then?? or just like in general any of the material from Welcome Home???

Frank my dear! from the art in Clown's portafolio, didn't actually expect to see it in the page

more stuff to read! but it's too far away :(

is the question answerer the one that's.. you know.. asking the questions?

more emails!!! ok so you definitely dont touch it and you have to check it then. who is sending these??? im confused. and of course its not alarming to handle material from lost media and then have symptoms like nausea or fatigue, totally normal thing to experience

so im guessing for some of these pictures you have to play with exposure and stuff, some seem near legible

the little vault! i know it's scary but it's so small!!! and Wally from the portafolio!

another shot of the one where wally writes

you can sort of see the script! is it the one we had already seen?

who is sorry??? i just get more confused, need to go back to the exhibition page

back to the audios. I only got four the first time around (i, will, a, i-2), so it'll be nice to hear the rest

nevermind i didnt write down some that i did find (help, you-1, will-2, find). this is why 3am when you're tired is not the best time to do this. and of course the return of 'Neighbor', the angry vynil

pretty sure i hadn't heard 'understand' (some light distortion, interesting), 'way' (sorry darling, no can do, that was a weird way to request that) and 'soon' (creepy, not a fan)

back to the merch page. oh yeah you can click on the red button, why didn't i notice that? creepy and cool audio, not the duet i was expecting, it really is wallys part of the phone thing. again mentioning that we have looked into his eyes. Home says something? what is the work i have to do Wally??? are you just directly speaking to the question answerer?

[jargonautical]

Squirrel's Drey

SQUIRREL’S DREY, ANNOUNCE faded silver-grey letters in gothic script painted on the dusty fascia. Under that, in far more prosaic and legible lettering, Est. 1863. Prop. E. Mainder Esq. 

The shop itself is something of a local landmark, a navigation point for those unfamiliar with the area. Head up until you see Mainder’s then turn right, the locals tell tourists looking for the church. The loos? Oh, they’re down past Mainder’s and towards the sea front. You can’t miss it. 

Not that it’s in any way remarkable; it’s just one more cluttered window smack in the middle of the row of shops, a higgledy-piggledy mashup of what used to be fishermen’s cottages back before Victorian engineers decided they could push back the sea. Like all the buildings on that street it’s an architectural mongrel, uneven lumps of red sandstone at the back and spartan neoclassical from assorted eras rising up above the modern shop fronts, additions and extensions sprouting in all directions. No, what makes it a waypoint is that it sits right on the junction with the broad avenue of Bishop’s Walk, once the imposing approach to some long-dead churchman’s long-fallen palace. From that direction the shop is front and centre, clearly discernible from a hundred yards away. 

If you had an hour to kill and nowhere to be, the shop is perfectly placed to take advantage of your curiosity. Bullseye panes in the bowed bay window show distorted glimpses of the treasures inside, narrow shelves cluttered with coins, arrowheads and fossils. To the left and to the right, round baskets of trinkets placed haphazardly over every flat surface. Mainder doesn’t make it easy for you to find the good stuff. Let ‘em search, he always says. Let the customer feel good about discovering the perfect gift or outright bargain in amongst the dusty tat. 

Stepping inside the first thing that hits you is the smell. It’s not awful - quite the opposite. It’s something like slipping between the pages of a book, warm and dry with a faint papery rustle on the edge of hearing. Underneath that notes of dust, bergamot, charcoal, though what causes this peculiar blend is impossible to say. Certainly there are books, row upon row on crowded shelves from floor to ceiling disappearing into the gloom at the back. Cardboard labels in hand-written capitals sellotaped to the edge of each shelf suggest the topics you might expect to find there including local history, reference, folklore and ‘Fiction - Local Author’. Lower shelves dispense with labelling and instead entice smaller customers with the colourful covers of the books themselves, a sample turned face out to display distant worlds, talking animals, twin suns, magical doorways. Mainder knows his audience. 

Well, he ought to. As he likes to say, he’s been in this business long enough. Distant contacts are constantly surprised to find the shop is even still going. Must be the son, they say, or the grandson. Or the old man finally retired and handed off to someone else who kept the name going, like Dread Pirate Whatsisname from that movie. Every once in a while some tourist will laughingly enquire if 'Mister Mainder Ess-squire' is available, and he’ll grin along with the tired joke and come out from behind the counter, indicating himself with a showman’s flourish and ask what he can do for them. How good a mood he’s in depends on how long he lets them stew before explaining that the shop was founded by his great-grandfather back in the day. It never gets old, the frozen horror on their faces dissolving to foolish relief, and the haste with which they fumble to buy something just so they can get out of here. 

The woman who picked up the book her hand was resting on and blurted “Just this, thank you!”, she’s still his favourite memory. He’s just sorry he never got to see her face when she opened the bag later and realised she’d bought ‘An Illustrated History of Faerie Congress’, the collector’s edition with full colour plates in glorious anatomically graphic detail. Even Jen, running the sweetshop next door and as strait-laced a matron as he ever met, got a chuckle out of that one when he told her. He likes Jen; she’s that rare combination of genuinely sweet-natured and incurably curious, and keeps him well supplied with accurate gossip on the lives of everyone in the town. He can’t break her habit of calling him Mister Mainder though, no matter how many times he gently corrects her. 

To everyone else he’s just ‘Mainder’. In theory there must be a first name floating around somewhere in his history, but nobody ever gets close enough to know it. It just doesn’t seem necessary somehow. Taken with the longevity of the shop itself it cements the impression of an eternally benign presence, forever and always a Mainder with a hand on the helm, and it’s been that way for so long that nobody questions it. 

Sometimes, if he’s honest, he does wonder if it’s time to pack it all in. He doesn’t need to be here all the time. In fact he could probably get away with not being here at all, barely ever required to man the actual shop, perfectly able to leave day-to-day operations to the cheerful Krzysztof. Perhaps it genuinely is time he went home, even just for a visit. He could, of course. There was never anything stopping him; it’s just that every time the idea crossed his mind, he would find he somehow just didn’t really want to. He’s far too comfortable with things the way they are.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Not a Hetalia question but I was told today that handwriting is different depending on the language? Is that true? Sorry if that's too off topic you just seemed like a good question to ask someone who reads old stuff

It can! Almost every time and place in history had its own script! The latin alphabet is very old and variations of writing are found around the world. I'm more familiar with Europe and the Americas because I can only write in European based languages so this sample is pretty narrow.

A lot of Germans I know use a Z that looks like a lightning bolt and I picked up that habit overseas as a teenager.

Cyrillic cursive like this that has bled into one of my Ukrainian coworkers English.

Or take this really cool example of an mid-century American who's first language was English, but wrote her post script here in her father's native Arabic.

I am pretty good at reading all kinds of handwriting after 6 years in archives and tbh I mostly think it's because I was taught 2 forms of writing.

One that was my standard 21st century American bubble letters like every teenage/20-something white girl that I still use occasionally.

But when I was really little I refused to pick a dominant hand so my writing was completely illegible. My French Canadian grandparents had me for a few years while my parents worked their careers out and made pick a hand to write with and found the only way my handwriting was legible is when I starre using Seyes. Which is still what I use to write my signature and anything that needs to look nice. The above sample is from me trying to show some niblings what they consider the ancient script of their ancestors (belle époque/Victorian origins lol.)

And then that's what my normal handwriting actually looks like. Legible enough for franglais shitposts and journalling but not very pretty. Without the grid things get pretty gross lol.

[guardmesherlock-rowan]

January Prompt: Envelope p4.

For SherlockChallenge January's prompt

And now our other mystery solvers

Mycroft Holmes, Arthur Hastings, and Hercule Poirot under the cut

Mycroft Holmes

Mycroft searched their home until he found MC.  They were making little notes in their latest script.  After watching them for a moment he snuck up from behind and gently blew on their neck, smirking as they jumped slightly.

“Mycroft!”  They scolded with the cutest pout on their face as they turned to face him.

“Yes, my dear?” He sat down next to them and held out an envelope. “If you have a moment I would love to share these with you.”  Their expression quickly shifted to curiosity and moved closer to him.

Carefully he removed the papers from the envelope and grinned as he presented them to MC. Little childish doodles, and shaky words were written across the pages, but he didn’t have to wait long for their eyes to light up with recognition.  “But how?”

Mycroft’s grin only grew as he watched them read over the barely legible writing of their younger self.  “It’s really cute how you always wanted to be an actress.”  He picked up a page of her writing about being in the school play and how much she loved it, complete with a doodle of her on stage, or presumably a stage.  “I want to add these to your album so we can cherish this memory of your youth.”

“I still can’t believe you got these for me.”

He tenderly pushed their hair behind their ear and watched the soft expression on their face, warm as they relived those moments from years ago.  He could let them believe he got those pages only for them, as long as he could keep this moment, their expression, to himself.

Arthur Hastings

Arthur handed MC her bag back, but he couldn’t help the way he stared at the boys who had stopped them on their walk.  They were so excited to get her autograph. He didn’t blame them, but he was aware that they were on a little bit of a time crunch.  The way she smiled at them, it warmed his heart to see her interacting with her fans, but it still ached.

MC slipped their hand in his as they continued down the street.  “Sorry about that Arthur, let’s get-”

“MC!” Diana, her manager, called out to them.  The tall woman was grinning ear to ear, the grin seemed to only increase when she saw Arthur next to her. “Oh this is the perfect timing, I’m so glad I was able to catch you!  You would never believe this, but you know those offices the studio used to be out of a few years ago? Well, they were cleaning out the space for the new tenets and found a lot of old unanswered fan mail the show received! Including…” she held out the envelope, “tada!”

Arthur’s stomach twisted in recognition of the handwriting on the envelope, his handwriting.

MC seemed to realize it as well when she glanced up at him. She took the envelope from Diana, and turned it over, showing Arthur’s name and his old address from back then as the return recipient.

“It must be fate’s way of wanting to celebrate you two coming together by having this finally delivered to you! Open it,” Diana giggled and danced a little in place, “I cannot wait to hear what you wrote!”

Arthur quickly grabbed the envelope and held it behind his back, the heat on his cheeks warning him of how red he was turning.  “Maybe this was better off left unread.”

MC looked up at him with those big eyes of theirs that had Arthur feeling like he wanted to share it with them. “If it means that much to you…” They said understandingly, but Arthur could hear the disappointment. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“I’ll read it to you later, when we’re alone.”  He glanced at Diana to make sure she understood.

MC quickly grabbed onto his arm.  “Then it’s a date.”

Hercule Poirot

“Is this all of them?” Hercule started to sort the envelopes that had tumbled out of MC’s bag, placing them into neat little piles.

“All the ones I’ve found.” They sat down across from Hercule watching him as he observed the front of the envelopes before adding them to a category.

“So run me through the facts again, you found these in the dressing room?”

“Yes, well, not exactly. I was changing but there was a rip in the jacket and the head of wardrobe said there should be a jacket from a different production that should work, so we went to go grab it, and in the storage, there was an envelope on the ground and I was surprised to see my name on it.”

“I see,” Hercule flipped on envelope over, observing the front and back, before carefully pulling out the RSVP from the envelope and studied it. “From there you found the bag with the rest of these little envelopes?”

“Yes.” They nodded, nervously looking at the envelopes.

“And these look like your handwriting but you didn’t write these?”

“Yes.” Their shoulders slumped a little.

Hercule looked up from the envelope, turning his attention to them. “Hastings!” He called out.

“Yes?” The tall man with dark hair called from his room.

“If you would, get the kettle going, please. I do believe MC and I could use some tea.”  He looked over at them reassuringly. “Don’t fret, we will get to the bottom of these curious invitations.”

“But the party noted is for this weekend at my home.” They reached out for one of the envelopes and read over the RSVP, slightly shaking.

“Well, then may I suggest we look into what it takes to throw a party? Perhaps the person who set these invitations out will be in attendance.” He spoke confidently, bringing a smile to their face, while his gaze dropped to the envelope that had caught his attention earlier. The one with a newer stamp on it than the others.

[yfu]

ie turnabout: If you don't want to leave us on a cliffhanger but can't commit to a full scanlation, would a transcript + link to raws be easier for you? We appreciate all your hard work and dedication, but please don't stress yourself out.

Thanks for your concern! Long post incoming.

Seriously I love Turnabout and it's only 4 volumes (starts frothing at the mouth). While v1-3 raws are easy to find and I shouldn't have to spoonfeed you, v4 hasn't been ripped yet except by a friend of mine which is why I have them, however I am uncomfortable sharing these unedited because, well, they cost money!

Sorry as I am answering this message I just finished translating up to chapter 4 of v2. If anything the lack of attention this project has gotten made me really stubborn. Realistically, I could finish this in like, a week if I wanted to, but its mind-numbing work.

To not get into it too much, since I work solo, my workflow is a bit crazy. I'll read once, then sit down to translate with a rough script (generally both literal and localized translations), then I clean all the speech bubbles, EDIT THE SCRIPT AS I TYPESET while also comparing to the original JP dialogue, then proofread like 3 times, then edit again. I actually proofread multiple times, staggering releases so I can go reread with fresh eyes or get someone else's opinion.

So the problem is that I'm editing the stuff to fit as I'm typesetting, making sure it looks good, makes sense, and isn't too literal. Just the raw script would read like shit. It is very hard for me to read script without matching it to the pictures since it's just dialogue, it just doesn't capture the raw feeling. I also think it would take more time for me to format the script so it's legible than if I just typeset it outright. That's why there are teams of people who work on a single series. I'm a bit backwards and take some pride in my work, as much as any other group does. lol.

I'll just stop if I don't feel like it anymore. And no, I don't accept typesetting/editing/whatever else help because of my weird workflow, and I don't want to make commitments to anyone but myself.

edit: you know what would be faster? If the people who have it in English typed out the script from their copies.

[rebornrosess]

wanna start making collages like yours cause they're super inspiring to me but don't know where to start, do you have any advice?

hi!! sorry for the late response, i’ve been busy with midterms but this is so kind, i’m glad they could be inspiring :”))) i’m super honoured.

i use an old version (2019) of photoshop for all my collages and my canvases are letter paper sized (8.5 x 11) in CMYK for the best resolution when printed. if you don’t plan on printing your work then RGB works best for digital uploads (the colour profiles will look very different if you put them in a canvas of the opposite colour profile). i’m mostly self-taught from youtube (kel lauren got me into graphic design back in like 2017 <3), but i’ve been pretty lucky to also apply some stuff from multimedia classes in high school. i mostly use fonts downloaded from dafont.com or other random websites that i find just from looking up an adjective + font. you can also get a pretty decent approximate of a font from a poster or an image from font squirrel! i’ve found my (amateur) photography background to be helpful when composing canvases. don’t worry about “breaking” the rules, but basic photography rules like the rule of thirds, the golden ratio, or even just working with a grid can really help as a starting point.

pinterest is my best friend for inspiration but also for images. when i have an idea for a collage, i make a dedicated board for it to collect images i might want to use in it or any other graphic design work, illustrations, posters etc. that fit the vibe that i want the collage to have. i also keep a board for anything that i find inspiring, whether it’s other people’s graphic design work, illustrations, posters, or even just colour palettes and random images that have a great energy to them that i would love to capture. for higher quality images you can check out unsplash or even tumblr. lots of talented artists have great texture packs on gumroad that you can get for free or at a pretty reasonable price!

i’ve honestly been in a bad creative rut since this summer, but i’ve always made my collages around a literal body of text. working from song lyrics, a poem, or a movie monologue, whether referenced overtly or indirectly, can be a great help. i do a close reading of whatever excerpt i pick then write down all the imagery it invokes explicitly or in my mind. if i’m lucky and the author of the text has a larger body of work, i’ll take a look at that too and see if there are any recurring symbols throughout their work. i’ll also look into what artists inspire them and see if i can meaningfully incorporate those visuals as well.

if i decide i want to incorporate the body of text directly in my collage, i try to section it off based on common themes/symbols or just based on whatever feels most natural (some panels i make have a lot of text on them, others only have a verse or two). i do this ahead of time to help me plan how many panels i want to make, but i also get a feel for this on the canvas itself when i type out all the text. i like playing with different text alignments too (big fan of justify which makes your text fill the text box).

re: fonts, i’ve made a canvas of all the custom fonts i’ve downloaded so i can have a visual referent of everything i have if i’m struggling to remember what i have while scrolling through the font tab on photoshop. i use helvetica in most of my collages to keep the focus on the images and assure readability, but it all depends on the intent of the collage. text doesn’t always have to be legible! you can also mix and match fonts within the same sentence to stress a specific word by using a different font. pairing serif (fonts with little “feet”) or script (fonts that look handwritten) with sans-serif fonts (like the one i’m using to type this post now) can make for some fun effects.

re: photoshop (or any other image editing software like affinity, pixlr, procreate, picsart? etc.), i like to cut out the images digitally with the polygon lasso and leave a bit of the space around the subject for a more textured feel, but i also play around with lots of layer modes for other cool effects if i’m not really feeling it (my favourites are “lighten”, “darken”, and “overlay”). there are also a variety of layer styles that you can apply to photos and text like strokes (i get a lot of use out of these), drop shadows, and bevels to add texture to individual assets. play with ALLLL the image adjustment options. transform, warp, posterize, threshold (i use this a lot with the “lighten” mode, it gives a cool black & white texture), pixelate, blurs, noise...just make lots of copies when starting out so you can easily reverse the work lol. save often! also keyboard shortcuts are your best friend.

finally, don’t be afraid to use only a few assets per panel! you can create some really impactful visuals without overwhelming the canvas.

ty for asking something so thoughtful, means a lot. :”) <3

[grunge-mermaid]

there's a new store in town that sells essentially overstock clothes at a deep discount, which is a good thing in theory, but it's all walmart and old navy and penningtons

now, old navy and penningtons are in the next town so if you don't have a car and/or can't afford to shop there but like their clothes, you're golden. and to be fair, in the summer I did get a pair of Levi's shorts for $5 so it's not like there's never anything.

but most of the clothes are just...sad? like there wasn't a single saturated colour in the entire store today. everything was white, beige, black, or denim, with like 2 pieces that were desaturated sage and 2 that were desaturated paprika. and a couple of khaki green jumpsuits that look like a cross between maternity-wear and a child's halloween costume of an air force pilot. like every single item just screams "I'm sorry for existing in a body" and it's not the store owner's fault, this is just what's available for her to purchase because this is what manufacturers are making. I have the same problem at the other clothing store in town. and walmart. and old navy. and every other store at the mall. and it sucks. torrid has some cute stuff online but the in-store selection here is garbage & shipping is outrageous (no free ship-to-store for Canadian stores)

last time I was in this new store, I said that I find current fashion trends (particularly for women in their mid-30s) depressing, boring, sad, and frumpy. so the owner pulls a t-shirt off the rack and says "this is cute, not frumpy!" ...it was an oversized pyjama top from walmart with some daisies on it and tacky wine-mom type "humour" in a barely-legible script.

today, there was one piece in the entire store that I liked: black faux suede cropped moto jacket with faux sheepskin collar and cuffs but it was only available in size small. it was sharp, it was cute. cosy but a little bit of an edge. I don't normally wear black except for leggings but I'd wear this. and it was cropped so it would hit right at my natural waist (I am disproportionately leg). so the owner takes me back to the plus size coat rack to show me "something similar in brown." now, I had already been through the plus size coat rack so I wasn't expecting much.

the coat she wanted to show me was an oversized faux-wool trapeze coat that was well past fingertip length. and 3 sizes too big. the only similarity to the moto jacket was the fact that it was a coat.

[tales-of-a-broken-mask]

Chicken Scratch

Yes, professor, I’ll rewrite it.

Sorry, professor, for the bad handwriting.

I agree, professor, that it looks like chicken scratch.

No, professor, I always write like that.

So, professor, are you going to mark me down?

Make me waste my precious writing stick?

Will you, professor, tell me to improve my penmanship?

Tell me that it looks like the scribbles of a first grader?

Well, professor, I don’t know what to tell you.

Either my assignments will be done before the bell tolls,

Or the legibility of my script will be god-like.

I’m only playing nice because you have power over me.