#surprisingly had the most fun with the line art on this

[wyyvoren]

commission for ushinotokimairi on bsky!!!! had a lotttt of fun with this!!!!

[joshuamj]

Been artblocked lately, so i decided to sorta reset by trying out other styles, so here's EoW!Zelda in my style and 3 others!

+ some style/process notes

[sourmiiiilk]

Ok so this may be a dumb question 👉👈…but will Adisorn be voiced in the final game?

Also how difficult was it to conjure Adisorn’s current design? What did you love throughout the art process?

Apologies for the questions - I’m living off the adrenaline of playing your AMAZING game 😭😭😭

Although Adisorn will not be fully voiced, he currently has some voiced lines done by me in the full beta build (his laughter in the demo is done by me, for example). In the final stages of development I will likely commission a VA to replace most lines/sounds as I do not have an American accent (and Adisorn is American), plus my voice doesn't really fit him imho.

Adisorn was surprisingly really easy to design. One evening I just had a vision and outlined most of the main concepts for the game on one pages of my sketchbook. Here's a part of it:

His visual design hasn't really changed since then (besides his parka becoming shorter), albeit the plot and his character went through a ton of changes. Online Obsession was supposed to be another short game for fun akin to ones I've done in the past for me & my friends, but it quickly became my passion project I poured my soul into.

My favourite part of designing him and his story was [̴̡͇̮͉̼͈̥̫̟̀̊̆͛͜͜ͅR̸̢̛̜̱̹̭͇̻͑͒̆̀̆̓̐̊̕ͅẸ̴̛̘̦̹͎̳͔̭͔̠̺̫͍̊̈̌̈́̍̂͂̇̏͗̏D̸̨̀̑̽̓͛͊̈̋͐̕A̷͈͂̕C̷̢̡͓̟̗̬̗͓̠̼̙̊̑͌̄͠ͅT̸̛͉͉̙̯̲͇̙̠̮͖̏͂̓͑E̴̛̛̜̘̭̦͂̆̎͝Ḏ̶̜̞̪̦̹͕͚̬̗̣̮͈͇͙̈̏̈́̕]̵̭̜͂͆̐̔̈́ though!

Thank you so much for enjoying the demo and I hope you like the full game just as much <33

[clarionglass]

so i have been bitten by the sam reich!master bug courtesy of some phenomenal art by @northernfireart and uh. as is too often the case i had to write something otherwise if i didn't get it out of my brain i would go absolutely insane

(there may be more vignettes coming if i have ideas..... there are definitely other episodes i'd like to give the Treatment to, plus with the new dw series coming out on the weekend i may have ideas for how to incorporate the dw gang! however, i promise neither more writing or no more writing. that said, this was a lot of fun so there'll probably be more at some stage :D )

this has full spoilers for the game changer ep "escape the greenroom", but hey that's been out for a while now so,,,, if you haven't seen it i'd highly recommend it as an episode!

so, without further ado:

--

Samuel Dalton was a complete fiction, of course, but that didn't mean that when Sam Reich snuck back upstairs to get tied up in the “out of order” bathroom, the Sam that remained on the monitor, laughing at the contestants, was a pre-recording. And if Brennan, Siobhan and Lou had snorted at the idea of a time-travelling evil magician great-grandfather (for good reason), going in with the actual truth of the matter would have sounded like jumping the shark.

It sounded bizarre, but the time travel bit was the only part about his new partner in crime that was confirmably real. Admittedly, the jury was still out on “evil”—he gave off a weird vibe at times, but so far, no lines had been crossed, and it had all been funny as hell—so for now, Sam was willing to roll with it. But perhaps most surprisingly, there wasn’t even the possibility of blood relation between Samuel Dalton Reich and the guy who had shown up out of the blue one day with his exact face and a plan to really fuck around with things on Game Changer.

Yeah, the whole alien thing had really ruled out that particular prospect.

There had been various bits and pieces of confirmation that this guy wasn’t human through the time Sam had known him, but the final nail in the coffin for that one was when his doppelganger had looked him dead in the eye and tried on one of the heart rate monitors—sorry, “range extenders”—for As a Cucumber. The damn thing had literally sparked up, then died completely. Trying to process input from two separate heartbeats at once would do that, apparently. 

His doppelganger was a Time Lord, or so he had nonchalantly said one afternoon in casual conversation, though Sam still wasn’t sure if that one was a joke or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because he said the wildest things with the straightest face, and so far, most of them had turned out to be one hundred percent certifiably true. The time travel, the space travel, even the changing faces thing—it sounded objectively insane, but the proof was undeniable. 

There were some notable exceptions, though. Saying he’d been trapped for aeons inside Neil Patrick Harris’s gold tooth went just that bit too far to be believable, though Sam did appreciate his double’s slightly warped sense of humour.

It was that offbeat line of thinking that lent itself well to game design, as it turned out. He had a knack for coming up with ideas for Game Changer episodes, albeit with the occasional suggestion that went way beyond the bounds of good taste, and, as in the case of Escape the Greenroom, had devised some blinding twists on concepts Sam had already half-formed. The letter puzzle unlocking the secret door? It was perfect.

Understandably, Sam’s doppelganger had wanted to observe the fruits of their labours in real time, rather than watching the recording later. It happened, sometimes, particularly when it was one of his ideas that had made it through to the episode list—they’d swap places for a session, with nobody being any the wiser. Watching those edits back always felt a bit weird—it was uncanny how flawless the mimicry was—but hey, the guy was right. It was always fun.

Escape the Greenroom, specifically, with its “Samuel Dalton” conceit, provided them with a unique opportunity. Instead of swapping out the camera feed for a recording when the cast piled into the tiny secret room behind the wall, as per the original plan to get Sam in position to be discovered in the bathroom, they could just swap out the people. Sam would go upstairs, and his double would take his place at the podium, ducking out of sight when everyone came back to the main stage to “defuse the bomb”.

Sam was keen—hell, if their situations had been reversed, he’d want to be there to watch, too—but caution raised a flag. “You don’t think it’s too risky?” he’d asked when the subject was first raised. “Both of us being in the same place?”

His doppelganger had shrugged one shoulder with supreme unconcern. “The crew won't notice.”

At the time, Sam had shot him a sceptical look, but right now, Sam-Reich-in-a-purple-tie and Sam-Reich-in-an-orange-tie were standing backstage post-record, clearly visible and and calmly chatting, and not a single member of the crew had given them so much as a second glance. 

…Hardly even a first glance, come to think about it. If anyone looked over their way, their eyes seemed to… not exactly go through them, but slide over the two of them like water. He was tempted to wave to Nico or Ash or someone, just out of pure curiosity, but something in the back of his mind told him that wouldn’t be the world’s greatest idea. He had a funny feeling he wouldn’t like to see what would happen next.

(He’d given the prop bomb back to the crew once the cameras stopped rolling, and though it looked the same as the one he remembered from before he’d headed upstairs, it felt different in his hands. Heavier, more… serious, somehow. He was sure nothing would have happened—but at the same time, he was suddenly very glad that the cast had cut the correct wire with no less than a minute fifteen to go.)

(The jury was still out on evil, after all.)

“Worth coming in for?” he asked instead.

“Absolutely,” his double replied with relish. “Locking those three in a small room for an hour? Brilliant, fantastic. Inspired. It was absolute chaos.”

“Have you seen up there?” Sam asked, a smile starting to spread across his face. “They messed up the set real bad.”

His doppelganger smirked at him. “You know it took literally two seconds from you telling them to escape the greenroom for Lou to smash that guitar?”

Sam shook his head. “Oh my god. Yeah, they were stressed.” 

“Mmm. Some real panic in that room,” his doppelganger agreed, and Sam chose to ignore the faint note of satisfaction in his voice.

He shifted his weight, settling back to lean against the table behind the set, in the exact instant his double decided to do the same thing. It really was freaky how similar they were, down to the smallest mannerism—like looking in a mirror, only weirder, because the face that looked back at him was truly his own face, not mirror-reversed. Even now, it still caught Sam off guard from time to time, but at least it had faded into a more comfortable kind of strange. He had an exact lookalike who was an actual time-travelling alien. Cool. Doesn’t everyone?

The pair shared a companionable silence for a few moments, before a thought Sam had been turning over for a while rose to the top of his mind. He shifted again, this time on his own, and he felt his double’s regard swing up to fix on him like a magnet. 

“Okay, real talk,” he started, and his doppelganger frowned back in an approximation of confused innocence. “What’s all this for?”

“Who says it has to be for anything? Aren't we just having fun?”

Sam hummed, considering. “Yeah. No, I'd believe that, if I didn't sometimes walk into production meetings and find out I'd apparently been very specific about the people I wanted for certain episodes.”

“Point for Sam,” his doppelganger acknowledged with a grin. “You got me. Wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls on our joint behalf.”

“Yeah, but why?” Sam pressed. “I mean, Siobhan, Brennan and Lou are always great comedy value when you put them together, and it was awesome to have them for this, but I get the feeling you’re thinking of something other than making good content.”

“Who, me?”

With that, his double gave him a look of such overdone pantomime innocence that Sam suddenly and thoroughly understood why, not half an hour earlier, Brennan had very seriously threatened to push him down the stairs. 

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a smirk for his troubles.

Dropping the act, his doppelganger continued. “I’m expecting an… old friend, I guess, to show up at some point, and—well, I’d like to put on a really special show for them. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a few things out, you know?”

Ominous pause aside, that was actually kind of sweet. Sweeter than he’d been expecting, that’s for sure—he was half anticipating the revelation that he and his cast were subjects in some weird experiment. Hey, that still couldn’t fully be ruled out, but still.

“Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well… just let me know, next time? Before you start ordering in my cast like takeout?”

“Who says they’re your cast?” his double shot back with a twinkle in his eye, and Sam snorted.

“Fine. Our cast, then. But seriously, let me know?”

His doppelganger nodded, which, if not quite fully convincing, was good enough. 

“Oh, and do you know when your friend might be arriving?” Sam asked. “Because if you wanted to plan something, we can—”

“I don’t know,” his doppelganger interrupted. “So yeah, we’ll have to move fast when they do get here. But I’ve got it under control.”

He broke off, then shot Sam a mischievous grin. “In the meantime, though, I’ve had this fun thought about time loops…”

[athena-gundampla]

HGUC 1/144 E.F.F. Prototype Transformable Mobile Suit NRX-044 "Asshimar" (XW Knockoff)

The Asshimar!!! This is one of my favorite transformable mobile suits, and one of my favorite suits from Zeta overall. Its design is loosely based on the G1 design for the transformer "Cosmos", with a circular Mobile Armour mode and a chunky Mobile Suit mode standing at over 23 meters (making it a very large kit).

This kit is actually a bootleg, made by the company XW and sold under the dubious title of "Pumpkin Pie Warrior". The Bandai HGUC Asshimar isn't all that hard to get but I had to pick up this bootleg for the funky box art alone.

Surprisingly for a bootleg, the quality wasn't all that bad. It's a fairly good clone of the Bandai mould, with the same level of colour separation and detail. There's a little bit of flashing that needs to be trimmed, but the mould lines were no worse than most Bandai kits - better in some places. The clear piece that goes over the eye-sensor was a little warped but it's not noticeable once the kit is assembled. One issue I did find was that the tolerances weren't quite as precise as with Bandai kits, with some pegs being too big for their holes and certain pieces refusing to stay flush. If you assemble this kit be prepared to spend a little extra time widening holes and gluing parts down to get it to work.

In terms of the kit itself, the colour separation and level of detail is impressive. Unlike some other HG transformable kits, this one doesn't require any parts removal or replacement to transform, and there's some really impressive internal engineering to achieve this, especially with the way the legs fold in on themselves. The kit is completely colour separated, apart from a little red for the thrusters and some grey vents and minor details around the suit.

I also cribbed some of the Titans stickers from my unbuilt GM-II as well as a few other spare stickers, and added a bit of custom graffiti and markings in white, as well as some light weathering. The graffiti was a little hard to come up with given the Titans position as a fascist allegory, so I kept it limited to some kill markings and a message on the gun. The unit number is almost entirely a result of what stickers I had to hand.

The graffiti and markings were difficult to plan out, as several panels change orientation in Mobile Armour mode and I wanted to avoid parts appearing upside down.

I made sure to include a little homage to the knockoff kit's name with a custom suit name and logo!

The kit comes with very limited extra parts, including its Large Beam Rifle, two closed fists hand options, and two pistol grip hand options.

A neat bonus with this kit is that it includes an extra Large Beam Rifle, so you can pose it with two guns at once! The second rifle can be attached to the top of the suit in Mobile Armour mode, but I found this threw of the balance a little so I didn't take any photos.

Overall this was a really fun build and I'm pleasantly surprised at the quality of the knockoff. It's not as good as my XFS knockoff GM Spartan, but it's certainty commendable especially at the lower price.

Definitely recommend checking it out! Next up is another knockoff kit for AoZ April - the XFS HGUC Woundwort, if I get to it!

[lesmisshippingshowdown]

Introducing: POLL STEALING

Woah! The Les Mis Shipping Showdown, introducing a whole new gameplay mechanic when the tournament's already started? Say it ain't so!

Well. It's so.

Inspired by @hbowartournament (idk if they originated this idea, but it's certainly where I saw it), starting with the Round of 16 you will have the opportunity to earn back percentage points on any given poll by creating fanworks - fic, art, gifsets, fanvids, etc - for your ship of choice and letting us know about it. A full breakdown of how this works is under the Read More at the bottom of this post, and we'll also make a separate explainer post to link in each new poll.

To give you all a head start on your creations, we will be slightly delaying the Round of 16 poll drop to the evening (GMT/UTC) of Monday 10th March. Be there or be square!

This does, of course, also mean that we will be completely ignoring the entirely democratic results of our earlier poll and keeping each poll's running time at a week to give you the most time possible to get your fanworks finished and submitted.

Q: Why? Simple! I realised while searching for visual aids for the ships in the Round of 32 that this bracket contains a lot of surprisingly niche pairs for whom there's not actually a whole lot of content. 47% of the pairings that made the bracket have fewer than 150 works on AO3! So actually, this tournament could be a great opportunity to highlight & spur on a new outpouring of love for some of those rarer pairings, some of which haven't really been in their heyday since like, 2014. I kind of was operating along these lines already when begging you guys for fanart submissions every other day, but then I figured adding the competition element makes it more fun and gives you guys more of an incentive to participate!

Q: But my ship's just been eliminated from the round of 32 :( Now I don't get to play :( Fear not. Because I have a solution.

Q: Can I submit a fanwork I've already created? Ideally, new fanwork is the dream here, but we get everyone has time constraints and we're announcing this all pretty last minute. If you want to subtly rework the WIP you've had lurking in your Google Docs for the past 6 years, or tweak an artwork you already posted on here in 2013, we'll turn a blind eye. However, in the interest of both fun and fairness, we ask that you prioritise new, or at least newly updated, work (new chapters of existing multichapter fics count!) and do not just spam the tag with your entire back catalogue of 172,000 words of [insert ship here] fanfic. You can still post your back catalogue as propaganda, but it won't count towards the steal.

(PS. We're aware that some sections of this fandom have just had big creative output fests e.g. Valvert Week, and may therefore be all out of fresh ideas for this tournament. In the interest of not overworking you guys, if you'd like to repurpose any work - for any ship - published since February 1st, 2025 as a Steal Work, you are absolutely welcome to do so. Just be sure to send us a link and let us know that this is your intention.)

Q: Is there anything I can't submit?

Once again, we politely request no AI generated art or fiction.

NSFW is absolutely fine, but please ensure it is suitably tagged so anybody who wants/needs to avoid it is able to do so.

We know that with the presence of certain ships in this bracket (*cough* turnchetta) it's completely impossible to avoid parody/troll/shitpost content, and banning it would be antithetical to the point of some of these noble ships. Plus, some of the greatest creative works in Les Mis fandom history (*cough* the Enjonine rap) have been works in this vein. So you're welcome to goof around, but please be aware that at the mods' discretion we may discount anything we deem to be especially low effort or in particularly poor taste.

Q: You said the new round of polls doesn't start until March 10th - can I start posting Steal Works before then? Be our guest! If you've got things ready to go then you can post them as soon as they're done. Just make sure they're tagged appropriately (see under the cut) so that we know they're meant for this purpose.

Q: So how does all this work? I'm glad you asked! Please see below the cut:

(once again, all scoring & rules lifted absolutely wholesale from the hbowartournament. they changed the game with this and i'm not even kidding)

Writers:

Post a fic (or new chapter) of at least 100 words to AO3. The pairing of your choice must be the primary relationship tag (and remember this poll is for romantic relationships only)

Link your fic here, tag it #lmss steal, and send us a link to the post via asks/submissions. If your piece is part of a larger, previously established fic, please include in your message the word count of the new chapter.

Earn 0.1% for every 100 words, rounded to the nearest hundred

Artists:

Post your fanart to tumblr, tag it #lmss steal, and send us a link via asks/submissions.

Earn 0.1% for a sketch, 0.3% for linework, and 0.5% for a full colour piece.

Fanvid Editors:

Post your video to tumblr, tag it #lmss steal, and send us a link via asks/submissions.

Earn 0.3% per 10 seconds for an AMV/fanvid using existing footage, and 0.5% per 10 seconds for an animatic.

Photo/Gifset Editors:

Post your photoset/gifset to tumblr, tag it #lmss steal, and send us a link via asks/submissions.

Earn 0.1% per edited photo and 0.5% per gif/collage.

Playlist Curators:

Post your fanmix - consisting of at least 8 tracks (iykyk) - to Spotify (or create a YouTube playlist if you do not have a Spotify account).

Link your playlist here, tag it #lmss steal, and send us a link via asks/submissions.

Earn 0.1% per 8 songs on the playlist, rounded to the nearest 8

Earn 0.1% per 200 words of liner notes expanding on the selected songs

If you're struck by creative urges not listed above, just drop us an ask and we can figure out what category it falls into and/or approximate percentage conversion rates if it's something totally new.

No matter what you're posting though, the same applies - make sure to tag it #lmss steal so that we know it's part of this tournament, and send us a link to your post so that we don't miss it!

[adobe-outdesign]

A review for usuls when you get the chance?

Usuls are one of those old species of Neopets where they're fairly iconic just from having been around a long time—this is helped by how they're especially popular as NPCs due to being easily made anthro.

Visually, they're kind of like squirrels, but with much longer ears, ruffs, and a few wearable clothing items like bows and ear ties, which gives them some flavor. I'm not always the biggest fan of species that have clothing by default, but at least the bows make sense in-universe and help to balance their base colours.

Usuls start off with kind of a tanish-colored body and all of their base color contained in their clothing and ruffs. I do like the consistency, but it kind of feels like the actual colors aren't prominent enough in the design, especially because the tan isn't neutral enough to not overwhelm everything else. There are a fair amount of colours that do change the tan, but even more than insist on leaving it for whatever reason.

Usuls had extremely dated pre-customization art that would've needed redrawn anyway, so they mostly benefited from conversion—especially because the clothing became optional, and something that can now be removed if you don't care for it. Something about the converted head always seemed slightly off though, like the forehead is way too big. Just me?

Favorite Colours:

Maraquan: Some Maraquan pets that are clearly based off an animal tend to feel forced, but the Maraquan Usul being a snail as a play off the Usul's natural curled tail and long ears works great and doesn't feel weird for the species. The body is nicely illustrated (maybe a smidge too much detail in the ruff, but not a big deal) and the colors work nicely. My only nitpick is that the pink nose feels out of place, and should've been brown to match the shell, but that's a very minor thing.

Wraith: Most Wraith pets are always swirled black with a pink glow, but the Wraith Usul has a bright pink mane as a clear nod to the Shadow Usul, which I think is neat. The expression is fun, and the swirls and shapes of the body are neat, especially with the curl of the tail. Only complaint is that I kind of wish it didn't have a mouth like the actual Shadow Usul, but at least that can be fixed with mouth be-gone.

Pastel: Pastel is surprisingly really pretty, using a soft orange, pink and blue palette and then gradienting the colors from cool to warm and accenting them with solid blue. The colored shading and line work is an especially nice touch that really makes the whole thing come together.

BONUS: The converted Tyrannian Usul is alright, sporting a typical caveman outfit with eyebags, but it's the UC/styled version that really makes this color. I feel like it truly captures the essence of having woken up in the morning and instantly regretting it. I also like the uncurled tail and straight-back ears, and it's one of the only Usuls to not have a giant forehead.

[stirthewaters]

Too Sharp to Touch pt.4

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Slight language, brief descriptions of blood

Summary: Late to fighting practice, Wednesday tries to find you

Pairing: Wednesday x Reader

You were late.

What kind of ignorant fool could somehow be late to a meeting that they themselves had worked so hard to arrange? Of course, you, of all people, would be that fool.

Wednesday somehow found herself unsurprised. 

A glance at the clock mounted high above the door in the fencing hall would show that you were late. Half an hour late. Wednesday’s lips pulled into an irritated frown as she paced the wooden floors, her footsteps echoing loudly throughout the room as she did so. Wednesday, of course, was one who enjoyed silence, welcomed it even, always particular to the peaceful atmosphere of a wonderfully and eerily quiet room. 

The ticking of the clock accompanied the echoes of her footsteps as she continued to pace, occasionally glancing at the door or the windows, waiting for your arrival. Not hoping. Waiting. 

 The fact that you were supposed to be here and you weren’t was leaving a bad taste in her mouth. She hated the way that you could make her somehow unsatisfied with such a gloomy situation; what had you poisoned her with?

You had to have done something to her, surely. Consulted with Enid and Thing and injected her with a mind-altering fluid in her sleep. Slipped something into her coffee mug when she wasn’t looking. Cursed her with an ancient spell book discovered in the darkest reaches of the Nightshade library.

Wednesday was positive that you had done something to her, and she was not happy about it.

She continued to pace, frustration and, though she wouldn’t admit it, confusion. Where were you? Wasn’t this a priority to you? You had seemed so desperate to fight… you had offered her those flowers…

No. She was not going to think about the flowers right now.

The tip of her blade dropped slowly as she sighed, frustrated, and pulled the fencing helmet off of her head, tucking it under an arm as she fixed her messy bangs stuck to her forehead, a tinge of annoyance trickling through her as she arranged them once more.

If you had actually arrived on time like you’d said you would, she would’ve been able to follow through on her plans of terrifying you the second you stepped foot in the hall, scheming to jump you by the doorway with the tip of her blade pressed to your neck, to watch the thin line of blood she would be lucky enough to draw.

It would’ve been lovely to see some trace of fear in your eyes for once. Even a little. She would live for it. Especially if she could be the cause of it; she craved that moment.

But no, you just had to go and ruin her fun.

Neatly arranging her fencing gear back into her locker, that of which she closed and locked, Wednesday turned and promptly exited the dark and now empty fencing hall heading up the stairs and toward your dorm, boots clomping in the halls as the occasional group of students swerved to avoid her as she ducked into Dionysus hall, the one that you occupied.

The normally busy hallway was quieter than usual, most students already headed out for the weekend or in town for the evening, which was, admittedly, appreciated, but Wednesday was more focused on your whereabouts than the volume of the hall.

The raven didn’t even hesitate at your dorm door, opening it and storming inside as she looked around. On quick inspection she promptly discovered that you were nowhere to be found, surprisingly. She had expected you to be here, listening to music, drawing, or whatever you did in your free time, which she most definitely did not have memorized. Your bed, as usual, was messy. Empty. Your deskspace, equally messy and scattered with art supplies and assignments. Empty. The small space under the bed she’d discovered that you yet had to tell her about? Empty. 

Where were you?

Sighing in annoyance, Wednesday whirled around and exited your dorm, closing the door carefully behind her as she set off for the quad, determined to find you. You were not getting away that easily.

The student population increased dramatically as the goth entered the quad, eyes scrunching slightly at the sudden lack of darkness.

The quad was lit well with string lights illuminating the space as a handful of students lingered around, chatting and laughing and mingling amongst one another - a nauseatingly cheerful scene. Wednesday scanned the small crowd carefully, eyeing each person with a precise eye. You were quite the social student, so she expected you to be here, laughing and goofing off as you typically did when you could be avoiding work.

But, as she observed the students, not seeing you with any of your friends, she realized that no, you were not here. Frowning, Wednesday approached Xavier, who was, as usual, buried in a sketchbook at one of the tables, scribbling away. 

Stopping in front of him, she waited impatiently for the psychic to notice her. After a couple minutes, she realized he was too absorbed in his work and huffed, delivering a rough kick to his shin to make him look at her, arms crossing over her chest as she glared at him.

“Hello to you too, Wednesday,” Xavier groaned, rubbing his now-sore shin as he looked up at the raven, rolling his eyes. “What do you w-“

Wednesday didn’t even let him finish his sentence, cutting him off - “Y/N. Where is she?”

The psychic sighed and returned to sketching as he muttered, “she’s in the shed, last I saw her. She was working on some sort of art project I left her with. Haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She didn’t mention any plans that she had tonight?” Wednesday’s eyebrows furled. 

“Oh, right, Y/N couldn’t stop talking about how you two were going to fight tonight. Sounded like a death wish to me,” the psychic chuckled, returning to sketching. 

Sighing with irritation, Wednesday crossed her arms over her chest, sighing and turning away without thanking him, already on her way into the woods for the second time that week; you were really trying her patience, weren’t you? 

The incessant sounds of the academy faded into the background as the sound of faint birdsong and the whistling of wind through the trees welcomed her, and Wednesday felt herself relax as she embarked.

The faint light of Xavier’s shed in the woods led her way as she stepped through the wooded area, easily reaching the doors at the pace she was going, completely unbothered by the sounds of the woods at night as she knocked on the door once. Twice. Three times. No response. 

Frowning, Wednesday abruptly opened the door, inviting herself in as she looked around the shed; the lightbulb was illuminating the place as well as it usually did, coloring the shed a faint yellow as the paintings on the wall were suspended in shadow; the vibe overall was a more moody one that she found herself partial to.

She wouldn’t have minded it if she wasn’t so annoyed with you right now. She took a moment to look around; the shed wasn’t that big. You had to be in here somewhere. Passing by Xavier’s most recent canvas, she glanced at your usual spot; a paint splattered stool facing a large canvas, which, this time, was somewhat painted.

In the center of the canvas was a rough painting of a stag, head proudly raised, it's fine eyes peering out of the canvas as if observing for danger, scanning its surroundings. Wednesday took a moment to raise her hand to touch the dark paint strokes, running her fingers down the image as she took in the messy style you had adopted in the piece. 

And atop it all, one broad, dark red stroke slashing across the face of the stag, dripping down to the bottom of the canvas, in what she thought to be blood

What you had done… she couldn’t help but find the darkness you had perfectly captured in the creature’s eyes…impressive. You did have some talent.

And, upon bringing herself closer, she could tell from the consistency of the dried blood that you had, in fact, used real blood; it looked like the blood she had used on you the week prior for her bloodstain analysis in the woods.

Dragging her eyes away from the painting, Wednesday noticed movement in the corner of her vision, slowly turning to see what it was as her eyes fell under one of the tables in the back

And there you were.

In the darkest corner of the room, partially hidden by large canvases and other tables full of art supplies, you were asleep on a couple of blankets piled on the floor, practically buried out of sight. Soft breaths escapes your mouth as you let out a small incoherent mumble.

Wednesday’s step faltered slightly.

Never once had she seen you asleep. Not that she wanted to, no. But you were always the type to be snarky, retorting her insults and cracking jokes of your own instead of genuinely vulnerable. 

And now, here you were, curled up in a pile of blankets under a table in a shed, completely forgotten about what you had been so excited to do.

Wednesday watched you for a moment.

And then another.

Studying every inch of you. The way your chest barely rose and fell with every breath you took. The way your eyes fluttered as if you were dreaming. The way your eyebrows furrowed slightly as you dug yourself deeper into your nest of blankets, as if in a dream…

Wednesday considered it to be… almost… adorable.

What had you done to her? Here she was, staring at you like a nauseatingly obsessed teenager, thinking…affectionate thoughts toward you? Wednesday didn’t know what the demons of hell had found in her that was unworthy, but she was going to figure it out before she turned into some disgusting version of her mother.

To snap herself out of it the raven edged her way through the tables, stopping at you and crouching down on her knees to be at your level as her dark eyes flickered over you before she reached out and gave your ear a light flick. Nothing too hard, and not because she knew your ears were sensitive, merely because she didn’t want you to wake up in pain, although you were missing out - waking up in pain truly was a wonderful feeling.

You were awake almost instantly; Wednesday wasn’t surprised as you sat up straight and banged your head on the bottom of the table, groaning and hand lifting to rub the sore spot.

“What the hell…Wednesday?”

Wednesday huffed and straightened, folding her arms as she glared down at you, not giving you your answer as she waited for you to figure it out yourself.

You took a moment before realizing the situation, and Wednesday had to suppress a smirk at the look of surprise and frustration on your face as you shuffled out of the small space, straightening and stretching with what she thought to be a very childish pout.

“Goddamnit, Wednesday, I’m sorry for missing it, I was painting with Xavier and I fell asleep” - you glanced out the window at the dark sky - “look, I’ll make it up to y-“

You were cut off as Wednesday sighed and grabbed your wrist, yanking you backward and watching you stumble. As you fought for balance she firmly wedged her heel behind yours, causing you to trip and take a tumble to the floor, the shed rattling with the impact of you hitting the ground.

“What the hell?” You panted a little bit, pushing yourself up by the palms of your hands as you glared up at her. “What did I do?”

Wednesday rolled her eyes as she folded her arms over her chest and glared right back at you as she deadpanned.

“You said you wanted to learn to fight. Get up.”

The raven watched as you stumbled to your feet and without hesitation she hooked her leg around yours and yanked, watching in satisfaction as you crashed to the ground again, a couple pencils hitting the floor along with you.

“I wasn’t ready,” you complain as you struggle back upright again, eyebrows furrowed in frustration as you let out a small whine.

“The point isn’t being ready, Y/N,” Wednesday rolled her eyes as she studied you. “As a werewolf you have heightened senses. Put it to your advantage.”

Without warning, Wednesday stepped forward, taking the offensive as she kicked out toward your stomach. She felt a tinge of satisfaction when your hands caught her boot, pushing her away, but she wasn’t done yet.

She ducked your swing, stepping behind you and reaching up to your neck, touching it lightly and smirking when she saw you freeze. Her fingers lightly brushed the small patch of fur you had on the back of your neck, just under your head. 

“If your opponent knows about your weak spot they will take advantage of it.” She released you, watching you relax. “Do not let anyone touch it.”

As you turned to face her she scoffed slightly and gestured for you to strike first, deciding to take assessment of your offensive skills, which surely would be abysmal at best, if you were lucky; maybe you were right to come to her.

It was almost comical, the look of concentration on your face, and Wednesday was caught slightly off guard when you struck out with your foot. The raven dodged, getting out of the way in time, but your shoe did manage to graze her side as she did so. A flicker of focus in her eyes, Wednesday stepped under your arm, pushing herself against your back, forcing you to stumble forward.

Now that you were off balance she decided to test what she had just told you, reaching for your neck. She felt another glimmer of satisfaction as you dodged away immediately, ramming yourself against her stomach so that your weight and momentum was to your advantage, causing her to stumble backward a little bit. 

You were panting, definitely focused now as your eyes flickered up to meet hers, sparkling with pride at managing to unbalance her so quickly. Wednesday wasn’t too surprised, though. Sure, you were definitely a poor fighter, but you still had that werewolf fighting instinct, no matter how much you complained.

When you swiped again the raven merely stepped aside, smirking as your fist swung through the air. Before you could hit again she gave you one good shove, kicking the crook under your knee. You tumbled backward, hitting one of the canvas and tearing through it with a crash, art supplies flying through the air and adding to the new mess of the shed, a cloud of dust now rising into the air as you groaned.

As you sat up the mess of paintbrushes, acrylics, and torn canvas fell around you, and your jaw fell in shock before looking back up at Wednesday.

“Xavier’s gonna kill me.”

Wednesday smirked at your words, turning on her heel and shouldering her bag, already on her way out. She didn’t stop as she heard you exclaim from behind her, “you’re not gonna help me clean this up?” 

Both of you knew she wouldn’t.

“Consider this your payback for being late. Next time I won’t be so generous,” Wednesday tossed you a glare before opening the door of the shed and disappearing outside. She could hear another crash from inside the shed, as you tried to follow her, but she knew that you’d have to stay and clean the mess, otherwise risking losing your shed privileges completely.

It was completely fair, and Wednesday was willing to sit through your complaints about the paint that you had most definitely gotten on your clothes, throughout the week.

She felt a prickle in the collar of her sweater and paused, brow furrowing in annoyance as she reached around to try and find the source of what had been bothering her, pulling out a few tufts of your fur. The raven rolled her eyes with a scoff, shoving it into her pocket and heading back toward the academy.

—————

pt.5 here!

[spider-jaysart]

Supersons headcanons:

Since Damian's a vegetarian and is much more used to eating healthier stuff, he is much more vulnerable to getting stomach aches after eating junk food and too many sweets

Jon's favorite color is yellow

Damian sometimes wears non lens glasses for the aesthetic when going out in civilian form

Jon once won a roller skating competition and earned a golden medal as a reward. He keeps it hanged up on his wall in his bedroom near his desk

Damian was one time interviewed by Buzzfeed in one of their "The puppy interview" type of videos (the series where celebrities get to play with a bunch of puppies while answering questions the whole time). He was in such a happy and smiley mood during the entire video due to being surrounded by all of the small little pups around him and getting to play with them. He even named each puppy in his head while answering all of the interviewers questions and also tried to adopt them all at the end once the video was finally over (Bruce said no though because It's too many puppies to actually handle and take care of at the same time). This video is known as one of his most popular ones because it shows an unusual joyous side of him to fans and viewers

Jon is the type that's quick to download any kind of app games that look fun to him and now he just has so many of them on his phone because of it, that it's beginning to run out of storage space at this point

Damian will always "borrow" Jon's clothes but never returns them back to him

Jon loves pop tarts. His two favorite flavors are cherry and blueberry. He got Damian to obsess over them too after letting him try one of them during a sleepover at his house. Damian's favorite poptarts are brown sugar cinnamon and the s'mores one

Damian hates Oreos and any Cookies n' creme flavored food while Jon is the one that actually loves them

Damian has beef with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles after losing a skate boarding race to them one time with Jon (a refrence to another headcanon of mines that's in a separate post)

Jon and Damian both cosplayed as Ashley and Leon from the Resident evil 4 remake one time for fun while going to a video game convention (Jon was dressed as Ashley while Damian was dressed as Leon)

Jon adores Damian's young little Nephew and Niece Mar'i and Jake and loves it whenever Dick is visiting with Kory and them at the Manor, because that's when he gets to see them both again all the time

Jon had one time gotten some chocolate milk spilled all over his shirt because of some new bullies who had done it to him during lunch time. Jon was very upset about it because it was his most favorite shirt that was just ruined, especially because of the worst fact that it was also currently picture day at his school, so he was gonna have to be forced to take his photo looking like this. Fortunately for him though, Damian had soon found him sitting down outside before photo time, as the young half Kryptonian was just in a distressed mood. After explaining everything to his best friend about what had happened to him earlier, Damian immediately got an idea and used his artistic skills to fix the problem by grabbing one of his black pens out of his backpack and drawing on top of the stains on Jon's shirt with it to make it look like it had actually belonged there. Once he was finally done, Jon's shirt looked surprisingly even better than before, with all of the line art that Damian had drew on it looking like an artistic peice of a pirate ship on the sea, making the chocolate stains look like the splashes of the seas water on the shirt. Jon happily thanked his best friend and gave him a tight hug in response, quickly running to go get his school photo taken soon after letting go of him. And while Jon was now busy doing that, Damian meanwhile went to go find the bullies that were messing with Jon to give them a little payback for what they had done to his best friend earlier and everything else that Jon had told him about. After that day, the bullies never bothered Jon again, which was kind of a surprise to him, especially with how unusually fearful they would always seem to be whenever interacting with him now. He has no idea why they currently act this way with him, but he doesn't mind it so much and is happier about it being this way instead anyways, since they leave him alone now (Another thing that had also surprised him was the fact that all three of the bullies had matching black eyes in their picture day photo in the school's yearbook as well. And after getting the chance to show them to Damian while in confusion about it, his best friend just shrugs his shoulders and says he wonders what it could've possibly been that had happened to them in response, while also seeming very "clueless" about it as well)

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 하이에나/Hyena.

Okay, I'm assuming I just convinced a lot of you by that poster alone. But just in case, here's a trailer along the same lines!

Hyena is a 2020 Korean drama about two lawyers who get into a relationship under false pretenses, end the relationship, and then still have to deal with one another in their professional lives, while also uncovering massive corruption in the halls of jurisprudence.

This is absolutely one of those shows where, if this is the kind of thing you like, this is a strong example of that kind of thing. You know the beats it's going to hit and the turns it's going to twist, so you're just here to watch the rest unfold. It's not really a courtroom drama; while there are court scenes, they're few and far-between. Most of it is about their lives outside of court: preparing for cases, negotiating power dynamics, and working for some shady-ass rich people alongside a cast of delightful supporting characters.

It's no great work of art, but it's a lot of fun, and it's surprisingly more complicated than it appears at first blush. It's also not a huge commitment, as shows go -- just your standard Korean block of sixteen hour-long episodes -- so here's a shortish set of five reasons I think you should give this a trial (get it? trial?) run.

1. Just fuck that pretty boy up

This show knows that women want one thing, and one thing only: Ju Jihoon in mild to moderate distress.

I love this tall drink of water in everything I've seen him in (just wait until the day I finish my rec for Kingdom!), and this is no exception. I imagine that the entire pitch for this show was, what if we put Ju Jihoon in sharp, well-tailored suits and have him menaced by a bunch of beautiful professional women 10-25 years older than he is? And the Netflix executives, in a startling moment of common sense, greenlit the heck out of that.

His character, Yoon Heejae, is a hotshot lawyer from a family of hotshot lawyers and judges who works for a hotshot law firm. He embodies that certain kind of cocky, toxic masculinity that makes you idly fantasize about getting his tie caught in the shredder so it strangles him. Over the course of the show, you get to see him taken down a peg time and again until he learns to be submissive to the right people, instead of to the wrong ones. And he's much, much happier that way! So yeah, if you enjoy seeing a beautiful man get that smug smile metaphorically and literally slapped right off his handsome mug, Hyena has you covered.

I had to replay the champagne scene like ten times, fuck. No, I'm not going to tell you what I mean by that. Watch the show!

2. The titular Hyena

The major disappointment I had with this show is that it did not bring up the one -- one! -- thing everybody knows about hyenas, which is that a lot of people think the females have penises. Because oh boy, Jung Geumja has the biggest dick in the show by a mile.

A lot of times when people say a female character is a disaster, they mean, tee hee, she spilled her coffee and accidentally said something she shouldn't have! Bitch, Jung Geumja said that shit on purpose.

She's an attorney who's willing to adopt some hella unethical tactics for her clients. She's got her goals, but good luck getting her to reveal what they are -- and good luck to her when it comes to achieving them, considering that she's a complete nobody who went to law school much later in life than all the other high-powered attorneys in the show did. That's okay, though! What she lacks in experience, she makes up for in balls-to-the-wall fearlessness.

I love how intentionally bad her aesthetic is. They give her awkward outfits and the worst possible haircut, to say nothing of her hideous cell phone necklace/lanyard/thing. She adopts a more professional demeanor partway through, but the second you let her off the respectability leash, the track suits and big clunky sneakers are back. The couple times she goes real femme, she looks like she's in bad drag. It's ugly-delicious.

Her actor, Kim Hyesoo, is a beautiful woman who looks very good in evening gowns and low-cut blouses. This show intentionally steers her hard in the other direction. It's a kind of protective coloration, Jung Geumja's way of telling all the other predators not to fuck with her, or she will fuck right back.

She's scrappy as hell, despite not actually being a physical fighter -- in fact, she gets the shit beat out of her a couple times. You don't get a whole lot of media where the female lead gets her face kicked in good and proper, or if you do, it's painted as a tragic, vulnerable moment. Jung Geumja slaps on a bandaid and gets right back out to the club the following night.

Her superpower is basically that she has no shame. You think ambulance-chasers are bad? She takes it to the next level.

You really don't see a lot of female characters like this! Sure, you get the Boss Bitch archetype in a lot of legal dramas, but she's always composed and dignified. Jung Geumja has no dignity. She's a sloppy bitch who makes pretty much no effort to leverage her feminine wiles in her day-to-day life (even though the show makes a point that there are men who'd be receptive to it if she did!). She's a nasty top who clearly loves to horrify dignified, presentable people with her yakuza lounge aesthetic.

You could maybe accuse Jung Geumja of being a Mary Sue, but she's, like, a middle-aged woman's Mary Sue. If your teen girl fantasies are all about how you're the most beautiful girl at prom and all the boys like you and you become independently wealthy at your dream job as an interior designer, then your middle-aged fantasies have become how you can look super-hot wearing whatever the fuck you want and still get respected by your colleagues for your extreme competency in your profession and also have handsome men with good jobs beating down your door no matter how much your hair looks like you scalped Paul McCartney c. 1964.

She's absolutely one of those characters where I'd hate her if I had to deal with her myself, but because she's fictional and can't hurt me, I support all her wrongs.

3. Everybody else!

As is the case with good legal dramas, the main lawyers are not the only lawyers! Instead, Hyena has a wonderful cast of supporting characters who become part of the legal eagle team.

They’re exactly the kind of charismatic background weirdos I’ve come to expect from Korean dramas. You’ve got the whole batch: the potential love rival, the secondary romance couple, the supportive nonthreatening bestie, the workplace misfits who are both extemely competent and completely underappreciated at their jobs, and the childhood-friend-turned-cop I couldn't find good promo pictures of for reasons prrrrrobably related to the actor's DUI arrest.

No matter how enjoyable a main romance is (and it is! see point 5!), it cannot sustain a whole sixteen-hour drama on its own. You need to mix it up and give your primary pair other party members to bounce off of! Hyena pulls together a good group of characters that are wacky enough to be entertaining, but (mostly) not so wacky you have to suspend your disbelief about how they got to where they are in life.

And they’ve also all got some interesting relationships to masculinity and/or femininity, which is pretty par for the course with how the show clearly enjoys…

4. Getting gender all up in your business

While it's not an overt, in-your-face theme, the status of women in Korean society is definitely at play in this story. The realm of law, politics, and buisness as depicted here is absolutely a man's world, where few women are allowed, and only in a very limited number of roles. Of course there are always wives/girlfriends and secretaries doing all the helper grunt work, but a token handful of ladies can be allowed into actual ranks of power ... sort of. They'll always be second best to their male peers and relatives, of course, but doesn't that gender diversity look nice in the company's annual report!

As mentioned earlier, Yoon Heejae starts out as a good ol' boy from a long line of good ol' boys, dick-measuring with the rest of them and shooting straight for the top. It's only when he's blindsided by soft power that he starts to re-evaluate what he's gotten himself into. Maybe being a good son is actually a racket! Maybe these squads of tie-wearing ass-kissers aren't actually that fun to be around at all! Maybe he's actually much better-suited to playing on the girls' team.

Meanwhile, Jung Geumja's "ruffian from the wrong side of the tracks" role is such a man's role, but she's definitely a woman inhabiting it. Hell, half the stuff she gets away with, she does because everyone's just so shocked to encounter a woman doing and saying these things. So she does weaponize gender expectations - just not in the way you might expect a woman in a romance-centered drama to.

In the aforementioned support squad, the male attorneys are all gender failures in one way or another, which is why they haven't advanced in their jobs the way their colleagues have. They cannot perform hard-drinking, ethics-ignoring, 90-hour-workweek masculinity to the standards of the high-powered suits who run their law firm. It's only Jung Geumja who, given the choice to assemble her own crew, can see that they have immense value beyond the very gendered expectations of their profession.

Meanwhile, Boon Hyunah, the only female attorney on their team, is great at both representing and subverting that Exceptional Woman femininity. I was cautious at first, because she was clearly introduced in a way that made her seem like she was going to wind up being the evil popular girl/rival bitch whose entire job was to prove by contrast that Jung Geumja is Not Like The Other Girls. Not so! They actually wind up good friends and trusted colleagues. Female solidarity is so much more fun than contrived romcom catfighting!

Maybe my favorite character in the whole show, though, is the littlest gender-nonconforming angel, professional soft butch Lee Jieun: Jung Geumja's eternally beleaguered secretary, sidekick, gofer, co-conspirator, caretaker, and only friend.

She's clearly taken her haircut notes from Jung Geumja, but instead of going the track suit route, she's dedicated herself to the tweed lifestyle. And I love that nobody ever tries to give her a makeover or make her feel bad for not being femme! She makes friends with the other, much girlier secretaries, who seem to welcome her into their group with no problems. She finishes the show as frumpy as she was when she started.

I was prepped for the drama to give her a male love interest to defuse her obvious lesbian vibes, but it does not! She does not even, to my recollection, express desire about anyone. She oohs and ahhs over flowers and other gestures of romantic interest that happen to other people, but not in a particularly jealous way. She ships Yoon Heejae and Jung Geumja, and that's what matters to her.

The entire reason I found this show in the first place is that it has a "sismance" tag on MyDramaList, presumably for the relationship between Jung Geumja and Lee Jieun. Their relationship is wonderful, but it's way more sis than 'mance. They're more like two sisters with a huge age gap, where the dweeby younger sister has dedicated herself to doing anything her cool older sister wants her to do, and the cool older sister has decided that having a minion is worth putting up with having to wrangle a dweeby younger sister.

This show is also very female-gazey. Not only does it gleefully ogle Yoon Heejae's long-legged frame pretty much every chance it gets, but it makes Jung Geumja gross-hot in a way that only a lesbian could love. And that makes the fact that she has not one but two handsome men fighting over her even better! This is a world where our gorgeous male lead has a choice between a conventionally attractive, professionally dressed, charming, dignified woman in her early twenties, and a fifty-year-old human tornado with a foul mouth and a bad haircut, and he goes straight for that cougar without even blinking. He wants her to step on him so hard.

And speaking of:

5. Law, Partners

This is a romance worth being into.

Sure, they're both real hot (at least, by my bisexual lesbian standards), but we all know by now that being hot separately doesn't always guarantee being hot together. Fortunately for this show, they very much are.

What makes this pairing so interesting is that this is a relationship between equals. They start out with huge power mismatches both ways, since he's socially her superior, while she's lying to him real hard. When they're finally at a point where they're on even footing, it's so good, especially since she's clearly on a trajectory to emerge as the senior partner in this relationship. They’re such a great team, in fact, that the kissy part of their dynamic becomes secondary by the end. Yeah, sure, they like one another -- but more importantly, they can finish one another’s closing arguments. When you're a middle-aged Mary Sue, that right there is some good fucking romance.

If you read my other rec posts, you know I'm very picky about my het. This is good het. Maybe not great het, but still very good. Solid 8/10. Their chemistry is strong. I can absolutely imagine her strap-on collection. He's like a foot taller, but we still know who's going down.

Into it?

Netflix made this one, so Netflix is where you're going to find it. This does mean, annoyingly, that a lot of the onscreen text doesn't get translated, and none of the English lines get captioned, both of which are incredibly bad practices. Come on, Netflix, you've got eleventy bajillion dollars, you can do better.

...Also, am I wrong about people knowing that other people think female hyenas have penises? Is this knowledge what I deserve for spending too much time studying the ancient world? Dammit.

Kick his ass, baby; I'll hold your track suit.

[illarian-rambling]

So this has been looooong overdue...

Character Introduction: Duchon Avymere Kalaphon Spearsong III, Heir to the Icy City

“So.” The Duchon pulled a silken rope and a blue-clad figure brought out a tea set almost faster than Astra could blink. “You seem a curious sort. My last tailor was an old, stodgy fellow—I always worried one needle prick would be the end of him.” They smiled mischievously. “Tell me about yourself, Ms. DuClaire, and I’ll tell you a bit about myself. Nothing you don’t want to, of course. Just anything you find fun or worth sharing.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the Duchon began to prepare two cups of tea with their own hands. Silently, they tapped the bowl of sugar. Astra held up three fingers.

Was this some sort of ploy? Astra honestly couldn’t tell what the motive would be, much less if there was one. The Duchon seemed almost child-like, humming softly to themself as they stirred their servant’s tea.

Alright, doll, I’ll play your game. But I ain’t gonna— Astra took a sip of the tea they passed her and almost fainted for how tantalizing the flavor was. Ok, maybe I’ll like it.

“Well, like my papers said, I’m from the Republic.” She cleared her throat, blushing a bit under the handsome elf’s undivided attention. “What they didn’t say is I’m most a’ the way to a book mage, I just never ended up gettin’ my license. Your, uh, your grace, I mean.”

“What a remarkable path!” The Duchon blinked eyes as bright as a bird’s. “As a note, when we’re in my personal quarters, you may call me Avymere, if you wish. I know you don’t have our slew of titles down in the Republic. Trust me, even I find it all confusing sometimes!”

They laughed, a light, airy sound that reminded the witch of wind chimes. She found herself relaxing into the chair, smiling as she sipped her tea, even as her mind whirled. There was just something about this person! It snagged at Astra’s core like a loose tooth. Maybe it was just her general distrust of fine folk, but no one was that chipper—not at eight in the morning with a total stranger.

“Why did you decide to quit before taking your licensing exam?” Avymere asked, they themself also sitting in a more relaxed manner now. “I understand it’s a very difficult exam, though I never had a head for runes. My father tried, by the gods he did, but nothing ever stuck.” They shrugged in a ditzy way. “I suspect he was always a little disappointed I never took to it.”

“The exam was more money than I was willin’ to spend,” Astra answered, skirting the truth by an inch or two. “’Sides, I don’t need it for what I’m doin’ now.”

Was it possible that the Duchon was just… dumb? Well-meaning, but it was just so out there that a noble would be asking such intrusive questions to the help. If a library worth of runic knowledge hadn’t been on the line and she wouldn’t’ve been hung for saying so, Astra would’ve told anyone else to stuff it. Her reasons for not having her license were no one’s business but her own! Yet, Astra couldn’t honestly look into those starling eyes and work up any true indignation. They were just so genuine.

“I heard a description of the skirt you made,” Avymere continued with a conspiratory grin. “I think that’s a beautiful marriage of the arts—runes and fashion. Though I guess runes aren’t technically art, are they? They sure are pretty though. Do you have a favorite rune? One you think is the prettiest?”

Another… well it wasn’t really a nosy question, just a weird one. Astra decided to answer honestly. “On a visual level? Fire,” she said. “It’s one a’ the simplest shapes, yet elegant too. ’Course I don’t use it much in this line a’ work.”

“Oh, I suppose that’s a shame. But you wouldn’t want clothes catching on fire, now would you?” Avymere laughed again, drawing an unexpected chuckle from Astra’s lips as the elf’s mirth spread through the air.

“So, you had another line of work, then? Not magic if you don’t have your license, I’m guessing, and not clothes because that’s what you’re doing now. Were you”—Their eyes flicked to her hands, to the slight stiffness with which she held her left arm—“a farmer? Oh, or a fighter! You’ve got a tough look about you. Is it true all people in the Republic can swing a sword?”

“I, uh….” Astra paused, then really considered what she was about to say. Potion hunting wasn’t too far from what she’d been doing for six years. That was probably exactly the sort of answer Avymere wanted though.

Astra considered further what she’d said already to this chatterbox elf, what she’d given up as answers to those silly questions. Avymere knew she was an unlicensed mage with the skill to pass the exam, just not the funds. They knew she had a proclivity for fire. They knew she had the hands of a physical laborer and a previously injured arm. In short, they’d picked up on everything that might make her dangerous in less time than it’d taken the witch to finish her tea.

She grinned. So this was a game then. Just one she’d never seen played before.

And by extension, one she herself didn’t know how to play.

“I did freelance work for a few years on the road.” Astra shrugged, leaning back in her chair. “I assume you’re a spy a’ some sort.”

“That—” Avymere coughed, choking briefly on their tea. Astra’s grin grew even wider. They caught the expression and a cautious smile began to creep onto their own features. “And why ever would you ask that?”

“Just the questions ya asked, is all. That and I ain’t too trustin’ a’ nobility—no offense. It all lined up too neatly, ya didn’t have any questions in there that were pure nonsense.”

Avymere’s smile grew more coy. “I’ll take that into account, Ms. DuClaire. Your insight is an honest pleasure. And I take no offense, I probably trust my peers less than you do. Now, shall we dispense with the interview and start our day?”

Full backstory is under the cut ;)

Avymere is the only child of Archduke Eluan Spearsong and Duchess Amarell Spearsong. The Spearsongs have long ruled the city of Salis, within the icy elven country of Skysheer, and are counted as the second most important family in the nation. In addition, they are known to possess a powerful inherited sorcery, augmented by their study of runes. Eluan Spearsong has been long considered one of Illaros's most powerful mages, while his wife steered the city's politics like a well-broken mare. Avymere should've been born with everything, and in a way, they were. In others, they were not so lucky.

For starters, Avymere was born without a trace of sorcery - the first Spearsong in a millenia to be fully mundane. Secondly, though their father tried and they studied and struggled, book magic never clicked for them either. They exist as a break in the grand chain of Spearsong arcane tradition. Thirdly, when they were no more than eight, their mother was assassinated by an unknown faction. The culprit was never found.

This isn't to say Avymere's childhood was all dark. Apart from his sadness in his child not being able to practice magic, Eluan was a model father. He encouraged Avymere's passion for martial arts, even though such a thing is considered unseemly for Skysheerian nobility. He instilled them with strong ideals of stewardship and leading as an act of service, and always made time to care for them while running the city. It's no surprise then, that as an adult, Avymere is doggedly loyal to the Archduke.

Apart from their talent in martial arts, Avymere also has a skill for spycraft. This was recognized early on by the Archduke's spymaster, and since there are simply some places a Duchon can go that a spy disguised as a servant can't, they were trained extensively from the moment they hit adulthood. For their part, Avymere is happy to serve as a spy. It is their duty to the nation and they enjoy the challenge.

This spycraft has had a significant impact on their personality. Though they've never reflected on such a thing, Avymere would hardly recognize their true personality. They play the charming ditz in front of the court, the benevolent library builder in front of the citizens, and the terrifying specter for any rebels or political enemies who manage to get close. The one thing that remains consistent among their many faces is a sense of unyielding duty. They don't see themself as a person, but rather as a tool to protect Skysheer. It's not really an unhappy experience - more that they don't know what it means to be truly happy. The only time they take for themself is when they practice martial arts, often sparring with their bodyguards in the palace garden. They are impeccably polite, deeply cunning, and completely unaware of their worth as a person. They don't wear the crown - it wears them.

Can you see why they're one bad adventure away from a severe breakdown?

Anyways, here are some fun facts!

Avymere is 153 years old. Given that elves in my setting can live to around 500, they're the equivalent of mid to late twenties.

The martial art they practice is called Talmel Valkys, and it's a holdover from before the Skysheerian elves split from their more militant Nabafyrian cousins. Its closest real-world equivalent would be muay thai mixed with a little aikkido.

They, like everyone in their family, are very nearsighted.

Given how their mother was assassinated, Avymere is extraordinarily paranoid about assassins targeting their father.

Their gender would be defined as fe'penche specifically. Elven culture recognizes six genders, and fe'penche roughly translates to nonbianary but female leaning. This means Avymere dresses more femme and engages in traditionally feminine work (politics). In the human tongue, they stick to they/them.

They can play the pianoforte with a very medium level of skill.

That's not quite a wrap, as I have one more present for you. A proper portrait! (Finally!)

Though they are lily white to human eyes, Avymere is considered quite tan for a Skysheerian. Their hair is also a stark white typical of their people, while their eyes are a pale gray.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Let me know if you have any questions and you have yourself a bitchin day <3

@amandacanwrite @elsie-writes @riveriafalll @kosmic-kore @kaylinalexanderbooks

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[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

Headcanons for @chantillymoon

This was really fun to do! I am currently up to episode 261 of One Piece (Water 7) so please keep that in mind while reading. Because I haven't officially met Brook yet, all of my headcanons are based on what I've read in fanfics and a bit of research so hopefully I'm not too far off.

Platonic headcanons on the rest of the Straw Hat crew can be found here!

Fandom: One Piece

Characters: Brook and Usopp x gn! Reader (separate and platonic)

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Thoughts on being friends with the Straw Hat crew.

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I see Brook as someone who’s always got a song stuck in his head. And he’s going to make it everyone’s problem. But is it really a problem when he actually has the voice for it? Yes. Yes, it is. Especially when you’re listening to him humming the same part of that one song for the tenth time that day.

At the same time, he’s great to have around if you’ve got a song stuck in your head. Brook knows so many songs that you’d be hard pressed finding one he couldn’t sing for you. And if he doesn’t know the song, he’s pretty good at picking up tunes quickly.

Have sore muscles? Those bony fingers are great for digging into twisted muscles and sore spots. Brook may have gone through a lot because of his Devil Fruit but he’s glad he can do something with it to help his friends.

He’s got a surprisingly good eye for fashion…if he had eyes! In all seriousness, please take him with you next time you need to go shopping for clothes. Between him and Nami, you’ll get back to the ship with a whole new wardrobe full of amazing clothes that suit you perfectly.

Whether you’re quiet or talkative, Brook loves just being in your presence. If you’re on the quiet side, he likes the tranquillity of sitting in companionable silence with someone. And if you’re talkative, he enjoys listening to everything you have to say.

Similarly, Brook’s great to talk to if you want to get anything off your chest. He’s a good listener and won’t spread around anything you’ve told him unless he thinks it could harm the crew (even then, he’d most likely keep it secret for a while). He also gives really good advice.

Brook missed out on a lot during his time in the Florian Triangle so he enjoys having a younger friend to help bring him up to speed. That being said, he’s an absolute menace with the way he mixes slag from his era with modern day sayings. Think something along the lines of “oh, they know their onions, they're no noob” and "ok you cad, time to catch these hands".

If you want to learn how to play an instrument or sing, Brook is more than happy to help. He’s had decades of practice and, even though he’s a bit rusty at explaining things to others, he’s patient and dedicated to teaching you.

Everyone has that one artist friend. And Usopp definitely falls into that category. He’s constantly got a sketchbook with him and will draw anything and everything. If you’re also into art, you’ll definitely bond over that.

Will absolutely hid behind you in battle. Whether you’re taller than him or not, he feels comfortable enough around you to chose you as his hiding spot.

Makes up stories about your bravado and wild adventures as well. While the other straw hats might react badly to Usopp telling stories about them, even if they are meant to improve their reputation, he hopes you will react differently.

In the same manner, Usopp would love to practice his pre-battle speeches with you and get some feedback. He’s a theatre kid at heart but he needs someone he trusts to work on his lines with. As one of his closest friends (and someone hopefully less judgmental than Nami), you fit that description.

He is also the perfect person to tell you stories about the other straw hats, especially if you joined later. He’s an entertainer and, even if he exaggerates his role in events, you’re able to piece together their adventures to date.

Much like Brook, Usopp has a good eye for fashion, but more from the perspective of figuring out what colours and patterns go together. If you’re struggling to put together an outfit, he’s more than happy to give you his two cents worth.

Gossip buddies! If you like gossip or have a way of knowing things about people, you, Usopp, and Nami are the designated “gossip squad” of the straw hats. Usopp is always a good source of information, even if he tends to embellish sometimes.

If you have long hair and don’t feel like tying it up, Usopp should be your first port of call. Sure, Sanji’s amazing with styling hair but he’s usually busy in the kitchen and Nami and Robin usually wear theirs down. Usopp has the free time and skills to help you out. Fair warning though, he may get carried away by his creative tendencies.

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Hey, did you enjoy this? If you like my writing, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi page! This will allow me to make some money off my writing, something I enjoy doing.

ko-fi.com/justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms

Important Note: Please only donate if you are financially able to. If you are currently in a position where you can't donate, a like, comment or reblog will mean just as much.

[inkabelledesigns]

Fixing dolls with glue hair is a lot, and I really don't like doing it. XD But yesterday I made an effort to do another oxiclean treatment in my Way Too Wonderland dolls. This is maybe the fourth time I've done it on some of them? I've lost track. Most of them had excessively bad glue hair. But I am thrilled to say that we've almost got it! My Apple on the far left of the first picture still has a little glue, but one more treatment and I think she'll be okay. Apple is my favorite from this line, so it's gonna be all the more satisfying to have her fixed up. But everyone else I think is ready for hair styling and to be dressed up for display! This is my favorite Ever After High line, and I'm so excited I'll finally be able to have them all up!

Briar needs some repairs in terms of getting some body blushing. I made the mistake of not taking off her head when I did one of these treatments, so it got a little bleached, but I'm confident I can fix it. You may be wondering why I have two Apples and why Blondie is here. Well, for Apple, I actually got an incomplete doll back in my early days of collecting, but then I got another for a good price that was less damaged, save for the glue. X'''D So I have two. Contemplating doing a repaint for her, that could be fun. As for Blondie, I know Just Sweet Blondie Locks isn't a part of Way Too Wonderland, but they go together in my head, so I wanna display her with the rest.

Truth be told, part of this is an excuse to display my playset. I'm not usually one for doll playsets, but I really like the art on this one and would like all of my girls together. Currently doing a lot of rearranging, but it looks like my theme for September is a mix of Wonderland and popstars. I really wanna have all my dolls that are singers out for a bit, so it's a lot of MH and RH surprisingly. XD It's just, nice to update the display once in a while.

[fu66sun]

telepath; 이동혁

004: the perfect pair wc: 2,943

haechan was known for his charm and flirty nature. he reveled in the thrill of the chase, the excitement of flirting and pushing boundaries to see just how far he could go. he was a master of lighthearted banter and the art of seduction, but his biggest flaw, perhaps, was his fear of commitment.

he was allergic to it, like a cat to water, and responsibility was something he often avoided. when things got too serious, he had a tendency to distance himself, casting blame on others and brushing off any consequences. that was the pattern he had fallen into before, and unfortunately, you had become ensnared in it as well.

the first few weeks back at school had been a whirlwind of emotions, but the initial tension had subsided, and you had managed to create a comfortable, if somewhat lukewarm, distance between yourself and haechan. avoiding him had become a skill you had honed to perfection, maintaining the boundaries you had set, even if it meant missing out on some of the more fun and spontaneous moments with your group of friends.

however, that fragile balance was shattered when the day came for the intro to system design class. the professor, perhaps inadvertently, managed to upend your carefully orchestrated avoidance strategy by assigning pairs for a group project. to your dismay, you found yourself selected as haechan's partner.

the moment you heard your names paired together, your heart sank. it was as if the universe had conspired to push you right back where you had tried so hard to escape. you couldn't help but wonder if it was just a cruel twist of fate.

as you made your way to haechan's side, you couldn't ignore the sense of impending turbulence. the project, which was meant to be a team effort, suddenly felt like a ticking time bomb, and you were trapped in the middle of it. you knew that working closely with haechan would test your boundaries and potentially unravel the delicate balance you had managed to establish. however, as the days went by, you realized that things weren't as awkward or tense as you had expected them to be. It was almost as if everything that had transpired that day had been a product of your imagination and loneliness.

you found yourself sitting next to haechan during that class most of the time, and to your surprise, the fights and confrontations that had marked your past encounters had ceased. instead, you discovered a side of haechan that was surprisingly easygoing and even humorous.

you were slowly, but steadily, getting to know him better, and it was hard to deny that you were becoming friends. yet, beneath the surface, those lingering feelings for him never really went away.

as you learned more about him, you couldn't help but fall just a bit more for haechan. it was as if the more you got to know him, the deeper you were drawn into the enigmatic allure of his personality. the lines between friendship and something more became increasingly blurred, and you couldn't help but acknowledge that your emotions for him had grown stronger, even though you tried to keep them in check.

in the midst of a particularly tedious lecture, you found your eyelids growing heavy. the professor's voice seemed to blend into a monotonous tone, and the dimly lit classroom only added to the soothing embrace of sleep.

your head gently sank lower, and you struggled to keep your eyes open. haechan, who was seated next to you, had been observing your struggle with sleep.

as your eyes fluttered shut, you found yourself drifting into a light slumber. the classroom noises melted away, and you entered the realm of dreams. unbeknownst to you, haechan's gaze lingered on your peaceful expression.

moments later, the soft sound of the professor's voice calling your name woke you from your brief nap. your eyes snapped open, and to your surprise, you found yourself making eye contact with haechan. his gaze held a mixture of amusement and curiosity, and your cheeks flushed with embarrassment at having been caught napping in class.

the moment hung in the air, and for a brief instant, it was just the two of you locked in a silent, unspoken connection.

as the lecture continued, haechan seemed to sense your unease after the brief eye contact. he leaned closer to you and whispered something, a sly remark about the professor's penchant for monotone lectures. it was a small, humorous comment, but it managed to catch you off guard and make you laugh, a genuine and warm laugh that bubbled up from deep within.

haechan's smile in response was a sight to behold. it was a bright, genuine grin that transformed his face, and for the first time, you found your heart actually fluttering at the sight of it.

there was a charm and charisma to his smile that you couldn't deny, and it had a way of dispelling the lingering tension in the room.

the two of you shared a moment of lightheartedness, a connection that transcended the complex emotions that had defined your relationship. it was a simple exchange, a shared laugh, but it left an indelible mark in your heart.

after the class you couldn't help but feel a growing attraction to him. it was something you couldn't easily dismiss, and it weighed on your mind.

you decided to confide in renjun.

one evening, when you found yourselves alone, you took a deep breath and finally opened up to him.

renjun, i need to tell you something—you began, your voice tinged with uncertainty.

— i think i like haechan.

renjun, who had always been a pillar of support, listened carefully. he furrowed his brow, clearly deep in thought, and then sighed.

—look, i get it. haechan can be charming, but don't let yourself get too caught up in this. it might just be confusion, or maybe even a fleeting attraction. we've all been there, besides, don't you hate him?

you were taken aback by renjun's response. you had expected understanding and maybe even some advice, but his dismissive attitude left you feeling deflated. you wanted to explain your feelings further, but renjun's words seemed to imply that your emotions were unwarranted or that they didn't matter.

he continued—and remember, we're all friends here. don't let this ruin the group dynamic. haechan can be... complicated, and you don't want things to get messy.

you nodded, even though his words left a bitter taste in your mouth. you knew renjun was trying to protect the harmony of the group, but your feelings for haechan were real, and his advice felt like a cold bucket of water on them.

in the days that followed your conversation with renjun, you made a conscious effort to suppress your feelings for haechan. you tried to convince yourself that what you wanted was simple—a kiss. a single, fleeting moment of closeness and connection, without allowing deeper emotions to come into play.

you reasoned that a kiss was just a physical gesture, an expression of desire, and that it didn't have to complicate the dynamics of your friendship with the group. it was a way to explore your attraction without diving headlong into the deep waters of emotional attachment.

but the more you tried to convince yourself of this, the harder it became. each time you saw haechan, a wave of longing washed over you, and it became increasingly challenging to keep your emotions in check. the connection between you two continued to deepen, and the moments of laughter and shared jokes only fueled your desire for more.

you found yourself stealing glances at haechan when you thought no one was looking, and your thoughts were increasingly consumed by fantasies of that elusive kiss. the chemistry between you two was undeniable, and it seemed like a matter of time before you would give in to your desires.

i think i like you—you blurted out as you walked side by side with him across the sun-drenched campus. the warmth of the sun seemed more intense than you had realized, and you used your hand to shield your face from its rays. in that moment, you hadn't thought things through thoroughly, and the words spilled out before you could stop them.

you think?— was the only response he gave after a few moments of silence, and he said it with an air of casual indifference, as if he didn't care one way or the other.

though you wanted to express more, you found yourself grappling with a mix of emotions. were you trying to tell him that you liked him, or that you were dying to kissing him? it was a confusing whirlwind of feelings, and all that escaped your lips was a simple,

—yeah.

in return, all that came from his mouth was another uncomplicated statement

—well, think about it.

the day after your unexpected confession to haechan, you were filled with a anxiety. you couldn't help but replay the previous day's conversation in your mind, questioning whether you had been too forward or if you had misinterpreted his response. the weight of it all became too much, and as the morning sun filtered through your curtains, you made the decision to skip school.

that day, you immersed yourself in introspection, trying to make sense of your emotions and the potential implications of your confession. the hours passed in a haze of contemplation, but you couldn't shake the uneasiness that lingered in your heart.

meanwhile, at campus, haechan noticed your absence and felt a sense of unease himself. he decided to confide in renjun, sharing the events of the previous day.

—you know, y/n told me she likes me—he said, his voice tinged with a sense of bewilderment—it was so unexpected, and it caught me off guard.

renjun, on the other hand, didn't seem very interested in the situation. he sighed, leaning against the table,

—haechan, you know how complicated these things can get. just let it go, you already know how lovesick she is, it'll pass.

haechan, while shocked and somewhat weirded out by the confession, found himself torn. he had always been a master of flirtation and charm, but the prospect of something more serious was a path he wasn't ready to tread.

as the day passed, you couldn't help but wonder how haechan was processing your confession.

after your unexpected confession and the following day's absence from school, you returned to your regular routine, trying to blend in as though nothing had happened. the rest of the group, including renjun, seemed content to ignore the fact that your confession ever took place, and they went about their usual activities. it was as if a collective decision had been made to preserve the harmony of the group.

as time passed, you couldn't help but feel a noticeable shift in the dynamic between you and haechan. while the group maintained the façade of normalcy, it was evident that a fracture had formed between you and haechan. an undercurrent of complexity that refused to fade.

renjun, as you had expected, avoided getting involved in any romantic entanglements within the group. his disinterest in the matter was palpable, and he was determined to keep the group's dynamics intact. chenle, on the other hand, remained blissfully oblivious to the entire situation, unaware of your confession and the changes it had triggered.

over time, both you and haechan made an effort to rebuild the friendship that had been strained by your confession. slowly, you started to find your footing once again, it was as if the unspoken pact to ignore your feelings allowed the two of you to reclaim the connection that had always been a significant part of your friendship.

the tension that had hung between you had lessened, and it seemed that the fractures were healing, albeit gradually.

the evening was lit by the soft glow of the string lights hung around the cozy dorm room. the atmosphere was relaxed, and the faint scent of pizza wafted through the air. you, haechan, and your two other friends had decided to indulge in some much-needed drinking at your friend's dorm, tucked away on the other side of campus.

as the evening progressed, you and haechan found yourselves becoming progressively tipsy. the drinks had loosened your inhibitions, and you couldn't help but engage in playful banter and laughter with your friends. the more you sipped your drinks, the more the world outside seemed to fade away.

haechan, whose usual charm had been amplified by the alcohol, was the life of the party, cracking jokes and making everyone laugh. his laughter was infectious, and you couldn't help but join in, even though a part of you couldn't help but wonder if the alcohol was revealing something deeper in your feelings for him.

as the night wore on and the effects of the alcohol continued to take hold, you found yourself feeling increasingly comfortable and relaxed in haechan's presence. the tipsy warmth had dulled your inhibitions, and a sense of affection had welled up within you.

in a moment of impulse, you shifted closer to haechan and rested your head on his shoulder. his presence, familiar and comforting, seemed like the perfect place to lean on as you basked in the tipsy euphoria of the night. the room's laughter and chatter carried on around you, but in that moment, it was as if the world had narrowed down to just the two of you.

haechan, who had been engaged in a lively conversation, looked down at you in surprise but with a gentle smile. his arm instinctively wrapped around your shoulders, drawing you closer to him.

you found yourself feeling content, your eyes half-lidded as you reveled in the closeness of the moment. the playful banter and laughter continued around you, but for now, you were lost in the comfort of resting your head on haechan's shoulder, finding solace in his presence as the night went on.

with your head resting on his shoulder, he subtly shifted in his seat, allowing his hand to gently rest on your thigh. the touch was tender, a silent gesture of affection and intimacy that seemed to be in tune with the tipsy warmth of the evening.

your heart quickened as you felt his hand on your thigh, the contact sending a rush of sensation through your body. the room's lively conversation continued around you, but in that moment, it was as if the two of you were sharing an unspoken connection that transcended the boundaries of friendship.

you couldn't help but meet his gaze, and in the soft, dimly lit room, it was a moment of unspoken desire, a shared secret.

as the night continued, haechan's announcement that the two of you would be leaving together came by unnoticed. they nodded in understanding, offering their goodbyes and well-wishes as they continued to enjoy the evening. with the final rounds of laughter and chatter, you and haechan eventually made your way to the door.

the campus at this hour was calm and dimly lit, the night air cool and refreshing. it was a tranquil contrast to the lively dorm room you had just left. walking side by side, you and haechan made your way toward the exit, the atmosphere filled with a sense of anticipation.

as you strolled through the serene campus, you couldn't help but enjoy the closeness that had developed between you and haechan throughout the evening. however, instead of heading directly to your respective dorms, you both decided to make an impromptu stop at a nearby convenience store.

you and haechan wandered through the aisles, playfully bickering over which snacks to choose.

as the two of you lingered by a wall, the drinks and snacks long forgotten, you found yourself in a tranquil and intimate moment. your head was resting on haechan's shoulder, and his presence had a calming effect that was unlike anything you had experienced before.

however, the atmosphere began to change as haechan gently moved you to stand in front of him. his hands settled on your waist, sending a shiver of anticipation down your spine. your eyes met his, and the room seemed to fall away, leaving just the two of you in your own private world.

in that electrifying moment, as haechan's lips met yours, the world seemed to vanish around you. the kiss was a symphony of sensations, a gentle exploration of shared desire and affection.

his lips were soft and warm, fitting perfectly against yours, and they moved with a tender, deliberate rhythm. it was a kiss filled with a quiet intensity, a merging of two souls drawn together by the magnetic force of their unspoken connection.

the taste of the evening's drinks lingered on your lips, adding a hint of sweetness to the moment. haechan's hands, which had been resting on your waist, slid slightly, pulling you closer as if he couldn't get enough of the closeness. the air became charged with an electric tension. the connection that had always simmered between you two had come to the forefront, and it was impossible to resist the pull any longer.

the world seemed to stand still in that instant, and you couldn't help but melt into the kiss, the chemistry between you and haechan sparking to life. it was a tender and unforgettable moment, and as you broke away, your hearts were left racing, and it was clear that the boundaries that had once defined your relationship had shifted once again, leaving the two of you in a newfound realm of complexity and intimacy.

taglist yayy: @sunflowerhae @sundamariis @yesohhsehun @hcheach @lhcread @j7ngwoovs if i forgot anyone pls send me an ask !!!<3<3<3<3

a/n: they finally kissed:) haha, enjoy this few chapters, because it only gets worse from here. let's not forget haechan's a gemini lmaoooo

anyway, this chapter brought back some bittersweet memories...

[headspacedad]

The Duke's Obsession with his Wife

Have you ever read a story that had you completely wrapped up in the characters only for it to end horribly? Have you ever, like any sane person, decided that your only course of action was to rewrite it as fanfic? Well, congratulations, you've pretty much done what the heroine of this story did.

After finishing a story written in a fictional Victorian era, in which the male lead falls in love with the queen and becomes her own personal hound, hunting down her enemies and following her every command only to end up given a goblet of poison to drink at the end (which he drank) - our heroine is having NONE of it! The answer? Write some steamy NC17 fix-it-fic to give the fictional male lead the love and happy ending he never got in the original. Unfortunately for our heroine, her fanfic gets so popular that the author of the original story finds out about it and one strongly worded email later -

Our heroine finds herself inside the story, living the life of a woman that had exactly one line in the original novel. A line that said her father was a traitor to the queen and the queen's hound had hunted down and killed the entire family in response.

Can our heroine survive and change her family's fate!? Well, maybe she'd be able to devote more time to that if it wasn't for the annoying and handsome guy that shows up - with a proposition for her horse!

Okay, so this story isn't exactly breaking any new ground. It is absolutely following the road map you'd expect (at least so far). And I've got to say I'm really enjoying the ride (the scenery is familiar but in the good kind of way). What has me so delighted with the story are the characters and their interaction. Our heroine reminds me of a Jane Austin kind of heroine - she's suited to her time period but that just means her spunk and backbone are perfect as well and don't jar out of the setting of the story. She's smart, she's quick witted, she's self-aware and she's kind. Our annoying male lead? He's also smart, quick witted, self-aware and - well, he's a bit of an asshole but the kind of asshole that's willing to change his opinions or stances when he sees he's made a mistaken assumption. And, to me, most importantly he not only listens to the heroine (putting him ahead of a lot of male leads in manhwa) but he also observes what she doesn't say and pays attention. Watching them play off of each other, and slowly grow to respect and actually trust each other's company is lovely in, again, a way that feels vaguely Jane Austin to me and I would be along for the read simply for that alone but -

but the story our heroine remembers isn't going the way it did and it hasn't been before she even came into the picture. Something is changing things in unpredictable ways and even a dozen chapters in our heroine is smart enough to realize just how important it is to figure out what's going on before it punches her in the face. And I'm intrigued. Usually these stories rely on the heroine being the factor for change but this - I'm really ready to see what kind of possibilities this could give me instead of just the standard troupe.

Plus there is an adorable step-sister and I really need to find out if she ends up with the tall blond or not.

We're not far into the story, less than twenty chapters at this point, so its an easy catch up and the art work is pretty and clean without being over polished. I'm particularly fond of the facial expressions. Plus the costumes are simplified but absolutely beautiful - I'm a HUGE fan of the walking dress with the marigold and ribbon hair ornament.

So far I'm having fun with this one so I'm going to say its an easy recommendation at this point.

rating: PG so far

finished: no

warnings: parental neglect, blood, fat-shaming, parental and sibling belittling, horses eager to get it on

abs?: surprisingly not yet. He barely even takes off his gloves

go ahead, read it. I'm really curious to see if I'm the only one picking up Jane Austin vibes or not.

ps. the artist is doing an AMAZING job with the frames. Notice the blond leading the sister off the frame? The way the frame is so much bigger on the ML's side of the picture when he's leaning into the heroine's space? Chef's kiss

[notthatnoodle]

Tombstone Redemption

~Van Der Linde Gang meets the Cowboys~

”Gentlemen! May I simply ask you to listen to my, proposal.”

”Hear that, boys? We’re going to have some fun tonight, shall we!”

~~~~~~~~~~

And my dumb talk about cowboys, mental health, and me being so unsure of my drawing skills. Buckle up cowboy, it's going to be a long one.

~~~~~~~~~~

Do you know that feeling, when you have an idea. And that idea is something that scares you? Because I do, too clearly if one may say.

I wanted to do something. Draw something that I would be proud of. But how to do that when you just hate everything you do, when it feel overwhelming to do.

Well, just trying to do it. Just trying to enjoy the journey and the things I'm doing while on it.

It was scary to start, but I still had a plan for it, you know.

Something big, scary.

"This is never going to look good. It's going to be terrible."

"It's going to take so long, it's going to look stupid."

"I already hate it."

That's what I thought at the time, while doing the sketch.

And you know what...

I did. But after days of just doing the lines again and again, it finally got better. After DAYS. For me it might take weeks before I can continue working on something which looks bad in my eyes.

I hated to do the line art first, I hated to do it, so much that I almost gave up because it already, alone, felt overwhelming. I didn't like it one bit. The characters didn't look like themselves, and I wasn't happy. No one has any idea how long it took to do it.

BUT i finally did it. I got flat colors done. And from there, I could finally move to the next part. And I was so happy how it turned out, it gave me hope, feeling of success.

"I can do it."

"I can do the next part too."

I was in halfway now, the RDR2 side was ready, except the lighting and the shadows of course but anyway. To get myself to do the rest, I asked myself...

Why I do this again?

And the answer to that was surprisingly simple.

I do this because even it feels so overwhelming at times, I love to do it. I love to see what I'm capable of. I love to draw, sketch, do things like that.

Because it helps my mental health.

Because I need to get my inspiration out to a paper.

Because I love westerns

Because RDR2 became my comfort game.

Because Tombstone became my comfort movie.

Because I have no money to travel to the other side of the world to a meetings or something. I have to create my own "meetings", in a way of an art.

Because both, RDR and Tombstone, have helped me in the past year, in the ways I never imagined would be possible.

Who would've known long time ago that I wouldn't need any meds in couple of years because some sad, rough, cold, unstable cowboy men, huh?

I've heard so many times that people have called comfort characters "cringe" or "weird."

And that "you should get real help."

Well, I did. I had that real help, but beside the medication that helped, I just couldn't find anything to talk about with the professionals.

I never personally have liked talking (but it's still good, try it) and I've always used art and writing to get all my feelings out. Tbh, it haven't helped the situation that I'm terrible at recognizing my own feelings.

And, well.

If anyone would've said back in 2020 that "In couple years your mental health is going to get better because of Arthur Morgan and Johnny Ringo" I would've been so confused.

"Who??? Where??? When???"

The two most mentally stable men in the universe, right?

But you see, here we are. Still trying to decide do I hate my art or not. But even still, it's finally on place where I dreamed it would be when I was 14 years old and could only draw poor dogs and cats.

I may not feel like it, but I try to remind myself many times in a day. That this is what I wanted, this is what I worked for.

The progress has been slow, but it's still showing up. But I want to get better, I want to draw even more better, to get more realistic or something. I'm not even sure myself. Can you believe it? 10 years of drawing and I'm still not sure what I want my style really to be, other than somewhat realistic.

The progress is slow, but it's here. The mental health and drawing skills are both growing even I may not admit it to myself. And I still want to get better.

There is going to be bad times, there is always going to be bad times, those are never going to disappear. But what also is not going to disappear, is my passion to my art. To the characters, to the world they live in.

It's surely going to stay a big part of me, even it may fade in some point. But it is still there, a part which shows what helped me get back up.

As a reminder to myself how I got better. And that healing journey isn't in the end. Is only just begun.

It's a journey I'm afraid of, excited, curious, terrified...

But it's going to be amazing, hard, I'm going to hate and love every second of it.

And that's good. It means I've finally managed to dig up my closed emotions.

I may be able to know what I feel for the first time in years. I might be able to feel something that has been hidden away since forever.

And all that just because of some Cowboy Depression Simulator and the movie with the Cowboys and tuberculosis.

Seriously, they both end almost same way and managed to broke my fucking heart while doing it. And still they are probably the best things that have ever happened to me.

What I learned, what I thought while doing this art and thinking it's meaning... Only person you can let down in this planet is yourself, and only person who really knows everything you've done to get back up, is yourself. So, give a hug to you, give a tap to you, give a hamburger to you or something.

The good begins before the bad things end.

So go kick this day to the balls or something, somewhere where the sun doesn't shine, get it all back to yourself.

Carpe diem and have some FAITH to yourself...

Because you really don't know how good the light of tomorrow morning could feel.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I believe in y'all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

-Setri.