#they're the same as before but I'm still learning about colours so I'm going to talk about it

[pand1on]

updated matilda, I like this design a lot more!

[demonpiratehuntress]

The Straw Hats realise they like you and confess

Featuring: Zoro, Luffy, Sanji, Usopp x F!Reader

Warnings - angst to comfort (Zoro and Sanji). this is my first time writing for the anime, I'm still very new (only on episode 194) so please be nice, and let me know if they're ooc

ZORO

"He's avoiding me."

"He's not-"

"He can't stand to be in the same room as me."

Despite Nami's protests and reassurance, you were convinced that the green-haired swordsman was doing his utmost best to stay away from you. There was a distance between you two that hadn't been there until two days ago. Two days ago being the moment he realised he had feelings for you - unbeknownst to you.

"I'm sure there's an explanation-" Robin started.

"Well whatever it is, I don't want to hear it."

You were hurt. He had just stopped talking to you, stopped seeking you out for naps, and stopped being in your presence entirely. You don't even know what you did, and that hurt even more. You stood up from the table, brushing past the frozen swordsman as he entered the room. Tears evident in your eyes to all of them as they watched you go.

Why were you crying? Zoro was immediately concerned. He cared about you, after all, much more than anyone else on the crew. He hadn't realised that until he learned his feelings towards you were romantic, which is the reason for his distancing. He was, admittedly, scared by the fact that he liked you, and his defense mechanism of avoidance kicked in.

"What did you do now?" Nami practically growled at the swordsman.

"Me?" He protested. "I didn't do anything."

The orange-haired navigator rolled her eyes, "You're an idiot. You're avoiding her, and it's making her think you suddenly hate her."

Zoro's mouth opened like he was about to say something, but he didn't know what. You thought he hated you? That couldn't be further from the truth. He, the man who had your favourite colour, favourite food, and favourite everything committed to memory, he who knew your birthday better than his own, he who looked through every store on island stops to find something you would like, could never hate you.

But, he supposes avoiding you might have sent the wrong message.

The next day is pretty much the same, with you being in the room and Zoro not. You sighed and buried your face in your arms, just as the swordsman walked in. This time, he didn't leave.

"(Name)."

You looked up, surprised to hear him saying your name. Then you frowned, and dropped your head onto your arms again. You weren't in the mood to deal with him right now.

"I'm...sorry," he got out, a little slow but he managed. "Please look at me."

You sighed again before lifting your head, "What?"

You froze in place, seeing a familiar flower being held out to you. The green-haired swordsman had a bright blush on his face, but he had his head turned as he offered your favourite flower to you, probably too embarrassed about blushing to look at you. You took the flower gently, your own blush forming on your cheeks.

"I like you."

You were stunned for a moment, before your burst into laughter. His eyes widened, his blush darkening as he frowned at you.

"What-what's so funny?!"

"You're adorable."

"I AM NOT ADORABLE!"

The rest of you laughed as he grumbled and hastily trudged off, and you smiled as you looked at the flower in your hand.

"I like you too."

SANJI

It was a well known fact that Sanji was a massive flirt. Everyone knew about the cook's flirtatious antics, because he got heart-eyed over every woman he saw and everyone had witnessed it at some point. Even Nami and Robin were victim to his advances. But you, for some reason, were not. And it was confusing, to say the least, but it also sparked a deep insecurity.

Were you not pretty enough?

Little did you know, Sanji's aversion to flirting with you was only because every time he tried to say something to you, his tongue would tie itself up into a knot. He would not be able to get a word out, and would just end up looking like an idiot. He didn't want to give Zoro more ammunition. Because even looking at you sent all the thoughts in his head flying out, made his heart beat faster than he thought possible, and stole the breath from his lungs. He couldn't look at you without feeling faint.

"Why am I so unattractive?" You groaned one day, flopping down on the kitchen counter while he was cooking.

His eyes widened at your words, because there was simply no way you really thought you were ugly. He stared at you for a moment, and set down what he was holding to come over to you.

"You're not unattractive."

You scoffed, sitting up to look at him, "Please, you should be the last one to tell me that."

Before he could say anything, your eyes filled with tears and you retreated to your room, leaving him feeling so guilty. So it was because of him you felt that way. He thought it would be more romantic if he didn't flirt with you like a common woman, but it seemed that only made you think you weren't worthy of his affections.

Sighing, he followed you and stopped in front of your room door. He tried calling your name, but you didn't respond. Then he began to call you by other names - sweetheart, love, darling, anything romantic he could think of.

"You're the most beautiful woman in the world," he leaned his forehead against the door, "And I'm sorry I made you feel like you aren't. But I just like you so much that you have me tongue-tied every time I set my eyes on you."

You slowly opened the door, "You like me? You have a weird way of showing it."

"I'm so sorry!" He apologised, falling to his knees and clasping his hands together, "Please forgive me! I promise to make you feel prettier than anything and anyone else in the world, my sweet (Name)."

He looked on the verge of tears, so you shook your head with a smile and grabbed his arm to make him stand.

"You're so lucky I like you too."

LUFFY

Lord help you. That's pretty much all that can be said. Because when Luffy develops feelings for you, he has absolutely no idea. He doesn't think much of the fact that he constantly wants to be around you, that he constantly wants your attention and that he suddenly shares his food with you. He's so oblivious that romance could smack him in the face and he still wouldn't know a thing about it. So, naturally, Nami and Sanji have to help him realise that what he feels for you is not the same as what he feels for the rest of the crew.

"Oi, (Name)!"

"Luffy, I-" Nami sighed. There was no point in trying to talk to the captain now, you had come into view and stolen his attention. He could simply not focus on anything but you.

You laughed as you came towards the pair, "Luffy. What did you do this time?"

He pouted, "Why do you always think I did something?"

"You're Luffy," you replied, "When are you not doing something?"

"I just wanted to show you this funny fruit!"

He held up a fruit that he had picked from one of the trees on this island, which did admittedly have a funny shape. He then proceeded to break the fruit in two, and gave you a half. Nami practically fainted. You took that half in shock, but upon closer examination you realised it was no ordinary fruit and you tossed it aside, jumping on Luffy.

"Luffy, spit it out!"

"Why?" He asked, mouth already full.

You groaned, and then slapped his cheek. He spit it all out, stunned by your slap and you sighed in relief that he hadn't swallowed any.

"Why did you hit me?" He asked. "I thought I was showing you that I like you. Do you not like me?"

Your eyes widened when he said this, and a deep blush crossed your cheeks, "I do like you, why do you think I was trying to get you to spit out that poisonous fruit?!"

"IT WAS POISONOUS?!"

USOPP

Pretty sure the only guy to react in a relatively normal way to liking you is this guy. He probably wouldn't notice at first, but he did realise it mid-battle. Some pirates jumped the ship, and his first instinct was to run until he saw you in trouble. You were fighting them off, but one grabbed you from behind and got you into a dangerous chokehold. The bravery to stand up for you that overcame him then was his first indication he had more than friendly feelings towards you.

"(Name), duck!"

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DUCK?!"

That's fair. You could barely talk, but you had managed to scream at him. The sharpshooter raised his shaky arms to take aim at the grinning scum that was hurting you, and without hesitating fired one of his exploding stars at him. You gasped and rolled away from the pirate, clutching your throat as you tried to inhale as much air as possible. Usopp rushed over to you, kneeling beside you as the rest of the pirates were dealt with by the others.

"Are you okay?" He asked, so concerned he was fussing over you, checking for any serious injuries and almost fainting when he saw one small cut on your neck. "You're not okay!"

"Hey, I'm fine," you rasped, "It's just a small scratch."

"CHOPPER! CHOPPER!" Usopp was already screaming for the reindeer.

Once you were treated - in other words, given a plaster for your tiny cut - you smacked Usopp on the back of his head, "Zoro and Sanji had much worse injuries, you know."

"W-well, I-I-" Usopp started stammering, his legs wobbling like they always did when he was scared or nervous. "I came down with this new disease, you know-" He rambled. "It's called 'i-like-you-osis' and it's very serious, you know."

You laughed as he took off on his shaky legs to hide after saying that, apparently too flustered by his own words to face you. You smiled and shook your head in dismay.

"I have the same disease, idiot."

[koenigami]

tags : fem!reader, fluff, drunk!wrio, alcohol and intoxication, established relationship

Like the seasons, like the clouds in the sky, everything changes. Especially people. Which is the reason why even over the course of a steadfast and earnest relationship, you will always get to know something new about your partner. Their opinions on certain matters, their preferences in music, fashion or even taste of water.

What you have learned merely two hours ago is that your tea fanatic lover, WRIOTHESLEY - your big, strong, hunk who won't bow down to anyone - is a lightweight when it comes to alcoholic beverage.

It had started off as a casual evening stroll along the streets of Fontaine, including window shopping and easy-going conversations as you caught up on each other's day. That was until you passed the newly opened pub which you remember Clorinde briefly mentioning to you a few days ago. It was not overly big, yet the atmosphere that lingered inside was sweet and homely. Wooden tables and chairs with cushioned seats, large windows letting the sunset flood the pub's interior in an orange hue, shelves with all different kinds of alcoholic drinks spread over the entirety of the wall behind the counter.

The service was impeccable, food was delicious, and their drinks very refreshing. Wriothesley must have thought so too, because it did not take long until his cheeks were coloured in a light rosy shade.

- Sitting with him in a far corner of the room, you notice how his pupils are blown wide, and his tongue is loose as he keeps on rambling about matters that he surely won't even remember tomorrow. "You know what?" the strong alcoholic smell wafts through your nose as he throws an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer. As if wanting to avoid any prying ears, he leans in and whispers into your ear. "It seems that I may need to share a secret of mine with you."

"Oh, really now?" you raise your eyebrows and offer him a lopsided smile, sounding anything but thrilled about the upcoming revelation. "I'm all ears."

Wriothesley briefly pulls back, scanning his surroundings just to make sure that there is really no one trying to be noisy about your current conversation. He nods and leans back in, deep blue eyes staring right into yours with a seriousness that would normally worry you if it weren't for his intoxicated state. "I love you."

His words nearly drown in the loud music and singing of other not any less intoxicated guests. But you still catch them. You always would. Because his lips always move the same as they form around those words. Because his eyes always look the same when he utters them. Because your heart always starts beating the same erratic beat.

"I love you. I love you. I love you-" he stops his mantra, taking a deep breath in a dramatic manner before resuming and making you both chuckle. With every sentence, his face inches closer to yours. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love-"

You press a forefinger against his lips, silencing him and stopping his attempted kiss. The wet lips beneath your skin form into a little pout as he waits for your next move in anticipation. "Didn't you know that words lose their meaning if you repeat them too often?" your question was meant to be lighthearted. Teasing. But at the way he straightens and leans back into his chair, you realise that despite his tipsiness he still manages to seriously ponder over your words.

"There is no meaning behind my words." he scoffs and downs the remains of his drink. You feel your heart plunge a little before it rockets back up like a rollercoaster when he suddenly turns your way and grabs your cheeks in one hand. His warm breath fans over your puckered lips, and you are once again met with that same soft gaze of his that could make you melt right then and there.

"At least not any deeper meaning. They're simple facts." he leans in and this time you don't prevent him from kissing you. You taste the whiskey on his lips and sigh when his tongue briefly traces your lower lip. "Facts that will never change, my love."

[tojisun]

Riffing off of 141 coming home without Johnny.

I feel like it’d also be heartbreaking if instead of fully breaking down at first you have a moment of, oh my god are the others okay? Kyle are you okay?. Then it hits. Do they have his body? Where is he? Can you go see your Johnny? Are you even allowed to? Bonus points if the last time you properly talked to them before they all left you had a small argument with soap as he was leaving out the door.

HELLO

oh my god the questions. asking if you are allowed to see your spouse; ready to beg if they say you aren't. and the—

"your johnny." just how he always playfully calls himself, yeah?

he says things like, "won't you kiss yer johnny?", "won't you hug yer johnny goodbye?"

promises things like, "yer johnny's gon' come back, bonnie. swear on m'life."

you always did tell him not to bet it all on his life, grumbling as you tell him to take that back because you are superstitious and you've long since learned to avoid the insinuation, lest your words unfurl into realities.

then here, right now...

god YEA YEA I GET YOU!! i added these tags in my prev post—

but holy shit thinking about how the shock is put on halt because you want to take care of kyle first. how the devastation did not even settle in yet as you grapple with the intensity of your worry.

you paw at the others, trying to pull them close — trying to feel them because that is the only way you will ever know that they're alive too — and when they press in, when you feel the brush of kyle's breath on your cheek and price's callused palm rubbing your back and simon's warmth on your side, the ache sinks in.

it spreads all over your chest, chilling the pathways of your nerves until you feel like you are suspended; like the rest of the world has frozen over.

"kyle, i'm— i wanna see— i wanna see jo—"

god, you can't even say his name.

also? are you tryna kill me with that last one? "bonus points" ON WHAT? THE WHUMP SCALE? THE ANGST EXAM?? BC UR PASSING IT W FLYING COLOURS

im gutted so hard oh my godddd

i just know you (reader) won't be able to forgive yourself; won't be able to sleep at night. hell, you can't even stay in the same house anymore because it's so full of johnny and his smell and even the phantom sounds of his laugh. and his room was still unmade and you are so afraid to walk in and see it the same way that he left it — with his clothes on the floor, his extra pair of boots flung around, and there on his bed post was the scarf from a random girl he met at the bar.

you know he wouldn't cheat so why did you keep on insisting? why were you lashing out?

why did you—

"sometimes, i don't think you even truly love me."

why did you say that to him?

[padfootagain]

Silly Love

Hello!!! Here we go with a request from an anon for my Comeback Event!! Thank you so much for your request anon! It was such a delight to write!

Here is the request: “AAAAH i'm so excited for this event!!!! I wanted to request Ben Barnes with the Idiots In love trope!! like maybe they do interview together or we spot them publicly and they're so blushing and happy together that they forget to stay low in the public eye !! thank you so much Carole for giving us some fan content i love and appreciate your work so much ❤️”

This is so adorable, honestly…

****

Pairing: Ben Barnes x reader

Warnings: so much fluff your teeth will rot

Summary: you and Ben are giving a series of interviews for a project you’ve filmed together. But as the day goes by, it’s harder and harder for the two of you to remain serious and not act like the two fools in love that you are…

Word count: 3447

There was something in the way you spoke that always felt so reassuring to him.

Ben wasn’t certain of what it was exactly. The sound, the tone, the octave, the rhythm… He didn’t know what it was about your voice that simply… soothed him. He merely had to listen to you, close his eyes, and everything else would disappear.

He remembered the first time he heard it. It was through his TV screen. It didn’t feel the same then. It lacked the gentle imperfections your voice carried in real life. Still, he remembered watching the whole show you were playing in simply to listen to your voice.

One of these magic tricks of yours.

He should have been paying attention to what you were saying, to what the journalist was asking too. But as he stared at you, he simply forgot about anything else in the room but you. He stared at your eyelashes as they moved with each of your small blinking movements. He studied the curve of your nose, the line of your jaw, the colour of your lips. He knew how soft they felt against his. He fought against the sudden urge to simply cradle your neck, turn your head towards him, and kiss you until none of you could breathe…

You turned to him, and he fell into your eyes. Impossible to look away. Impossible to breathe at all. It felt like drowning, but in a wonderful way. Like falling forever and never wanting to hit the ground.

He didn’t even notice the way a dreamy smile formed on his lips. He was resting his chin in his palm, his elbow resting on the wooden armrest of his chair, set right next to yours.

He saw you tilting your head slightly, frowning a little…

He recognized those signs. It meant that you were waiting for an answer to something he had not been listening to…

“Ben? What do you think?” you repeated.

He shook himself, straightening up again, and blushing terribly.

“I… I am terribly sorry. I did not listen to the question,” he apologised, letting out an embarrassed laugh.

You soon joined him, chuckling while the interviewer repeated her question. You hid your embarrassment behind your hands…

You knew perfectly well why Ben had not been listening. He wasn’t paying attention.

You could hear his excuse, he gave it to you every time he wasn’t listening to you.

It’s not my fault if you’re too gorgeous to look at for me to focus on anything else.

And sometimes, you wondered if he truly meant that. Of course, you took it as a charming and flirty excuse. But there were moments when he would just stare at you the way he just did… maybe he was merely gawking at you, for real.

“Well, I was very happy to work with Y/N,” he answered, and you realized that, this time, you had been the one who wasn’t paying attention to the journalist sitting before you. “I had been admiring her work for a while so… huh… I was very curious to learn how she built her character’s presence, how she approached her roles. And it… it turns out that she is also an amazing human being so… I am a very happy man, indeed.”

You struggled to refrain a smile at his words. You knew perfectly well that you made him a happy man because of your blossoming relationship, not because of your talents as an actor.

You noticed the smirk that appeared on his lips, and knew that you were not doing a great job at hiding your emotions. A mix of satisfaction and embarrassment and shyness…

He adored it. He was so proud of himself for making you look like this. You were so adorable then…

You had not made your relationship official. Ben and you were both adamant in keeping your private lives private. Besides, you had met while working on this movie, and you didn’t want your relationship in your real lives to become a tool to promote the film. So, you were both determined to keep your relationship secret, for now.

You had to admit though that sitting next to Ben all day long, in a rather dark room, made it very difficult for you to act like the two of you were mere friends.

“What did you take home with you from set at the end of filming?” the interviewer asked, apparently oblivious of your inner battles.

“I took home some… small things that were on set… I don’t think I should tell you in details,” Ben laughed. “But I have one of my suits. Let’s… let’s say that.”

“What about you, Y/N?”

You thought for a second, but couldn’t stop yourself from answering as honestly as you could.

“Wonderful people.”

Ben and you exchanged a tender smile.

You were both resting your arms on the armrests of your chairs, and Ben used your proximity to brush his pinky finger against yours, ever so slightly, so no one in the room would notice.

The gesture was there though, tender and intimate, and you grinned at each other. Ben was blushing fiercely again.

“How nice!” commented the journalist.

“See? Told you. She’s amazing,” Ben nodded, making you roll your eyes.

“You have such an amazing chemistry on screen. I think it’s one of the biggest charms about this film, to be honest. And it must be hard to navigate through a love story between two characters. How did you manage that? How did you establish this connection?”

Ben cleared his throat and you saw him looking up at the ceiling, looking for a lie.

After all, he couldn’t answer with the truth. He couldn’t answer with: well, we both genuinely fell in love with each other off-screen, so it wasn’t hard to pretend to be madly in love on-screen. No, that couldn’t work…

You wanted to help him, find your own answer, but you were quite taken aback by the question as well. You were thinking about all these long evenings spent together in his apartment, drinking tea, or sometimes whiskey, and talking for hours and hours; failing to notice that the night was flying by. All those mornings laughing with him in make-up. Listening to his sweet voice as he sang on his piano during the weekend. The long walks on Sunday afternoons. And this feeling that kept on growing and growing, but you couldn’t possibly imagine that he felt the same…

And then, the comments of your friends about the two of you. The fact that you had become so close so quickly, that you wanted to spend so much time with him, that you didn’t think about dating anymore. The realization that struck you like a punch in the stomach that you were not having a mere crush, but were falling desperately, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with your co-star. The doubts, the long days spent thinking that he could never feel the same.

Until that Sunday afternoon when he sang this bloody song he had written, and you sat next to him while he played on his piano and… you just couldn’t stop yourself.

Your first kiss. It tasted like sunlight, tea and soft music.

You were brought back to the real world when Ben finally spoke.

“We talked a lot about the most intimate scenes, and the most emotional scenes too. Huh… we… we really wanted to be on the same page, and to be sure that we were both comfortable and able to express in the best way what our characters were feeling. And I think that level of understanding was very important. And… you know just… trusting each other. Huh… and then we simply became very good friends so it made everything pretty easy.”

You couldn’t refrain your tender smile as you stared at him while he spoke. You drank every word. You studied his dark hair you loved messing up with your fingers so much, his short beard you adored against your skin, the angle of his jaw, the corner of these lips you wanted to kiss all the damn time…

You shook yourself, trying to pay attention to the interview again.

“Alright a few fun questions now,” the interviewer said, a smile on her lips. “I’ll ask you some questions and you have to answer with the first thing that comes to your minds, at the same time, on the count of three. Sounds good for you?”

“Sure, sounds fun,” you answered, smiling as well.

“Alright. Tea or coffee? One, two, three…”

“Tea.”

“Coffee.”

You rolled your eyes at Ben’s answer, and he did the same because of you.

“That bloody, tasteless hot water,” you complained.

“I love coffee too.”

“But you prefer tea.”

“I do prefer tea.”

“Very cliché for a Brit.”

“True… I’m not going to try to deny that.”

The two of you exchanged a teasing smile, before focusing on the journalist again, waiting for her next question.

“Your favourite thing about each other. One, two, three…”

“His kindness.”

“Her kindness.”

You both gasped at your matching answers.

“You are extremely kind, like… too kind, honestly. Very patient as well,” you nodded, and Ben was grinning at your words.

It was the kind of radiant smiles that were almost blinding.

“You are way too sweet. And just so… so genuinely nice. In the best way,” Ben added, his grin turning into something softer as he stared at you. “You’re always trying to make sure everyone around you is happy and well. You have a very generous soul. I love that about you.”

“Aww…” you couldn’t help it when you reached for his hand and gave it a tender squeeze.

“Now, what is the thing you dislike the most about each other?” the journalist asked once you were looking at her again. “One, two, three…”

“Nothing.”

“He’s so distracting.”

Ben looked at you in shock while you and the interviewer were laughing so much.

“Wow… I was not expecting that one,” Ben admitted. “I was being so nice to you, I said ‘nothing’! Did you hear that?” he added, turning to the interviewer. “I can’t believe it...”

“You really are so distracting though.”

“I’m very focused when I work,” he argued.

“You have the whole shouting-to-get-into-character thing,” you started, counting on your fingers.

“Oh… yeah… that’s right. I see how that can be quite distracting…” he admitted, and you saw him starting to blush again.

“You’re always in people’s face, or touching me, or hugging me…”

“That’s nice though!”

“It’s nice, but still distracting.”

You raised a third finger.

“And you’re very handsome. It doesn’t help.”

His smile turned tender again, the tips of his ears turning red.

“Thank you, that’s nice.”

“Do you want to change your answer?” the journalist asked Ben with humour.

“I think I’ll say that she’s too honest sometimes.”

You all laughed.

“You never think before speaking,” Ben went on, still laughing. “It’s hilarious.”

“I am hilarious.”

“You truly are. But it gets you into so much trouble sometimes. Do you remember when we were at this restaurant and you thought the couple at the table next to ours were father and daughter?”

You doubled with laughter, hiding your face in your hands.

“That was so embarrassing.”

“You’re so loud…”

“I was tipsy!”

“Drunk. You were full-on drunk.”

“No, I wasn’t! I was very tipsy but I was not drunk.”

“Anyway, you said this so loudly and the look they sent us!”

You were both laughing so much, both of you forgetting all about the interview.

“I just wanted to disappear.”

“You really get us into so much trouble sometimes…”

“But you like it. You would be bored otherwise.”

“Just like I bet you love it when I distract you.”

“That’s quite true.”

You and Ben intertwined your fingers together, holding hands, and Ben brushed tenderly the back of your hand with his thumb. You didn’t think about what the gesture could mean for the rest of the world. You were too busy getting lost in his dark eyes.

The journalist interrupted your thoughts though as she spoke again. You separated your two hands, movements made slow by reluctance.

“What’s the last emoji you sent to the other? One, two, three.”

“Laughing face.”

“Kiss emoji.”

You frowned hard at Ben.

“Your last emoji was a heart, not a laughing f…”

But you saw the look in his eyes and stopped talking.

He was lying on purpose… shoot…

“Yes, you’re right, it was a laughing face,” you lied, but you were pretty certain that you were not convincing.

Ben tried to keep a straight face, but it was difficult.

The interview was (thankfully) over though, so the journalist left, and you bid her a good day with a handshake and a warm smile.

Ben asked for a two-minutes break before welcoming the next interviewer, pretexting that he needed to go to the bathroom, and you followed his lead.

Actually, you found refuge in the deserted staircase of the building, and both exploded with laughter in the empty space, your laughs amplified by their echoes.

“We really need to be more careful, my love,” Ben argued, trying to be more serious again.

“You’re right,” you nodded, letting him wrap his arms around you to draw you closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

“I am not fully innocent either…”

“But that emoji… and I said I sent you a kissing face!”

You buried your face in your hands and rested your forehead against his shoulder. Ben merely laughed.

“I don’t think that was enough to start a rumour about us being together, though,” he reassured you. “But I was right. You really need to learn to think before speaking…”

You swatted him playfully on his upper arm, and he doubled with laughter.

“Now, we should go back. We still have many interviews to give. And no more hand-touching, mister!” you scolded him.

“I can’t help it,” he complained. “Besides, before we go back, I really need to do something first. Something I’ve been dying to do ever since we entered this room, because… you are so beautiful like this, love…”

You gave him a flirtatious smile, knowing perfectly where this conversation was heading.

“And what could that be, honey?”

“This.”

He leaned down to kiss you tenderly on the lips, a hand climbing up your body to rest gently against your cheek, cupping your jaw to guide your face towards his again when you tried to break the kiss. You lost your fingers in his hair, messing with the dark locks, but none of you cared.

Kissing him felt too amazing for you to care about anything but his lips.

“Honey? What are you doing? Hurry up, I want to watch the movie!”

You wore your most annoyed tone, but heard Ben chuckling from the corridor anyway. You couldn’t refrain a smile at the sound, even if you were trying to act like you were annoyed. It was too warm, too reassuring for you to feel anything but happy whenever you heard his laughter.

You rearranged the covers of Ben’s bed, waiting patiently for him to finally join you so you could start watching a cute romantic comedy you had found on Netflix. But he seemed to be taking forever…

He finally appeared, wearing nothing but a pair of dark boxers, and you couldn’t help it when you let your gaze roam the length of his body. His hair was dishevelled from the shower he had taken after dinner, and you loved it. He was staring at his phone as he walked in the room, but looked up to catch the sight of you lying there, cosy and warm in his bed.

Best sight on Earth, he reckoned…

He slipped in the bed with you, and you greeted him with a grin and a peck on the lips. But you frowned as he focused on his phone again.

“Is everything alright?” you asked, snuggling in his side as he raised his arm for you to settle in his embrace.

“Yeah, just… was checking on some comments on a couple of interviews we did together the other day, you remember?”

“When it was just the two of us?”

Ben nodded, eyes still fixed on his screen.

His hand was drawing mindless patterns across the small of your back. It was comforting, soothing… it reminded you that he truly was there, by your side.

It had been a few weeks now since you had recorded these interviews, but of course you remembered. It had been proper torture to seat next to Ben all day without being able to touch him, to speak your mind, to remind him that you loved him…

“Sure, what about them?” you asked dropping a kiss on his chest, and you smirked at the sight of the smile that formed on his lips under your touch.

“Well… a couple of friends have warned me that some comments are… quite… accurate…”

You frowned hard, leaning closer to look at his phone, and he turned the screen in your direction so you could read the comments too.

Your eyes grew round.

I bet Ben and Y/N are more than friends… have you seen that chemistry?

The way Ben just gawked at Y/N for two full minutes, not listening to anything she or the interviewer said, is a big mood. Also, they’re in love.

Lol, when they held hands at 6:30, I’m dead, thx!

Not the type to start rumours but… are these two together? Like… irl?! Because they seem like a real couple trying their absolute best to hide how infatuated they are with each other… and failing.

Ben and you exchanged a glance.

“Oh…” you breathed.

“I think we… have blown our cover, love,” Ben joked.

You were afraid he would be mad, but he seemed amused by the situation, more than anything else…

“You’re not panicking? Or annoyed? Or angry?” you carefully asked.

He noticed your wary tone, and looked down at you, before dropping a kiss in your hair.

“No, I don’t care, to be honest.”

“I thought we had decided to keep all this a secret.”

“Yes, well… I don’t mind. I love you, that’s all that matters.”

You tightened your hold on him, making him chuckle.

“I love you too,” you whispered against the skin of his neck, closing your eyes as you deeply breathed in the sugary scents of his soap and shampoo.

“Do you mind terribly that everyone is figuring things out about us?” he asked, and this time he was the one wearing a cautious tone.

“Not really, actually. I thought it would stress me out, but I don’t really care.”

You exchanged a loving smile, and he brushed his nose and his cheek against your forehead, making you heave a content sigh.

“By the way… I want to watch these two full minutes where you are… how did they say that? Oh, yes… gawking at me,” you teased him, a cheeky grin on your lips, while he exploded with laughter.

“I’ve watched it,” he confessed, his eyes tightly closed and his head thrown back in embarrassment, trying to hide from you, but you could still see that he was fiercely blushing. “I’ve watched it and I can’t believe I’ve stared at you like that in public…”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re so sweet… so cheesy…”

“Oh, shut up!” he grumbled, making you laugh.

“I want to watch it, give me your phone.”

“Absolutely not!” he protested, extending his arm so the device would remain out of reach.

“Ben! Give it to me!”

“No!”

“I can also just use my own phone…”

“No… no…”

He grabbed you by the waist when you reached for your phone on your bedside table, pulling you towards him and making you both fall on the mattress.

You were both laughing so much by now.

“No! Don’t watch it!”

“If you start tickling me, I swear to God, you will soon be a dead man…”

“I’ll find another way to distract you, that’s alright…”

“Stop kissing me like that…”

“Really? You want me to stop?”

“No… not really…”

“Hmmm… thought so… Y/N!”

“I got the phone! When is it? WHEN IS IT?”

“NOOOO!”

Ben kept on attacking you with waves of kisses and tickles, but you held his phone in hostage, and he ended up losing the war, as you watched the full video together. He expected you to laugh at him, but you didn’t. You simply kissed him hard and tender on the lips, and snuggled into his arms.

It was a happy evening, in a life full of love…

[leonawriter]

Okay apparently I'm going to do a study on this introduction, because going back to it? Especially knowing more about Hakuba via more recent Magic Kaito chapters? Fascinating stuff.

So. Hakuba's introducing himself, and he starts out by bringing up "My father spoke of you often" and "It seems you're a very sharp detective." Both of those are positive!

Hakuba is... high society, compared to Hattori simply hanging out around high ranking people and treating them like normal. Hattori argues with Kazuha in a very down to earth way, while Hakuba knows how to drink tea and probably how to set the table with a full set of cutlery (or at least how to use them).

So, Hakuba using their fathers to introduce himself is, to him, a normal enough way to say "I've heard good things about you, we're similar, I hope we can get along well."

What's more - Shinichi realises that, pretty quickly. Even if they hadn't met previously, he'd have been able to figure out by the words being used, that Saguru's father knows Heiji's father, or that they're in the same business.

If anything, I'd say that this slight culture clash is the second step of things going wrong between Hattori and Hakuba here, right after Hakuba being present at all, since Hattori had wanted Shinichi to take his rightful place where Hakuba is currently sitting.

Strike one, strike two.

Unfortunately, it gets worse from there, and I'm gonna go into it.

But then Hakuba brings up that he's not even fully based in Japan. To which, mostly Hattori is just "wait, what?" - but although I'm sure he means it simply to be as clear as possible, that could also be read as "I would say that, but I'm actually better." As in, being smug.

Strike three.

Still with "Kudo is the high school detective of the east, that's obvious, isn't it?" and rubbing salt into the insult to Hattori's bro with "they'd have liked me to represent the east in his place" but...

Oh boy.

This... this is also where I just stared and held my head in my hands because now? Because of something Hattori's said, and what he's going to continue saying/leaning into... we need to go back in time.

All the way back in Hakuba Saguru's first appearance, the papers say "just returned from London," suggesting (as I've seen someone say before) that he'd spent at least some, if not much, of his youth in Japan.

Certainly, he doesn't seem to speak with an accent in the present day, so he can't have grown up in the UK and only sometimes lived in Japan.

In Japan, however, he is referred to as...

In Nakamori's (uncouth) words at their first meeting, "Y-you're that bastard from London!"

No mention of how he has a fully Japanese name, partially Japanese features, a Japanese father, and no accent.

His introductory splash also frames him with the Union Jack behind him, showing off his Holmes cosplay and light hair. Almost all the major characters in the series have blue eyes, but here it's rather... plainly emphasising his Western features. His non-Japanese-ness.

Now, I do have to wonder if Gosho wrote that back in 1990 and hadn't given much thought to it. I certainly don't think it was intentionally cruel.

However, by volume 40, released in 2003, he's learned a bit more about social prejudice, and shows this with the Professor's First Love story:

This shows something that happened 40 years ago in-universe, with a girl of Japanese-American descent who has light, gingko colour hair, being very aware of how different she is, and not wanting her friend to see. She calls her hair "weird" and starts to cry.

Coming back to the present - content released in 2006 - let me go back to Hakuba Saguru.

Hattori "That's obvious, isn't it? And yer not even from this country to begin with."

Oh, Hattori. Only the previous case had you seeing how words can be as sharp as knives, and can hurt people.

Saguru doesn't seem too bothered at first, however...

First off, he points out that it isn't even his fault he's "taken Kudo's place" in the first place!

They contacted his housekeeper, who he's been shown to be very close with (I'd hazard a guess to say that, having not seen his mother at all, or seen her mentioned, Baaya is closer to him than his parents are), and when she heard that her charge would only be taking someone else's place since they weren't there, she got offended on his behalf.

Saguru, who loves this woman like she's literally his nanny, could hardly say no at that point.

More to the point: how he says "But it appears I am unfit to represent the East..."

So now we have Hattori having come in wanting his best friend to be represented and not sidelined just because of circumstances out of his control, and being in a bad mood immediately because of someone else having been called in. He also possibly inflates the number of cases he worked on or solved, by including childhood adventures, leading Saguru to point out that his count is only low if you only count the ones in one country. Saguru attempts to make friends with him regardless, and that doesn't work because Hattori is still stuck on how Saguru is "taking Kudo's place" and then focuses in on how Saguru "isn't even from this country" which... starts leaning into the uncomfortable territory of "Hattori I love you to pieces but are you being racist/xenophobic right now?"

I say that in the context of how Japan has a really big problem with seeing anyone who isn't fully Japanese as Not Japanese Enough, as I went into earlier. I don't think he's aware how he's coming across, by the way; he's simply got a big case of foot-in-mouth.

So now instead of having come to this conclusion organically and naturally, Saguru is offering to take the place of "Guest Participant from Overseas" to placate Hattori.

I'd imagine he won't be wanting to tell Baaya about that, for sure.

Saguru goes on to suggest that Conan (i.e, Shinichi himself) should represent the East instead.

I reiterate: they could well have come to this conclusion over a friendly conversation, because of how they have five detectives. But instead now Saguru has ceded his position to (as far as he knows) a child. A very clever child, but a child nonetheless.

The next time we're back at the island with Hattori and the others, he's already decided he doesn't like "that smug guy."

As said before, there are plenty of things that Hattori could have picked up on that'd suggest Saguru "looked down on people" and "had a prideful way of thinking" and he certainly could appear smug in his achievements.

Hattori himself says that Saguru was "was like a copy of [Kudo]." But he has decided he doesn't like Hakuba, therefore he won't like Hakuba.

A moment of Saguru bonding with Natsuki over their natural brown hair, a shared trait - we can see him smiling after saying "But... there aren't any tv cameras yet, so you could do what you want for tonight?"

In a way I feel like I'm making too much of a big deal out of this one thing, but I'm not the one bringing attention to it - Gosho is. Gosho's the one who reminds us that kids get into trouble for their natural brown hair, and Saguru got that too.

Those who've read Magic Kaito will know that he DOES have a Japanese school uniform - but as we saw at the start of the post, when he arrived, he arrived from his school in London.

This further emphasises how he's set apart from the others.

(An aside: it's entirely possible that his "school abroad" is more likely him going to sixth form, since our Secondary schools last (or did for me) up to the age of 16, and depending on the time of year he may have transferred over to the new school year already. Or he's just finishing his last year of Secondary. We don't know.)

Honestly... I'm going to leave this at that for now, because for one thing the post got away from me a bit, and became longer than I expected, and for another thing, I've covered the majority of the first meeting and both of them getting off on the wrong foot.

In short:

Hattori arrived with an idea of slipping Shinichi into the event, and was offended and upset when someone was already in his place. He, being the loyal friend he is, wasn't willing to simply let it lie.

Instead of backing down and accepting the situation and make friends with the new detective - who Shinichi knew and was acting friendly with, and who was willing to befriend him - he let his bad mood get the better of him and made offensive remarks of his own, most of which to the others would seem entirely unwarranted.

Because of that, Hattori still has a bad opinion of Saguru, and Saguru's opinion of Hattori has gone from "my father's spoken of you [positively]" to "rude asshole."

Neither of them are innocent, but when you look at them individually and fairly, neither of them are the only one in the wrong, either.

Like... no wonder they don't get along from here on? Wow.

I did not expect there to be so much in it, but there we go.

[echo-bleu]

Disability pride request? Two characters of your choice hanging out, maybe one using two forearm crutches and one using two canes. They can be friends or partners - I just generally love seeing disabled characters interactng with one another!

How about three disabled characters?

Once upon a time @camille-lachenille sent me a prompt about Míriel having Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. I had already sketched a disabled Celegorm with EDS in mind and, thinking about how it's genetic, had an epiphany about Celebrimbor (and the meaning of his name) and I drew him as well. So I wrote a fic about all three of them dealing with chronic pain, but I still hadn't drawn Míriel. That oversight is now fixed!

They have more in common than just chronic illness xD.

This is still titled "The EDS gang" in my files, I'm going to stick to it. Set sometime in Fourth Age Valinor, when most things are good again...

Disabled Tolkien characters series

(Feel free to send me more disability prompts! I love drawing them.)

More ramblings about disability aids that devolved into bullet-point headcanons under the cut. ID and transcription at the end, but they're also in alt text.

[CW: this is all fairly light but discussion of death and trauma and you know, everything that comes with these three.]

I do not know how to make comics. I'm sure that's very obvious but, you know, learning new things and all that. One thing I learned was that my usual style of rendering does not work with it as well so I rendered them entirely twice.

It was meant to be day 21 and 22 of my October challenge, because surely I can draw and colour a full page in a day (spoilers: no). In the end it was a combined 15 hours of work over 3 and a half days because I made it as complicated as I possibly could 😭 Still, I had fun and learned a lot.

Note: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a connective tissue disorder, affecting basically how your cells are glued together. There are a lot of different symptoms (and different types of EDS) but a frequent one is joint pain and hypermobility, and it's at least partly inherited.

Míriel:

Red was Míriel's colour first. She's not into gaudy things and rarely wears vivid colours, but almost always something red. She barely wears any jewellery since reembodiment, mostly for sensory reason (She is very autistic. That's something she gave Fëanor, Curufin, Caranthir, Ambarussa and Celebrimbor, at least.)

She died of post-partum (and general) depression and energy depletion from childbirth or something, but the chronic illness that was taking all of her energy and keeping her from her craft certainly didn't help.

Also pregnancy was horribly rough on her, partly because EDS can be affected by hormonal changes.

She's actually been better since reembodiment, because she has better accommodations (Finwë did his best but he was very lost) and also a Vala on hand who makes her very good painkilling tea.

She wears knitted compression gloves that she designed to help with hand pains.

Her wheelchair is of Noldor make, but I'm sure Celebrimbor will have suggestions for improving it.

The tapestry that she is weaving is actually this painting of Finrod that I did a while ago. I figure that she's representing calmer, nicer things now that she doesn't have to weave her grandchildren's downfall and deaths.

Celegorm:

He was in a relationship with Oromë before the Exile. After his reembodiment, it took them a while by they talked it out and forgave each other. Oromë doesn't quite get elves, but he's really supportive.

He has a pair of wolf-head canes carved by Nerdanel. He alternatively uses both, just one and sometimes none depending on activity/pain level.

He wears bandages as compression garments because this is a world without elastane. His leggings have reinforced knees for support.

He's always heard about Míriel having the same thing as he does from Finwë, and he knew that when he started showing symptoms, Fëanor was terrified that he'd fade too. So for a long time, Míriel's story was kind of hanging above his head.

That's why it takes him a while to go seek her out after he's reembodied. Celebrimbor understands why it's important to him and he pushed him to it a little bit, so Celegorm dragged him along.

They're going to get along great. Míriel is both the quintessential grandmother and also she has a twisted sense of humour that Celegorm will just love.

Celebrimbor:

Celegorm was always his favourite uncle, and they became very close when Celebrimbor started having symptoms in the early years in Exile, and Celegorm stayed with Curufin in Himlad for him.

It took Celebrimbor a while to forgive him after Returning (not as long as Curufin but still) but they've gone back to being really close.

He was really unlucky with reembodiment: while he wasn't reborn with the physical aspect of his torture, the memory of pain and the trauma made his chronic pain a lot worse than it was before, and he can no longer walk unaided.

He designed the silver ring and wrist splints back in Eregion with Narvi's help, and ended up literally living up to his name (which means "silver fist/grasping hand").

Paradoxically these were a great motivation for him to work through his trauma and go back to the forge, because he couldn't find a silversmith in Valinor who could make good enough ones for him, even with all of his sketches and specifications.

A lot of his work since reembodiment has been designing and making disability aids for people.

He uses platform crutches to spare his hands as much as possible. He invented and designed them, of course, as well as the KAFO brace that he wears here. He's also a part-time wheelchair user.

He is still wearing dwarven beads in his hair. He obviously didn't bring anything back from Middle-Earth but he asked Gimli to make them for him in remembrance of Narvi. His tunic is also dwarven-inspired.

He is pretty chill about Sauron here. I don't know if there was a redemption (I have feelings about @chthonion's The Harrowing and @mynameisjessejk's Otter Mayhem) or if he's just been through enough elf-therapy to be able to joke about it. Celegorm's sense of humour is just Like That.

Celegorm and Celebrimbor are about to try Vairë's special painkilling tea for the first time 👀

Between all of them they should really open a disability aids shop or something. They just might! Míriel doesn't really ever leave Vairë's house but I think Celegorm and Celebrimbor will keep visiting her a lot, and eventually all of the grandkids will as well.

Image description and transcriptions:

Two digital comic book pages.

Image 1: The first case takes the whole width, showing two pairs of feet with each two canes/crutches on a tiled floor, with a speech bubble saying "Do you think she'll want to see us?"

The second line has two cases in 2/3 and 1/3 format. The first shows two hands in red fingerless gloves working on a tapestry on a loom. The second shows part of a light-skinned face in profile, with curly white hair. Three speech bubbles say "My love?" "Um?" "There are people here asking for you."

The bottom part has one case off-center showing the same hand undoing the brake of a wheelchair, with a speech bubble saying "Your grandson and your great-grandson." above and one saying "I'll be right here." below. Then a full-length off-case portrait of Miríel, a light-skinned elf with shoulder-length curly white sitting in a wheelchair and pushing herself. She's wearing a pale pink embroidered dress with red accents, red fingerless gloves and elbow pad and brown boots and smiling.

Image 2: A single large case shows two elves standing in a room with a tiled floor, with a large door and two tables behind them. There are thread spools on one table and a tea set on the other. One elf, Celebrimbor, is brown-skinned and slightly chubby, with long black hair in a braided bun, wearing a red tunic and dark green pants. He is leaning on two decorated platform combo crutches made of wood and metal, with a KAFO brace on his leg. He wears finger and hand silver splints. The other elf, Celegorm, is pale and has long white hair in a high ponytail with small braids, he has tattoos on his neck and arms and he wears bandages on his shoulders, elbows and wrist. He wears a green tunic, leggings and wrap-around gaiters. He is leaning on a cane and holding up another cane, pointing at the first elf. Both canes have handles carved in the shape of wolf heads.

The speech bubbles are arranged around and below them, giving this dialogue, with the speakers distinguished by the shape of the bubble (the parts in parentheses are smaller text in the bubbles):

Celegorm: "My lady, my name is Tyelkormo, and this is my nephew Tyelpë." Miríel: "I know who you are, my wonderful children. Come sit." Celebrimbor: "That would be nice, thank you." Miríel: "Vairë, my love, would you make us some tea?" Celebrimbor: "My lady!" Celegorm: "A Vala who can make tea! (I could never get Oromë to do it.)" Miríel: "It was a long domestication process." Vairë (off screen): "Hey!" Celebrimbor: "Instant hot water! That’s nice. (I wonder if I could replicate that.)" Miríel: "She makes wonderful hot water bottles." Celegorm: "Oromë just uses his hands as hot pads." Celebrimbor: "Ew, I didn’t need to know that." Celegorm: "What? Just because your Maia burns everything he touches–" Celebrimbor: "Shut up." Miríel: "You must both tell me everything about yourself. And your partners!"

[trashpandacraft]

hi! ok so i'm going to talk about one of my top-five favourite things, which is: dyeing stuff! this is going to be specifically about dyeing protein fibres (animal fibres—wool, alpaca, silk, etc) in a pretty low-key way in your kitchen.

to be clear up front: this is not the most scientific, most perfectly reproducible, or most Objectively Correct way to dye things. i get a lot of fibre that i like this way, though, and i think that other people can, too.

fibre i've dyed that i think is neat:

you can also dye yarn like this:

yes, i like blue a lot. i also really like variegation and heathering, which is why most of the fibre here has patches of white—it's an intentional choice that i've made. you can make different choices.

here is what you need to dye things:

fibre, vinegar, dye, a pot, heat, and some water.

that was so you don't get overwhelmed by the impending wall of text. here is what you need to dye things (it's the same stuff!), but with way more detail:

fibre or yarn. this is the big one, obviously. i tend to dye in 100-200 gram batches, because that's approximately what fits on my stovetop easily. if you're very nervous about felting or harming your fibre, you can use stuff that's been treated to be superwash, start with yarn (which is harder to felt than fibre is), or use a felt-resistant breed like dorset or suffolk. honestly, though, i learned with merino because that's what i had, and it was fine. again, though, this guide is only for protein fibres. it will not work for things like cotton. the only exception to this is nylon, which will take on some colour, but less than a protein fibre will.

a mordant. this is a fancy way of saying a thing that makes dye stick, and for what we're doing here, it's citric acid or vinegar. your grocery store definitely has at least one of them, though if you can choose, i prefer citric acid, because i love wet wool smell but i do not always love wet wool vinegar smell.

dye. i use acid dyes, and am personally deeply loyal to dharma acid dyes, but ashford and jacquard acid dyes work the same way. if you don't want to buy dye or don't have access to it, food colouring will often work, as well, though i haven't tried this with natural food colourings and have no idea how well they'll work.

a dedicated dye pot. ok, if you're doing food dyes, you don't need this. if you're not, it's definitely best practice, though i don't know how dangerous it is not to. any large metal pot will do, but my favourite option is hotel pans, which are those huge metal pan/tray things that hold food at buffets and the like. i have a full-size one that's 15cm deep, and a half-size one that's 4cm deep. they're great because they let you lay out the fibre you're working with so you can see most of it in a single layer.

dedicated dye utensils. as before, i don't know how much of a huge deal this is. i'll be honest and admit that for several years i had a single pair of tongs that got used for all tong-requiring events, including dyeing, and i'm still alive. i suggest that you have at least a big spoon, and a big spoon and tongs are even better.

something to mix the dye in. yeah, i use empty plastic sports drink or soda bottles for this. you can be fancy and get mason jars or little squirt bottles or whatever, and if you get super into dyeing you'll want to mix up dye stocks, but that's way outside the scope of what we're doing here. i like the powerade bottles that have a little squirty mouthpiece, because it's fun to squirt dye onto things.

personal protective equipment. i think this is the part of things that freaks people out. ideally, you wear plastic gloves and a mask (yeah, like your covid masks) when you're working with dye. realistically, i almost never remember to put on gloves and just accept that my hands are going to be blue sometimes. you should wear a mask, because dye is an irritant, but the world is an imperfect place and i have wicked bad adhd and sometimes i forget. this isn't advice. i'm just being honest. you should use some kind of safety stuff. you probably won't die if you don't.

you might also want some little random bits: an old toothbrush or paintbrush, a pipe cleaner, some toothpicks, etc. this is mostly if you like speckles, or if you want very small patches of colour.

so first: there are a million ways to dye things, and i'm not convinced that any of them are objectively correct. i do what i do and it works for me. some of the things i do are the opposite of what most guides suggest, but i do them because i like the effects they create.

ok, that's all the background stuff you need. let's dye some stuff!

the number one most important thing to remember when you're dyeing is this:

you can always add more colour. you cannot take it away.

that's in fancy writing and bold because every once in a while i forget this, and every single time i end up regretting it.

here is how to dye things:

put water, citric acid (or vinegar), and fibre into a pot. add dye and heat. let cool completely. rinse the fibre in cool water, then hang to dry.

like, sure, we're going to go into way more detail, but push come to shove, if you do that, you're going to end up with dyed fibre. there are a lot of tutorials telling you that you must soak your fibre first, or you must add your citric acid this way, or hold the water at exactly this temperature, and i'm here to tell you that while any of these things can give you different results, those results aren't necessarily better.

the only way that you can totally screw this up is by accidentally felting your fibre, so before i get into the way more detail part of things, i'm going to talk about that.

how not to felt your fibre

i feel like if you've read this far, you know how things felt: wool, heat, and agitation. you may also notice that at least two of these things are required for dyeing. this can be stressful! but you don't have to be afraid of it. there's only been one time that i felted something to the point that it was unusable, and that happened because i literally fell asleep for several hours while the pot was on the stove. you can avoid doing this by simply setting an alarm—this is a good idea anyhow, because you'll want to check on your dye pot!

when you're dyeing, use the lowest heat that you can while still keeping the water at a simmer. if your stove, like mine, has one burner that's wildly unpredictable and sort of out of control, you may want to look for some sort of flame diffuser, also called a flame tamer or a simmer ring. i bought one on amazon for about fourteen dollars, and it's literally just a thick metal circle. it works fine.

you can also keep the heat low by using a pot with a thick bottom, though in my experience those are expensive, and if i had one i would be using it for soup, not wool.

avoid shocking your wool—never put room temperature wool into hot water, and never put hot wool into cold water. leave your wool in the dye bath until it's cooled completely, which for me usually means overnight.

finally, obviously you have to move the fibre around some. you'll need to peek under it in the pan, and when you're done, you have to rinse it and squish out the water. try to minimise handling, though. don't run water directly onto the fibre, don't get a wooden spoon and stir your dye pot around, don't wring the fibre dry when it's done.

you're probably never going to be perfect. i often find that i lose a gram or two of wool where fibres have grabbed onto each other, or where parts of the ends clumped up. it's not really felted, just sort of compacted, but it's not great to work with, and i'd rather lose a gram of fibre than fuss with the clumpy bits.

back to how to dye things

let's take it step by step, assuming a hundred grams of fibre.

put your pan on the stove and fill it halfway with water. add either a teaspoon of citric acid or a tablespoon of vinegar. this is going to help the dye strike, or stick to the fibre. the teaspoon/tablespoon is a guideline, but one that it's fine to exceed. adding more will help the dye strike faster, which can be useful if you're trying to create blocks of colour on your fibre. i usually err on the side of a little more than the guidelines, and just eyeball this—if you feel like the dye isn't taking well, you can add more later.

add your fibre to the pan. this is the first place you have to think about what you want the finished fibre to look like! you can put it into the pan any way you want, but i suggest trying to keep it in a relatively even layer, regardless of what that layer looks like. here are some ways to get specific effects:

if you want a gradient from one end of the fibre to the other, use a rectangular pan and lay your fibre out so that the line of it is parallel to the short sides of the pan

if you want a short, repeating gradient, use a rectangular pan and lay your fibre out so that the line of it is parallel to the long sides of the pan

if you want something that starts with very close repeats that get further apart as you go down the fibre, make an approximate spiral

if you don't want A Pattern (i usually don't) just lay things out in a single layer, more or less

here comes the next exciting part! decide if you want to let your fibre soak or not. again, doing or not doing this gives you some different effects!

soaking your fibre will mean that dye takes more evenly. if you want consistent colours, you'll want to soak.

not soaking your fibre means that the dye takes less evenly. the fibre on top will have less acid available to it, spends less time in the dye bath, and also has to actually get wet before it will start to dye. i actually love doing this, and think it affords a lot of cool opportunities to play with and layer colours.

if you're soaking, leave the fibre there until it's submerged. if not, don't.

now you're going to add dye! decision time, again.

you can add dye when the water is cold, which will give you more even dye coverage, and in my experience gives the colours more time to mix together

you can add dye when when the water is hot, which will give you less even coverage, and tends to encourage the colours to stay more delineated

probably surprising no one, i tend to heat the water first unless i'm starting with a base colour or i'm doing a two-colour gradient.

time to mix up some dye

as i mentioned earlier, i'm assuming that you're using powered acid dyes for this. if you're not, this mixing up part is technically optional—but doing it gives you way more control about how and where you place your colours, so i'm going to assume that you'll do it.

i usually mix dye in some sort of empty drink bottle. regardless of what you're using, before you add dye to anything, put some water in the bottle, wipe off the lip, put the lid on tightly, and shake the bottle vigorously. if there is any leakage at all, do not use that bottle. find a better bottle. if your bottle cap doesn't seal well or if you have an empty condiment bottle that's just a little wonky or whatever, you will get dye all over the kitchen, and your landlord will be really really mad about it, and you will regret your life choices. (if you own your kitchen, you can do whatever you want, but this isn't about you and you know it.)

so you have a bottle that seals tightly! great job. dump out the water and carefully put some dye powder into the bottle. remember earlier how i said you should be wearing a mask? this is the part where you should be wearing a mask.

i know that people are reading this and going, ok, but how much dye do i put in?

my answer is put in the amount that feels right in your heart, and don't forget the number one rule of dyeing things, which is that you can always add more colour, but you cannot take it away.

this isn't a very scientific answer. most dyes have a guideline about how much to use, expressed as a percentage of the dry weight of the fibre, which is what you use to get the whole quantity of fibre dyed evenly. for dharma dyes, it's like 1.5-2%, i think ashford is 1%, and jacquard is more like 2-4%, depending on the colour.

here is the problems with doing that in your kitchen: first, using that much dye will get you an evenly dyed piece of fibre, which—for me, at least—is basically the opposite of what i want. second, and more importantly, unless you have one of those teeny tiny scales used by jewelers and drug dealers, your kitchen scale will not weigh out such tiny quantities with any accuracy. third, if you do it like this, you really have to plan what you're doing ahead of time, because there's a point after which no more dye will bind! the fibre will be like enough thank u that's it i'm good and that'll be it, so you lose some of your ability to decide that actually, you want more green.

you can probably guess, at this point, that i don't weigh the dye. once you've done a couple batches of fibre with a given brand of dye, you'll start to get the vibes for how much you should use. if you really want a guideline, for a hundred grams of fibre, start with a quarter teaspoon of a given colour. you can add more—either more of this colour or a different one—later, as desired.

put your dye in the empty bottle, and then fill the bottle partway with hot water. the amount of water doesn't really matter here, nor does the specific temperature of the water. i usually fill about 3/4 of the way, because that way there's plenty of room for this next step, which is: wipe the lip of the bottle, recap it tightly, and then shake it up real good. the dye powder is going to dissolve into the water, and you now have a bottle of dye!

if you're going for a gradient, you might want to mix up your second colour so you can add them at (basically) the same time for more even mixing. if you're not, or if you only have one mixing bottle, you can do them one at a time.

oh my god we're finally putting dye on the fibre

are you ready? it's time!!

you have basically infinite options for how to do this, and many of them will give you different effects. here are some ideas:

pour the dye all at one side of the pan. and if you don't add anything else, your fibre will fade from the colour of the dye to the natural colour of the fibre

pour two colours, one at either side of the pan. depending on how much dye you use (and remember, you can always add more), this will give you either chunks of colour surrounded by white, or a two-colour gradient

add all the dye to unheated water and mix it gently, then let the fibre soak for a few minutes longer before turning on the heat. this will give you a fairly even colour

pour randomly all over, and you'll either end up with a tonal yarn or a heathered one, depending on how much dye you're using

add the dye to the water under the dry fibre, which will sink in and take up more dye on the bottom of the fibre than the top

if your heat wasn't on before, it should be now, and you're going to let the dye hang out in the hot but not boiling water for a while. how long? well, one of the cool things about dyeing with these dyes is that they exhaust, which means that when the dye has been sucked up by the fibre, the surrounding water will be clear. how long this takes will depend on the specific dye, how much of it you used, how much mordant you used, etc. i try to check every fifteen minutes.

reminder: if you started with room temperature water, the dye's not going to start taking until the water heats up, so don't check it after fifteen minutes and freak out that nothing has happened. it is fully normal for it to take up to an hour for the dye to exhaust. don't turn up the temperature, just give it time.

yay it worked!

at this point, you have a pot of hot water with some beautifully coloured fibre in it! but maybe it's not beautiful enough. maybe you want...more colours.

that's cool as hell and you should go for it. we mentioned two-colour gradients up there, but what if you want something else?

the answer, probably obviously, is adding more dye.

first, a caveat: while you can successfully make multicoloured gradients like this, it's more difficult than you think, and if it gets messed up—all the colours bleed into each other, say—it turns into a muddy mess. my suggestion is to stick to two (or three at most!) colour gradients until you have a much better feel for what you're doing.

let's talk about ways you can add more colour. you have two options: big colour and little colour.

big colour is going to add a lot of colour—you're going to mix up the dye and pour it just like you did before, but paying more attention to places that don't have dye yet. sometimes it's the middle of a gradient, or the white splotches from random pouring, or the half of the fibre that wasn't submerged when you started. or maybe you dyed the whole thing yellow, and now you want to add a blue gradient over top. whatever!

if you don't want to freehand pour, consider buying a couple large syringes, or a bottle with a squeezy top. these are also fun because you can easily get more colour between the laid-out fibre, or even under it.

in the pictures at the start of this post, the red-and-gold top and both yarns were dyed by adding big colour.

little colour isn't going to add big patches, but is going to add speckling, tonal depth, or smaller patches of colour. all of the blue-base fibres and the yellow-and-blue yarn were dyed like this.

if you're still reading this closely, you might have caught that i just said both yarns were dyed with big colour, and that the yellow-and-blue yarn was also dyed with little colour. these are both true! the base colours of the yarn were done to make big colour, but if you look at the full-size image, there are also a bunch of speckles. you can do whatever you want! no one can stop you!

here are some ways to add little colour:

mix up some dye, but use less water. add drops of the dye, either directly onto the fibre (more dramatic!) or in the water (tonal!)

use a toothpick to grab a little bit of dye powder and drop it into the dye bath (similar to the previous one, but a little less predictable)

put on a damn facemask. take a clean toothbrush, paintbrush, or pipecleaner, and just barely touch it to the dye powder. gently flick or tap the brush to add speckles of that colour

find a salt shaker that you're never going to use for anything but this. put citric acid, salt (to make it distribute better), and dye powder into it, and shake it up (with the holes covered, please cover the holes) to make sure they're evenly distributed. gently shake this over the fibre to add speckles, but more of them, and clustered together

put a little dye in a spray bottle and gently mist the exposed fibre, kinda glazing it with colour

another thing is that if you like a natural coloured yarn with dyed speckles, you can do any of these techniques without doing big colour first. the only thing to note when doing this is that you'll want to be very sure to spread out the fibre well, and maybe to consider dyeing one side, then very very carefully flipping it over and getting the other side.

ok, now what?

let's say that you've added all the colours that you want, and you've let your bath simmer long enough that the water is clear, or nearly clear. (if it's not, check troubleshooting, below.)

put the lid on your pan and walk away. if you don't have a lid, just walk away, but it's less dramatic.

the super frustrating part here is that the safest thing to do is wait until the water and fibre is fully cooled before you do anything else.

have i ignored this? yes

has it ever gone horribly wrong? not horribly wrong, but it's definitely caused me to lose an inch or two of roving on occasion

is it way more stressful if you don't wait? absolutely yes

honestly maybe just go to bed and deal with your fibre in the morning

so now let's say that it's morning and you slept long enough that your water and fibre are both room temperature, which often actually feels quite cool on your hands.

you have to drain your fibre. there are two ways to do this:

lift the fibre out of the water. this has the upside of not risking dumping your beautiful fibre into your sink, and not needing to maneuver a full pot of water, both of which are admirable. the downside is that wet fibre is fragile, and you'll want to be careful to support it.

dump the water out of the pan. this has the upside of minimising how much handling you're doing of the fibre, as well as (in my opinion) making rinsing easier. the downside is attempting to keep the fibre into the pot while you dump the water into the sink, and also needing to carry around a full pot of water.

secret third option: dump the fibre (and the water) into a strainer. upside: very easy, and you can keep the fibre in the strainer while you rinse, minimising both how much it needs to be handled and the weight on the fibre. downside: i never remember that this is an option until i'm already elbows-deep in acidulated water, discovering every tiny cuticle tear.

you're going to fill your dyepot with water again so that you can rinse the fibre. you want to minimise thermal shock, so keep the water temperature as close to the temperature of the fibre as you can, and don't run the water directly onto the fibre. i like to pull all the fibre to one side of the pan, and fill the pan on the other side.

side note: if you, smart person, remembered that you can use a colander, simply fill a pot with water, put the colander in the pot, and gently agitate the colander.

if you, person who is deeply relatable, did not remember you can use a colander and now have a pot with clean water and fibre, gently move your fibre in the water to encourage any excess dye and also citric acid to get out of there.

drain your fibre again, and this time, you're going to squeeze it dry. you're still trying to minimise agitation, so this isn't a 'wring it out' situation, it's a 'gently squish it between your hands and/or a hand and the side of the pot' situation.

hang your fibre to dry. remember what i was saying earlier about it being fragile? let me suggest, here, that you do not simply drape the entire length over a single hanger or something and hope for the best. if you literally have a single hanger, at least drape it back and forth a bit, but better if you can use more than one hanger, or a clothes drying rack, or that weird metal wine rack thing that came with your fridge that you've never used, or whatever.

important reminder: drip-drying things will make your floor wet! if you live somewhere very clear with no major roads or pollen nearby, you can probably dry things outside, but if you don't, you'll probably want to position the drying rack in a bath, shower, laundry area, or otherwise over something that will catch and/or absorb the water.

how long it takes for the fibre to dry is another unknowable variable. if it's warm and dry where you are, it might literally be overnight. if it's damp and cool, it can take days. the batch i posted a couple days ago literally took almost a full week to dry. spread it out as best you can, gently squeeze out the water you can, and otherwise you just have to wait.

you're done!

when it's dry, that's it, you're done! you might find that you need to pick off some little lint balls or a bit of compacted or slightly felted fibre from the tips, but other than that, you should be good to go.

like most fibre stuff, this is best maintained by handwashing in cool water. you may see a little bit of dye or colour loss the first time you wash it, which is pretty normal and nothing to worry about.

congratulations! you made it to the end of this incredibly long post, and if you followed along, you've just dyed some fibre!

troubleshooting

this isn't dyed enough! i want more colours!

add more dye! i'm not the boss of you.

this is true even after the fibre is all done and dryed. there's nothing that says you can't dye it again—you can, and i have.

some fibre seems to require more dye than others. silk, for example, dyes beautifully with acid dyes, but also needs way more dye than i expect it to.

remember that if you're dyeing something that's a wool/cotton blend, for example, the cotton isn't going to dye. the only exception is nylon, which will kinda dye, but not as dramatically. this guide will not work for plant fibres.

this is too dyed! i want fewer colours!

please refer back to the number one most important thing about dyeing, which—as you know—is: you can always add more colour, but you cannot take it away.

pull out some more fibre and try again. this has a learning curve, just like any other fibre craft.

these colours don't look like i expected!

this can be about a lot of things.

colour guides, especially if you're looking at them online, aren't always very accurate.

colour guides tend to assume that you're dyeing a single colour at the suggested dye percentage of weight, and using less than that will give paler colours.

dyes, especially if you're mixing brands, can interact with each other and behave in ways you didn't expect.

dyes can also break, which is when they split into their component colour molecules. this happens commonly with blacks and browns, food colouring, and anything that dharma trading has marked as 'advanced'. some people find this very desirable and seek it out; some people are very frustrated by it.

the ph of your water can sometimes affect your dye. i've been lucky enough that i've only lived places with lead problems, not weird ph stuff, so i haven't investigated this closely, but if you're consistently not getting the results you expect, even going for a single, solid-colour dye, look at the ph.

my dye water's not clear!

if you used a quarter teaspoon of dye and a hundred grams of fibre, and it's been, say, 45 minutes of actually hot water and your water still isn't clear, you probably didn't use enough mordant, and you should add some more citric acid or vinegar to encourage the dye to get in there and do its thing.

if you used you used more like a teaspoon of dye, or if the citric acid doesn't change anything, you used too much dye for your fibre. you can either shrug and pour it down the drain, or you can add some more fibre and dye that, too.

my rinse water's not clear!

you probably used too much dye. it's ok—just keep rinsing it, gently, until it's more or less clear.

some colours just like to run—you know how every once in a while you get a yarn and it just bleeds a little bit every time you wash it? sometimes it's just like that. i wouldn't worry about it too much.

my fibre has felty/clumpy bits!

a little bit of this is normal, especially at the ends of a fibre that felts easily (this means you, merino!)

pick off the bits that you don't like—this is generally fairly easy, and involves very minimal fibre loss. i don't bother doing it until i sit down to spin, and then just pull off bits as i come to them.

if there's a lot of felty/clumpy bits, more than you can reasonably pick out, you agitated the fibre too much. there's not much for this other than trying to card it out, which may or may not work.

sometimes this happens because your stove got weirdly aggressive and boiled your fibre. especially for wool that's prone to felting, the bubbling and jostling can be enough to encourage more clinginess than you'd like.

i want my dyeing to be reproducible!

this is kinda doable. it's a handmade thing, so it's always going to have some natural variance, but you can do it.

buy a jeweler's scale that measures in fractions of a gram.

start measuring your dye and acid, and take detailed notes about what you do.

follow those notes in the future, and you'll be probably 90% of the way there.

i want to dye with natural dyes!

i fully support this and have played around with it a little bit myself, but absolutely do not know enough about it to advise you.

the internet is very large and full of many people who are much smarter than i am, and i feel confident that at least one of them is desperate to tell you all about how to do natural dyeing.

i am, at this point, not that person.

i want to dye plant fibres!

i am begging you to find another guide, because this one will not work.

you didn't answer my question!

that's what my inbox is for

i have to reiterate that i'm just a person with real specific interests who started dyeing things because i couldn't find or afford the kinds of colourways that i wanted.

i am not a professional

i will do my best to answer questions, but sometimes the answer is 'just fuck around until you find out'

plant fi—

shhhhh

the end

thank you for reading this incredibly long post! i might make another one in the near future, either so i can show pictures or because i took out an entire section about how to choose colours and pick a colour scheme and work with colours, and i kinda want to talk more about that, but this is no joke almost six thousand words long, so i thought, you know. maybe not tonight.

anyhow, i hope that this was useful to someone! thank you for letting me talk about one of my very favourite things.

[itsalwaysalmostchristmas]

Astarion: The Pale Elf?

BG3 SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm sure other people were confused when we met Dalyria and Petras in the Flophouse and saw how different the other spawn look to Astarion.

And it's not just his siblings, the other spawn that Cazador had locked up beneath the palace look the same.

black sclera, glowing red iris's with no pupil and shark like teeth seems to be the common traits of Cazador's spawn, all but Astarion. The only vampire that looks similar to Astarion is Cazador himself.

Of course, I'm not going to sit here and suggest something ridiculous like they're secretly related or Astarion has been a true vampire all along.

I feel there's a common theory that Astarion lost the disadvantages of being a vampire thanks to either the tadpole or the Astral Prism but I feel like the appearance traits of being a spawn also vanished when he was no longer under his master's control.

That still doesn't explain his white hair. Now, I know it's weird to focus in on such a tiny detail in a world where there a Dragonborns and Teiflings to worry about someone's hair colour but that's how roll bby.

Originally, I thought maybe his hair had turned white from either becoming a vampire spawn or through canities subita (better known as Marie Antoinette syndrome), but then obviously you see Cazador and the other spawn who all have different hair colours and shades.

It is still possible Astarion's hair could've changed due to stress but I believe Astarion's hair colour is it's natural colour. Do you know what elven race has white hair?

DROW

'But Astarion doesn't have blue/purple skin!' I hear you cry! And that is where DnD lore comes in! May I introduce:

SZARKAI AKA ALBINO DROW

Before going any further I need to address the fucked up thing about Szarkai. So, Szarkai are a super rate mutation and are more common in the Noble Houses, because of that they are seen as blessings from Lolth (Szarkai means 'ghost spider') upon the noble family that births one. Pretty much the Szarkai are held on a pedestal and believe to be Lolth's favourites which is really fucked up in a society of Dark Elves -.-

Real life racism aside, because of their pale skin; the Szarkai could very easily integrate with surface elves and just be seen as albino surface elves. Because of this the Szarkai are usually trained as spies and sent to the surface on deep-cover long-term assignments that furthered their house and/or for the benefit of Lolth.

Now my only evidence to Astarion possibly being a Szarkai isn't just the far he's pale and has white hair.

[Many drow thought of szarkai as a separate race, but they were genetically identical, possessing only the traits of albinism. Nevertheless, some had minor deformities, such as a lack of hair, small fangs, or gnarled and claw-like hands, suggesting the popular view had a slight basis in fact.]

SMALL FANGS

SMALL FANGS

SMALL FANGS

Okay, okay, I know the fangs and the red eyes are to show he's a vampire, very traditional vampire traits. However, we've seen that spawn don't look like that. So, my theory(nonsense) is that the tadpole/Astral Prism remove all features and traits of being a vampire spawn! He can walk in the sun, enter buildings without permission, and he reverts back to how he looked before turning into a spawn.

Obviously, stuff like the bite mark and the carvings remain because that actually part of him now and not part of the transformation of become a vampire spawn. The Astarion we see is the Astarion he was before Cazador found him.

I think it also makes sense with his character build. Being a charlatan sounds exactly like the Szarkai.

[Charlatan - You’re an expert in manipulation, prone to exaggeration and more than happy to profit from it. Bending the truth and turning allies against each other will lead to greater success down the road.]

[Szarkai agents might be engaged in simple gathering of information and passing what they learned back to the masters, or in learning the lay of the land and the makeup of local politics. Some might form sleeper cells with the goal of future sabotage or attack. Otherwise, they would be agents provocateur, discreetly manipulating surface-dwellers, turning would-be allies against the drow against one another instead, inflicting sabotage, and keeping communities small and vulnerable.]

They appear to get involved with local politics. And what did Astarion say he did when we ask him to tell us more about him in the beginning?

[Astarion: Oh, what's to tell? I'm a magistrate back in the city - it's all rather tedious.]

Plus at the Wither's Party we see that without the Astral Prism/tadpole Astarion looks the same, why? Because Cazador is dead. Sure he's still a spawn but he's not a Cazador's spawn. He's free. And there's nothing to suggest the his siblings and the other spawn didn't revert after losing exposure to being Cazador's spawn.

I think it would've been interesting to see Astarion interact with Minthara and other drow in the game with this premise. I'd also could've seen it as a reason as to where Cazador favoured Astarion so much. He already had the skills to manipulate and seduce trained into him from being a Szarkai. It would've also been interesting if Cazador had known the whole time, like imagine there's a scene where Astarion reveals to you he is Szarkai and it's a big moment for him because it's secret and it was beaten into him never to tell, then when we confront Cazador either through him himself or maybe through a journal in his office or from Goodey we could've found out that was why Cazador had targeted him that he had in fact set the Gur on him and he wanted the rarest gem to be part of his collection. To add an extra angst to it, it could be that Astarion's family ratted him out because remember in Drow society its a matriarchy where the men are treated like shit. Maybe Astarion didn't have as bad as a time because of his albinism but at the end of the day he's still male.

Anyways, that's my rambling over.

[batcastlesociety]

wowie zowie!! another one!! simon again, hwhegewh. second installment in my KRABTLASBCO rant series!! of course, this one is about CV2! :3 akin to my previous rant, this one is under the cut! wahoo, more yapping!!! ^_^

(⚠️ tw for discussions of rotting/decaying alive, basically [simon's curse] ⚠️)

MAIN MAN!!!!! SIMON'S QUEST SIMON!!!!! YEAAAGGHHH THAT'S MY BOY!!! ((resounding clapping and cheering))

i. Love this design. so much. i'd say off the bat that this is pretty functional!! but for sad reasons. :(

this outfit is a stark contrast to what we see in CV1. instead of a bunch of armour with lots of leather and metal accents, now we get simon in some sort of bodysuit, along with all-metal armour! additionally, simon doesn't have his cool headband in this one, which honestly makes me feel a little bit sad for some reason.

anyway, i can't really tell what sort of material the bodysuit even is, at least not with proper historical context. 💀 i would say that it could be leather, but the way the fabric wrinkles around simon's ankle despite the rest of it practically being vacuum-sealed on him, along with the way it's shaded, i honestly have no idea. probably some sort of cloth, but still,,, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

same goes for his boots, now that i'm taking a better look at them. they're a different colour than the rest of his bodysuit – the latter being a dark, blueish black (?) and his boots being a rather easy-on-the-eyes silver – but they're also vacuum sealed.

hell, they don't even really look like boots all that much; you can't see any buttons or laces or actual soles or anything. i mean, there is the possibility that simon put some sort of padding or insoles on the bottom of his feet before he squeezed himself into the bodysuit, but that's the only possibility i can really think of... (╥﹏╥)

and, for functionality with the bodysuit, i have no idea! i mean, considering simon is literally rotting under there due to his curse, the fabric of his bodysuit definitely does the job (at least somewhat...) of literally holding his body together. so that means that it should at least be durable, which is good.

considering, once again, that My Main Man Slimeon is pretty much about to collapse at this point, the bodysuit helps with that. it also aids general protection; his entire body is covered (along with the all-metal armour; more on that in a bit) in fabric (??), which shows that he's just less vulnerable. he has his guard up even more because why would he want to get cursed or just maybe even heavily injured in general AGAIN??? 💀

now, speaking of the all-metal armour, it is EVERYWHERE lmao. plus, there is armour in the places i talked about with CV1 simon! his knees and elbows are protected!! he also has pauldrons on BOTH sides!!! bringing back the loincloth motif from CV1 but this time it's metal!!! yeeeaaaaaaaghhh, awesome!!! :0

the armour isn't too thick, so it shouldn't hinder his movements too much. maybe. i'm just going with the assumption that although simon wants more protection in this armour, it wouldn't be heavy as to ruin his agony-riddled body even more, here. i dunno, that's just what i would do...

all-metal armour is definitely a wise choice! it seems our poor goober learned the hard way from getting cursed!! ahaha...hahaaa.... somebody please save him

anyway, my point still stands!! metal armour is obviously more fortified than leather. it's thicker and harder to cut through! (D:>...) but the poleyns and pauldrons, along with the chestplate and everything else just being metal? definitely more strong. i'm sure simon's willing to sacrifice a bit of flexibility in turn for overall protection. now, i still have no idea about the boots, gloves, and bodysuit overall, but otherwise i rate this armour a 10/10 in terms of strength and functionality.

now, for design and appearance!! (^vv^)

this design is also very, very memorable for me!! i do definitely miss the headband, but the bold, colourful armour makes up for it! i absolutely adore the gold and bejeweled accents! they really stand out in the armour, and the main purpleish red as the base colour for his outfit is pretty recognizable as a Simon Colour™, especially in his SSBU design (which i will also explore later :3)!!

although i have absolutely no idea what the idea for simon's gloves and boots was, i do still like them regardless!! the silver in contrast to the gold and maroon-ish/byzantine main accents really stands out!

ALSO. THE BOB??? god damn simon!!!! i honestly prefer him with longer hair because it's easier to draw, somehow... but i feel like that just makes this outfit even more unique! more people recognize simon with hair that's a tad longer, but this goofy little guy has SHORTER hair. very interesting!!! 10/10!!

tldr; strength and overall functionality: 10/10. appearance and overall design: 10/10.

[ruthlesslistener]

could you give like a brief explanation of who your OCs are? I know around nothing about them so it's hard to send these oc ask game asks

Lemme try to do a brief rundown without eating up my entire night hdhfhhd

Non-fandom ocs:

-Takhanobou: the guy in my icon, a young male fire dragon who was intentionally overcooked in the egg to be epigenetically activated into a morph usually only seen in his land's past, where the volcanoes were active and resources were much more scarce/fickle (though the dragons ofc didn't know this, and just call the condition 'fireborn'). This essentially just means that he's got darker, shinier scales, more intense firebreath, and dragon autism, but it's seen as a curse of uncanny strength in modern draconic 'society', where more social groupings are common. This overcooking was done because the earth had a global cooling event due to increased volcanic activity that led to the expansion of the volcanic isles his tribe lived on paired with the expansion of the southern icefields that a polar-bear like tribe of ice dragons lived on, and the famine + territory quibbles led to a small subsection of fire dragons blaming those ice dragons for their troubles and deciding that the best way to solve the problem was to just wipe the whole tribe out. His mother, Verada, was a queen who lost all of her mates and all but one of her clutches to the famine, and so her thought with Takhanobou was that she was going to make a supersoldier who would save their tribe and restore her honour by destroying the last of the ice dragons. (The fire and ice titles are placeholder names btw, they just are the elements associated with their habitats. I'm still working on names)

Needless to say, it didn't work, and a bit of an oopsie from Taki led to the death of her favorite son as well as his exile, as killing a grown hatchmate was forbidden. Now Takhanobou has to learn who he is outside of being a weapon- and just how much of his sheltered worldview was wrong

-Theodonalus: okay my phonescreen is tacky and my cat is yowling at my bedroom door so i'm not gonna get an alcohol wipe to clean it so typing is less of a nightmare. Leucistic greyhound of a dragon with stunted wings, this is a 2x combo of Bad Mutation in his tribe because they're very flight-oriented migratory guys and flashy colours and patterns is essential for individual recognition and mate selection. To prove to them that he's not a dead drake walking, he walks one leg of the migratory paths out of spite, where he meets Takhanobou and basically bullies him into acting as a watchdog by besting him in a fight (as Taki never fought someone well-fed and half his size before). They become mates as their journey continues, and shenanigans happen along the way

-Ritha: Same world, 2,000 years later, humans have arrived and she is one of them. Orphan girl from a shunned community proves her worth to settled society via yakherding apprenticeship, becomes a dragonrider by accident when her ceremonial presentation of her 2nd best bull at the dragon-picking ceremony ends with one of the dragons choosing her. Chaos ensues. She wants no part in any of it

-Rhyerron: Her dragon (or rather, she's his human. Dragons keep humans as pets, pretty much, that's the entire source of the bond). Young teenage drake who's seen as an omen of great change bc he's the first true leucistic dragon since Theodonalus. Oblivious to what this means in society, just wants to hang out with his human and do teenage boy things

-Ja'kari: Same verse and era as Ritha, one of the actual contestants involved and an ambassador from his kingdom (honourably kicked out bc he was a palace guard who was in a secret relationship to the crown prince). Jovial and laid back dude with lots of internal turmoil, was picked by a much older dragoness who already had several riders in her past and is Ritha's only friend among the riders

-Cirralli: Ja'kari's dragon. Very stoic, secrative, and silent type. Ruby-red scales, turquoise mane, cream and black markings. Full of Secrets(tm)

Fandom ocs:

-Aeris Sharphawk: Multifandom (Bloodborne, Destiny 2, DnDestiny, potentially the same verse as Ritha and Taki but way earlier in the timeline), though his Destiny iterations post-guardianhood are way different from each other. Autistic awkward 6'3 beanpole of a man who loves his sister and is a scarily efficient living weapon with a curiosity streak that can kill gods. He's a creepy motherfucker who looks like a vampire and has a dead-eyed stare that can make a serial killer run screaming, but he's genuinely just a chill guy when no horrific trauma is involved or hot men are involved (that's when his freak mode gets activated). Very cat/snake coded kinda guy, currently my favorite oc. Lots of stuff with him on my Destiny 2 sideblog, @ahamkara-apologist

-Marcelline Attenbough: Multifandom, same ones. His younger half-sister, an absolute firebrand of a woman with a very strong sense of justice and a huge weakness for big buff women. Marcie is a caring sort by nature who fusses over Aeris almost as much as he's protective over her (though it should be noted that Aeris DOES require a caretaker; he's not high-functioning enough to last long without one) and is genuinely a sweet, playful sort of gal, but she has a quick temper and is not always the most logical about using it- she's a great dipomat, but her favorite tactic to fix things involves hitting her problems with a giant hammer. She's like if a jack russel terrier was a 5'9 human woman

-Viper-4 (Destiny 2): An ex-hunter exo who dealt with the grief of losing his ghost by becoming a herpetologist. It...works reasonably well!! One of Aeris's few friends, works with venomous snakes and drug research via their venom bc being a robot means he's immune to their bites, mc of a crack-treated-serious D2 x Hollow Knight au (that also involves Marcie and a baby wish-dragon)

-Ashe: (Destiny 2) Human solar warlock, ex-Ishtar researcher from Venus who was rezzed as a guardian in the tail end of the Dark Ages. She went with the 'do drugs to get in touch with your powers' route, which worked- but her innovative uses of the Light are banned in the Last City bc she essentially learned how to make a magical nuke. She's a cynical, sneering meangirl bitch to hide the fact that her drug thing turned to a genuine problem when her fear of the Final Shape turned her to self-medicating outside of medication sessions. Hires herself out as an assist healer for money and to the Spider for extra drugs/glimmer, but still has a heart hidden somewhere under a million different layers of fear and trauma

-Petrichor-12 (Destiny 2): Exo void titan, voluntary became an ex-Guardian (without killing their ghost!!) post Deep Stone Crypt raid when they found their memories of their past life, and the monster they were within them. Now they're a fucking huge mass of anxious depressed metal that knits and weaves blankets alongside Namrask in House Light, both as penance and as therapy for what they've done

-Fenrix (Elden Ring): My Elden Lord, a mute mercenary who went off the deep end when seeking power and decided to become the next Lord of Blood after being wooed by Varre. One of the nightfolk, lost his voice in death when a mob of golden order fanatics violently slit his throat and his first revival didn't fix it, turns into a fanatic of the Formless Mother bc he wants to consume her and take her place post-Elden Lording. Fuckboy (weaponized)

-Leysha (Elden Ring): Tarnished Banished Knight/ex-general who really does NOT want to become Elden Lord- she just wants to peacefully magically transition, find a partner, and settle down to have a family and a small sheep farm. Breaks both of Morgott's legs when he confronts her in Leyndell, feels bad enough about it to nurse him back to health bc she saw their confrontation as entirely avoidable, falls in love with him in the process and works to bring about a new Age of the Crucible while straightening out his Golden Order trauma by force. Genuinely a sweet and loving woman, as long as you aren't crossing her

[oneatlatime]

The Library

Ground hog pipe organ. That's really quite twee.

Since when is Sokka concerned about the time crunch? Although he's right about the whole 'no plan' thing.

Katara is such a little sister sometimes.

Is an ice spring a thing? I feel like we wouldn't have invented refrigeration if ice springs were possible. What a cool idea though.

Dentists aren't a thing in the avatar universe.

Does sword guy sterilise those swords between drinks? How clean are the insides of the sheaths? Why is someone so overqualified working as a blender? How boring is this town that master swordsmen resort to being Magic Bullets to pass the time?

Has it ever occurred to Aang to try to maintain a little mystery around his identity? At the start of the first season, people's first thoughts when seeing an airbender were probably "wow! the fire nation missed one!" but by now it has to be well known that the airbender ping ponging around the earth kingdom is THE avatar. It's not like he didn't have other options. He could have waterbended the smoothie away. He could have asked Katara to waterbend the smoothie away. If I were feeling angsty, I'd say that a child of peacetime just doesn't have it in him to be sufficiently suspicious/cynical to feel the need to disguise himself. But I'm not feeling angsty, so I'm gonna say that Aang had a moment of dumb. Understandable, given he's twelve.

Nevermind! Aang accurately assessed how little he needed to hide himself because this professor is a dumb too!

Cool it with the phrenology.

Finding lost civilisations all over the earth kingdom is apparently a worthless accomplishment. You know, I don't like this guy.

Clam lamp. Coconut lamp?

That fox joke did not land.

This is the Taj Mahal.

Toph's still on probation. Gotta work six months* before you get the benefits package! * or until the world ends with the comet, whichever comes first.

Sokka wants to vacation in a library. I love how unrepentantly nerdy he can be.

Hey. Professor idiot. Wanna find your unfindable library? Go recruit Zuko. That kid finds so well it gives me flashbacks to Hufflepuff jokes.

Not sure what this implies re: the sapience of sandbenders.

The sandbenders have to have learned that move from airbenders. Also isn't that really inefficient? Rotational force goes 360 degrees but they only want force in a single direction. They should have modeled their sandbending on waterbending instead and created a giant wave behind their sleds for them to surf along.

That chin needs scritches.

I hope they're bringing lots of water rations with them. How much water do you thing Appa needs in a day?

Would Sokka, who lives at the South Pole, know what a fox is?

Everyone keeps forgetting stuff this episode. Library is buried? You have two earthbenders and two airbenders.

Love the attitude.

This has been bugging me for a few episodes now so I might as well mention it. I know it's an artistic choice, but: having fingernails the same colour as fingers squicks me out.

Sokka's turn with the dumb. Why would you climb up to the library when three of you can fly? Appa can hover. Just walk down his tail to the window.

That's twice now they've forgetten Toph's blindness. I love her attitude towards them forgetting.

Sokka's boomerang is one hell of a multitool. Whatever it's made of, it's indestructible.

"Don't worry buddy. I'm not making you go underground ever again." I hope that's not ironic foreshadowing.

Stuffed head of anthropology might be an improvement.

The vocal effect on this owl is neat.

Dammit. Now stealing from the pirates is justified.

Why do you even have that? Why did you stuff it down your shirt? Just why?

*Heroically refrains from going on a rant about the value of non-written sources, oral tradition, and pejoratively labelled 'folk' knowledge.*

The Ears!!! Those cute little ears. They have no business being so floppy. Appa & Toph, the duo I never knew I needed.

Appa is a very good listener.

LEFTY SHOUTOUT!!!

Sokka has not only forgotten that he's after a map of the fire nation; he's also stolen the declaration of independence.

Two things: First, this is the best boy. Second, Sokka seems to be a cat person.

You think the Fire Nation, a Nation that knew enough astronomy to correctly predict, plan for, and harness the power of a comet to complete a very successful genocide, doesn't know there's an eclipse coming up and has planned accordingly? Like come on. They named the comet after their Firelord. They obviously know how astronomy works. It would take literally one eclipse, depriving them of their bending once, for the whole nation to become suddenly very invested in predicting the movements of celestial bodies. They know this. I promise you they have safeguards in place. Pick a less obvious time to attack.

So is the owl gullible as all hell or did he let them in to give them enough rope to hang themselves?

Badass line about justifying war. Although equating protecting the people you love with hoarding library books does not hold water.

This owl has far too much neck.

HOW strong is Toph?

This owl sure is destroying a lot of his books.

Sokka doesn't know that Toph is holding up the library right? And there's no way for him to know how quickly/slowly the library is sinking. So this date checking montage makes no sense. Maybe he will find out the date, but if he's sealed underground then it doesn't matter that he learned it.

Do not like.

Very much DO NOT LIKE.

Did they just kidnap Appa?

Should have told him to yip yip. Does Toph know Yip yip?

I am a big fan of Sokka style. Although I'm glad this show aired a decade before Gangnam Style came out, otherwise the memes would have been insufferable.

The owl is going to eat you as soon as it wakes up. Did you see a cafeteria? A water source? Even if you hide from the owl you'll be dead in a week.

Massive points to Toph for holding that up as everyone inside was delaying for stupid reasons.

No.

No you have to give me back Appa before the episode ends. That's the rules.

Final Thoughts

Unacceptable.

This episode felt contrived, everyone involved except maybe Toph had some epic moments of dumb, and to top it all off they stole Appa. I am not amused.

There was lots of setup and little story here. At least that's what it felt like. There were some fairly lame lines that came off as ham-fisted exposition. The ground hog choir was about the only funny bit. Maybe it's the utterly unacceptable ending bleeding backwards and staining the rest of the episode, but I did not like this one. It honestly would have benefited from a Zuko b-plot, and I do not say that lightly.

[notasapleasure]

Wild hopes for Andor S2:

Oh, apparently blorbo *might* be in the trailer? Riding a speeder on Dantooine you say? Aughhhh don't toy with my emotions like this!!

So for posterity, before anything about s2 does actually become clear, my vague hopes/'if I got to write their story' headcanons for my Ferrix badasses are a jumble of the following:

I don't see them immediately going back to Ferrix, they're recognisable (Bix is known to the Empire, Wilmon will be known by association with Salman, Bee is known as Maarva's droid, they had an eye on Brasso as 'the big guy' even before he fucked shit up with the funerary brick...and I can't remember Jezzi doing anything specific but she'll have been seen round Maarva's home and funeral), and riot or not, I'd say the Empire will be in the mood to make an example of Ferrix rather than to go 'oops our bad we'll leave you in peace'. So it seems a bad idea for the fugitives to return there for their rebellion as soon as they've left.

On that ship we know there's a skilled electrician (Wilmon) and mechanic (Bix), and I've always presumed Brasso must know his way around a ship well enough to be able to take it apart, and that Jezzi has some similarly Ferrixian industrial skill. I thought it would be very sexy if they all got involved in making/repurposing tech for the rebellion. In my heart of hearts they're patching together the first fleet of X-Wings.

Orange. Ferrix orange (Brasso's felt jacket orange) and rebel pilot orange. And there's the shot of Cassian in an orange pilot's suit in the trailer. I just. I just have hopes. And dreams. And colour was so significant in Rogue One (the red of the force/rebellion...there was an awesome post on here pointing out way more examples than I'd noticed, but I always think of the lining of Jyn's vest). Maybe it's reclaiming Narkina orange, even? But the look of the Ferrix clothes reminds me so much of the OT aesthetic, I think that's got to be the more likely connection.

Bee? Kay? Do they meet? ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ trying to suppress the thought 'what if Bee helps to make Kay possible?' but the thought has been thunk. (ETA: NOT into the theory that they're the same person that's not what I mean. I'm talking hardware donation. Wires and chips. Not personality)

Dantooine. Dantooine base. After all this time!!!! What Legends book did I first read about the base on Dantooine in?? idek but if I'd ever written the epic angsty plot follow-up to that one fic (only ever just one night) it would have involved the Ferrix gang making X-Wings work on Dantooine :') I have feelings about Brasso the wrecker learning to make things instead :))

It should go without saying that I want to see Bix channel her healing into getting stuff done and fucking up the Empire.

I guess my feeling is that if we're time-skipping over a five year period in a, what, 12 episode season? There's not time for a huge arc for all the Ferrix characters alongside everything else the show needs to cover. My cautious assumption is that this either means a load of them get killed off/sidelined early, or they're kept together in the same setting so their stories are interlinked, but presumably with focus remaining on Bix (and Bee). Dantooine/wherever the rebel base is beforehand/the move to Yavin struck me as a good place for this, where they can still be brought in and out of episodes through whatever time-skips happen because it's a place the title character is going to be coming and going from regularly, like Ferrix is in S1. Naturally it is a selfish thought to want to recreate the S1 dynamic :)) because I want my blorbo(s) to get to be relevant and a part of Cassian's life still, but if that suggestion about Brasso on a speeder on Dantooine in the trailer is remotely accurate then I will cry happy tears.

Who knows, if they get to survive, maybe all those heart-pulverising fics and fanarts about Cassian's (glass) stone being laid on Ferrix will find a place at the end of the series?

[moriartyluver]

FALSE LOVERS CHAPTER XXVI

TIK TOK..TIK TOK..

William looked up towards the clock on his university office wall, putting his pen down. 

'It's about time..' he thought to himself. Standing up from his seat as he opened his door 'I wonder how they're doing.' 

As he walked through the quiet corridors, he noticed a figure passing by at a corner he was a few steps away from turning. Peering past the wall, he noticed the back of a woman, (hair length), (hair colour) hair visible from behind. 

A smile crept onto William's face upon seeing none other that his wife, walking to the same lecture hall he was to enter. A childish idea came to mind. William walked faster, sneaking up on (Name) whilst concealing his footsteps, a trick he had once learnt from none other than Instructor Jack.  He approached her, wrapping an arm around her waist as his chin rested on her shoulder. 

"Ah!" (Name) pushed him away, turning around to see William who had been shoved against the wall, trying to hold back his laughter. "William! You-" 

"Did I frighten you, love?" He asked between chuckles. (Name) furrowed her eyebrows in annoyance. 

"N-No..of course I could tell it was you.." she lied, gaze averted. "But if I was unaware, you could've given me a heart attack...don't do that again." 

"My apologies dearest," William laughed, standing up straight and walking beside (Name) "You're 'completely not frightened' reaction was just too much to resist." 

She shoved his shoulder, somewhat playfully "I'll get you back, I promise." She insisted before asking "Are you going to the exam hall?" 

"Indeed I am," he nodded "I assume you are too." 

"As a mathematics professor, it would only be appropriate." She said as they approached the hall in question. "I looked over the paper whilst I had the chance, you really have no mercy, do you?" 

"I wouldn't expect talks of mercy coming from you," William said, opening the door to the silent lecture hall 

"What is it that your implying?" She raised a brow, her tone much quieter. William simply smiled, bringing her to the front of the hall as the sound of pen to paper sped up, seconds before the end of the exam. 

The sleeping invigilator suddenly awoke in time, standing up as he spoke "Times up." 

"It's over for me.."

"I think I failed as well.."

"Thank you for watching over this exam, Mr Rambo," William thanked. 

"It's no problem," The grey haired man said "I'm retired anyways." 

As a majority of the students flooded out of the exam hall, a small group of boys approached (Name) and William. "Professor Moriarty, Professor (Last Name), there's no way anyone in the maths department could ace that exam!" 

"Especially the last proof..isn't it on that topic you're studying now..?" A black haired boy with spectacles added 

"Even you couldn't solve it?" A freckled boy whispered in surprise. 

"Yeah.." he pushed up his glasses "The last problem was the only one I couldn't wrap my head around." 

"I did tell Professor Moriarty to go easy on you all," (Name) said, giving William an 'I told you so' look. "Still, I'm sure you'll all do fine...and even if you don't, you can use this as a learning opportunity." 

Once all the students had left, William put the papers away in an envelope while (Name) sat on his desk, looking over the mark-scheme with narrowed eyes. Within the quiet hall, footsteps echoed. (Name) turned her attention away, as did William. The figures face was practically invisible with the bright sunlight radiating for the windows, but once he spoke, it was clear who he was. 

"Professors~" He sang, holding his crumpled exam paper "Did I pass your test?"  

"Sherlock?" "Mr Holmes?"

"Yo!" he grinned approaching the couple "Can't believe you two are both teaching in university at your age!" 

"I can't believe this, you really took the exam amongst the other students?" (Name) asked, fighting back a smile while William scanned the detective, much less amused "I'd have thought we'd spot you, but I suppose not." 

"Here!" Sherlock handed her the exam "please mark this for me." 

"Why are you in Durham..?" William asked with a raised brow

"I wanted to see a Moriarty maths lecture at least once," Sherlock explained, hands in pockets. "So I did some looking, and came to the lecture hall, but there was an exam being taken...and I remember a promise for dinner after the train incident, didn't you?" 

William turned around, a smile creeping onto his face "I didn't recall saying we'd go.."

"Don't be mean, William." (Name) gave him a playful nudge. 

"Yeah," The detective parroted "Don't be mean, William. It's the reason I came all the way to Durham in the first place. Theres so much I want to talk about." 

"How interesting." William said, pushing open the door, taking his wife's hand in his. "However I have another lecture scheduled for second period, and I'm sure (Name) is busy too.." 

"..and we were planning to mark these exams during lunch break," (name) added, trying to find some sort of solution. "is it okay if we talk during that time?" She asked the two as they walked through the halls.

"Ah, that's fine with me," Sherlock said, William nodding with him. "Can I sit in for your next lecture?" 

The blond nodded hesitantly "I don't mind, I suppose..(Name) will be there too." He added. "Well then, we're going to drop off the exams and grab the materials for the next lecture." 

Sherlock grinned enthusiastically "Okay!" 

"The lecture was boring, wasn't it..?" William asked Sherlock, who was sat opposite him. 

He laughed in response "Ha! No comment!" 

"You've certainly had better lectures.." (Name) added, a smug smile on her lips "my favourite forever remains that one lecture when one student insisted he could find the end to pi." 

"I could say the same to you," The blond retorted. 

She placed a gloved hand to her chest in faux offence "My lectures have never been boring, they've always as been engaging and arguably entertaining for the students." 

"I beg to differ," William smirked, turning his attention back to the papers in front of him "But I'll let you have the final word for once." 

(Name) rolled her eyes, landing her gaze on Sherlock, who was observing silently "By the way, Sherlock, what brings you all the way to Durham. It is quite the journey from London, we of all people would know."

"You should know by now," He said "It's about the Lord Of Crime." 

"Was there any progress with the case?" William asked. Sometimes (Name) wondered how he could feign innocence so easily, even when Sherlock seemed to be seeing through both of them like glass. 

"Yeah.." Sherlock put a cigarette between his lips, lighting the match. "Actually, I've finally got a clear look at what his profile is like, his accomplice seems slightly more challenging to unpack." 

(Name) felt a little smug at that, although she wondered why William had the moniker of 'The Lord Of Crime' but she was merely his accomplice. 

"What do you mean?" The professor prodded. 

"In the streets, the Lord of Crime is being treated as if he were a criminal. 'It's just the citizens wishes' or 'it's just a rumour'." Sherlock explained "Nobody believes that he actually exists..or that he's actually a criminal at all..But, I have a different theory." 

He continued, exhaling smoke "The Lord of crime definitely exists, and my theory is that the Lord of crime is..a noble criminal!" 

"A noble criminal?" (Name) repeated. Frankly, she just thought Sherlock was being dramatic, rather than feeling threatened by his accusations. 

"There's no doubt about it," He affirmed 

"So, Mr Holmes, You're convinced that the Lord of crime is a noble criminal, but what are you going to do about it?" William asked, writing on one of the exam papers. "If..If the Lord of Crime is a noble criminal on one hand, his work can be considered useful to the general public, and you have the option of overlooking it." 

'Is he really defending the Lord Of Crime right now..? Does he not have any sense?' 

"On the other hand, there is the option of condemning the Lord of Crime for carrying out criminal acts without reason," He argued "Which one is the better option, Mr Holmes?" 

Holmes sighed "Even if those killed by the Lord Of Crime had a reason to be killed, as good as a reason it might be, that doesn't mean that it's okay to kill people, for certain! The logical consequences of that is that it means no matter what his purpose is, he is still guilty. I will catch and condemn him, He will take responsibility for his crimes." 

"Yes, as you should," (Name) had to hold back the urge to pull William away and ask him to stop being so foolish "Guilty people should be held accountable for their actions, whether they're a noble criminal or not."

Sherlock was silent for a moment before leaning back in his seat "Ah..to be completely honest, I was a little lost before I came here..I'm glad I could talk to you two." 

"The feeling is mutual," (Name) smiled 

"Well," Sherlock took another drag of his cigarette "If I can't catch him and uncover this mystery, I don't mind giving up this life at all." 

"Indeed," William agreed "If you're prepared to go that far, I'm sure you'll do just fine." 

BONG BONG BONG BONG 

"That's the warning bell," (Name) noted, placing an exam paper in the pile "Looks like lunch break is almost over." 

Whilst her husband marked the papers in front of him, he paused, rereading the numbers on the parchment. He slid the paper to (Name) for confirmation "was there such a way to solve this problem..?" He asked as she looked at the answer too 

"The mark scheme seems to be slightly different but the answer is correct." She pointed out, looking back and forth between papers, sitting through her own pile to look for a similar answer. "It's not like they somehow managed to cheat.." 

"What's wrong?" Sherlock asked, confused as to what they were talking about. "You both froze up for a second." 

"It seems something unusual has occurred." William explained 

"What is it?" Sherlock inquired 

"Well.." William started "An examinee with a perfect score of 100 seems to have appeared." 

"What..?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow "but some people get perfect scores on exams all the time." 

(Name) shook her head "the odds of that are very low, especially for this particular paper. Most of the mathematics students couldn't even get half the marks on this particular question, it was that difficult, therefore it was more of a matter of figuring out how to approach the problem." 

"This examinee has proven that, haven't they?" The blond professor added 

"Well who was it?" Sherlock asked 

"You see," William said, putting down the paper "They forgot to put their name on the exam. Neither of us have seen this handwriting before, either." 

"It seems we have another suspicious individual." (Name) peered closer at the exam paper, analysing every detail. 

"A mysterious student who got a near impossible perfect score..! How interesting!" Sherlock exclaimed with a grin 

"By the way, Mr Holmes," William held up a paper, covered in crosses "You got zero points." 

Sherlock was silent, likely embarrassed whilst (Name) stifled a chuckle. 

"Anyways, both (Name) and I have lectures this afternoon. Would you please fin the owner of the exam paper if you have time?" William asked, standing up and taking his wife's hand in his whilst his other hand carried the exam papers they were marking. 

"Only because you asked, Liam." Sherlock smiled "Consider it repayments for helping me earlier." 

"I see you've found him," (Name) observed as Sherlock brought a young boy before them. She recognised him as the boy from Durham printing..Bill, that was his name. 

"Finding him was easy." Sherlock stated, arms folded as he leaned against a bookshelf. "The question now is why Bill, someone who isn't a student at university, took the exam."

"S-Sorry.." Bill stuttered, bowing his head in shame.

"Bill, your solution was very elegant," William complimented "Are you self taught?"

“Yes,” Bill removed his hat, holding it to his chest as he averted his gaze with flushed cheeks “I studied by reading your books and papers…in the library without permission between deliveries. In particular, your paper on the binomial theorem was very interesting…I read it over and over again because of its dynamic solution. So..um..I’m sorry..” 

He continued to look away, expecting the worst whilst everyone remained silent, until William eventually spoke up. “I’m surprised..” 

“It’s clear that bill has a talent for Maths.” Sherlock chimes in “It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, if you have talent, you’ve got to make the most of it.” He turned to William and (Name). “Does this university have a transfer system?”

Bill turned to the detective in surprise “..wa—wait a minute..!” 

“Is everything alright, Bill?” (Name) asked as he stared at his feet, clearly nervous. 

“I-it’s fine..you don’t have to..really..” He said, his voice shaky. “I apologise for the exam, and for my behaviour, so please leave me alone..! I-I’m not a child of a noble or the gentry like the students here..I’m just a normal working class person! I know my future..the printer’s son has no choice but to take over the printer’s shop…Even if I wanted to learn mathematics..it doesn’t matter what I want..it’s never going to happen! It’s already been decided.” 

Despite obvious differences, (Name) couldn’t help but feel empathy towards the boy. His now verbal stream of consciousness was undeniably familiar to her. No amount of determination could take away the feeling of not belonging, regardless of how people act towards you. In a society ruled by one class of the elite, what we want does not matter when placed against the traditional way of things. 

And yet, here (Name) was, against all the odds. 

“Nothing is written in stone,” She reassured  in a hushed tone, speaking up as she continued “you mustn’t deny what you so desperately desire. Those beliefs are creating a class system within your heart…William?” She turned to her husband. 

“Bill, the last proof of the problem you solved..it was one of the questions I had been working on, which is an extension of my own research into the application of algebra into physics,” He said “You said that you only studied with library books and existing papers. That problem could never be solved using those materials. In other words, the problem can only be solved by someone on the same level as me..” 

This little speech was very typical of William, (Name) thought. He had this strange habit of allowing those most ignored and alone in society to feel seen, and she of all people knew that from experience. 

Later, William and (Name) has escorted Sherlock to the Durham train station, ready to take a train back to London. 

“I’m relieved,” Sherlock said as he bought his ticket. “Thanks to you, Liam, the dean had to approve of Bill’s transfer, and (nickname)’s sponsorship of him means he’ll be able to pursue his passion of learning Maths.” 

“Well, it was the least I could do. I’m already sponsoring a few students anyways, one more couldn’t hurt,” (Name) smiled 

“Your nasty bargaining technique was helpful too,” William hummed with a smirk 

“You..!” 

“It’s natural that Bill had came up with such an idea, considering the state of our country.” He added “It’s not unrealistic to assume that there are more talented individuals like him who are buried because of their social status.” 

“That’s quite the depressing thought, actually,” (Name) murmured, folding her arms. “Perhaps I could open a charity to provide education for these individuals..” 

Sherlock nodded in agreement “You’re right, Liam. The world must be filled with the graves of mozarts who never got a shot at developing their talents.” 

“The train to London will be departing soon!” 

“This is my cue to leave,” Sherlock smiled as he walked down the platform “Sorry for leaving so soon.”

“Haha, it’s no problem,” William chuckled “Thank you for finding me a research partner.” 

“I thought I was your research partner,” (name) raised a brow with irritation. 

“I can have multiple research partners, dear,” He reassured, placing a hand on her shoulder while (Name) rolled her eyes. The blond called out to the detective as he entered the train. “Mr Holmes, I fully agree with your idea that if you have a talent, it’s your duty to make use of it. It’s a necessary mindset for the future of Britain…and you said earlier that you were willing to lose your life if it meant the Lord of Crime was arrested, but you should make sure to return alive after defeating the Lord Of Crime, Sherl-“

HONK 

Sherlock’s mouth was agape, causing him to drop the cigarette between his lips. “Did you call me Sherlock?!” 

“Hm? What was that, Mr Holmes?” William smiled innocently. 

“Ha!” Sherlock laughed. “See you in London, Professors!” 

“Farewell, Sherlock!” (Name) waved “We’ll meet again soon!” 

“Yes, we with pleasure!” William said, putting his top hat back on “We’ll definitely meet again, Sherlock!” 

A/N: first false lovers chapter is once January?! 😨 anyways enjoy the non-angst chapter. You’re not gonna get any of those anymore. After the tea party chapter, it’s gonna be constant tears. Can’t wait 😜. Also wondering if I should make a Star Warss fanfic or nah. Anyways uhhh see you in a few months because I’m inconsistent asf

[tirfpikachu]

as someone who has a complete distrust of anyone who labels themselves as radfems since they seem to be (at least a loud minority on every platform) straight up right-wing and racist, thank you for reminding me that some of yall are sane and normal. i don't consider myself a radical feminist by any means and i still dont want to touch the radfem community w a 10ft pole (im a transmasc lesbian of colour... i just cant trust it) but its cool to know theres some people who are normal over there. rock on

THAT MEANS THE WORLD TO MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! I RARELY GET SUPPORT FROM YOUR SIDE OF THE TUNGLR BORDER SO I TRULY REALLY APPRECIATE IT 🙏 this made me smile so much!

i really am trying very hard to build my lil corner of radblr and encourage nuance, as well as fighting bigotry and tradwife type shit within radfem spaces! i'm trying to make people realize that all marginalized folks can learn to be better allies to one another, while still acknowledging afab/female-specific oppression & celebrating all kinds of gayness, including exclusive same-sex (agab) attraction; aka what's traditionally been called homosexuality. i want to welcome everyone who directly faces or has faced misogyny irl into complex feminist discussions in good faith without aggression, without slurs or unnecessary personal attacks. i want radfem/nuancefem talks to involve terms like male/female as purely sex-based terms like amab/afab, and for trans men to not be any less of a man in society just bc they're female, and ofc for trans women to be as much my sisters as any cis/bio woman so long as they still recognize their male/amab upbringing, and show equal respect to me & my specific struggles as a female person. i have had incredible talks with all kinds of folks in my server! from transmasc radfems to the most wonderful transfem allies, and some folks who add intersex/DSD nuance to our conversations. i don't believe in misgendering, slurs, or anything of the sort to do anything other than harm ppl who struggle with a very debilitating disorder, dysphoria, one that i struggled with for years and years. that's not the way to help anyone! we do still need more open talks about detransition, and plans on how to prevent even more detransitioners, since there really is a higher number of detrans cases than ever before. people who now, like me, struggle with reverse dysphoria and often need expensive procedures. i also want us to talk about transfem experiences, and just gnc male experiences in general, not just to offer support but also learn more about the intricacies of the patriarchy which is essential for my specific brand of radical feminism. i've nicknamed it as tirfism, or me being a nuancefem - a feminist who is against the way mainstream feminism & qweer activism is currently handling female-specific and homosexual issues, and aims to foster nuance on complex topics!

there are more of us than you'd ever imagine, and we're finally managing to find eachother. i highly recommend reading through @pokegyns for more nuanced takes from my lovely server friends. i believe trans voices are essential to nuancefeminism and tirfism, and i'm very blessed to have lovely transmasc & transfem mods on my server. they provide fascinating insights that we really need right now. it's also very comforting to know that there are nuanced trans people in the modern world... sometimes it feels like the lgbt community is completely close-minded to discussions of female-specific oppression and homosexuality. but that actually isn't the case! i think there's a lot of discomfort going around feminist & lgbtq communities, and it's reaching the boiling point. so long as people like you anon are out there willing to research and learn more about non-transphobic, anti-conservative radical feminism and dispell myths about us, i know we will be alright in the end and a bridge between all the marginalized communities is still possible in the near future if we keep working on it. thank you so much for reaching out!!

[puuta-heinaa]

Joker Out -sweater series Post 1 Post 2 Post 3 Post 4

Happy Carpe diem's birthday!

As promised, here's the chart now that I've finished the yoke! The four rows I added on the go (20, 22, 29, 31) are now part of the chart, so no need to knit any row twice. I did alter the most annoying cloud rows slightly.

There's "colours only" chart at the end of this post.

What you'll need:

Technique Ladderback jacquard/invisible stranding technique is a MUST, and honestly it makes following the chart easier as well! If you don't feel like learning it, you might want to mark the blue lines with stitch markers. Here's an EXCELLENT video of the technique in Finnish, it's very visual + auto-translated subtitles seemed to work reasonably well, so it might work even for non-Finnish speaking people! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtapBYocY80&t

Yarn I'm using Drops Alaska, 17s/10cm in color 15 and 58 and 3. It is widely available and affordable yarn. It's not soft but it's not worst either, somewhere around 29-33 microns I'd say.

In reality I'm using Drops Nepal 0501 for the grey, as I was going to use Nepal in the first place as it is a lovely yarn!!!! I'd say around 25-27 microns, and 35% alpaca, makes even warmer sweater! Colours are sold out in most places in Jan and Feb as it's always on big sale in Nov-Dec, but 6790 or 1709 would work for blue, and 2923 for the yellow.

I used one skein of grey, 1(2) skeins of yellow and as I'm making a crop version like I always do, about 8 skeins of main colour. If you want a regular sweater, you'll need 10-12 skeins of blue depending on your height.

Friendly reminder to check your local shepherd's and local mills' yarns before buying Drops, if that is something you financially can afford.

Needles 5 mm needles. I've recenlty fallen in love with addi's unicorn needles. They're easy for the hands as they are slightly shaped. No need to grip hard = more knitting time per day! And they're pretty! You want to use lacquered or metallic needles for this yarn, you will struggle with bamboo needles.

Some adjustments The chart is not scaled. It's one size. It makes size M/L. The widest part of the yoke is 150 cm, and I'm aiming for 100-105cm for the body. If you need a bigger sweater, use yarn that has 15 or 12 s/10cm and bigger needles, or add a few (blue) stitches on each side of the chart. If you need a smaller sweater, use yarn that has 18-20 s/10 cm and smaller needles. Do some math before choosing your yarn. And please swatch!! It's boring and annoying but you will thank yourself later.

+ stitch markers (you can use yarn loops)

I'll write up the whole pattern once I have energy to do that. I started with 86 stitches, knit rib for 5 rows, placed the stitch markers (17,17,17,17,18), did some shaping for the neck (5 short rows with 42 stitches in total) and moved on to the chart. 1-2 rows with just blue to cast off the ladders, and then I'll move on to sleeves. I don't promise my pattern will be any clearer than these quick notes right here, but if you know someone who knits or have already knit few sweaters, these should give you a decent starting point.

OK ON TO THE CHARTS.

One with only the colours. The numbers on the cloud are upside down when you're knitting, but they still help somewhat (I had put them in the same table/layer with the colours, and couldn't hide them easily, so we'll just have to live with them.)

Dark grey boxes are stitches that don't exist yet, but where will be a stitch later on on the chart. You add the stitches on rows where the boxes turn white.

And the second; what you might want to embroider on the suns and clouds as finishing touches.

And yoke part of the sweater for those who hadn't yet seen it yet and didn't click the links: