#took me forever to decide which panels to use

[kibo-ichiro]

“You’re in love with him,

“And he’s in love with you,

“And it’s like a goddamn tragedy,

“Because he looks at you and sees the stars,

“And she looks at you and sees the sun.

“And you both think the other is looking at the ground.”

Quote from @lostcap

[dandylovesturtles]

Using a random number generator for the angst prompts: 20 Starved + 30 Dangerous Temperatures

... and Leo, of course.

OH GOD OK

uh so. I had an idea. and I decided to write it for this ask I got forever ago. And then, uh.

it really

really got out of hand.

This is a pretty dark fic (even for me) and at the current moment in time it is hurt/no comfort. I do intend to write a part 2, probably tomorrow, but as of the time I'm typing this author's note I've been writing for around 5+ hours straight and I need to take a break! So please, if you don't want to read all this without the comfort included, feel free to wait for the next part before reading! I'll link it and the end once it's posted.

Content warnings: Kidnapping, confinement, psychological torture, nonconsensual voyeurism (I guess this is the best way to put this; Leo isn't doing anything sexual but it's still violating), mild violence, HEAVY ANGST, Leo just having the shittiest time possible.

I HOPE?? YOU ENJOY??? hahahaha....

btw this is set between S2 and the movie (though tbh its canon compliance is... /waves hand)

-----

When Leo imagined himself getting captured by some kind of shady, quasi-governmental agency intent on imprisoning mutants, it was never anything like this.

When he let his mind go there, he always pictured that he would be strapped to a table. Maybe muzzled. That scientists would stand over him, scalpels and drills in hand, and start to take him apart. That they'd examine him piece by piece, and wouldn't give him any anesthesia while they did it.

But there is no table, no muzzle, no restraints at all. He's just in a room.

Well, a cell, technically - the steel door is locked, and there are no windows, no furniture but a bare cot in one corner and a lone toilet in another. But it doesn't really look like a cell. It looks like a room.

A very, very white room. White walls. White ceiling. White tiles (with white grout, even). The toilet is white, a roll of white toilet paper on the floor next to it. The only things that aren't white are the cot and the door and Leo himself.

They took his gear and his weapons, because of course they did. Since the door is steel, he already knows he's not breaking it down; he gives it a half-hearted slam anyway, just to say he tried. He should be able to just portal out, except he hasn't learned how to use his portals without his swords to channel his ninpo through, and there's nothing in here with him that he can use to make new ones.

So he's stuck. He's going to have to wait until someone opens that door for some reason. Or, of course, until his family swings by to pick him up. Though, if possible, he'd like to escape before that happens. The image in his mind, of sitting outside his cell and grinning at them as they arrive to rescue him, is too cool to pass up.

He's not sure how long it's been already. He knows that they knocked him out after ambushing him, and he doesn't know how long he was unconscious. The heavy molasses feel of his head and arms when he woke up suggests that he was drugged. It's wearing off now, though, which means he has a clear head to take in the all of nothing that's in the room with him.

He sits on the cot he woke up on and waits for something to happen.

There's no way for him to tell time, but he thinks it's an hour or so later when there's a sudden beep, and then the sound of a metal panel sliding up. It's a slot near the door that has just opened - inside the revealed alcove is a bottle of water.

He comes to it curiously, taking a long look around the bottle. The slot doesn't open straight through, and even if it did, it's not big enough for anything more than his arm or a foot to fit through. He thinks it must function like an airlock, or maybe they slid the bottle down from somewhere above - he feels around just in case, and finds that the slot is enclosed on all sides but his. Probably his airlock theory, then.

As soon as he removes the bottle, the panel slams shut again.

"You're really determined to keep me in here, huh?" he says to whatever hidden cameras are watching him. He carries the water bottle back to his cot, but doesn't open it, instead setting it down on the floor by the wall. The paranoid part of his brain, the one that doesn't miss a trick, is reminding him that drinking the water is probably a bad idea. Who knows what they might have put in it?

He sits on the cot for awhile longer. Still, nothing happens.

"I'm getting pretty bored in here," he says for the audience that must be somewhere. "Come on, you have a one of a kind turtle in here, and you don't even want to talk to me?"

Time passes, slow and quiet. Leo goes through periods where his anxiety spikes and he starts to wonder if he's been abandoned by whoever brought him here, before the boredom eventually numbs the anxiety back out. Another bottle of water is eventually delivered, and this one he keeps in his hands after retrieving it. It's completely unlabeled, not even a "Use by" date printed on the bottle itself, so it doesn't provide much mental stimulation. He spins the bottle to make little whirlpools inside, because it's something to do.

He's trying to make the fastest whirlpool he can when he hears a sudden click, different from the beep of the water bottle hole, and he looks up just in time to see a large section of the wall in front of him turn black, and then light up to show the room beyond his cell.

He jolts, setting the bottle aside. He knew they must be watching him, but somehow he didn't catch that part of the wall was a whole window.

His audience isn't very large - five people, unless there are others he can't see. Two wear lab coats, two wear fatigues... but the one who comes to stand directly in front of the window is wearing a black suit, with steel rimmed glasses. He leans forward, and speaks into a small microphone.

"Inmate 24365," says the suited man. "I am Agent Bishop, of the Earth Protection Force. My subordinates tell me that you can speak and understand the English language. Is this correct?"

"Qué?" Leo asks.

Bishop does not look amused. "Inmate 24365," he says, "you have two options. You can cooperate with me, answer my questions, and we will make your stay here more comfortable. Do not cooperate, and we will make your stay uncomfortable. Do you understand?"

Leo pretends to hem and haw over this. "How comfortable are we talkin'?"

"I'm sure you would like some dinner."

"You know, I'm not really hungry." He says it to be difficult, but it's actually true - the uncertainty of the situation has put his stomach in too many knots to want to eat anything. "Maybe if you offer me some comic books? Or a TV?

To Bishop's credit, his face doesn't so much as twitch. He keeps his steely eyes locked on Leo. "Answer our questions, and you will receive food. Do you understand?"

Leo stays noncommittal. "What are the questions?"

He's expecting Bishop to ask about his family. He's not expecting what comes next.

"How many gateways are there between New York City and the hidden yokai enclave?" he asks. "How are these gateways accessed? What kind of defensive capabilities do the yokai have?"

Leo keeps the surprise off his face. Bishop thinks he's a yokai.

This is, overall, a good development. Bishop might not know about Leo's family, then, or at least not know that they live on the surface. This means the Earth Protection Force likely isn't pursuing his brothers, which means they will be safe until they can help Leo get out of here.

He doesn't let the relief show through, either. Bishop doesn't know anything, and now Leo just has to ride out the next few hours until the calvary arrives.

"You know," he says, "I think I'm good with my current levels of comfort."

If Bishop is mad or frustrated or dismayed by this choice, he doesn't show it. His expression stays stony as he stares in at Leo, sizing him up.

"Very well," he says after a few more seconds. "I will see you tomorrow, then."

The window goes dark, and then turns stark white to match the walls. Leo wants to go over and tap at it, see if it feels different when he touches it, but knowing that Bishop is surely still there, watching him, keeps him rooted to the cot.

He goes back to making whirlpools with the bottle. If they aren't going to entertain him, he isn't going to entertain them, either.

-----

Another water bottle comes some time after his talk with Bishop. He finally opens this one and takes a cautious sip. Nothing tastes off or strange, so he drinks more. They don't want to feed him, but they're fine keeping him hydrated. No reason to stay thirsty, then.

He wishes the water calmed the anxiety still roiling in his stomach, but if anything it just makes him feel even more energized. He bounces his foot and surveys his room again, looking for any weak spots or access points. He can't see anything, though, other than the areas where he knows the water bottle hole and window are; even the vents that relentlessly blow cold air into the room are well hidden.

Knowing that there are people standing just outside his cell watching him, like some kind of zoo animal, puts him on edge. The window is so big that he's pretty sure the only blind spots are either directly underneath it or right by the door on the same wall. After debating it, he leaves his cot and sits on the floor underneath the window, surveying the room from a different angle now and still coming up empty. At least they're going to have a harder time staring at him.

His eyes catch on the toilet in the corner, directly across from the window. It's not in the blind spot, and realizing this makes his insides lurch uncomfortably - hopefully he has a chance to bust out before using it becomes necessary.

Though, he's not sure when that chance is going to come. If they have a slot to pass him water, they could use that to pass him food, too, so it's unlikely that anyone is going to open the door unless they need to take him out.

So maybe his fantasy of being outside when his brothers arrive isn't going to happen. Well, that's okay; he'll just be sure to make some other part of their escape totally rad. That will make up for the embarrassment of getting kidnapped a block from Run of the Mill.

(Seriously, some kind of ninja he is, to let a bunch of human soldiers sneak up on him.)

He drains the water bottle, then starts to roll it back and forth across the floor, like a cat batting at a toy. Leo's not sure what's worse right now: the worry or the boredom. There's nothing to look at and no one to talk to, just an empty room with him and his water bottles.

He's too keyed up to sleep, and the fluorescent lights are still on, anyway. He has no way of telling what time it is, so maybe it just isn't that late yet. And even sitting here, in the blind spot, the idea of closing his eyes while people are watching makes unease crawl up his spine. Staying awake is the easy choice. He'll sleep after he's out of here.

So he sits under the window and rolls his bottle back and forth, back and forth, with only the sound of plastic on tile to keep his thoughts company.

-----

The first three water bottles came pretty regularly, but now there is a very long stretch where nothing is delivered. Leo is starting to think maybe it really is night now. They don't turn off the lights in his cell, though, and he has no controls to do it himself. At least it helps with the whole "staying awake" thing.

Just in case they've decided to suspend his water privileges along with the food, he holds off drinking any more for now.

Speaking of food, his appetite has finally decided to return. His stomach starts to growl at him after several hours (he thinks) of sitting in the floor, an annoying emptiness in his stomach. Knowing there's no food accessible just makes the hunger sharper, but he puts it out of his mind the best he can with nothing else to focus on. He can eat once he's free.

Which should be soon. Seriously, his brothers have to be on their way by now, right?

He's pretty sure it's been the better part of a day, if not a whole day, since he was kidnapped. And, okay, he's willing to give them some leeway; it's understandable if they got a late start. He did storm out of the lair after his latest fight with Raph, and no one ever came to check on him when he did that. Understandably, he thinks, because who wants to be around Bad Mood Leo? Not even Leo wants to be around Bad Mood Leo!

But he'd already turned back into Good Mood Leo by the time he left Hueso's, so surely they knew it had been more than enough time. They would have noticed when he didn't come home. They would have realized something happened. They would be looking for him.

And if they're looking for him, they'll find him! Obviously.

His stomach growls again, and Leo leans his head back against the wall behind him. Maybe he shouldn't think of being at Hueso's. Now he just wants pizza. Pepperoni and mushroom, maybe, or Hawaiian. Mix it up a little with the barbeque chicken.

Another growl. He groans out loud.

He stays awake, twisting and crinkling the empty bottle in his hands, until another full one finally arrives.

-----

No chance to escape comes before using the toilet is necessary.

He tried to hold out, he really did, but he ended up drinking more water to stave off the growing hunger, and it's lowkey cold in here, which doesn't help. Still, the issue of the window sends an uneasy shiver up his spine, doubting that any people outside will feel the need to turn away and give him some privacy. Maybe he should have gone while he suspected it was nighttime.

(Maybe he shouldn't assume they ever aren't watching him.)

He stands up and walks over to the cot, giving it a light nudge with his foot. In a stroke of luck, it isn't bolted to the floor, and it's light enough that he can lift it. The black mesh it's made of is tightly woven, enough that not much is visible through it. It will have to do.

He picks it up and drags it over in front of the toilet, propping it up on its legs so it makes a small wall between himself and the window. It's hardly ideal, but the semblance of privacy makes him relax somewhat.

(He can't think about how there are surely cameras in the room watching him from all angles, making his attempt at a barrier moot. He knows better than anyone that sometimes pleasant lies are necessary.)

After he does his business, he leaves the cot propped where it is; it's not like he's sleeping on it. There's no sink for him to wash his hands, but he's never been the strictest about it, anyway (much to Donnie's disgust). He returns to his spot under the window, squeezing the water bottle to the rhythm of the first song that comes to mind.

Only two verses and a bridge later, the window above his head turns black, then goes clear. Thinking that Bishop might have been watching him just now makes a cold, slimy feeling roll down his spine. Creepy!

"Inmate 24365," comes Bishop's voice through the unseen speaker. "Stand."

Leo doesn't. He stays right where he is, under the window.

Bishop waits only a few seconds. Then Leo hears him say, "Temperature down two degrees."

He gets up at that, turning and leaning his arm against the window. It strangely doesn't feel like glass, even though it must be. "It's already cold enough in here," he says. He wonders how they can hear him, when he doesn't see a microphone on his side.

"You were told your conditions would only be made comfortable after you answer our questions," Bishop informs him. "The same as before: how many gateways are there between New York City and the hidden yokai enclave? How are these gateways-"

"How about you answer my questions first," Leo interjects. "You keep calling me "inmate," but I haven't been charged with anything. Pretty sure you can't detain me without cause."

"The EPF is authorized to detain non-human inmates for as long as deemed necessary for the security of the United States," says Bishop smoothly. "Probable cause doctrine does not apply in this case."

"That's gotta be unconstitutional."

"The constitution does not recognize the rights of yokai. You have no right to counsel, no right to a speedy trial, and no right to protections from cruel and unusual punishments." Bishop's stare is colder than the temperature in the room. "But I am not an unfair man. Answer my questions, and I will provide you with food and clothing."

Leo tosses a glance over his shoulder. "How about a private bathroom?"

Bishop's expression stays ever in place, unimpressed and stoic. "Food and clothing," he repeats.

Leo gives his head a shake. "Then nope," he says, popping the "p". "I plead the fifth."

"As I have already explained, the Bill of Rights does not apply to you."

"That's such crap." Leo bangs his fist on the window. "You can't just keep me here forever for no reason!"

"I do have reasons." Bishop leans closer to the window, his eyes narrowing. "Let's try a different question. What is your relation to Baron Draxum?"

The surprise is fast and sharp, but Leo just manages to keep it from showing on his face. "Who?" he asks innocently, even as the panic sets into his chest. If they know about Draxum, what else do they know?

"We know you are acquainted with him," says Bishop. "What is the nature of your relationship?"

Leo knows they aren't bluffing - why would they bring up that very specific name otherwise? There's no lie he can tell that won't reveal something.

So he doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns his back to the window and sits down, staring resolutely at the opposite wall.

Bishop clicks his tongue. "Very well," he says. "I am a patient man. I can wait." Then, more muffled, like he's facing away from the microphone, Leo hears him say, "Temperature down two degrees."

The window goes dark, then turns back to white. Leo doesn't move for a long time.

-----

The third water bottle arrives, so he guesses that's the end of day two.

He's shaking as he gets up to retrieve it, adding it to his growing water bottle hoard. He's gone through three and a half by now, but he's trying not to drink them too fast.

As promised, no food is delivered, and his stomach growls and rumbles in protest. The water helps, but only slightly. He needs to eat.

He also needs to sleep.

The panicked adrenaline spikes that have kept him awake this long are starting to die down, with more and more long stretches of exhaustion between them. The shaking is near constant, bringing with it the weird jittery feeling he gets when his insomnia gets particularly bad.

The window is still unnerving him. The idea of sleeping while they're watching him feels staggeringly unsafe.

But he doesn't think he can hold out now until his family gets here. Sure, they're probably getting close (they have to be getting close), but they're sure taking their sweet time. And he's just so tired.

After a long internal debate, he lays down on the cold tile floor. It's not at all comfortable, but somehow he doubts the cot would be any better. Besides, even if he moves the cot under the window, he thinks it would be easier to see him if he uses it. So on the floor it is.

He presses as close to the wall as he can, curling up into a ball for warmth. He wishes he had a blanket.

He wishes he was home.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight and forces back the sudden wave of overwhelming homesickness. There's no reason to feel this way. It's only been two days! What is he, a baby?

It's fine. It's all fine. They're definitely on his trail now. Raph is leading the team. Donnie is using some kind of invention to blah blah blah nerd stuff. Mikey is razzing his tazz. April is using her investigative journalism skills to find clues.

They're on their way. He just has to hold out a little longer. He can do this.

He sleeps, and in his dreams, something grabs him tight and drags him down and down and down where he can't escape.

-----

The same routine plays out over the next two days.

Leo gets two water bottles delivered, spaced, if he had to guess, about five hours apart. Bishop comes to visit him some time after the second bottle. Leo refuses to answer his questions. Bishop turns the temperature down and then leaves. A few hours later his last water bottle comes. Then nothing for the whole night.

They still don't turn off his lights, but exhaustion is starting to win over the brightness.

More than a few times, Leo tries to summon a portal on his own, without his swords. If his family is going to take their sweet time in coming, he might as well try to help them out. He tries to summon his ninpo (without glowing), tries to feel the tug inside of him that he always does when he teleports, tries to envision the place he wants to go and tunnel through space to get there.

Nothing. Always nothing.

(Donnie can make his constructs independent of his bo staff. Raph can send his projections away from his sai. Mikey's learning to use mystic powers without his nunchucks. So why does Leo need his katana? Why is he the only one this useless?)

It probably doesn't help that he's so damn hungry. It's a constant companion now, a low and hollow ache that chooses inconvenient times to turn into white hot stabs of urgency, into seizing cramps that steal his breath. The water only helps so much - it keeps him alive but doesn't satisfy, doesn't soothe. In some ways it just makes the feeling worse.

And he's always shaking, too, but he doesn't know if that's the hunger or the cold.

Maybe the cold wouldn't bother him so much if it were at least still. But the vents blow fresh air inside relentlessly, and no matter where he goes he can't seem to get out of the direct stream. The cold wind batters his tired body, and there's places his skin is starting to turn dry and flaky. His nose won't stop running, and he's allowed himself a small section of his one roll of toilet paper to blow it, already stiff and congealed and disgusting.

It's miserable.

And there's still nothing to do.

He stacks a pyramid out of his empty water bottles, knocks it down, then stacks it up again. He tries to come up with some new and exciting ways to demolish it, but it's only new and exciting for so long.

He spends a few hours of day three singing karaoke as obnoxiously as possible. He hopes everyone outside enjoys the performance.

He recounts every issue of Jupiter Jim he knows to himself, then the plot of every movie. Then he goes through Lou Jitsu films, then anything else he can think of. That eats up a good chunk of day four.

By the time he gets his first water bottle of day five, he's out of ideas to entertain himself. He's never been good at this. He doesn't know how introverts like Donnie can go multiple days without talking to someone.

But when Bishop comes back with his daily offer of conversation, Leo once again impolitely declines.

-----

Something new happens on night five.

It's been a long time since the last water bottle. Leo has been trying to sleep, but it's not coming easy; he's exhausted, but the floor is so cold and he's so sore from staying on it night after night. Not to mention, his nightmares have been getting worse, and he isn't eager to return to them.

Add on the hunger, and sleep is elusive.

Suddenly, there's the telltale shadow of the window above him turning dark - this time, though, it doesn't light up as much as normal. Confused and curious, Leo sits up and takes a peek.

The room beyond is dim, only the glow of a green EXIT sign and a small desk lamp lighting the space. But it's enough for Leo to see a man standing there, looking inside. It's not Bishop - in fact, he doesn't recognize this person at all. They're wearing fatigues, but it's not anyone he's seen in the room during Bishop's normal interrogations.

The man catches sight of Leo, and the grinning leer on his face makes Leo regret looking.

He beckons for Leo to stand up. Warily, Leo does, unable to help but keep his arms folded tight over his chest. Not for the first time, he wishes he had some clothes - his gear, at the very least. Anything to not feel quite so exposed.

The man reaches down and picks something up, holding it aloft for Leo's inspection. "Want a sandwich?" he asks into the microphone.

The sandwich looks like white bread and bologna. No cheese, no other toppings that Leo can spot. Maybe some mustard, if anything. Overall, the most boring possible sandwich he could have been offered.

Leo's mouth is watering.

He has to swallow hard before answering. He doesn't trust this. Even if his stomach is slamming up and down at the promise of food, food, food.

"I'm not hungry," he lies.

The man laughs. It's not a kind sound. "Sure you ain't," he says. "You spend every night curled up on the floor like the dumb animal you are. Can you even eat this?" He waves the sandwich for emphasis.

Leo doesn't answer. He takes a step back from the window, like that will put any kind of distance between them. Like that will save him.

The man watches him with a sleezy grin. He waves the sandwich again.

"You want this," he says.

Leo shakes his head.

"You really sure?"

Leo shudders. Stands tall. Nods.

The man watches him for a long, long moment. Leo fights the urge to hide.

Finally, with a shrug, the man says, "Suit yourself."

Then he starts eating the sandwich. Right where Leo can watch.

Leo's stomach growls, loud and angry in his ears, and he has to physically hold himself back from crumpling.

After several bites, the man suddenly reaches out and taps the window, indicating the cot stood up in front of the toilet.

"That," he says, giving another tap for emphasis, "doesn't do shit."

Leo wants to crawl out of his own skin.

The need to hide is suddenly too great. He rushes to the cot, grabbing it and dragging it back to the blind spot under the window. He sets it down on all four legs, so it's as close to the floor as possible.

Then he lies down on his belly and wriggles underneath. It's a tight squeeze, and the cot ends up pushed up by his shell, suspended in the air, but he doesn't care.

He curls up in his pleasant lie of privacy and bites his hand to keep from screaming himself hoarse.

After an eternity, the window above him turns white again. It doesn't matter. Leo knows he's still there. Still watching.

-----

"You look tired," Bishop greets him. Leo answers with a dead-eyed stare.

"I keep telling you, if you want your conditions to improve, all you have to do is answer my questions."

Leo says nothing. He just stares, arms wrapped tight around himself to try and keep his body heat in.

"How many gateways are there between New York City and the hidden yokai enclave? How are these gateways accessed?"

For a moment, Leo considers just... telling him.

His family doesn't live in the Hidden City. The yokai have never exactly greeted them with open arms. What does he care if these military guys go after them? At least then, maybe he can finally eat something.

That's not what a hero does, Leo! echoes Mind Raph disapprovingly. Innocent people will get hurt!

Right. He's a hero. And heroes don't give into the demands of shitty guys like Bishop.

Leo swallows hard. "No comment."

Bishop's face changes ever so slightly: his brow creases. Leo wonders if that's good or bad for him.

"You understand that Baron Draxum is a known threat, don't you?" he asks. "We are aware of his plans to commit mass murder on the human population. We also know that he has been dormant for some time, and we need information on what he is planning."

Leo thinks of Barry's ambitions to be recognized as the best lunchperson in all of America and can't help but laugh. It comes out cracked and wheezing.

Bishop's furrow gets deeper. "Do you think this is funny?"

"Little bit," says Leo.

Bishop has a chasm to rival Raph's now. Leo knows he shouldn't, but he grins. It's his one moment of triumph - only he can be this aggravating.

And then Bishop says, "Temperature down seven degrees," and that wipes the smile right off Leo's face.

-----

The plastic of the water bottles is soft and pliable and feels weirdly good under Leo's teeth.

He chews the top of the bottle, gnawing at it until it's completely flattened out, pockmarked with little tiny indents from his incisors. It's not eating - it won't fill his belly or ease the persistent hunger pains. But something about the motion is soothing. The place-bo effect.

Pla-ce-bo, corrects Donnie's voice in his mind, sounding testy.

Where are you? Leo thinks back.

There's no answer.

He's gnawed his way through four water bottles. There's eighteen in total now, two and a half still full of water. He thought about using one to wash up a bit, but decided against it in the end. He knows he stinks, but the last thing he wants right now is to be wet. Not when he's starting to see his breath.

Oh well. It's not like he has anywhere to be.

He turns his attentions to the lids next. These are harder and thus tougher to chew. Still, if Leo uses his molars, he can eventually crack the lip, and then bend the plastic in and in, chewing until he ends up with a flat disc.

It's just small enough that Leo could swallow it, if he wanted to.

He thinks he remembers watching some kind of wildlife documentary. Or maybe he didn't watch it himself, but Mikey told him about it. Or maybe April? He doesn't know. His thoughts swim in and out and get lost on the way.

Point is. Sea turtles in the wild die all the time because of plastic in the water. They cut open their stomachs and find trash inside.

Well, Leo is a turtle in captivity. Maybe that means he's immune. Maybe he could swallow this plastic lid, and then he'd finally feel full and the pain pain pain of his empty stomach would go away.

He does not swallow the plastic lid. But it's more tempting than he'd like to admit.

It's going to be okay. When his family gets him out of here, they'll have a big pizza to celebrate. Maybe he can even talk them into letting him have the last slice.

It has to be any moment now, right? It's been a week. They have to be closing in. Any moment now, the door will open, and there they'll be to take him home.

The air conditioning blows relentlessly against his skin. He sneezes, then rubs the snot on his arm. He's given up on the tissue paper.

It'll be over soon. It has to be. Just hang in there, Leon, just a little longer.

He picks up another bottle and starts chewing.

-----

He's playing a mindless little game with his flattened bottle lids the next time Bishop comes.

"I'm surprised you still have any energy at all," says Bishop, and Leo wants to punch him.

(Really, he wants to do more than that. But those kinds of thoughts always make him feel weird and bad, so he pushes them away.)

"You should have learned by now," he says, pushing to his feet and trying not to show how badly he's trembling, "you can't keep me down."

"This is all unnecessary," says Bishop. "I'll feed you as soon as you answer my questions."

Leo barks out a laugh. "Sure you will."

"I will," says Bishop. He turns and says over his shoulder, "Bring it here."

One of the men in fatigues steps forward and hands a tray with a covered plate over to Bishop. Bishop uncovers the tray and holds it where Leo can see.

Baked chicken, broccoli with cheese, mashed potatoes.

Leo's stomach twists and cramps so painfully he has to bend at the hips and clutch his midriff.

"This is yours, as soon as you answer my questions."

Leo pointedly keeps from looking at the food. He shakes his head. He can't. He can't.

"Such persistence." Bishop's voice is scolding now. "You understand that you are a known accomplice to a terrorist, don't you? But if you become a cooperating witness, you will be granted some leniency."

Leo barks a laugh, lifting his eyes to look at Bishop's face, and pointedly not the food. "What's the point?" he asks. "If I'm not... protected by the constitution, or whatever. Are you going to let me go?"

"No," says Bishop. "But as I have told you, your conditions will become more comfortable." He waves the tray of food.

Leo stares at him, before a manic smile splits his face.

"You... stupid bastard. I can't even answer your questions." He slams a shaking hand against his plastron. "I'm not even a yokai! Do you get that? I'm not a yokai!"

Bishop looks skeptical. "Obviously you are."

"I'm not!" Leo rages. "I'm a mutant! I'm from New York! I don't even live in the Hidden City!"

Bishop's eyes flash. "I see," he says, "so you do know of it."

Leo falters, his body going slack.

What an obvious, stupid mistake.

(Some face-man he is.)

It takes Leo a long moment to answer. Bishop stays right where he is, holding the food so tantalizingly close and yet still out of reach.

"...I don't know about the gateways," he says finally. "I don't know about their defensive capabilities. I don't know what Baron Draxum is planning."

"Your lies are obvious," says Bishop. "You really don't want this? It's your last chance today."

Leo stares at the food. His mouth is watering so hard it might start to drip. Would it really be so bad to answer? They don't live in the Hidden City. And Draxum dropped him off a roof.

Draxum is trying to change, says Mind Raph. You see what these guys are like. You can't turn the yokai over to them. They'll hurt them!

What about me? he asks. Is it okay if I get hurt?

You're a hero, Leo, says Mind Raph. You can deal with it for a little longer. It's just a room. Just a little cold. Just some hunger.

He's a hero. He can deal with it. He can. He can.

He'll make them proud. Show them they can trust him.

It takes everything he has, but he shakes his head.

Bishop tuts. Then he throws the entire plate in the trash.

"Tomorrow, then," he says. Then the window is gone.

Leo collapses on his cot and tries not to cry.

-----

After his third water bottle on day eight, one of the fluorescent lights over his head flickers and then dies out.

It's not surprising, since they keep them running twenty-four seven. The blessedly dimmed lighting is actually nice, for once. Leo thinks maybe he could get some sleep, if the gnawing hunger and the constant shivers don't keep him awake.

He's just closed his eyes and snuggled up under his cot when it occurs to him: they may come in to fix it. If keeping the lights on day and night is part of their plan to torture him, to keep him exhausted and anxious and on edge, then they have to.

Which means his chance is finally here.

He has to be careful about this. He has to be ready to move, but he can't let them know he's ready to move. He has to let them think he's too weak, too exhausted, to make an escape attempt.

(He can't let himself think that, though. He can't give up before he tries.)

So he stays under his cot, but subtly shifts it so it won't restrict his movement. He has to be ready to burst out as soon as he gets a chance. Get past whoever comes in, then get out the door. It's after the last water bottle, so it's nighttime. There will be fewer people. He can do this. He can do this.

Find his swords. Make a portal. Get out.

Just as he was thinking, after a long time has passed, there is a loud warning beep, different from the water bottle beep. An automated voice says from somewhere unseen, "Inmates clear the door. Security personnel entering. Stay still and you will not be harmed."

Then the door slides open, and someone comes in.

It's a man wearing fatigues. Leo thinks this is the one who "offered" him a sandwich the other day. He's holding some kind of gun with a long barrel. He does a sweep of the room with his eyes, coming to rest on Leo under his cot. He gives Leo the same leering grin, and waves the barrel of the gun in his direction.

"Now you behave, and we'll get along just fine," he says.

He steps to the side, and another man enters, this one wearing the kind of jumpsuit Leo sees janitors in on TV. He's carrying a stepladder in one hand and a long tube in the other. Is that what fluorescent lights look like? Leo didn't know.

The man walks to the middle of the room and sets up his stepladder. Then he walks up and pulls off the light casing. When he unhooks the old bulb, it causes the other bulb to flicker, just for a few moments.

Leo explodes out from under the cot, grabbing the man in fatigues by the legs and yanking as hard as he can. The man yelps in surprise, and Leo hears the sound of the gun going off in a random direction. The janitor shouts and drops the light bulb - the sound of shattering glass joins the cacophony.

Leo jumps to his feet and runs out the door they had been too stupid to close, sprinting toward the EXIT sign. He's exhausted and shaky but he's coursing with adrenaline, and he leans on it hard to keep him moving. Don't stop, don't stop, get out of here. He'll figure out what to do next once he's free.

Past the exit sign there's a large open room with desks and computer monitors. Most of them are off, but one lingering woman in a lab coat, seated at her desk, screams when she sees Leo dash through the middle of the office space.

"Security!" she screams into a device on her chest. "Inmate is escaping! Inmate is escaping!"

Leo doesn't have time to shut her up, he just keeps moving. He pushes through the next door and arrives in a hallway; he only has time to glance one way and then the other before scrambling to the left, hoping it was a good choice.

He rounds a corner and sees another green EXIT sign up ahead. It's not where he meant to go - he meant to find where they're keeping his swords first. But he hears shouting behind him and doesn't stop. Fine, so no portals - he'll figure out something else once he's away from here.

He throws himself forward into the exit door, which leads him into yet another hallway. Another long sprint, with shouting and slamming doors at his heels, and then finally, finally, a third EXIT sign, and he crashes outside.

Where there's snow on the ground, snow on the trees.

It steals his breath away. There shouldn't be snow. It's May.

Where is he?

He takes a breath of air so cold it seizes his lungs, then takes a step forward. He'll worry about that-

BANG!

A piercing pain in his shoulder nearly sends him toppling over. Leo shouts, grasping for the wound and feeling something sticking out of his skin. He grabs it and yanks, pulling it free.

It's a dart.

Damn it, he thinks, before his vision goes woozy, and he collapses into the snow.

-----

"Are you proud of your little escape attempt?" comes Bishop's voice.

Leo looks up from his cot. Bishop has to get so close to the window to see him that his nose is pressed flat against it. It should be hilarious, but Leo doesn't really have the energy to laugh. Or to do much of anything.

He's hungry. He's tired. He's cold. He's still sluggish from the drugs.

And they threw away all his water bottles. Fuckers.

Leo rolls over on the cot and covers his ears.

"What a childish response," says Bishop, and that's funny, too, because Leo literally is a child. Or a teenager, anyway. He doesn't feel like it will help him much to point that out, though.

"All you have to do is answer my questions, and all this will be fixed."

That's the funniest thing of all. The idea that he spills his guts and Bishop treats him to a five course meal to make up for all the pain up till now. Hilarious.

He says nothing.

Bishop sighs.

"You are likely still affected by the tranquilizing agent. I'll return tomorrow."

Before he leaves, he says, "Temperature down five degrees."

-----

The same man is back that night. He opens the window and looks down at Leo with the same leering smile. Leo can't even take satisfaction in the bandage on the side of his head.

"Neat little trick you had yesterday," he says. "Almost got me fired."

Leo wishes it had gotten him fired. But he clearly has no luck in this situation.

"You know, I respect the attempt. And you probably would have gotten farther with a little food in your belly." The man reaches down, then retrieves a sandwich, as mouth-wateringly unappetizing as the last time. "You sure you don't want this?"

And Leo knows he shouldn't trust this guy. Leo knows he should say no.

But he's just...

so...

hungry.

So he gets up. And he turns to the window. On shaking limbs that can barely hold him upright anymore. With a body that is laced with pain and aches and cramps.

And he nods.

The man's smile gets wider. "What do you say?" he asks, in the sing-song tone of a parent scolding a child.

It makes a sick nausea rise in Leo's throat. But he wants the sandwich.

"Please," he gasps out.

"Mmm... not good enough." The man waves the sandwich. "You want this? You beg for it."

Leo stares, eyes wide. But the sandwich... the sandwich...

He gets down on his knees. Feels a searing flush of humiliation. His stomach is rolling and gurgling and cramping with pain, a hollow, empty chasm inside him desperate to be filled.

He lowers his head.

"Please," he says. "I... I want the sandwich. I'm... begging you, please."

The man laughs, loud and long. When Leo finally finds it in him to raise his eyes, the sandwich is already half eaten.

"Hey, good job," says the man, licking a bit of mustard off his thumb. "That was real convincin'."

And then he takes another bite.

Just like that, Leo forgets about the pain, the aches, the cold, the hunger. All that's left is pure, white hot, screaming rage.

Leo lunges at the window and slams his fist into it so hard it cracks. Not enough to break the glass. Not enough to free him. But enough that the man startles and steps back.

And Leo starts to laugh. High and manic and unhinged even to his own ears.

"I'll kill you," he says, and his voice sounds almost joking, and yet- "I'll kill you. You're dead. You're dead, as soon as I get out of here, you're dead, I'll kill you, I'LL KILL YOU!"

The man has dropped the rest of his sandwich. He fumbles for his gun, left somewhere on a table to the side. For one satisfying moment, Leo sees a flash of genuine fear on the man's face.

"Shit," he says, his voice far away the further he gets from the microphone. "Pretty scary, frogboy."

Then he slams a button, and the window goes black, and Leo gets a glimpse of his own reflection.

His face is gaunt and drawn. His eyes are ringed by deep circles, so dark they look like bruises. His body is shaking like a leaf.

And his stripes...

His stripes are lit up like when he uses his ninpo, but they aren't their usual Neon Leon bright.

They're almost black.

Leo gasps and stumbles back just as the window goes white. The full body quakes he feels now aren't from the cold or the hunger or the exhaustion.

He turns and sinks onto the cot. Puts his face in his hands and tries to breathe. Tries to will his ninpo to stop rolling and snapping and to go back to normal.

This isn't what he wants. This isn't him.

This place is breaking him. He's letting it break him.

He pulls his legs up onto the cot and buries his face in his knees. Wraps his arms around them and rocks gently, the way Donnie used to do when things got overwhelming. Maybe he understands that better, now.

This isn't him. He's Leonardo, Neon Leon, the face-man, the jokester! The one who's always ready with a quip and a laugh. The one who can do anything!

Except portal out of his room. Except escape from this building. Except resist begging for a sandwich like he's a dog.

Leo's breath hitches, and for once he doesn't stop himself. He knows the guy outside is probably watching. He knows there are cameras recording this. He hates giving them the satisfaction.

But he's tired, and hungry, and he...

He wants to go home.

He cries, silently, until he's completely rung out.

-----

Maybe they aren't coming.

That's the thought that pops into his head, just a bit after the first water bottle of the day.

He knew they would have gotten a late start, because he stormed out. And he knew it would take them awhile to figure out who took him - he hadn't heard of the EPF before, so why would they? And he knew it would take them time to figure out where he had been taken, which must have been pretty far out if it's snowing outside. But the EPF got him here within a night, he's pretty sure, so unless they have a super fast jet, he must still be on the continent somewhere.

So... so surely they must have figured it out by now, right? Raph is leading the team. Donnie is doing science things. Mikey is razzing his tazz. April is using her investigative skills.

Unless they aren't coming.

Maybe... maybe it's true. Why would they want him back, after all? Leo took Raph's leader position, and since then all he'd managed to do was piss Raph off. Mikey and Donnie hadn't been happy about it, either, and he'd noticed that they'd been avoiding him more and more. April claimed she wasn't taking sides, but she always seemed to be on Raph's anyway. And Dad... well, he was probably disappointed that he made Leo leader only for him to do nothing and then get himself kidnapped.

He doesn't bring anything to the team. He doesn't bring anything to the family. And no one likes his jokes.

So. Maybe they just... aren't looking. Maybe they aren't going to come.

Maybe he's held out this long for no reason. Maybe he's been cold and starving for no reason at all.

Maybe it's time to give up.

---

Don't give up, says a new voice in his head.

You are not alone.

-----

He has no energy left to stand when Bishop comes. The man looks down at him, lips pressed into a thin line.

"You don't look well," he observes.

No shit, Leo wants to say.

"This has gone on long enough. Answer my questions, and we will provide you with food, clothing, and medical care."

The list is getting longer. Leo's fuzzy eyes stare up at Bishop. Medical care. Does he need that?

"You already know what I want to know." Bishop has a furrow between his eyebrows now. "Will you talk to me?"

He could. He could do it. He could finally have some relief from all the pain. All the hunger. All the cold.

But they might hurt the yokai in the Hidden City.

They might hurt Draxum.

They might hurt his family.

And maybe, if nothing else... if Leo could just keep his mouth shut, just this once...

Maybe that would finally make Raph, Dad, and everyone proud of him.

Maybe they'd finally trust him.

Maybe, at least, he can have that much.

Leo shakes his head.

Bishop scowls.

"Temperature down ten degrees."

-----

Leo isn't shivering anymore. That's probably a bad sign.

He can still see his breath, each time he exhales. It rises like smoke, before disappearing into the air.

He doesn't have any energy left, not even to chew on his new water bottles. He hasn't even collected the last two, and they sit crowded together in the slot, untouched.

He kind of wishes they had just dissected him from the beginning. It would have been faster. Freezing to death, he's decided, is a real zero out of ten. Starving to death isn't any better. No stars.

Even though the damn lights are still on, he feels extremely sleepy. It's probably the cold. He wonders what will happen if he brumates. He's never done it before, not like his little cousins, and he has no idea if it's even safe.

Probably not, given he has no calorie reserves left. All it means is he won't be drinking water, either.

But he's so sleepy.

It's going to be time soon for Bishop to come back. Leo doesn't know what the point is anymore. Maybe he'll just sleep through it. Yeah, that would really make him mad. And making Bishop mad is all he has at this point.

And he'll get to sleep. It's a win-win.

So thinking, Leo rolls himself over onto his belly. Then, one by one, he pulls his limbs into his shell.

He doesn't do this much anymore, not since he started growing. His body just doesn't seem to fit his shell like it should - a side effect of the mutation, probably. It's not really comfortable to be inside for long.

But Leo is sleepy. And his shell feels like the best place to be.

So he pulls in his legs, then his arms, and then, finally, his head.

It's not any warmer in here. But at least it's dark.

At least he's not shivering.

Leo sighs, content, and closes his eyes, and drifts to sleep.

-----

(Outside his cell, there's a bang, and shouting, and a gunshot.

The sound is muffled, and Leo sleeps on.)

-----

Part 1 (here) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Part A |

[may-jailers-version]

The untold tale - a Lara Croft fanfic

So this is supposed to evolve into a Lara Croft x (fem) reader thing but I pumped this sort of intro (in the middle of the night instead of sleeping lol) and I want to see if ppl are actually interested in knowing more about this fanfic idea I’ve been having for months. As you’ll understand it’s also a lot about Lara’s mother (bc let’s be honest this woman is so fine and deserves some fine ass story of her own) and it is set shortly after the shadow events, so don’t expect lots of adventure at least in the beginning of the story. Pardon me if there is some inaccuracies regarding the video game I watched the play through a lil while ago (yes “watched”, I don’t have the money to play the games, sorry, I’m a poor student leave me alone 😭).

Even though the following text isn’t really “mature” rated, if I continue the story there will be prob adult themes so I’ll kindly ask minors not to interact with this post :)

Enjoy now I guess, and please keep in mind that English isn’t my first language (+ I wrote this sleep deprived) ; if you notice any spelling or grammar mistake, you’re welcome to let me know in an indulgent way in the comments. Any other kind of criticism, as long as worded kindly, is also very much welcomed!

TW : mention of death and loosing a relative

Lara Croft finds out about the passionate but gut wrenching love story her mother had with another woman in her youth : in her quest for informations, she confronts herself to what remains of this love story, and what could ensue of it. 

Or

What happens when the girl who wants to know more meets the girl who wants to forget ? 

Lara pushed the wooden panel still decorated by her own mother’s hand. The intricate scrolls of vegetation were faded in some places, the colours used had lost a bit of their brightness, but the spirit of Amelia Croft’s creativity and skills was still present. In fact, the whole room Lara was about to enter was still and always impregnated with the aura of the mourned and regretted mother and artist. That is probably why it was one of the first rooms the archaeologist was inclined to check after her return to the Croft Manor. 

3 weeks ago, she was done helping the people of Paititi in the Peruvian jungle rebuild and comfort their community. After days upon days  of giving more than a hand to the Mayan inhabitants, making amend, no, begging for salvation after all the wrongs she had caused, the call to home had finally hailed her. She had found her peace, somehow, seeing as the people of Paititi weren’t as resorting towards her as she was towards her own self. It had always been a wonder, how the people around her were not absolutely despising her after all the bad omens that had followed after her person. 

How could Jonah still be an infallible friend and partner after everything he has had to face because of her ? How could Joslin still speak to her after her daughter’s dad had been killed trying to protect her ? How had Sofia not shot an arrow between her eyes after witnessing her father die and the blood of so many of her people being spilled ? How could Unuratu’s people be so subservient towards her after what she had done ? 

The only time when shit seemed to have come back at her was when she had at last been forbidden from seeing Sam. There was not a week during which she didn’t think about her, about the brightness she brought to any room she entered, about the glow that used to dance in her eyes, about the softness that would envelop her skin, about the feeling of her arms wrapped around Lara’s waist. The vivid memories of times spent with what had probably been her first love, was probably the punition Lara was seeking every moment of her cursed life. The sinfulness of her existence could be purified by the aching provoked by her lover’s souvenir, and the feeling she had lost forever a part of herself. 

But today, Lara had decided to torture herself with the souvenir of another person. As she took some steps into the sunlit room, the wood under her life long partner rider boots cracked, and the floating dust twirled around her figure. Nothing had moved since the last time she had come here. This part of the house, much like the rest in fact, had been stilled, frozen into time, not as if its objects and furniture were waiting for their users to return, much like if the whole setting constituted some sort of mausoleum to the deceased that were once owners of this place. 

In this mausoleum of the matriarch, Lara was ready to bend and bow at the relics, reminders of the past, beholders of present nostalgia. So she stepped further, and let her eyes glide over the surface of the walls, of the tables, over the dryness of the paint buckets, the stillness of the brushes neatly stacked in clear goblets, or negligently sprawled on the floor. Her heart squeezed tightly when her gaze fell onto the unfinished canvas throning on its easel. A scenery, a lavender field in the french Provence, in the middle of which the faint silhouette of a woman holding down her hat could be deciphered, had been left incomplete by Amelia. 

Lara remembered what had pushed her mother to depict this specific landscape. It was some days after her mom and dad’s dispute, to which, unbeknownst to them, she had assisted, hiding behind the door of the office. Her mother needed to decompress, and found herself in her shed to practice her art in its most meditating form. But here she had been struggling to find inspiration, the conflict with her husband clouding her mind. That is when Lara had mentioned missing the sights of the southeastern french region of Provence, to which she wished to return soon. 

After her mother’s death, Lara never returned to Provence. She never got to see once again the azur blue sky, feel the wind as it brushes under a woman’s hat, smell the lavender fields her mom had been trying to captivate in her last moments. 

After some time freezing on the spot at the sight of the canvas, Lara decided to redirect her attention towards something else. The wardrobe. The same pastel green patterns of the room’s door were adorning the wooden structure of the piece of furniture. Lara pushed the clappers open, her eyes roaming its interior ; various objects were sitting on the different shelves, mainly paint brushes in other glass goblets, boxes full of paint tubes, argile statues deprived of any polychromy, some créations little Lara had made on her own. Her eyes settled for a wooden box littered with childlike drawings made of striking colours and her hand reached for the top shelf on which it had been sitting for years. 

After sitting legs crossed on the floor in front of the wardrobe, she opened the box delicately and instantly started smiling. In there were preciously conserved sketches, simple drawings that yet held bits of the Croft family’s intimacy. Pencil drawings of a chubby baby Lara smiling ear to ear, Richard reading a book to his daughter sitting on his knees, Amelia teaching her little girl how to paint… A time in which comfort seemed granted. A time in which emptiness and longing were unknown feelings to Lara. 

As her mind and heart yet again mingled with sorrow, her ruffling stopped at the drawing of a singular person. Her hand held onto the paper displaying the traits of a woman in her early 20s, a beautiful woman at that, but that she failed to recall. She must have missed the drawing during her precedent scorching, because such beauty in a woman’s face would have easily been remembered by the archaeologist. After some more contemplating, she flipped through the rest of the drawings, stumbling in the same time upon some of her own attempts of creation that her mother had kept as treasures. She finally put everything back in the box before closing it and getting up to stack it back right where she had lifted it. 

But when trying to push it in the back of the shelf in order to ensure its safety, she felt the box bumping against something hard. Intrigued, she tried to check what was constituting the obstacle, but found herself not tall enough to get a good view. Placing the drawing box upon a nearby table, she took a chair and climbed on it. Now she could see that there was nothing else than an other box sitting in the back, one she had never seen before. 

Gliding the box over to herself, she then picked it up to get a better look at it. Upon sitting it on the table, she noticed there was a lock to it, but unfortunately, no key in sight. She quickly looked around, scanning the room for any object that would be of help in her situation. She finally settled for some sculpting tool, a steel linear object with a pointing end that could easily be inserted in the little hole. After some seconds of struggle, Lara could hear the clicking sound of the interior mechanism giving up, granting her access to the content of this mysterious box. 

The felted inside revealed itself to be full of letters, written in a style that she didn’t recognise as her mother’s or father’s handwriting. She picked up the first paper, and unfolding it, started reading. 

“My dear Amelia, 

I saw you at the bar the other night. I saw you sitting right in the middle, legs crossed, chest proud, eyes piercing but oh so charming. There was only you for me, in this room, and I like to believe there was only me, too, in your own irises. My voice that evening, I hope, carried itself to your ear in order to let it hear the whisper of affection and longing. My melody, I wish, wrapped your heart in the most tender embrace. My words, I pray, have led your soul into a waltz into which each step is the remembrance of a dead poet. 

After the show, that night, your face has filled my dreams the same way my voice had filled the room. But I did not remember the clapping, the applauding, the whistling. All I could recall was how your eyes held onto my lips like the roses hold onto that morning mist. And what a rose you are to the world, what a bloom you are to me. 

Your last letter has lingered on me like a winter fur. Warm and reassuring, it’s all that keeps me from deflating by your absence on my side. Because you are like the sun to my harsh winter, only your rays can melt away the frost that the world impend on me every day. I get weary of anything foreigner to your sensuality. 

You can join me in my dorm by 9pm this Friday, where my eyes will survey the movement of the  clock sting, waiting for time to bring your physical envelope to my arms, as you know how your heart already and forever lies in mine. 

With deep and devouring love, Gabrielle.” 

Lara stayed still, frozen for the third time in a single hour. Her brain was processing what she had just read, her psyche fighting to accept the words that had been put under her eyes. Gabrielle… who was this Gabrielle ? When had she written and sent that ? Why was there so much passion in the way she spoke to her mother ? Clearly if the letter had been kept so meticulously in such a box, it must have meant a lot for the latter. 

Lara’s heart race fastened at those thoughts, her mind racing, questions fusing. Frantically she grabbed handfuls of letters and sprawled them onto the table surface, her eyes feverishly jumping from one piece of paper to the other, not knowing which one to pick next. There must have been at least 3 dozens of letters in this box, but upon emptying it, Lara’s eyes stopped on pictures stacked at the bottom. 

The first few ones were of a woman singing in a café displaying a 1920s look, a “année folle” aesthetic. Despite the picture’s quality not being the best, Lara could clearly spot a striking resemblance with the woman in the sketching. She flipped through the other pictures, where she could observe the woman’s trait more clearly, the latter being shot in different settings, at different moments, in different lights and angles. All of those pictures were showing a beautiful woman in her 20s, a captivating look in her eyes, and an almost bewitching smile adorning her face from time to time. 

And then, a vision that made Lara’s heart skip a beat. A picture of the same woman laying on her mother’s thighs in a minimalistic bedroom, the first looking up to the other looking down at her, both holding hands, both adorning a tender full and fiery expression for the other.  

Lara spent minutes observing the picture, her brows lightly furrowed, her stomach in knots, a strange sensation in her chest. She took the chair, put it back before the table and sat on it. She rested her back onto it, flipped the glossy paper to read at its back “I wish this moment had last forever, just you and me in this room, without the struggles of the outside” which was, this time, of her mother’s writing. Lara straightened her back and starting flipping the other pictures to spot any other indications and left messages. Behind one of the pictures of the woman singing in the bar, there was written “her voice like silk, her movement like water, her body like a dancing flame. She’s my angel.” 

A tear rolled down Lara’s cheek. What was all this about ? Why hasn’t she never heard of this ? How come her mother had experienced the same thing Lara had felt so shameful of in all her teenage years ? Had her father known about this ? And who was this woman her mother had loved so fiercely ? 

The curious spirit of Lara and her palpable need to know more about her lost mother drove her to spend the rest of the day into reading more of the letters, decipher all the pictures and try to find hints of this past love story in her mother’s art laying around the shed, attempting to reconstitute a puzzle to which half of the pieces were missing… 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I need to find my ao3 password and stuff back so I can publish it on there. In the meantime, here some kind reminders :

🍉Keep getting informed on the situation in Gaza (Palestinian genocide) and share the story of unfortunate endangered families. 

🇨🇩If you can, donate to charities for Congo so that shelters can be built for families and especially women and children fleeing exploitation, mass murder, and SA.

🕊️Keep your eyes on countries which are currently suffering from imperialism such as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kanaky (New-Caledonia).

💙Boycott fast fashion brands like Shein (just one example) to protest against the exploitation of endangered ethnic groups in China. 🌧️Last but not least, stay HYDRATED, the world needs healthy activists ! ♥️

Happy pride to all also :)

[thewebcomicsreview]

Hate to tell you this, but the HSBC update just got updated.

I get that they wanted to keep the Hell Arc confined to page 666, and it'll make the archival experience pretty cool, but hard refreshing the site didn't let me see the update to the page due to cache bullshit, I had to use a different browser. So let's liveblog now before it breaks again:

Looks like we're back to Tavros. I guess it makes sense that the first path to update would the one where they could reuse the talksprites.

So, as directly stated by Davepeta, Vriska is trapped in a time loop, where Tavros doesn't remember anything that happened the previous day, just like in the movie Groundhog Day. That Davepeta called out the movie explicitly in-universe as the reference makes me wonder if events will follow the rough plot of that movie. It's clearly what Davepeta wants to happen, but...Vriska....

Anyway, Vriska offers to let Tavros decide what to do today, for the first time. It took two whole years for her to try that, but she is the Thief of Light and not letting anyone else decide what to do is literally her cosmic role and stuff, so I guess that tracks. And what Tavros wants to do is....play a game.

Last update I said that Vriska saying she's done some things wrong while shrugging and laughing is the ultimate distillation of Vriska, but her having won everything and being miserable about it is also the ultimate distillation of Vriska. She's a woman of contrasts, that Vriskers.

The use of the phrase "session" here outs this line as having Deeper Meanings. Having SBURB sessions over and over so we can play forever is literally Dirk's plan, and most of the fandom is assuming a Candy session is coming.

So, even though they're talking about playing FLARP (the troll DnD game, which is apparently PvP), this is also an argument over whether or not Homestuck should continue. You can't really "win" if the game keeps going, but that doesn't mean you're stuck doing the same thing over and over.

I know Vriska is Problematique, but I'm still taken aback by her 2000s kid usage of "gay" as a general-purpose insult, and not just because trolls don't have a concept of "straight" or "gay". Apparently she doesn't even know what it means and learned the word from Da-

Oh, it was just to set up this line for people to screenshot. Alright. Fine.

brb, gotta go post this in the hard to use reaction images channel on the discord and have someone complain it's easy to use.

Tavros accuses Vriska of projecting her own fears onto him, and then gets into a tangent about being a "soft" female fairy and Vriska takes him up on playing this new "game for girls" and he panics and changes the subject. There's a...lot....going on there.

Vriska starts to have an actual breakthrough, when suddenly Aradiabot appears. Wait, is this where Aradia and Ult!Dave went?

We fade to black and I thought that was it, but apparently not. This being a visual novel makes it feel like a much bigger update than it is, and also kind of makes you read each line a bit more carefully. It's a good way of having multiple meaty (or, um, candy-y) updates in a short stretch of time, and that's kind of an important part of the "feel" of Homestuck that no one can really replicate.

Oh, I do not care for this talksprite.

The downside of this format is that it's harder to liveblog, I think, but basically Aradia is complaining about the Vriska Cycle of "Do bad thing, self-flagellate to be redeemed, repeat".

Vriska justifies it because she has to take action and set people straight and stuff, and if this conversation/game isn't leading to the return of "(Vriska)", the OG timeline Vriska who died and got a ton of character growth before post-retcon Vriska stole her girlfriend, then what is it building towards?

A lot of these lines make good single-panel memes. Yes, Vriska, you are the problem in nearly every situation, even (especially) when you're also the solution.

Aradia sa- oh for fuck's sake this is unreadable, guys. Anyway she says that getting into a routine leads to stagnation and slow death, which, mood, but also is about Homestuck itself as much as it is about Vriska.

Jesus Christ, how long is this update? This page is a full on Pesterquest game when the other five routes are finished.

Oh, okay. That's it. Vriska levels and we get a bunch of fire-themed pun ranks for her, of which Skinner's Bane is the best

[penig]

So we're having a rough summer and I haven't been talking about it because why brood but it's different when you talk about people being nice. So, thumbnail sketch:

We finally (as I've been wanting to do for years) got an estimate on getting the house rewired (pretty sure some of the original wiring installed in 1910 is in use) and partially replumbed (can't use the shower tub because the iron pipes are too clogged), and the paperwork for the loan took forever, and then a high wind came along (on my birthday) and dropped a dead redbud tree on our porch and a large branch on our car, which was totaled, and we had to buy a new (used) car and get a tree service to come out and take care of the fallen wood and trim the trees so no more wood falls, but the cost to take care of the big branch and woodpecker damaged tree in the back yard was more than we could afford with the car business, but that could wait a few months assuming no more high winds come along; and the loan comes through and we get the car squared away and the tree service is scheduled to come and we're starting to breathe again -

And I spy somebody putting what I recognize as a code violation notice on the front gate so I open the door and come out to tell her that if this is about the redbud tree on the porch we've already scheduled the work and she says: "It's everything on the lot. Cut it down to 12 inches. You have ten days" So I point out that most of the tall stuff is legal garden plants that should not be pruned in August, that it's two years since I've been physically capable of doing yardwork of any kind, that the work she's demanding is impossible in that time frame and oh yes, it's August, in Texas, with triple digit temperatures predicted for the foreseeable future and it could very well kill me to try. She thought there might be a local program to help me (No; they're all for structural work) and wouldn't budge. So that was like being shoved back underwater when we'd almost crawled out on shore.

But we put out a call to our friends, and people came over Saturday and did miracles, and almost every day this week somebody has come over (in addition to the people putting holes in our walls and ceilings and arguing over how to run the wires and occasionally turning pale at what they find) to help me in the mornings before the third digit kicked in. We did not, of course prune any of the poor heat stressed legal plants, but great inroads were made on the rest of it, and one friend even cut up the big branch in the back yard and the tree service people hauled it off, along with a collapsed picnic table which they told me, when they quoted the price for this small secondary job, that they would not take.

This morning I could barely move. I'm getting a lot of pain in the good leg as well as the bad leg, and in my back, plus I was just weak with heat and tiredness, and for the first time in almost a year I decided I'd better break out the cane again, at least to take the stairs and walk in the yard to discuss with the friend who came today, the last day before the inspection, where best to put his effort (because it was plain to both of us that I wasn't lifting a finger) in order to convince the inspector that we really had done the best we could and to let the stuff we couldn't get to slide until fall and spring.

And I guess one of the workmen noticed the cane, and noticed that the handrail on the upper staircase had pulled out of the wall on one end (it had been anchored to the sheetrock, not the wall proper; the other end was anchored in paneling and was fine; this happened a couple of months ago and we had bigger worries), and just - fixed it. Because it's certainly fixed now. As is typical in Texas most of the workmen are people I can't even talk to because my Spanish is as bad as their English, so it's not as if we've made friends with them. And I didn't see it done, nor did the foreman know who did it when I brought it up and asked him to thank whoever it was, so it wasn't somebody looking to make points. They just saw a chance to do a small simple thing to benefit a total stranger, and did it.

The point here being that two people - whoever called in the code complaint (seriously, that should be illegal in August, at least for yard code with no clear and present danger) and the city employee who wouldn't listen to reason - went out of their way to force me to focus on the least pressing problem facing us right now at the expense of my own well-being. But they are far, far outnumbered by the people who have gone out of their way to help us, just because we needed help.

So, suck it, cynicism!

[my-fancy-hat]

One of my goals for this year is to read (at my time) my readlist that I've been pushing to the side for years, I will ramble about every manga i finish and try to make a final post expressing my overall opinions. With that being said, I finished Homunculus.

Despite not being that popular as his peers of the genre, I have seen it throughout being compared side by side with other works as a "masterpiece", that is very depressing and very-many things. Since I can't completely deny my pretentious side, I decided to read it and well, it fell short. If I had to summarize all of Homunculus in a single panel it would be

Nakoshi eating his own semen. All born and end in here.

I assume the mini fame that this manga earned it comes from a male audience since this story touches deeply on the "modern male loneliness", and this story hits the nail on this topic really well. It frustrates me quite a bit because the concepts that were used and its premise in general are undoubtedly innovative and definitely interesting! they are an easy bait if you are looking for psychological and "deep" mangas. The creativity in which this author illustrates the human psichologycal struggles buried in the individual subconscious in such abstract and creative ways are magnificent. In fact there are whole pages that have helped me in my creative process, so kuddos for that.

As the story reached its last arc, I felt like the author took a few steps back. Some situations flew too convenient for the protagonist to justify... this (like, Ito knew Nakoshi wanted to trepranate himself. why he let him be after stealing his medical tools? anyways). But what bothers me most is that everything Nakoshi learned with each homonculi on his journey of self-discovery and with his relationship with Ito and Nanako ended in fucking nothing. That wouldn't be a bother if glimpses of his grown hadn't been shown chapter by chapter, but in the end what had the greatest weight was his obsession with himself, with his own misery locked in the barriers of his ego that keeps him from observating himself. In the end it's like Ito said, Nakoshi believed that he deserved an award for simply being empathetic and giving people their right to be seen and listened, a compensation for being an emotionally competent man in society. For this reason that I call homunculus an ode to male loneliness, ego, envy, demands and lies that capitalism impart on young men, the least attractive bird is the one who dies alone, where there's only room for resentment to grow, an allegory of the invisible man for the unlived easier life. That being said, the story is aware the only way to get out of your grave is to accept that the world owes you nothing, to stop licking your wounds and let them heal, which Nakoshi seemed to understand but never actually did. And just when I thought that "wow maybe acceptance and love is the solution" in how he looked so desperately for his first lover to reconcile with his past, everything goes back to zero.

Sadly, Nakoshi never loved Nanako, he only loved the attention she gave to him, yet he still abandoned her for other more beautiful yet hollow eyes. Nakoshi is just a clown looking for a circus, but for free and forever empty. I feel very sorry for Nanako, she didn't deserve anything that happened to her, to have trusted- puring her heart out to such a big piece of shit like Nakoshi. He ruined her life. I genuinely cried over her chapters and her past with him, and I totally agreed until the end with her inability to forgive him, until Nakoshi's face turned into a demon in the darkness and his obsession with himself, with his own semen, won him over.

Among the things that left me satisfied were Ito transitioning, the only character that I genuinely manage to appreciate and respect. I talked about them in another post but to summarize, I deeply hated at first how predatory they were with the sand girl, but in retrospect it it's brilliant how the author managed to illustrate through it their sexual confussion and gender identity crisis mixed with the yearn for their father's acceptance. They're the best character without a doubt.

I would recommend it? If you are looking for inspiration for your work because of it amazing art and concepts? 100%. If you are looking for a compelling pay-off story, no. If you want to eat your own semen waiting to get rewarded for doing the bare minimum, fix that idk.

Maybe some stories are told to end in pathetic tragedies.

[pandimensionalemporium]

I've been struggling with descriptive writing lately. It used to be my biggest strength, which meant I worked hard on my dialogue skills to compensate, and now the balance has flipped. So it goes!

So, I've decided to start doing writing prompts. Please join me - I'd love to read your responses!

Today's prompt is this photo, which I took at Little Moreton Hall (Cheshire, UK)

Windows. That was the first impression. So many of them, row upon row, every pane delicately shaped and outlined in lead. They were set into huge panels, each as big as a man with his arms stretched wide, supported by lattices of dark-stained wood. With the unexpected angles of the walls, the house became a faceted crystal cluster, a conglomeration of prisms shot through with aged oak.

It was the kind of place you could explore forever and never know all its nooks and crannies. Over the centuries, walls had been pushed out, nipped in, rooftops realigned and doorways rearranged, until the entire building became a palimpsest of past fashions. Voids were left where the latest vision didn't quite align with the old one, hidden spaces where last generation's wallpaper still clung unseen. There were rooms rendered into irregular-sided cubbyholes, others made vast and cavernous, flooded with glassy rainbows.

Outside, the courtyard was a-bustle with people. Neat cobblestones clattered with footfalls and resounded with the low murmur of voices. The eaves caught the sounds and held them, oddly muffled by the old timbers. They leaned together in conspiracy, as if whispering of all they had heard. Perhaps if a person could climb up there, scale the overhangs of wood and plaster to press their ear beneath the gables, they might hear secrets of ages past still repeated among the tiles.

[skyberia]

some "behind the scenes" stuff from this comic (read as: wips and assorted thoughts)

SOME BACKSTORY: i was halfheartedly playing through strikers after finishing p5r. the fact that akechi's not even mentioned in that whole game made me sad. the fact that akechi stops being mentioned basically the moment he dies in p5 vanilla makes me sad. i had thoughts. so i decided to make a comic about it

i wrote down the entirety of the script for this while in a complete haze listening to third eye by florence + the machine on repeat for an hour straight. that song has nothing to do with anything the comic is about. or with either of the characters involved. i can't explain my thought process there.

(the 'official' title of the comic is "a ghost amongst the living (consequences of a cognitive death.)" as a sort of tribute to that song, even though it has, again, nothing to do with what the comic is about)

THE SCRIPT: the numbers correlate to text bubbles on my thumbnails (see next). i also put it on discord so i could more easily see it/edit from either my phone or computer, which i don't think is the MOST efficient or professional way to go about doing this, but

you may notice this is a little bit different from the text on the final product. this is because. i changed some things while typing it out for the final thing. i don't know what else to tell you.

i did reach a point where i had read these same words over and over so much that i started questioning if anything i wrote made sense and if i even knew how to speak english correctly. i'd like to thank my friends for reassuring me that some of my wording was ok, and also google because every time i asked "is that even a thing people say" i would just plug it on there to try to figure it out (because i was too embarrassed to ask anyone to read over it)

THE THUMBNAILS: just a rough idea of panelling and where to put text bubbles and such. this took fucking forever. comics are hard. nobody ever tells you this (<- something i said about like 10 times to the same people while making this)

THE SKETCHES: basically grabbing the thumbnails and making them into an actual thing i can draw onto. also getting all the text laid out-- i don't think that's entirely necessary at this point but i was just excited to see it all laid out and being able to read it

(shoutout to my friend sophie for making the font i used for this/use for all my longer comics. she's an icon and a legend and has really nice handwriting)

you may notice that page 9 is completely different from the thumbnails. this is because i was tired by the time i got to that part in planning and i paid for it. brainstorming & reworking that page took me an entire day. comics are HARD. I AM TELLING YOU THIS

page 6 also changed by the time i got around to lining it because i decided that it sucked and i hated it. reworking that into something more acceptable also took me about half a day. i'm happy with how it turned out though, and glad that i no longer have the issue of having a flop ass page in the middle of this

THE PROCESS: was actually quite straightforward after that, just doing the lines and the like. but i wanted to share how i did the backgrounds. i grabbed a bunch of in-game screenshots i took for reference and just plugged them through csp's "artistic > lines only" filter and just traced over that

i love you art shortcuts that make my life & ability to make yaoi comics easier

(if you're curious too here's all the screenshots i took & was keeping on the side for reference)

ETC: some miscellaneous thoughts, because if you've made it all the way through this then you probably don't have anything better to do anyway:

all in all this took two weeks. script was written on the 11th, thumbnails were done on the 14th, sketches were done on the 17th, lining on the 24th, aaand colouring took me just one day. comics are HARD and TAKE TIME. NOBODY TELLS YOU THIS!!!!!

i actually started getting wrist pain somewhere along the 2nd day of lining/3rd page. that step of the process probably took longer than it otherwise would because i had to keep taking breaks 2 ensure i wouldn't break my hand completely -_-

my sanity throughout the lining process was only ensured by listening to a frankly stupid amount of jpop. thank you wednesday campanella and mrs. green apple

i think my favourite page is page 3. i like how the panels get crooked when akechi puts the detective prince persona on, i like how akira deadpans (in a straightened panel) to cut him off. also in order to get the hand right in the first panel i did the hair twirling motion myself and ended up hitting myself in the eye with my own hair. it was worth it though

IN CONCLUSION: i think they went a bit too hard with the yaoi fanservice in persona 5 royal

[vampireacademysims]

Well, I guess it's time to address the situation... or the lack of situation lol This is gonna be long, be warned. There's a TL;RD at the end if you wanna skip the wall of text. To start, thank you to the two anons who took the time to read the comic and prod me about it and the new people who started following this tumblr in spite of the Hiatus warning. Altho this place has been collecting dust for more than a year now, I'm still around, updating my side reblogs tumblr, so it's not like I dropped from the face of the earth.

The truth is, at this moment in time, I've feel out of love with making this comic. It was always a lot of work due to me being a perfectionist. I never used any extra rendering apps, all you've seen here is raw sims images and a lot of work on Photoshop, so much so it gave me a muscle contracture on my right shoulder (because I did all my work in bed with my laptop/drawing tablet in my lap. I never said I was a smart person lol) that still flares up from time to time because I learned nothing. Then the VA fandom was already quite small by the time I started doing this in 2015 and I never really advertised this in the fandom anyway. I always got the impression most of the fandom didn't like the OG comics as it was and most of the people that followed the comic were sims 2 fans because, well, it's made with the sims and the images were pretty (forever holding in my heart the people you said this &lt;;3) The recent "Vampire Academy" TV series (it was just in names, honestly) was the final nail in the coffin of my motivation. After information had leaked I was already disappointed in it, but after actually watching it, yeah no. Only plus to it was the surprise to see it was partially filmed in my country, in places where I have been myself. And lastly, and probably most importantly, I struggle with motivation a lot. It happens to us all, I am sure. It's no secret that I hated to panel, if I'd start all over again I'd just post the big images like many of you telling stories are doing now, it'd be less of a stress for me, but alas, I can't change formats now. And I said many times I was doing it mostly for myself, because I did love the comics based on the books, but doing it for yourself only gets you so far until you get bored. And I got bored. I'm actually surprised my hyper-focus on it lasted for as long as it did. I haven't been to Photoshop for editing - I used to make photomanipulations and other kinds of editing - for way over a year, so it's not only the comic that stopped.

I still have 7 pages to end chapter 6 in various degrees of editing, Veninorchid and Esotheria-sims have seen them, so they exist lol I will eventually finish editing them - it's mostly a Romitri flashback - and post them. But after that, I will have to decide how to proceed. Spending less time editing would help, but lowering the quality of my pages, the only thing people like about it, really doesn't sit well with me, because yeah, perfectionist.

So at the very least the remaining pages will be posted in early 2024, I might go back to it slowly, a little bit everyday so I don't burn out or put stress on my shoulder. But after that, it's up in the air. It's not like I've been staring at the walls during this time, I had other things taking my goldfish-like attention. I got interested in home bookbinding, which made me dig out old unfinished stories I once started and I've been trying to finish them and later try to bind them, because why the fuck not lol And on my reblogs tumblr I had this set of pictures about a Regency little story that people really loved and I'd like to add to it, but then again, all the editing it'd need *cries* I feel tugged in so many directions I fear I'll end up doing nothing lol

So the TL;DR is, I got bored with the comic because it was too much work and resulted in physical pain, I lacked the motivation and other things got my attention meanwhile. Chapter 6 will be be finished eventually, but after that it's up in the air. Cross my fingers that I get my mojo back while editing those pages. Still, a thank you to all of followed and are still following, sorry these were not the good news you wanted to read just because I made a post. You support up until now was what kept me going in the past, I can't thank you all enough.

[darkandstormydolls]

Today’s sewing post is: chatting about alterations!

So, as you may know, a big part of slow fashion involves repairing and altering clothing when needed, rather than getting new clothes every time. And I’m really good at mending, but I can sometimes drag my feet when I know that things need to be altered, since it’s usually more involved than simply fixing a hole, often times involves weird/tricky sewing, almost always requires seamripping, and doesn’t give me the thrill of a new project. So, here I am, posting about my alterations projects of the past few days both in an attempt to normalize alterations and to try and make myself a little more excited about them. Plus, alterations are one of those things that I always put off, but I am so much happier when they’re done, even if I didn’t enjoy the process so much.

First project: coat sleeves. I was cutting out fabric to make myself a second fall jacket when it occurred to me that the sleeve piece of my pattern looked really narrow, and when I tried to wrap it around my arms I couldn’t do it easily. Now, usually, when I find a pattern I like, I will use it up to and beyond the point of death (see: my button up shirt pattern that has made over twenty shirts and also served as a base for almost ten different other costume pieces), so I had a couple jackets already made from this pattern; my fall jacket, my winter coat, and two of my costume jackets. So, off I went to try them on.

And none of them fit in the upper sleeves. They fit the same everywhere else, so it seems like I just never noticed the issue until now… but that doesn’t make sense, because I could hardly force my arms into the sleeve of my winter coat, and I wore that one near daily last winter. I feel like I would have noticed. But, I am usually a practical person, so I only spent a little while moping and confused by the mystery before I turned myself to the practical matters; how do I fix this?

Well, I started by seamripping out all of the sleeves from both the outer fabric and lining, then separating them from one another at the cuffs and opening them up to lay flat (I managed to watch quite literally an entire Netflix show during this process. It took forever). Then, I went searching for the leftovers I had of fabrics (thankfully, I found all but one, where I had seemingly used all the leftover red satin for something else, but thankfully I had another red satin on hand and since it was the sleeve lining, no one but me will ever see the different fabric) and traced out a pattern for a gusset to put in the seam under the arm, which was about three inches wide at the top and then tapered down into nothing a little past the elbow. I then sewed all of these in, reassembled the sleeves, and, since I didn’t feel like taking apart the whole jacket to line it the way I did originally, I put in the outer sleeves, sewed the cuffs, then pulled the sleeve linings through and whipstitched them around the armscye. It was annoying and definitely not my most fun project, but now all my jackets fit again and I can hopefully wear them for a good long time, and the extra gores are not super noticeable since they’re in the bottom seam.

My other alteration project was my shift for my vampire costume (from my fantasy costuming project. I had tried to use it as part of a costume I had just pulled from other pieces of my costume closet, but found that apparently I misestimated the width that I needed and couldn’t get it on past the shoulders. So, I decided to add panels to the sides. Looking at the (rather small) piece of fabric left over, I figured I could put a four inch wide panel on either side, plus I needed a little triangle to taper that extra width into the sleeve (the sleeve fit fine, but because of how I set them in, they would get very messed up by adding extra panels to the sides). I had a tiny bit of fabric left, so I figured I should add some triangular gores to the sides at the bottom, to make sure I had enough room for a full range of motion. Since my vampire clothes take a lot of inspiration from medieval clothes, I tried to stick with rectangular construction for the alterations just like I did with the original, and I think I succeeded. This was all the fabric I had left after cutting out the panels, and most of this is from cutting the curves at the neckline on the original.

And here’s the one of the panels, fully assembled and ready to go in. Kind of reminds me of a rocket ship

I like to fell down rather than zigzag/serge the seams of anything that will go under something tight fitting, like a corset (a fitted kirtle in this case) for the sake of comfort, and since I was following the rules I initially set for my fantasy costuming project, I was doing it by hand (honestly, that was a big reason I was hesitant to start this alteration; I didn’t want to do all that handsewing, nor did I want to have to rip out the seams I spend a long time felling). After these were assembled, I sewed them into one side of the side seams, then sewed the up again on the other side.

Final results: wonderful. The side panels and gussets under the arms give it a lot more of a natural shape and range of motion, and if I sew another one of these, for an actual medieval dress or an 17th/18th century shift, I think I may do this method from the beginning

The finished project (I don’t have a before picture, but it was just a straight up and down rectangle. This one has a least a tiny bit of shape)

[kattahj]

Rules: List 10 of your comfort shows, then tag 10 people

Tagged by @katiekeysburg about a month ago. This took me forever, sorry!

Tagging some mutuals from my notes: @minutia-r @sorry-bonebag @re-bee-key @theendofcake @beccaelizabeth315 @anotherlovr @lotesseflower @morathicain @firlalaith @lena221bee

Interpreting this as shows I watch when I want to feel happy and warm and cared for. I don't often rewatch shows, so some of these are ongoing and others are just ones that made me feel good when I did watch them.

Apologies to all the other feel good shows I've had along the way thst didn'tmake the cut. :-)

What's My Line: A game show from the 50s/60s where the panel guesses people's occupations, and also who the celebrity guest is (they're blindfolded for that one). If you want to watch light banter, low-stakes games (extra points are frequently handed out), and hear about jobs you didn't even know existed, this is perfect. Available on YouTube for free, too!

Taskmaster: Another low-stakes game show, this time with celebrities having to perform absolutely ridiculous tasks. This frequently involves not so much thinking outside of the box as thinking outside of the planet. Also, the two hosts have an amusingly dom/sub thing going on.

Queer Eye: Five gay people come to a person, or sometimes a group of people, to fix up their appearance, home, and personal lives. The results can be quibbled with sometimes, but for the most part, this is like a warm hug.

Ghosts: A young couple move into a house that turns out to be haunted. Since they're now so deep in debt that they can't move, they have to make friends with the ghosts. Exists in two versions, UK and US. The UK fans will swear up and down that theirs is the only good version, but the truth is that both are good, and as a comfort show specifically, the US version may be more effective, since it's softer and cuddlier.

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: In the future, humans live underground, mutated animals ("mutes") roam the earth, and everyone is at each other's throat. Until a girl named Kipo accidentally ends up on the surface and decides to make friends with all the animals, which she turns out to be surprisingly good at. Also, there's lots of singing.

Press Gang: Childhood favourite show that still holds up, about a group of teenagers making a newspaper together. Good drama, good humour, and also, the editor is a smart, ruthless girl named Lynda, who has lots of Belligerent Sexual Tension with Spike, one of the reporters and resident rebel, in a classic 80s/90s romantic trope. In case that's your kind of thing. :-)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Girl who was stolen by the Evil Horde as a child discovers that she's actually the destined hero of the Princess Alliance, their enemies. Sweet story, very queer, and with surprisingly nuanced villains. Doesn't quite measure up to Kipo in my book (I know most people disagree), but almost.

Julie and the Phantoms: Musically gifted teenager discovers that the ghosts of a dead rock band "lives" in her garage. From the creator of High School Musical, but so much better. Sadly cancelled after only one season (very unfortunate timing with covid).

And since I've been watching all these Asian QLs lately, naturally I need to add the softest of those:

She Makes My Heart Flutter: Short and sweet about a lesbian bar owner who gets her routine changed when her niece comes to work for her. Only takes a little bit more than an hour to watch, and it's lovely the whole time.

Old Fashion Cupcake: Office romance about a 39-year-old manager whose midlife crisis is interrupted with the help of the 29-year-old working for him, who dares him to try new things and experience life like a young girl would. Lots of tasty food in addition to the romance.

[pbandjesse]

I did not enjoy my day as much as I had hoped. It was all out of sorts. It would be okay in the end but I did not get as much done as I had hoped and was just kind of bummed about it because so much wasn't working out.

The problems really started because I slept terribly. Firstly I couldn't get comfortable. Then I was coughing again. Then it was really loud outside with cars and trucks. I was awake more then I was asleep and it was not fun.

When I woke up James was out already. They made a final run to the apartment to get all the trash and take it to the dump. I got up and got dressed and made the bed. And was sitting in my chair in the studio when James got back.

James would make me a little sandwich for breakfast and they had French toast. I had made a list for Home Depot and would measure a few things just so I would know what we needed and wouldn't panic when we got there.

We would leave the house and headed there soon after we ate. And it was pretty good except the store was really busy. Lots of contractors and they were doing inventory and it was just a little chaotic. But the lady at the paint counter was nice. And James went to get us a cart while I got the paint.

After we ordered the paint we would start checking off the rest of the list. We found the paint rollers and got the tape. A pack of screws and anchors. And went to the molding section to look at the paneling.

James voted on the larger shiplap style and those came in 8x4 foot panels. We had decided on 6 foot so we would go and have them cut that down. While James worked with the nice man to do that I would go look at screen doors so we can have a better idea of that as the weather gets nicer.

We paid and it was expensive but not as expensive as I had thought. So that was good. But then we ran into an issue. The panels did not fit in the car in either direction. Everything else was fine. The shelves and brackets. The paint. It was just the panels. James was a bit panicked which makes me really frustrated because like while this sucked it was a fixable problem. They rent trucks. I would drive home and drop things off. James would go investigate a truck.

Sadly they had no trucks available so we needed to get a U-Haul instead which would take slightly longer. I went home and got everything inside and went right back to home depot. I had been a little upset when I had first left the store because my GPS tried to take me to the apartment and not the house despite changing the home button weeks ago. But it didn't take as long to get back and everything would be fine.

We would switch. James had been sitting on the cart. Now I would sit on the cart. And James would go and get the van. This took slightly longer then I hoped because the address they had was wrong. But it was fine. I had grabbed my water and my headphones and listened to a video and scrolled on Tumblr and enjoyed sitting outside. It wasn't as pretty as yesterday but it was still nice.

When James got back we loaded up the van and headed home. And then back out to get our car.

I thought we would bail on our other errands but James said we should still go to target. So that is what we did.

We went to target and exchanged our CO2 and got more syrup and kitty litter. Next we went to the post office to get a package. Which took forever and I was getting upset sitting in the car. It was a lot later then I was hoping. I was hungry. I was to hot in the car. I was very unhappy. I told James I felt like the world was ending. Everything felt wrong.

I asked to please get chipotle for lunch. I needed to eat something substantial. So that is what we did.

I was very happy to get food and to go home. It was about 140 and we would need to leave at 230 of my appointment. So nothing else was going to get accomplished. I just sat on the couch and ate half my bowl and most of my chips and would slowly start to feel better.

We would leave here after moving some furniture around to get ready for hanging the paneling later on. I was glad we were going to do some of our project today.

We got to my appointment and I got to recount my er visit. And explained about the antibiotics and everything else. And so it was decided I would do the intense antibiotics for 10 days and I would come back for my injections on the 18th. A little frustrating but it's for the best. I shouldn't make my immune system more suppressed while I'm actively fighting being sick.

I really want this cough to stop. It's mostly gone during the day but then it comes back and it makes me feel like I'm dying. It's very scary.

We would come home and worked for the next couple hours on hanging the panels on the wall. We did not do it exactly the way I'm sure you are supposed to. We should have don't a counter sink so the screws we used are not visible. But I think I have a plan for covering them. I love how the wall looks. James would work very hard hanging the brackets and shelves. Which was a whole thing but looks so good. The shelves are just wood planks and are slightly warped so there is a little mismatching but I have a plan and I think in the end the whole thing is going to look great. I'm really excited.

Once that was done we would change the kitty litter. And James vacuumed. Both the bits of kitty litter and the saw dust in my studio from cutting the hole for the outlet they made in the panel.

James would gather all of our laundry to go to the laundry mat. And while they were gone I would have the rest of my chips and would work on some painting in the stairwell. While we had bought new rollers I guess I threw away the tray I had purchased because I cannot find it anywhere. Very frustrating. I'll go buy one tomorrow I guess. Or see if we have one at camp I can borrow. I would just use a brush for now, one that I am keeping in a ziplock bag so I don't have to clean it. It's coming together.

My breathing started to get worse and I came to sit down and have been writing this since. James got home a few minutes ago. They went and got my inhaler and it's not helping yet but I hope it does soon because I am very uncomfortable.

I think I will go take a shower soon. And try to sleep easier. I really hope it works.

Tomorrow at work I do not know what we are doing. Besides an afternoon meeting. But I am hoping it will be a good day.

Sleep well everyone. Be safe. I love you all. Goodnight.

[randomfoggytiger]

Tumblr's being weird, so I'm reposting! :DDD

@dd-is-my-guiltypleasure submitted:

The main flavor was breakup; but I took that idea and stretched it out for more flavor wiggle room~.

Here's some selections:

Breakup

@crossedbeams/CrossedBeams's Misty Blue (Ao3)

""There aren’t words for the misty damp of a London morning in October, for the peculiar glow of shining, uneven pavements or for how the low-hanging sun burnishes the leaves to brazen gold against the grey sky. You can’t prepare for a city so steeped in its ways that it’s forgotten how idiosyncratic it is. For the first time in forever, Mulder regrets not having a camera ready to capture Scully turning slowly in the sepia sunlight, admiring the red-brick terrace of the hotel, the higgledy run of buildings older than their home country, her smiling and blushing when she catches him staring.

Instead, he’d taken her hand, pulling her into the past, into a maze of winding corridors and brass doorknobs, a past without alien conspiracy or men lurking in the shadows and with every twist of the panelled hall he’d felt her joy push back against the hollowness Mulder had thought might swallow him from within.""

Post IWTB Mulder is slipping into a deeper depression while on a London trip with Scully. She picks up that something is wrong, but doesn't know how pervasive the problem is.

@keatingscully's Broken Puzzle

""The house was still and dark, no decorations in sight and no sign of living. His car was parked in the driveway and he was nowhere to be seen, hidden away in the dark like the monsters they used to chase together.

The porch creaked underneath her high heels, the wood in the need of a carpenter that he could afford but refused to pay. He was stubborn, hardheaded, and inflexible. From the way he would not budge on how he refused to use a separate shower poof and how he would not give up on loving her. Maybe it was all he had left to hold onto, wrapping the gift in the paper he had been buying from the dollar store for nearly two decades.""

Post Breakup Mulder sends a box to Scully for Christmas. She decides-- amidst Bill's jeers and Maggie's support-- to at least check-in with him. They both know she won't stay... but maybe someday.

@oceanofthesky/noifsandsorbees's open door. - Chapter 1- (Ao3) 

""she’s not ready to walk out the door, either. not ready to sleep alone and surround herself with silence, deprive herself of the debates and banter that had been second nature from the moment she met him, but he took away that option months ago, turning their relationship into something she didn’t recognize – or maybe that she recognized all too well, as she watched him get lost inside his own head and the endless reaches of the internet.

so she leaves the key, leaves a way for him to know that if he can ever do what she couldn’t, if he can pull himself out of his head, that she is still right there.

it’s three months before he uses it.""

Post Breakup Scully leaves Mulder with a key to give him someplace else to come to whenever he has better or worse days.

vulcanscully's Hello, it's Me

""Dana Scully did not know why she was here. This was not her home anymore. It had not been her home for many months. The last time she had seen Fox Mulder, it had been from her rear view mirror as she drove away from this place. His expression--shattered, silent, resigned--was the last memory she’d captured of him.

She sat there, in what was supposed to have been their new start, their forever. Tears she’d kept behind her throat for over a year came stumbling down her face, and she held her cell phone to her ear with trembling fingers, listening to the ups and downs of his speech over and over. She recalled their last conversation. Piercing hollers followed by quieter, somber syllables which were almost worse—words comprised of regret, of unmasked grief for what had been and what neither of them could have.

(MulderdontmakemedothisMulderpleaseMulderletmehelpyouMulderstopMulderMulderMULDER GOODBYE)

And then, his voice. Ringing not through the speakers of her phone, but through the room, with a slight echo:

“Scully.""

Post Breakup Mulder stops leaving random voice messages; and Scully, too worried to overthink her actions, zooms over to see if he's alright, realizing her own faults while she waits and reflects. (I adore this fic; but I'm biased.)

Assorted

lea-nicci/Lea Nicci's West of Sunrise Part 1/2, Part 2/2

""It was chilling, the dead look in his bloodshot eyes. Even more frightening were his next words: "I feel like I'm drowning, Scully," he whispered brokenly and her breath caught in her throat.

Impulsively, she reached out and squeezed his hand. He closed his eyes at the touch and it was all she needed to see.

Quietly, she left the room and began making phone calls.

It was going to be a long day.""

AU-- S5 Scully realizes Mulder has sunk into a depression... and that she hadn't noticed. She moves in, determined to help him heal at his pace. Of course, his adversaries aren't going to leave him alone when he's at his most vulnerable.

RocketMan's Lemon Trees

""But he survived. With Scully's help he dodged the carefully aimed arrows of fire; she looked out for him. He hated having to constantly watch what he said and did so that it would not be used against him. He hated sitting at home alone, wondering when Cancer Man would start the battle all over again. It was pure politics and Mulder was getting sick of it. But he had to keep fighting it and the only one who could strengthen him, keep him from giving up completely was Scully.

Until they attacked her.""

AU-- Scully reflects on the past rollercoaster of events-- Mulder put on trial to lose files and almost committing suicide, losing her credibility and meeting CSM's terms to get Mulder's work back, their marriage-- leading up to her S4 cancer emergence and infertility knowledge. Mulder won't give up, tracking down the Crawford clones to find a possible cure (which leads to IVF.) Both learn how to live.

Hope these do the trick! :DDDDDD

Thank you for submitting~!

Enjoy!

[void-botanist]

13, 17, 18, 27 for the weird writers ask

From this ask game.

These took a while to think about and write answers to.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy? I have a hard time with any kind of romantic relationship that is not A) already established or B) friends to lovers or C) both. I just don't understand how to make it go from 1. meet cute/first date to 2. real deepening relationship. Which was one of the downfalls of early iterations of Zel and Anni's relationship and also to some extent Triad (but Triad had other problems too). It probably stems from my weird brain plus just not having much personal experience with dating as opposed to, well, friends to lovers.

On the flipside, friends who have been friends forever - or act like it? Easy. Their dynamic flows and so does my writing.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Oh boy. I have a habit of fitting those things into the text as much as possible and then deciding whether to cut them later. They often pull my story in a slightly different direction and honestly make it more fun. Because TFA is about androids and also differences between different places a lot of the transport and technology minutiae does show up. But here's some stuff that most likely will not (or is kind of meta):

Anni's current design is actually a merge of two characters. An Annie who was a Julian's niece and an android's co-builder existed in old drafts, and in Triad I briefly threw in a librarian character, Tavitta, who had an impeccable sense of light, blue, bow-laden fashion. She wasn't very good in Triad but I couldn't get that concept out of my head so I applied it to new Anni.

Monster trucks exist in this world because I think they're too fun not to and I'm not sure Dez realizes this until post-TFA when Syndy becomes obsessed with them.

I have a reference map that I crafted from my old childhood maps for this world plus some climate and weather research. It has a grid (which is basically latitude and longitude except not skewed for the curvature of the planet so…inaccurate) that I use to estimate distances for travel, time zone notation, and general climate zones (frigid, temperate, subtropical, tropical). It helps me keep my climates consistent and also showed me where Elbas Island has to go to not be in a hurricane zone.

I have so far done a bad job of integrating Dez's relationships with Mizzat and Imjen into the story. I've unironically considered moving his citizenship adventure to one of their locations, but unless I fully transplant Elbas Island (which disrupts everything about it that relies on remoteness) I don't think that makes sense. Unless one of the nAkkanswl have decided to be Good Actually and just hand out android citizenship which would be fun but also a very different story than what I have currently.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

The nawwen looked out the elevator door as they waited for it to close, but before she could raise a hand to signal them to hold the door, their eyes met hers and went huge. Then they leaned into a different button in the panel. She thought the door would close in her face as she crossed the last few feet to the elevator, but they were still holding the button and the door was still open when she got there. “Thank you,” she said, with the tiniest question in her voice. She was glad to be in the elevator, but she wasn’t really sure what had just happened there. The nawwen let go of the button and the doors started to close. “Of course,” they said in an accent that reminded her of her grandparents’. They still looked a little spooked by her presence, like she’d caught them at something. She gave them a smile and checked her node. If she’d gotten this wrong, she might never find Syndy. But the connection was almost at max strength, and it didn’t budge as they rose past the second floor, then the third. “Excuse me,” the nawwen said from the other side of the trunk. She looked up, slipping her node hand back in her coat pocket. “Are you Anni, by chance?” She blinked. “Uh…why do you ask?” “Because if you are Anni—Anni Chalbis—then you’ve just saved me an email.” The relief on their face said ‘email’ was an understatement of their narrowly avoided trials. “I’m Hoven, he-him, though I believe you know me as ‘the bookish friend’.” Her eyes widened as the pieces came together. “So you’re looking after Syndy?” Hoven nodded, then glanced to the floor number on the elevator’s screen. “We can talk in my room.”

This is from like the fifth major version of Anni meeting Hoven I've written, and it's one of the best. Not only is it just more interesting to have this accidental meeting, but Anni is actually directly involved in the whole setup instead of having someone else tell her what's happening or telling Hoven to reach out to her. She would have met Hoven anyway because he was coming to see her. But why schedule over email when you can get a weird connection request and then go on a hunt for a missing android?

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why? The most stressful in terms of "character is having a Bad Time" is Sid from Tales of Tobar Si (which I've been thinking about again recently. It's becoming interstellar sci-fi?). He's going through the early stages of realizing his parents are abusive and figuring out what to do about it and how to stay away from them. But the most stressful in terms of "why won't you let me write you" is harder to pin down. Zalen and Aza have both been difficult because I've had them as characters forever and I've been recycling them into new better characters that look basically the same. I've been slowly breaking my habit of second-guessing myself about all of Anni's POV scenes, especially about whether she reads too much like Dez. I think it also got easier to write her after I sort of let Hoven be the anxious one instead of her (they were both gonna be the anxious one. Not sure why I thought that would work).

Thank you for letting me ramble lol. I hope you enjoyed :)

[writing-for-life]

@windsweptinred @bobbole

I’ll now forever have visions of both Murphy and Danny standing in front of a mirror and cursing the appearance of their first black hair, tentatively reaching for the bleach but then deciding to roll with it 🤣

In all seriousness though: I always took it as a “both, and” (total head-canon territory of course, since all Neil ever told us is that Dream was all white when he created the ruby. I’d have loved to see that panel, but supposedly they ran out of space).

As in: With the passing of time (which is aging I guess, but not in the sense of “The first black hairs will come through when you’re 2 billion years old” 🤣), the collective unconscious starts to weigh on him? So there’s something in the colour scheme about moving from light to dark in every sense of the word. Which also reminds me of Delight’s change to Delirium tbh. Or the other siblings (esp. Death and Destruction) dealing with their own pain in their own way. They all somehow transition in visible or not so visible ways in one way or another I guess?

But back to Dream: If you have to contain/keep a lid on all the shit the collective unconscious constantly throws at you, it *must* weigh heavily on you (well, we all know it does 🥺). And I think the idea was to reflect that transition via the colour scheme—I mean, we even get references to dark dreams several times over the whole run.

So yeah, I guess there’s something in there about the loss of innocence in a way?

@tickldpnk8 Did you have a look at the link in the tags? There’s several of them in there (I think I posted one or two of the Death ones before as well, you should be able to find them via miguelanxo’s tag). I just can’t, for the life of me, find the explanation for the animals right now because I can’t remember if I read it in a book or online. And it drives me mad. But when I find it, I’ll definitely post/tag

Dream—Miguelanxo Prado

The white streaks of youth (in both hair and clothing). The ruby was created by a Dream who looked pretty much like Daniel. Which is both incredibly heartbreaking (in many, many ways) but also beautiful…

[madara-fate]

Maddy, all this “Ino is representing the whole female cast in Boruto” argument is literally giving me a seizure especially the “Sakura is useless” argument, again. Sakura is useful in general, that’s undebatable. With everything going on with the Pandemic and Corona Virus, I expected people to appreciate and value our medics and doctors more and the importance of medicine. The thing is that Sakura isn’t useless but simply underutilized and this isn’t Sakura’s fault whatsoever, we need to realize that fictional character have no sense of agency and they are what the writers want them to be, Sakura not being involved in the plot is due to the author’s lack of creativity.

There are many ways to include Sakura into the current plot or scene, not only in this scene in particular even; we have many people in the fandom coming up with ways to insert the characters in— yet for some reason the author would rather waste panels of Sumire sweating 24/7 than insert Kakashi or Sakura. I’m not surprised why people immediately assume that Sakura not being involved in the current plot means she’s not doing anything remotely useful to the plot (like she’s been assigned to make some secret serum or something) because Ikemoto or Kishimoto (whoever is writing the manga) doesn’t have any history of making characters suddenly appear with a power-up and then you found out that while the current characters are doing something, at the same time this character is apparently practicing/training as well. Like look at Sarada and Mitsuki for example, I can’t really measure how long it has but it took them a long time to realize, “yow shit, we can’t stay here and sit like this forever, we gotta start practicing” seriously? Why didn’t you realize that before though? Why are you waiting for your sensei to go to you when you know they’re either extremely busy or neglectful. Like why can’t Mitsuki and Sarada be training all this time? Like if you’re not planning on adding them to the plot because you choose to focus on other characters then don’t just let the other characters wait in the dungeon until you pick them up and decide to add them again, what’s wrong if multiple characters are doing something at the same time? You don’t even have to illustrate it, just insert it in a conversation.

It frustrates me a lot, like a lot. I’m starting to think that the author really just doesn’t know how to add them into the plot or how to write them even; although I’m not surprised from the lack of creativity that’s being shown. How long has it been? 13? 14 years? Yet, Team 7 has grown stagnant over the years. Sakura still stuck with what Tsunade taught her (while she developed a few Jutsu’s like her Sensory Jutsu, most don’t recognize it canon and doesn’t also appreciate how good it actually is) I don’t even know why Sakura just stopped trying to become strong, like after achieving the Byakugou and all that she suddenly just became contented and while I know she isn’t power hungry, but I expected her to improve more knowing how Sasuke and Naruto has such a huge power-up. Naruto still with the Rasengan and Shadow Clones, and Sasuke who’s job is dangerous should’ve developed more Jutsu’s in those years of traveling since he encounters all sorts of catastrophes while traveling, but he heavily relied on the Rinnegan which made the Rinnegan and Kurama a huge loss, if any of Team 7 decided to polished their skills and developed new jutsu’s instead of being contented of what they possessed then maybe it would’ve compensated for the loss of the Rinnegan and Kurama.

With everything going on with the Pandemic and Corona Virus, I expected people to appreciate and value our medics and doctors more and the importance of medicine.

That's a very good point which I hadn't considered. With the amount of times people compare SS with reality and say that it makes no sense in that regard, you'd think they would be used to linking the series to reality, but I guess they only ever do that for anti SS/Sakura purposes, because they're the exception to everything.

The thing is that Sakura isn’t useless but simply underutilized and this isn’t Sakura’s fault whatsoever.

💯

Yet for some reason the author would rather waste panels of Sumire sweating 24/7 than insert Kakashi or Sakura

Yep, that reminds me of when I used to be frustrated about how during Gaiden, Kishi opted to waste panels of Shin explaining his "survival of the fittest" ideologies (as if anyone gave a damn), rather than including the scenes of Karin flashing back to Sarada's birth (which he actively chose to exclude). I just don't understand the rationale behind these kinds of decisions, but hey, it's not my story, and Kishi and co. are at full liberty to write it how they want to.

Like if you’re not planning on adding them to the plot because you choose to focus on other characters then don’t just let the other characters wait in the dungeon until you pick them up and decide to add them again

Yeah, and hearing you say that reminds me of Anko. I really loved her character, and that's pretty much what happened to her after the Chuunin Exams. She had so much wasted potential.

I don’t even know why Sakura just stopped trying to become strong, like after achieving the Byakugou and all that she suddenly just became contented and while I know she isn’t power hungry, but I expected her to improve more knowing how Sasuke and Naruto has such a huge power-up

I suppose by the point of unlocking the Seal, Sakura acknowledged that she had already become strong enough to fight on the front lines alongside her teammates, and strong enough to help save Sasuke. That's all she really wanted strength for, and she achieved those things. After that, she focused on developing her career as a medic (and boy did she achieve that too), but unfortunately, there's just little opportunity or incentive to get stronger in this field.