#Think inking is just slapdash

[oodlesodoodles]

#I was so impatient with this one and it came out bad i think #Think inking is just slapdash #But i do like the layout #I probably wont revisit this as much as it eats my brains #But do u see my vision #Harry is sitting there after poking around and being told to stop poking around and he watches kim tensing up #Oh he doesnt like this at all. Empathy failure. Check again #He is very tuned in to whats happening. If you talked to him his ass wouldnt be listening #He brought you here to see this on purpose

[owmylasagna-blog]

InkED

Eddy gets a tattoo.

I imagine this takes place in their senior year of high school.

“What fresh hell are you two up to?”

The lanky teen in the beanie stood in the doorway of his best friend and boyfriend’s bedroom to find him lying face down on the floor, ass bare, with their other best friend hovering a hand at the ready with a needle. A small jar of black India ink sat open on the carpet.

“Oh hiya Double Dee,” Ed smiled innocently.

“This most certainly doesn’t look like your history presentation.”

“Very perceptive, babe. What does it look like?” Eddy sarcastically taunted as he got up on his elbows and dramatically batted his eyelashes.

“Don’t get funny with me, mister,” huffed Edd as he dropped his book bag on the floor, “and it looks like a mistake waiting to happen.”

Beside their slapdash tattooing setup was smoking paraphernalia, evidently already put to use from the acrid smell that clung to the air in spite of a paper-towel sploof thrown in the mix.

“Actually it’s a hot cherry.”

“Pardon?” Edd barked in response to Ed not so politely.

“Spicy on the outside sweet on the inside,” Ed clarified as he raised a crumbled page of sketch pad with a simple line drawing of a pair of cherries set ablaze. Edd’s eyes shifted from the page to Eddy’s buttocks where the image had been transferred with red marker. It appeared that he arrived in the knick of time: no punctures or pricks had been made yet.

“Stop reading into it so much, Lumpy. I picked it ‘cause it’s sexy.”

Every nerve in Edd’s body was still screaming as his vision bounced from the open ink jar sitting precariously on the exposed carpet, Ed’s bare hands smudged with drawing media, Eddy’s exposed buttocks, two open bags of chips and a half eaten jar of room-temperature queso, the subpar lighting…

No. This wasn’t happening, not like this. Edd took a few steps back towards the door.

“Stay! Don’t you - either of you - move a single muscle until I get back. You hear me?”

The seriousness of Edd’s tone seemed to sober up his friends just enough for Ed to complacently nod in agreement.

“Whereya goin’?” Eddy wined, turning onto his side.

“Five minutes, Eddy. Can you do that?” Edd pleaded through a clenched jaw. Eddy just blinked slowly as he tried to make sense of Edd’s behavior. He was at a loss.

“Sure. Whatever.”

And he was out the back door, zipping past the window in a flash as he broke into a run through Eddy’s yard. As Eddy and Ed waited for Double Dee to return, Eddy drew figure eights in the carpet with his finger and Ed watched mesmerized.

“Ya think Double Dee would wanna see the Sheldon and Sheldon Jr. tattoos I put on my foot?”

“Based on that response, I think you’d give him a coronary.”

“Like royalty?”

“Yeah, and you’re the jester.”

The two were startled when the door clicked and swung open. Standing in it was Double Dee, his hot breath condensing from the cold air, with a doctor bag grasped in his right hand. Closing the door, kicking his shoes off, Edd trudged over to his friends and got down on his knees. Opening the bag he produced a box of nitrile gloves, single use packets of antiseptic wipes, ointments, bandages, sanitary towels, a headlamp, and a rectangular enamel tray.

He layed a sheet of bench liner that came from his long forgotten “Dissection for Gifted Children” kit down on the carpet, placed the tray on it, and then arranged the ink bottle, unopened needle packets, and some of his own supplies inside in perfectly pristine order. As he worked, he silently huffed, hummed, and sighed. When he finally spoke, it came as a firm command.

“Wash your hands, Ed. With soap and hot water, please.”

Not wasting time, fully at attention, Ed hurried to Eddy’s bathroom.

“Ah I see. So you’re not gonna stop me.”

“Please, Eddy, I know you. If you want to do something there is no stopping you. I don’t care about the tattoo, I’m worried about you getting an infection. Now turn over onto your stomach.”

“Yes, sir,” Eddy replied eagerly, sort of liking Edd’s domineering tone, and did as he was told. He hadn’t bothered to pull his pants back over his left cheek anyway. As Eddy talked, Edd yanked at the waistband of his shorts, “Jeez, if you wanted me out of my pants so bad you could just a- AAH COLD!”

“Stop wiggling,” Edd grinned despite himself after swiping the alcohol wipe against his boyfriend’s ass cheek.

“Stop icing me!”

“You’re good,” a hand playfully smacked down on Eddy’s backside and both teens chuckled.

“You're better,” Eddy smirked at Double Dee. Through his semi-stoned heavy eyelids, Eddy gave him a look that Edd could recognize as genuine admiration. Edd’s body filled with warmth as he smiled back.

“I’m the best.”

He leaned in and caught Eddy’s lips in a kiss. Ed opened the door to the bathroom and chuckled.

“Ew. Cooties.”

“Here, Ed. Quick! Put these gloves on. We wouldn’t want you catching any of the highly infectious Cootie virus.”

“Glove me, Doc!”

Once the gloves were snapped onto his hands, the headlamp put on his head and turned on, Edd continued to instruct the next steps in the procedure. With a new, completely sanitized needle prepared it was time to start putting ink to skin.

Edd first felt the tickle of Eddy’s fingertips skim his arms, wrist, and then go to envelope his hand. He happily took the larger and somewhat rougher hand with its tiny scars into his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Eddy squeezed back even harder as Ed jabbed the first few pokes into his posterior.

“Now, Eddy, can you summarize for me the landmark Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century?”

#eene #ed edd n eddy #eddeddy #lasagnawords

[chiropteracupola]

Leviathan groom, please?

this (this being the tattoos-and-superstition story I've spoken about a few times before) is probably one of my favorite Hornblower fics, to the point where I've been working backward and forward on it for over a year as I try and fail to get it to be Just Perfect. trying to find the balance of exposition to explain the fantasy worldbuilding and actual plot has been very tricky with this one, especially as I haven't quite figured out just how either of those things works yet.

so right now, even though I like a lot of the current stuff I've written, I'm probably going to start over from the bones up, patching in the bits I liked from the first version as I go.

[SCRAPING SOUND AS A BIG CURTAIN IS DRAWN BACK]

basically, the structure that I have so far is 'too much exposition' -> [BIG HOLE] -> 'Bush wandering around in the snow' -> [SPOOKY DESCRIPTION I'VE NOT COME UP WITH YET] -> 'Bush having a long talk with a creepy thing' -> 'slapdash ending that's a little too goofy'

so the main points that need to get worked on are going to be streamlining the magic system and integrating the function behind it into the actual story (probably through some kind of opening Sailing Scenes), redesigning the creepy thing to fit better with the tone of the story overall, and of course, ironing the plot until it's nice and smooth.

I've had some difficulty managing stories with a larger cast in the past, and I think I'd like to push myself with this one and try harder to make the settings feel populated and living, which I think will be more compatible with the eventual redesign of the antagonist. I do think a face-stealing shapeshifter still meshes very nicely with Hornblower's Issues™️, but doesn't really work with the rest of the setting that I'm devising here. so it's back to the drawing board on the creepy thing, and I'm going to do a little research for inspiration before I settle on anything this time. rather than the face-stealer, I think a more standard Endless Barrow Party to get lost in/feel deeply uncomfortable at/charge boldly into on an ill-advised rescue mission will suit the two of them better.

and I'll probably have to pick a new title, as changing up the fairy-folk rules will mean that I lose the double meaning that made this particular one work so well. (it was always meant to be ambiguous whether it referred to Hornblower himself or to the face-stealer, since they're both hanging out somewhere in the middle of the sliding scale between husband and sea monster.) while it'll be a little said to break up my Boreas-lyrics tradition for Hornblower writing, I've been trying to switch to a snappier and more memorable titling system for some time anyway.

and if you're still here after reading all that, how about a scrap of the Exposition Brick that probably won't be coming back in the rewrite:

Entering the navy young had many its disadvantages, but one solid point in its favor was getting the ink-workings on you. They worked the best when they were drawn in as early as possible, it was said, and Bush had had his since he was barely eleven.

With so many ways a boy could die aboard ship, there was at least one surely preventable, if the right precautions were taken. The right knot in the right place, and they’d be tied down tight to the mortal world as well as human art could make them. There were other charms of much the same theory, hold-fast and love-stay-true and safe-at-sea, all with their own mark and their own meaning, but the faith men put in those, though strong, wasn’t nearly so hardy. Bush had seen nearly every other form of ink-workings fail at one time or another, but never these two, the sort given to the youngest and most likely to be stolen away.

He’d even heard the discussions among the hands, the boastful tales of a man claiming he’d nearly been spirited off as a lad, and would have been, too, if not for the marks on the backs of his hands. Sadder stories as well, for as he passed by on his rounds, he’d noted whispers of someone’s sister’s son stolen away, nephews and cousins and brothers gone under the hills never to be seen again. Why don’t they just put the protections on them proper-like, one man would say, and the other would shake his head, and mutter that such people couldn’t be reasoned with.

Whether it was that the ink-workings simply didn’t work on shore, or that the minds of those dwelling on land couldn’t wrap around a too-permanent way to keep their children safe, it still was that those on land went without the marks. Bush wasn’t sure quite why, nor did he himself understand exactly how the tattoos on the backs of his hands kept him safe. He was a plain sailor, not an artist or a witch, and he was content to trust rather than to make an attempt at unpicking the workings of the art.

#em writes stuff #I need a casual hornblower tag #disclaimer that I said I would Talk About my fics! which is a promise that this technically does fulfill! #thank you for sending me the sort of ask that I can so easily use for rubber duck debugging a story! #hope the look behind the curtain was not too incomprehensible - this one has been bouncing around in my head for too long for sense #and also my tendency to Categorize Cryptids and Creatures has (I think) caused me to invent some terms again #for the full visual experience you should also note that the curtain is in fact a shark-patterned shower curtain.

[splitting-infinities]

Arthur has never carved a pumpkin before, but Faroe needn’t know that.

He does, however, have the good sense to spare her the sight of him divesting the pumpkin of its innards. The sight of it was repulsive to him, a grown adult, and he has a feeling Faroe won’t eat the pumpkin seeds he just put in the oven if she finds out where they came from.

With the green, fresh scent of salt and raw pumpkin permeating the tiny kitchen, Arthur goes and gets Faroe from her nap. While she rubs sleep from her eyes with a clumsy fist, he lifts her up and sits her on the counter next to the pumpkin. At the sight of it, she perks up instantly.

“Are we?” she asks.

“Yes, we are,” he smiles.

Continue under the cut or read the whole thing on AO3!

“What kind of face do you want to put on it?”

“Happy,” she decides immediately. “Not scary.”

“Okay. I’ll help you draw it.”

He lets Faroe hold the pen, and gently helps her trace an adorably imperfect, crooked smile on the pumpkin. While the dark ink dries, he lays out more newsprint under their workspace to catch any mess. Faroe kicks her legs against the counter in excitement.

“Now comes the hard part,” he tells her. “We’re going to cut out the shapes.”

“Can I do it?”

“Yes, I’ll be right here to help you.”

She grins beatifically at him, and Arthur forgets all his nerves. He is now accustomed to constantly feeling out of his depth - he has no idea what he’s doing as a single parent, and fully expects that someday the pressure to avoid screwing up her childhood is going to do him in. But he hides all of this anxiety under a placid smile back at her. She can never know that he feels lost and never knows the right answers. To her, he’s the one who can solve all the problems, and will always be there to make things better. She’s right only on one of those counts.

“Careful now,” Arthur says. He guides Faroe’s tiny hands until they wrap around his, and together they grip the carving knife. “Watch out, it’s sharp.”

“Sharp,” Faroe repeats happily. “Okay.”

She lines the point of the knife up against the soft orange flesh, right where one of the corners of the future jack-o-lantern’s grin will be.

“Here?”

“Yes, are you ready?”

“Mhm,” she nods. Together, they push forward, and the blade pierces through the pumpkin. “Whoa,” she giggles.

“Having fun?”

“Uh-huh!”

The carving takes longer than Arthur thought. It’s hard work, and getting the grin just right takes concentration that frankly neither he nor Faroe possess. So they do it a bit slapdash, but that’s alright. When they set aside the knife at last, the finished face looking back at them is goofy and somewhat Cubist. It’s perfect.

It’s nearly sunset now. Arthur finds a small candle that got tossed in the junk drawer years ago and pulls his lighter from his pocket. “I’m going to do this part, I don’t want you to burn yourself, okay?”

“Okay,” Faroe says. She watches him eagerly as he places the candle inside the hollow pumpkin and lights the wick. Arthur’s thumb complains a bit when he accidentally gets a bit too close to the flame, but he hardly notices because his eyes are on his daughter.

Her face is enchanted, mesmerized. She reaches for the lid to put it on. “Can I give him his hat?”

“Sure.”

-

They bring it outside with them and sit on the porch to admire their handiwork. The finished jack-o-lantern is lit with shadow and dark orange light, flickering through the open grinning mouth.

“Look at what we made,” Arthur says, watching Faroe’s tiny face in the dim light of the candle glow. “Do you like it?”

“It’s so pretty!”

“I agree,” he chuckles. 

Is there more to the world than knowing Faroe is happy? No, he doesn’t think so. 

“Happy Halloween, Faroe.”

#malevolent podcast #malevolent #malevoween2022 #arthur lester #faroe lester #pumpkin carving #oneshot #mini fics! #happy halloween

[theenglishnarwhal]

I may have accidentally written up some of my wise-crackiest, cleverest dialogue to date. Daresay I’m into it, and I insist you give it a read because OH GOD I LOVE MESSING WITH ALLITTERATION IT’S AWESOME

Beidou doesn’t use the word listless. As a woman with the sea in her blood and thunder in her heart, she knows damn well that a listing ship is a losing one, and to be listless is to have your ship sailing across the seas. So, yeah, she thinks, she’s listing right now, picking at a spicy meal from Wangshu with her best friend Ganyu. Leaning off to the side, toying with a chunk of flash-fried meat rather than feasting and having fun. For her lover? She can see being listless as her way of losing course. Ningguang is a woman of order and inquiry, with ink in her veins and law as her voice. “You miss her, don’t you?” Ganyu cuts in, halfway through her second side of sweet, sticky rice. “Um. The Tianquan, that is. I’m sorry she didn’t have time to see you today, though! She’s just swamped in her work.” The apology sends wind through Beidou’s sails, true, and she sends her best friend a captain’s grin. Then a smaller smile, Beidou’s smile, less slapdash and swashbuckle and far, far more honest. “Nah, don’t worry about it, Yu. I’ve got friends and a fleet to unload, Ningguang and I’ll find time,” Beidou lies, then shakes her head. “No, it’ll be a while, you know that, but we’ll get dinner before I leave the harbor.” “You always have to treasure what time you have, Beidou,” Ganyu nods sagely. “We can’t always take what we want, and I’m sure that in a few years you’ll be able to spend every day together! U-um, if Ningguang starts deferring some of her duties, like we’ve discussed.”

#beiguang #beigguang #writing #fanfic #genshin

[containatrocity]

THE TECHNOPHILE: CYAN CANNE

You can be all I got, what's the difference? You and me and a lot of bad decisions.

"I'm Silas Canne, though most everyone just calls me Cyan or Cy. I'm 27 years old, and I'm an entertainment broker and tech repairman here in Huntsville. My van broke down outside of town in 2021, and I've been here ever since, which means technically, I'm just visiting. The townspeople and the commune seem largely distrusting of me, which I suppose I can understand. I do not hunt, I do not gather, and in order to survive, I've learned to trade in hobbies and comfort- little reminders of a world larger than Huntsville, and the suffering it's wrought. My vice of choice was once heroin, though I'm a year clean, and it's found itself replaced with self destructive tendencies."

Name: Silas Neon "Cyan" Chiyoda

Aliases: Cy, Cyan, Neo, Day-Glo (A nickname given by an ex.), Tin Can, Robotboy (given by Duck Romero), Cyan Canne (Canne in itself is an alias- his last name is Chiyoda.)

Age: 27 (October 28th) [Scorpio]

Sexuality/Gender: Bisexual Cis Male [He/Him]

Personality: Silas can come off as a bit of a stick in the mud, difficulty understanding social cues and the way others communicate often makes him seem out of touch or alien, but after 26 years of being 'other' he's more than worked out how to better communicate- even if it means requesting elaboration more than once. Quick witted, sarcastic, and capable with technology more than people, Cy's draw to others is confusing for him, though he's well aware he's attractive, he doesn't think his personality is endearing enough to make anyone tolerate him in the long-term. While he's not opposed to a little drink, dancing, and self destruction tangled in the sheets alongside a stranger, he doesn't often bother getting to know people beyond a working or completely physical relationship, exceptions to this seemingly made for the people willing to take him in to live in their homes. He's not particularly trusted, and he accepts this fact- he's an outsider, after all, and his talents with technology and surveillance- having helped several people up their home security with a slapdashed collection of tech- makes his presence... troubling, for some.

Occupation: Entertainment Dealer and Technology Repair Man, His tendency to be a digital media hoarder when he lived outside of Huntsville has left him in possession of hundreds of large capacity drives with movies, games, tv, music, and books preserved on them, and he rents these out to the townspeople in exchange for their goods, services, and food- he also does general repair on the failing tech around town, though it's slapping a bandaid on a gaping wound, at this point for some of the systems, and he's started trying to set up replacements.

Affiliations: The town of Huntsville

Scent Profile: Something sharp, spicy, and expensive, Cyan's smelled like the same designer cologne since he arrived in Huntsville. There's notes of pomegranates and wine, orchids alongside the cedarwood and spice that clouds him. It's cut through now with the smell of sweat and electronic smoke, a biting, chemical scent that overpowers all else, sometimes.

Aesthetic: Digital interference, thousands of wires coiling and alive, tentacles of information sprawling from one central point and winding tight around their prey, holding hostages in the lines of code. A half finished bottle of hennesy and track marks hidden under dark tattoo ink, a history of violence marked in scars and bruises, but these wounds are old and healed. Who he was is who he isn't any longer. A new beginning surrounded by the ever-present threat of death.

Bitter ends to the nights- I'm along for the ride. Out of breath, out of time Everything has a price.

CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE AFTER ARRIVAL.

Upon his van's breakdown- and the subsequent briefing from the gruff old game warden about his continued survival in a town like Huntsville, Cy took the information... poorly. He'd insisted everyone in town was crazy- at least, until the ghosts turned up and nearly tore him to pieces. Made a believer only through threat of death, it's a reluctant presence that Cy holds in town, but one that's colored with pity for those around him. He was quick to set up his broker system, offering rentals to the people of town for drives and computers capable of reading the content held within so they could embrace the things they'd missed in nearly 10 years contained in the paradox.

He similarly works to repair and upgrade the things he can help with through salvaged parts and the things visitors tend to bring through to keep them as modern as he can manage, keeping phones running and stocked with media, ipods functional and intact, and distributing the repaired tablets, laptops and phones he'd had with him to those who needed them, upon his arrival. It's his own personal system he favors, a self-built PC set up in the house he stays in that makes up the largest part of his time, making maps, time tables, and surveillance sets for the people of Huntsville- his compulsion to know and understand making him ignore that which he has no answers for- the ghosts- and focus entirely on the human element, though this often leads to him saying things he shouldn't know about people directly to their faces.

#c.aesthetic #c.bio #c.threads #c.musings #c.headcanons #huntsvilleintro #Synthetic Love;

[briarsartblog]

Great news on my technical progress! Two weeks ago (and I think even a week ago) I was really struggling to use the more flexible speedball 100 over the zebra G but now that I go a new nib holder and a bit more practice it is much more achievable. Theses are still pretty slapdash just before bed doodles but I am so happy with my improvement!! I can draw halfway consistent lines and vary the thickness by changing pressure (I still struggle to very pressure in a single stroke deliberately but it's going well)

Yay <3

TIp To Self: gotta watch pen angle when using the 100, I found the zebra G allows a more obtuse angle while maintaining ink flow but the 100 wants to be almost at a right angle

#pen drawing #briarb #dip pen

[ecrivant]

on intimacy pt. 1 | levi ackerman

(levi ackerman x reader)

as the trauma of soldierhood begins to weigh on you, you turn to levi for comfort.  a quiet exploration of damage and the intimacy shared by two.  read pt. 2 here.

a.n. – stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a fanfic where the reader has a tender encounter with levi in his office.  i think i’m on the brink of discovering a writing trope no one has ever used before!  don’t worry, we explore the incertitude and conflation of platonic and romantic intimacy, i swear i’m different, and i swear this is a character study and not just wish fulfilment.  

touch is the reader’s love language.  

word count: 1.9k

Ferric miasma hangs in the air, low to the earth, a gauzy tulle of dawn fog.  Beneath it, terra inked with sanguine dew.  You stand above your parents’ mangled corpses, still.  Blood roars in your ears, your face pulsates, hyperaware. You hear your eyes dart between your mother’s slack jaw, ripped from the cheek, and your father’s deranged expression, one eye hanging from the socket by a tendinous cord. Freckled complexions washed in red.  Lifeless amputees, limbless, silent, barely even there.  

An immense umbra engulfs you; you have no feeling as you’re lifted into the air, ascending towards an obscure ether, pulled away from the statuesque corpses that lie beneath, overlooking a perverted vignette, figures composed in beguiling agony, a foreground washed in vermilion.  A feverish vise clutches your unmoving form, and soured iron permeates your nostrils as teeth crush your skull—you hear the sickening crunch of bone, the pulping of your brain as it seeps between fractures, but you feel nothing at all.  

You woke with a heave in the dark of the barracks, unclenching your teeth and forcing your jaw apart.  You searched in the dark until eyes find the dawn light.  Everything was still; no one had stirred at your outburst.  Why dream of them now? Your index and middle fingers wrapped around your wrist, feeling rapid palpitations, matched with an inbound throbbing behind your eyes.  You focused on a gouge in the wall opposite and listened to the steady breathing of your teammates, slowing your pulse, grounding yourself.  

An ambient hum hung in the air: the world’s low, ceaseless murmur.  In the white noise, you heard remnants of a familiar melody—something quiet your mother used to sing to you, something formless and only heard in that vague void between wakefulness and sleep.  Knowing it wasn’t there yet still listening intently, you grasped onto the wispy tones, and found yourself lost in nothing, and allowed yourself to fall into a dreamless sleep.  Your mind produced no images, yet you sensed an incoming danger that left you restless.  

You came to with Mikasa gently shaking your shoulder.  Her expectant gaze hung above you.  

“Training starts in ten minutes.”  Said with gentle urgency.  

You were inexplicably struck still, as if the thought of getting out of bed was paralyzing.  You sat up but didn’t move further.

“Don’t wait up.”

You felt a hand in yours as Mikasa kneeled, quietly examining you.  Her concerned eyes would be too much; you kept your gaze in your lap. She ran her thumb over your hand, as if to ask if you were okay.  No response, and her hand slipped out of yours.  She drifted towards the door.  

“I’ll tell Captain Levi.”

—

A lifeless automaton, you eventually found yourself on the field just as everyone began warming up, feeling Levi’s eyes on your face as you wordlessly slipped into the drill.  

“I expect punctuality at all times, not just when you feel like it.”  Like a knife.

Steel eyes, annoyed.  Concerned.  You let the reprimand linger as dull shame settled in your chest.

“Yes, sir.”  You apologized with your gaze.  

—

Your tailbone struck the ground hard, birthing a shockwave that emanated through your spine.  You made no moves to get up.  Your respiration had ceased, and you fought against your sternum for breath. Hands gripped at loose soil, desperate for tangibility.  

Eren began to gloat but cut himself off when you didn’t respond to his outreached hand.  

“Hey, what’s with you?”  He kneeled as he spoke, leveling himself with your gaze.  

You swallowed hard, tasting tears.  Panicked. The thought of death lorded over you, taunting, ready to crush you underfoot.  

“I—I don’t know.”

You were vaguely aware of Eren calling for Mikasa, strong hands lifting you, bodies supporting your dead weight.  The infirmary, hazy voices, ‘trauma,’ disembodied grey eyes, nervous observation. Void, melting away, drifting.  

Your sleep was restless, filled with ravaged bodies, flayed flesh.  As you finally awoke, you watched the glistening sinew creep up the walls, branded into your vision.  Wordless, fearful babbling.

A strong hand pressed into your shoulder, pushing you back onto the mattress.  Levi stood above you, expressionless, eyes roaming over your face. His hand remained until your expression calmed.  The croak of your voice, your uncontrolled panic—you were humiliated.  Eyes looking anywhere but him.

“I’m sorry, Captain.”

He scoffed.

“Stop thinking.”  He let go of your shoulder and held out a glass of water, bringing it to your lips to drink.  A worthless invalid.

He stayed with you for hours.  Neither spoke.  At one point he asked if you wanted him to leave—you admitted you didn’t.  

Your hand rested on the edge of the bed, and he grabbed it without thinking.  In spite of yourself, your face flushed at the contact.  His touch was comfort, an unspoken assurance.  When the nurse came to check on you, his grip stayed firm.  

You were released the next day to a group of concerned teammates.  Levi ordered them to stand down, but the words of your superior were no match for their worry.  Despite insisting you were fine, they treaded lightly, on eggshells.  Eren led you to the dining hall, a plate already prepared and sitting at the table with Mikasa and Armin.  

“Please treat me like I’m normal.”  Spoken with a hollow smile, a slapdash attempt at humor, normalcy.  

Flushed, Armin rushed to insist you were normal; Eren denied any special treatment; Mikasa watched you carefully, as if she were afraid a heavy gaze would break you.  You did feel the weight of her gaze, this time meeting her eyes, and you felt your chest swell.  Her concern cut through you, warming your face.  You tried to calm the rest of your friends down, but things began to escalate when Connie and Sasha joined in, mentioning they were glad you weren’t mentally ‘fucked up,’ to which Jean shushed them.  Glares and overlapping, apologetic rambling overwhelmed you.  You were grateful for their concern but only in doses.

Levi eyed your antics from his seat, recognizing your discomfort.  He crossed the room in long strides, silencing the table with his arrival.

“Can I speak to you in my office?”  His words were deadpan, but his eyes held no malice.  You nodded, grateful he read you, and followed him out of the room.

—

“You’re not to train for the rest of the week.”

You couldn’t suppress your shock, which quickly turns to shame.

“Captain, I’m sorry.  I won’t let my emotions interfere—”

Levi rolled his eyes, cutting you short.  You shifted from foot to foot, unsure of what to say.

“It’s not punishment. Believe it or not, I’m actually concerned for your wellbeing.”  Deadpan. You had assumed you would have acclimated to his way of speaking, but it still gave you pause.  You couldn’t help you felt patronized by him.

You stood in front of his desk, looking at his cheeks, his forehead, feigning eye contact.  His gaze bore into you.  

“You’re not a special case. This has happened before.”  Again, that equivocal, Levi-specific dialect. Did he mean to comfort you?  You stayed silent, implicitly encouraging him to explain.  

“It just—it happens when a soldier isn’t,” he paused, breaking eye contact, choosing his words carefully, “hardened.”  

He returned his gaze to you.

“It doesn’t mean you’re weak, brat.  You’re just still sensitive.”

You processed his words.

“How do you become strong?”

His eyebrows raised, fractionally.  He set his jaw, his neutral expression returning.

“I just said this doesn’t mean you’re weak.  You are strong.”

“I mean, how do I avoid more of these episodes?”  You didn’t mean to raise your voice—you despised the desperation that slipped through.

“Just watch more people die.”  He eyed your reaction, taking in your surprise.  

“I don’t mean to be callous: it’s just a matter of exposure.  Each death you see or cause or cannot prevent carves at your insides until you’re… hollow. And you have to let it happen.”

You were silenced, winded by a realization of a reality of unceasing cruelty.  It was something you had always known, but to be faced with it so explicitly? You felt eviscerated.  

“Many die before they reach that point—empathetic and afraid.”  

Your knees threatened to buckle—Levi was quick to rise and support you.  He apologized for going too far.  

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

You insisted it was not his fault.  He only spoke a truth you were simply not ready to face.  Levi led you over to his desk chair and you shakily sat.  He stood before you, unmoving, before walking away, giving you space—moments later, deciding against it, he turned at the heel and returned, kneeling in front of you.  He grabbed your hands, and you felt his breath on your face.  Meeting his gaze, you saw an uncharacteristic softness, iris wavering.  You wondered if he liked speaking to you, holding you.  You wondered what would happen if you placed a chaste kiss on his lips.  Levi’s smell struck you—it was familiar, nostalgic; it reminded you of home.  Of a past, forgotten.  Of the sunshine streaming through your grandmother’s kitchen window, the smell of your father’s tobacco pipe, your mother’s vanilla perfume.  You couldn’t remember the last time you imagined any of them alive, rather than lifeless viscera.  

You leaned forward and pressed your lips to his, retreating as fast as you had advanced.  It was chaste, demure, and you watched Levi remain motionless, wide-eyed.  Red shame crept up your neck into your face, but you instead focused on his shock—what was the last thing that truly surprised your captain?

Your captain—captain.

Reality set in and your eyes widened in horror.  Impulse driven by an entirely constructed, drunken, nostalgic familiarity.  You felt more faint than you had in days.  It wasn’t even an especially passionate moment, more awkward and quiet and, frankly, underwhelming.  Maybe that was what made a first kiss special: the unique mundanity of it.  You wished you could revel in the indistinctness of the moment—but instead, you fearfully eyed Levi, half-embarrassed, half-angry that you would so blatantly and thoughtlessly overstep that boundary.  You retraced your thoughts: had you ever been captivated by Levi, or were you caught up in the moment of comfort he offered you?  The intimacy of familiarity, amity?  Maybe a bit of both.  

You watched as he finally recovered, defaulting to his normal expression.  He didn’t have a tell, except for the deep red that tinged the tips of his ears.  He pulled away, returning to his standing position and cutting you off before you had the chance to speak.  

“Don’t apologize.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”  He spoke firmly, softly.  Idiosyncratically Levi.

Emboldened by some deep irrationality, you spoke, not shying away from his gaze: “It felt nice, sir.”

He was silent again, short-circuited by your boldness.  You hung, suspended, in the tension of the room.  He eventually confirmed your statement, agreeing.  

“It did.”  Bewildering for the both of you.

You insisted you needed to go back to your room and try to get some sleep, a cumbrous mess of meaning and filler words, and Levi didn’t stop you.  There was no declaration of love, nor did he beg you to stay the night with him.  You stood up and left, and as you shut the door, you looked back and caught a smile break through Levi’s look of consternation.

— 

haha!  part 1 of 2!  i know we’re all horny and want levi to just ravage us, but i honestly think he wouldn’t know what to do with intimacy and physical touch and i will die on this hill if i have to!  anyway, feedback and constructive criticism is always appreciated!

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot #snk #attack on titan imagine #attack on titan x reader #aot imagines #aot x reader #levi ackerman #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi x you #levi x reader #levi ackerman imagine #writing!

[littleeyesofpallas]

Was chatting with a coworker the other day and two things crossed my mind...

that I've been at this weeb shit so long that I forget what I just sort of take for granted and what might not be commonly known little factoids, and

that VIZ's attempt at a monthly Shonen Jump magazine has been gone so long most people probably never saw them. (nevermind the old RAIJIN Graphic Novels that tried the same thing)

So, here's some fun little things you might not have known about manga if you've only ever read English publications and/or digital scans...

For one, there's the matter of print formatting... In general, Japan actually uses their own standards for print that tend to differ from those in the US; The JIS(Japanese Industrial Standards) series A and B. Magazines like the typical anthology format manga are printed in JIS B5, which is comparable to the US Letter standard, or the ISO A4.

This was the same format that RAIJIN Comics printed in as well, and although I don't have a copy of the old English Shonen Jump for reference, if memory serves they printed in the same format as well in an attempt to really sell that "authentic" manga feel. Sadly, I don't know that the effort or attention to detail was much appreciated. Neither published a volume comparable to a Japanese weekly or even monthly serial magazine, though --not by a long shot. But this might not be the most practical for comparrison, since there actually just isn't much of an English language equivalent format. (unless you count actual magazines that happen to include comic illustrations or miniscule comic strip segments)

Despite the mammoth size of a serial magazine, Japanese tankoban are actually smaller than the North American equivalent. But notably the Japanese small book format isn't just a matter of contending with nearest print standards... What I believe is the JIS B40(although I could be wrong) tends to be the standard print size of small books in general, not just manga, and it's a print size that is only marginally smaller than VIZ's standard size manga, but with the very particular benefit of being deliberately portable. The small difference in size is the difference between a Japanese manga fitting in my coat pocket where as the English equivalent can't.

(I realize I photographed a copy of Shonen ACE, and not Weekly JUMP, but I measured a copy of Weekly JUMP for the thickness and not the copy of ACE; the copy of JUMP was around 506pg, while the copy of ACE was 570pg. Those are both older though, and the most recent digital copy i have of Weekly JUMP actually had around 520pg)

And I don't think it's always addressed just what a difference there is, culturally, in how Japan approaches the print medium. It's kind of an old cliche by this point, and I don't know how accurate it's remained in the past decade or so, but the quintessential image passed around between comic nerds has always been the Japanese bullet train; A place packed with commuters all passing their transit time with isolated preoccupation with music and/or reading, with manga being the king of this time killing arena. And its not just about sheer popularity driven by interest, American comic vendors have long envied the sheer accessibility of manga in Japan.

Here in the U.S. we used to have a thriving newsstand retail scene for comic books, and a kind of similar ease of grab and go comic purchase, rather than the explicitly niche interest driven "direct market" model that has been slowly but surly strangling the comic market ever since. But in Japan serialized manga has remained in relatively quick, impulse friendly, arm's reach of readers on the go. And what lubricates that business model more than anything is price.

I still remember a time when VIZ dominated the English manga market by offering at $7.95(and am I crazy or am I remembering a time when it got down to $6.99?) but now'days it's settled on a low end of $9.99. You know how much the recent vol.29 of My Hero Academia goes for? ¥484. That's less than $4.50.

You know how much that big ass magazine with 500+ pages and 21 different series goes for? Do you think it's more or less than the little pocket-size tankoban? Did you guess something close to ¥290? That's less than $2.75. But how does something bigger in both page size and page count managed to sell for less???

There are a few secrets to that, but one is that the things are packed to the gills with ads. But that's the boring answer. The other feature contributing to keeping an accessible cost on weekly/monthly manga is something we don't think about much in the U.S.; it's the paper and print quality.

The nice little books are printed in what you might expect as far as starch white paper and clean black inks, but those big honkin' phone book(do people still know what phonebooks look like??) size magazines are printed on cheap recycled pulpy newpaper with typically rough print jobs. This is most noticeable in the quality of solid blacks, and when scanning the texture of "white" space.

(I tried to take individual photos of different series chapters to show off the fact that the paper is differently colored... but my phone's camera seems to be smart enough to auto balance that kind of thing when there's no other context to anchor it to. (It doesn't help that it's night and my lights have a harsh yellowing glow to them.) but on th left you can still kind of see the different paper colors; this particular issue alternated every 3 chapters between pink-ish, green/gray, a kind of off-white/gray, and sepia, but I've also seen blue-ish, oranges, and a different shade of yellow different from the sepia-ish one.)

Back in ye olden days when it came to fan scanlations, more slapdash teams and projects would often stumble over levels in photoshop (too much black and the pulpy paper texture shows up as grainy shadows, but too far white and the edges of lineart get crunchy and ugly) but those who had more robust readership and a regular streamlined flow of work, we'd actually go in and touch up the solid blacks and whites by hand. We'd also redraw art to erase overlaid text so the type setters could lay the new English in over top.

(Weekly Jump: Left, Bleach tankoban: Right)

They do however keep a few coveted color pages in better quality paper and ink. In contrast, the standard quality tankoban actually don't include color pages at all, and just print what had been color pages in grayscale. There are also all kind of irregularities between publishers and special editions and such, but on the most basic level this difference in quality both keeps serial prices down, while also incentivizing tankoban purchase.

In the U.S. we might still have the draw of an ad-free reading experience in our TPB, but the print quality between a biweekly issue and a TPB are basically the same. Incidentally, even though manga are generally drafted at a much larger scale than even the serial magazine proportions anyway, the scaled down size of the tankoban also serves to sharpen the image. When put side by side the nice clean tankoban print looks noticeably better than the serial.

Now'days the English scanlation scene seems to be conducted almost entirely through ripped digital releases (at least as far as I can tell with popular, regular weekly titles) which is great for quality, frankly, but it does kind of lack the charm and personal touch of a band of amateurs finding round about solutions to a convoluted bootlegging pipeline. But obviously I'm a little biased.

[edit]: Oops i posted this without really ending it in any sensible ro conclusive way... I feel like ive lost sight of the point since i first drafted this but I guess its mostly just me pining after if we could just get super cheap, disposable quality, bulk manga in that classic Japanese magazine model to work here in the states. I already tend to sell manga in big runs, even at $9.99+, and frequently I'll have customers put volumes back, or clearly want the next volume but just can't afford it and wait to come back. If I could sell these customers more volumes, and more importantly more titles, at the same price, I would love to. I would love to see these things fly off the shelves. I would love to see people keeping up with multiple series. I would love to see someone look at a 44vol long series and actually feel like that's a number of volumes they can afford.

[newsiegirlscout]

Lightfoot Quarantine Headcanons

(These are a few headcanons to pass the time with some more optimistic friends; stay safe and wash your hands!)

--So as suspected, Barley ropes the others into playing Quests of Yore first thing, as often as possible.

--Colt infamously waged a short-range attack on the gelatinous cube. It. Did not end well.

--Barley is an essential worker and he jokes about it being the first time he’s been considered essential once before Ian threatens to show up at his job and pull the whole “Barley special” bit.

--”What is this? A brother coming to pay calls at my place of work just to inform the other village folk how adeptly I handle my profession?”

--”Barley, be quiet and appreciate yourself or I’ll intentionally go the wrong way up aisles.”

--Laurel and Barley come back from work with masks at the same time, coincidentally in the same patterns. Ian walks down to Target immediately after he sees them just to get a mask that doesn’t have a dragon on it. 

--Barley quotes The Princess Bride at work in response to any reference to his mask and the customers love it.

--If Laurel and Colt don’t have to enforce the “No magic in the house” rule every other Tuesday--

--Many shenanigans ensue with using random things (moss, wildflowers, cool rocks) as assist elements to see what happens.

--Once Ian forgot he still had a splinter from practice and accidentally cursed Barley with a tickling cantrip. He never did hear the end of that one.

--Laurel jokingly "grounded" him for that one, to which Barley immediately declared since they were all on indefinite lockdown, the world was a lawless place and revenge-tickled Ian.

--Sometimes when Ian is really stressed out, Barley invites him to go for a “quest”. There, they drive past Ye Olde 7-11, grab some ice cream on the way up to Raven’s Point, pop the trunk, sit in the back, and just...watch the world go by for a little while.

(A la this amazing fanfiction which is *chef kiss*....I have read it....five times since lockdown? I’m okay.)

--Ian dislikes online classes, but Barley always counters with "Still better than shilling out $800 for textbook PDFs."

--It's also more entertaining than it should be to watch Barley rant about the scandal of charging full price for textbook PDFs.

--"I am a history major!! I should feel the ink and parchment beneath my fingers as strongly as the satyr playwrights of Greece did when they first penned the script! TAVISH OF ATHENS DID NOT WRITE 'OF SERPENTS AND STARS' TO CRASH WHEN TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE USING THE WI-FI."

--Blazey gets sooo many cuddles and has learned to squish under doors.

--Colt was unofficially kicked off the wi-fi during the most frequent overlapping Lightfoot class hours, so he plays with Blazey. As a result, Colt is now one of her most favorite people ever.

--The first time Ian got Blazey, Colt whistled for her, and she scrambled off Ian's lap and up to Colt, Ian pretended to be scandalized by her treachery.

--Blazey is also the best hot-water bottle for a cold night. Colt's friendship has absolutely nothing to do with the fact centaurs sleep in, essentially, nice stables.

--You think you need a haircut? Poor Colt’s tail got long enough to tangle with his back legs when he galloped five weeks in. While centaurs can wash and brush their tails easily, they are not quite flexible enough to cut them.

--The Manticore's Tavern is tragically understaffed for courtyard delivery; Barley pulls a shift now and again between his usual job and classes and the Manticore is unbelievably grateful.

--This boy can move orders like all-get-out, double the tip jar in three hours, and still spend most of his time on his phone or messing with Quest of Yore cards.

--Laurel and Barley pick up groceries and essentials weekly, but are notorious for forgetting that One Thing. Or two. Or five. Or vaguely remembering the list and happily checking out with a cart full of fruit juice and snack packs.

--The last few days before the next shopping trip inevitably become slapdash cooking competitions between two or three people at a time (or, if it’s really unsuccessful, pizza nights).

--Everything Laurel makes has a smiley face on it. Waffles? Sunny-side up. PB&J? Happiest meal of the day. Salmon piccata? Smiley face, comes with a note reminding you to do your best and show someone your friendly smile if she’s working on autopilot.

--Ian always attempts something elaborate, and it ends up as A) a decent four-star meal or B) fire.

--Barley’s entries always slap. You give him an egg, a pack of bacon, and half a box of spaghetti and he comes back with pasta carbonara. Nobody knows how he does it (there’s a rumor going around that he just throws it away and MordorDashes something when nobody is looking), but he does work with what he have and has a few sneaky cooking tricks.

--Every one of Colt’s entries is some form of queso griffin skillet, and there’s always way too much of it. He has a near-perfect record of wins by unanimous vote and Colt’s entries are lowkey anticipated all week.

--Near-perfect means he lost, once.....to the time Laurel and Barley teamed up to make a better queso griffin skillet.

--There wasn’t even any actual queso in the house, good lord. 

--The boys stay quiet and inside for one (1) day and it's because they were building a LEGO castle.

--At some point Laurel changes into pyjama pants in the middle of the day. Ian asks her about it ("Mom, shouldn't you, uh, be wearing pants?") and she counters with "Why?"

--Ian leaves and comes back in pyjama pants.

--Colt has some kind of squad groupchat which he checks for a minute once in a blue moon. (There are few calls to go on, so it’s mostly, “My girlfriend’s kids liberated my hair clips and are serving a three-minute house arrest.” or “The eldest just put peanut butter on scrambled eggs, now that’s a crime.”) 

--Long story short, someone offers a giant roll of butcher paper and even as he trots over to pick it up, Colt knows it’s the worst decision he’s ever made.

--It is.

--Ian and Barley get super excited when they first see it and spend days drawing or playing games on it in table-length sheets. 

--Laurel gets tired of scooting past them every time she tosses something in the overflowing recycling, so she tapes them up like wallpaper with gold stars and compliments .

--Ian gets embarrassed when he first sees them, but Barley takes five seconds to pull a turnaround power move and start making a big deal about his stickers, especially in comparison to Ian’s.

--”Dearest mother! As you see here, Iandore has earned a green star for his magnificent drawing of a hippogriff--”

--”That was a hippogriff? I thought it was Mr. Nakamura, from the dry-cleaner’s. He loved it on FaeBook, even has it printed out and framed in his apartment!”

--”Ian has earned a green star for his magnificent drawing of Mr. Nakamura, but my, very similar picture of a pegasus has been acknowledged with but an orange star. Orange is the colour of defeat.”

--Absolutely, they would do faerie lights and bunnies in windows.

--Barley unsuccessfully proposes that fencing, ultimate frisbee, and archery are socially distanced sports (until you hit someone, that is), but he and Ian are kings of geocaching.

--Ian is content to read or draw by himself, but Barley is always a fairly affectionate person. He got a minor cold at some point and had a six-foot yardstick propped up in his bedroom just to lightly smack Barley with when he got too close.

--Ian reads the entirety of that one really long fantasy series (yes, that one, with the dragons) and soon becomes more or less illiterate.

--Too many conversations have opened walking in on Barley throwing sticky hands at the walls (yes, like Alex Hirsch) and asking, “Can I have some?”

--Colt is about six feet long and is infamous for asking in full Cop Manner whether people who won’t wear masks or want to see managers are “having a problem.”

--Laurel manages just to keep her sanity mostly because she is always down for a pillow fight.

#onward #ian lightfoot #barley lightfoot #headcanons #onward headcanons #laurel lightfoot #colt bronco #yayyyy now stay inside

[windup-dragoon]

28. “I think you are the sweetest thing.”

Pinterest Prompt: @whitherliliesbloom 

Word Count: 1,303

A vista of endless ocean lay spread out before her. The surface calm and unbroken, glittering as if embedded with long forgotten jewels beneath the afternoon sun. Where sea met sky was near impossible to judge, the hues blending together like paint to canvas. Beneath her the jetty rocked and creaked with each beckoning pull of the tides. A lullaby of rolling waves against the rocky shore and a summer breeze whispering her tune. 

Kirishimi knew this place. Even should her eye sight fail her and leave her to the darkness, her soul would still recall. A fullness in the beating of her heart, a swelling in the pit of her stomach that made her want to sing and dance and cheer. 

Home. 

This was home. 

The word felt foreign, even to her, but no other would describe it. 

Home... 

Kiri twirled on her heel with a new found eagerness, a desire to see her village. Her people. Her family. Her heart thundered beneath her breast in anticipation. To see those familiar huts she had helped build countless times as typhoons came and went; to see the colorful tapestry freshly woven and dyed, out to dry in the brilliant summer sun. 

The heel of her foot had but only touched the wood of the dock when her breathing hitched, caught in her throat. The jetty settled beneath her as she gave pause, the village still teeming with it’s routine busywork. Sunlight came down through the thick palm leaves in sheets of golden light and set the village aglow in an ethereal visage. 

She felt young again. A child. So new and fresh to the wonders of the world. Watching as the fishermen readied nets for the next mornings haul, listening to the distant laughter of the children playing. 

“Kiri?” 

Her vision, so intently focused on the view before her, shifted suddenly at the beckoning of her name. Another pulse jumped in her heart. A phantom voice she had yearned to hear over the long years away from home. From her misadventures in Eorzea, to sleepless nights in Ishgard and beyond; she would have given anything to hear it again. And now, so clearly as if a bell at her ear, it called. 

“Kiri, is that you?”  Lynawyb came before her like an answered prayer, her lips curved into a once familiar smile. Eyes as deep as the oceans depths searched her features as she moved closer, stopping shy of stepping foot on the dock. 

Lynawyb was a Roegadyn with skin that could have been mistaken for ice and ashy hair, twisted into a slapdash bun. 

Kiri could hear her own heartbeat racing in her ears, even against the hushed call of the ocean at her back. Her stomach knotted while her throat tightened. Tears sparkled in her lashes and threatened to fall. 

“Lynawyb...” She hardly recognized her own voice, broken through with a squeak. 

“Aye, lass. ‘Tis none other.” The roe confirmed with a nod of her head. Her smile, so full of warmth and so inviting, soon slipped away. “But tell me... Why are you here? Is there not great many deeds the Warrior o’ Light should be tendin’ ‘ta?” 

Cutting to the point, as usual. 

In reply, she shrugged with something of a sheepish smile tugging on her lips. “Well, ‘suppose there’s always somethin’ to be done. Is there no time for me to visit ya’? Surely the Scions will understand a vacation-” 

“Vacation? Kirishimi...” Lynawyb’s voice fell, as did her eyes. Silence fell between them with naught but the cry of gulls overhead to sing for them. When she lifted her gaze once more, tear tracks glistened across the crest of her cheeks. “Ya’ daft girl... Where do ya’ think we are?” 

Blood turned to ice in a matter of seconds. Her heart all but stopped in her chest as the vivid colors making up the village behind Lynawyb began to run like ink on parchment. Even the sky bleed it’s cerulean hues into the earthy tones of the huts and bright crimson of the tapestries. At its center stood Lynawyb, unchanged and smiling wistfully. 

“N-No... W-Wait, what’cha sayin’, Mum?” 

Lynawyb laughed but only an echo. “Mum, she says. Ya’ never called me that before. But I always thought of ya’ as mine.” More tears spilled down her cheeks, sparkling as they fell. “Full glad am I that I get ‘ta hear ya’ say it. I think you’re the sweetest thing, Kirishimi. And I am so proud of the woman ya’ became. Ya’ rose from nothin’ and now...” A sob interrupted her. “Now my daughter is a Warrior o’ Light.” 

Her throat felt as if she had swallowed fire. The muscles in her jaw began to ache with the growing tremble. She extended a hand, fingers searching for Lynawyb, for any purchase of this dream world. Tears streamed down her cheeks, falling silently into the ocean that threatened to swallow her and the jetty whole. 

But the roe did not reach back. Instead she offered another smile. The kind she reserved for those harrowing nights Kirishimi spent awake in misery, plagued by nightmares. A smile that filled her with a sense of comfort, that everything would be okay. Yet now it seemed almost bittersweet. Kiri choked on a sob, calling for Lynawyb with a broken voice. 

“Wake up and seize the day, lass. Ya’ got yer mates worryin’ ‘bout’cha. We’ll see each other again some day.” 

The dock beneath Kiri’s feet shattered in a thousand bits and splinters. The ocean, now a mess of blues and black hues, opened wide as a whirl pool. Her painted world began to fade and shimmer like a mirage, only Lynawyb’s smile remaining absolute. 

“I love ya’, Kirishimi.” 

- - - 

Miscolored eyes shot wide, her body pitching itself forward with the fear of falling still fresh in mind. But where she should have been greeted by the cold embrace of the oceans tide, only plush blankets were found. She looked about her, desperately searching for traces of Lynawyb through the haze of sleep that clouded her eyes. 

A room began to form around her, helped only by the smallest flicker of a lit candle at her nightstand. The scent of fresh rain rolled in from the opened window across the room, the heavy fabric of curtains gently fluttering with the breeze. She was almost disappointed. It wasn’t the familiar aroma of a storm at sea, but a spring rain in the forest. 

She twisted beneath the fresh linens that enrobed her but sucked in a sharp breath as pain blotted her sight. Just beneath her breast along her right side. Kiri instinctively reached to search for the cause of such alarming pain but found only fresh wraps secured tightly against her skin. Signs of blood were faintly blossoming beneath the crisp white fabric. 

Kiri sighed. Not because she had sustained an injury but for the loss of her dream. Lynawyb was right, as she often was. It was time to wake up. She would have drawn herself from bed if not for a soft whimper that filled the silence of the room. Mismatched eyes of red and blue looked about and widened. 

Much too late to her own liking she had finally noticed her sleeping on a chair at her bedside. A mountain of bandages laid nestled in the girls lap and twined with tiny fingers. 

“Illya...?” Kiri whispered as her heart sunk in her chest. The guilt of the situation weighed heavy on the dragoon. How long had Illya been at her side wrestling with these injuries while she dreamed of long forgotten places? 

Reaching over, careful not to disturb the lalafellin girl, Kiri placed her hand upon her head, soft as feathers. 

“You’re the sweetest thing, Illya. Sorry ‘ta worry ya’.” 

#|| Untold Stories #Illya skawi #whitherliliesbloom #THANKS FOR THE PROMPT FAM #and to your left we get to see Lynawyb who raised this unruly child #but loved her like a real daughter #although Kiri would have gladly stayed in the village with Lyna #seeing how hard Illya worked to save her just makes her all that more determined to keep at it #she can't die yet #alsO DON'T SCOLD HER WHEN YOU WAKE UP ILLYA #PLS

[askalt2d]

It goes well. It goes extremely, extremely well.

Stuart falls naturally into the role of cocky performer, smirking to the shrieks of the audience. He almost reminds 2D of Murdoc at times– but then Stuart will smile at him, so gorgeous under the stage lights and so clearly thrilled to have him there– specifically him, 2D– and all his worries melt away.

They play Ghost Train and 19-2000 to raucous applause, and Starshine to slow things down. It doesn’t work very well. The crowd cheers at every single thing they do, every word out of their mouths, shaking the walls of the pub that had seemed so big before but now feels absolutely tiny with this amount of people crammed inside.

To 2D’s surprise, 12D3 gets equally as enthusiastic a response. They all seem to know the lyrics, as silly as they are. He beams giddily, and Stuart can’t stop staring at him in wonder.

The audience picks up on this, too. “Kiss!” one person shouts out as they set up for the next song, and a swell of cheers and laughter backs her up. Stuart goes red, and his blush only increases as 2D gives him a slapdash peck on the cheek. The crowd goes nuts, and 2D grins for them. And for Stuart.

Some of the other requests make no sense, though– neither of them can figure out who Dirty Harry is, and playing a half-remembered theme song from the film doesn’t seem to work. Feel Good Ink is an utter mystery as well, and they get their first (very brief, and quickly drowned out) boo when Stuart asks where exactly Melancholy Hill is.

“We’re– we should’ve explained,” he says hoarsely, mopping sweat from his damp brow. “Me an’ 2D...we’re from the past. I know it sounds mad, but we’re from 1998. We just woke up a few weeks ago, and it was 2019. And then it was 2020, and that made even less sense.”

“And we’re married, apparently?” 2D adds, and jumps, startled, at the roar of applause it gets him. “I-I dunno, we just woke up in the same bed, an’–“ A catcall sounds through the pub, and he goes red.

“Anyway, what we’re sayin’ is that we only know about five of our own songs,” Stuart concludes. “But– but we could do covers, if you like?”

“Or...” 2D tugs Stuart’s sleeve, gesturing for him to step away from the mic. “I’ve– I’ve got sumfin’. It might not be good– I dunno. I was workin’ on it the other day.”

“You should go for it.” Stuart grins. “They’ll love it. I know I will, if it came from you.”

His heart pounding from nerves, and from his boyfriend’s words, 2D goes back to the mic. “Er, th-this doesn’t have a name,” he tells the audience. He takes the guitar from Stuart, and starts to play a simple melody. “But– I dunno. I ‘ope ya like it.” He clears his throat, and sings. “When– when you’re wakin’ up alone, in the mornin’...it’s gonna be a cold day.” The audience seems to know the song, to his surprise. 2D’s voice gets stronger as he keeps singing. “When you’re keepin’ everythin’ inside you, it can only hurt you...”

Stuart sits on the stool provided by the manager and takes a deep drink of his water, unable to take his eyes off 2D. The lyrics are sadder than anything he’s heard from the other man, but there’s a note of hope in his voice.

“But I tell myself, the sun will shine again. He–“ Here, 2D stumbles. He takes a deep breath, and pick up where he left off. “The sun will shine again, he holds it in his hands.”

Stuart’s breath catches in his throat.

“My mind is broken, will it stay that way? My delusions only turn into dreams that I didn’t think would come true...but you make me think my dream was always you.”

The crowd isn’t singing along anymore– not the lyrics 2D is singing, anyway– and Stuart can’t seem to be able to breathe. 2D isn’t looking at him, staring at his own hands as he plays the chords.

“You’re holdin’ your own sun, and my sun will shine again. I think that I’m in love...with who we will become.” He plays the same melody a few times over, and then stops. Stuart can see his hands shaking. “A-anyway,” 2D says, voice cracking. “That’s– sumfin’. I dunno.” He looks at Stuart, and there’s more fear in his eyes than the other man has ever seen. “Let’s– let’s do Punk.”

Stuart shakes himself. “Y-yeah.” He takes back the guitar as the crowd cheers. “That was...that was really good,” he tells 2D, once they’re out of range of the mics. “Did you– it wasn’t about–“

“I-I don’t wanna talk about it r-right now,” 2D says, eyes flitting to Stuart’s and then away. “I’m not...I’m not ready for th-that.”

Stuart puts his hand briefly on his boyfriend’s. “When you are, I’ll be here. I promise, bluebird.”

There’s a look in those dark eyes, when he hears that nickname. Like he wants to tell Stuart something– but then 2D glances at the crowd, remembering where they are, and the moment passes. “Okay.” He smiles at Stuart once again, grateful, and then turns back to their audience. “Let’s make ‘em happy.”

#scheduled post

[lesbianmonsterlover]

Waterfalls & Whirlpools (5)

Double post part deux!  The fifth installment of my camp nano project.

---

The sun has just begun to peek above the horizon somewhere distantly, the sky is still mostly dark but ever so slowly lightening and birds begin to wake from their nightly slumber.  Erin sits heavily at her desk.  It is possible that she’s suddenly begun sleepwalking and sleep writing, despite no history of it otherwise in her life.  She isn’t on any of those odd sleeping meds that sometimes make people do strange things in a fugue state.  If it isn’t her though, that means it has to be something or someone else, and the only response her brain can cook up is magic.  She doesn’t exactly feel...great, when she thinks about it that way.  What else could it possibly be though if not magic?  She isn’t willing to pull apart the book to find out, so with that resolved in her mind she returns her attention to the fresh passage in her journal.

I’m sorry it’s taken me some time to respond, things here are progressing at a fast pace and preparations cannot be halted, even for the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had.  We’ve settled in for the night though, after a rather long day at the armory and smithy.  Tell me about your work, what do you do?  I would suppose you can tell that I am something of a mercenary.  

‘No’ thinks Erin ‘I cannot.’  She supposes that it makes sense, in the context of the messages and now knowing what she knows about what the world on the other side of the page seems to be like.  She wonders what sort of something is progressing over there, what kind of adventure or battle they’re headed into.  Mercenaries tend to be hired by armies, right?  Right.  Well, that makes her feel a little bit inadequate in the face of likely a literal warrior who deals with death on a likely daily basis.  Still, Erin doesn’t have it in her to lie, besides what would she even claim to do that she could back up with enough knowledge that doesn’t make her look like a weakling any more than being a librarian does.  

I am lucky enough to travel with dear friends and work to keep the realm safe.  We handle niche problems that larger forces cannot.

“Am I reading a fucking D&D backstory?”  Erin vacillates between this being real and this being some kind of giant hoax being played on her by the town.  She suddenly regrets moving so far away from her care team and being here without a therapist.  Arthur had been the best, and was so very confident in Erin’s progress that he encouraged her to take this job so long as she would stay on her medication and continue practicing her mindfulness.  Sighing a little and rubbing her eyes, Erin decides once and for all to just...go with it.  If this is what’s happening, then she’s going to roll with it for now and keep evaluating things as time goes on.  

I wouldn’t have guessed you were a mercenary!  Considering that isn’t particularly commonplace in my world.  I am a librarian, I work in a small library at a school.  I didn’t love working in the city library system, and I’ve always enjoyed working with children, so being a school librarian was much more my speed.  It’s boring compared to what you do I’m sure!  But I enjoy it because it’s so quiet and predictable.  I find it hard to believe that the most interesting conversation you’ve ever had is with a librarian from small town Washington, but I’ll take it as the compliment you intended it as! 

Erin pauses briefly in her writing, considering what to ask next, whether it’s even appropriate to comment on the quest her writing partner is set to go on, when ink begins to flood the page again but not from her hand.  

Ah, don’t be so hard on yourself.  You’re a keeper of knowledge, it’s an important post.  Just because it isn’t dangerous doesn’t mean it isn’t impressive.  Besides, of course you’re the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had, you’re the only person I’ve ever talked to outside of our world.

“Well that sentiment is certainly mutual.”  Erin mumbles to herself out loud as she watches the writing seep to life.  

You’re certainly the only person I’ve ever talked to from outside of my world.  I keep wondering if I’m insane or if this is actually happening.  Magic isn’t real!  But apparently it is?  Or maybe this is one of those ‘sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ scenarios.  But I’m rambling, and I thought I only did that verbally.  

What do you mean magic isn’t real?

Erin is interrupted by a frantic and barely-legible scribble.  

I mean, at least in my world, magic literally isn’t real?  Except for apparently it is because we’re talking like this?  I mean, people have their own beliefs and whatever but there’s no like proof that magic exists.  It’s not like someone can just conjure fire or whatever, I’m hesitant to even tell anyone about this book because I’m pretty sure they’ll think I’m nuts and toss me into inpatient treatment because I’m essentially talking to myself. 

That’s the crux of it really, isn’t it?  There’s no one that Erin can show this to, no one that she can go to with this cool, weird thing that’s happening.  No one she can trust to share this with who would not immediately call for her to be evaluated for some sort of disorder.  It’s surprisingly easy to vent this into the journal, to get those anxieties out on the open onto the page.  The writing being scrawled beneath hers is frantic and once again barely legible.  It takes her some time to parse it out, and even then she isn’t one hundred percent on every word. 

Wait so you’re telling me that you don’t have access to magic at all?  But...how do you...how do you do anything?!  Does healing just take forever?  How do you treat illnesses?  Poisonings?  You’re telling me you’ve never been cursed?!  Can you at least enchant weapons?  How do you fight otherwise?!  You’re telling me you can’t even light a simple fire?!

You can almost hear the panicked voice on the other end, yelling about the lack of magic and all of the things she’s supposedly missing out on because of it.  “I mean, I can’t say I want to be cursed…”  Erin mumbles a little sourly, she’s almost pouting.  It feels a little judgmental but it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it.  “I can light a fire just fine, thank you very much, it just takes a lighter.”  She sticks her tongue out at the book as she talks out loud before drafting a response. 

Well, we’ve got technology?  We don’t really need to light fires that often, we might for pleasure in a fireplace or at a bonfire but we have electricity for heat and light, we have machines to help treat illness and we work hard to prevent it whenever possible with vaccines and immunizations.  We fight here I’d guess similarly to you guys in a lot of respects, although something tells me you all don’t have guns or explosive warfare.  If you could see a gun you would understand why we don’t need enchanted weapons, at least here in our world.  It’s not like we fight anything other than each other and the occasional wild animal.  No, I cannot say I’ve ever been cursed, at least that I know of.  

Erin watches the ink from her partner’s pen meet the page to start a word only to stop a few times.  Giggling to herself she leaves the book where it is for a few minutes to make a pot of coffee, bringing back a large mug of it doctored with cream and sugar.  Her writing companion had started and stopped a handful of times, leaving a smattering of dots and lines on the page before scrawling out a few more questions in a slightly steadier hand. 

Electricity like lightning?  You can harness that kind of raw energy?!  And you say it isn’t magic?!  

Erin laughs at that, taking a deep sip of coffee and trying to figure out how to explain electricity to someone whose only experience with it is in the form of raw lightning.  Of course electricity is terrifying, it can fry through you and stop your heart in seconds, or leave you with permanent injuries and melt off skin or even whole limbs.  Lightning strikes are no joke, and the damage they do can certainly leave you in awe of their power.  She herself doesn’t even really understand how it works, she knows enough to know that if she plugs her phone in, it charges.  If she puts a fork in an electrical outlet, it will kill her.  Something about resistance and ohms and circuits floats around in her head from her schooling, but nothing concrete or sure enough to do anything other than make her more confused.  “I mean I guess I could pull up a wiki article on the basics and do some transcribing…”  

That’s how Erin spends her early morning, trading messages back and forth with Urzash trying to explain the basics of electricity to them while being peppered with questions about how in the hell any of this could possibly work without killing someone. 

Well, a lot of people have died working with electricity.  It’s incredibly dangerous, it’s safer now than it’s ever been but especially in the early days a lot of people died because they didn’t know what they were playing with.

She completely loses track of time with this conversation and the rabbit hole she’s gone down, and it isn’t until her emergency late alarm goes off that she realizes she hasn’t even started frying the donuts, let alone showered or gotten dressed.  Her closing message is slapdash, apologizing but admitting to losing track of time and needing to leave like right now.  She feels a little bad about it, but doesn’t have time to dwell on it as she turns on the deep fryer before running to the bathroom to throw some dry shampoo in her hair and brush her teeth.  Grad school work, if nothing else, taught her about how to efficiently get through a routine in no time.  She’s only ten minutes late pulling into the school and running in with an apology about the donuts taking too long.  Mrs. Forrester laughs and waves off her apology as she pulls the foil covered tray from Erin’s hands.  “You can be late all you want if you bring me homemade donuts darling.”  

Erin blushes but laughs, pushing down the thoughts of the journal waiting for her back home and the reason she was actually running late this morning.  The unused dough sitting back in her fridge would get fried up later for her own donuts, and Mrs. Forrester didn’t need to know the dozen in the tray were only half the amount she had meant to prepare.  Breakfast is fun and quiet, the town gossip from Mrs. Forrester is pretty tame all things considered and mostly consisted of particular family rivalries that might rear their heads when it came time for classes to start.  “You’ve got to watch out for the Harrisons, by the way.  Their eldest daughter, Brianna, has been known to take books out of the library without actually checking them out in order to keep other children from using them, and has started teaching her younger brother Evan to do the same.  Their parents put a bit too much pressure on them for their grades and class position, so I understand where that instinct is coming from, but we’re working on teaching them better habits.”  

Erin sighs and snags a second donut from the tray (Mrs. Forrester already halfway through her third) taking a bite from the sugary cinnamon donut before taking a deep drink of coffee.  She could get used to this, listening to the older woman chatter on amiably while they drink coffee and eat sweets.  It’s bittersweet that Mrs. Forrester is retiring, but hopefully with enough of these early morning coffee dates Erin will be able to convince the older woman to keep meeting up occasionally outside of work.  The shrill ringing of the school bell interrupts her train of thought though, and Mrs. Forrester stands before recovering the donuts with foil and putting them in the bottom drawer of her desk with a wink.  “Alright darling, duty calls.  We’ll have some more of those at lunch, and you absolutely have to give me the recipe.”

#waterfalls and whirlpools #WLW #my writing #camp nanowrimo #camp nano july 2019 #lesbian love #lesbian fiction #lesbian romance #slow burn #female orc #fem orc #named character #fantasy

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 8/18 Word count: 2165 Summary: When Tobirama is exiled from the Senju clan without warning, without even the chance to plead his case, it feels like his life is over. What does he have to live for now without his older brother to believe in him? Captured by the Uchiha in his moment of weakness, Tobirama slowly learns to live again with the last people on earth he would have ever expected to care for - or to fall in love with.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the blog header!

Chapter 8

“Did you have an aneurysm?” Tobirama continued to stare in bafflement as Madara snorted.

“Is that any way to talk to the man offering you your freedom?” he asked. Tobirama pinched his brows together and hesitated, unsure if he should speak his mind or not.

“Perhaps not but is it the best idea to offer your worst enemy free rein of your home?”

“I wasn’t offering you free rein,” Madara corrected him with an overly casual shrug. “And you’re hardly our greatest enemy now. You’re not a threat and you’re not a bargaining piece; actually you’re kind of alright to have around, much as it pains me to admit that. So I figured I would make the offer.”

Running his fingers across the seals on his wrists, Tobirama watched the other man closely for any signs of duplicity. “The offer that I can stay and live here with you. In the Uchiha compound. In your house. As…what? Your new pet?”

“Why are you making this so difficult? Ugh, just give it here!”

Madara grabbed his arm and began to pick at the seal with his own hands, looking for the right characters to push his chakra in to in order to deactivate them. It took Tobirama clearing his throat and using his other hand to point it out for Madara to set him free with a simple press of one thumb. He took care of the second one just as quickly and then unlocked the cuff-style bracelets while Tobirama was still settling in to the sensation of being able to access his own chakra again.

Taking his arms back, Tobirama rubbed at one wrist with the opposite hand and dipped his head to stare at the ground while his mind raced.

“So you’re asking me to, what? Become an Uchiha?”

“Fire and flames, no!” Madara huffed out a startled laugh. “Half a minute ago you were in cuffs, I’m not about to slap an uchiwa on your back and call you brother right out of the gate. But…your situation is quite unique and if I must explain myself for you to understand then I have to admit I’ve grown sort of – maybe a little – fond of your presence.”

“Oh. Right.” His lip stuck when he caught it between his teeth but Tobirama paid that no mind, chewing harder with thought. “Would I be expected to…”

“No. I would not ask that of you.”

He looked up to see all traces of amusement gone from Madara’s expression, replaced with solemn understanding, and relief crashed through him with unexpected force. Until now he hadn’t realized that was even a worry but now he acknowledged that it had always been there in the back of his mind, the possibility that he might someday be forced to attend the battlefield and face his own kin.

Or the ones he used to call kin.

Nearly three months had passed since his exile, just under two months since he had been sealed and put to work around the Uchiha compound. Thinking about it now, he wondered if Madara had simply pitied him or if even then he had intended for Tobirama to stay. It wasn’t something he cared to have clarified but it was something he knew he would be turning over in his mind a great deal from now on.

“If I stay,” he began slowly, “I would like to earn my way. Just…not with laundry. I’ll stay if you promise I don’t have to scrub your dirty underwear anymore.” Something thumped pleasantly in his chest when Madara tossed his head back to roar with laughter. It felt a lot like his heart, jumping and fluttering with a feeling strangely close to fondness.

“Deal. No laundry except your own.”

“I suppose I can live with doing my own.”

“Nice!” Izuna tumbled in to the room then, entirely giving up the pretense that he wasn’t listening at the door. “Now we can spar, right? I’ve been going crazy without any good sparring partners. Aniki likes to sleep in when I like to train and Hikaku is always busy running around with the patrols.”

Tobirama tried to bite down the comment but it slipped out anyway. “Are you sure you want your ass kicked by a former slave? Can your ego even survive that?”

His old rival’s offended squawk was all but drowned out when Madara began to laugh again, bent over double with no shame and clearly not intending to defend his brother’s honor in any way. Tobirama smiled faintly at their antics. Staying here might not be the worst decision he would ever make.

Adjusting to life in the Uchiha compound didn’t sound like it should be a difficult task when he had already been here for months and yet to Tobirama it felt like removing the seals from his wrist had thrust him forward in to yet another completely foreign world. The clan members within the compound looked at him differently. Not in a friendly sort of way of course, not at first, but at least mostly without the hostility and suspicion he had almost grown used to. Moving around outside the house no longer ended with him hurrying back to avoid the stares that followed him everywhere he went. It seemed they had finally had enough time to get used to his presence.

Now he was met with cautious nods and children wound around his legs just the same as they did to all the other adults, no longer warned to stay away from him. Izuna dragged him out to an open forest clearing within the grounds specially set aside for sparring every morning that he could. And when they returned to the house they usually worked together to cook a massive breakfast for when Madara finally managed to drag himself out of bed.

During the day he spent his hours rifling through the surprisingly well-equipped library Madara unlocked for him. By the layers of dust he could tell that not many had bothered with the treasures within for a long time but they found a new life in his hands as he learned the clan’s history, learned the truth of the rumors other clans told about them to cast them as villains. When he wasn’t learning he used the ink and paper freely provided to him and painted seals – proper ones, not the slapdash copy method they had been using until now. Never anything that could specifically be called a weapon but earning his place by making things useful for travel and for everyday life. A massive difference from how he had spent his time before, his efforts going always to methods of death.

The biggest changes came at night, though.

It took weeks to get used to having one or both Uchiha brothers lounging against him like some kind of body pillow as they all ended their day in the den, sprawled out on the couch or around the kotatsu, passing the evening with easy conversation or simply spending time in each other’s presence while they each entertained themselves with something of their own. It reminded him of his childhood, the days when he had three brothers to pull his head out of the library he’d grown up in and bully him in to playing silly games with them for no reason other than that they wanted his attention for a while.

Now he was grown and there were two men with unruly hair, both of them with a bad habit of snickering to themselves or gasping out loud when they were reading a book, who seemed to understand somehow his distaste for the idea of being alone, something most people misinterpreted. While he did indeed enjoy his privacy and the time he spent with nothing but his thoughts, he had also spent his entire life surrounded by family. He needed human contact just like everyone else; he just happened to be more selective about the humans he was happy to spend time with.

Five months to the day since he had been sent away from one home Tobirama looked to his side at Madara, peacefully sleeping with his reading glasses knocked askew by the book his face was resting on, and felt his heart skip several beats at once. It was possible he had built another without realizing it just as this man had advised.

“You’ve got that panicky look on your face again,” Izuna informed him from the other side of the kotatsu, covered in cards and the small handfuls of pretzels they were using as gambling chips.

“I’ve gotten attached,” he murmured back.

“Must be a good hand.”

“Not to the cards, you idiot. Although yes, this is a fairly good hand, you should fold now if you want to keep your snacks. But that isn’t what I was talking about.” Shifting on his cushion, he looked over at Madara again. The fool was drooling on his book. It should not have been considered adorable in any way and yet that was the only word he could think of.

Frowning at his own hand of cards, Izuna waffled back and forth before dropping them to the kotatsu with a sigh. “Alright so what did you mean then?”

“I was talking about you two idiots. You know, I still say this is all a big trick. You’re lulling me in to a false sense of security, making me care about you, and then one day–”

“Bam! We attack you with hugs and affection and other disgusting things!”

“No!” Tobirama rolled his eyes but couldn’t resist the smile trying to grow.

He was about to say something else when Madara gave a light snort and jerked upright, blinked around the room and then settling his gaze on the man at his side. After the short moment it took his sleep-addled senses to recognize who he was sitting next to his whole face lit up in a way it wouldn’t have if he were fully awake. Tobirama stared back at him, feeling his insides melting. He’d never seen Madara look at anyone like that except his own brother.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“No, no,” Tobirama protested mildly. “You just closed your eyes and we shut off the whole world for you. It was no trouble, really.” Madara shook himself a little to clear his head and huffed indignantly.

“Rude.” Despite his apparent offense, he still shuffled over and draped himself against Tobirama’s side.

From what he could tell it seemed to be an Uchiha thing, showing affection through copious amounts of physical touch: leaning against each other, brushing fingers against arms during conversation, even tucking hair behind each other’s ears. The first time one of them had touched his hair Tobirama had spent the next fifteen minutes puzzling over the action before finally caving and asking what the hell just happened. Even after they explained it to him it had taken a while to sink in that they kept touching him for no other reason than that they liked him.

Which was a whole other basket of eggs to upset. The members of his own clan had oftentimes deliberately avoided him. He wished he knew what quality he had which these two seemed to enjoy that few others had before.

“If you’re tired you should go to bed,” Tobirama told the spiky black hair now resting on his shoulder.

“But I’m comfortable here.” In deliberate protest Madara snuggled even closer against him, unbothered with the way he tensed suddenly at the gesture. He still wasn’t used to being touched so easily by anyone other than Hashirama. Even Touka had projected her movements as much as possible whenever she got close to him. That was just how shinobi acted around one another.

“Unless you are planning to sleep on me I think a bed would be the better option.”

“Well, if the offer’s open…” Madara was asleep again in the next moment.

Tobirama appealed to Izuna with a confused expression but the other man only covered his mouth with both hands to muffle his pitiless snickering. When he looked back down at his shoulder he couldn’t help but notice from this angle that Madara was blessed with fantastically long eyelashes. They fluttered when his eyes moved under their lids, brushing against his cheeks, and Tobirama had to look away when he noticed his hand was halfway lifted to see if they were as soft as they looked.

Clearly he was not the only one who had gotten attached. Tobirama reached for his cards with one hand and smiled as he turned them over, revealing the crappy set he’d been holding.

“Thanks for folding; can you push the pot my way? I would hate to disturb him so soon.”

“You lied!”

“It’s called bluffing and of course I did. What sort of shinobi reveals his hand so easily?”

Staying here definitely looked as though it had been the right decision, more and more so with every day.

#rae writes #madatobi #tobirama #madara #izuna #fanfiction

[pioneeroverc-my-5000th-sideblog]

Summary of January

Plan from January:

5 more shoulder/arm/torso references ✗ whoops forgot this was a thing

25 Reilly figures total✓42!

25 mannequin figures (10 of which rotated from original pose)✓50/19

Look at good composition examples every Monday from 17th onwards ✓

ACTIONABLES: revisit all head construction videos from July AGAIN AGAIN (someday I’ll remember to do this)✗ GOD, do at least one thumbnail portrait value study with a low contrast portrait,✗ if rendering try not to blend much and stick to graphic shapes✓kinda?

Overview of January:

Finished the 250 Cylinder Challenge, learned a shitty version of the Reilly figure method and drew (over) 100 figures from reference (and a bunch from imagination, of course) this month! Unfortunately only did one personal piece ^^; (well, there's another one I started at the beginning of the month, but I kinda gave up when I got to inking the background)

I was feeling apprehensive about improving my figure drawing, but two or so days ago I noticed what I think is a little jump in skill, which is nice. Recently been drawing three boxes every time I warm up as well/checking their convergences, which has given me the tiniest bit of mileage xD

Definitely need to keep going with the mannequinisation/rotation! It's getting easier to see how the ribcage and hips are oriented in a photo.

Finding it kinda hard to keep up 2 days on/1 off after I stopped doing it!

February plan:

Was going to do Figuary but it's not available for free any more so... idk?

-DAB Lesson 6 as soon as my ellipse templates show up

-3 boxes every warmup

-start 25 Wheel Challenge??

-find my one texture for 25 Texture Challenge and start doing them again

-thumbnail/sketch/render S/T zine piece? (block out weekends to do this)

-try 1 day on/1 day off (hopefully move back up to 2 on)

-look at good composition every Monday

-30min figure drawing: Reilly/mannequin/rotate

notes and improvements from finished stuff:

I've literally just finished my One (slapdash) Piece of the Month so I'm not able to be objective about it. Please remember to do this later

ACTIONABLES: remember to do this later

#end of month

[cherrywoes]

acanthus. (yon.)

DEAD AND DYING WERE two very different things—Sakura knew this intimately. Her teachings with Tsunade were not easily forgotten, even in the face of her exile and subsequent disownment as the Hokage’s apprentice, and she found herself dragging up the old lesson in the forefront of her mind as she leaned against a tree, grimacing at the pull and tug of her slapdash glue job. It had been simple: if you were dead, you weren’t fighting. If you were dying, you could still fight. It was less of a medic’s lesson and more of a war tip, but to Sakura, everything felt like war now, even down to the sensitive feelings of betrayal and guilt brewing in her gut. She had suppressed them for over six months, feigning her smiles and faking wellbeing, when her consciousness was trying to kill her with grief. There was nothing she could do now but move forward until she did eventually die, and that didn’t seem too far off.

Katsuyu’s summoning seal was null and void. Even as she managed to produce some meagre sputterings of chakra that didn’t tear the paper, she knew her efforts were hopeless. When she was forced out as Tsunade’s apprentice, all of her contracts and benefits were also taken from her. She had thought, with Katsuyu’s fondness for her, that the slug might retain her contract with her, as she was a sentient being, but clearly that was not the case. Ultimately, Katsuyu followed Tsunade, and it was foolish to think otherwise.

“Damn.” When she reached under her flak jacket to touch the wounds, they came away slick and bloody. The sparse raindrops sneaking through the canopy washed most of it away, but the longer she lingered the more the glue would fail and her wounds would rip open entirely. It was not water resistant, unfortunately, because Kakashi, cheapskate that he was, wouldn’t invest two dollars more to get it. She was grateful he’d extended his kindness to her at all, but she had to wonder how he would get along in life, sooner or later, when his life was at risk.

At the thought of her former teacher, her mind drew back to the summoning scroll he’d shoved in her pack. It was probably her only hope of getting anywhere close to the civilian village now; she’d stopped and now she couldn’t move much farther, pain paralyzing her lower body when the last of her adrenaline ebbed away. It couldn’t be his dogs, but she hadn’t known much about the Hatake clan—only that they were nomadic in nature, and that he was the last of them.

Unsealing her pack, she rummaged through the contents halfheartedly, pulling the slender, ornate contract from the second zipper. It was thinner than any contract scroll she had ever seen, barely half a page, and looked far more expensive than Katsuyu’s. Someone had gone through the effort to add genuine gold and silver plating to the wooden borders, something she hadn’t seen when he had been putting it in her bag, and her eyes caught on the name of the summoning animal, breath stuttering to a faint stop.

Kirin.

She knew the technique, of course, had even witnessed it the one time she had come across Sasuke and nearly lost her life. But she also knew the mythology surrounding the holy beasts, having been present for the few lectures that the academy had presented for entertainment during her lunch breaks. Brilliant beasts of peace and flame, they harmed not a single thing upon the earth, not even the insects upon the ground, and walked upon clouds and slept in the skies. When threatened, however, they were vicious, fierce animals, wielding flames on par with that of the Sharingan’s Amaterasu. No one had seen the contract since Konoha’s founding—so how had it found a home in Kakashi’s hands, and now hers, after all this time?

She swept her bloody thumb across the paper without a second thought. If Kakashi had given it to her, then she was meant to use it somehow. With her contract with Katsuyu gone, she had nothing to protect her if worse came to worse. Nothing in her arsenal would prepare her for being alone like this, on the brink of death, and as the scroll wriggled in her hands and her vision began to blur, she figured even a Kirin who wouldn’t harm another without reason was better than nothing.

What she wasn’t expecting was to be pulled, mentally, into another dimension.

Sakura felt her body collapse against the tree and crumple to the ground, the last of her glue pulling free and the rivers of blood beginning to flow anew. It was a strange feeling; Katsuyu had never done this to her when establishing their contract.

When she blinked, she was no longer outside the borders of Konoha, but within the realm of the Kirin.

Glistening clouds rolled beneath her feet, flecked with particles of gems and iridescent globules of molten silver. The sky was a pale pink and orange gradient, studded with visible stars, and there, in the center of the clouds and empty realm, stood a Kirin.

Tall and elegant, the divine beast stood before her with eyes nearly the color of watered down blood. A tall rack of deerlike horns rose up above scaled ears, forming the shape of a rounded diamond, and hanging from them, swaying in the breeze, was a pale, bleached length of foot long moss, blooming with dark red flowers that seeped with golden nectar, pooling beneath the kirin’s decidedly avian feet. With a bleached skull turned in her direction, those pink eyes trained on her, it looked nothing like any kirin she had ever heard of. Its scales were distinctly serpentine in nature, not dragon-like, as the legends had said, and instead of a brown oxen’s tail, a length of razor sharp vertebrae protruded from the curve of its spine, ending in a viciously curved barb not unlike that of a scorpion’s. When her eyes drew back to the summon’s face, she thought she saw amusement in those eyes, though the skull could not portray emotion.

“None other than I would answer you, traitor of flame,” the kirin spoke, the air around them shifting. It was female, a light, tinkling voice that held sultry undertones of a different kind. The sky darkened to a deep red and the clouds rolled, darkening to a deep, impossible blue and purple, lightning illuminating beneath her feet. Sakura stepped backwards, wary, and the kirin laughed. “There is no need to fear me—yet, of course. I had wondered when Sakura Haruno would grace this realm with her presence. It seems you are earlier than I suspected.”

“How do you—?” Sakura paused, shifting her hand to her stomach. Instead, she touched bare skin, clear of wounds, and when she looked further, she found she was entirely naked and still felt as if she was clothed. “What do you mean?”

“Kirin hear whispers on the wind, even those like myself.” The kirin was suddenly close to her, smelling of blood and flowers and a salty sea breeze. “Do not concern yourself with your lack of clothing. This realm exposes your greatest vulnerabilities. Tell me, Sakura Haruno, what do you wish?”

She swallowed thickly. She knew Kirin could grant wishes—but she had no idea what to expect from this one, who was clearly different from the others. When she hesitated, her mouth open, the Kirin tutted.

“I would hurry.” Pink eyes bore into hers, deep and knowing. “Your life drains away as we speak. And think hard—a foolish wish would cost you dearly.”

Eyeing the sharp shards of bone protruding from the skull inches from her face, she figured she didn’t want to take that risk and find out. “I… wish to live.”

“To live?” Evidently, the Kirin was not expecting such an answer. Her tone was slightly confused, but Sakura felt her stomach twist into knots when the beast before her managed a malicious smile, even with a fixture as a skull for a face. “I see. Even at the cost of others’ lives? Would you steal the lives of others so that you may live, Sakura Haruno?”

“And if I would?” she asked softly, fear threading through her voice. “What then?”

The Kirin tossed her head, beautiful moss and flowers wafting a stronger scent of blood towards her. “Then we would have a contract. My services and your life for the promise of death—should you wish to live past noon.”

“Then…” Sakura paused. She had wanted to end the death she had caused, even if she had only been stopped by being caught, in the end. But this creature, a perversion of a Kirin, in exchange for its aid and her life, wanted more death from her—more murder, more darkness upon her already ink painted soul, and as the faces of all of her victims flashed through her mind, flickers of faint images, their eyes panicked and frenzied as she ended their lives, she found that she wanted to be selfish. To think of no one else but herself, alone and dying in the forest, Sai’s mask strapped around her face and the crow’s eyes peering out from a dead body. To be selfish, and hold no concern about her lack of medical ninjutsu, to just live, and continue existing. “I accept.”

“Excellent.” Plumes of vermillion smoke escaped from the Kirin’s bone nostrils in a pleased exhale. The beast touched her cold, hard nose to Sakura’s forehead, the smoke smelling faintly of honeysuckle and lavender as it obscured her vision and enveloped her body in an impossibly cold embrace. “Let our contract be set in stone. Your wounds will hold until you reach aid, and in return, I must have one life for the extension of my power—your most recent kill will placate me for a time. For each use of my power and length of time you hold my contract, you must take a life; do you understand, Sakura Haruno?”

She squeezed her eyes shut when they threatened to spill over with tears. More death; unavoidable, in the face of her own. “I understand.”

“Very well. And so it is done.” The Kirin retreated, raising her large head above Sakura’s own, flowers drifting from the moss and sticking to her skin, sinking into her shoulders and arms and chest and legs, the petals vanishing into her body. “My name is Yoko. Should you ever need me, spill another’s blood and I shall come.”

The world warped around her and then she was falling, falling, and startled awake in her physical body, her cheek cold with mud and the rain soaking her to the bone. She pushed up to her knees roughly, noting there was no painful tug of glue, and used the tree to prop herself up as she unbuckled her flak jacket. When she ripped her shirt up, expecting to see her wounds still bleeding openly, she was surprised to find crimson flowers blooming from the wounds, no larger than her finger and growing in clusters, roots holding her skin together tighter than any stitches she could have done. When she touched them, experimentally, they thrummed with her blood, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, and she tugged her shirt back down, nausea slamming into her belly as the realization of the deal she just made settled in.

More death. More lives lost because of her. Sakura brought her hand up and rubbed the mud off of her cheek tiredly. She couldn’t avoid it if she tried, it seemed. The best she could do now was get help for her wounds, and go the rest of the way to Amegakure; the war missions would enable her to fulfill the Kirin, Yoko’s, death requirement, and then… after that, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even know if she would see another day after the war. It was very likely anywhere she went, she would be unwelcome and shunned for what she had done. The news was probably rampant over the other nations now, her friendships ruined with the truth of her actions—even her tentative friendship with Gaara, who only had ever had eyes for Naruto.

Naruto. She zipped her jacket back up and shoved the muddy scroll back in her bag. What would he think of her now? Her crimes had already been bad, and the ones she was about to commit would sully her image further in his mind. He didn’t seem to care when it came to Sasuke, but her? She didn’t expect to be on the same end of his forgiveness. He had a strange hypocriticism for Sasuke and anyone else, expecting the best from others and nothing but betrayal and death from Sasuke. He would probably kill her if he saw her, or try to work out a reason for why she had done it before it inevitably ended in a fight. She would have to avoid him, if she could, and keep tabs on his location, somehow, though he was miles away in Mizugakure the last she remembered. That had been before she was imprisoned, so he could be anywhere now, following Sasuke’s trail.

“Nothing to do about it now, I guess.” She took a shaky breath and began walking towards the village, ignoring the odd thrumming of the flowers embedded in her flesh.

Nothing indeed, the delighted cackle of a Kirin agreed, drifting on the wind.

三 (san) | masterlist | 五 (go)

#naruto #kimisaku #kimimaro x sakura