#it's still gonna end up being set in the same timeline it originally was which might be a lil awkward but like...

[kalloway]

goin back to 2018/19 because I want to rewrite/finish my own fic, smh

it's been kinda nice rewatching the videos I used to, tho... kinda comfy feeling, despite what the games are all about hahaha

#delete later #wip #mortal kombat #myart #i have seen her new design in MK1 (havent *watched* anything from it tho) and it's really good! #I like seeing them branch out in terms of like cultural influence and styles/aesthetics #the amount the games have visually improved since MK9 (which I greatly dislike lol) is INSANE - every game gets me like #“oh wow this looks so good... no way they can do better for the next one” - and then they knock it out of the park YET AGAIN #but I still have a soft spot for MKX Tanya to a degree... partly because of the fic I was writing tho lmao #it's still gonna end up being set in the same timeline it originally was which might be a lil awkward but like... #guess that just happens when u reboot something right? hahaha #im just sorta bummed the guy whose Story mode vids I watched for MK9 MKX and MK11 isn't doing them anymore #so I'll have to find someone else's MK1 story mode vid to watch... RIP

[myymi]

i want to talk about the paradox prism for a minute because it's really interesting to me

[everything below is purely speculation / headcanon - please don't mistake it for canon. beware of spoilers for sonic prime part 3]

similar to the master/chaos emeralds, the paradox prism has a level a sentience. not anywhere close to the same level as the emeralds, but there's still something there

the chaos emeralds tend to set up a line of dominos to cause a future event (ex; sonic taking tails under his wing and learning to become more responsible from it)

the paradox prism doesn't do anything close to that, but it does share something with the master emerald; it holds memories

the prism was able to create more versions of the people it saw based on the emotions it saw them project (tails, knuckles, amy, rouge, and eggman)

the different shards / shatterspaces are made up from other major events. whether from this timeline or another is different for each shatterspace

new yoke was created from the group's frustration with sonic + an ending where eggman's almost won (i believe this could be pulled from the events of forces, considering the enforcers)

i think the reason new yoke is the only shatterspace to have a version of eggman is because it's the only one that makes sense to have one

it's pretty well known by now that eggman will need a helping hand if he wants any chance at taking over the world

the only thing better than an evil genius is five evil geniuses, right?

the new yoke group are, as i said, everyone's frustration

nine is frustrated with his past. reminiscing about his tormentors brings him more anger than pain, and living in solitude definitely does not help

rebel and knux are frustrated by the loss of their home (and the egg council in general). having watched their home be destroyed was more heartbreaking than anything at first, it eventually grew to an anger that spurred them on to fix it

rusty is frustrated with those who disobey/fight against the council, but her anger eventually ends up directed towards the council for the way they used her.

i could go more in depth about the new yoke group, but this post is gonna be long enough as is wefoefwof

the shard being red could simply be because that's the color that represents anger, but i'd like to think that-going back to forces-it was a bit influenced by the phantom ruby/infinite as well

no place is formed by the underlying sadness + a devastating event that permanently changed the world (chaos' rampage)

im not connecting no place to chaos because of the fact it's flooded, im connecting it because of the way the stories parallelled

chaos' rampage begun when pachacamac attempted to steal and harness the power of the chaos emeralds for his own gain

dread seeks out the 'devil's ligthouse' solely to prove he is a legend, nearly killing his original crew trying to do so

both protagonists of these stories are selfish and caused destruction for their own gain

dread's, well, dread comes from his failure of proving himself to be the most feared pirate to ever live.

him failing to collect the shard caused him to believe that he truly wasn't a good pirate, leaving him to spiral into a life of cowardice.

the rest of the pirates' dread comes from their longing to be actual pirates.

because of his failure and cowardice, dread now leads a peaceful crew. they don't do any 'pirating', which leaves much to be desired

they enjoy the parties and all, but their true fun comes from being pirates, which dread deprives them of

boscage maze comes from the protectiveness surging between everyone + a world where harmony between enemies is possible to achieve (possibly comes from a timeline where eggman simply doesnt exist, leaving mobius to grow peacefully)

boscage is the shatterspace with the most life. it's full of all kinds of plants because nobody there is destroying it (intentionally, anyways)

thorn rose is protective over birdie and the green. she does what she can to protect both, even if it means hurting people she once called friends

keeping the jungle and birdie safe is her #1 priority, and nothing will ever change that (that's not to say something else can't join them in being her priority)

the scavengers are protective over their belongings and, no matter how strangely they show it, each other

gnarly was nervous when sonic touched his house, immediately turning aggressive to make sure he wouldn't damage it

instead of hiding the berry, prim showed it to the others for a chance they could all share it

instead of running off on his own, mangey let the scavengers follow him as he sniffed out the berry (+ him fetching the one that fell off the treetops, showing it off to the group)

hangry allows mangey to crawl around him, which we can assume means it happens a lot off screen as well

they stick together and cover each other's backs, no matter how hard the fight gets

while we don't know what this shatterspace was before it turned into the grim, it's pretty safe to assume that it was apocalyptic

who or whatever used to live here is long gone. the only thing standing are the purple crystal things.

my guess is it's a timeline where eggman won. he won, and the world died out because he ruined the ecosystem from building so many machines.

while purple is usually associated with royalty or mystery, it's also associated with power, ambition, peace, and independence

whatever happened to the world before the grim, it's very probable that it was out of high ambition with a need for more power. eventually, the world found its peace and is now independent

ghost hill is the blueprint. the time before sonic & co. make their mark on the world. a blank canvas.

maybe a timeline where they don't get a chance to make their mark on the world

yellow is a very light, energetic color. the feeling of happiness at the chance to create something new and fun.

ghost hill and the grim don't have much in terms of characters and design, but i think the colors of their respective shards give us plenty of information about them

the paradox prism is nothing like the chaos emeralds, but is also just like them at the same time. it's powered by pure chaos with no sort of indication on how it was created or why it has the powers it does

i wonder if eggman knew what the prism was exactly or if he only knew that it was powerful

did he know breaking it would cause the world to shatter? did he know how may memories it holds? how many lifetimes it's lived?

i also wonder if the prism knew sonic would shatter it, and that it was already preparing the shatterspaces; hence why it glows brighter

maybe it understood that sonic is a hands-on learner. maybe it knew he needed to experience the lessons first hand, needed them to-quite literally-slap him in the face

maybe it knew they all had their own flaws that they needed to be aware of. maybe it lived through the timeline where sonic never shattered the prism.

maybe the prism planned to be shattered by someone so it could share its memories. maybe there was some sort of pull that told sonic it needed to be shattered.

#long post #this might actually be a mix of me analyzing the prism and the shatterspaces #but thats fine #this world is very interesting to me #sonic the hedgehog #sth #miles tails prower #sonic #knuckles the echidna #amy rose #rouge the bat #dr eggman #sonic prime spoilers #sonic prime #paradox prism #myyhcs #world building my beloved #miles nine prower #rusty rose #renegade knucks #rebel rouge #knuckles the dread #batton rouge #sails the fox #black rose #thorn rose #prim rouge #mangey tails #gnarly knuckles #hangry the cat

[demonlovingsheep]

Which brother has the highest kill count in Obey Me? How and why they kill? This is what I think:

Lucifer. He is very strict, prideful, and very powerful. He caused the most casualties in the Celestial War no doubt. In the beginning of his demon years, lower demons would purposely get in his way to challenge him. The first one who tried did not live to tell the tale. The second one follows the fate of the first one. One by one, thousands by thousands would continue to increase Lucifer’s body count to the millions until lower demons finally got the message that he is not to be messed with. As for human casualties, I doubt there is a lot since he doesn’t like the taste of human flesh. If he was summoned by a cult or something, he is going to have fun manipulating those foolish souls. After all, he is a sadist.

Beelzebub. He is Lucifer’s body guard in the Celestial Realm, a Cherub that is one of the highest in terms of rank. Due to his strength, he can easily crush his opponents. When he became a demon, all his victims became his meal during his hunger rampage. His sin took full control of his body in the beginning and most of the time he wouldn’t know what’s happening until one of his brothers stops him or he has no other food source available. He probably does the same up in the human world when summoned by a cult if they don’t offer him a big enough meal as offering, then they become the meal themselves. When MC meets him in the original timeline, he still tries to eat us and we’re not allowed to sleep or be near him without another brother’s supervision. Even the brothers were afraid one of their toes was gonna be bitten off.

Leviathan. “Keep sending your soldiers. The ocean has plenty of space before it run out of gravesites for your people.” He controls the ocean, just sends out a tsunami or two and wipes every being away and let the corpse fall to the bottom to be eaten. Even if the victim has the ability to breathe underwater, he would summon Lotan to obliterate them. He never has to get handsy to increase his kill count. He does snack on a couple of humans that've been swept into the ocean by currents.

Satan: He unleashed hell when he was born, being the embodiment of wrath itself. He was separated from Lucifer and his other brothers when they fell. Since there is no one strong enough to hold him back, he wreaked havoc on anything and everything. He set the area around him into a green fire graveyard until he was eventually found and gets chained and shoved in a locker. He gets ticked off when summoned, and if it was for a stupid reason. If they mistaken him for Lucifer, which is pretty often, no one would live to tell the tale. It took decades for them to learn that he is not that damn arrogant bastard.

Asmodeus: Personally, I was conflicted between him and Mammon, but Asmodeus can snap more easily than Mammon. Even though he is the avatar of lust, he still has standards and boundaries. Most lower demons think he is easy to manipulate. Just compliment him, take him to a motel or bar, and get him when he’s vulnerable. The thing is that Asmo knows, and he has his own wicked plan in mind. Depending on his mood, he can either toy with the other demons for such a long time that the other demon will actually develop some feelings for him, all for it to crumble in the end. Like a heartbreak, but with their hearts literally removed and in Asmodeus’s hands. Asmo will still laugh and feign innocence like he hadn’t just gone sicko lover mode. Or he just snaps and completely loses it, charming the other person to bash their own skull against a wall until they are dead. He still refuses to get his clothes or nails stained.

Mammon: He wasn’t initially greedy, but he slowly grew to be the Avatar of Greed as he is. Mammon perhaps fakes his personality, just like how Satan would cover up his wrath with a smile. After all, how would one approach to make a business if he gives off a threatening aura. Maybe centuries as a shady business demon made him lose his sense of dignity along the way, but keep in mind he still knows his title as an Avatar. He flaunts it too, it’s just that it’s very hard to push him to the point of violence. So most demons don’t take him seriously. Money makes the world go round, but it’s the quickest way for someone to seek vengeance when someone doesn’t pay back what they own. Mammon generally plays by the rules even though he himself gambles in illegal places, but he still has business standards. If someone tries to cheat him out of his winnings, they will earn themselves a one way ticket to Mammon’s blacklist, which most of the time has four or five people in the waiting list so one shouldn’t count on time to delay Mammon’s wrath. He will make them pay. No amount of begging or bribery will work, by then the only way of paying back the “debt” is with one’s soul, which is worth even more than anyone can ever imagine. Hell, perhaps he deals with selling organs on the black market too after he finishes seeking vengeance. Organs are worth a good amount of money, either for hungry cannibalistic demons looking for a demon kidney as dinner or for mad scientist demons to run experiments on. Either way, business.

Belphegor: He is too lazy to kill, that’s all I can say. If you think it’s hard to get on Mammon’s blacklist, it’s even harder to get on Belphegor’s blacklist because he just doesn’t care…unless someone messes with his dear twin, Beelzebub. There will be no more peaceful rest for that person for the rest of their short life because Belphegor will make sure that they die in agony. He will curse the person so that whenever they are about to fall asleep, they will be jolted alive by some weird electric feeling. It’s like the feeling when you trip in your sleep (Hypnic Jerk), except it’s not an angel accidentally dropping your soul when bringing you to heaven, but a demon draining your sanity to live. It’s no brainer that sleep is very important as it keeps one’s mind and body functioning. For the victims of Belphegor however, they will never sleep again. They can try but are always jolted awake whenever they are on the edge to dreamland. Until many days has gone by where the person is basically a walking zombie at this point, they pray and try to fall asleep once again expecting for the same jolt feeling, except it didn’t happen. The victims can finally sleep, but this sleep feels more…permanent.

Author’s note: I started writing this draft like a year ago, and took it out today. I forgot what im exactly writing. It’s so shifty of what it’s meant to be. Think it was kill count and why, but it gradually moved onto killing methods of each. Don’t take it too seriously 👉👈. Hope y’all enjoy.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me belphegor #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me lucifer #obey me asmodeus #obey me satan #obey me beelzebub #obey me headcannons #obey me nightbringer #obey me spoilers #warning for demon behaviors and stuff???

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Kingdoms and Empires Wiki Drop!

Sup guys, im releasing what i have done in the wiki today! In this post im only going to talk about the Wiki because I dont want to create an even more massive wall of text here than it already is. Please see the entire post on the forums thread!!! I solidified the lore (which means no more massive changes), set the foundations to the story (so i dont end up writing a shit ton and having to fucking rewrite everything anymore), and pretty much rewrote the canon lore until i reached a point where i literally cannot share it because itd be spoilers without the future rewrite (regarding the worldbuilding, all introduced characters and such are still the same, some just had minor tweeks, so nothing crazy like changing our old bodyguard Mary:

and turning her into our childhood friend lmao So the plan now is current wiki drop. A good amount of it will be hidden since alot of it is spoilers, so you get 39,174 thousand words of unlocked content out of about 50k words in the wiki. And that's without me transferring 90% of the Codex ingame to the wiki, so its ALL (okay like 85%) new words of content and lore! Dont worry, im dropping literally all extra work and focusing purely on playable updates now until i regain your guy's trust in me after being so radio silent.

I also know and recognize that this has gotta be annoying asf since what you guys really want is updates but after what happened with the Total War franchise (my beloved) and their lightning fast content pipeline and lack of upgrading their engine ended up destroying the health of the company and ruining fans trust in em, id rather invest on the long term than short term unlike them (meaning id rather have a set story, narrative line complete, and research resources so that i can use that to run wild in writing).

I made a history of the world as known to them, so much of it is subject to embellishment, lies, and "the victor writes history" trope.

Historia Mundis

If you'd rather just have the list of articles that can be found within the timeline though, here it is: The Great Disturbances, Wars of Unification, and the Longwei Empire

Reign of the Daishu Dynasty

Ecumenical Dominion and the Flight of the Belthean People.

Belthean Migrations

Reign of Emperor Garland

Reign of Emperor Daerin I

Reign of Emperor Valerion

Reign of Emperor Elric I

Reign of Emperor Cenric

Reign of Emperor Saldwin

Reign of Emperor Elric II

Reign of Emperor Daerin II

The Interactive Outdated Map Yeahhh almost as soon as i published the map for the patreons it became outdated lmaoooo Nareth is much bigger than originally imagined, Argent is surrounded by mountain and forest tribes (think Hispania’s Lusitanian Wars or the Germanic Tribes type of vibe). The empire (being Imperial Chinese and Persian Empire inspired) also is surrounded by the these tribes, and the Imperial Province of Lymark is now the “Protectorate of the Western Regions” which basically means theyre the watchdogs of Western Nareth. Its funny because theyre also across the St. Hytera River, which is much like the Danube River, and will inevitably face the same issues Rome did with Dacia when they had a presence that extended the natural borders.

Master List of Articles

The Evolution of Belthean Civilization

Veldora Duchy I may have gone too far here. I regret nothing and learning about agriculture and stuff was awesome.

Silverhill Duchy Mining is alot more complicated than I thought, though Engineering MC is gonna have equally alot to improve!

Imperial Ranks The ranks will have importance. I know that sounds weird, but I did not spend an afternoon writing this just for the lulz.

Emperor/Empress

Imperial Crown Heir

Imperial Prince and Princess

Imperial Duke/Duchess

Imperial Count/Countess

The Imperial Landed Knight

The Belthean Empire The biggest entry from the ingame Codex that I transferred over and polished. This should give you a hint of how ill do the other kingdoms in the future for their article.

Kin of Arava I experimented here and instead of making an actual article, made it a class lecture of a series of days focusing on the Kin with a racist professor lmao

Zera Arava So i had to do this in intervals as I was writing and plotting out his side stories. Honestly hope i did the homie justice, he's a fav of mine, though i think each of the ROs will be favs as I write more and more about them.

Sacred Dance I assure you the Sacred Dance isnt what you think it is.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patreons, you guys already read the below list. However ive cleaned the articles up and polished them! The Genesis of the Belthean Empire: From Invasion to Unification

Voryn Resdayn I wanted to see how i could make a character entry. It looks awesome, but holy fuck do they take time to create lmaooo, ill make the rest of them in the future.

Kin of Arava

Eastern Kin The descendants of Kin and Beltheans who mixed, that are settled within the empire.

House Resdayn Wanted to see how I could do the houses, still unsure (okay i dont like it) of how it came out. Hence why I started with a minor house that one of the RO's belonged to.

The Astute Emperor and the Imperial Provincial Rule: A Revolutionary Shift in Governance

Master-Scholars of Jelaytha The Jelaythan organization of scholars that Master Feren is from.

Post-Unification Transformations in the Belthean Empire: Trade, Economy, Industry, and Immigration in the Wake of Conquest

Imperial Historians Obviously the imperial faction that wants to get their hands on tutoring you lmao.

Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium The Jelaythan/Imperial organization at the forefront of the intellectual international community.

Tripartite Alliance Read what the empire is teaching their citizens about how they conquered the alliance.

The Satrap System and Imperial Provincial Rule

The Great Racist of the Academy: Imperial Historian Acillus Cinna

The Sword Saint

Master-Scholar Kaleb

The Gleaming Horizon: Silverhill's Maritime Supremacy The book of a writer who we'll meet ingame. Youll decide whether or not to bully him as a 12 year old lmao.

Baniel Worthton The author of above said book. He even wrote about himself. Yes, it's supposed to be an ick.

The Ulrich Cothon The second book of his that'll feature in the game.

So…I guess in basketball or futbol terms… rebuilding phase is over, and i got all the players i need for a championship run!

It was an almost year long rebuilding phase, true, but omg it was so needed.

Plus I also learned alot of fucking coding at the same time lmao. Basically a lot of tweaking around with Choicescript and knowing how to code some actions. Also there's CoG implementing a new checkpoint system so thank fuck for that because this game's gonna be huge and id hate to play it without a save system.

#kingdomsandempires #interactive fiction #announcement #choice of games #kaewiki

[lover-of-skellies]

Really enjoying your ratings and your reasonings behind them. Great work!

Would you be able to rate Geno, please?

I've actually done both Sci and Lust already, and you can click on their names to go to the original posts if you're curious about them ^^ and I’m glad you guys seem to be enjoying these smooch-ability rating things!

Alrighty, after some thought and consideration, I’d say Geno gets a smooch-ability rating of 9. He’s still pretty safe, but if you surprise him, he wouldn’t be too happy about it. Smooches could also get a little gross, with his constant mouth bleeding and all, but if you wanted to overlook that and go in for a smooch anyway, be my guest

1) How dangerous is Geno’s mouth? In and of itself, not very. His teeth are flat, as opposed to being sharp or jagged, meaning there’s less risk of your lips being snagged or cut on them. 2 points for having safe chompers. I’d say the fact that he’s glitched could result in a sting or a zap (like it might with Error) upon smooching him, but he doesn’t seem to be nearly as glitched as Error does. In comparison, he’s still pretty solid

2) Would he bite, and is he aggressive? I’m inclined to believe that Geno may possibly be a biter; the chance of it happening is small, but still a bit more noticeable than it’d be with Sans Classic, for example. As for his aggression, I’d say he’s a little bit more moody and temperamental than his original UT counterpart (likely due to a mix of trauma, possible resentment toward certain individuals, him being from a genocide timeline, and his whole thing with Determination), but not as moody and temperamental as someone like UF Papyrus or Error. He knows how to keep himself in line and relaxed, and the only chance of that self control slipping would probably be if something or someone happened to set him off or trigger him. Since he’s relatively tame but still carries a slight chance of lashing out, I’d say he gets 1 point for this area

3) Are there any health hazards to the smoocher? Quite possibly. While he doesn’t carry around a weapon regularly that could cause accidental injury, he is very adept with magic. We know he has no qualms against using magic when necessary, so if he somehow felt threatened, he could use magic and sort of act on impulse to defend himself. Beyond that, blood constantly drips from his mouth and he has that big gash across his chest area. Blood, no matter what race or species it’s from, could very well be a biohazard. Taking that into consideration and the fact that kissing someone and getting their blood all over you is uh… pretty gross, I’m gonna have to give him 0 points

4) Does he have a sympathetic backstory? He went through all the same stuff as Sans Classic (raising his brother, working multiple odd jobs to financially support both of them, caring for Frisk/the player, being the only one to know about the resets, and being the one to watch judgement hall), which already gets him a small amount of sympathy on its own. That’s not all he ends up having to suffer through, though. In a horrifying turn of events, the player/Frisk decides to go on a murderous rampage and kills every monster they come across, which would’ve been a big betrayal to him. He repeatedly has to experience the death of everyone he’s loved and cared about every time they reset, then out of a desire to stop them for good, he starts experimenting with Determination (from what I remember reading). My memory of the events of Aftertale are a bit fuzzy since it’s been a while since I’ve read the comic, but through a series of events, I know he somehow gets trapped in the save screen and is unable to leave. The game goes on without him, spawning in a new Sans, and he’s just. Doomed to forever be stuck and unable to leave or communicate with anyone. While I believe Aftertale does give him a neutral or happy ending after a while, the fact that he went through so many tragic events back to back and probably has an insane amount of trauma from all of it gains him a full 2 points for sympathy

5) Does Geno deserve a smooch? After everything he’s done and been through, and all horrifying things he’s been forced to endure, yeah, I’d say he’s pretty deserving of a smooch. 2 more points for him

6) Is he cute or cool? I’m not sure if I’d call him cutesy, because when the pixels over his bad eye vanish, we’re left with this disfigured, melted half of his head (some depictions of him have a melted head, others just have the melted socket) and a socket that’s beyond repair. Which, if you were another skeleton seeing that, that on its own would probably be nightmare inducing. In terms of coolness though, I’d say he could be passing; he’s got this very laidback and chill personality, he doesn’t take shit from anyone, he’s incredibly strong and skilled with magic despite the condition that his body and soul are in, and he’s a fighter. He’s got a lot of trauma and obvious issues that need to be worked out, sure, but overall, I’d say it’s pretty cool that he’s willing to keep fighting, again, despite the shape his body are soul themselves are in because of the things he’s gone through. His design is simple, but it’s effective at conveying what he went through, from the blood on his slippers, the gash on his chest, him having pixels over one eye, and him wearing the scarf of his deceased brother, he’s unique, and pretty easily identifiable. 2 points for coolness

In total, Geno gets a rating of 9. If you absolutely needed to kiss him, you could, but you might end up covered in his blood, which isn’t exactly ideal. Since he’s a bit standoffish, he might not be too thrilled about a surprise smooch, but I can’t see him being the type to cause serious injury over it. At worst, he’d probably get super intimidating and tell you never to do that ever again

#emeraldhazeart #anon #asks #geno sans #smoochability rating

[lincolndjarin]

BKS ✦ notes & bts : chapters 1-5

spoilers for chapter 1-5 of Best Kept Secret!!

✦

a/n :

I feel like this is just SO self indulgent of me but whatever I guess lmao, bks is my brain baby currently and I will take any excuse to talk about it. These posts are going to be long in-depth dives into my writing process, dress inspo, music i was inspired by, etc. of the mentioned chapters so settle in cause this is what i'm doing today lol. also this might be the longest one bc i'm gonna talk about starting and coming up with everything.

starting writing and original outlines :

i've said this so many times lmao but i wrote the ending first. like the ending ending. i work really long hours at a job that has me listening to music for like ten hours a day while i work so i get a lot of thinking time lmao. basically i originally wrote it as a story with no specific characters in mind. I'm a big Pedro fan so i was between characters i thought fit the fic but settled on din because i think he fit the character i was imagining best. (it helps that he's in my top three pedro characters lol) from there laid out a vague outline in my mind of where i wanted to start so i created a set list of characters and basically just dove right in without much to guide me except for an ending point lmao. it wasnt until closer to like chapter 15-16 when i started properly outline each chapter in advance in the document, before that i just wrote vague notes in a notebook that i didn't end up following all that well lmao

music :

i've also said this at one point but the original name of best kept secret was "my keeper and i" i wrote the first three chapters in the same week and spread out the posting but i used the same playlist for most of the early stuff so here's that!!

original bks playlist

inspirations :

if you've seem/read bridgerton then you might know that i took a lot of inspiration from the pattern the show uses and still do.

basically the show has a pattern of the couple getting together and breaking it off or having an issue that's resolved and then there's a new issue. i've sort of been following that sorta kinda

also reader is heavily based on charlotte because i had just finished queen charlotte when i started writing bks

din is more based on anthony bridgerton than george, (anyone unfamiliar with bridgerton, george is the love interest in queen charlotte)

also a lot of din's style of self loathing is based on edwards from twilight LMAO

notes :

here's a random page of misc. notes that i lowkey can't decipher lol

here are my chapter four notes! shoutout to when i didn't realize it was sarad'ika and it was originally ika sarad lmaooo

there's some unused dialogue here, specifically there was going to be a longer conversation about how he wanted to get her out of the castle more often as well as a scene where she was going to eat fruit ands it was gonna drip down her front and he was gonna wipe it off. it was gonna be a whole thing lmao but it didn't really fit the rest of the chapters vibe.

so.... originally there was a timeline issue where the first lunar interlude (i'm a huge taz balance fan and that's where i got the name lunar interlude from lmaoooo, i have 2 taz tattoos) was going to be chapter 4 and then it was going to be chapter 6 and then it made the most sense to make it 5, so any timeline notes here are wrong.

in my original concept for the fic, every chapter was going to end with a small portion of din pov, but it didn't flow well and i really didn't like it so it ended up being easier having it be specific chapters.

when writing the first lunar interlude i went through and read the previous chapters and wrote down how i thought he was feeling during each scene which is what these notes are ^

dresses :

here's a collection of the dresses i used as inspo for chapters 1-5 (these were posted on my old account but i'm gonna put them here as well!!)

chapter one :

the wedding dress was based on this dress!!

and this is the sort of jewelry i was picturing but this stuff is still pretty, i couldn't find anything as ugly as what i was picturing for her wedding jewelry.

this is the sort of stuff i pictured for her blue dresses she hates but honestly all of these are pretty as well LMAO. in all honesty i think that the blue dresses she doesn't like wearing are probably pretty i think she mostly just hates what they stand for and also they put her in gaudy makeup and jewelry as well which doesn't help

chapter two :

used all sorts of dresses as inspo for this chapter! here are these!

chapter three :

sort of a combination of these for the chapter three dress, if that makes sense lmao

chapter four :

something along these lines for the garden dress!!

that's all for these chapters!! I'll probably do 6-15 for the next one since there won't be as many notes for those and then go back to five each for the rest!! i have to do some practice makeup for the concert i'm going to this week so the next one of these will be up either tonight or tomorrow!!

#lincolndjarin #best kept secret #the mandalorian

[davekat-sucks]

Wow amazing art but this is strike one. Yiffy was the inevitable failure of postcanon, even with the new union and art team, her very existence ruins Rosemary, ruins Jade, ruins the setting and pisses off the fanbase no matter what you do.

Remove Yiffany and you retcon a major plot point of postcanon and the 4th kid for the new kids for the Candy timeline, keep her in and Jade is still a futanari who imposed herself on Rose to ruin the fanbase’s favorite lesbian couple and raise the kid with a fascist because… people on Earth C are too nosy.

Yiffany destroyed all hype for the original Homestuck^2 when she was revealed, even for as mediocre as the comic started out as, there were fans and speculation, which turned to spite for being so poorly handled. Even now with the new team, r/homestuck at least seems to enjoy the new content (excluding a few voices and r/englishpumpkinparty) but clearly any content with yiffany is gonna piss someone off.

Literally if Hussie just stopped at the epilogues the fandom would like postcanon more. It would have its detractor but it’s easier to defend the epilogues than Beyond Canon.

I can actually understand and connect why Jade and Jane became the way they are in the epilogues. Jane’s encounters with trolls were awful and the mothergrub does lay thousands of eggs to deal with such a low rate of successful brooding grubs. Jade was alone on her island and in a ship for 3 years (post retcon) and needs human connection desperately. My issue was the epilogues do a very one-dimensional and extreme version of these characters and justifies this by saying “no one checked in on them or helped” over the course of a 7 year timeskip and even after the characters did a whole webcomic where the point was friendship and connection is healthy for a human to develop emotionally to maturity, are we seriously doing this theme again?!

But Jane in Beyond Canon is a villain with barely any screen time or dialogue to ramble about why she’s “doing the right thing” and Jade is stripped of any nuance to this invasive and careless brat who tries to gain sympathy by whining about how much her life sucked/still sucks

I swear, this comic will go on hiatus again by the end of 2024 (if everything goes right) or on 4/13 (if it all goes wrong)

At least Jade was justified because 1. She didn't know how Grandpa English died and only came to the shocking realization she accidentally killed him (Tavros had also intervened too during this). 2. She had to grow up alone on an ISLAND and has no social cues how to properly act. Sure she would have Internet, movies, games, and books to read. But they aren't the true basis of human connection. 3. Neither Hussie, James, or anyone in WhatPumpkin/HICU had given a reason why Bec couldn't just teleport her to meet with the others since he still had Space Powers. Some could say because it would ruin the plot and Sburb wouldn't happen that it only took the meddling of MSPA READER in Pesterquest to do it. Her situation is just as shit like Jake English. And look how the series, writers, and nu-fandom shit on Jake despite his conditions is just the same, if not WORSE because of the lusus animals trying to attack him that he had always be training to survive for his life. At this point, drop any faith you have in James Roach and Beyond Canon. Apologize. And hope that this will fail hard that James and Hussie will just let the fandom make up their own ending. Even say DO NOT GIVE James Roach any money if they do go through with the Homestuck merch and vinyl. You are better off supporting the fandom itself. Pay for commissions, buy fan merch on places like Etsy, etc. Do not give shitty people like James or Hussie any cash. Go give Toby Fox some love too. Because he is one of the few sane people left and is successful outside of Homestuck.

#James Roach #Homestuck Independent Creative Union #HICU #Homestuck Beyond Canon #HSBC #Homestuck 2 #HS2 #HS^2 #Homestuck2 #Homestuck^2 #Jade Harley #Kanaya Maryam #Rose Lalonde #RoseJade #Rosenaya #Rosemary #Jake English #Pesterquest

[genericpuff]

Do you plan on adding any new characters (oc or people from myths not included in LO), archs, or plot lines in Rekindled?

Considering that LO already bit off more than it could chew, I likely will not be adding any extra plotlines/characters into Rekindled, as I'd like to refocus the writing back to its foundations in S1 and expand on them further (if Rachel had just stuck with the original trajectory of what she had set up, even if both our versions would have ended up diverging along the way).

Of course, what I'm hoping to tackle is subject to change, but stuff I know for sure:

I will not be tackling Eros and Psyche's myth, at least not in as great detail as LO, due to the fact that its placement in the story makes no sense with the original myth in mind (in the OG myth Persephone and Hades are already married so it would make more sense to tackle that if and when I get past the Hades x Persephone story; I might tackle it in a one shot or something, which is also what I'd love to do with Orpheus and Eurydice!)

I will be removing the Apollo SA. It's obvious Rachel didn't feel up to the task of tackling it and only wanted to use it for virtue signaling because she shoves it off into the background every opportunity she gets and seems like she wants people to just forget it happened. Considering it serves no narrative purpose beyond that, then it's a pretty obvious thing to have removed, SA shouldn't be used as a means for character development (especially when it's just to make the main love interest look better by comparison, blech).

While I'll be removing the SA, I'll still be covering some of Persephone's struggles with finding healthy relationships and feeling comfortable in her sexuality. TGOEM will be less of a 'purity club' and more of a women's support group for female goddesses and nymphs who have been harmed by the patriarchal systems that are in place in Ancient Greece (forced marriages, sexual assault, etc.) Demeter's biggest fear is her daughter being consumed/killed by a male god the same way her creator (Metis) was, and Gaia before that, and in a lot of ways, she's both consciously and subconsciously supplanted those fears into Persephone. They both have a lot of stuff to work through, to say the least!

How gods/goddesses are created is being completely rewritten. Believe it or not, there are more sensible ways to skirt around the incest that don't have to perform insane writing gymnastics when you're dealing with deathless, non-corporeal beings. It's one of those "Rachel, the answer was spitting you in the face" things and I'm pretty excited to get into it :' )

I will be dropping Eris' role as Persephone's reason for wrath. This made zero sense and did nothing for the plot back then and it makes zero sense and does nothing for the plot now. All it does is further rob Persephone of any agency or responsibility and it makes her 10x less interesting as a character. This does mean Eris likely also won't make much of an appearance in Rekindled as that was literally her only purpose in LO from what we've seen and I'm not planning on tackling the Trojan War, but we might see about referencing her every now and then as a background character, it depends lol

References to the Trojan War will be removed as all the references that Rachel made in LO, again, make no sense especially with how messy the timeline has gotten.

The divide between Kore and Persephone as namesakes will be far more apparent and characterized. Not gonna spoil too much but we're gonna tackle the original foundation of Persephone/'the feeling' a lot more with what was started in S1 and never followed up on (because Rachel retconned it through Eris). I'll also be taking a similar approach with Hades vs. Aidoneus.

I'm working with what Rachel has provided in terms of worldbuilding (which is, to be fair, very little LMAO) and expanding on it to make 'more sense' especially with the whole gods vs. modern times thing. There are a lot of modern amenities the gods have in LO that make no sense for them as gods so I'll be attempting to rectify that by giving all the elements of LO's modern setting some more purpose. Not just in how Olympus and the Underworld and the Mortal Realm are designed, but also in the every day technology they use (like cars and phones).

Demeter's characterization is going to be completely redone. I feel I owe that much to her after what Rachel has done to her lmao

Minthe will be handled a little bit differently. She'll still be Hades' on-again-off-again partner at the start of Rekindled, but she'll be playing a slightly different role in the narrative as a whole.

Zeus and Hera will be a bit less of a focus, though I'll try to cover it when I can. Zeus will be a confidant foil to Hades whereas Hera will be a confidant foil to Persephone.

EDIT: Poseidon will no longer just be a comic relief character. We WILL be seeing the realm of the Sea in Rekindled :' )

That's a lot, but still not even the tip of the iceberg with how much stuff I have planned ;3 Hope that satisfies y'all for now!

#lore rekindled #lore olympus au #ama #ask me anything

[cuips-not-cute]

Heya cuips! Long-time listener, first-time caller (not entirely true, I've left a comment of each brl chapter so far 😂)

blinking red light has permanently burned itself into my brain at this point, and I'm so keen for the next update! I, no joke, stare at the AO3 tab in my Chrome app like it's my husband who's currently at war.

Other than the GO fic that you have labelled as the main inspo, what inspired you to write brl and fanfiction as a whole?

Ps. Hope you're having a good day❤️

aww well hello!! you are such a sweetheart omg,, however i could not find a comment under this same username on ao3, what handle do you use on there? (and if you use the same one and i somehow missed you then i am so so sorry<3)

ahhh it really means a lot that you're excited about the next update, i'm sincerely hoping to post it within the next few days, but if i can't finish it by this sunday i'll put it up next weekend for sure!! it's at almost 12k now, super chunky.

hmm i think it really was just closed set that inspired it!! i remember being at work last july and daydreaming about the fic & thinking about how much i loved it when i suddenly realized, "hey wait a second, i could steddie-ify this" and i kinda let that idea simmer for a while (was still working on cyclical at that point and i am not the type of person who can write multiple wips at a time) before reaching out to @racketghost about potentially writing smth inspired by their fic!! and they of course were really lovely about it so i started the planning process which took FOREVER because i actually ended up rewriting ch1 several times,,, fun fact originally the plot was gonna be "eddie lies about making tapes with steve harrington to a gang of bullies in order to save his ass from getting beat, except now he feels bad about it and goes to steve to come clean, cue shenanigans when steve offers to actually make the tapes" but i reallyyy wasn't liking what that was doing to eddie's character, plus i couldn't figure out how to make it fit within the post s4 timeline i wanted to write it in because i am just a SUCKER for post canon fics. however it was a bee in my goddamn bonnet and i was GOING to figure out how to make it work because i really really wanted to write a steddie sex tape au inspired by one of my fav stories in the world, so through a hearty combination of bitching and moaning about it to my most incredible friend @lollaika, actually rewatching zack and miri, and generally pacing around the kitchen while the puzzle pieces slowly fell into place i finally figured out how i needed the plot to work and voilà, chapter one!!

as far as writing fic as a whole tho? i can't pinpoint one thing that got me into it, but i've always kinda been a writer, used to have a blue glittery notebook i carried around everywhere as an elementary schooler for that exact reason, and that love for stories has just stuck ever since!! and then getting into fandom opened my eyes to a whole new world of writing that i gotta say i like a whole lot. like so much. you people are the fucking greatest❤️❤️

#this ask was so sweet and so fun #thank you so much for sending it<3 #sorry it got so looong tho omg #asks #brl #blinking red light #st

[murasakibonnet]

Liminal Space

A ROTTMNT Experimental AU Masterpost

Based off the 2003 TMNT episode Same as it Never Was, Liminal Space is a ROTTMNT AU meant to twist the central plot of the original. It asks: what if instead of Donatello traveling to distant dystopian future scarred by his absence, it was his brothers that were sent in his place.

Now twenty plus years into the future, Leo, Mikey and Raph must navigate through a whole new world occupied with familiar yet different faces. They’ll come to learn that during their absence, war broke out between yokai and humans with mutants simply caught in the middle. And though it’s been years since the war has ceased, the world is still working to heal from it’s fallout. 

Peace was established but tensions are high, taking the combined strength of a mysterious power hierarchy to keep it all civil.

Surprisingly, it isn’t the foot clan that’s up to anything foolish, though, why is someone running around in armor that bears distinct similarities to the Kuroi Yoroi? 

And what’s all this talk of multiple universes and bifurcated time branches?

Leo’s worried about getting back to the past. Raph’s focused on “fixing” this dreary future. And Mikey just hopes they’ll make it through all this alive.  

... Except we’re not just following their story ...

Now faced with the reality that his brothers have disappeared with no real method of getting them back, present timeline Donatello must overcome hardships and obstacles that threaten his home, friends and family. 

He’ll have to make new allies amongst faces that have yet to appear in the ROTTMNT universe, if he hopes to survive with his sanity intact. 

At the end of the day, though his brothers are not there to help him, he is not alone.

Additional info:

- This takes place two years after the movie so the brothers are aged 17,18 and 19 respectively.

- As mentioned, this is an experimental AU which means I’m moreso using it to learn and experiment with my art style than to create a cohesive story. Maybe something resembling one will come through with enough time and posts. *shrugs* But my main concern is having fun with worldbuilding and learning about techniques used for comics and maybe animatics. 

- Feel free to ask me questions, I’m gonna be pretty generous on answers. I’ll place a general *SPOILERS* warning on top of my posts should it feel necessary. 

Plot:

The plot is going to be divided in two different story lines respectively called Cause and Effect.

Murphy’s Law (How’d we get here?)

The obligatory set-up to the whole story which can be found here. 

Cause largely goes over how present Donatello had to deal with his brothers being otherwise preoccupied as the relation between humanity and mysticism reach boiling point.

Effect is primarily from Leo, Mikey and Raph’s point of view in the future. I don’t plan to actually post these details in a chronological order so I’m just warning you all this now and hence the Effect Arc is absolutely going to have spoilers from the Cause Arc. 

Honestly, I’m hoping to focus on funny moments for this portion of the story. An overarching plot is in the works but shenanigans is the prime goal. 

Bonus Content:

Effect Arc Wardrobe Concepts-  Mikey Leon Raphie

Toughest Shell

Power UP!

Progress Update

#rottmnt #tmnt #rise! donnie #rise! leo #rise! mikey #rise!raph #Same as it Never Was #Except now it's #Without You #Never the Same as it Was #future donatello #Liminal Space AU

[umbramatic]

The Umbra Lore Post

OK I did this for Vaespar, one of my other sonas, so I'm going to do a lore thread for what is arguably my main sona, Umbra.

This will have more Meta Context than the Vaespar thread did (there is meta context to Vaespar and I will get to it eventually but it is best saved for... elsewhere) so I'm gonna be starting with said meta context. 

To start off... the entity now known as Umbra was once two separate characters. 

For the first... I have a story setting I call Multiverse Warriors. It started when I was 12 as a really stupid idea for a fanfic series that essentially crossed Pokemon over with everything else I'm into but slowly evolved into an original fiction superhero-y science fantasy thing. 

When it started, I decided to give the Multiverse Warriors, the titular main characters, a boss, simply referred to as The Boss. The Boss was basically me but cooler and sexier, as one does, and gave the Multiverse Warriors their missions. The Boss remained a constant fixture of my mental theater adventures of the Multiverse Warriors. 

Cut to the tail end of me being 19. I joined a certain RP called We Are All Pokemon Trainers, or WAAPT for short. I whipped up a character that was by all means unusual (for the time) - an immortal (this was pre-AZ) priest of Giratina who holed himself up on an island for 600 years until finally venturing back into the outside world. As my representative in this RP he was dubbed Umbramatic, or Umbra for short, and he went on many, many adventures with a gaggle of other characters, both my other characters I made for the RP and the characters of my fellow RPers. 

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

These two characters existed alongside each other as entirely different yet vaguely conceptually related entities for years. But then at one point I thought "heh, wouldn't it be funny if The Boss looked like Umbra as sort of a continuity joke" and that was a thing for a while. 

But then it got to "hey what if they were the same character just at different points in time" (with the plan being to broad strokes the Pokemon bits in a copyright-friendly way in any "official" Multiverse Warriors material) and that's where things got WEIRD. That decision led to Umbra becoming my sona, an extension and representation of myself - and around the time of that decision was when my idea of who I was was starting to change wildly. 

So now let's get into the (current, post-WAAPT stuff is subject to change) in-universe timeline shall we? It starts with the WAAPT stuff. 

Umbra was born Joseph Nox on April 10, 1353 (WAAPT uses a Pokemonified pseudo-Gregorian calendar) on Shadedrake Island, an island not far from Hoenn that was settled by Sinnoh natives fleeing calamity long ago. Unbeknownst to him, he had been experimented on before birth, by Giratina cultists that spun off  from an ancient civilization of Alakazam and Metagross, and stole a special formula from Nicolas Flamel, who in this continuity happens to be an Infernape. This formula gave Umbra immortality (again this was pre-AZ) that prevented him from dying of old age, disease, and such, as well as the ability to use Obscura (the existing WAAPT Dark/Ghost counterpart to Aura and psychic powers). He did not realize this at first and had a normal childhood with his sister Marie. He grew up to be a high priest of the Giratina religion, gaining the title "Umbramatic," and got some Ghost-type partner Pokemon. Things were going great.

Then a plague struck and every human on the island died except for Umbra. 

Umbra still had his Ghost type companions (one of which was the Sableye ghost of his dead sister, who wouldn't be the last literal ghost from his past to haunt him) but after a few years he did what seemed like the wise thing and took said ghost companions and left. He ended up in a land familiar to those who have played the best Pokemon spinoff - Ransei. 

In Ransei he worked his way up the ranks of the nation Spectra. While he was doing so, he met a lovely lady named Duolis, who he eventually married.

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

Eventually he succeeded Nō as the leader of Spectra and became known as The Ghost Lord, after which Giratina loaned him part of their power. 

This is where things turned sour. 

Umbra quickly grew mad with power. He started to rule Spectra with an iron fist. Soon all knew and feared the name of the Ghost Lord.

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart) He got into various shenanigans with the other residents of the new generation of Ransei (read: my fellow RPers in that particular side arc) before someone finally put his reign to an end. That someone was... his girlfriend from the future, transformed into a white Arcanine for a ridiculous Okami homage I am still weirdly proud of all these years later. 

We'll get back to her later, obviously. 

(Art by Katie Tiedrich)

But even though she gave him an ass beating, despite him turning into a powerful Giratina-Black Kyurem hybrid ghost dragon named Penumbra, she did not in fact kill him, because she did not want to even with the evil overlord phase and also this is a stable time loop. So Umbra, oblivious to the true nature of his assailant, was wracked with guilt over his deeds. He dropped everything, said goodbye to his wife (more on her later), then went right back to Shadedrake Island where he and his Pokemon remained holed up for the next six hundred years. 

(Art by Augdgreen on Deviantart)

Eventually, however, (partially due to Giratina pulling a Mufasa) he and his mons mustered up the courage to leave. And that's where things really got started. 

He, eventually, found his way to Fortree City. There he met a particular group of Pokemon trainers: the J-Team. They are a group of champion-level vigilante Trainers who go about adventuring together. They promptly did the sensible thing and adopted Umbra and his Pokemon as their own. 

From there Umbra had a Wailordload of adventures with the J-Team including but not limited to (take notes kids some of these are important later): 

-Gaining a whole bunch of Pokemon friends

-Discovering  another immortal named Lina, who was created as his backup by the Giratina cult and was his unseen rival in the Ransei days

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

-Finding the truth about his Sableye sister

-Finding out the truth about his origins

-Finding a girlfriend named Amaterasu or Ammy for short who can change between human and Volcarona at will

-Getting into a deconstruction of love triangles with Ammy and Lina 

-Being the Grumpy of a Seven who is also a Hydregion with false memories and also The Beast in a Kingdom Hearts/Epic Mickey-esqe plot

-Having more of his past confront him vis a Waka-esqe Latios who knew him back then -Dealing with Ammy having a short-lived affair (they make up)

-Dealing with Ammy going back in time and becoming his arch-nemesis as a white Arcanine, thus finding the truth about his past and turning their relationship to enemies to lovers retroactively (they make up)

-Finding out one of his colleagues, Pent, is his and Duolis' descendant

-Finding out one of his friends is the human avatar of the Xerneas-created artifact of power he sought in his Ghost Lord days

-Switching bodies with that friend

-Finding his ex-wife is now a Doublade with her own story and issues

-Coming out as having a crush on ANOTHER archnemesis

-Becoming Luke Skywalker

-Creating a universe with the help of his friends in a ridiculous Homestuck homage (that would become the Yangverse, hence Yangverse!Arceus' human form looking like him)

-Being sent to a dimension where he never stopped being the Ghost Lord, and where he and Lina had a son

-Him and his friends having to be broken out of a different dimension by said son

-Making up with that one archnemesis crush from earlier

-Him and Ammy finally getting married and riding off with their friends into the sunset

That last bit was mostly the end of Umbra's story in WAAPT, as I moved on to focus on other, newer characters. 

...But as for his story overall it was only the beginning. Now we enter the post-WAAPT-canon bit which is a transition to... something else. 

See, long after the events of WAAPT, bad things start happening for Umbra as the immortality monkey's paw starts curling. Most of his human friends and Pokemon companions alike start dying off one by one of old age or other factors. Even some of his Ghost pokemon passed on for real, their purpose in the mortal realm done. 

And then it happened. 

After her long Volcarona-demigoddess-based lifespan kept her going for well over a millennium, Ammy finally died of old age.

Umbra, naturally, was devastated. However he was devastated enough to take drastic measures. 

See, he had close connections with a WAAPT organization called PEFE, which had a super secret advanced island base. He used their technology to isolate himself to an alternate timeline of the WAAPTverse that had all human and Pokemon life raptured in an unknown incident, and isolated himself in the remains of PEFE there, cutting himself from almost everyone else. The only surviving companion that came with him was Xion the Porygon-Z, and she kind of forced herself along. 

Umbra stayed alone with Xion in this facility for a long, long time. Sure, he kept himself busy, like with repairing the facility, but he never actually left. Xion meanwhile had much of her programming altered to the point she wasn't a Porygon-Z or even a Pokemon anymore, and came to be known as X. 

Eventually, however, X convinced Umbra to go out just a little. So while he had no intention of ever going back to his home timeline due to all the trauma he did use the multiverse-traveling tech that got him here in the first place to start visiting entirely different timelines. 

The timelines and his little vacations to them were varied. Many of them were very different worlds than the Pokemon-based one he had left behind (leading him to discover to his initial shock and horror what "animals" were), though he visited plenty of other Pokemon worlds too. Eventually during these visits, he started opening up again. He started, you know, actually making friends. Some of them even became new lovers, though none filled the hole Ammy left behind.

It was then he met The Shimmerweaver.

The Shimmerweaver is an archfey entity of immense magical power. Umbra met and befriended them in his travels, and they had a fling or two. But while The Shimmerweaver is not malevolent they are mischievous. Prone to fucking around with their powers to see what happens. 

So one day, they gave Umbra a "gift," that gift being irradiating him with an obscene amount of fey magic. 

After this Umbra found he was no longer a human, but an elf. And not just any old Tolkien-style elf but an elf that was one of the olden fair folk, with all the urges, strengths, and weaknesses. His magical powers expanded widely beyond just his original latent ability to use Obscura, including the ability to shapeshift into other beings via stealing small snippets of their metaphysical identities, but he became vulnerable to silver and prone to dark urges to do awful things to mortals. Also pointy ears and longer hair of course. He could better control his Penumbra dragon form - including making it more anthropomorphic as well -but would also lapse into an eldritch elf form not unlike the Shimmerweaver under pressure.

(Art by Shorah_Art)

But the most pronounced effect this had on Umbra... was the ability for him/her to trans his/her gender.

Umbra was horrified at first. Asked The Shimmerweaver to change him/her back, only to get a "this will be good for you I swear". And. Indeed he/she started getting used to it. In particular started using his/her shapechanging and genderchanging abilities to present and feel euphoria in ways he/she had never before. On one hand it caused him/her to be more ambitious in his/her multiversal adventures. On the other he/she felt the need to keep his/her new nature a secret from most, using his/her powers to make it look like nothing had changed. 

And ultimately, even with his/her many multiversal excursions and newfound powers to toy with, aside from the presence of X he/she led a very lonely life at home. 

(Art by lilsmolfoxdraws on Twitter)

Then the second shakeup happened. 

One morning over his/her morning coffee Umbra found a gaggle of strange children - named Otto, Giselle, Minalli, and Darrin - in one of his lair's modules.

Art by @drrandombear

Said children were child experiments with multiple superpowers, who had escaped their lab via a multiverse-traveling machine. This, however, caused them to crash-land in Umbra's facility. Initially not trusting each other, Umbra nevertheless provided food and shelter for the children. Over time they learned to, in fact, trust each other, aside from Umbra withholding his/her fey, gender-changing, and draconic secrets out of Anxiety, and after a point Umbra had basically adopted the children. Another child named Trina, from yet another universe, eventually joined them as well after one of their adventures, Umbra adopting her as well. 

It was Trina's story - being rescued from a race of crystalline demons that gave her strange powers - that gave Umbra an idea. 

See, he/she had seen a lot of things across the multiverse. A lot of amazing things, but also a lot of terrible things. Many, many people who for whatever reason needed help. 

So he trained the children in rescue, and combat, and deflecting and circumventing disaster. Those children eventually started putting their training into action across the multiverse, saving lives. They referred to Umbra as The Boss. And he/she gave them a name too: The Multiverse Warriors. 

They went on many adventures with Umbra, or The Boss, at their command. But will Umbra ever open up to them about his/her secrets? We'll find out eventually. 

And here is where we loop back to the meta stuff. Because through all this bullshit, in-universe and out, Umbra has become an extension of my identity. Sure, Umbra's not *literally* me. Sure, Umbra-as-a-character vs. Umbrra-as-a-representation-of-me is kind of fuzzy, and what's canon in that regard is a little messy. But Umbra, *spiritually*, is me... or at least one form of me, along with my other sonas. He/she got me out of my shell with my writing and character development. He/she helped me explore my gender identity. Umbra is very special to who I am as a person...  and while I've tried to document as much as his/her story as possible here, it's sure to gain new wrinkles from here on out.

#original character #sona #original fiction #pokemon #rp #lore dump

[p5x-theories]

I've been thinking. Do the original phantom thieves exist in the p5x timeline, or is this an alternate universe where they didn't? I feel like someone would have mentioned them at this point, or Closer would probably bring up his they're like those "other guys" (the PTs). Unless the whole team is dense and didn't notice them when they were doing the whole thing.

That, or this is the Maruki universe? I haven't played Royal, but I'm gonna assume his whole thing was like, giving you what you wanted the most or making you happy no matter how many laws of the universe he broke, such as raising the dead. Unless that was all a sort of simulation of sorts. That being said, if you get everything you want, wouldn't that mean you'd have no desire for anything else? Though considering the Palace owners, that isn't really the case. Maybe.

Another thought I've had is that this takes place in one of the bad endings of P5X, probably the one where you sold out the crew and joined with Jablo...Jabloldbrka....the cup fella. I can't put it into words since I've never seen it because I'd be too sad practically betraying everyone, but maybe it works? Since we don't know Joker's role in the story despite seeing him in the previous trailer, maybe he's going to be working against us?

Ah, yes, the bad end theories! Both post-Maruki bad end and post-original P5 bad end have been suggested as possibly being where P5X is set on this blog before, and it's always fun to come back to those after we get some new info, so thanks for bringing them up again!

In Maruki's case, he was absolutely trying to create everyone's "ideal" worlds without trauma, so it would stand to reason that people would have no desires left if everything's "ideal" for them. I could definitely see Maruki smoothing over the involvement/actions of the Phantom Thieves to keep people from questioning his world too much- in fact, this comes up at least a bit in P5R as, if I recall correctly, at least one of the Phantom Thieves doesn't seem to quite remember what brought them all together as friends in the first place- which could explain your point about the Wonder Squad never so much as referencing the original Phantom Thieves so far in P5X.

I think the biggest hitches here would be: 1) There'd have to be more to it to result in all traces of the Phantom Thieves, as real-world people, being completely erased as far as we've seen so far, including things like the rebrandings (Big Burger, no Leblanc or Crossroads, etc), because Maruki wouldn't have done that at least as we saw him in Royal, and 2) It would suggest something's gone wrong with his "ideal" world, as people are having desires again- both our main characters, and people with warped desires that form their own Palaces or even just a Mementos Shadow. But neither of those are insurmountable obstacles to this theory!

In Yaldabaoth's case, specifically making the deal with him, it does track that people would lack desires, as the point was control, conformity, and essentially locking everyone into Mementos to think the same way, unable to act for themselves (ie, desire something). The fact that the deal with him would allow Joker to continue acting as a phantom thief (and possibly joined by the other original Phantom Thieves as well, though that's unclear or even unlikely if I'm remembering right) would also explain how the Metaverse still exists, and how there are still Palace rulers. If the other Phantom Thieves are gone, locked inside the Velvet Room, it could also explain why traces of them in the real world have vanished, which works out nicely! I don't think there are actually any major points against this theory right now.

These "post-bad end" theories are fascinating to me, because I'd really love either of them to be true, but I'd also be kind of surprised if Atlus let them make Joker be an antagonist, haha. I just... keep expecting something in P5X canon to disprove them, and instead they just... seem to keep clicking into place better???

Anyway, on the other hand, there's always the alternate universe theory, like you also mentioned. This one would be a good way for P5X to tell its story and have similarities to P5, while still being able to get away with any discrepancies, because it's an alternate universe so of course things are a little different! Since it's so flexible, it's a pretty good fallback theory at the moment, as it'd be hard to contradict unless something directly from P5 canon shows up to prove it's actually the same universe, haha.

#theories #etriansquad-yssey

[trippin-over-my-fandoms]

Hi I just wanted to ask if you have any thoughts on the end of series 3 and I don't know if your taking prompt ideas but if you are I had this idea of no sparrows dying and both teams kind of living together with no Reginald with Luther and Sloane still getting together

I have so many thoughts actually! Even a bit of a fix it/au/continuation thing brewing in my head. But I'm mostly intrigued with how they're gonna handle it! probably more than I was curious about season 3 (I was VERY excited but like I wasn't theorizing). It's certainly very different than the previous two finales and makes me wonder if they're going to deal with one final apocalypse or something else.

Anyway!

I hope you don't mind but I've used your prompt to set up another prompt I've got waiting on me! I felt they'd work together rather well and I've also created a series on my ao3 for these fics!

Under One Roof

(link for ao3)

Well… it had started out as a good idea, at least. 

That was exactly how all of their ideas went. Whether it was fight or flight decisions in the heat of battle, time travel to avoid an apocalypse, or moving into the Sparrow Academy- everything started out good. But it was always the test of time that showed the real outcome. 

You’ve got to be kidding me, guys! There’s a chore chart for a reason!”

“The next fight that breaks out, both of you are getting kicked outside and you can deal with it on the streets since that’s how you want to act!” 

“There is a nasty ass pair of underwear in my room and they aren’t even mine so somebody needs to start talking right now before I make it everyone’s problem.” 

“This house was a lot quieter until you let a bunch of children move in!”

“My room is my space so I could care less what you think about the color scheme.”

“Doors lock for a reason everyone!” 

“It’s not even the good stuff, you shouldn’t be able to smell it! I swear!” 

“Who the hell ate the last of the cereal and just put the empty box back on the shelf?!” 

 “I’m moving out. Not a single one of you has a brain cell between the twelve of you. And I don’t know which is more shocking, That no one here can think for themselves long enough not to get into a petty argument or that I’m even remotely surprised.”

“We just need to give it time! I’m sure everything will work out once we get to know each other.”

“If you don’t get out of my personal space right this second I’m going to make you eat your own feet.”

“So did dinner get canceled or-?”

One week and everything has gone to hell. 

Somehow things were more peaceful between the Umbrellas and the Sparrows when they were fighting against a cosmic bomb to stop yet another apocaplyse. Living together in the same house is proving to be a challenge. 

The place is certainly big enough. In the original timeline it was meant to house forty-three children. Despite there only being sixteen in this new one, the place is still just as massive, more than equipped to handle six Umbrellas and seven Sparrows. There are enough bedrooms, training areas, a courtyard, a library…plenty of space so it is possible to go a full day without ever seeing anyone. 

And somehow, fights still break out. 

They started simple. The first thing every sibling fights about when moving into a new place. Who’s getting which room. 

Klaus tried to call dibs on Reginald’s room. It wasn’t that anyone wanted it other than him, except maybe Diego because he liked the idea of all the space, it was that the Sparrows thought it was best to leave it alone. At least, Marcus thought so. Even if Reginald hadn’t exactly been a stellar father, they still felt they needed to honor whatever memory anyone had of him by not touching his things. 

He was the first and only one the kugelblitz took. They had found out about it quick enough that they could stop it before it got too out of hand. From there all it took was some time travel, once it was working again, to tweak the finer details. 

Regardless, a fight had broken out. Some mild arguing turned into cheap shots being thrown left and right to the point they were fighting almost as they had the day the Umbrellas ended up back in 2019. 

Luther was embarrassed to say the least. It had partly been his idea to even move his family there in the first place and he felt it made him look bad in the Sparrows’ eyes that they were behaving so badly. He was supposed to be their Number One, their voice of reason. But he had never had that. Not really. 

And if he was honest it wasn’t even truly his idea. He had found out days after they had all settled in, on a quiet afternoon when things finally seemed to have calmed down and everyone got used to each other, that Sloane had a hand in it all. 

As it turned out, she had suggested the idea to both Marcus and Luther separately, making it seem as if it was the other’s idea. 

“I have to say,” Marcus started, one quiet morning- that didn’t stay quiet for long- when they ran into each other in the foyer, “I wasn’t too sure about this at first but now that things have calmed down a bit,” little did he know he’d be eating those words minutes later. It soon became taboo to even utter those words, “I think this is going to work out just fine. It’s even nice to have a bigger team. Some pretty good thinking you’ve got Luther,” and he had reached out to shake his hand but Luther stood dumbstruck.

“Wait,” Luther had to think it over in his head, make sure he had heard Marcus right, “I thought this was your idea.”

“No, Sloane told me it was your idea,” Marcus said slowly. The realization hit them at the same time and they had laughed about it. 

They weren’t laughing now. 

“Whoever keeps putting the toilet paper roll over instead of under is getting a roll shoved up their ass!” Diego declares from the balcony over the living room, interrupting an argument at the bar between Five and Alphonso over vintage whiskeys and another argument between Jayme, Be, and Klaus over Yahtzee because Klaus swears she’s cheating. 

Jayme snorts when she laughs at Diego’s rage and though Sloane was coming in on the tail end of the argument she swears she could hear his resolve snapping like a twig. “It would you! I fucking knew it!” He shouts, with no evidence other than Jayme’s amusement. He vaults himself over the railing and Sloane is quick to stop him midair. “Let me down!” He begins to flail as much as her power will let him, trying to fight even over seven feet above the floor. 

“Not until you calm down,” Sloane tries to reason, sending Luther a ‘help me’ expression when their gazes meet as he crosses into the living room downstairs.

“I’ll calm down when I’ve gotten justice for this incredibly annoying atrocity!” Diego tries to grip the railing but Sloane tilts him upside down, “Luther!” He growls when he sees him, “Make your stupid girlfriend put me down!” 

“You know you’re not the only one in this house Diego,” Luther reminds him. 

Except Diego refuses to let it go, even when he turns sheepish as Fei and Allison join Sloane on the balcony to investigate the scene. “Alright, vote. Right now. There’s enough of us here, who thinks I’m right?” 

“Yeah!” Klaus exclaims, “Toilet paper should always be over!” 

Silence falls upon the room so thick that Marcus’ footsteps can be heard halfway down the hall. 

“You,” Diego growls, eyes narrowing, deadly and threatening, “It’s under you idiot! I’m gonna get you!” 

“You might want to take advantage of your head start, Klaus,” Five pipes in. Klaus doesn’t need another word before he’s abandoning his Yahtzee game and taking off down the hall. 

Sloane lifts Diego and sets him down on the balcony. The very second Diego’s feet are on the floor he’s taking off after Klaus. 

Everyone stands in silence to the sound of Klaus screaming fading out as they disappear. 

Marcus is utterly confused when he reaches the rest of them, “What did I miss?”

Jayme and Ben burst out laughing, practically rolling on the floor as they clutch their sides. Ben looks like he’s on the edge of tears, he's laughing so hard and Jayme finds herself in a coughing fit. 

“What’s so funny?” Luther asks, mindful of the demanding tone that likes to creep into his voice. Sloane had taught him that. She said they may not react so negatively towards him if he remembered he was their brother, not their leader. It was good advice. 

“It’s all three of us!” Ben chokes out. 

“Yeah,” Jayme wheezes, having to catch her breath just to speak, “We caught the psycho going through the house and changing every roll so I had the idea to change them all back! I just wanted to see his head explode.”

“And he did not disappoint,” Ben shakes his head, “Klaus wasn’t supposed to say anything but I guess he was feeling cocky since he bet it wouldn’t even take a day for him to notice.” 

Klaus makes it out alive. He winds up laying low with Alphonso and Viktor in the recreation room, just in time to start an air hockey tournament. By the time Diego finds him he’s already calmed enough to not care. At least, until he’s the victim of some other shenanigan. 

Besides, it’s movie night. 

It occurs every other night, just to maintain some sort of peace even for a short while. And to encourage everyone to get along. Of course, not everyone is above being petty to be right in a silly little fight, jeopardizing the whole evening for everyone. 

The rule is that everyone has to make nice or refrain from starting another argument an hour before eight o’clock. If they can do that, everyone can gather in the home theater for a movie. Chosen, of course, by a wheel app with everyone's pick of movies. Viktor’s idea. Because Fei’s idea of drawing names from a bowl proved to cause accusations of rigging the draw. Thus forfeiting movie night. 

It works. Most nights.

And those blissful moments of silence are golden. 

Especially when those moments are spent on the roof in the cool night air. 

“You think they’ll get along long enough to make it through dinner?” Luther pauses his kisses to mutter the question that’s been on his mind since the idea was formed. They’re only a few days out and as the date draws closer he gets more anxious. He just wants it to be perfect for Sloane. 

She smiles but shakes her head, rolling her shoulders to adjust with how long she’s had her arms up around his neck, “Mhm, probably not. But we can only hope,” she resumes their kissing, trailing a hand up to his short hair. 

Only for him to pull back, “Maybe we should talk to some of them. You know, get them to… behave. So it’s not a complete disaster?” 

“I think they’re going to argue no matter what. We should at least take it as a victory they aren’t actually killing one another,” 

“You’re right,” Luther kisses her nose, “As always.”

“I try,” Sloane shrugs coyly, 

Though, they’re both hoping she’s right, long enough that dinner won’t be a complete disaster. 

#tua s3 #anon #asks #tua s3 spoilers #spacegravity #luther hargreeves #marcus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #fei hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #alphonso hargreeves #five hargreeves #sloane hargreeves #jayme hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #i forgot/left out poor christopher i wasnt sure how to write him rip #sorry dude

[coles-scythe]

Ok so as I'm figuring more and more stuff out for my TD AU and how I can have a fanfic season AND bring at least Mike, Jay, Skylar, and Xavier back in Pahkitew, I realized there is still a really big glaring issue: Chris goes to prison at the end of ROTI, which will throw off my entire AU timeline + headcanons. And I'm too stubborn to change my headcanon timeline.

To solve this issue, I'm changing up quite a bit of my AU:

TD, TDA and TDWT are still untouched since they don't apply to the second or third gen casts. Owen, Duncan, and Alejandro are the winners of their respective seasons in my AU. Duncan and Alejandro will still return in AS, but I don't think I'll bring Owen back. TD and TDA will take place in Summer 2007, and TDWT will conclude sometime in Spring 2008.

ROTI is obviously being rewritten entirely to fit my S/I and OC into it. Lightning ends up being the winner in the AU, giving a plausible reason for both Cameron and Lightning to return in Reaedy Set Feud (RSF, my fanfic season), AS and maybe PI as well. (Cameron bc he still wants to prove he can win TD and Lightning bc he's kind of a glory hog and "winners never quit.") Chris DOES still go to jail at the end of the season. ROTI will take place in Summer 2009, to give more than just a couple of months for the island to be contaminated with nuclear waste.

Originally, I planned for RSF to take place directly after ROTI similarly to TDA, but I'm abandoning that idea to have it take place a year later instead of All-Stars. So it'll be in 2010, instead of where I usually place AS. Chris will be in jail for this season instead of getting released early since there was more damage to Wawanakwa in the AU. So Don will take over as host for RSF (Which means I'll have to watch RR to learn more abt his character aaaa-). Something something, the producers still want their next season and by god they're gonna get it. Promote an intern to host or whatever. Wawanakwa is under quarantine while it's being decontaminated, so the setting will be elsewhere just like TDA as well. I'm planning for RSF to have an Olympics kind of theme, but I'm still figuring out details.

PI and AS are getting their positions swapped. PI will happen first, and then the original series pre-reboot/revival will conclude with AS. I tried to avoid giving any gen cast only one season, hence why I made RSF to give the gen 2 cast more development, but it seems I can't really avoid it for gen 3 without making ANOTHER fanfic season. I do not have the energy for that, I'm already drowning from my rewrite ROTI and planning for RSF, PI and AS. All of this means I get to keep my headcanon of PI taking place in 2011.

PI will obviously still take place on Pahkitew, but AS will ALSO take place on Pahkitew instead of going back to Wawanakwa. Even though it's my own headcanon for the timeline, it's actually ridiculous that Wawanakwa was cleaned up and deemed safe enough for AS to take place only a year later. Canon excuse would probably be that after his whole fiasco with the EPA, Chris lost ownership to Wawanakwa and ended up buying Pahkitew shortly afterwards. Which also means Chris will probably return to hosting in PI instead of Don. Or maybe they'll co-host. Idk I think that scenario could be really funny. But I know I want Chris to host AS instead of Don, so I'll still have to figure that out.

Both PI and AS are going to be completely rewritten, and PI will have a slightly larger cast of both gen 3 cast, gen 2 cast, and some more OCs. I already mentioned that Mike, Jay, Skylar and Xavier will return for my fic, since they're the self ship + OCs, but Zoey will also definitely return since she and Skylar are dating and might need to work out some of their issues in that season too. Idk if I'll bring Cam back since I'm not sure just how much I'll mess him up in RSF lol.

Replacing AS with RSF in the timeline and placing it in Summer 2012 lets me keep my timeline the mostly the same lol. I have no idea how much of it I will change, but like I said its going to be completely rewritten. All I have for certain so far is that Mal is NOT the main antagonist; Mike, Jay and Shawn are going to be sharing the main ship title, probably with Skylar and Zoey, but even then both ships are still going to take a backseat to focus more on friendships.

I'll make a separate post detailing more about the characters' relationships and dynamics in RSF, and probably another different post about the challenges I wanna make for RSF + the extra ones I'm lowkey working on for my ROTI rewrite since I'll need them LOL. I also have a few ideas for relationships and dynamics for PI characters outside of adding Shawn in with Mike and Jay, specifically concerning Dave, Sky and Ella. And maybe also Jasammy, extra lesbianisms are always good lol.

#Totally True Love #Stoked To Be Girlfriends

[therenlover]

The Boy With The Easel (A Young Artist!Helmut Zemo x Reader Oneshot)

(Hey! If you end up enjoying this fic, it’s the first chronological part of a new fun expanded AU I’ve created with @creme-bruhlee​! Their fic Bliss is part of the same timeline and takes place about a year after this one, so you should check it out!!!)

Synopsis: About a month into your first semester at Novi Grad’s top university, you finally meet the strange young man that you’ve taken to calling “easel boy” in the back of a bookshop. From a distance, he always seemed cold and aloof. As you get to know him, though, you realize things aren’t always what they seem.

Tags: Meet Cute, College AU, First Meetings, Coffee Date, Artist!Zemo, Embarrassment, Awkward College Kids Falling In Love

Rating: T

Warnings: Very Vague Mention of Sexual Content, Swearing, Zemo Says The Word Daddy In Reference To His Father and The Reader Thinks It’s Kinda Hot

Word Count: 7000~

This fic has been crossposted to my AO3!

------

                                    The University of Novi Grad

                                                 Fall 1996

Mornings in Novi Grad could be beautiful if you knew what to look for.

Sokovia was… different from America in many ways. From the language to the scenery, you often found yourself adrift in the strangeness of it all. There had been nothing quite as old as the buildings in the historical district of Novi Grad back home, no towering grey behemoths serving as a reminder of a bygone fight against Soviet invasion in the memories of your childhood. Still, though, there was beauty in the strangeness nonetheless.

From your tiny room in the Helena Lyudmila International Scholar’s dorm, for instance, you had a perfect view of a large campus courtyard hosting a statue of the donor by the same name. She was some royal who had invested in education a few hundred years ago, and by the looks of her metal likeness, she had been quite pretty. The sight of her shining in the early morning sun was one of the things that made uprooting your whole life seem worth it in the end, no matter how silly that seemed.

There were other small comforts that you had found beauty in during your first month attending your prestigious university, too.

You found beauty in the way the sunlight streamed over the rooftops like the opening to an Oscar-winning film. In the sound of traffic below and the overcast skies above. Sandwiches from corner stores, wildflowers growing in the median of the road, cups of the worlds best black coffee served steaming by scowling attendants at the cafe; Everywhere there was something small and kind and just familiar enough to relish in, more than able to distract you from the stress of living hand-to-mouth in a country where you didn’t even know the language. It made it all worth it.

That being said there was something else too…

Someone else to be specific.

The campus tended to run like clockwork. The same groups of students would walk past your window to their classes, the same professors would get their coffee and lunch at the little cafe across the square, and every weekday morning at 8 am on the dot, easel boy would set up his palette and canvas and paint the same bustling street.

He was talented, that you couldn’t deny. Even from the 6th floor, which was a considerable distance away, it was possible to admire the detailing and consistency with which he painted. His talent wasn’t when kept you captive at your window in the morning, though. Though you were sure his art was beautiful, he himself was a thousand times more stunning.

All dark eyes and dark hair and dark clothes, he parted crowds with his piercing gaze alone. He was always dressed like the protagonist of some awful artsy film. Massive argyle sweaters, untucked button-ups, corduroy jackets, and flare bottomed pants that must have survived his father’s wardrobe from the ’70s… his style was as close you could get to atrocious while still being impeccable as possible, and that wasn’t even getting started on the smudged black liner always present under his persistent gaze. You had never had the pleasure (or embarrassment for that matter) of meeting him in person, but you were sure that you would have had the same awed and slightly frightened reaction if you ever did. He could have been plucked entirely from the pages of some awful romance novel.

You were well and truly smitten with the idea of him.

If you looked at your morning routine through the eyes of a stranger, you’d consider yourself odd for your strange obsession with him, but you didn’t look at it like that. It wasn’t an obsession. You never overstepped your bounds. He was simply pleasing to look at and so you did. That didn’t constitute as obsessive, right?

Even if it did, you weren’t causing any harm.

Easel boy, as you had come to refer to him, was simply a tool you used to ground yourself in your new and frightening environment. Nothing more. If you ever met him, you would surely hate him from the short interactions you’d seen him have with strangers. They never ended well. He would remain an unattainable, attractive ideal in your mind until he eventually faded away into a funny memory you’d share with your kids one day.

Until then, though, you would watch him from your window before your morning classes and refused to feel guilty about it. So, that was that, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

On the morning in question, you had woken up a little late and in a foul mood. In preparation for a test in your foundations of algebra course you had spent the better part of the night pouring over formulas while your upstairs neighbor’s bed slammed repeatedly into the wall and floor. Though you were sure they were having an excellent time, you were most definitely not. It all culminated in you missing your original alarms and despite the fact that your first class started at 10, you were exhausted, furious, and not looking forward to missing breakfast to finish the assigned reading you had put off the night before. The only thing keeping you from throwing in the towel and just giving up was the promise of seeing the painter.

So, when he arrived for the day at 8 am sharp, you were positioned at the ledge by your window, textbook in hand with a mug of instant coffee at your right. It was like a breath of fresh air.

As usual, he retrieved a small pack of cigarettes from the back of his eternally paint-stained jeans only to bring one to his lips and light it quickly. He always smoked before he worked, and just like always, he took an extra cigarette from the pack to tuck behind his ear for later. Then, he got to work setting up his easel and the small stool where he set his palette.

Pulling tubes of acrylic, brushes, and pencils from his well-worn messenger bag, easel boy flipped out the kickstand without any problem and set his thick, pre-primed canvas on the worn metal. You watched in fascination. Art had always seemed so unattainable to you. Instead, you were drawn to the more academic. The man before you, though, created beauty with an ease that had evaded you all your life, and it had you both jealous and entirely intrigued. Slowly, you reached down to take a sip of your coffee as you let your eyes drift back to your reading.

Learning about ancient Babylon was far less interesting than watching him, though.  

When you next looked out the window and away from your work the handsome artist had created his base sketch already. How did he do it so fast? You assumed it was practice. He had been drawing the same 3 buildings every weekday morning for at least a month, so after a while, it must have been second nature to measure out the lines and put things into perspective. You smiled. He tended to have that effect on you.

The process was repeated until a little before 9:30. You would read a few paragraphs then look up to watch the painting progress from a sketch to a full-fledged work of art. It was good today from what you could see. The colors were a bit more muted than usual, but that was only on account of the awful, dreary overcast sky that threatened to dump rain on the city at any time. Overall, you would have considered it a masterpiece. Easel boy didn’t seem to think the same.

He regarded the painting with a sort of begrudging satisfaction that bordered on disappointment before he pulled the second cigarette from behind his ear, lit it, and began the process of packing up his materials. You finished the last of your coffee watching him do so. Smoking, well, smoking tobacco at least, had always been a vice you had avoided and yet you often wondered what it would feel like to take a drag of one of his cigarettes after it had been between his lips. Then, the magic lifted.

He folded up the flimsy easel, tucked it away with his materials back into his messenger bag, hoisted the stool under one arm and the painting under the other before taking off at a brisk clip down the street away from your window. You watched him until he was out of sight.

You were snapped from your concentration by a knock at your door.

“Y/N,” a heavily accented voice called, sending you scrambling for your bag, “If you are not outside in the next 15 seconds I will break down your door,”

Shit.

“Coming, Sasha!” You wailed. It took about 10 of those seconds to grab your backpack and shove your textbook inside, an extra 2 to check your appearance in the mirror- you looked slightly disheveled, but it was the best you were gonna do after the night you’d had. Besides, it wasn’t like you were doing anything important. You didn’t need to be dressed for a date -and you were opening the door for a quick save at the 14th second. Your door was safe for another day.

Out in the hall waited Sasha Balandin, arms crossed and grey eyes piercing in the flickering light of the terrible overhead fluorescents. As a fellow international student, you had become fast friends with Sasha. He was a little rough around the edges, and definitely didn’t take your bullshit, but he was a rare friend. “I have been waiting for 10 minutes,” he griped. You tried your best to look apologetic. “Don’t do that,”

“Do what?” You asked, closing and locking your door behind you as you began walking down the hallway.

Sasha huffed. “Do not pretend you were not too busy ogling that painter in the courtyard to hear me knocking on your door,” His Russian bluntness was on full display now as you shook your head in mock disbelief.

“I can’t believe you’d accuse me of something like that!”

“It is not an accusation if it is true,”

“There’s no way you know for a fact that I was watching him again,”

“But you were. This happens every week,”

You sighed, pausing at the top of the stairs. “I was,”

Taking the stairs in twos, Sasha sighed. “You are too soft, Y/N. Besides, you have said so often that he seems like an asshole. Why do you continue to get all mushy at him out the window if this is the case?”

“Because… well, because…” for a moment, you floundered in search of an answer that wouldn’t make you sound like a complete freak, but you found that there really wasn’t one. It came down the one small factor. “He’s just really hot, okay?”

The look Sasha gave you could have killed. He kept his mouth shut, though, choosing to let his silence shame you more than anything else did. It worked. For the entire trip down the stairs and the mile-long walk to your lecture hall, you felt the weight of shame heavy on your shoulders. Or maybe it was just your backpack. You didn’t know which you’d prefer. He did start speaking again eventually, going on about some party you had missed in favor of studying, but the feeling never left. Even as you sat down for your lecture it was still at the forefront of your mind. In fact, you were so busy thinking about your crush on easel boy and the problems with it that you barely paid attention to the professor’s rehashing of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Your error only hit when the professor flipped the PowerPoint to the final slide.

“Before you go, I want to remind you that you have a paper on the importance of Enkidu in the Epic is due at the beginning of class this Friday. The details and requirements should be listed in your syllabus. Class dismissed,”

Fuck.

Friday was only two days away.

You were so screwed.

The problem was, you didn’t have a spare copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh just lying around your dorm room. Usually that wouldn’t have been an issue, the professor for your current history course used English for her slide because her particular history course was specifically for first-year international students. Unfortunately for you, though, you hadn’t been taking notes. Instead, you had been daydreaming about how it would feel to have easel boy blow his cigarette smoke in your face and then subsequently scolding yourself for having thoughts like that about a total stranger. In a terrible twist of fate, the professor only held office hours after her last classes on Mondays and Fridays, so even getting the information from her then was off the table. Dread began to pool in your stomach.

Any other student would have been able to cut their losses, rent a copy from the library, slog through it in a night, and write the damn essay even without the help of the classroom slides for context. The only problem was all the books in the library were in Sokovian, and you still barely knew how to order a coffee correctly. Reading the language in a full Cyrillic alphabet would just be impossible, especially for a book as stupidly old as the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In short, unless you could get your hands on a copy in the next day or so, you were absolutely, well-and-truly fucked.

Sasha was quick to find you as the hall cleared out, waiting near your seat as you packed away your notes. “That was all bullshit, no?” He asked, but the second he took in your slightly panicked expression he stopped short, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing deeply. You knew what he was going to say before he ever said it.

“Something is wrong. You were not paying attention. Were you thinking-”

“Yes. Okay? Yes, I was thinking about him,”

He shook his head slightly. “I am concerned for you,”

“Who isn’t?”

Despite his usually stoic demeanor, that made Sasha huff out a soft laugh. “You got yourself into this mess, Y/N, you will get yourself out somehow,”

Your jaw dropped as you slung your bag over your shoulder and started making your way towards the door. “You’re not gonna help me?”

“Though I would love to be helpful, you forget that my English is poor. It will do me better to read the book in Sokovian myself than to use the information from class,”

Oh, yeah. You winced. “Sorry, Sash’”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he shrugged as you walked out onto the lawn, chilled to the bone by the wind that whipped in every direction.

A storm was brewing. It might not fully take hold of the city for a few hours yet, but it would make the walk to your evening class absolute hell if the rain fell as hard as it had several weeks prior. You could only hope that it wouldn’t start until after you had walked home. Your odds were looking slim, though, based on the way you could already hear thunder clapping in the distance. After a moment you hit the edge of the sidewalk where your paths would diverge.

“Good luck with the paper,” you offered weakly.

Sasha replied with a sharp, “Good luck with your crush,” and then he was off in the opposite direction without another word. Sasha was blunt like that, never overstaying his welcome or lingering when he didn’t need to. There was something enviable about it. What you wouldn’t give to be able to simply say things as they were without an unnecessary sugar coating to save face and spare feelings. It lingered on your mind for the whole half-mile walk to the campus bookstore. Speaking of which...

There was only one place where you might possibly find an English copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It wasn’t the big student bookstore, most of the textbooks there had been in Sokovian, Russian, or German and you hadn’t even tried to set foot in their actual book section. No, your only hope was the tiny hole-in-the-wall bookstore you had stumbled upon during move-in. It was only about half a mile away from your dorm from any of your lecture halls, so you often found yourself wandering inside when you had time to kill. They were one of the only stores you’d come across that sold anything in English, magazines included, so despite the fact that the young cashiers rarely spoke your language you often found that the back shelves of that tiny shop kept you from going mad.

Now, they might also be keeping you from ruining your GPA.

You could only hope. If anybody could save you, it was them.

Ducking in through the small doorway, you were greeted by the soft ring of the bell above your head. The attendant at the register simply regarded you with a polite nod. You had seen her there before and she knew you barely spoke a lick of Sokovian, so she didn’t attempt a pleasantry. Instead, she simply let you wander through the entrance and into the towering bookshelves, passing a few other faceless shoppers on your way towards the back. You were grateful for her nonchalance.

If there was anything worse than feeling foolish for not knowing Sokovian, it was being talked down to in perfect English by a Sokovian citizen. Most interactions left you wishing you’d actually taken anything away from your high school French class other than emotional trauma from your teacher and a caffeine addiction. Damn America and its terrible public-school language programs…

The path to the English classics section was one you’d walked many times since discovering the book store. It was right in the very back corner of the shop, tucked away where the city natives wouldn’t have to address or see it. You had snagged a copy of Pride and Prejudice a few weeks back, so you knew exactly where to search. The only problem was slogging through every single book on the shelf in search of the one you were looking for.

Your eyes scanned the wall.  

Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh…

Gilgamesh!

On the 6th shelf up sat one small copy. Score! You were saved! As you reached up to grab it, though, you were met with yet another roadblock. The shelf it was on was juuuust a little too high for you to reach. Oh, come on…

You hopped a little, extending your hand up as far as it could go, but your fingers just barely brushed the spine. Somewhere behind you, you could hear footsteps. Then someone coughed to suppress laughter. The shame was plain on your face. As your flannel rode up and you stretched up in one last desperate attempt to grab the book when suddenly someone, you assumed the same person who had been laughing at your misfortune, spoke.

“They have stools, you know,” he said, accented voice thick with amusement. The English surprised you, but you assumed they used it for your benefit. You were in front of the English language books after all. Besides, the shame of it all kept your mind from questioning it too much. “For reaching the top shelf,”

Of course they had stools.

If your face hadn’t already been burning with embarrassment it definitely was now.

In a split-second decision, you decided playing dumb was the only way you could walk out of the situation with any dignity left at all, so you plastered on a confused smile and spun around to greet the stranger. “Really? I had no cl-”

You stopped short.

Oh.

Oh no.

You’d know those paint-stained jeans anywhere.

There, with his hands in his pockets and the most self-important, thin-lipped smirk you had ever seen, was easel boy in all of his cocky, intimidating, hot glory. Had you really noticed how hot he truly was before? It didn’t feel like it. Not now that you’d really seen him close up and reveled in the way his dark eyes hypnotized you with their smudged liner that felt borderline obscene. You could smell him too, all charcoal and turpentine and cigarette smoke. If you had it bad before when he was just a blurry ideal out your window, you were completely and utterly smitten now.

He regarded you with a sort of practiced annoyance, and yet there was a strange softness to it that you hadn’t found in many native Sokovians, especially ones that saw you as the stupid, bumbling American wandering blindly around their country.

“Would you like my help?”

“Huh?” You were so lost in his eyes that you couldn’t even focus on his question.

“To reach your book. Would you like my help?”

“Oh!” With a brisk nod, you stepped away from the shelf to make room for easel boy, “yeah, I’m just trying to grab that one there. The, uh, Epic of Gilgamesh,”

In one swift movement, he was stepping right beside you to easily reach up and grab the offending piece of literature. The closeness of it all nearly sent you into a tailspin. That wasn’t even mentioning the way your heart thudded just a little faster when he finally handed the book to you, his calloused fingers brushing against your own. You barely find a grip on your brain strong enough to thank him through the fog of embarrassment and attraction. Eventually, though, you managed to choke out a placation as your eyes explored the cover of the book.

“Thanks for that,”

“It was no problem,” he shrugged. He didn’t move though, still standing just inches away from you. When you looked up from the book you found his eyes were still on you, watching intently as if he expected something from you. The answer to what he actually expected was a mystery but you could tell he wanted something. When you didn’t speak, he spoke for you. “So, The Epic of Gilgamesh? That’s definitely a bold choice,”

You looked up at him sheepishly through heavily lidded eyes. “It’s not a choice at all, actually. I’m only buying it so I can write an essay,”

“Ah,” Something about his tone was almost disappointed as the conversation stalled.

You quickly changed the subject to the first thing you could think of.

“Your hair is really nice!”

“My hair?”

“Yeah… your hair,”

Smooth move, dumbass.

Easel boy’s expression seemed to soften once more as his signature grin crept back onto his face. “Thank you, I grew it myself,” Between his accent and the way he was looking at you like he was going to eat you alive, you weren’t exactly sure how you hadn’t had a heart attack yet. Still, the attention was nice, even if it was bourne out of you repeatedly embarrassing yourself in a never-ending cycle of fuckups. He ran a hand through his loose brown hair. “I like your shirt. Very American,”

Silently, you cursed yourself for not taking a few extra seconds to pick out a better outfit when you woke up. Standing next to him, even while he was dressed in his paint-stained jeans and undone button-up, you looked like a wreck in comparison. He didn’t seem to be speaking from a place of judgment, though.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was being nice, but that couldn’t be the case… could it?

“Maybe it’s just that I haven’t met very many Sokovians that are fond of America, but I’m not sure if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult,” You joked. It was a bit sarcastic, the lilt of your voice masking your deep insecurity, and to your surprise easel boy laughed. He really laughed. From your place beside him, you could almost feel the warmth radiating off of him as he shook his head.

“It was definitely a compliment,”

Oh.

Your heart skipped a beat.

That was a new revelation.

You steeled yourself with a deep breath. Fuck it. It was now or never.

“I, uh… I’m Y/N, and you are?”

He regarded you once again with that strange expression of expectation. “What?”

“I asked for your name,” you repeated, and yet he still stood, slightly dumbfounded, staring down at you with that same expectant expression from earlier. For a moment, you almost thought he expected you to know it already. That fact was quickly glossed over when he moved to rub the back of his neck with his hand, eyes drifting down to the floor.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, “I’m not very good with people. My father thought college might help me finally connect with my peers, but I don’t think he expected that I was the problem, nor do I think he expected me to pick a degree in the arts,” Suddenly, he paused and stuck out his hand to you. “I’m Hel. It’s very nice to meet you Y/N,”

With only a moment of hesitation- because wow, your name had never sounded more right on someone’s lips -you took his large calloused hand in your own and shook it gently. His palm was warm, his fingers lingering on your own for just a moment even as he pulled away. It wasn’t much, just a soft brush against your flesh, but it sent a flash of heat and liquid confidence through your chest.

“Is that short for something?” Your eyes met his in the soft yellow glow of the overhead lamps. Seeing him like this, so up close and personal, he looked a lot more human than he had from your window. Sure, he was imposing. Underneath the initial harsh facade, though, was something softer and almost poetic. You weren’t an artist by any means but if you had been, you had no doubt that he’d be your muse.

“It’s short for Helmut, but only my father calls me that, and only when he’s cross, which, unfortunately, is most of the time,” he chuckled, “Besides, it’s an old man’s name. It doesn’t suit me,”

The words left your mouth before you knew what you were saying.

“Well, it’s better than calling you easel boy,”

Shit.

Today really just wasn’t your day, huh?

In the split second where you were mourning your chances with the most stupidly handsome guy who had ever shown any interest in you, you almost missed the way Helmut’s eyes lit up at the admission.

“Easel boy?” His voice was teasing, but not demeaning. That didn’t do much to ease your mortification, though.

“Is there any chance that I can get you to forget I said anything?”

“If you already have a nickname for me when we’ve barely met, I think you already know the answer to that question,”

His knowing smirk was enough to get you pleading. “You can’t just let me off the hook this once?” you begged, scrubbing a hand across your forehead in a desperate attempt to get away from his piercing gaze. The things those brown eyes did to you could be classified as obscene… “I will genuinely do anything if you don’t make me explain myself right now Hel,”

Hel quirked up an eyebrow. “Anything?” The way your stomach turned at just one word from him was both terrifying and extremely exciting. It felt like a promise. Without hesitation, you nodded. That made him smile. “In that case, get coffee with me today?”

Once again, you were rendered speechless.

“My treat,” he added, “unless you’re not interested…”

“No!” Your answer left your lips embarrassingly fast, “Or- yes? No, no, I think I meant no. No; I am very interested. Yes; I would like to get coffee with you,” There was a hint of shame in your words, but only a hint. After the day you’d had already, there wasn’t very much there to be ashamed of. Still, that same pit of dread began to open up in your stomach as you mulled over your choices.

Thankfully, Helmut continued to take it all in stride. “Wonderful! Is there anything else you’d like to do here before we go? It’s best we leave soon if we want to beat the rain,” He offered up his arm as he spoke like some sort of Disney prince. It was, by far, the cutest gesture you had ever been lucky enough to receive.

You linked your arm with his without hesitation. “As soon as I pay we can get going,” He was warm. It radiated off him in waves just like the warm hints of tobacco and wintermint that seemed to seep from his skin and clothes. With that, you made your way to the front desk as Hel shot you a sly smile.

“Who said anything about letting you pay?”

True to his word, he didn’t let you pay for a single thing for the rest of the afternoon.

The two of you made your way up to the cashier together, and Helmut only separated from your side to grab his wallet before you could grab yours. He then spoke in rapid-fire Sokovian to the lady at the register and pulled what could only be described as a wad of Sokovian koronas while you set the book on the counter, and from the looks of it, she seemed more than pleased with the two of you. Who wouldn’t be, especially when Hel seemed to insist that she keep the excess? In the end, after the book had been wrapped nicely in a paper bag and deposited in your backpack, Helmut held the door open for you like some sort of gentleman and followed you out into the grey afternoon.

Then, you were off down the street on Hel’s arm, pushing through the wind and the biting chill that had settled in the air.

“So, you don’t sound like a big fan of your dad,” you asked, half laughing as you attempted to broach conversation once again.

Helmut groaned beside you. “My father is a menace who is unable to understand that some people want more in life than to sit behind a desk all day making phone calls. In fact, most of my family is the same way. The only reason I haven’t completely cut them off and changed my name is the money,”

“I assume you get a lot of it if it’s worth sticking around someone you hate so much,”

“Never ask a man about his net worth,” he chuckled, gently elbowing you in the ribs, “but yes, I’m very comfortable. I have my own apartment just far enough away to be considered off-campus with my own car and as much money as it takes to keep me happy and getting good grades; Daddy makes sure of that,” The word daddy was a deep sneer, barely there in the wind, but something about it sent butterflies through your stomach. Well, that was never something you thought you were into… “Little does he know, I’m not here to make money. I’m here to find inspiration worth my time while out from under his thumb,”  

You snorted softly. “Artistic and rich? You’re just ticking all the boxes, Hel,”

“Good for me. Would offering help on that essay of yours endear you to me further?”

“Absolutely,”

The next 5 minutes you spend discussing the Epic of Gilgamesh. Surprisingly, in one of the first stokes of good luck you’d had all day, Helmut seemed to be one of the only people on earth who knew plenty about Enkidu off the top of his head. When he was the one lecturing you in his smooth, heavily accented timbre it was so much easier to pay attention to something so very tedious than when you heard it from your aging and often monotone professor. In fact, you were so enthralled by his retelling of the tale that you barely noticed you’d made it all the way to the cafe that sat across from the international dorm.

If you didn’t consider Hel to be smart as a whip and twice as clever as he was smart, you would have thought it was a coincidence. It couldn’t be though. No, there was no way anything was a coincidence with Helmut around. You shot him a smile when he opened the door for you and ushered you inside.

“You know Hel,” you muttered, “I’m starting to think you might know more about me than you initially let on,”

He shrugged. “You’re American, so it’s unlikely you live anywhere else and I wanted to make the walk home easy. It’s supposed to rain, you know? Besides, despite the… interesting waitstaff, they make the best pastries in town right here in this cafe,”

“Did you mean it when you said you were paying?”

“Absolutely,”

“Then I can’t wait to try one,”

The two of you were seated quickly (you assumed it had to do with the waitress finding Hel as hot as you did, because you caught her looking at him from behind the counter and whispering excitedly in Sokovian to her coworker at least twice over the course of the meal) and the conversation flowed easily as you waited on your coffees and the deserts Helmut insisted on splitting to let you try. Millefeuille, pear tart tatin, chocolate devil’s food cake, and a towering plate of apricot kołaczki awaited you, and they kept you sitting and talking and snacking for over an hour as you really got to know each other. The more you learned, the more you fell in love with the man across from you.

Over the course of the afternoon, you learned that Helmut was majoring in studio art while minoring in psychology just because it interested him, he hated the Beatles almost as much as he hated Freud’s theories on women, his favorite color was purple, and he spent most of his free time reading or getting high off his ass in his massive studio apartment in what you now knew was one of the most expensive areas in the city. He, in return, sat at rapt attention across the table as you gushed about your life in America, your reasons for going to university in Sokovia, your favorite books, and the ridiculousness that was trying to pass college-level classes in a country that seemed to avoid English at all costs.

Eventually, though, you did touch upon his nickname.

“I just thought it was really interesting that you did the same thing every single day, no matter what,” you explained, grabbing one of the last kołaczki from the plate and ignoring the powdered sugar that stuck to your fingers, “and by watching you… I don’t know, I guess it kind of felt like I had another friend who’d share breakfast with me in the morning if that makes sense,”

Hel nodded, swallowing his last bite of chocolate cake. “I understand completely. It can be lonely, coming to a new place without any friends or connections, but you were brave enough to take the leap. I admire that,” He brought his napkin to his lips before crumpling it and setting it one of the now empty plates before him, “But I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed that you didn’t watch me because I’m attractive,”

You nearly choked on your pastry. “Well, I wouldn’t say your pretty face didn’t help…”

The grin that spread across his face was heartstopping. He grabbed a napkin from the little holder next to the two of you and grabbed a pen from one of his pockets as he spoke. “In that case, you should join me tomorrow morning. Bring coffee if you can, I never have enough hands to bring a cup for myself, but even if you can’t bring some, if you want to come and watch me work I’d be more than happy to have a companion for the morning,” he paused for a moment, flustered, “or every morning, for that matter,”

“That sounds like a deal,” Your cheeks were hot, but not from embarrassment this time. No, it was anything but, because here you were across the table from a kind, attractive, intelligent Sokovian boy with money to spend and time to spare for you. You couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud too. He wanted you back, after all. You could see it in the way his eyes lingered on you just a little longer than he should, and even more plainly in the way he wrote his phone number in bold blue ink on the napkin and signed it with a doodle of a heart before passing it across the table to you.

“I’m going to go pay,” he said quietly while standing, “but I’ll be back in a second to walk you out. Alright?”

“Alright,”

There was something strangely similar to sorrow sitting in your chest when you watched him walk away. The sight of his ass as he went made up for it, though. Once he was obstructed by other patrons, you turned your attention to the napkin in your hands. Hel’s handwriting was neat as far as artists’ handwriting goes, but it still held a sort of looseness in its curves, a freedom in the way the numbers had flowed effortlessly from his pen. You popped the last kołaczki in your mouth as you admired the blue ink before devouring the final bites of pear tart and millefeuille. How had you gotten so lucky to have someone like him giving you his number and buying you pastries? You pondered the bizarre nature of it all until Helmut returned.

You stood quickly, folding the napkin and putting it away in your pocket. “Ready to go?”

“If you are,” he replied. In an instant, you were standing beside him again as he opened the door for you. The wind was even stronger now, strong enough that his loose hair whipped wildly around his forehead from the force of it. You couldn’t help but giggle at his appearance.

He caught you off guard as he walked you across the street. “You have such a pretty laugh,”

It was like you were seeing him again for the first time. You fiddled with the strap of your backpack as you got closer and closer to the door to your dorm. “Thanks. I’m pretty fond of your laugh too,”

Then, you were there, just two college kids standing awkwardly before your first departure.

“So,” you said before you could stop yourself, “when I tell my one friend all about this afternoon after my math class tonight, should I say it was a date?”

Hel’s cheeks flushed pink. “You can call it that, if that’s what you would like it to have been,”

“I think I would,”

“Good, good,” he let out a little chuckle, “I’m glad. Would you… would you consider going on another? I promise I have much more to offer than just small talk and tips on where to buy the best pastries,”

Looking into his brown eyes, so full of uncertainty and hope, you knew you couldn’t have denied him even if you wanted to. Still, you weren’t going to give in to his advances without a little bit of taunting. It made it fun, a game to be played where, hopefully, you both would win big in the end.

“That depends,” you teased, letting your lower lip catch between your teeth, “what do you have in mind?”

Helmut shoved his hands into his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his heels, pensive. “If you want to, we could go to my place and I could actually show you all of the paintings I’ve been working on while you watched me. The view from the rooftop is lovely too. We could have dinner up there while looking out over Novi Grad. I have to warn you, though, it’ll probably be takeout. I’m an atrocious chef,”

Slowly, a brilliant smile spread across your face. “Does Friday work?”

The smile Helmut shot back was as bright as every star in the night sky and even more enthralling. “Friday is perfect. Can I pick you up at 7?”

“As long as you come in that fancy car you were talking about,”

“Then it’s a deal,”

“Well,” you turned away, walking up the steps towards the door before turning back to him, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Hel, and I’ll bring coffee. Have a good night,”

“You too, Y/N. Parting is such sweet sorrow and all that,”

With that, he gave one last short wave before turning on his heel and pulling out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. You watched him walk away until he turned the corner and disappeared from view. Only then did you enter the punch code and race up the stairs to your room.

Your back was pressed to the door of your dorm room the second you had shut it, your hands clutching at your chest in a desperate attempt to keep your heart from beating right out of your ribs. The second you were in the privacy of your own place, your cool facade had melted away to reveal just how much of a wreck you really were.

He had invited you over to his apartment.

He liked you.

Easel boy really, honestly liked you.

No, not easel boy. Helmut. Hel.

Hel liked you, and he invited you over to his apartment, and you had plans to meet him with coffee as he painted the next morning.

You smiled softly under the fluorescent lights and pulled the book that had brought you together from your backpack. It seemed so unassuming now, just a fresh paperback with an unbroken spine, but in reality, it was so much more than that.

Hel.

It was such a nice name. You liked it a lot.

Now you couldn’t wait to see what else you liked about him too.

------

a/n: I have been so excited to start sharing this AU with you guys, and it’s finally here!!! If you liked this fic, I once again will direct you to Bliss by @creme-bruhlee​ because that’s technically next in chronological order for this AU. I hope you enjoyed!!!

TAGLIST: @tatestripedsweater , @elaineygrace, @multiyfandomgirl40 ,  @lovelymischief , @rami-malek-trash , @avgravy , @wh0re-4-techno , @forcebros , @sugarsweetkiss , @grandmuffinsharkbailiff , @killsandthrills , @novasstudy , @thnksfr-ptrkstmp , @inmate-marmalade, @alanathedeer , @your-pixels-are-showing , @shit-post-things , @bbarton​ , @sux-ubus , @halefirewarrior , @janelongxox , @rax-writes , @mossybank​ , @simsiddy​ , @xxspqcebunsxx​ , @be-cautious-around-bri​ , @metaphorical-love-for-a-car​ , @frothonthedaydreams​ 

#zemo #helmut zemo #baron zemo #baron helmut zemo #zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #baron zemo x reader #baron helmut zemo x reader #fanfiction

[mckkachins]

gif cut-out tutorial

ok ok so @subtledean requested a tutorial on how to do stuff like this post with the gif cutouts and the text effects. hopefully this helps aria ;w; i’m not the best at explaining things but i included some screencaps for clarity. i’ve tried to compress all the sample gifs and screenshots down to under 3mb to avoid tunglr compression on mobile so if they look a little different from the actual gifset, that’s probably why!

what you’ll need:

photoshop, i’m using PS 2021 but any version of photoshop will work out

a basic knowledge of gif-making (i’m assuming you already know how to make a gif and color it).

step 0: storyboard

this isn’t strictly necessary but i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it. you don’t have to do any photoshopping this first step, but it’s really important to check out your footage and the shots you have gathered to see what works, especially if you’re trying to combine three or more gifs onto the same canvas. like literally take a piece of paper and draw out where you want the character’s faces to be, where you want the cutouts to be in relation to their faces, and think about whether or not there’s enough empty space to the right or left of characters heads for a cutout to be placed. is there too much movement that would be distracting or messy in an already busy gif?

things like that really help, and it also makes you double check on your footage quality and feasibility. if you end up making a gif where you want one character’s face to be on the left side of the gif but it turns out there’s not enough empty space on the right side of their face to place a cutout and you then have to hunt for new footage or start all over, it’s kind of a trainwreck and you just waste another hour of your time as you deepen your procrastination hellhole. that’s not a real story—

step 1: make the base gif

i’m assuming you know how to color it already. and aria i KNOW you know how to color already so :) size it accordingly to your desired dimensions.

as you can see, i left enough space on the right side of abaddon for the knight cutout to be placed.

save this as a .psd file. you don’t actually have to sharpen and do everything that comes at the end of making a gif right away, but make sure your layers are clearly labeled. do NOT convert to video timeline/smart object just yet.

step 2: make the cutout gif

this is critical: make absolutely certain your cutout gif has the same number of frames as your base gif. otherwise it could get really messy! abaddon has 20 frames, so the cutout will also have 20 frames. again, do not convert the cutout gif to a video timeline/smart object. just keep it as a frame animation. here’s my cutout gif. it’s just a simple b&w gif but i added a touch of purple for color consistency sake whatnot.

now for this particular gif i’ve actually cropped abaddon to be roughly exactly where i would want her face to be in relation to the first gif, but that is unnecessary. helpful, but unnecessary. you do NOT need the cutout gif to be cropped exactly perfect in order to make this work.

step 3: combining the two gifs

there are many different ways to combine two gifs onto the same canvas. some people like to do it via video timeline. i prefer to do it by frames and convert everything to a video timeline only at the end (it’s just a personal preference). here’s a tutorial if you prefer working with timelines, but i’m gonna go over how to do it by frames.

first group everything in your base gif into one folder. then group everything in your cutout gif into one folder as well. you can name them however you want to keep track of things.

then, select all of the frames in your cutout gif. in this case, all 20 of b&w abaddon get selected. make sure its not just frames 4-20 or whatever, but all the frames you made. you can click frame one and then shift-click your last frame to double check.

click the timeline tab group options bar and then go to options > copy frames

now go to your base gif canvas. select ALL the frames of your base gif as well (it’s critical that all of them are selected).

now do options > paste frames.

a popup should appear and you’re going to select the “paste over selection” option. do not link layers.

your cutout gif should now be completely or partially obscuring your base gif. however, now you should see two groups on your sidebar of layers. one for the base, one group for the cutout. if you labelled them with names you can tell which one is which.

step 4: creating the cutout

in order to create the cutout, we use my favorite thing in the whole world of photoshop. layer masks.

to make a layer mask, you simply select a layer or group you want to mask and then click this little icon on the row of icons at the bottom of your layers panel.

white on a layer mask means whatever group or layer is getting masked is completely visible. black on a layer mask means that the group or layer is invisible. if there is 50% gray on a layer mask, then its 50% visible. so on and so forth.

i love these so much i abuse them on the daily. i’ve made a few gifs where i’ve masked every frame one by one because i wanted to get some cool effects. admitting that kind of embarrasses me but oh well.

anyway this is simple though. just find a picture or an outline of a knight. i used these boyes:

obviously i cropped out the knight of the bunch, got rid of the watermark, and then i placed it on the canvas where i wanted it to go.

select the interior of the knight with the magic wand tool. should be pretty simple since it’s all black.

now click over to your layer mask. make sure you have selected the mask and not the group. you can tell you have selected the mask when a little white rectangle pops up on it.

when you know you have the mask selected, click command+i or control+i to invert. if for some reason you do not have this keyboard shortcut, just take a brush tool and color over the area in complete black. as long as the magic wand tool is still selecting just the interior of the knight, it should be fine.

now once again, black means a layer will NOT be showing, white means a layer will be showing. so right now after i disable the visibility of the top layer we used as a reference for the silhouette, it looks like:

do not fear the clownery. layer masks are great because they are always non-destructive. meaning that even if you somehow mess up and your canvas is showing something completely gross, you can always go back and edit your layer mask and your original gif would be unharmed as long as you did not touch any layers in the group, only the mask. simply invert the mask (again, make sure your mask is selected and then command+i or image > adjustments > invert) to get:

for a layer mask that looks like:

you could have also just made a black layer mask to begin with and then inverted the knight outline to be white. many different ways to do the same thing.

another tip: if you select your outline and then click layer mask upon a group or layer with no mask at the current moment, it will automatically make a layer mask with your selection as white and the unselected pixels as black. this is normally how i do my cutouts, because it’s a time-saver even if it like. saves a few seconds max. but i typed out the above for explanation and clarity, so hopefully i didn’t just make anyone more confused.

anyway.

now say you don’t like where the cutout abaddon is positioned. layer masks can also be linked or unlinked, depending on the little link icon you see between the group and the layer mask in the image above. if the icon is visible, the layer mask and the group are linked. if you cannot see the link icon, they are unlinked.

linked layer masks will move in conjunction with the group if any type of transform is done upon them. if the group moves, the layer mask also moves. but if a layer mask is unlinked, you can move the mask and the group independently of one another. for instance, i can change where the cutout is located on the overall canvas of the gif by simply moving ONLY the layer mask (and thereby changing where the blacks and whites of the layer mask occlude the cutout gif contents). but i can also transform the cutout gif layers without changing where the overall outline is located relative to the canvas itself. basically, i can transform the interior contents of the cutout independently. so here (make sure all of your frames are selected):

group unlinked. i’m also making sure that now i am selecting the GROUP (ie. the frames of the layers you are actually going to move) and not the layer mask. you can tell because the little white rectangle around the layer mask can no longer be seen.

now i can transform/adjust the contents of the cutout solely “within” the cutout, and i don’t have to worry about changing where the cutout is located in relation to the overall gif. when transforming, make sure all the frames of your gif are selected. like select the whole group and not just an individual layer, basically.

i’ve seen a lot of how to combine and cut out gifs tutorials on this website, and here is a really good one that i know sully also used <3 big shoutout to all the photoshop queens being inspired by each other!! however i haven’t seen anything that mentioned the linked vs. unlinked layer masks, which i really feel like deserves a shoutout. you don’t have to crop your gifs out perfectly every time, you can always adjust them later. for demonstration, i’ve positioned abaddon in a few different positions with an unlinked layer mask.

step 5: creating the outline

so in order to emphasize the shape of the cutout (the knight), i simply delete the white space surrounding the picture of the knight in the original silhouette that i used. magic wand tool + delete. you can also make a new layer, then paint bucket tool it. many ways to do the same thing.

now with only the knight on a transparent background, i double click the layer to pull up the effects. select outer glow. i used these settings:

when you are doing this, make sure you are on frame one of the frame animation and the “propagate frame one setting” is selected, otherwise you might end up only applying the effect to one out of your many frames, which blows.

then i go change the fill setting to 0%, BUT i leave opacity at 100%. fill is basically like opacity, but it doesn’t affect layer effects (whereas opacity does). so you basically get only the outline but not the black. you can also set the blending mode of the layer to screen and get the same effect, etc, etc. feel free to adjust however you see fit, in addition to the outer glow settings.

i move this layer over a couple pixels to give it the little offset effect, but you don’t have to.

step 6: adding the text

okay the two fonts i used are avenir and perla. i think a LOT of gifmakers use them because they’re really pretty.

i make TWO different text layers, one with avenir in a smaller size and one with perla in a bigger size. this is because for the perla one, i’m going to be changing the blending mode whereas i don’t want to be changing the blending mode for the smaller text. i position the text where i want it to be and make sure the perla font is in the color i like:

then i change the blending mode of the fancy text (perla) to difference. ONLY that layer, and again make sure to check “propagate frame 1″ and make changes on the first frame to apply the change to all of your frames.

but i still don’t think it produces enough of a difference. so i right click on the text layer for knights of hell, and then go to: select pixels.

then i click the curves adjustment layer. this will automatically make a curves layer with a layer mask that occludes everything BUT the area you selected. beautiful. i drag the curves around until i get enough of a difference that i like. normally i make the lights lighter and the darks darker. yeehaw.

again there are sooooo many different ways to achieve the same effect on photoshop. this is just want comes easiest to me, and it’s totally okay if you find a different way that works better for you at producing the contrast you want or the colors you want.

step 7: export and cry

NOW you can convert everything to a video timeline, put your video frame layers to smart objects, and then apply your finishing sharpening filters. export, cry, and hope tumblr compression doesn’t screw you over.

hopefully this was helpful! pls like... idk support my edits if you found this helpful or reblog this post. feel free to dm me about how u do some of the text effects as well bc i’m always trying to learn new things and i am by no means an expert on like. any of this.

aria please go write your fucking thesis before i delete this entire tutorial challenge. :D

#subtledean #THIS IS FOR YOU #I FEEL LIKE THIS TUTORIAL HAS MORE WORDS THAN UR THESIS ATM SO!!! #tutorials #mine #idk what to tag this but PLS pls pls feel free to talk to me abt ph*toshop #or ask for help or point me towards other tutorials <3 #shoutout to sully too its in there somewhere #resources #100n #ps