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frannyzooey · 3 months

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On The Green: 1

Ezra x f!reader

Rating: Mature (violence, slight gore, killing - typical Ezra 😌 — will be explicit in later chapters)

Summary: Two strangers meet.

a/n: New series alert! Man alive first chapters are hard, and so I am going to yeet this into the universe before looking at it anymore. I owe everything to @bageldaddy for educating me hardcore and for being so extremely kind and thorough, and to @the-ginger-hedge-witch for her Ezra eyes and inspiration and to @familyvideostevie for her support and enthusiasm and notes. It took a VILLAGE to get through this one. Enjoy meeting our stranger. :)

You come to surrounded by unnatural stillness.

An absence felt in the air surrounding you, there is something about it that tugs at the foggy corners of your brain, beckoning you closer to the surface. You try to listen for anything beyond the ringing in your ears, and there is…something.

A beeping sound emerging through the fog, its incessant chirping grows clearer. You blink slowly, your limbs made of lead when you try to turn your head. Instead of trying to investigate, you let yourself slip slowly back into the lush darkness, closing your eyes.

But the strangeness of the silence tugs at you, and the beeping gets louder.

Splices of memory come through in sharp flashes:

The deep, bone-shaking tremble of turbulence.

The grating sound of tearing metal.

Beeping - so much fucking beeping, every sensor in the transport pod going off - and the whole cabin jerking to the left, your body weight pushing against the fabric restraints, your dad’s voice raw with hoarseness as he screams orders at you and –

Oh shit. Your dad.

Your eyes pop open, and you sit up - or rather, you try to, but every muscle resists. Battered and bruised, you fumble at your harness with clumsy, shaking fingers. Looking up as it finally clicks open, you’re about to leap from the chair when you freeze.

He’s there next to you, unmoving.

Dead.

“Dad?” you whisper.

You can see without even checking for a pulse that he’s gone. That’s the feeling that pulled you awake, the vibration of life gone from the air. The stillness weighs heavy in the small space, and the beeping gets shriller somehow, more noticeable in the utter silence.

The pod shrinks to a claustrophobic dome, and your breathing starts to come fast. Harsh, rapid exhales out of your open mouth and then you’re vomiting, right onto the floor. A cold sweat breaks out under your thermals, and you swallow hard against more bile that threatens to come up.

There is blood splattered on the dash, pooled around the buttons. A deep gash gouged across his temple, his left eye already swollen beyond recognition. You stare at the dark, pulpy wound that runs with blood and with a heave, lose the remaining contents of your stomach.

To have hit his head like that, he must have unbuckled and tried to fix something mid-crash, but why? Why the fuck would he do that? He knew better than that. You try to think about the sequence of events, but there is only a blur. A foggy, black spot in your memory, hazy images obscured by panic.

You remember pieces: watching Puggart Bench grow smaller as you ascended through the atmosphere. The vague details of your father’s latest scheme, along with promises that this would be your last job. The frustration you felt at those words – ones you’ve heard a million times.

You remember rolling your eyes and slipping on your headphones, and then scolding you for not paying attention after he jabbed you in the shoulder to take them off, and then…this. Somehow this. Guilt settles deep in your gut.

Keeping your dazed eyes glued to the floor, you ignore the blood and beeping and the dead fucking body. You crouch low in the safety of your chair, winding your grip around the harness strap as an anchor and you sit for a moment, trying to steady your breathing.

You sit.

And sit.

–

“Think she’s got anything left?”

The words spread condensation across the lower half of his visor, and Ezra listens for an answer he already knows isn’t coming.

He always asks anyway: a constant dangling bait, in hopes his partner will bite.

He hasn’t yet.

Ezra bends back over the rough dug pit, his fingers splaying through the loose dirt. Anything worth digging for is sealed in his case already, but he stalls, thinking.

He had watched the pod streak across the sky; the sight not unusual on the Green. Mercs and prospectors landed here every day to try their luck on the uninhabitable planet, but the speed in which the pod broke through the sky was unusual. Ezra could tell it was going too fast, even from the ground. His dark eyes had tracked the potential opportunity’s descent from behind the shield of his visor, and when the ground shuddered with the impact, he felt it through his gloves.

If it had landed safety, protocol would be to keep his distance – no use needlessly engaging in a potential threat. However, he doubted that was the case after watching it fall to the earth like a stone. If he had to guess, the occupants were probably dead, and therefore, in his favor.

His old pod flashes through his mind; nonfunctional and by now, probably stripped bare. If he doesn’t get there quickly to stake his claim, this one could fall to the same fate. It didn’t look sizeable by any stretch of the imagination, but he doesn’t need big.

He just needs enough to fit one man, and his case.

Ezra keeps his voice light and conversational.

“Did you feel that?”

He looks up at his silent partner, and is met with a blank stare. Or at least Ezra assumes it’s a blank stare, with the man’s visor blackened. He can’t see his face, and has never been able to. He’s had many offers of partnership while on the Green - some out of desperation, some through coercion, some forced upon him – and though his current partner is one of the latter, he had been secretly pleased at the sheer size of him. Brute strength a valuable commodity; the hulking man is more of a utility than a partner.

“Think it’s worthy of our time to investigate, or do you suppose there won’t be much left after a landing like that? If you want, I can go it alone?”

Met with more silence, both from his partner and from the unforgiving atmosphere of the Green, Ezra grimaces with annoyance when his partner starts to walk in the direction of the site without him.

“Hang on now. We approach together.” Climbing out of the pit, the loose soil slips under his boots. He scrambles up as quickly as he can, unwilling to see his chance at the remains slip through his dirt-crusted fingers.

“Now then,” he breathes heavily. “I think it would be befitting of us to use caution in our approach. The passengers may still be alive, and feeling panicked enough to pose a risk. I think –”

The hulk appears to listen to half of what Ezra says, and then turns abruptly mid-sentence, walking away.

Snatching up his case, Ezra switches off the comm link in his helmet and his expression falls from tactful to annoyance. His eyes narrow on the man’s broad back, his fingers itching for his thrower.

Grumbling, he follows.

“Fucking idiot.”

–

You’re going to have to touch it.

You wonder what it will feel like – stiff with rigor? Still pliant with traces of warmth? Heavy and impossible to move?

In all the ways you imagined you’d probably find your father dead, you somehow hadn’t thought about the logistics of actually moving his body. You imagined someone else would be the one responsible for it. Medical staff, most likely, who were used to the clammy skin and the stiff weight of death.

Not you.

Yet another thing you’ll have to do unwillingly for him.

The reason you’re on this godforsaken planet in the first place, he’d forced you along to help him pay a debt owed for those fucking drops he relied on to get through his days. Days that bled into nights spent waiting for him, more his parent than his child. A freefall into the nomad life since your mother died, you’d been trailing behind him for years - an afterthought, only remembered when he needed something.

A reluctant digging partner when he forced you to be, but also a navigator, a cook, a laundress, a caretaker. You were a lot of things to him, but never the one you wanted to be the most.

Never a daughter.

Your eyes slowly scan the disarray of the cabin, taking in the damage. For all the things he asked you to do, he had kept you in the dark when it came to any actual useful skills that might help you in this situation. Prospecting, digging, self-defense – anything that would have afforded you a glimpse at the possibility of independence – all of those were kept from your reach.

Never a mechanic either, unfortunately for you. How the fuck you’re going to fix this thing, you have no idea. The manuals for it were tucked away somewhere, but they required at least a basic understanding, and you have barely that.

You could stick with the harvesting plan he had vaguely outlined to you on the way here (assuming you could even find the gems, let alone dig them up), try to come back and fix your pod during the evenings (assuming you could even figure it out) and then try to catch the next slingback home (assuming you could even get off this planet).

Your other option would be…none. There are no other options.

The entire situation expands into something overwhelming, each step far outside your base of knowledge and your breathing starts to come fast again. You scold yourself, willing it to slow.

Panicking again isn’t going to help shit.

Wrestling with your emotions, you take a deep inhale and close your eyes, focusing on the first step.

Before anything else, you have to move him.

–

Through the edges of lush greenery, a pod.

Ezra tries to tamp down his excitement, kicking his senses into high alert to scan for whomever it belongs to - but there is nothing.

Fucking silence, the bane of his existence.

Though in this case, a good sign.

His own pod taken from him months ago in a standoff between himself and his former crew, this off-white piece of rubbish appears as treasure to him. It’s banged up for sure: one of the engines loose from the frame and the metal surrounding the bottom crumpled from hard impact. Unlikely that anyone survived the crash, anticipation thrums through him at the harvest in front of him.

Keeping his expression measured, he beckons his partner to approach with him, silently advising caution.

The idiot doesn’t though. Instead, he stomps forward and punches at the hatch button with force.

Ezra frowns deeply, anger slipping into his tone. “Hey,” he reprimands sharply.

The man pays Ezra no mind as the ramp slowly opens.

–

One hand extended towards your dad’s shoulder, it hangs hesitantly in the air for a moment. Inching forward, you try to summon every ounce of bravery that you have and just when it’s about to touch—

A loud thump sounds outside the pod, and your hand jerks back. Crouching low along the side of the pod, you crawl through the ship's scattered contents all over the floor and grab the thrower, trying to desperately wind a sufficient charge for a shot or two. The rummaging outside grows louder, and you crouch behind your chair, gripping the weapon in your sweat slick hands. Panic floods through your veins, the sharp stink of fear oozing from your pores as your body shivers with adrenaline, and you flex your hold on your weapon.

The door to the pod opens with a hiss, and two men emerge.

One slighter than the other, which isn’t saying much—anyone would be slight compared to the size of the second man. You aren’t even sure how he managed to get into the pod, between the width of his body and his height.

Rising swiftly, you point the weapon at them.

“Stop,” you force out, trying to mask the tremble in your voice.

The lithe man freezes, surprise showing on his face for a split second before disappearing. Tilting his helmet in thought, he speaks.

“Now this is something I’ve never seen in all my time in the Green,” he muses with a drawl. “A little girl.”

A statement, not a question, and you bristle while he continues to study you curiously.

“Leave, or I’ll shoot.”

Your finger flexes on the trigger, and he raises his hands in front of him.

“Calm down, little bird. My partner and I merely ventured this way to see if all was okay after that crash we heard.” His eyes scan the cabin, a scattered mess. “Seems it was quite the landing.”

Shuffling your stance a fraction closer, you keep the thrower trained on them. “I’m fine. Now please. Go.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re fine.” He sounds completely unbothered, like you aren’t pointing a weapon directly at him. Taking a slow step forward, he peers around you. “Your partner sure doesn’t seem fine.”

“He’s not my partner. It’s my –” You freeze, scolding yourself for immediately volunteering information and his gaze drops down to your father’s lifeless form. The stranger's face sobers, and he looks back at you.

His jaw shifting in thought, his partner seems to grow bored of the conversation and takes a heavy step forward, advancing on you.

“Stop,” you try to order, panic creeping into the command, but he doesn’t. He keeps going, his large arm reaching towards your thrower. His massive grip choking the barrel, he rips it clean from your hands before you can even think about stopping him, and you crouch back behind your chair, trembling.

“My apologies for my partner, little one. He’s not keen on having weapons pointed at him. You can understand, I’m sure. Why don’t you come out from behind that chair and let’s talk. A deal, if you’re open to it.”

You don’t want to strike a deal with them. You know that any deal you attempt to broker on your behalf is going to be in their favor no matter what the conditions are. Your father never taught you the skills of negotiation – those were always done out of sight. Your mouth dries, sweat beading along your nape. What fucking deal could there even be to make that doesn’t end up with you dead? Or worse?

With so much happening in the last two hours, it’s hard to process anything, let alone a negotiation with deadly strangers on a hostile planet. How you handle this situation could be literally life or death for you, and you beg your brain to pick up pace.

Please. Please. Come on, think.

Your mind still struggling but knowing you’re running out of time, you force yourself back up.

“The deal was leave, and I won’t shoot.”

He only grins at that, and rage at the unfairness of it all flares bright through you.

“Besides, why should I believe anything you say? You’ll probably just kill me the first chance you get.”

“Why would you assume I intend harm?”

You don’t have anything to say to that, instead looking at his partner. Fear at his sheer size displays clearly on your face no matter how hard to try to mask it. “Why else would he steal my gun? Shoot me first before I can shoot, right?”

“If that was the case, he would have shot you already.” He lets a beat pass, his eyes narrowing in their focus on you. “Still could though, I guess.”

There is something behind the indifference in his voice, something in his eyes that begs you silently to listen to him — but then his partner raises his thrower, and several things happen at once.

You whimper, dunking behind the tattered chair.

The smaller man whips his railgun from his hip, pulling the trigger.

You scream, and the bullet hits his partner square in the chest.

The larger man stumbles forward as if to grab him but the smaller one shoots him again, the second shot landing in his gut. The force of the close shot pushes the larger man backwards, his heavy body slamming into the pod wall.

He slumps down, collapsing into a lifeless heap.

There is a beat of weighted silence; your form frozen.

The roguish man’s profile faces you: dark features partially obscured by the dome of his helmet, you can see closely shorn brown hair in matted disarray with a shock of white that smears just above his temple. Black eyes that glimmer in the fluorescent light, the edges lined with age. Tanned skin, a strong nose, plush lips under a mustache.

He stares at his dead partner with something akin to satisfaction, and it turns your stomach to think of not only how quickly he resorted to violence, but also how much he seems to enjoy it.

“Well would you look at that. Now we have two to move.”

Still in shock, the violent scene in front of you startles you just as much as his nonchalance does. You watch as he turns to face you; a hooked scar marring the skin under his eye.

“Now little one,” he says with seeming politeness. “You ready to hear that deal?”

#ezra prospect #ezra prospect x you #ezra prospect x reader #ezra prospect/you #ezra prospect/reader #ezra x you #ezra x reader #ezra/you #ezra/reader #pedro pascal

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gentrychild · 5 months

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O great Owl and thou noble fic-finding rats I come because I have failed to find that which I need.

There is a work, apart of your Anyone universe, where Izuku is writing a Quirk Analysis Paper and he wakes AfO up so he can see a mutation quirk which enlarges AfO's arm. I have combed through all of Anyone and then through your side works that take place in this universe. But I found nothing.

The only thing I can think is that it was a tumblr post or a fanfic one of your blog mates wrote for you. But alas, I am still here.

In exchange I swear that if my firstborn ever starts stealing quirks I will buy all the therapists, and if that fails I will leave him to your fic-finders with no rivers in sight. And they may nibble on him for all of forever.

With reverence and sincerity, -me

I have some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that his is something I wrote and posted on Tumblr, and you will never find it again even if you scroll through the entire Anyone tag. The good news is that you must be especially lucky as I found it by pure luck in a file I had forgotten.

----------

Izuku, sitting on his bed, books and notebooks opened on all of its surface, clicked his pen. Once, twice, thrice, the sound echoing in the silent apartment without doing anything to bring the answer the teenager desperately needed.

Usually, deadlines weren’t a problem for him. For some obscure reasons, the teachers in his high school were trusting him no matter what he did and forging his mom’s signatures to excuse his many absences had become the routine. However, he needed to finish this paper for tomorrow morning, so Hebisuga could read it and save her grade in Meta Analysis. That way, she would stop worrying so much about this subject, focus back on her Japanese, and write once again her ridiculously good flash cards that she always accepted to share with Yuuto and him.

But right now… Izuku’s brain just wasn’t cooperating.

He got up, his back protesting as he stopped hunching over for the first time in a couple of hours, and he left his bedroom. His notebook in hand, he walked past the bathroom and knocked at the door of the master bedroom, currently invaded by the bane of his existence while his blissfully ignorant mother was away.

The door opened in the second, All for One appearing in front of him, his hair messy and his face showing the trace of the pillow but no sign of sleepiness. The villain was one of those persons who immediately passed from sleep to alertness while Izuku needed three cups of coffee to be semi-conscious.

“What is it?” the villain asked. “Did you-“

“Show me your mutation quirks, please. Preferably the one that can offer some kind of protection.”

“What makes you think that-“

Izuku clicked his pen once again and just stared at the quirk-stealing-fiend.

All for One finally obliged, making his arm grow in size, muscles growing until it had gruesomely swollen up, and he even added some spear-like bones. Bewildered, he answered every questions Izuku had about the drawbacks, the weight, how much he could still move his arm, and so on.

Because if analyzing quirks was his passion and could become a job, words in a book didn’t mean anything to Izuku. He needed to ask questions, to make theories, to see them in action.

Once he was done and had all the elements he needed, he thanked All for One and walked back to his room without offering any explanation. But of course, his roommate didn’t need one.

“Did you just use me to finish your homework? At three AM?”

#anyone fic #anyone snippet #Thank you for doing your part in preventing the birth of a new AFO

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oldguydoesstuff · 1 year

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Bare CPU Printed Circuit Board for the Alpha NT XL366 workstation I designed back in 1995 or so. This was an obscure model of an obscure product line, made by a company (Digital Equipment Corp.) that is now itself obscure. To be honest I don't even remember much about this machine now.

What I do remember is the HUUUUGE fight I got into with our Signal Integrity team while I was designing this, over decoupling capacitors.

Decoupling caps are small components that hold a charge to help even out power when a circuit is active. This board featured hundreds of them, smaller than a grain of rice (see photo comparison of mounting pads vs rice grain below).

Our Signal Integrity team was tasked with making sure everything was electrically stable, so they required many hundreds of these to be added to the board, based on power simulations they did. Trouble was, they wanted so many, we couldn't even build the board.

My job as the Systems Engineer here was to meet the requirements from the SI team, but also from manufacturing, and the requirement that my PCB layout techs don't go insane trying to place and route the board. SI really only cared about signal quality, so they would not relent, and I ended up getting shouted at at one point by a junior SI engineer who was also under a lot of stress, when I said "There are different schools of thought on this.." and he screamed THERE ARE NOT DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON THIS!!

It got to the point where the product was not going to get built, because we just couldn't fit like a thousand of these tiny caps on the board, we needed to ditch at least 25% of them to have a hope. The models were the models though, and you couldn't argue against them.

But then my boss got a genius idea. What if we could prove the simulation models were too conservative? We came up with an experiment where we would remove caps from an older system and measure the power supply noise, to see how many caps could be taken off before the system became unstable.

Me and the junior SI engineer were tasked with doing this experiment (later deemed The Decapitation Project), so we grabbed a Tektronix scope and Metcal soldering station and headed over to this abandoned lab we had in our old Maynard headquarters, a now creepy attic space on the 6th floor of an old mill building. Here were a few older Alphastation 3000 workstations we built years earlier, working but waiting to be recycled.

We had this special program that would thrash the CPU within an inch of its life, to put a big demand on the power supply system. While this was running, the SI engineer measured the power quality, while I proceeded to (very carefully to avoid short-circuiting the system) actually desolder caps from the board while the workstation was running.

We managed to get about 1/3 of them off before there was any noticeable effect, and we found one specific type of cap was not doing much of anything at all. We took the data back to the head of the SI team, and he finally relented and let us remove several hundred capacitors. (He also buried the report and data I had, because he didn't want the bad publicity - I remember being mad about that)

The system got built after that, and worked just fine. We did try to enact a small bit of petty revenge on the SI team manager though - there was a recognition event for people involved on the project, and me and our PCB procurement guy decided to give the SI team manager a special "Faraday Award" for achievement in capacitance (Farads are a measure of capacitance - geeky eng joke). We took an old bowling trophy with a giant, beer-can sized electrolytic capacitor strapped to the top of it as the award. He was a no-show so we didn't get to present it. Those SI guys never did have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway, long story sorry. Just thinking of it recently because I was helping someone at work with an analog simulation and I remembered this..

#digitalequipmentcorp #hardware #engineering #digital electronics

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most-datable-datable-bracket · 1 month

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QUARTER-FINALS MATCH 3

Claude propaganda:

"To say Claude has trust issues is an understatement—you have to spend half the game earning his. (Claude isn't even his real name!) Once you have it, though, he's absolutely ride or die for you until the stars go out. He is so full of heart and ambition: He wants both sides of his heritage to get along, he wants to open borders and eliminate xenophobia and promote equality between commonfolk, and deep down, I think he craves a partner to stand with him at that new dawn, or an equal who sees his vision for the future and will fight for it just as hard. Nobody believed in him when he was a kid, but if you put your faith in him, he'll return it tenfold. Some people don't like that he's calculating, or has to leave the player character at the end of the game to go back to his homeland, but both are necessary elements for his goals to change things. He will always come back, and everyone who bets against him and his love for his companions is wrong with a big fat W. #KhalidForMostDatablePrez"

"Claude is a fun little onion of facades. He calls himself the embodiment of distrust, he acts like he's carefree and without worries, an unscrupulous schemer--and so many in universe buy into that hook line and sinker. He's used to others viewing him with suspicion and uses it as armor to obscure his not-so-dark truth: that he cares immensely, that he values minimizing the loss of life, and that above all he has so much hope that people will fundamentally choose to do better given the choice.

His front guards a center that his conflict filled world would be happy to tear apart. As the child of people from two nations in constant conflict--one of which is explicitly isolationist and dehumanizes those outside its church's reach--he hasn't really had a place where he can be without his facade. As a child he thought he could run, but when confronted with the fact that this hatred existed no matter where he ran, he chose to instead try to create a more just and kind world.

His inability to let others in beyond his facade at first may lead to a sense of distance, but isn't it then all the more satisfying when you're allowed in? All he wants is a little trust, a little faith, and--like what he wants to give everyone--a chance to be better.

And like that you got a charming young lad with a fun personality that your grandma would be thrilled to have stay forever."

Milo propaganda:

“they were in the last contest sure but i feel like they could get farther. like they're literally a nonbinary grim reaper that's also an influencer and sure sometimes the influencer stuff can get kinda overwhelming i feel like it's very clear that they care about you and want to be around you. you guys go on a reaping date. their eyes and nail colour change based on their mood too and i think it's a really cute detail!! also SLIGHT SPOILERS but they even reference rocky horror in their special ending. they are perfect to me and i love them and i believe they deserve a second chance <3”

"Vote for Milo because they deserve it

They're literally so attractive

- They are a social media influencer

- They are obsessed with an adorable little kitty and will do everything in their power to make this cat the most beloved creature in existence

- They love makeovers and helping their friends rebrand (this includes working with Damien and the PC to help Jerry the Murderer rebrand so that they really has a brand identity)

- They are a grim reaper and even help the PC plan the PC's own funeral (special ending) and they give a great speech and it's super sweet

- They will sometimes take the PC on reaping jobs with them and shenanigans ensues

So in summation, vote for Milo because, as I repeat, they deserve it"

#claude von riegan #fire emblem #fire emblem: three houses #FE:3H #milo belladonna #Monster Prom #Monster Camp #Quarter-Finals #MDDC 2

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infernalodie · 11 months

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 || 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐳

Inspo: Emile Mosseri - Jacob and the Stone

Pairing: Maddy Perez x Gn!reader

Summary: The stone that stood tall and would never full leave her memory...

Warnings: Angst throughout with mentions of suicide.

Words: 1770

DNI IF YOU’RE YOUNGER THAN 18!

There was this stone Maddy used to go to.

Somewhere in the density of a forest right outside of Highland. Practically resting near the long breaks of the open countryside, this place resided.

It’d been a complete chance that she came to this location. Her car broke down with her friends and their goal to live the night up was still on the list of plans. So, they ventured into this forest and found this large stone.

She remembers Cassie being a ruckus and being the emotional drunk she was. Lexi was reserved and just talked with Kat. Rue and Jules were holding one another. But Maddy found you staring at this stone, perplexed or fascinated by it.

Maddy remembers you dragging your hand across the texture of the rock. Lips twitched faintly as the tips of your fingers gently caught the grooves; scars of its past and present. And something about it made you say, “It’s beautiful.”

Everyone knew you found beauty in the strangest of places. If it is some random obscured painting or one of those poems you would write in your free time–there was nothing you couldn’t find positives in. It had been what made Maddy fall in love with you in the first place.

And she remembers how you looked back at her. A look in your eye that was almost contentful. Like something had been decided the moment you saw this large stone. You had said, “If I ever die, I want to be buried here. I’ll even write it in my will.”

She punched your arm for saying something like that. Warning you that she would be the one to do the job if you brought something like that up. You smiled and laughed. And she remembers your arms curling around her and holding her against your chest tightly. Your face tucked in her hair where you pressed gentle kisses.

That had only been a week before everything happened. That was the last memory she had of you before you were gone. Swept up and taken wherever was after this life. And now, even after all these years, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go back to that forest–to relive that moment all over again in a place that she imagine still had your lingering presence.

Today, it was the anniversary of your death. So, with the urging encouragement of Lexi and Rue, she drove up to the forest. She walked amongst the trees that the further she got, blocked out the sun that had been beating down on her since she got back from Highland. It left a massive veil between her and the outside world that hoped hadn’t desecrated this sacred land.

Then she finally arrived at the stone. It stood tall- maybe even taller than she had once realized. Its exterior was jaded–chips having fallen off from years of weather conditioning. And in a traditional fashion, your initials were etched into its face. Your name, your birthday and the day of your passing. Each letter and number is rough around the edges, but perfect as its own; much like you.

Flowers were scattered around the marked grave. Much of them came from friends that had specifically come down to visit and pay respects to you. There were postcards from Jules; she believed that in some way, they might make it to you somehow. There were stuffies from Rue who knew of your unhealthy obsession with said items. Lexi left some of your favourite books from your guys’ friendship being built from that.

But Maddy had nothing to offer. Perhaps she thought her visit was enough considering the time she’d pushed to avoid the inevitable.

Exhaling heavily, she forced a smile. “Hey, baby.”

She sat beside the grave with the faint outline of where it had been dug. She clasped her hands together, saying, “I would ask you how you were doing, but I think we both know that would just be stupid of me.”

Painful silence. She didn’t know what to say. What was there to honestly say? You had given up. Maybe you lost sight of the beauty in this world. Lost all hope for society and decided to clock out before you saw anything get worse. Or maybe you had been depressed the whole time but she was too blind to see it. People wore masks–some of who no one would expect. Maybe you were a part of that few.

But since you left, she tried to keep to what she had been before you left–be the person that you loved. So, she wasn’t going to try and beat around the bush with any fruitless questions or statements. “I want to say you left because you couldn’t handle living anymore. But somehow-” she laughed, shaking her head. “-something tells me your sick mind thought that becoming one with the earth was beautiful, huh? I mean, we both know that’s how your mind worked.”

In some way, with your passing, she felt like she had finally grown as close as she could get to you. With your family left in shambles from your death, Maddy had taken it upon herself to be the one to pack your belongings up. Place your clothes in boxes, trinkets in boxes, and all the little handwritten notes that lined your walls. And on the final day, there was only one poem left and she just sat in the center of your room and stared at it. Then she cried. Harder than she ever thought she could. She screamed and fought against the harsh grasp of reality that was; once she took that final paper, you were officially gone. You would be gone from her life forever.

But from time to time, when she came down to Highland to visit her parents, she stopped by your family’s house. She had dinner with them, talked about life, made plans for future holidays and then she would ask to look at the boxes.

There would always be a silence that fell over the kitchen. The uneven breaths from your mother who would purse her lips, forcing a broken smile that could crack as she grabbed Maddy’s hands and hold them tightly. Which would always be contradictory because of the tears in her eyes. And your mom would always say, “Honey, don’t ever feel like you need to ask.”

And your dad would sit there quietly, avoiding eye contact that could betray the tough exterior he had to keep. When, in fact, the wound of your passing was still fresh and it would always stay that way. No child is supposed to go before their parents.

But you did. You defied every expectation; good and bad. You believed in most people who didn’t deserve it. You found lessons in situations you had labelled, “misconstrued control”. Each of those lessons made you grow and in any way you could, you tried to pass this knowledge on to others. But you gave up and in Maddy’s mind and that substituted everything else out. Your action to leave so soon was unforgivable to her.

You gave up when things were getting good for the two of you. When your guys’ story was starting to pick up make things interesting.

“I started reading some of those poems you had taped up on your walls.” A faint smile twitched on her lips. “They almost looked like etchings of thoughts you never said to me.” Maddy’s lips trembled. She remembered clearing out your room and spending hours sitting in the center of that room. Unable to take her eyes off of all the deep and meaningful quotes that you were so infatuated with. If she’d known that she returned to your house in her dreams, finding you standing and staring at each poem with a smile, she would’ve never laid a foot inside that room.

Bowing her head slightly as she swayed. Sniffling harshly, she said, “If you must die, I’ll envy even the earth that wraps around your body.” Her tearful eyes lifted to the inscription of your name carved meaningfully into the boulder. Face twisting with her voice giving way. “And I fucking miss you, Y/n. I hate knowing something else will give you warmth when I could’ve filled that spot for you.”

Her voice cracked. A sob fell from her lips. “I shouldn’t be sad. You fucking left me!” She fell to her hands, slowly lowering herself where blades of grass brushed across her rosy cheeks that kissed the earth. Her body trembled as she sought the feeling of your arms once more. Fingers delving into the dirt, hoping to find your hands interlocking with hers the further she reached. “But I want you here. Even in my dreams, I just want one more day with you.”

It was a distant and unforgeable wish, she knew that. But she was desperate. She had to wake up most nights and cry herself back to sleep because that would be the only way to reunite with you once more. Through the pain, she was healed by your smile. And she trying to find a middle ground between acceptance and refusal.

But that was the thing–no one can have both. When someone is gone, we can’t do anything to bring them back. And with time, we will heal. It’ll hurt like hell and it’ll feel like that wound will always be open, but that’s what comes with acceptance. And when we least expect it, when we find someone that makes our hearts skip a beat like the person before once did, we’ll realize how far we’ve come. How much pain we were able to take and keep moving forward.

It's a sign to try again.

And it hurt Maddy to admit it, but she wanted to keep going. Keep you close to her heart, but far enough that she was allowed to think about the good times instead of the worst.

And what helped was for her to think about how your mind worked–your beliefs that she never could wrap her head around. With time, she learned more about herself and where she stood on the unappreciated qualities of life and the world she lived in. Maddy believed that in some alternate reality, the both of you were still together and thriving. And acknowledging that was beautiful in its own way because she got to experience it for some time–a small sliver compared to a counterpart, but still a gift. But a different version of her would feel it until her last breath.

Something like that was poetic, wasn’t it?

#maddy perez euphoria #alexa demie #maddy perez x gn!reader #maddy perez x gn reader #maddy perez imagine #maddy perez fanfiction #maddy perez angst #maddy perez x reader #maddy perez #euphoria #euphoria fanfiction #euphoria imagine #euphoria maddy perez #x gender neutral reader #x gn!reader #x gn reader #x reader

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dsgirl2024 · 3 months

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The World You See | Prologue | Seokjin | BTS OT7 x Reader Fanfiction

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CONTENT WARNING

This story has explicit descriptions of death, drug use, alcohol use, addiction, sex, language, mental illness, suicide, and other possibly triggering content.

If this will effect your well being in ANY WAY, PLEASE DO NOT READ!

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ABOUT

Genre ☆ Fantasy / Romance (Fanfiction)

Rating ☆ Mature (18+ Minors DNI)

Pairing ☆ BTS OT7 x Reader

Story Type ☆ Angel BTS (AU)

SUMMARY

You've always seen the world a bit differently than others. It was like your magic power. And maybe that was why only you could see the lights that night. The big, astronomical explosion of lights that rained down to earth in colors you had never known to have existed until now. Little did you know about a divine destiny beyond your wildest dreams, and seven angelic beings brought down from heaven to guide you.

Apparently, the world is ending, and they're convinced that you're the one to save it. All you have to do, is figure out how.

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11:55 p.m.

It was a surreal feeling, watching a house fall to ash around him.

If it weren't for the excruciating heat and the carbonyl fumes, Kim Seokjin might have found the whole experience... pretty. Poetic even, like a dance. A dance between creation and carnage, an inseparable pair, who waltzed among the earth in a chaotic symbiosis.

One nursed life whereas the other bred death--polar opposites yet, they could never exist outside of each other. Without life, there'd be no death. Without death, life would have no purpose. An extraordinary affair that lay tale to an unbreakable bond.

Marvelous.

Bewitching.

Uncanny.

A terrific performance, and Seokjin had an unparalleled point of view.

Caged in by fire from every side, his body was splayed on the hardwood floor, brown eyes captivated by the sultry, orange glow above. Plush pink lips parted in awe as a single tear rolled down his cheek, stunned by the sheer magnificence of it all. The flames ruthlessly sought to consume, snapping and crackling as their heat devoured whatever they could find. Eventually, the man knew he'd be found too.

He wasn't afraid, though.

As he laid there to bare witness, Seokjin realized it wasn't as bad as he imagined it to be. Dying this way. The pain was irrefutable and his existence begged for release, lungs aching for clean air as they filled with more debris. Slow, painfully slow, he could feel the flesh start to drip off his bones, first degree burns tattooing his skin.

An unrelenting agony, yet his opinion spoke of worse ways to go.

Or perhaps he thought as such being that the feeling offered a... familiarity of sorts. Meat cooking around bone was a sensation he'd grown unnaturally used to. Fire's were his job, after all. Vanquishing them to be precise, nearly a decades worth. And if he learned anything in those ten years, a gluttonous blaze served only one purpose, to destroy.

Carnage.

Which is why Seokjin felt the fire to be completely immaculate. It was merely fulfilling its role in the universe, dancing the part. Nothing personal. As a matter of fact, the man only had himself to blame. He shouldn't have returned to disturb its process. How stupid of him, letting his ego cloud better judgement. Not as if he hadn't been warned, the man was just--

Too

Damn

Stubborn.

"YA! KIM SEOKJIN, YOU IDIOT, COME BACK!" He could still hear the voice of his senior, screaming after him, begging him stop. But Seokjin hadn't stopped. Hadn't gone back.

He never listened.

11:58 p.m.

Coughing weakly, Seokjin turned his head to relieve some pressure weighing on his chest. Every inhale spent his declining energy, as the smoke and monoxide exhausted his lungs. Fatigue ghosted the crests of his lids and he felt an obscure fogginess sink inside his brain, vision blurring like a camera out of focus.

There wasn't much time now.

"That is just like you Jinny. Always acting first, never thinking things through. You be careful my boy, that'll getcha dead one'a these days." His mom had cautioned. She had been joking of course, though he now felt a cruel sense of irony in her warning.

Nevertheless, Seokjin held no regrets. There was nothing to regret.

Life had been generous to him, Seokjin had no complaints where that was concerned. A loving family, good friends, and a job that rewarded both his pockets and his soul. Even if it meant dying right here, the man would do it over again in a heart beat.

Obviously, he wished for more time to enjoy it. Meet a nice girl, get married and have a few kids. Continue to help more people along the way. Eventually retire and settle down, live out the rest of his days in peace. Hell, maybe grow some vegetables in his backyard and take those cooking classes he'd kept putting off.

Maybe in the next life.

11:59 p.m.

Moments later, a loud, blasting noise ascended from the foyer below. Distant voices grew closer, approaching the front of the house. Seokjin's ears perked, catching the sounds with a gracious smile. He recognized one of them, his senior.

Feeling thankful for his colleague's loyalty, Seokjin tried to get as comfortable as possible. They'd find him in about fifteen minutes. Soon enough that he'd still be a handsome corpse, but the man was realistic. His life was beyond salvation, though at least his mother will be spared a charred carcass to identify.

Seokjin sighed contently, the rise and fall of his chest pulling him further into the floor. The heat sweltering his flesh dried him up from the inside out, fair skin turned red and raw. Gradually, it had become miserable simply to remain alive.

Even so.

Despite enduring all that pain, at the same time it felt as if he were in no pain at all.

The next thing he knew, Seokjin began to drift away. As his eyes fluttered shut, the last thing he saw was a brilliant, hot flash of light. Whether a trick of his mind or an figment of reality, the color was something he'd never seen before. An impossible color, and that elated him, swelling his heart with joy. Because for some reason, that was the last bit of assurance he needed to completely let go.

So he let go.

0:00 a.m.

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Story Updates ☆ Tuesday, Friday or Saturday (2:00-7:00pm EST)

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stromuprisahat · 18 days

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You came here for Ravka. I came here to chain you to my stove.

Siege and Storm- Chapter 18

Skip your duties (that can help feed the country) to watch me be cool doing stuff! Anyone less important would do it for me!

This could've been sweetly melancholic if:

a.) The country they live off weren't collapsing and a few of Alina's lightballs could grant them at least a drop of much needed resources.

b.) Grisha don't get sick... and what has Alina's childhood, adolescence and life in Cofton been like? Malyen truly isn't bothered by it, is he? Either he's an idiot, who didn't connect the dots, and doesn't see it as weird, that Alina HAD been sick for such a long time, or he simply doesn't give a shit.

c.) Other Grisha... if he can't have her as ordinary otkazat'sya, he's willing to settle for ordinary Grisha. As long as she's NOT special, and has plenty of time to focus on him.

d.) As stupid as their party date was, it could've been something to distract Alina from her duties and the pressure put on her. This wouldn't be even spending time WITH Mal, just watching him be the skilled cool guy.

e.) Of course he hates the place that made Alina MORE than him. If it weren't for her time in Little Palace, she wouldn't even think about wanting more than to follow him around like a lost puppy.

Perhaps put some effort in it?

If Mal can so miraculously fit in everywhere, what's stopping him from taking his duties seriously? Not just mope around near Alina, but try to truly become captain of her guards? Learn about strategies and best ways to protect her, exercise and train action with the twins, look for more guards, train them and WITH them, consult Botkin...

Do more than just go where he's invited, act as if he WANTED to PROFESSIONALLY protect Alina instead of playing hero, when others can see it?!

Not to mention he can make himself useful even at those parties. If he does notice nobles hate Grisha, he can at least make a list. They're careless around him, why not listen? Why not consult with Nikolai to learn who they might need?!

He isn't there for Alina, he's there to drag her back into obscurity as soon as an opportunity arises.

Now, that he's doing something FOR Alina, he misses their period of stagnation, when she was slowly killing herself.

He admits it, while caressing her self-mutilation scar aptly representing their relationship.

And here Alina should pull: Never deign to deny. Instead her puritan shame kicks in.

I know Malyen isn't friends with anyone in Os Alta, but if he weren't such a jerk, he could've catch Nikolai for a moment and discuss a strategy. It's not like Kolya doesn't have an interrest in this too. ...and knows how to deal with Court gossip.

I think "We need to discuss what to do about everyone thinking you're a whore." could be added to post-strategy discussions with Alina too. If Malyen can sit in Alina's council AND act like her captain of guard, they deffinitely DO have to spend time together.

If only he'd become interested in reality and its requirements, quit seeing himself as a knight in shining armour, destined to save feeble helpless Alina, and acted according to her actual needs and requirements.

Perhaps sort his priorities differently and instead of bringing up his one-night-stand with Zoya and inviting Alina to make fun of Suli focus on your damn fucking job!

And you didn't read my mind!

And Alina accepts all the blame.

This could be Malyen spiralling. Or simply jumping to another reproach as soon as Alina attempts to address the previous one.

valid concern

digging into Alina's fear of corruption

reminding her right after she chose it (so the stress is really her own doing)

Yup! This is the crux of the matter.

Alina might operate under faulty assumptions, she had to be physically dragged back to Ravka, but eventually she's attempting to DO something.

Malyen saw what the system does to people like him, to his friends... so he decided to pack his gf and bail on it all. And when he finds himself back in the middle of it all, he's simply waiting to drag her away from it again, no matter what SHE wants.

The Collar is temporary, her position of Saint is temporary, her leadership of Second Army too.

They reacted to life-changing events in a way that made them two diametrically opposite people, but Mal's sticking around in hope for Alina's regression. And eventually he gets exactly that for all his trouble.

I'll keep the rest for an extra post since some extra shady bitch is chiming in.

#Grishaverse #S&S Chapter 18 #Alina Starkov #Malyen Oretsev #grishanalyticritical #Zlatá Malina #self centred and paranoid #Siege and Storm #Grisha trilogy #V #books #quotes #Leigh Bardugo #anti Malina #anti Mal #This is horrible.#The way he treats her #the way her upbringing and issues kick in to support him...

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bronx-bomber87 · 7 months

Text

Happy Monday Evening Fandom :) This will be my new schedule Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. So I can get all the remaining eps in before the premiere. Should finish the week before we get to squee over a new season. So you'll have one more extra a week till we reach S6.

Some fun UC stuff for them to do in this one and the ever famous scene in the van. The marriage moments in this one continue. Off we go.

4x07 Fire Fight

We start off with our couple bringing someone in to book. She ran a stop sign AND a red light. Then flipped them off and made them chase her. Then has the audacity to ask why they arrested her? LOL My god...She tells them she was late for her life coach session. Tim makes a crack that her coach is doing a terrible job haha The sass Timothy I'm here for it.

As she gets processed Lucy brings up the bet from the previous episode. Tim retorting ‘The bet I won?’ Lucy fires right back that she won it. Their banter is unrivaled I love it so much. Tim telling her he had the gold in his hand. Lucy defending only because she had to arrest an armed gunmen. Tim tries to take the glory for this as well. That he technically arrested him. You know with his arm.

Lucy scoffing saying all he did was extend his arm out. Flirt nation right off the bat in this one. You know she’s actually impressed by it but can’t let his ego know that fact. Tim is trying to impress her by saying this. My goodness these two. It is very impressive he did that and wants her to know it. They're entering into the bantery foreplay early in this one.

Poor Grey gets dragged into their work flirt I mean fight. Tim really shouldn’t have been shocked at all when Grey said he suspected in 5x12. Man has been front row to this flirt fest for years . When he said that I think he meant long before that moment. He knew for a VERY long time. Poor Wade he just wants to get his job done. He wandered into booking thinking he could get in and out. Then in come Tim and Lucy to drag him into their fight LMAO

They're trying to get him to settle their bet from 4x06. They’re so damn competitive neither can settle for a tie. Grey affirms he thought it was as such. This was not the answer either of them wanted. Tim wants a rematch because of course he does. Lucy is adorable and says they should do an escape room LOL She had to know that wasn’t going to fly. Tim says no to that naturally. His reaction is hilarious.

So off put by the idea of being stuck in one. Decides they need a neutral party to decide their next competition. I love how in-sync they are when they turn to Grey. Same brain and same body language. Look how they mirror each other it's crazy. Sure Wade is thinking my god just find a room already. Instead he catches onto what they want. The way they both nod is so well timed they’re ridiculous and I love it sfm. Chemistry is unreal. Hats off to Eric and Melissa.

Grey agrees to this if only to get them to leave him the hell alone heh. He assigns them random penal codes. Says whoever gets their arrest first wins. Lucy could not be cuter waiting for hers. Tim gets his and isn’t pleased with it. Lucy is shocked he even knows what his is. Since its obscure as hell. Tim is fresh af with her replying 'She didn’t?' Ha her reaction. My god the punches just don’t get pulled with these two.

Tim says it’s unfair. SMH Oh Timothy pouting isn’t gonna work with Grey. He tells him life isn’t fair. Lucy is beaming about this. I love these two ridiculous fools so much. The woman they brought in is done with booking. She clearly doesn’t want to go into a cell. Tells them she know’s about a real crime. Says if she tells them she can cut a deal? Tim replies ‘What’s the crime?’

We return to them heading into interrogation. Lucy hands him a list of places they should go when they’re back out. Tim hands it right back without looking. Knowing exactly why she wants to hit those places. So she can win their bet. Doesn't hesitate as he calls her out on it. Lucy fires right back saying she knows he went to Nell. These two are so amazingly absurd.

Doing whatever they can to win this bloody bet of theirs. Lucy doesn’t let him get away with it for more than two seconds. She has your number Timothy. Always has always will. Her wifey 'Mmm' is everything. So he admits to giving Nell Dodger tickets haha Lucy looks like she wants to smack him. Also she can’t fault him she’s trying to play dirty too. You two competitive dopes are meant to be. I can only imagine how they would be in S6 with a competition.

Even though they’re battling he still holds the door open for her to interrogation. My heart. Ever the gentleman. They’re following up on the tip they were given earlier. The woman they’ve pulled in for questioning is in regards to her new skin care line. She confuses Tim right off the bat. He can't even process what she is saying so he turns to Lucy to decipher it for him.

Classic husband move to turn right to Lucy for the answer. It's so cute. She’s like later haha That it’s not important right now. She will explain later. So married looking to his wife for answers. Gotta love it. They were given a jar of her skin care. They tested it based on their tip and it has endangered tiger blood in it.

She doesn’t even deny it. Like she is proud of the fact her stuff has it. Lucy tells her she could end up in jail for up to 5 years for this. The cockiness disappears. Then the cycle of giving one another up continues. She panics and tells them about someone named Sloan. That she’s selling psychedelics as vitamins. Tim sighs deeply and asks for this woman’s last name for them to follow up.

They have round 2 in interrogation. Tim was already annoyed going into this LMAO He asks Sloan to take her sunglasses off. She complains the fluorescent lights give her headaches. Tim informs her that is the least of her problems. That they’ve been informed about her “vitamins” Sloan poorly defends herself and says she’s just using her husband’s prescription pad. That it’s ok…Oh my lord. It so is not.

Tim goes off his patience wearing very thin. Tells her this makes her a drug dealer. A high level one at that. She could be facing 20 years in federal prison for it. Sloan starts to stutter and panic. Saying how this has gotten horribly out of hand. Then asks how ratted her out? They don’t say. Then she mentions someone named Aston. That she has to be the one ratting her out. So she turns on her continuing the blame game cycle.

She tells them Aston is trying to hire a hitman. That her husband is worth more dead than alive. She’s been on the dark web trying to get it done. The reactions above are the best part. Tim was so very done going into this. This just made it so much worse. I love the shared look. Lucy is trying not to laugh at this situation. Looking at Tim to ground her. The way they check in with each other gives me all the feels. They’re both flabbergasted by the ring of ridiculousness they’ve been dragged into.

Cue to the infamous van scene. Tim rolls up not expecting the flack he gets. Lucy is on him immediately. Seriously judging his choice in disguise. How he looks like himself and not the hitman she was picturing at all. Lucy is truly is the teacher in this moment and schools him so hard about his choice. You know she’s enjoying bossing him around. The way she tells him to get into the van is too funny. Waving his ass in. Ready to teach him a Lucy Lesson. Heh

It’s fun to watch her be the more knowledgeable of the two in an OP. Tim fights her the minute they sit down. Lucy sighs and presses on. Schooling her man on UC and what they're trying to accomplish today. He is biting back a smile at her logical teasing. Look him above. He WANTS to be annoyed but he isn't really. Once again impressed by her confidence and knowledge on this. So he acts annoyed because he has a fake bravado to protect and all that.

She continues on with more irrefutable logic. He's looking at this wrong. They're not there to dupe a seasoned criminal. That he’s fooling someone who gets her ideas from Lifetime movies. LMFAO Where is the lie? Tim can’t fault her logic even though he wishes she was wrong. Lucy shoves the jacket at Tim tells him to put it on. (Bosses his ass around I love it sfm. He kinda does too.) He begrudgingly snatches it from her to put on and she thanks him.

Let’s not skate past the fact she is checking him out long before she is putting that mic on him above. As he is putting on that jacket she is doing an elevator gaze of her own. She does a double take of him really. Swallows hard too like she's pushing down her desire in this moment. As subtle as a hammer Lucy. Tim commenting he looks like an idiot. That he would pull himself over. haha Lucy definitely does not agree. She begs to differ quite a bit. Lucy bounces back and says he looks exactly as he should. She is holding firm refusing to let his sass sway her or break her confidence. How far we've come.

Then comes the wonderful shameless eye sex. The brazen UST look that could ignite that van on fire. Lucy's reaction is how I would react. She can clearly see how fit he is. She knew but had never seen the glorious proof up close. You can tell she finds him so very attractive. I mean look at him. Gah beautifully toned chest and abs. Delicious pecs to go with that sculpted chest. Phew lord. Pass the ice water please.

She’s trying not to just stare at his toned chest but has to in order to mic him up. She’s touching him and doesn’t know how to handle it. Shoving his shirt up even higher than needed without realizing it. It's up to his neck. Tim broke her brain haha The awkward glances up crack me up. She’s trying not to make eye contact but also not just stare at his beautiful body either. Rock and a hard place Lucy. Gah we need more shirtless Tim in S6. You hear me writers? I need MORE LOL

Tim isn’t exactly helping with his matching intense gaze. He doesn’t break eye contact with her except to look down at where she is placing it. Tim is flirting right back with his own thirsty gaze. He can feel how electrically charged this moment is. Feeling very aware of her gaze and returning it in kind. They're feeding off each other 100% right now.

Tim is the first to come back to his senses just like in 4x01. So he chastises her for putting the mic too high. It breaks Lucy’s lusty gaze and fog she was in. Annoyed he’s done as such she is not kind in removing the tape. Like at all LOL Lucy tells him she knows what she’s doing right before she rips it off. His reaction is so damn funny I’m dying. Lucy is very pleased with herself. The raw UST is prominent throughout the entire season its so good. Just mounts a little more each ep.

Lucy apologizes for ripping it off and sends him off. You know she is going to enjoy being the voice in his ear. Watching him do UC from the van as she observes. Aston isn’t being explicit enough. Too busy checking Tim out and hitting on him. I mean can’t blame the woman. He looks fine as hell. Lucy is laughing in his ear floored by this women’s forwardness.

She is getting a kick out of this woman blatantly hitting on him. Asking if this woman is touching him? If she is then if she offers money for sex she’ll win the bet LOL Oh Lucy so one track minded I’m dying. It’s what prompts Tim’s response above and Lucy’s excitement bout it. Tim finally gets her to confess with details once she thinks she has a shot with him ha. Using his good looks to close this case. Fantastic.

Afterwards they come to visit Nolan in the hospital. He survived a mad man apparently. Sheer luck I think but survived nonetheless. This is their married moment of the ep. Also Tall/Smol shots that I enjoy so much. Tim gives her crap for buying out the entire gift store. Lucy says he’s been in hospital before. He knows how boring it can be. She then asks what he got for Nolan?

Hahah oh sweet Lucy. Did you really think Tim would spend money on Nolan of all people? He tells her no…but he’ll just put his name on her gift ahaha I can see in future when they’re giving out gifts as a couple they'd be the same. People will be thanking them and Tim will have no idea what she bought for them. Just go along with it.

Lucy is shocked but not shocked by his behavior. Saying 'Unbelievable' Like really she shouldn’t expect anything less. Also this is totally normal giving a shared gift like this. Nothing married at all about this behavior whatsoever....Super platonic.

Lucy brings up the bet one last time. Tim says her first name (be still my heart) saying he wants to call it a draw. That police work is too important to turn into a game. Lucy prods him saying he only wants to call it because he might lose. Tim says sure if that’s what she needs to hear. He will go with that. She asks him when he became the noble one? Tim just asks if that means they’re square on their bet? Lucy agrees no one wins but says he can’t have his name on her basket hahaha Tim rolls his eyes but follows after her anyway.

I think Tim was worried if they continued with the bet their next 'van moment' could escalate. Tim may not be aware of a lot with Lucy in terms of being in love with her yet. But he is VERY aware of his attraction to her. That hug in 4x01 was blatant proof of it. That their competitive nature is flirt fueled. So cutting this one off at the knees extinguishes that. It's why he was so quick to end it. Avoidance is the name of the game for him now. So he let Lucy have whatever terms of surrender she wanted. Including knocking his name off that basket and saying it was cause he didn't want to lose. He knows they are on thin ice and trying to keep them from falling in.

~~~

Side notes- Non Chenford.

Poor Wesley in Elijah’s tangled web. Grey trying to give him an out. A mistake that is going to haunt and follow them for a long time to come.

Nolan had a SL but I didn’t care till Chenford came to give him a gift lmao

Thank you thank you to all who like, comment and reblog these. You all make my day you have no idea. Shall see you Wednesday with 4x08 :)

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heartfullofleeches · 2 years

Note

Ok but what if the reader instead of being a security guard for the museum they were actually its new owner? The haunted pieces already knew about you, your grandfather bringing you there to show you how to take care of the museum once they were gone, and all of this while you were just a young adult! Now you are...older, and that makes them worry. The white strands on your hair become more noticeable, the way your eyes sink into your skull sends them into a panic and so much more. (1/2)

Just give up on your mortal life and live with them forever in your new body, you can even choose which one you want!! Do you prefer marble? Or maybe even roses!? Or even paint!!!! Just PLEASE, PLEASE don't die on them. They already wanted to hold you close before, but now?? They don't want to. They NEED to.(2/2)

(A.N - Tw: light gore, injury)

The gallery was a place of wonder when you were young.

Even before you knew the truth, every piece breathed with life; the history behind each one like stories ripped from a fairytale. It wasn’t long before you were whisked you way to the Night Gallery. Where those figures would step from their pages, and walk about in the realm of your reality. From your first visit, your grandfather made it known what your future duties would be, but you wouldn't realize the weight of their burden until many years later.

It was towards the later stage of your adolescents. By now you knew the first floor residents as well as the friends you had back home. They welcomed you with as much curiosity as you did them; happy to have a new human to make themselves acquainted with, and one with so much energy unlike most. You weren't allowed on the upper floors unless it was daytime, but you imagined them to be as friendly as those below.

You had taken up a summer job at the gallery, and would go about your days in peace. There was the occasional rude visitor or someone who tried to sneak a picture in no photography zones, but it was decent pay and gave you time to spend at your home away from home.

Sweeping up on the third floor, you heard snickering from around the corner. There was an end of the year field trip happening that day, but you had already seen all the classes moving on to the next floor. Taking a peek, you spot two teenagers close to your age; spray painting the face of one of the statues by the bathrooms.

"Hey! What are you doing?!'

They bolt as soon as they hear your voice. Probably not the best choice of action, but the most logical that came to mind. You contact security as you walk over to the statue. The figure depicted a person in robes; their face now obscured by a heavy layer of black paint. You could vaguely make out the outline of their closed eyes and tight lips, but aside from that their face looked like a small void. Completely hollow.

"I'm so sorry this happened.. Don't worry, we'll get you cleaned up in no time.

You grab a rag and gently attempt to scrub some of it off. It only succeeded in smugging the paint more; coating the complete length of their exposed face in dark paint.

You chuckle nervously. "That... probably wasn't the best thing to do.. I think I made it worse. Let's wait till someone who's right for the job comes, so you can look as good as new."

You flash the statue a reassuring smile. You weren't sure if could see you with its eyes closed; or if it could even hear you, but you felt it was the right thing to do. You stay with it until security came a few minutes later; chatting away like it was the most lively of company. From what you heard, they hadn't found the culprits of the defacing. They never would.

And you never saw that statue again.

Closing up the following fortnight, you wheel the supply cart down the empty halls; heading for the janitorial closet on the first floor. Your shift had ended on the third floor, and a little later than usual due to a prankster shoving paper towels up the air dryers. If you hurried, you had enough time to get out of the gallery before midnight.

Climbing in the elevator, you press the button for the first floor. You scroll through your phone as it takes you down. As you swipe your finger over the screen, a blotch of paint smudges the glass. Where did that come from? You don't remember cleaning up any paints that afternoon.

The elevator's doors open; a chill bellowing through its gates. You push the cart out of the entrance; doors slamming together behind you. The corridors to the elevators were pretty much the same on each floor. A long hallway with a few doors on the sides; hidden by paintings or simply locked off as they were for use of the employees. You roll the cart down to the janitor's closet; pulling your keys from your pocket. The key was to small to fit in the lock- but the door was already unlocked.

You step inside; alarm bells going off like a fourth of July gone wrong. For one, the room was quite larger than what you remembered, and secondly- you weren't alone. Various pieces of art were placed around the room; all in different forms of disarray. A painting with a tear through its center, a shattered vase - the statue.

"Gah!"

You hadn't even realized it was right in front of you til your eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. The hulking mass of stone stands a few feet ahead; face still masked in shadows. Its head was tilted higher than you remembered; angled directly in your direction. Its hood appeared to be chipped.

You breath a sigh of relief. "Oh... it's just you. You startled me."

The statue's hand was raised in an extended motion rather that at its side when you first saw it; almost- inviting in the way. You take a step closer; splatters running up the sleeve of their arm. There's.. something nestles in its palm, surrounded in a pool of dark liquid. It's small; fitting perfectly in the crook of its hand. It looked flesh like, and shaped like the half of a heart; fitted with a small diamond hanging on its lobe. You recognized it the piece. An earring worn by one of the vandals from the previous weeks. Lost in concentration, you barely notice the statue's chest rising and falling with each ragged breath it takes.

"Ta...tak.."

A wet gurgle comes from the statue's face cavity. The black paint drips down its neck; falling on the floor with a wet smack. You could make out the outlines of its exposed teeth as they gnash together.

"T..a..ke it.."

The statue extends its hand further out to you, the blood accumulated in its palm spilling over. It wheezes; placing one foot forward towards you. The stiffness of its robes crumbles as they wrap around its thin bone structure. From somewhere behind it, you heard a laugh.

"Oh, hoho. Is that our new owner coming to finally pay us a visit? What an honor~"

The other voice steps from the shadows, fluctuating with each syllable. Its eyes lock onto yours; one wide open, while the other rests half closed. The entity's body was doused in a spectrum of color; no one section the same as the other. Swirls, splotches, and other abstract patterns covered its frame. Not even its basic shape was symmetrical. One leg longer than the other, giving it an awkward stance. Bits of it technicolored flesh melting from its other parts. The only thing that was somewhat similar was its arms. They had been dyed with the ink of its body, but they were exactly alike, and appeared to house human skin. One of the nails was missing from its left hand.

"What a pretty thing you are! It seems time has been a kind friend to you, my dear."

You can't speak. What's going on? This isn't anything like what you've seen before. You don't understand what's going on.

"Speechless, are we? That's quite all right. We've been waiting for so long to meet you!"

We? The painting throws its arm to the sky in a welcoming gesture. As if awaiting the cue; damaged artworks from around the room come to life. A mannequin attempts to stand on its splintered legs; a cuckoo clock chimes with a note so off key it makes your skin crawl. There's blood on their frames... their hands. Chatter comes from every corner of the room; all excited to see the new face.

"You've grown so much! Do you remember me? I used to hang by the gift shop. You're so beautiful, you should have your own painting done. "

"We've heard a lot about you, but we'd love to hear so much more. It's all I can do without my eyes"

"Please don't leave"

Run. Your brain screams at you to run. These pieces weren't like any you'd met before. Were those one as good as they seemed? Your head was spinning. Your body startled to tremble. What do you do?

You know.. the older you grow the more that body of yours will break. We can give you a better one. If you stay here with us...

"Y/n!"

Yanked by your collar, you're dragged from the madness. Your grandfather slams the door shut, locking it as a long bang comes from the other side. Your eyes subconsciously shift over to the sign by the door. Paint drips off its lettering. Restoration.

"What on earth were you doing in there? Do you know what time it is?"

You utter your first words of the night. "Did... did someone really.. die?"

The old man's eyes soften. He lets out a deep sigh, turning his back to you.

"It will be your responsibility someday. You'll have to make sure that no one hurts them. And that they don't hurt anyone the same."

From that day forth, your love of the gallery lost its spark. You still cared for it and its residents, but it was hard to look at them knowing what they were truly capable of. The inhabitants of the first floor soon began to ask you to stay as well. Never a demand, but a pleaded offer. They'd seen the light draining from your eyes; the droop in your smile. It was the last thing they ever wanted to see on the face of the one they came to admire.

Eventually, the time came. Your grandfather passed, and you became the head of the gallery. It became your whole life. You couldn’t hire any guards for the risk of their safety, and if you ignored them in the vain hopes nobody would trespass the artworks would get violent with each other. You were exhausted in every way, shape, and form- and everyone knew it.

Sitting alone in your office, you watch the cameras you'd set up; sighing in annoyance as someone runs by on the second floor. People never learned. You get up from your seat, heading out to find them.

You find the trespasser on the stairwell between the second and third floor; using hidden passages and keeping your head low to avoid detection. You applaused them for getting this far without being spotted. They crotch by the stairs with their hands over their mouth as they steady their breath; gripping something tightly in hand.

"Hey....follow me"

The burglar turns to face you; fear burned into their widen eyes. They point their weapon at you; completely on edge.

"S-stay away."

"I'm not going to hurt you. Come with me."

"No! No... you're trying to trick me. You're one of them."

You hear shuffling from the floor below.

"Keep your voice down. They'll hear you."

"You aren't going to get me, you monster!"

"Calm down." You hold your hands in peace as you slowly edge closer; attempting to show you mean no harm. This only settles them off more, slicing the skin of your right arm.You hiss in pain; trying to keep your voice low so they don't hear- but it's too late.

DoN't ToUcH tHeM

You lock eyes with the intruder. "I'm so sorry."

Before they can reply, dozens of hands approach from the lower form; wrapping around their ankles and theur lower torso- crushing them in their grip. They plead; beg, but their cries turn to incoherent babbles and screeches as their fate is sealed. You don't see what happens, your eyes covered by a heavy hand. It coos in your ear, inserting a piece of jewelry into its lobe. Your arm stings, pleading profusely onto the fabric of your shirt. It runs its fingers over the flow.

"Look at you.... You're falling apart. The wounds you've come to bear can never be healed, and you'll only continue to break til there's nothing left. Join us... We can make your image last forever. We can give you all the love you could ever desire. Our masterpiece..."

Your lips remained sealed. You know that one day you'll belong to the gallery for good. Somewhere deep in your chest you knew that you already did.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere insert #yandere story #yandere drabble #yandere writing #yandere fic #tw yandere #yandere monster #Night Gallery tag

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inconspicious-random-thoughts · 4 months

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Making ends meat

I had a bunch of small epiphanies today but I forgot most of them. But I remember one I had from Alastor today.

I was thinking what his life might have been if he was alive. Guy lived during an interesting and dangerous time period. He was born with only 45 states, and 3 states were added in his preteen years. Died knowing only 48 states.

Lives through Titanic sinking, WW1 in his late teens. Alcohol was prohibition is whole adult life. Woman got the right to vote, The great depression, KKK was huge and must been terrifying for Alastor is mixed. His mixed race may prompted the "face for radio" as public rather keep his mixed ethnicity out of view.

So I'm trying to picture what his life must been life. I assume his first murder was his abusive father or avenging Mimzy. Mimzy dying first in the 20's while Alastor in the 30's. I assume Mimzy died by abusive lover or a fan she rejected. Mimzy death kickstarting his serial killer "Dexter" style killing of selecting bad men.

But one thing I couldn't quite figure out was how Alastor got into cannibalism. I mean, sure Alastor not a solid frame of mind. But some of his behavior can at least be understood. Like, what point did Alastor was like, "You know what, I'm gonna eat this mother fucker." instead of disposing the evidence because I dont think its for shits and giggles.

Then it dawn to me why.

I assume Alasor hasn't been an active killer for too long in his life. I don't imagine him killing in his teens and right at the start of adulthood. I say about his late 20's, so started murdering in the late 1920s-his death of the early 1930's. Which, makes avenging Mimzy death seem much more likely.

So his first few years of killing was just that. The cannibalism didn't start happening because....

wait for it...

The great depression. Alastor so detached and desensitized by his carnage by now. He killed multiple dozens by now. He was probably disposing the evidence by feeding gators or burying thinking how it was a damn shame to waste such fresh meat. He can't remember the last time he even ate meat that so fresh and enough of it. Then...the light bulb went on inside his head as he looked at the 200 pounds of fresh meat at his feet and his stomach rumbled with hunger.

I believe Alastor worked in radio until he died. He was too good at it be fired. He has the charmia and the voice. So he managed to keep his job. So Alastor wasn't worse off compare to his neighbors...but he wasn't well off either when it came to money. He was of mixed race when prejudice was spreading like wildfire, and considered almost patriotic. Alastor pay was substantially less then his peers at the radio station. As much as as he chided about that, he still have a job, a respected job, a job that was also his passion. He was better off than most.

...But money was still tight. It just not as tight for him compare to neighbors of the similar 'breed'. Money was spent on essential and making them stretch. A slab of desired cut of fresh meat, didn't make the essential list, nor its something that can be stretched well.

Now, Alastor has 200 pounds of fresh meat of every and any cut he wanted right at his feet. He was amused with himself when the thought first came. It was a ridiculous passing thought. Then he became disgusted with himself when...when the passing idea started to be considered seriously. He didn't indulge in these obscure thoughts.

But he kept murdering. Kept having to disposing those bodies. Such a waste! The thoughts keep floating in mind, making him curious... He inner voice is reasoning him why he should pursue into indulging these. The further into the Great depression with no end in sight, the reasons became so much stronger.

He took a cut of meat he generally enjoy off the body to try. His soul already damn with the body count he has. Can't really be damned more. He wasn't a cannibal for long in his life, but it lasted a handful of years before he came to his gruesome end.

...and that's my idea and reason how he became a cannibal.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel headcanon #hazbin hotel theory #cannibalism

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workersolidarity · 11 months

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Anti-Communism is something bred into Americans from the time we are children. We are taught how anything related to Stalin is automatically bad and anything involving the Soviet Union is inherently secretive and authoritarian.

This bias is so deeply ingrained, that, having finally after years of Marxist and Geopolitical study, I've finally reached a point where those little anti-Communist tropes and sound bites inserted into our political conversations catch my attention automatically.

Now this took a really long time to reach. Anti-Communism is so deeply ingrained in our society, so embedded in our information space, and this completely by design, that we don't notice it in our everyday lives. We're not meant to. We're meant to internalize these stereotypes until it affects every aspect of our political thinking.

And I'll give you an example of how even the most obscure media consumption can result in our exposure to anti-Communist propaganda.

So I'm watching one of these obscure science channels on YouTube, being interested in the science behind nuclear criticality. So in the first video, which is about a famous incident in which a Russian scientist was exposed to a particle beam in an accelerator that resulted in serious injury but he survived. And at the end of the video, they start talking about how he really suffered under that awful Soviet Bureaucracy when he was denied his free government healthcare in 1997. 🙄

I seriously face palmed on that one.

But then I'm watching an entirely different science video on an entirely different nuclear accident. This one the only fatal Nuclear reactor accident in American history.

So I get to the end of this video, they've done a great job at really helping you understand the science behind what triggered the accident, and I'm really satisfied with the video, and then, right at the end they throw this little tidbit of information out as though it too were a statement of fact:

[Speaking factually about the fatal design flaw responsible for the US accident in 1961 that was also present in the design of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986]

"When we don't learn from history (deeply accusing stare at the Soviets) it tends to repeat itself"

Ugh!!!!!!!

🤯

Okay, so basically he has to throw in the insinuation that somehow the Communists are even more deeply responsible for Chernobyl than the Americans were for SL-1, the destroyed US nuclear reactor from 1961.

Now on its face, most people aren't going to think twice about such a statement. It is meant to evoke a response inside you of "ugh those Communists were just terrible to see our mistakes and repeat them anyway!" without ever giving any kind of critical nudge at the thought whatsoever. After all, we Americans all know how evil and awful Communists, and especially Russian Communists were.

And that's supposed to be the end of that. Two science videos, both ending with throw away lines of anti-Communist propaganda, both meant to leave me feeling superior as an American and especially an American Capitalist!

But the reality exposes the absurdity of American anti-Communist propaganda!

How would the Soviets have known about the US design flaw years earlier?

Am I just mistaken and it was common practice from the 1960's to the 1980's to share our nuclear trade secrets with our greatest adversary??? To share nuclear designs with the great evil empire the USSR at the height of the Cold War?

Please. How the fuck could the Soviets have known the details of the SL-1 design flaws?

But that's not even really the point, because in the end, it does not matter how ridiculous or absurd or counter factual US propaganda becomes because the public is just so deeply propagandized, so well trained, and so peppered with this kind of subliminal propaganda all day every day.

And it truly took years for me, not just to be able to recognize propaganda anyone can do that, but to really begin to understand the depth and nature of which we are being saturated in this constant stream of pro-Imperialist, pro-Capitalist, often conflicting narratives that are intended to make us accept without ever critically analyzing what "approved" sources tell us.

I cannot stress enough the importance and personal responsibility of every worker to educate yourself on the nature of advertising and propaganda and their relationship to Capitalism and Imperialism.

It is so important that we understand how Wall Street, the Big Banks, Big Investors and Big Corporate bosses, how they use the tools of the media and internet to control and maintain the information available to us and how they use that control to maintain the myths of Capitalism, Neoliberalism and an Imperialist Foreign Policy, as well as maintain the myths of "authoritarianism " and "human rights violations" maintained around US Adversaries like the Soviet Union and now Russia, Iran, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, China and on and on and on.

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trans-luis-serra-navarro · 4 months

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I remember there was a headcanon about Luis attending a school that had secret connections with Umbrella. Now I can't help but think if Leon and Luis have a kid, they would do extensive background checks on schools their kid would attend, because they'll want to make sure none of those schools were associated with Umbrella/have ties to corrupt companies/organizations.

Thank you so much for sending in an ask!!!!!!! But yesyesyesyesyes I know the headcannon you’re talking about!!!!!! From memory I think either @geddy-leesbian or @hamartia-grander made some pretty extensive posts going into this idea??? Either way its really fascinating to think about!!!!

For those of you who don’t know, the headcannon/theory basically revolves around the fact that Luis was able to graduate school seemingly pretty quickly/was considered a ‘child prodigy’, and that in-universe theres a few characters who attended schools created specifically by Umbrella to essentially indoctrinate them; one of the most notable being the Umbrella Executive Training School that William and Wesker attended.

Umbrella has a few random facilities like this (like the Rockford Prison) And considering the fact that Europe seemed to be a relatively big hub for Umbrella, it DEFINITELY wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that they’d have a similar school with the intent of training/indoctrinating ‘child prodigies’ to work for them in the future, and it’d be even less pf a stretch to assume that Luis, who came from a VERY sheltered religious background, would be a very easy subject to pick (cuz! yippee!! capitalist grooming am i right or am i right!!) It’d also absolutely lend a hand to why Luis grabbed as many items as he could and just BOOKED IT immediately after finding out what their plans for Nemesis REALLY were (I could talk about that part of his life/that realisation for HOURS oh my GOD)

EDIT I FORGOT TO ADD: Umbrella on some level does work quite like a cult. I’ll link a post that does a MUCH better job explaining it than I could in the replies of this post, but creating facilities for the sole purpose of indoctrinating already vulnerable young people into being on board with your project and isolating them from friends and family is like. Cult behaviour 101 BFNEHENDJDJ which is VERY painful to think about how Luis got roped into cults THREE times. Valdelobos before Saddler showed up wasn’t EXPLICITLY a cult, but considering it was isolated from modern society and heavily Catholic theres a strong argument to be made- then of course theres Umbrella- then of course he was blackmailed into working with Los Illuminados. I’ll make a post going deeper into that SOMEDAY, but like,,,, just the tragedy of his life being one big cycle he cant break is just. So devastating man are you KIDDING ME

I’m not like. SUUUUUPER knowledgeable on super obscure lore stuff like locations/facilities etc, so if you have a question about that specifically @highball66 would probably be a better person to ask!!!!

But again we know like. NOTHING about the inbetween time between Luis running away from Valdelobos as a child and him popping up as one of Umbrella’s top scientists other than the fact that he was a child prodigy and he excelled in college- hell even the dates/ages get kinda wonky at times BHFNEHENEUDNSIS but also this is Resident Evil where things get wonky a lot of the time so!!! Eh!!!!!!!

I have my own personal theory on what he did during that time inbetween I would be SO MORE THAN HAPPY to ramble about HDNEHENDJDN

BUT TO THE POINT OF YOUR QUESTION!!! YES!!!!!!!! ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!!! Plus just in general with Leon having a lot more enemies than friends, doing background checks on teachers or whatever would probably seem like paranoia to an outsider but to them?????? Nah you can NEVER be safe. Plus Leon’s like, a government agent- he obviously doesn’t have a TON of autonomy but I can imagine he at least has SOME power to dig up information on people. AND, the both of them literally went through hell and back to save Ashley, who was kidnapped right under the presidents nose- So like!! Hell yeah they’d be paranoid abt where their kids going man!!!!!!!! Rightfully so I think!!!

#again thank you so much for the ask!!!!!! sorry if its all over the show FHENHDDNCJX #and if ive gotten any facts wrong please feel free to correct me!!#luisposting #asks #ask #serennedy #luis serra #luis serra navarro #luis sera #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy

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tmntkiseki · 5 months

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Diary of an Idiot Trying to Learn to Draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Part 1: Escaping the Comfort Zone)

Before we talk turtles and the early steps of my art journey with them, let's talk about me for a little bit.

Hello, most people know me by my online nickname, Star. I'm a perpetually tired gremlin in her late 20s from New England who still lives with her parents and two brothers. (I'm the middle child!) I love my two dogs to bits, I have a weird fascination with shipwrecks and maritime disasters, and I am a known art enjoyer to point of attempting to draw her own pictures. Sometimes it goes well, other times... ah, we'll get to that.

When I think about my history in terms of drawing, it all starts with anime. My first exposure anime was through a fairly obscure one called Sky Girls; I encountered it through Dance Dance Revolution: Super Nova 2 on the PS2, as the opening to the original OVA was one of the songs available in the game. I ended up watching most of the television series and I was quick to discover that, hey, there's an entire genre of animated television series that originate from Japan; subsequently, I ended up watching several anime that were popular during the late 2000s with Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Clannad, and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni all being shows that I watched during this period. It's difficult to say what entranced me so much about the art style quirks we so heavily associate with anime, but it's definitely had the biggest influences on my art; not just anime itself, but video games with anime art styles as well. If I had to name which pieces of Japanese media have affected me most in terms of art development, it would be Odin Sphere, KyoAni's works (especially Violet Evergarden), and Hidari (the character designer for three of the Atelier games and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.)

"Okay, but what about when you actually began to do your own art?" WELL, I can definitely say throughout elementary school I absolutely LOVED being in art class, but I didn't start seriously practicing until I was around 13; this was when my depression first reared its ugly head, but it was also about when I first got into fandom online. Now, the first fandom I actually made "content" for was Pokemon, but that wasn't drawing; that was fanfiction. The first fandom I actually drew for?

Call of Duty: Zombies. Yeah, I think we all have that one fandom we're embarrassed to mention that we were ever involved in. Regardless of the cringe factor, it was still important for me because that was when I first started interacting with other fanartists online and if I hadn't spent so much time drawing fanart of a bunch of WWII stereotypes while I was in high school, I wouldn't have laid the groundwork for what came afterwards.

In terms of overall skill, I'm definitely way better than I was back when I first started out, but there is still so much I have to learn; I do often look at other artists who are around my age or, hell, are even YOUNGER than me and think to myself "Why am I not that good?" and, ya know, art is an acquired skill that requires a lot of practice and due to my mental illness and lack of confidence/self-worth, there were periods where I would go for MONTHS without drawing anything, so the fact I'm not where I feel like I should be skill-wise is ultimately circumstantial (there are other personal shortcomings that have also been holding me back, but we'll get to those later). I have managed to learn to stop being so hard on myself and not be as perfectionistic, and I find myself drawing more and more for the fun of it and learning new techniques that'll result in better pieces rather than anything else. These are some of the Rune Factory 4 pieces I drew last year (all Arthur/Frey ship art, oops) and at this point I can look at them and think "Yeah, they're not perfect, but I also did a pretty good job."

All right, this is the part of the post where we finally get to talking about my experiences learning how to draw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--specifically, the 2003 versions. It's been about a month since I started studying the show's art and even if I'm not the best artist on the block, I still have a decent amount of experience under my belt that learning how to draw them shouldn't be too hard, right? Right? I mean how hard can it be to draw four humanoid turtles?

Oh boy, of all the fandoms I've drawn fanart for, TMNT 2003 probably has one of the steepest learning curves that I have EVER experienced.

All right, what are some of the advantages do I have going in? There is my existing experience drawing, but I'd argue the fact that my brain is so hardwired to draw anime is an advantage in some ways. When I first looked at the show's art style (more specifically that of seasons 1 - 5), I was thinking to myself "How the everliving FUCK am I supposed to draw this?!" However, when I actually sat down and studied the model sheets, I was delighted to discover that a lot of the basic fundamentals that I already learned drawing anime bodies can be applied to the turtles; one of the only major adjustments I had to make was exaggerating the muscles of the arms and legs. Not only that, but one of the less human aspects of the turtles IE the plastron is actually incredibly useful as a makeshift guideline for the torsos; it quite literally divides them into chest, abdomen, and pelvis areas and I absolutely love it!

Unfortunately, that's about where my happiness with drawing the turtles ends and where my actual struggles start.

("Nekomata Mikey" from January 7th, which is probably my best and favorite turtle attempt thus far)

So, I suffer from a little something called "not liking to leave my comfort zone." It's not something that I'm incapable of doing, but getting me to break out of a repetitive routine and try something new or challenging is insanely difficult--no idea if it's a result of my autism spectrum disorder or not, but it definitely explains why I've hesitated to experiment more with my art and try new things... which is important if you want to further develop your style and improve. Oooooooh boy.

Now, I'm not necessarily looking to accurately replicate TMNT 2003's style, but I am hoping to maintain certain aspects when I draw the turtles. Stuff that is definitely contradicting what I'm comfortable with when it comes to drawing; the thick lines you see in a lot of the official art, the fact this show really likes using sharp angles to define physical features, the dark color palette of the first five seasons, the fact those seasons break the rule of "don't shade with black" that I've been taught from the beginning--a lot of stuff that I'm just not used to. It's hard not to become frustrated because half the time you have no idea what you're doing and have no idea whether it's going to look good or not.

Beyond that, there is the matter of the less human aspects of the turtles that are giving me a run for my money. I can somewhat handle the chunky three fingered hands and large two toed feet, but when I get to the heads and shells, that's where I start tearing my hair out. Even with multiple reference screenshots from the show and sassatello's tutorial on the head structure handy, I still find myself fumbling and making heads that are too angular and chunky (especially in the cheek area) or heads that are too round to the point of almost looking babyish. The shells are another matter entirely; it's weird because they are basically a dome-shaped backpack, but something about those things keeps throwing me for the loop no matter what angle or pose I'm drawing a turtle from.

*LOUD SIGH*

For all the struggles and frustrations I have, I'm still very happy to be studying and practicing how to draw the turtles. It's been about a month since I started pouring over the model sheets, taking screencaps from individual episodes to examine and annotate, and just drawing, and I've already learned so much. Not only that, but this whole experience of trying to figure out how to draw the main characters from an (almost) 21 year old cartoon has pushed me to look up... A LOT of tutorials for art skills I've admittedly been neglecting. Basic shapes used in the structure of the body, color theory and shading, all that good stuff. It is also a fact that studying the art of TMNT 2003 is exactly what inspired me to start posting all the model sheets and concept arts I have saved on my laptop. When you have a ton of art resources at your disposal, why not share them? Someone else might need them as much as you do.

I'm hoping to make another post like this in a couple months or so just to see how much I've improved, where I'm still kicking and screaming, and what areas I ought to focus on. Until then, take care and have a good day!

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2k3 #tmnt art diary

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daedalusdavinci · 1 year

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Superbat Fic Recs

every superbat fic ive ever read has been recommended to me, almost, bc the superbat tag scares the absolute piss out of me, so these are like. twice over recommended. i dont believe that theres such a thing as "in character" when it comes to bruce or clark bc theyve been characterized so many different ways, so i tend to rate how good superbat fics are entirely by how delightful they are to read (plot, writing style, fun dynamic, etc). that said here are some of the superbat fics that i find the most delightful

The Long Hangover

by CoffioCake

Clark knows he should take a break: His powers are on the fritz, he feels like shit, and Batman’s treating him like a liability. But Gotham's villains seem to have it in for Metropolis' Big Blue Boy Scout and Clark won't just wait around for answers. Batman might be the world’s greatest detective, but Clark Kent is one of the Daily Planet’s most tenacious reporters. This is definitely a job for Superman.

i love this one. its long but its got so many good beats- good plot, fun dialogue, fantastic levels of identity porn where you are just DYING for them to figure it out. i think a lot of superbat fics tend to prioritize batman and his family and cast too much, but this ones definitely about superman, which is a nice change of pace

Nor The Rain

by Romany (@romanyeva on tumblr)

Bruce decides it's time.

this ones short but its cute and so sweet. its been a while since i read it, but i remember loving the writing

Rescue and Recover

by OdosBucket

The bats have spent the better part of the past two months in captivity, and Clark is grateful to finally have them back, even if it will still be some time before any of them are recovered from the experience.

this one drove me CRAZY the first time i read it. i was so obsessed w the absolutely married dynamic bruce and clark have in this, and its good if you really like batfam whump

certain obscure things

by @liodain

Bruce seeks to mend in the wake of Superman's death. Fortunately, Superman doesn't believe in staying dead. Unfortunately, Bruce isn't certain how to deal with this—especially with how easily Clark slots into his life. All he knows is that an encounter with the Enchantress is definitely not the way to go.

im not a synderverse fan but it remains that some of the best and most fun superbat fics to read are synderverse. love what the girlies are doing with those old men. this one is really fun, particularly in how it handles bruces grief and what its like to grieve someone who isnt gone

fame is the bait (and the switch is your desolate smile)

by nowrunalong (@buffyfemslash on tumblr)

"Superman,” Wayne says emphatically. "Now there’s an interesting guy. The concept of wealth probably doesn’t even register to an alien who could throw a whole skyscraper into the sea if he was in a snit.” It’s almost hilariously ironic that Wayne is saying this here, in Clark’s place of employment, where Clark works ten-hour shifts to earn enough tip money to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment. “He’s gotta live somewhere,” Clark points out. Or: Clark meets Bruce, and then Superman meets Bruce Wayne. Neither is entirely fooled.

speaking of synderverse. this ones also a lot of fun! its a lot of bruce being antagonistic in the beginning and clark being a total golden retriever, which is pretty on beat for the enemies to lovers type dynamic that i always see in synderverse fics.

I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am

by Mardiaz173

It was like living in the Twilight Zone. Everyone else believed fervently in Bruce Wayne’s reputation. He was a flirty, stupid, and entitled drunk whose only redeeming quality was his bleeding heart. And yet every time Clark spoke with Wayne, the man was clever, mischievous, and sober with an indecipherable ulterior motive. And no one believed Clark. Not Lois, not his parents, not even Batman.

bruce is such a ridiculous ass in this and its kind of hilarious. identity porn galore. its a fun read!

Send to All

by kerosceene

I, ___________________________, hereby acknowledge that this form represents my wishes should I contract phytoaphrodisiac-induced delirium (hereafter referred to as “PAID”) during engagements with or while apprehending Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley (“Poison Ivy”). - the bats have a sex pollen release form. because of course they do.

this ones really more batfamily and i just. listen. i think this is the funniest fic ever written, maybe. it makes me sob every single time. im not going to say anything else but you should just read it and trust me

#superbat #my recs

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