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i-care-4u · 2 years

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FIRST LOVE | J.HARLOW

PAIR: JACK HARLOW X READER

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED | MASTERLIST

the first time you’ve met jack was in kindergarten. your kindergarten teacher assigned the spots for your class, and you sat with four other people, one of them being jack.

the earliest memory jack had of you was you and your friend heading to the library. while you liked interacting with the class, you also wanted to experience a bit of the quieter side. you and your friend would open the books and look at the illustrations.

this was the same time when he began wearing an eye patch on his right eye, that way he could strengthen his left eye, he believed.

one time you left to the library, and then jack followed your footsteps by raising his hand to ask the teacher the same thing, “miss, may i go to the library?”

“yes jack, you may go.”

after leaving the classroom, one of the students began whispering to another student, “do you think he likes y/n?”

the other student giggled, and began teasing you two whenever you were together.

at recess, you would sit in the swings and read your newly picked out book. the students would ask you to play with them, but you told them that there are other people who want to play. in other words, you weren’t interested in playing ‘tag’ every single day.

jack walked to the swings, but didn’t say a word to you. he didn’t want to disturb you or take a peek at your book. he knew that you stood out compared to the other classmates. you were sweet towards everyone, and you were one of the only people that didn’t make fun of jack. maybe his classmates were right, he did have a crush on you.

the kids, on the other hand, looked by the swings, and one of them shouted out, “jack likes y/n!”

this would then go on for the rest of elementary, but the teasing between you and jack calmed down by the third grade. you knew jack didn’t see you in that manner as well as the students just joking around. you can admit, however, that he was a cute and funny guy.

you guys grew up together throughout middle school, and you noticed that jack looked a lot happier than he was in elementary.

it was the time when jack began having a passion of music, and started creating it using stuff he has at home. his first experience into becoming a rapper was in fifth grade, when he tried to sing “fergalicious” at a talent show, but the song was too explicit to perform.

jack would invite you to his little music sessions and play some guitar hero along. it was interesting to see the process, and by the time he finishes, he would burn about forty copies to give to his classmates.

“i think i’ll sell them for 5 dollars.”

“that’s too pricey for some cheesy songs.”

“4?”

“1.”

“too cheap, y/n. i think i’ll go with 2 dollars each.”

“that’s good.”

by the end of middle school though, things began to change for you. your parents got a new job, and unfortunately, you had to move to another place. it was unexpected news for you, never telling your friends until later on.

it was upsetting, believing that your high school experience was ruined before stepping a foot inside. but in the bright side though, you had a fresh start in your new place.

jack began to notice your absence during his high school years, but never questioned it until he brought it up in a conversation with his friends.

“hey, what happened to y/n?”

“y/n l/n?” your name was the first thing that came to his friend’s mind.

“yeah. i haven’t seen her since middle school ended.”

“she probably moved to another place, jackman.”

“moved?!” he exclaimed. jack began to picture all of his memories that he had with you. after hearing this, all of his memories began to feel more like dreams and it shattered jack that he might not ever see you again.

it’s been ten years since you moved from louisville to [your place]. one day you were bored, and decided to drive to louisville, where you spent most of your childhood.

it took a few hours to drive there and you felt the excitement the moment you read the sign that said ‘welcome to louisville.’

“it’s been a while…” you to mumbled to yourself. you began driving to the area you grew up in, seeing the newly changes that they have in the city. you used the maps app to start heading to the neighborhood you once lived in.

you still couldn’t believe it was a decade since you left the city. it was a huge change for you, now having to start a different high school with new people. it was hard to adjust at first, but people eventually began making talk with you.

you turned off your car, and made sure your car was locked before getting out. you began walking to the neighborhood, seeing the homes and their decorations that they add in their garden and porch.

as you were walking, you saw a man walking towards the same direction as you.

he stood there for a few seconds in order to examine you. “y/n?” the man wondered if it was you.

you had that developed, yet youthful look on your face, and it was quite recognizable for everyone. you flinched, but you then turned around to see the guy.

it was possible that you knew him from school in the past, but you couldn’t put a name on his face.

“do i know you?” you paused to look at his face. he has curly hair, a freshly cut beard, and those blue eyes. he looked familiar until you finally remembered, “wait! you’re jack, right?”

“that’s me.”

“oh my goodness, jack, you scared the fuck out of me!”

“my fault.”

“it’s fine, i just never thought that i’d see you again. it’s been what, ten years?”

“ten fucking years…”

the last time you saw him, he had a very dorky look and had that high pitched voice. you were in shock when you saw how he looks like now.

he pursued his dreams into becoming a rapper and it worked successfully, and that was one thing that didn’t change about jack. another thing that didn’t change was that he still kept the same charm from the prior years.

you asked the typical question that people ask once reunited, “so what are you up to?”

jack gave you a look, and you didn’t blame him, to be fair. you left without saying goodbye or anything. “no, what are you up to?”

“i wanted to drive around louisville, and i honestly miss it here,” you explained. “what about you?”

“just passing by before tour starts.”

you raised a brow, confused on what he meant by ‘tour.’

“tour?”

“a world tour, i’m performing in several countries.”

your eyes widen and gasped, “that’s so amazing jack, you really made it this far!”

“thank you, i couldn’t make it without your support.”

you tilted your head and pouted at him, “really?”

jack smiled, “yeah, really.”

you two walked to the park nearby the neighborhood. the park was bigger than you remembered, but that’s because they now added a tennis court and a kiosk.

you and jack sat in a picnic table near the trees, where you began to catch up with each other’s lives. jack put on his sunglasses, as he felt that it was a little too bright today.

with a hand covering your mouth, you laughed at jack, “you’re so dramatic jack.”

jack shrugged, “what can i say? i’ve always been serving it girl.”

you couldn’t take him seriously and continued laughing, “it’s only like 71 degrees, be serious.”

“fine, fine,” jack took off his sunglasses to reveal his blue eyes that you’ve always loved and remembered.

“how lovely you look today,” you sighed.

jack misunderstood what you told him, “i look lonely? i am literally with you!”

you clarified, “lovely, dumbass.”

he awkwardly exclaimed. you were having a fun time within the first minutes with him at the park, laughing at the little things you guys do. it took you back to more than a decade ago, when he would rap about household items to you.

there was no one in the park, but you two. you felt at peace alongside jack, just like old times.

the sun was setting, and you started to feel the breeze outside. jack sat next to you to make you feel comfortable, and you rest your head onto his shoulder.

“it feels nice out here,” you tilted your head to look at jack.

“you should visit here more often, you would love it.”

you softly laughed, “like what, singing me about the smell of febreeze?”

“you still remember that?”

“i thought that was the funniest thing you ever did.”

“i have plenty of other songs on my catalog,” he turned on his phone to show you a specific song, “in fact, i wrote this song about you.”

the title track was named after you. you weren’t as active on social media, so you weren’t aware of the music he releases. when the song started playing, you looked at him with fulfillment. you could tell that he dedicated some time in order to write these thoughtful lyrics about you, and the production was well-made.

as soon as the song finished playing, you turned around to see jack. you almost went to tears of joy, not expecting someone like jack to give you such a gift, “this is the nicest thing someone did for me in a long time…”

“all this time i thought i’d never see you again. you’re the person i spent most of my time with back then, and i want that again. you don’t know how much you mean to me and my career. y/n, i want to make things official with you.”

“jack…” you reached in for a kiss and jack leaned in to return the favor. you took your hand and placed it on his cheek, feeling a bit of his soft skin.

“and all of that for me?”

jack replied, “for you.”

you had never thought that you’d be kissing jack and date ten years later. until today, you realized that you hit the lottery with him, considering his large fan base. to jack though, it was love at first sight.

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adorkastock · 2 months

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Do you have any tips for finding art references of younger people? Especially fat or plus size ones

I don't currently know of any resources for child or teen pose models. I personally only hire models that are 18+ for many reasons, though my kid does appear incidentally in some images and I often leave her in with her face obscured. When I was doing illustrations of kids I spent a lot of time looking at generic stock sites trying to find what I needed or adapting adult poses to kid proportions. I hope someone sees this and can point you in the right direction! ♥

#ask Adorkastock

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umbrvx · 2 months

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i like ur art. its great and interesting!! i really like your artstyle and i really like the way u draw hsy, yjh, and kdj. you captured them so well in terms of vibes/character. also i was wondering do u have any advice to improve on drawing anatomy/poses/faces?

wahh thank you so much...!! i feel like im still trying to figure them out in a lot of ways but i do really like ironing out my visual interpretations of them so im really happy to hear if people like what im coming up with

also anon you super activated the part of my brain that cant help but yap about art theory... i spent some time writing as many tips as i could think of. unfortunately i dont think i have the time currently to do a fully illustrated guide, but ill still try to include some visual examples:

[incoming wall of text lol]

ANATOMY:

to preface i think that like 100% of the time you should reference a real life photo for anatomy rather than other artwork or drawn references. the best way to learn the body is by… well, actually looking at the body! but also artwork is informed by a person's own artistic ability/stylization choices/sense of idealism, so while looking at art can help give you an idea on how to break down forms, i think you would be best served observing real life references. i labor on this point because i do think that having over relied on drawn reference material and avoiding photographic references on the basis of not being interested on realism hindered me as a largely self-taught artist as a kid, so i want to encourage live or photographic reference since anatomy is one of the foundations from which everything else is built on. that being the case, all of my doodles i'm doing for this are going to be for the sake of example rather than to strictly say how you should or should not be drawing something

-> when you are doing a study of a photo, just try copying it as best as you can. pay close attention to the natural lines and shapes of the body -- the S-curve shape of the leg, the triangular shape of the forearm, the trapezoid shape of hips/thighs when they sit, and so on. note where the body folds or squishes or pulls; how mass will shift to accommodate a certain position. if a form is hard to visualize, focus on the negative space and carve that out, rather than strictly drawing the positive space.

don't expect to get it perfect the first time. in fact, iterate on it multiple times to build understanding. try doing it to a timer of 15, then 10, then 5 minutes. doing this will force you to have to prioritize the most important shapes. you can help reinforce this by using a thicker brush or a brush with no pen pressure (no joke ms paint works great for this) to force you to be loose and not become preoccupied with details.

-> pinterest is a great resource for finding and compiling photo reference material

-> organic shapes are curved, so embracing/emphasizing that (particularly for the extremities) can help make your drawings look more natural or fluid

POSES: -> it all begins & ends with contrapposto… you've probably heard of the line of action, which is related. if you're offsetting the shoulders & hips, it: makes poses more natural, more dynamic, and helps the pose sort of "draw itself" -- the legs will follow the direction of the hips, and you can use the arms to reinforce the angles

-> context is key. don't ask: what pose should i draw? instead ask: what do i want this character to convey? what does happiness, anger, sadness, and so forth look on this particular character? how do they express that? consider these drawings: these are both ostensibly the same pose, but look at how changing just the shape of the spine recontextualizes it.

for more on pose design i recommend watching Tracer & Pose Design 101 - The Animation of Overwatch by New Frame Plus (i promise this is a genuinely super informative video).

to expand on this, in general, all of the components of a piece (background, composition, pose, etc.) are best considered in conjunction rather than separately. it is difficult to choose a pose and then choose a background because they are missing the context that would make a piece cohesive. when you are planning a drawing, try to begin with your general concept/idea/prompt and then do several thumbnails -- small and quick doodles that should take no longer than 5 minutes each -- developing it: you may find that the pose and bg will naturally fall into place.

-> silhouette: the degree to which you need to push this varies by style but generally speaking the pose needs to be readable; i.e. instantly recognizable. try to keep important elements of the gesture outside of the silhouette. for example, if the character is pointing, keep that arm out of the interior of the body. the same pose can be more or less readable or dynamic depending on where the character is pointed in relation to the viewer

-> exaggeration!! goes along with the previous point. push the pose as much as you can (and what makes sense for your style) to communicate your pose as clearly and as intensely as possible.

FACES: -> i highly recommend the app Handy Art Reference Tool by Belief Engine for all things related to drawing hands/heads/feet. its on both android and ios. it isn't free -- it costs around $3 -- but that is seriously such a small price to pay for the amount of utility you get out of it: the hands models are fully poseable (there's also pose presets), you can rotate the head models however you want, and there is 3-point customizable lighting. it is really helpful for getting those super tricky and hyperspecific head angles that you just can't find a real life reference for. that being said given that there's only a few different head model variants, bear in mind how differences in features can affect what exactly a face will look like in those angles.

-> i still recommend doing studies of real people. as with anything else, learning generalized proportions is important, even if you are going to later on bend or break this depending on style

-> as for my own approach... it kind of depends on the style i'm doing at that particular time. for my paintings (what id consider my main style) i approach a character with a few real-world features in mind and then apply them to the best of my ability. it usually will take a few iterations to land on an interpretation i really like as i try out different things. a lot of the face also gets developed during rendering rather than through my initial sketch too, as i adjust for lighting and correct proportions on the fly

(look how much this image changes between sketch and render lol)

if i were to recommend anything, i think it would be to nail down your most distinct features first -- the ones that will make your character's face recognizable, and could apply regardless of art style. in my case with kim dokja, i knew when i first started drawing him that i wanted to give him a longer face and down-turned eyes. when i decided to do the disco elysium inspired set, in which i was breaking out of my comfort zone by letting go of any idealizations focusing on conveying characterization/making them feel "real", i landed on some more specific traits (defined lower lids/perpetually tired eyes/eyebags(?) the crease there idk how to describe it) which i continue to try to evoke even if im drawing something much more cartoony

(pictured are my first kdj -> disco elysium style -> my post de-style kdj)

as a side note, this very same process changed yjh much more dramatically

(^ that first guy is mad someone else)

those handful of key features will be the thing that you can then take into a simpler style and simplify or exaggerate to whatever degree suits you. you can also play with shape theory (square = sturdy/solid, circle = natural/smooth/welcoming, triangle = energetic/dangerous). shape theory doesn't necessarily need to be so rigid -- you can combine shapes as you please to convey whatever vibe you're going for -- so please think of it as a tool that may help rather than a rigid law you must abide by.

-> expressions: exaggerate them. thats kind of it!! make it big!!! you wanna be able to really feel those emotions. the principles of squash & stretch help here: think of how the muscles move when you, say, open the eyes or mouth really big. as one side of the face stretches open, the other side squashes to accommodate it

even without changing the position of the jaw here, moving the nose and scrunching the eyes will sell the expression

you can also play with squash/stretch to break proportions to sell a feeling more

since expressions are just, well, poses for the face, everything else for poses applies here (and facial expressions & pose should also be considered in tandem). while the term contrapposto itself just refers to the offset of the shoulders & hips, the similar principle of asymmetry also carries here as that will help make the expression a bit more dynamic.

and i think... that's it!! all i can think of at least. i hope it helps anon!!!

#umbrvx.ask #sorry the reply took a minute i have been writing this post since i got the ask im so serious #i tried to determine what advice i could give that would be the most immediately actionable #also sorry its a huge wall of text im a little crazy about learning and discussing art theory . oops (the yapper)

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shukakumoodboard · 5 months

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*Pulls out my massive bag of money and jewels and blow* I’m your biggest fan so I must pick your brain now that you have a tumblr ask box. your finest gaalee romance hcs my good sir. Please

help.

I’m your biggest fan

did you know im crying ab this. kissing u on the face rn

ok gaalee romance headcanons. i've been thinking about this for days. grab ur mojito mix lets frockign gaur

ill be upfront in that i have very few i'll-die-on-this-hill opinions about the boys, but here's some i'm pretty stuck to <3

sfw headcanons

1. lee's better with words, gaara's better with actions, and they're both secretly envious of the other for it: my thoughts here are that gaara spent so much of his life not understanding love that he'd still struggle to articulate it in flowery ways that i think, as a born theatre kid, lee would be good at. but gaara would absolutely be that person who shows it in subtle ways -- like taking care of someone when sick, remembering food preferences, always ensuring lee takes care of himself when lee forgets or is busy having a self-flagellation moment. not that i think lee would be incompetent, but he strikes me as more of a scatterbrain, but would always be on top of verbal reassurances and affection (which i also think is what gaara would benefit from: clear straightforward declarations of feelings and intent)

2. they're both super cuddly in private look, you put together a touch-starved former monster vessel and a social outcast who mostly knows touch from violence (until gai) and you are going to get some clinginess imo. you can't convince me they're not the kind of people who would sit side by side at the dinner table so they can eat holding hands. bro (emotional)

3. they're probably actually really shit at "conventional" dating hear me out ok. they're like initially so far away and gaara is the whole president and lee kicked a meteor in half one time you think they can just wander around and go to restaurants? it's absolutely nonsense that shinobi don't suffer village celebrity paparazzi syndrome in nart tbh. not exactly the same but i have a whole wip in the bort-verse about them sneaking around. tldr i'd bet they sometimes get casual breakfast or dinner but i think more likely takeout and quiet time together as opposed to like fancy dates

4. language learning and hobbying as a form of devotion as a purveyor of my wares u may notice i have language headcanons. it is also my gaalee romance hc that they learn each others -- i've incorporated this into in the space between and a wip called multilingual, which is all about nejiten teasing lee about his crush on gaara in front of the man. i also think that lee would lean into gaara's gardening stuff with gusto because if it's something gaara loves, lee would want to love it too.

nsfw headcanons huehuehuhe

1. they're switches and i WILL die on this hill i think this is self explanatory but listen. listen i am SIQUE of the assigned top/bottom nonsense they both deserve to rail and also be railed. i may be the resident owner of the Rock Lee Fucks tag on AO3 but i also own the Gaara Fucks tag. ill kill a man over this

2. lee is absolutely a service anything this ties into the previous one. a big component of his canonical personality is that he's a disciple of gai -- he's a follower who bases a lot of himself around those he cares for. not the kind of person who is suddenly going to crop up with an intensely specific preference, imo? i think he would base his role on whatever his partner needs the most at the time.

3. rock lee's canonically huge dick ok lol listen. listen this one's canon jokes aside i think lee is hung as detailed in We Don't Talk About Fight Club and i will continue that joke. that being said i think normal hung. not arizona tea can hung which is a hilariously illustrated discord joke

4. tbh i think they're kinda vanilla in the bedroom i say this in a positive way i think they'd be far more into like, just being able to be with each other instead of getting into wild sexual mischief all over the villages although they definitely bone in weird places secretly. they Fuck, but like i don't see them as super kinksters or anything. however, i have seen many a kinkfic that im like nodding my head this is valid cakesitting bdsm what who said that

5. gaara's vaguely nebulous oral fixation i really have no justification for this one i just think some of those animal bijuu instincts might linger and turn into what that mouth do idk i keep going to write smut and whoops my whole body slipped and gaara's licking something. happened in fight club and fight club II, happened in hole time, happened in tgod, happens in at least two wips i have cookin' in the background... what is goin on actually

dkghkdf i hope you enjoyed this episode of kel's questionable headcanons. i really enjoyed answering, thank you so much for the ask <3

#fictalk #gaalee #leegaa #gaara #rock lee #writing gronp hours #nart #lol hole time #text #not sfw

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faesystem · 1 year

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Headcanons/Prompts centred around Mario and Luigi being brothers.

1. In high school Mario got super insecure about his height, so Luigi acquired every single movie with Danny DeVito in it and made him watch it. Then if he ever suspected Mario was being insecure about his height, he would hand him a printed out photo/screenshot of Danny DeVito.

Mario found this so hilarious that it would usually distract him and cheer him up. He also found it so sweet how much effort Luigi put into it.

2. Luigi is chronically ill and disabled (long headcanons of this here) and as a kid and into adulthood Mario was the one who cared for him. Mario got a job in high school to help cover Luigi's medical bills. He spent a lot of time researching to try and figure out the problem when doctors were dismissing Luigi. He made sure Luigi ate three full meals a day and drank enough water. He helped Luigi get outside to get sun and fresh air.

When they finally figured out what exactly Luigi had and began treating it (I personally headcanon POTS and EDS) Mario ensured Luigi followed his treatment plan to a T.

Once Luigi's symtoms were managed quite well, he and Mario had quite a bit of tension of Luigi feeling smothered by Mario and Mario feeling overprotective after so long of caring for him. It caused one of the worst fights they have ever had, which ended with a, "YOU'RE NOT MY MOM!" "MOM WASN'T THE ONE WHO [long rant about all the things he's done for Luigi]." After Mario finished the ranting, they were both just sad about being mad at each other. They communicated about it and got better.

Once they got older, and especially after they became adventures, Luigi took on the role of caring for Mario's wellbeing. He was Mario's player 2 not because he was less skilled or capable, but because he wanted to be. He liked being there for his brother in the way his brother always was for him. He didn't care when people called him 'Green Mario' because there's no one in the world who he would rather be more like.

Although, when he had to fight Mario about taking breaks to eat, he thought it was absolutely karma for the hell he gave Mario when he was nauseous and did not wish to eat.

3. All Mario wants for Luigi is for him to be safe and happy. If he were to, say, get a romantic partner who will keep him safe and happy, values that above any personal hard feelings against the person. I am going to use Bowser as the example partner here, but any work.

A funnier route for this is Mario giving Bowser the biggest death glare possible whenever Luigi is not looking.

A less funny route is Mario bottling up his negative feelings as opposed to processing him, and something happens that shakes him and he pops like a shaken carbonated beverage. (I mean, the illustrative language I have used could also be comedic.)

4. Luigi has very high standards for people Mario date. I feel as though the only person who maybe would meet those standards would be Peach, and that's only because she is good at figuring out how to frame things she's done in a way that matches what people want from her. You know, political leader who has to make hard choices sometimes.

I am not a big DK x Mario shipper, but I will say DK would never meet Luigi's standards in 1000 years. I would say Luigi wouldn't necessarily oppose the relationship (unless you want some good comedy surrounding that) because he wants Mario to be happy and DK makes him happy. However, he thinks Mario could do better.

5. Luigi has bad taste in men. He is absolutely the sort of person to see an aggressive man with no ability to handle his feelings or self control and go, "I could fix him."

Mario always relentlessly bullied him for this. Then he ended up dating DK. Luigi seemingly remembered every single thing he ever said about his taste in men and is just parroting it back to him.

6. Luigi really likes dressing up all fancy, and Mario hates it. Luigi likes their matching outfits, especially likes it for adventures, but also prefers to dress up if going out anywhere. Going to see Peach casually for tea? Going to see a kids film? Going to the store? Dress pants, perfectly polished shoes, and a high quality, well fitting, tastefully coloured and patterned button down.

Mario on the other hand does Not like it. It's uncomfortable. It's expensive and he doesn't want to worry about running it. Usually doesn't fit well on him, and then tailoring is even more expenses. If he is not in their matching outfits, he is in shorts and a t-shirt.

They often go out together to a variety of events, some more formal than others, but at least one of them is always underdressed or (more often) overdressed.

7. The reason Luigi is afraid of animals is because he is afraid of accidentally hurting him. (Polterpup was the perfect dog for him.)

Mario helps his brother do exposure therapy for this fear. Luigi has made a lot of progress. When they were teens Luigi would back up as far as he could from any animals he saw because he was convinced he'd hurt them. Now, he just tends to freeze up and wait to see if he is making the animal uncomfortable by being close.

If you have made it this far, please comment or reblog with more ideas.

#Mod ? (He/Him)#Fandom Subsection #SMB #Super Mario Bros #Mario #Luigi #Prompt #Headcanon #Mario and Luigi #Super Mario Brothers #smb #super mario bros #luigi #mario

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bricky-brikson · 5 months

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I am perfectly normal about the Psychonauts timeline

Spoiler warning for...everything.

As I was playing Psychonauts 2, I had a vibe that Ford and the Psychic Seven were active during the late 1920s, early 1930s, mostly because of the Model T Ford in Cruller's Correspondence, but also because of the biplane in the diorama of Ford fighting Maligula from Fatherland Follies. But there were some issues with that - namely the Feel Mobile which resembles more a model of van released around 1964. I feel compelled to mention it looks like the Motherlobe is trapped in the 70s, technology-wise.

So I looked up the timeline on the Psychonauts fandom wiki, as well as the blurb from Psychonauts about the history of Whispering Rock. And while clicking through the wiki, I found a copy of the Li-Po document, which contains the following line:

[...] when [Ford Cruller] was [...] away fighting for the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War [...]

Firstly, based.

Secondly, that means Ford had to be at least 16* by 1937 (when American volunteers were sent to Spain). At least if we are to believe that this...very specific part of the Li-Po document is still canon. Which...I mean, we could. We know Ford was already an adult when he assembled the Psychic Seven, but we don't know how old he was. From the looks of him in the mental vaults and illustrations, he was definitely older than 16 (considering the full moustache). Meaning that it is possible Ford spent his younger years fighting in the Lincoln Brigade, then when he matured started looking more into his and others' psychic powers.

Possible? Yes. Plausible? Ehhh...considering the story of Psychonauts 2 is deeply tied to the trauma the Psychic Seven endured surrounding the Grulovian Civil War then the Deluge of Grulovia, I doubt that Ford's previous involvement in a very bloody battalion (22.5% of Lincoln Battalion fighters died in the Spanish Civil War) would have gone unmentioned. Since it makes no appearance in Psychonauts 2, I think it's safe to say it's no longer canon.

So where does that leave us? With the only statement from the devs (specifically Tim Schafer himself) that points us towards a date for the game's events:

"We think of it as taking place in the 80's but not necessarily the 80's, in case we need a piece of technology that we're stealing from the 90's."

So...that leaves us with a year range of 1980 to 1999. However, if technology is an issue (specifically, taking place during the 80s but needing some tech from the 90s), that means the game probably takes place in the late 80s, early 90s. I interpret this as being between 1987 and 1993. So, we've narrowed it down! Based on my arbitrary definition of "late" and "early"!**

Is there any way to narrow it down further? Unfortunately, not from what I can find - the tech we see in the Motherlobe is more reminiscent of the 60s and 70s (the computers we see on peoples' desks and in Sasha's lab look akin to a Xerox Alto, which came out in 1973), and I don't know enough about the history of other technology we see in-game to infer information about the timeline. If someone else has knowledge about things I may have missed that point us towards a date, please reblog and let me know!

Now, before I get into what I see as the timeline, I do want to address Maloof's line when you release him from the GPC.

"Nah, the staff hasn't put any kids in the GPC since the fifties."

Which goes against the timeline written on the log in the parking lot (which states that Whispering Rock Summer Camp was only created 5 years ago). I'm leaning more toward the written lore, since it's entirely possible Maloof is misinformed. After all, this is his first time at the camp. It's entirely possible Bobby (or another camper) has been lying to Maloof about the history of the staff's use of the GPC. For this reason, I'm disregarding this conflicting bit of evidence.

So! On to the actual timeline - at least, what I think it is. Starting from the beginning and working our way to the present day. I will represent the dates as a range, so "1987 - 1993" means "between 1987 and 1993." It doesn't mean that whatever event took place took that long, just that it happened at some point within that range. Good? Good! Let's go.

Brick's Speculative Psychonauts Timeline

1487 - 1493: A psitanium meteor strikes the area that will eventually be known as Whispering Rock, leaving behind a psitanium deposit.

1787 - 1793: A local indigenous group starts working with the psitanium, creating the arrowheads found in the first game, and names the area Whispering Rock (just, in their language, not English)

1887 - 1893: The mining town of Shaky Claim is established as part of the gold rush, except they're mining for psitanium. The psitanium deposit severely worsens the mental health of the people there.

1888 - 1894: The first case of 'Paranormal Hysteria' diagnosed in Shaky Claim.

1912 - 1918: Houston Thorney constructs Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed. Ford Cruller is born.

1927 - 1933: Houston Thorney commits suicide. The town's population is less than the amount of patients in Thorney Towers.

1932 - 1938: Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed is closed but some patients still remain. The remaining residents of the valley leave and the area is flooded, resulting in Lake Oblongata.

[At some point, Ford assembles the Psychic Seven]

1967 - 1973: The Psychic Six fight Maligula. Grulovia is flooded then trapped below the frozen floodwaters. Helmut Fullbear is presumed dead. Shortly thereafter, Ford uses the Astralathe to modify the memories of Lucretia and Augustus, then to break his own mind.

[At some point, Charlie Psycho Delta is established then swiftly abandoned]

1982 - 1988: Whispering Rock Summer Camp is established.

1987 - 1993: The events of Psychonauts, Psychonauts: The Rhombus of Ruin, and Psychonauts 2 take place all within about a week (and that's being generous).

So there! That's what I think the timeline is. Again, if you have any feedback or want to point out something I missed, please let me know! I'm new to the games/lore/fandom so 'tis entirely possible!

The implications of this timeline are...interesting. The fact that during the fight with Maligula, something that was supported by multiple countries, they're using planes from the 1910s when it's at least 1967...the world of the Psychonauts isn't less technologically advanced - they have a jet that rivals ones from 2024! So I have no clue what that biplane is doing in Gristol's memory of the fight with Maligula. Unless we consider Gristol an unreliable narrator for that detail - but even then I'm unsure why he wouldn't have assumed they were using modern technology...? IDK. It's weird.

Anyways, if you got this far, thanks for reading! I'm flattered. I always love picking apart lore and timeline details like this, no matter the fandom I'm in. So consider this my hello to the Psychonauts fandom :-)

*According to the Wikipedia page for the Lincoln Battalion, that's probably the youngest any American volunteers were. ** The way I see it: if it ends in 1/2/3, it's early. If it ends in 4/5/6, it's mid. if it ends in 7/8/9, it's late.

#my dad is a warplane nerd and he helped me identify the biplane #irl biplanes like that were used as late as the 1940s since they had more manoeuvrability than the faster jets #but by the 60s/70s there were definitely a variety of planes that would fill the 'slower but better movement' niche #and it cant be because grulovia doesnt have the tech - cause the psychic six weren't working with grulovia !#they were called in by the international community !!!#so for some reason the international community gave them planes that were at least twenty years old to fight this new terrifying foe !!!!!!#what is going on !!!!!!!!!!!#anyway. i was having a hella breakdown (/positive) over this last night. but putting in in clean form like this helps me figure things out-#-in my brain #also the fact shaky claim was established as part of the gold rush implies a location somewhere on the west coast #considering the devs are in california im guessing whispering rock is also in california #psychonauts #psychonauts rhombus of ruin #psychonauts 2 #brick wall #ford cruller #because i talk about him a decent amount

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sp0o0kylights · 1 year

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Since I’m on a roll, here’s another part I had fun with. Both this and the Steve-Goes-Into-The-Car-Blanket-fort scene are apart of Illustrated which is my lil Soulmate AU.

“The famed bedroom of King Steve. I feel like I should have made you work harder to get me in here. Rumors say you enjoy the chase after all." Munson drawls, as they walk down the hallway.

"Rumors say a lot of things, Munson. Most of it’s-" Steve stops, catches himself before he says the word bullshit and inflicts psychological damage on himself. "Stupid."

"Stupid." Eddie echoes, teasing lilt to his voice.

“Tommy once spent six weeks trying to convince last year's freshmen that Ms. Click is in a motorcycle gang.” Steve counters. “Went so far as to try and get the school’s journalist club to fake some pictures for him.”

“That explains the entire debate club's fixation with leather vests.” Eddie says triumphantly, looking like there’s a story he’s about to tackle (likely with many dramatics, because omelets seem to have somehow restored the guy’s energy) but stops dead as Steve swings his bedroom door open.

“Oh my god why is there so much plaid?” Eddie’s jaw drops, teasing forgotten entirely as they step into Steve’s room.

Who rolls his eyes. “Why does everyone always say that?”

“Because no one in their right mind has plaid walls, dude.” Munson blinks, dramatically staggering backwards like he’s been hit. “My eyes are being assaulted right now.”

Steve should be annoyed, but surprises himself when he finds he actually wants to laugh. “Does it help if I tell you I didn’t pick it?”

The look Eddie gives him almost makes him laugh anyway. “Who the hell did? Satan?”

“Close enough. My mom.” Steve turns to look at his room, imagining how someone like Eddie must see it.

Plaid walls, minimal décor, a bed that’s made (only because Steve’s mother drilled that habit into him) and hideous, matching curtains. The whole set was picked out of a catalog, right down to the stupid, framed car poster.

The only thing that shows any signs of life is his desk, which is covered in scraplets of paper, pens, a phone and random other objects.

(Steve’s favorite is a small stuffed penguin wearing a sailor costume. Robin had a matching one, a tribute to the way they had met. It would be the very first thing he’d grab in a fire, one of the very few possessions he owned that Steve truly treasures.)

“Ahh the fabled Mrs. Harrington. I thought she was made up.” Eddie says, finally entering the room. He explores it like something might pop out at him, and hell, Steve couldn’t blame him for that either.

“Yeah. She picked it out when she used to be here more. Before her and my dad fucked off to New York.”

“And you didn’t immediately renovate?”

This is the most expressive Steve’s seen Eddie in the last twenty four hours. Feels almost like he’s got the guy back to some semblance of a balanced mental state, which makes the part of Steve that loves caring for people unbelievably happy.

Steve shrugs. “Honestly, I never thought about it much.”

Doesn’t mention that these days he tries to spend the least amount of time he can inside his own home, instead bouncing between work, Dustin’s house, and any antics the kids or Robin had pulled him into.

Thinks vaguely that he and Robin may have actually slept in his living room more than his actual bedroom-or, him in her bed, considering how often he sneaks into her room.

A fact her parents would be furious about except they’re so painfully relieved that they’ve purposefully given Steve some grace. Something Robin hates and Steve does his best to distract her from.

“Yeah we’re gonna fix that.” Eddie spins slowly, looking all the way up like some bit of personality is hiding out on the ceiling. “Immediately.”

Digs around in one of his pockets, and pulls out a thick black Sharpie, before turning with it to give Steve a wild grin. “What do you say to a little home makeover?”

Steve raises an eyebrow at him, before looking over his room once more. “You sure you don’t want a shower first” He asks, to buy himself time to think.

Has a feeling Munson can find the time to shower, nap and cause chaos, in equal amounts.

Sure enough, Eddie waves him off. “Don’t you worry about me, Steve-o, I think I can manage to figure out how to use your bathroom after giving this place a little art CPR.”

Screw it.

Will in fact, likely help Munson channel out whatever leftover emotion he had left into whatever horrors he drew upon Steve’s wallpaper, which at the very least, could always be removed later.

It’s not like his parents can get any more disappointed in him.

“Fine, just promise me no dicks.” He agrees, with a sigh.

Eddie cackles. “Don’t you worry man, just watch the master work.”

Steve rolled his eyes.

Does actually hang around, if only to turn on his cassette player and point out where all his tapes are.

Leaves when Munson momentarily stops “redecorating” in order to trash Steve’s taste in music, in alphabetical order.

“I get it, I’m a mainstream prick, you jerk.” He calls over his shoulder as he exits. “Now I’m going to go where I won’t be insulted, and see if Cunningham needs anything.”

(She doesn’t, but does playfully insult him, having overheard the conversation.

“Well fuck me I guess.” Steve mutters with a sigh, as she laughs at him.)

#steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve/eddie #AU where Chrissy lives #and is involved #this isn't fully edited so it may change #but my god #those walls #steve harringtons plaid walls #should be both a tag and a trigger warning #stranger things #stranger things season 4 #0o0 fanfics

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lazar-codes · 4 months

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14/02/2024 || Day 12 (dop)

TLDR:

🔸 practised ASL fingerselling

🔸 went to ASL class

🔸 worked on button functionality for Frontend Mentor project

🔸 started planning new illustration

🔸 read current book

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Turns out that when I pick up extra shifts at work, I don't do anything productive when I get home -- including program. I feel like I haven't done any consistent programming since November, tbh. Hopefully I can find it in me to get back on it, but I'm definitely feeling the programming burnout.

Work

ASL class - I just want to say that today we learned about conjunctions after it was introduced to us 2 weeks ago, and dear lord will I need to sit down and practice it a bunch. I'm excited though!

Frontend Mentor - I decided that I want to wrap this project up ASAP, so of course I did only the minimum today. I got the button functionality all working, where they'll appear and disappear at appropriate times. The next thing that I'll do tmr will be to dynamically fill out the information required in the Summary step, which is depending on the user's selections throughout the form.

Art

Much like with programming, I've been putting off sketching, but this time only for the past 2 weeks. I swear, I was at a sketching high in January, where I filled a page almost every day. Especially at the end of January, because I had finished re-playing The Last of Us Part 2 and was a sketching machine filled with inspiration. But then it disappeared once I made a finished digital illustration of one of my fanart ideas. So, to combat the stagnation I feel, I did the unspeakable and picked up a pen and went in directly without pencil lines. Apparently I can't go 2 months without using pen, despite swearing it off since I used it for nearly 4 years straight. And what do you know? I had fun sketching today. I gotta say though, the best thing about drawing in pen is that the sketches really pop out of the page because they're so bold.

Also, I spent last night looking for some graphic novels I might be interested in, but a lot of ones aimed at adults have art styles and don't really vibe with me, so I started looking at kids' graphic novels and found one whose style I fell in love with! I know nothing about the plot, but I'm really hoping that the art itself can inspire me! Plus, it's a nice little Valentine's Day present to myself.

#studyblr #codeblr #100 days of code #programming #100 days of productivity #coding #lazar blogs

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skelly-words · 3 months

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Help me with the title-

Sorry sorry sorry, ik 99% of my followers are here for my smut and i have a few asks to do, but... i'm not in the mood to write porn, so have my favorite OC work ever that's deeply personal and revealing instead.

wc-4.6k

I didn’t know why my Mom picked for us to move to the country when I was little, but there wasn’t much I could do to prevent it. It wasn’t farm country or ranch country, just the red dirt of the California desert. The house we lived in simmered on the hot rock. Then, when fall started, the Santa Ana winds would kick up dust and wildfires all over the place. My mom and I conceded to the cacti, coyotes, and wildfires for the low rent (only comparatively when living in California). I fell for the land as quickly as I adjusted to wearing shoes. The backyard could’ve been as small as my mom’s garden or as large as the sparse woods that stretched up and down the road for miles. The neighbors were few and far between, and they fenced off anything they wanted to keep to themselves. It was expansive, so I felt free.

We moved away from the suffocation of the big city, almost running from the snow and smog that the clogged highways always seemed to be blanketed in. I had to leave school halfway through the second grade and the cross-country trek was inconvenient, but anything was an improvement from Chicago. Mom missed the city but substituted with LA, making the three-hour drive with a few friends whenever they could get time off work or had a weekend free. She never tended to me much, not as a second-grader, and not when I got older either. I’d been able to read since before I could remember and my mom figured I could take care of myself if I could sound out the instructions on the back of a frozen pizza box or the fire extinguisher.

Mom would kiss my forehead before she left and mumble something like, “Don’t let anybody in while I’m gone.” She’d always be back to get ready for work on Monday, even if that meant coming home at two in the morning. I don’t know how she expected me to know the difference between her opening the front door in the middle of the night and a murderer doing the same. I missed having her kiss me goodnight too, but I mostly stayed up to listen for her footsteps, making sure it was the sound of her heels that echoed through the quiet house.

Her plans always varied, sometimes coming home late on Saturday or rolling in as I made absurdly chocolatey milk to put in my cereal while watching Sunday morning cartoons. She’d sleep whatever was leftover of the weekend, making up for both of us.

On other weekends, we’d run errands together. I liked to loiter around the perfume counter at Macy’s while she tried on pants. Errands weren’t always clothes shopping, it was also groceries, gas, car wash, toiletries, cleaning products, a book for me from the library, and a new screen for the kitchen window. When I wasn’t in school, this was the only time I would come into town. I spent most of my time at home in the backyard or reading if the weather was particularly bad. The local library was still twelve miles away, but they also sold lightly damaged or old books for a quarter. Mom let me pick up new reading material whenever I ran out; something Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown (if I could find any), and an almanac with lots of illustrations about whatever looked the most interesting. I cut myself off at three books so I could leave something good for the next kid.

Everybody read in the summer. Schools, libraries, parents, youth clubs, and ice cream parlors all offered incentives to get kids to read over the break. The library bookstore would be picked clean of anything worth reading and I’d spend more time outside that week.

Directly behind my house were live oak trees, gopher snakes, native foliage that mom called weeds, and a creek. The creek was sunken into a valley and spanned a little over five feet in width. Down in the gully, on my side of the stream, a headstone pretended it wasn’t out of place. It was tilted casually against a tree, but anyone could tell it didn’t fit in. There wasn’t even a name on it. For a few years, I went down to visit and place dandelions that popped up in my mom’s garden at the base of the cross. I suspected the family before us had planted a dead cat or dog there. The grave wasn’t new, but it wasn’t that old either. The ground dipped a little and that’s how I knew something was really under there. Leaves would collect in the basin, and I’d try to push them out without getting thorns in my fingers. In the winter, I’d fill them back in like they’d keep the guest warm. The awkward, blocky headstone and hastily dug ditch felt too innocuous for a final resting place, so I treated the grave as any gracious host would.

I cleaned the headstone too, to add to the ritual. It felt nice to care for the marble with a bit of dish soap and water after the rain flooded the creek. It widened a little each year whenever the tropical storms finally blew us a little rain at the beginning of fall. The warm equator water was always a little more than the parched soil could handle, and the banks would inch out.

My mom and I had neighbors behind us. The waterway is what drew the separation between the two properties. I spent most of my free time at that junction, especially when the four walls started to feel more like a solar oven than home. Cool air tended to fill up around the water; most of which trickled down from the mountains as snow melted in spring. Wiry oak trees popped up around the swampy banks, building little dams and bridges with fallen twigs. The summer before middle school, I met the neighbors’ daughter. By then, I didn’t care about the headstone. Things died, probably someone’s pet a decade ago.

But the neighbors’ daughter was my first friend. She was a year younger than me, so I got to feel like I knew a lot more than she did. I’d show her how to cross the creek without falling in and she’d just stare like I was Jesus; walking on water. She was sweet and simple-minded, and I liked having the company and someone to share the woods with. Since that summer was my first time meeting her, I figured she didn’t get out much. Her skittish temperament reminded me of the squirrels that watched us play from between tree branches. It made me want to hold her close and push her out of the nest at the same time. We quickly became close. It happens that way when there’s nobody else your age within a twelve-mile radius.

Around mid-June, she started taking off her shoes to wade into the creek with me and we talked while watching the minnows navigate around our legs. She thought I knew everything, so I acted like I did. She asked me once about dying, so I offered to show her the headstone. It wasn’t hidden, but the dusty marble blended better into nature when I didn’t bother to clean it up.

“Who did you bury here?” She asked.

“Dad,” I answered her without thinking. “Uh, some of his ashes anyway.” That was the truth. But my dad practiced family law and lived back in Chicago. Mom prayed every night that he would become part of that city’s startling crime statistics. I figured he was just as well off buried in the backyard.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

“Thank you.” This was my first time having a family member die. I didn’t know what to do, so I let my eyes water until it looked like I was crying. She helped me pick sourgrass and buckwheat flowers to decorate the grave. Whenever my dad did die, I knew I’d need her then too.

The house was way outside of town. It was fifteen minutes to the nearest gas station, which is what got her in trouble the most. As far as I could tell, that was the only reason to resent the distance. I met the neighbors’ daughter in the valley almost every day of summer. We’d walk down the creek until our feet were sweaty, then carry our shoes and shuffle back against the weak current. The path got tired and overbeaten, but it didn’t matter when every day felt fresh.

On the longest day of the year, we stayed out later than usual. The sun had set and it was nearing nine. The sky still had a bit of light in it, from the stars, moon, and summertime sun that never seemed to fade completely. Chicago skies weren’t cut out for stargazing. Holes would have to be punched through the layers of dense air and light pollution before anything besides the largest suns was visible. I could see the smallest points of light from here, stars that were lifetimes away or beginning to dim and burn out. They were beautiful.

July nights were so hot I couldn’t sleep with the sheets on. Even outside, when we were lying on the prickly leaves, I could feel the residual warmth radiating off the ground. The mosquitos drove us insane, but she stayed out to watch me point out imaginary constellations. I knew Orion and the Big Dipper, but after that, they were just lights to me.

“I’m scared to walk home alone,” she said. I think she only admitted that because I couldn’t see her face. By then, I could tell when she was scared, which was almost always, but she didn’t want to seem like a crybaby. I’d see her brow furrow whenever I’d hand her the knife to gut a fish or push her to climb the tallest tree in the woods with me, and that meant she was afraid. If I had felt meaner, I might’ve made her stumble home in the dark by herself. But it was warm and I was so fond of July that the extra walk felt worth it.

We tripped out of the gully, and I kept her hand safe in mine until we got on flat ground. The back porch light was left on for her. I could tell that they were the cozy type. My feelings were almost hurt by the homemade wind chimes that hung lackadaisically along with the solar-powered fairy lights. She toed her sneakers onto the shoe rack and waved goodbye to me from the sunflower doormat. I brushed her off with a nod as I disappeared into the woods to go back home.

I could recognize the smell of a dead animal by now. Every time a bloated fish washed downstream or a rabbit carcass was left shredded by coyotes, the smell of death became a little more familiar. It was sweet and acidic like rotten fruit but flat and earthy like fresh mud. Dead skunk was worse because the signature odor accompanied the putrification. I went down to the creek earlier than usual. The sunrise woke me up early, and the morning mist had already cooked off of the water. I followed the smell downstream to a freshly dead skunk, partially covered by dried foxtails. I was fascinated by the carcass; both the specimen itself and the process of decomposition. The maggots were eating at it now, stirring up the fur and guts. From a distance, the shifting skin made the animal look like it was still alive, twitching and squirming on the ground.

The smell was bad, almost as hard to breathe around as it was to look at. I picked up a sturdy stick from the ground and crouched to level with the animal. My eyes watered from the smell, so I lifted my t-shirt neckline over the bridge of my nose.

“How can you do that?” She was referring to how I gingerly nudged the bloated belly with a forked stick. She took a step back when the skunk’s writhing face rolled in her direction.

“It’s the circle of life. The skunk dies and serves as food for fly larvae and scavengers.”

“But why do you have to poke at it?” She stepped back further as I kept nudging the skunk further along.

“This’ll be us one day.” I figured flies couldn’t lay eggs on my body if I was buried, but some larvae or another would be breaking me back to carbon.

“Is it because of your dad?”

“What?”

“Are you like this because your dad died?” she asked. I had forgotten this small fact and realized she wasn’t insinuating my father skipped out on the family because of me. I didn’t know if that was any better and considered if my feelings should still be hurt.

“Yeah, it made me all spooky.”

“No.” She shook her head, more so at the way I pushed the skunk again. “I meant about how you’re so obsessed with death.”

“So, what? It’s interesting and spooky.” I vaguely reminded myself that I didn’t have any reason to be defending myself, but I had a point to finish. “What do you remember from before you were born?” I had to stop shoving the skunk because she would’ve ended up in the water with another step back.

She thought about it for a while until she knew the answer and then longer so she could find a way to avoid saying it. She saw my point without me having to say it.

“And that’s exactly what it’ll be like after we die,” I finished. “The decomposition is just getting rid of what’s left behind. This is just some meat that the maggots are munching on.” I shoved the skunk a little more and she didn’t back away. This was the part where she got my point and picked up a stick to poke at it too. I lifted a long, slender switch and handed it to her.

“If you’re sure.” She said it in a sing-songy way that let me know I was wrong. At least she took the stick from me and nudged the skunk back. “But my parents had me baptized, so I’ll go to heaven when I die.”

I didn’t really care if she thought she was going to heaven or not as we shoved the skunk onto an anthill. It left a little snail trail in some parts of the ground and the smell got a lot worse, but the ants would help uncover the skeleton quicker.

“Skunks don’t do baptism,” I said.

“So it’s just meat and maggots.” She still grimaced at the grossness as she said this, not totally convinced. Some of the ants had already started to crawl around to survey the skunk.

“And when it’s just bones, we’ll have something interesting to do.”

It was two weeks until summer ended, not in the fall equinox sense, but school would be starting. Pencils and notebooks had begun populating malls and outlets midway through break, but the need to complete summer felt more frantic. For me, it was the last year before a milestone. My coming of age, which if I didn’t fulfill, would make me subject to be rumored as a late bloomer. The skunk skeleton had been worth looking forward to, but something picked it up after a couple of nights. I didn’t think anything other than bugs would go for something that rotten, but the skunk was gone.

“I think I saw a dead rat a quarter mile down, yesterday.” I was consoling myself while the neighbors’ daughter precariously crossed over to my side of the creek.

“It’s a good thing the skunk’s gone.” I shot her a glare, so she corrected. “I don’t think the bones would’ve been clean by the rainy season.” She spat in the water to finish her point and made a final leap to solid ground.

“I wonder if we went to the same elementary together this whole time?” I sat in the dirt to dig through my backpack and she followed me to do the same. We were fishing today, even though there was never anything to catch. Most of the fun was in make-believing that a goblin shark could snag our line at any moment. Our backpacks matched, a coincidence, and we packed sandwiches and cold lemonade so we could stay out all day.

“I go to West Lake,” she said.

“Nah I went to South Oak, but you should come to Washington Middle next year with me.” I kept my tackle in a small travel jewelry box. It was leather-wrapped and about the size of my palm with a few pillowy slots for rings and small compartments to keep the other pieces from tangling together. I kept hooks and lures where the rings were meant to go and filled the compartments with an assortment of vibrantly colored trout bait. It fit perfectly in my back pocket with my fishing rod in the other.

She got her fishing rod out too. We’d made them by tying a line around the middle of a stick. A five-minute walk upstream took us to our favorite lagoon. The waterway widened and deepened to be the only place with decent-sized fish. A tree was tipped over for us, knocked into the mud. We sat on the bridge, letting the fishing line run downstream through our middle fingers; current pulling our flashy lures until it ran out. The line stayed taught from the pull of the current and I could catch flashes of the lure as it spun beneath the surface. The water made my mind go limp. I stared ahead with my hands in my lap. I’d lost one of my makeshift fishing rods that way. It caught on something and I let it pull from between my fingers.

“Do you really want me to come to middle school with you?” she asked. It was a while since we talked, but it was easy to resume our conversation.

“I think it would be fun. And we’re in different grades, so it’s not like we’ll get sick of each other.” I wound my line back up around the stick and let it go again. We fished together almost every day and had only caught two fish all summer, one each. She’d caught the first fish, a little trout, and I’d gutted it as a messy experiment. By the time I’d caught one, she was able to wash all the innards out easily with a cleaner version of my demonstration.

“We could eat lunch together, and carpool.” She said it wistfully like it was a far-off dream.

I was waiting for the neighbor girl to look for live bait with me, but it had started to rain. The end of summer turned into a torrent of tropical storms that wandered up the coast from warmer climates. She didn’t like the rain, so we scrambled down the embankment each time it let up. The frequent downpours gave us the perfect conditions for catching bugs as they all collected under leaves and rocks. It was Sunday though, and sometimes her parents dragged her to church. I was digging up the foliage to find grubs until I noticed that it was sprinkling again. If she wasn’t in church already, she definitely wasn’t coming down now.

She hated to get her hair wet. Her mom pressed it on Sunday mornings and she liked to keep it smooth for as long as possible. I couldn’t empathize with the experience, but I knew the only glance I would get from her would be through a kitchen window. I crossed the stones to the left side of the creek. The water was higher than usual from the rain, and algae slipped over the surface of the rocks we were meant to cross on.

I didn’t mind the weather. The earthworms would reveal themselves and I’d collect them to use as bait or toss on my mom’s compost pile. I left my shoes and socks in the soggy leaves and climbed on my hands and feet up the slippery incline to her house. I’d hardly ever been up to her side of the creek before. There wasn’t really any point to it when we spent most of the time wandering as far from home as possible.

Some of the lights in her house were on. The French doors grinned at me, but I didn’t see anybody inside. I walked around to the front door– listening for life and thinking about knocking– and it was apparent nobody was home.

The butt of my pants got dirty when I slid back down to my shoes. I’d see her tomorrow if the rain ever stopped, but not until school was out at 3:30. When I picked up my shoes to put them back on, I saw some beetles and pill bugs hiding beneath my soles. It seemed right to leave them be, so I sat in the mud and let my feet hang into the filling stream.

The bank was squishy beneath me, softened and sliding. Across from me, a slab of mud sloughed off the right bank. The chunk broke into smaller parts as it fell away. I thought his hair was roots, brown and wispy with soil clinging to the ends. The wild grasses were what held the hillside together when it got wet, but sometimes the grass sprouts can’t do much to keep the soaked ground together. The brittle ends of the man’s hair stuck straight out from the bank, too sharp of an angle and wiry of a texture. The roots looked wrong, so I stared and squinted through the drizzle until I caught a glimpse of his messed-up face. It was a man because I’d never seen a woman that looked so ugly. From my spot, I could watch the water uncover him. He seemed to be swaddled in transparent plastic, wrapped with the smothering care I gave my dolls as a toddler. The top half of his face protruded from the open end. More of the earth melted into the creek as the bank continued to erode. The creek washed further out until the headstone was threatened too. I could see his face through the dirty plastic. Who knows how long he’d been buried there, but I’d guess that the plastic was the only thing keeping him together. The top half of the corpse leaned out into the water like a gigantic pupae. He was a slurry inside, waiting for form and metamorphosis. He wriggled free of the ground, aided by the current, and sloshed into the rushing water.

“Some ashes.” A low whistle passed between my teeth. The banks overflowed from the ripples, staining my pants more. The body bumped back and forth against slimy rocks as it shoved off to much busier things. I could tell school would be easy tomorrow, and then I’d rush down into the gully to tell the neighbors’ daughter what I saw. It was getting dark and raining harder and harder. Mom was probably going to have dinner ready and I needed to shower. I left my shoes behind for the beetles and crossed the creek back home.

I didn’t think middle school would amount to much. By the end of the day, I was tired from icebreakers and it took Mom twenty minutes to pick me up. Considering we lived fifteen minutes away and she drove like the cops were chasing her, it had taken her a while to realize she had a daughter to pick up from school. It was a quiet drive. The house was hushed by that same awful silence. The kind where it wasn’t quiet at all, but all her talking turned into a high ringing in my ears. I let her keep circling around and around whatever she really wanted to say, hoping she’d get there eventually. She kept repeating a beat on the steering wheel, and when we got settled at home, sitting side-by-side on the couch, she was playing the same pattern on a throw pillow.

“The neighbors’ little girl, Cam, passed away.”

Mom must’ve been waiting all day to say that to me with the same nervous excitement she had about conflict overseas; any news was light if it didn’t involve her. Now, I was more curious about why she hadn’t said anything sooner, maybe it was a special treat for making it through the front door or designated mother-daughter-gossip time on the couch. Mom didn’t know I had been friends with Cam. That was the first time I’d heard her name.

“In the creek?” I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d be stuck indoors next summer due to an unfortunate drowning accident. The feeling was right for me to cry, but I hadn’t even known her name.

“What creek- Oh, no. I don’t know what happened to her. Car accident I think, Californians don’t know how to drive in this rain.” Mom stopped the nervousness and walked into the kitchen and I was left on the couch, scolding myself for not gossiping right. We were done conversing because she didn’t find middle school interesting and I didn’t have the appropriate reaction to the local tragedy. It was probably better that she got distracted by the pantry instead of talking to me because I might’ve let it slip that I knew the girl.

Mom didn’t cook on Monday nights. She’d have a glass of wine and fall asleep while watching the news or Grey’s Anatomy. I’d done it with her once and didn’t understand the appeal. Wine is bitter and the heavy makeup on the Anchorwoman’s face made her look too beautiful and perfect. I made mac n’ cheese for myself and switched to the Cartoon Network after Mom fell asleep. My bedtime was nine PM. It said so on the organizational whiteboard that kept track of my chores and allowance. But I strongly believed that rules were only as strong as their enforcers. I turned the volume on the TV low and I tucked myself into my mom’s side.

At some point I drifted off with my fork still in-hand.

I felt guilty later. Mom woke up and put me to bed. It was a school night, but I couldn’t sleep. While counting the dim glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I went completely still and began to count the beats. My heartbeat would keep me up at night sometimes. If I was feeling anxious and my heart was wailing against my ribs, the sound was enough to stave of sleep. The rhythm would beat in my ears, my chest, beneath my collarbone, my fingertips, behind my eyes, and sometimes in my throat if my tongue was dry. So my heartbeat was all I heard as I played a bad rendition of that afternoon over and over again. That’s when I felt guilty. She really did love me like a sister. The stars were sickly and the night sky was stucco and I was never all that good to her.

I cried, thinking of how I’d miss her and how terrifying she’d look after she’d decomposed like the dead man in the river. That was how I pictured her while I grieved. I was unsure how well I’d known her, so all I had was what she left behind.

a/n- i promise i'll write something good soon, but idk, i'm feeling uninspired and bland so i revisited some stuff i wrote for creative writing class

#my ocs #oc writing #short story #short fiction

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