#(oh and i made the cover art. in like two seconds in photoshop but i didn't want to take someone elses)
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slimecicle community, i present to you jort storm and juanaflippa, at the same time. the best and worst thing you'll hear today! feel free to use this however you want
jort storm loops twice, juanaflippa loops three times. skip to 3:07 where the high notes sync up!!
brought to you by a combined effort and brainrot of me @swagaythor and @s0up1ta :D
#i'd like to make a sensory overload warning#this is an EXPERIENCE you've been warned#add more sounds! add to the horrors!!#do with this whatever you please#its not a perfect loop i did modify it a bit so the high note sync was even better! you can still achieve it by playing the audios yourself#the first time i listened to both at the same time i had one playing through wired earbuds from my laptop#and the other playing through an airpod with my phone so i was getting different input left and right#horrible but hilarious#i laughed the whole time while listening to and making this#thanks to soup and ash for the experience :D#(oh and i made the cover art. in like two seconds in photoshop but i didn't want to take someone elses)#also not claiming ownership over this at all. just having fun :)#this was my way of coping with charlie's stream today#slimecicle#charlie slimecicle#juanaflippa#qsmp#qsmp juanaflippa
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BAU as College Professors AU
*cracks knuckles*
Penelope
penelope is a graphic design professor
she loves teaching kids about the wonders of photoshop!!
hates illustrator and indesign with a burning passion
(the illustrator pen tool can fucking choke for all she cares)
(AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PUT THE FRONT AND COVER TOGETHER IN INDESIGN!?!?)
(she really hates both applications sm 😭)
is always reluctant to teach them but does it begrudgingly
(she’s just glad there’s other professors in the department that teach editorial and graphic illustration)
teaches photography!!
encourages the students to be as expressive as they want to be with their pictures!!!
she’ll be just as enthusiastic to see a close up of a sneaker as she is to see a sunset landscape shot
teaches the graphic design studio classes too!!
she always has music playing!!
half the time, her students come into the class and her glasses are all skewed, her hands are covered in paint or glue and some abstract art piece is sitting on her desk
when the students ask her what it is, she just gives the projects human names
“hey professor... what did you make there?” “oh, this?? her name is... pam.... yeah, pam”
she doesn’t offer up any further explination than that
and the students just accept it
her office light is always off
but she has multiple fairy lights in various colors hung up
her office is v inviting!!!
students come to her to vent or to talk about their problems bc the campus therapist doesn’t help all lmao
she always has on the most unique outfits but she pulls them off so well
a ray of sunshine tbh!!
Spencer
teaches major science and math courses
he teaches chemistry but only chem for majors in chemistry
it’s not that he can’t teach chem for non majors
but he sometimes gets too ahead of himself and forgets he’s teaching a course for non majors
it’s easier for him to teach for majors because the students can follow his ramblings better
he teaches upper level math courses and usually only has like three students in those classes
he’ll sit up on his desk and debate with the students for the entire hour about the riemann hypothesis
he gets excited because the students are just as enthusiastic as he is
he is two extremes
he either shows up to his classroom like a half hour early and writes out all his notes on the board so that when the students come in, he can go right into lecture
or he’ll show up two minutes before class starts with his hair disheveled, his tie undone and his expression glazed over and just be like “listen up i woke up late and just downed an entire pot of coffee i brewed with several cans of monster energy—i don’t exist on this dimension anymore”
on those days, he lets his students work on other projects for other classes because he knows it’s not fair to ask his students to focus if he’s not
he helps them with their homework
penelope brings him lunch sometimes to make sure he’s eating
he appreciates it a lot because between lesson plans and grading, he sometimes forgets to eat
he’s absolutely the youngest prof on campus
sometimes even his students are older than he is
but everyone addresses him correctly and respects him bc he’s really chill
his office is a disorganized mess
there’s files and papers all over his desk
and a sculpture penelope made for him (she named that one “roger”)
JJ
psychology professor
she really has a passion for teaching and learning about human psychology
(she may have started to become interested in psychology bc her sister was in the psch honors course before she died)
she comes across as a little hostile and unapproachable tbh
but she’s young
and she’s attractive
and she’s not conveniently what people think a professor looks like
she’ll respect her students if they respect her
she didn’t graduate the top of her class and work her ass off for the degree to not be respected
if there’s any inappropriate comments aimmed towards her or anyone in the class, she kicks the aggressor out immediately
she stands at the front of the room and lectures for the beginning part of the semester
once she’s built a good rapport with her students (and vise versa), she becomes more chill
she’ll sit on the edge of her desk and encourage discussion rather than following a book or a set plan
(she finds it’s more interesting that way anyway)
sometimes her students will show up ten minutes before class starts just to talk with her once they’re comfortable with her
she always answers her emails students send her (queen shit tbh 👑)
some kids in the psych major course playfully call her “mom” because she always asks them how they’re doing and about their week
(she hasn’t decided how she feels about it, but she also lets it slide)
always wears pants suits but cuffs the sleeves to the jackets
her office always smells like eucalyptus because she has a small mist diffuser plugged in
she also has a small fish tank with a beta fish inside (its the appropriate size too!!)
(she let a student name the fish—it’s name is sir bubbles of argon)
she also has a sculpture from penelope (“her name is maxine”)
her desk is very organized and clean!!
there’s a small couch in her office and her door is always open
sometimes, students will come in if they’re having a hard time and need someone to talk to
they know jj is there to listen and she always seems to understand (she doesn’t judge them either)
Emily
teaches three languages, both for majors and non majors
spanish, french and russian
(she’s also quite fluent in arabic and italian and can hold her own if she’s speaking in german or mandarin, but the students don’t need to know that)
she’s actually very intimidating lmao
students are so scared of her 😭
she’s serious af
(she smiles in class sometimes though!!)
(besides, she’s only serious inside the classroom)
(outside the classroom, she might even be as approachable as penelope)
always dressed in expensive black suits, polished heeled shoes with very dark makeup and a “don’t fuck with me” steely attitude to match
she also wears expensive watches
she always stands at the front of the class and slowly paces the entire hour
one time someone decided to fuck off in her spanish 101 class
she didn’t even yell at him, she glared
rumor has it the kid was never spotted on campus again after that
(BOY SHE SCARED HIM SO BAD HE DROPPED TF OUT)
despite that, her classes are some of the easiest to take
one because emily has a way of teaching that helps all students understand
and two because her voice is naturally very easy to listen to
students taking her french 101 are going to leave the class speaking fluent conversational french
she also doesn’t tolerate people being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc in her class
if she catches a bigoted comment someone makes in her class, she kicks them immediately
she brings in her cat sometimes
he’s all black and his name is sergio
(he’s her esa that she brings in when she’s feeling really stressed out)
he’s clipped on a harness and sits on her shoulder or on her desk
if he meows, she accepts it as an answer
it’s the only time the students ever see professor emily prentiss as soft
well
other than the days she has the class watch foreign films because the students can tell emily has a fondness for them
her office is pretty organized like jj’s
instead of it being light and inviting, emily decorated her office on a more dark side
she has a few animal skulls, crystals and other gothic memorabilia on her desk or bookshelf
she has a small cat bed on the corner of her desk that sergio sleeps in
on the other corner is a sculpture penelope made her
(it kinda looks like a crow and emily named it kurt)
really, the only colors in her office are dark, deep purples and the small lesbian pride flag sticker on the back of her laptop
Derek
teaches history classes
but like modern history
from like 1940s to present
he refuses to follow most western history books bc they’re not accurate like at all
in his first year of teaching, the dean of his department made him use a book and he hated every second of it
how accurate could the information be if they portray king tut as a white guy???
he graduated under one of the best historians in the country
he also traveled a lot after he graduated and met a lot of people that had first hand experience with major historical events
that’s really what he bases his teachings off of—first hand experiences and encounters
every two weeks or so, he’ll invite in guest speakers to his classes to talk about what they went through (depending on his lesson plans)
that’s how he likes to teach and learn (bc he always loves to learn new things!!)
this is random, but also he is the type of professor to randomly box jump up onto a desk
he also sits in chairs backwards and has a more laid back style to teaching
his exams are based on what the students can learn from history rather than the information itself
he’s always dressed super casual!!
solid color, short sleeve button ups are a favorite!! (no tie)
he gets along with all the students
he’ll talk to the athletes about their games but sound just as enthusiastic and genuine talking with students who are majors in fine arts about their projects
he’s just a v down to earth professor tbh!!
he brings in clooney so much
like... every friday
it’s just another bonus of taking his history classes!!
he and penelope are dating
his office is full of sculptures she makes for him 🥺
he drops by her graphic design studio class with clooney to help out or even to just watch
he’s supportive and encouraging of penelope and her art!!
other than the sculptures penelope makes him, his office is a bit more disorganized than jj’s or emily’s, but cleaner than spencer’s
he has a few papers scattered on his desk but mostly he’s a little more put together
his office door has a small basketball hoop attached that he plays around with if he’s bored (and if penelope is busy)
both he and penelope have a dog bed in their office and water bowls for clooney when he comes in
Hotch
law professor
is the most intimidating professor on campus
like
seriously
if students think professor prentiss is intimidating, they haven’t met professor hotchner
he stands in the front of the room and goes over his lecture without pausing or asking questions
his voice is naturally low and intimidating and he actually never smiles
his attire and appearance is always so professional
suits
ties that are tied so tight, they look like they’re choking him
shoes so polished, he can see his reflection in them
hair always styled neatly
pants and jacket are always wrinkle free
his classes are difficult
not just because of the subject matter, but because he has a very organized, straight forward method to his teaching
students wouldn’t dare act up in his class—they’d be absolute idiots to
he’s quiet and reserved outside the classroom
if the others hear anyone talking shit about hotch behind his back, they’re always quick to come to his defense
they actually know hotch
they know he puts on a hardass exterior, but really he’s just a softie
he always lets them hang in his office with him
he listens to spencer’s ramblings and is extremely patient with him
he has lunch with emily every other day
even if she’s a pain in his ass 99% of the time, he likes that she sticks around and that he can trust her
he shows up to all of penelope’s art shows
and sometimes sits in on derek’s lectures when he has guest speakers
jj brings him pastries from the coffee shop on campus sometimes
he knows that he can come to her if he ever has anything he needs to talk about
(he never opens up to her but he really appreciates the sentiment nonetheless)
penelope has definitely made hotch a few sculptures
(he keeps them at home, but he does have one of her paintings hanging in his office)
speaking of his office it’s hands down the most organized out of all of them
his desk is so clean besides the picture of his son he proudly displays at the corner
he always has his lights off and his door shut
he seems so unapproachable, especially in class
but sometimes his lecture notes have crayon scribbles all over the page
or a small sock will fall out of his briefcase
and maybe, even for a moment, his serious demeanor falls when he spots them
and it almost reassures the students that he is human
Rossi
actually he’s the only one besides maybe reid i can see being a criminology professor
is a retired fbi agent
and successful author
so like that hasn’t changed from canon
but because he doesn’t work for the fbi anymore, he has absolutely no chill and tells all secrets
he’ll be like
talking to his class about a case he worked on in ‘83
and be halfway talking about details of cases that were supposed to be confidential
he’ll pause and go “oops” but keep talking lmaooo
penelope actually never made him a sculpture
instead she made him a coffee mug she made on the wheel and glazed herself!! (she even made her own glaze bc she’s extra like that)
carved on the side is “world’s best italian dad”
(this is because when emily introduced rossi to the group she was like “yeah he’s kinda like my dad” and now everyone calls him “dad”)
(he loves it so much though and proudly accepts his title)
he loves his mug so much and uses it every single day!!!
he’s the only professor besides penelope that let his students refer to him without the title of “professor”
he gives off kind old grandpa vibes
and that he’s only teaching because he really doesn’t have anything better to do during his retirement
but he’s chill and his class is interesting to take
(plus he really does love to teach)
he’ll ramble on and on about his “golden years” as an agent
he will especially talk a student’s ear off if they come up to him and tell him that they read one [or all] of his books
he writes a different quote on his board every single day
his attire is always business casual
he sits on the edge of the desk or on a swivel chair because it’s comfy
he was doing a lecture on jack the ripper and just pushed himself around on the swivel chair, slowly spinning around the front of the room
his voice kept changing in volume every few words because of him facing the wall and then a few moments later facing the classroom
his students refer to him as a “living breathing meme”
he has no idea what the fuck that means
but he take it as a compliment
his office is empty because he goes home after he’s done with classes lmao
he doesn’t do paperwork
or fuck with technology (he never fucking responds to emails smh)
so he has no need for an office
#criminal minds au#penelope garcia#spencer reid#jennifer jereau#emily prentiss#derek morgan#aaron hotch hotchner#david rossi#honestly not much has changed about rossi from canon#but#ye#also#half of these are based on my college experiences lmao#my history professor brought his pair of poodles to class like every other week and it was the only reason i didn’t drop the class#my math professor walked into class one morning and just fucking box jumped up onto a fucking desk for no reason#during dead week my graphic design professor let us watch katy perry music videos for an entire class period it was grear#my gd studio professor was a weird dude but his class was so much fun#i’m still pressed about professors not responding to my emails tbh#professors: email me if you have any concerns or questions#me: (emails profs)#profs: (never respond or even read emails)#fuck right off lmao#long post#emily has a sculpture now pls#college professor au
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Reverstrator
‘This is perfect, astoundingly perfect.’, Lila thought to herself, hunched over her computer. For some time, she’s noticed her control over the class was wavering, and it was all because of those two idiots from the stupid art club- Nathaniel Kurtzberg and Marc Anciel. They had some nerve, getting into her minions friends heads and pointing out flaws in her lies. It wasn’t her fault people wanted to hear so many of her stories; she just had trouble keeping up with them sometimes! Lila gave them a chance like she gave Marinette. Either believe her lies and keep their friends, or become social pariahs... They always choose the second option.
So, she went around claiming that Nathaniel stole some of her drawings, Marc plagiarized some of her essays, and she even threw in a couple of lies about Marinette, saying she convinced the two boys to go against her. But what Lila didn’t account for was Alix. She never really believed her lies either. Apparently, the famous skateboarder Lila told her about was dead so that got the pink-haired girl suspicious. Whenever Lila tried to make Marc, Nathaniel, or Marinette look like the bad guys, Alix would step in and act like their self-righteous white knight. Well, she won’t look like the hero tomorrow, her and Adrien. When those idiots in her class turn against those two, Lila will be free to ruin the comic book duo’s reputation as she pleased, she’ll have Adrien all to herself, and Marinette gets to suffer. Win-win-win! ‘Damn it!’, Lila mentally cursed as she glared at her computer screen, ‘Undo... Undo...’
How is photoshop so easy for some people?! And how can they edit these crappy romantic pictures without gagging? Especially this photo she snapped of Marc and Nathaniel a couple of weeks ago while they were on one of their dates. ‘Ugh.’ Lila nearly threw up when she took the photo, and this was taking up way too much of her time. Fixing the lighting, finding the right photos of Adrien and Alix, it was so frustrating! But it’ll all be worth it tomorrow when she finally puts those losers in their place
And hopefully, Marc or Nathaniel will get akumatized. Sure, this would be a stupid reason, but people have gotten Akumatized for less. Hawkmoth was a great guy and the Italian admired his work, but Akumatizing a baby, and a man obsessed with pigeons like thirty times? If she had the Butterfly miraculous, she would at least give the Akuma a gun. Then Ladybug would finally perish and be out of her hideous sausage hair.
‘Focus! You can fantasize about her death later.’
—
“Geez, Nath. I haven’t seen you look this happy in a long time,” Alix said as she poked her redhead friend who had a dreamy look on his face with her pencil “So, what’d you and Marc do last night?” she asked with a smirk, making Nathaniel snap out of his daze and blush madly, “Alix!” He looked around the cafeteria to make sure no one heard that
She snickered, “I’m kidding! Come on, tell me what happened. Your date had to have been amazing if you’re all happy and stuff.”
This is one of the things Nathaniel loved about Alix; she was a great listener. Growing up, no one really paid attention to him. Ever since his dad left, his mom has been busy running the diner, he always blended in with the background so no one at school noticed him either. It sucked until he met his first real friends
His mom took him to the Louvre when she noticed his interest in art and while there, he met a brunette girl running all around the museum while a ten-year-old boy tried to catch her. She was loud, energetic, and immediately took a liking to the young boy. Over time, she was able to pull him out of his comfort zone and he listened to whatever he had to say.
Then he met three other girls when he was ten- One with black hair, one blond, and one bluenette. The four of them met at a fine and performing arts fair and were probably some of the youngest people there to enter each of their work in the fair contests. His painting of the Seine took third, which wasn’t too bad. First and second were high school students. The three girls immediately went to congratulate him and asked all sorts of questions (The black-haired girl didn’t talk as much, though) For once in his life, Nathaniel had friends. Friends who noticed him and listened.
“Well, it wasn’t much,” he answered with a smile, “We just got ice cream from Andre’s, went to this new museum that just opened up, went to the park.”
“Didn’t it rain a little yesterday?”, she asked
“Yeah,” he blushes, “I may have used my blazer to cover us up-”, off Alix’s snicker, he playfully slapped her arm, “Alix, come on!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”, she continued laughing while Nathaniel gave her an annoyed look, “Go on, continue. But if you say anything else like that, don’t expect me to keep a straight face.”
Nathaniel rolled his eyes, “So I used my blazer as an umbrella,” he rephrased, “and well, we were just so close, and... God, he looked cute in the rain. So, I just leaned in and kissed him.”
Alix sighed dramatically, “Ah, to be gay and in love.”
“Uh, I’m bi,” he corrected with his arms folded
“Yes, and I’m aroace, Rose and Jules are lesbians and Mari’s pan as hell. These are things we know.” she said as she leaned back into her chair and propping her feet up on the lunch table, relaxed before perking up and asking, “Did’ja give him the necklace?!”
Without saying a word, Nathaniel pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture of him and Marc kissing in the rain. Alix zooms in on the silver half-heart necklaces around their necks. She remembered how Nathaniel begged her to help him look for a gift he could give to Marc on their date. She helped him in exchange for a drawing of her performing some skating tricks. It took hours to find a gift; this is one of the reasons why Alix doesn’t date. Finally, they settled for a simple, but sweet silver heart necklace and Alix had never been so relieved to see jewelry before.
Alix couldn’t help but let out an out-of-character squeal at the sight of the picture. Her excitement turned to bitterness when she looked at something else that made her narrow her eyes “Where’s she going?”
Nathaniel follows her gaze and glared at the Italian girl leaving the cafeteria, “Don’t know. Maybe she’s just looking for more people to buy her lunch.”
“Or carry all of her stuff.”
“Or carry her.”
“Or build her a palanquin.”
“How about a monument made out of solid gold?”
At that last one, the two best friends laughed
“Lying skeeze,” she muttered, “I’m glad the others are sorta taking what she says with a grain of salt, but she’s still got them wrapped around her talons. Especially Bustier and Damocles.”
Nathaniel rolled his eyes at the mention of his teacher and principal, “Ugh, don’t get me started on those two. I almost got detention because Lie-la claimed that I stole her ‘masterpiece’. Thanks again for backing me up.”
Alix responded with a nod, “Yeah, but it’s bull that she didn’t even get in trouble. Claimed it was a problem with her long-term memory or some shit, and Bustier ate it up!”, she exclaimed, “God, we’re surrounded by idiots. How long do you think she’s gonna last?”
Nathaniel pondered before answering, “I give her one more week. She’s exposed by an Akuma who’s after her for lying about them or one of their friends.”
Alix nodded, “Three days. Truth akuma who just blasts people at random and she gets hit, so she’s forced to tell the truth. Put that in your comic”
Nathaniel reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out his sketchbook, “Maybe something like... Lady or Lord Justice?” He pulls out a pencil and begins sketching on a blank sheet
“Truth fairy?”
“Lie-on Tamer?”
Alix shook her head, “Now that just sounds like a bad pun.”
“Akumas have dumb names,” Nathaniel said with an eye roll, “If anything, this is better than what Hawkmoth comes up with.”, he gets back to work on the sketch
“... Can’t argue with you there, man.”
—
“Come o-o-o-on, Marc! Tell us everything!”, Aurore urged the shy writer as the group of four made their way to Mme. Mendelieve’s class
“Who made the first move?”, Julian asked, smirking
Marc blushed, “Guys, keep your voices down.”
Mireille squealed, “Sorry, but you can’t just go on a date and not expect people to be all excited and ask what happened! So tell us!”
Marc loved these three to death and loved them like they were his sisters and brother, but sometimes they got just a little too much for him. When he first announced that he and Nathaniel were dating, the three of them wouldn’t leave him alone for weeks and constantly asked questions whenever they went out together
“Well, went out for ice cream, went to a museum we both like, and spent the rest of the day at the park before it rained.” He smiled fondly at the memory, “Nath actually used his blazer to cover us up.”
“Aww!”, Aurore and Julian cooed while Mireille squealed, “So romantic! Please tell me you kissed in the rain!”
When Marc tried to hide the blush forming on his cheeks, that was a good enough answer for his grinning friends
Julian clasped his hands together and crouched a little lower, “Please, please tell me you have photos!”
Marc laughed at his friend and pulled out his phone, “I do.” He shows them the screen and Aurore immediately grabs the phone out of his hand. Mireille and Julien huddle around her, “Oh my God! It’s like a scene from a movie!”, Mireille exclaimed before squinting her eyes, “Wait... Are you wearing the necklace now?!”
“Necklace?”
“He gave you what?”
Marc knows there’s no hiding it from the people who were very invested in his love life now. He slips his hand under the collar of his shirt and pulls out the little half-heart charm connected to a simple white cord. Marc was once again bombarded by questions
“Guys, can we do this after class? We’re gonna be late.”
Aurore let out an exaggerated groan but complied, “You better be prepared for any question we throw at you, Rainbow.” She said his nickname teasingly as the four of them made their way to class, but stopped to look and see Lila walking out of the locker room
“How long is she gonna be here?”, Julien questioned, his tone laced with venom, “I can’t take another minute of, ‘Oh, but all of her stories are real,’ ‘Don’t be so mean,’ ‘Lila’s hurt, don’t put any more pressure on her,’ ugh! Marc, I’ll say it again, your boyfriend and cousin’s class is full of idiots.”
“Well, their hearts are in the right place, they’re just being taken advantage of.”
“It’s been like three months since she, ‘Returned from Achu,’” Aurore said with finger quotes, “How has that lying fox not been exposed yet? Everything she says is full of holes!”
“It’s because whenever someone tries to point out her lies, she’ll play the victim and get sympathy,” Mireille said, disgusted, “It’s honestly just sickening listening to her fake crying.”
“Here, here,” Julian said in agreement, “I cannot wait for a truth Akuma to appear and just make her reveal everything so her classmates and that teacher will finally stop kissing the ground she walks on.”
“That would make for a pretty good Akuma,” Marc commended
“Hell yeah, it would.”
—
‘One for the soulless redhead. And one for that... “boy.”‘, the Italian sneered as she slipped an envelope into the vent of Marc’s locker, ‘Let’s see if they’re still together after this. Once Alix is out of the picture and Adrien only has me to talk to, I’ll ruin those losers’ lives. They should know damn well than to cross Lila Diabla Rossi.’
--
Nathaniel felt like someone was burning holes in the back of his head... Or rather the side. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, he moved his bangs to the side, acting as if he was just scratching the side of his face, and saw Lila glaring at him before quickly looking to the front. ‘God, what’s her problem?”, he thought to himself. ‘Probably gonna spout out more bullshit about how I stole her work. Heh. Good luck you vursht-kherd ligner.’
The bell rang, ‘Finally. I get to see my Rainbow.’, Nathaniel thought as he gathered his books in his bag. He was about to grab his sketchbook, only for it to be snatched by Lila. ‘Great, now I have to disinfect it.’
“Oh, Nathaniel! I’m so sorry about what happened!”, she “apologized” in that over-the-top sweet voice. “I just have so many problems with my memory because while I was helping disabled children in America, I fell off of a ladder while trying to get their frisbee off the roof of one of their homes, and I hit my head.”
‘Maybe that isn’t a lie, because that would explain so much.’, “Okay, so can I have my sketchbook back?”, he asked in a bored tone
“And I draw Ladybug all the time because we are besties after all!”, she exclaimed
“Great, so my sketchbook?”, he holds out his hand
“And your little drawings look so much like mine, and I got concerned. I’m sure you understand, right?”
“Can I have my sketchbook back?”, He repeated, now very annoyed, and even more when Lila sent him a smirk she didn’t think he noticed. ‘This bitch is trying to make me lose my temper or something?’ Then she just started talking again
“I know how awful it is for an artist’s work to be stolen! I actually witnessed art-theft first-hand, so you get why I accused you of stealing what I thought was mine. I just didn’t want to believe that you would steal a fellow artist’s work.”
‘God, strike me now.’
“But if you stole it out of jealousy, I would completely understand.”
“... Excuse me?”
‘Got him.’ “Well, let’s face it. Your art style is a little overused and no offense, but, not very original. So, if you were jealous of my drawing style, then there are no hard feelings. You’re still an amazing artist. While I’ve studied and perfected my work over the years, you-”
“Oh meyn got! Zey shtil!”
The students who were packing away their materials and getting ready to head out turned their heads towards the redhead who was shouting furiously in Yiddish
“Ir zent nisht a farshiltn kinstler! An anoying, lignerish hur iz vos ir zent!”
Alix, who actually understood a little of what Nathaniel was saying, tried not to snicker
“Aun gebn mir meyn sketshbook, ir vursht-kherd tokhes!” At that last sentence, Nathaniel snatched the sketchbook out of her hands, then he looked around and saw the shocked or confused looks on his classmates' and teacher’s faces. He ducked his head down, trying to look as small as possible right now
Breaking the silence was Alya, “What did you say?”
“It... It was...” Nathaniel stammered and his face turned as red as his hair.
Max turned to the little robot hovering beside him, “Markov, can you translate what Nathaniel just said?”
“Certainly, Max,” a little pixelated hourglass appeared the screen on the little robot’s face before disappearing with a little ‘PING!’, “Oh my.”
“Oh, what did he say?”, Lila asked as innocently as possible.
“I’m not comfortable repeating the last two, but he did tell you to shut up, and that you have sausage hair.”
“Oh, crap,” Nathaniel muttered
Lila started rubbing her eyes to make it look like she’s crying right now. “Nathaniel, how could you be so rude?! I was only trying to help you!”, Alya and Mylene went over to console her, not noticing the smirk on her face. The classmates that were on Lila’s side sent the redhead glares and disappointed looks
Mme. Bustier frowned, “Nathaniel, go to the principal’s office, now!”, before Nathaniel could respond, Marinette spoke, “You can’t do that. It’s the end of the day, so you can’t tell Nathaniel what to do,” she sent her enabler of a teacher a sneer
“W-well, I-”
“Check the rule book!”, Alix snapped, “Students are out of teachers’ jurisdiction as soon as school hours are over. So, you can’t send him to detention.”
“But he called me horrible things!”, Lila wailed
“Well, it’s not his fault,” Juleka whispered, but everyone heard and turned their heads toward her, “... He has bipolar disorder, and sometimes he just... Yeah.” Rose takes over for her, “And you did take his sketchbook, Lila. I saw you snatch it off the table before he could grab it.”
“W... Well, I just wanted to see it!” She claimed
“Doesn’t give you the right to snatch it,” Nathaniel murmured. Marinette walked over and took his hand, “Let’s go.” The five art club students made their way to the door, but Mme. Bustier called out, “Hold on! Nathaniel still needs to be punished for using such language in class!”
Alix rolled her eyes, “Did anyone in the class, besides Markov, understand what he said?”, all she got in response were head shakes and some muttering, “Did anyone hear any curse words?”, once again, head shakes. She turned to Mme. Bustier and shrugged, “As long as he doesn’t say it in French, I don’t really think you can punish him. He said it in a language none of us knew, so you can’t really punish him for cursing in class.”
Bustier’s face turned red in embarrassment. A student just corrected her in front of her own class. Before she could say more, the five of them were gone.
—
“Nath, that mouth!”, Alix cackled, “That was priceless!”
Marinette smiled, “I wish I knew more Chinese so I can cuss Lila out in class. The only curse word I know is húndàn.”
Nathaniel blushed, “Thanks for helping me out back there, you guys.”
“Of course, Nath!” Rose hugged him, “Lila stole your sketchbook, you had every right to be upset.” Juleka nodded in agreement
Nathaniel smiled before he realized something, “I left my colored pencils in my locker.” He reluctantly pulled away from Rose’s legendary hug and ran to the locker room, “I’ll catch up with you guys later!”
Once Nathaniel walked into the locker room, he made his way down the row of lockers until he got this. Right between Alix and Nino’s lockers. He put in the combination on the purple lock he brought from home since the school has terrible security. After Marinette’s near expulsion, some of the students bought locks for their easy-to-open lockers so no one could frame them for theft. Damocles tried to stop them from doing this but he was severely outnumbered, and the fact that some of the students had lawyers for parents who could sue the school for not protecting their children’s items made him concede
Once his locker door was open, an envelope fell out as he went to reach for his pencil face. Furrowing his brow, Nathaniel picked up the mysterious envelope he didn’t remember being in his locker. ‘Maybe it’s my report card?... But it’s the middle of the quarter.’, he thought, ‘And why would they put it in my locker?’ With a shrug, Nathaniel opened the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded the paper, and his eyes widened in shock. His jaw hung open, his hands were shaking, and his breathing became unsteady
In his hands was a photo of Marc and Adrien, but not just any photo. It looked like someone took a photo from a distance, but you could make out every detail. The two of them were sitting on a bench in the park, hand in hand, bodies pressed together, and kissing. Nathaniel wanted to cry, to punch Adrien, to throw up. He looked over the picture even though his brain told him not to, but he had to look for something. Watermarks, any signs of smeared paint, anything!... Nothing.
“N-no... No... He wouldn’t... H-he...” He crumples the paper and throws it to the floor, then he makes his way over to the door. When he opens the door, he froze at the sight. Adrien and Marc were walking the stairs, talking. Adrien must’ve said something funny because Marc started laughing. “... Oh my God...” A tear streamed down his heartbroken face which contorted into a scowl. Not able to take another second of this, Nathaniel charged out of the lockers room and ran to the doors, bumping into people along the way, but he didn’t care. He just needed to leave.
__
Marc laughed, “Oh my God! He really cursed Lila out in Yiddish?”
“Yeah, it was pretty funny,” Adrien chuckled, “If I knew we could do that, I would’ve cursed Lila out weeks ago. But yeah, if he seems a little off in art club, it’s because of Lila.”
“Thanks again, Adrien,” Marc smiled
“No problem. I’ll see you around Marc.”, and he left
Marc still couldn’t believe his sweet boyfriend cursed someone out. But, it was Lila, so he could understand that. He made his way into the locker room and walked over to his locker. He pulled a silver key out of his pocket and uses it on the lock he bought for his locker. Marc’s always been a little protective of his stuff, but after what happened with Marinette and... Her... He and most of the students took action and bought locks for their lockers.
As he opened his locker, he noticed a crumpled ball of paper on the floor. Before Marc could go to pick it up, out of peripheral vision, he saw an envelope fall out of his locker and land on the floor. Marc picked up the envelope he didn’t remember being in his locker before and looked over it to see if anyone write anything like their name. With a shrug, Marc opened the envelope and found a folded piece of paper. With some hesitation, thinking it might be something bad like a photo of something gory or inappropriate, he pulled it out and slowly unfolded it... It was worse.
His widened green eyes scanned over the photo of Nathaniel and Alix, holding hands as they kissed on a bench in the park. He dropped the photo and sat on one of the benches, looking pale and shaking. Then he brought his gloved hands to his face and started crying. “What did I do wrong?”, he asked himself
__
“Anger, despair. Both caused by an untrustworthy partner, and those who turned out to be false friends. So hard to pick.” Hawkmoth beckoned a butterfly that landed in the palm of his hand. Once covered by his other hand, the butterfly was consumed by dark magic and turned black. Hawkmoth released the Akuma, and it fluttered away, “Fly away my little Akuma, go towards the one who feels the most pain!”
__
The akuma fluttered over to the school and found its target. Sitting on the steps of the school with his head tucked into his knees was Nathaniel. And while he could sense Marc’s sadness, Nathaniel’s feelings of rage and betrayal were too good to pass up. So, it dived down and flew into the half heart necklace turning it black. He looked up, revealing the Akuma symbol over his face
__
Once Hawkmoth felt Nathaniel’s emotions, he smirked, “Welcome back Evillustrator. I can assure you, you’ll have your reven-”, Hawkmoth stopped mid-sentence, a look of confusion on his face, “What’s this?”
__
Marc lifted his head up from his hands, revealing an Akuma symbol over his tear-stained face. And his necklace was now pitch black
Hawkmoth rubbed his temples, obviously overwhelmed by the emotions these two boys were feeling. Anger, sadness, betrayal, disbelief, “Well, there’s no need to choose now. Reverstrator, I am Hawkmoth. With my help, you won’t be separated from the one you love again, no one will come between you. All I ask in return is that you bring me Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous.”
“Yes, Hawkmoth,” they say in unison. Once the Akuma symbols disappear, the purple and black mist bubbled up from their necklaces and surrounded them. The purple mist that covered Nathaniel went towards the front doors of the school, phased through, and made its way through the courtyard, startling a few students, then it went into the locker room and combined with the mist that covered Marc
The mist lifted up revealing a tall akuma, around Kim’s height, who looks like a fusion of Evillustrator and Reverser. The left side of his face is purple while the left is black, and his lipstick, while the same colors are inverted. The left side of his short-sleeved hoodie is white with black slanted stripes, the hood is black, he has black sleeves with white stripes under the hoodie, and he has white fingerless gloves which reveal black fingers. The other side is inverted. On the front of his hoodie is a black and white circle with the primary colors on it, but one is half yellow and half black. His pants are half black and white, he has a black boot on his right foot and red on his left. His hair is similar to Evillustrator’s but is more downward, the purple tips at the end are now black and white, and he has a black beret. Two noticeable traits about this Akuma is that he has two forearms on each upper arm, and he has four eyes, but two are closed at the moment while the top eyes, which are turquoise, are narrowed.
“I’m coming for you, Agreste.” He summoned Evillustrator’s tablet and pen in his hands
__
“Man, why isn’t Nath texting back?”, Alix questioned as she continued texting Nathaniel for the sixth time, “He’s been gone for like five minutes.”
“Yeah, and Marc isn’t here either.”, Marinette said, “You think they got... Sidetracked?”
Rose giggled, “Maybe.”
M. Haberkorn intervened, an amused smile on his face, “Now let’s not assume anything. They’re probably helping each other look for something.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”, Juleka said, a hint of playfulness in her monotone voice
Alix shook her head amusedly, “Alright, they get three more minutes, then we gotta go looking for them.” The three other girls nodded in agreement before they heard some screams coming from the courtyard, “Must be another Akuma.”, Alix said. The students and the teacher peaked out of the window and saw the Akuma running rampant around the courtyard
“WHERE IS HE?! WHERE’S ADRIEN AGRESTE?!”
“Who’s that?”, Juleka asked, shocked at the appearance of the enraged Akuma
“Damn, Hawkmoth,” Alix whispered, “you’ve made some weird-looking ones, but this one is just... God.”
“And why does he have Evillustrator’s tablet?”, Marinette piped up when she noticed the familiar Akuma weapon on one of the arms, and in the akuma’s hand was the drawing pen. She took a closer look at the Akuma and noticed a necklace with a heart charm around his neck. The more Marinette took in his appearance, the more she noticed how similar it looked to Evillustrator and Reverser, “Guys, I think that’s Marc and Nathaniel!”
The four looked at her in bewilderment before she urged for them to take a closer look at the Akuma. “It is them!”, Rose exclaimed
“They’re fused like Oblivio,” Juleka said, “How did this happen?”
M. Haberkorn shook his head solemnly, “I don’t know. But the four you need to get out of here before someone gets hurt.” As if proving his point, a loud crash was heard followed by more screaming. “Wait until I say it’s safe.” The four of them nodded. He made his way over to the door and carefully opened it. Peaking his head out, he saw the Akuma was erasing walls to classrooms, trying to find Adrien. His back was turned to the art classroom. “Alright, hurry out,” he whispered
They nodded and quickly ran out of the classroom; M. Haberkorn went to help any of the other students evacuate. Alix, Marinette, Juleka, and Rose ran through the crowd of panicking students, but Marinette stopped suddenly and ran in the direction of the locker rooms while Alix, Juleka, and Rose made it out
She opened her purse, allowing Tikki to fly out, “How do you think this happened?”, Marinette asked the tiny goddess, “I don’t know, but this Akuma is a combination of Reverser and Evillustrator, so you need to be careful. You remember how they were last time.”
Marinette nodded at the memory. Marc and Nathaniel were reckless, hostile, and apathetic as Akumas. Nathaniel almost killed Chloe with a buzz saw, and Marc nearly caused a meteor shower that could’ve destroyed Paris. Fused together, there was no telling what destruction they could cause. Before Marinette could say the phrase and transform, she noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Curious, she picked it up and opened it, revealing the photo of Marc and Adrien kissing
“What the?”, she whispered. Tikki’s eyes widened, “Well that answers Nathaniel’s akumatization, but what about Marc?” Marinette shrugged, but then noticed a piece of paper by the bench. She picked it up and saw that it was a photo of Nathaniel and Alix kissing. “There’s no way these are real. Marc and Nathaniel would never cheat on each other, Alix is Nathaniel’s best friend, she’s aromantic, and Adrien’s dating Kagami!”, she narrowed her eyes at the fake photos, “Someone must have wanted this to happen, t-to get them to break up, or maybe even deliberately try to get them Akumatized.”
“Well, you can figure this out later!”, Tikki told her chosen
“You’re right.”
TIKKI, SPOTS ON!
__
“He’s obviously not here, you jerk!”, a voice that sounded a lot like Reverser’s exclaimed
“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”, Reverstrator shouted, “Fine. I’ll go look somewhere else.”
“NO! We’re going after Alix first! You let her get away!”
“What’s your deal with her?”, he growled, “She didn’t do anything!”
“Neither did Adrien!”
“Oh, of course, you take his side!”, Reverstrator exclaimed as he drew a boxing glove that punched the front doors open. Before he could walk out, Ladybug’s yoyo wrapped around his waist and flung him into a wall, “Oh, great. You’re here.”
Ladybug retracted her yoyo and spun it, preparing to use it as a shield, “The feeling is mutual! Marc, Nathaniel, whatever happened-”
“DON’T SAY HIS NAME! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT RIGHT NOW!”, he shouted, then drew seven swords, all aimed at Ladybug
From her hiding spot under the stairs, Lila watched the scene unfold with a twisted, unsettling, sadistic grin on her face. “Come on, do it!”, she whispered
Ladybug dodged each sword, quick and easy. They embedded themselves into the courtyard floor and formed small cracks. Lila stomped her foot in frustration and cursed out the Akuma for his failure to kill the spotted heroine, “Stupid akumas can’t do anything right!” Caught up in her ranting, Lila doesn’t notice Aurore standing a few feet away, but still in earshot, recording the battle and her. The blonde weather girl looked appalled.
“HOLD STILL, YOU PEST!”, Reverstrator was becoming angrier and angrier every time Ladybug dodged his drawn weapons. Swords and axes? Avoided and embedded into the ground. Missiles? Uses her yoyo to fling each one into the sky so they don’t destroy Paris. Boxing glove? Jump over it and just let it fly through the holes in the school walls. As she prepared to dodge more attacks, Ladybug noticed Reverstrator holding his head, and it sounded like he was muttering to himself
“God, you suck at this.”
“Well, why don’t you try it if you’re so great at it?”
“Maybe I will!”
“Don’t you dare- AH!”
Reverstrator seemed to go limp above the waist for a moment and stops moving. Ladybug slowly approached him, but stopped when he suddenly straightened up, and she grimaced when a few bones made an audible crack. His turquoise eyes closed and two monochrome eyes below them open up. Evillustrator’s tablet and pen disappear and are replaced with four monochrome paper airplanes sitting in Reverstrator’s hands.
“Let’s try this again! Your powers are useless now! REVERSION!”, Reverstrator hurled the four paper airplanes at Ladybug who acted quickly and shielded herself with her yoyo, blocking each one, “Are you KIDDING ME?!”
“Not so easy, is it?” Evillustrator’s voice snarked
“Shut it!”, Reverstrator yelled to the voice in his head as the glowing Akuma symbol appeared over his face
“Reverstrator, focus!”, Hawkmoth yelled, “I want my Miraculous!”
“Forget this!”
“No!”
Reverstrator’s body convulsed a bit, and as the monochrome eyes closed, the turquoise ones opened, “I’m going after Adrien,” Evillustrator's said, speaking through Reverstrator. His tablet and pen reappeared, which he used to draw a ball and chain around Ladybug’s ankle, preventing her from moving
“Don’t go after the boy!” Hawkmoth commanded, now concerned for Adrien’s safety
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Reverstrator snapped, “You don’t even care who lives or dies when you send out a damn Akuma every week!”
“Your prime objective is to take the Miraculous!”
“Sure. Right after I give that rich boy what he deserves!” He drew a jetpack on his back and took off. Ladybug wrapped the string of her yoyo around the anklet, and it snapped open due to the strength of the magic weapon. Before she could swing away, Ladybug noticed Lila glaring up towards where Reverstrator flew away. ‘Later,’ she thought to herself before swinging off after Reverstrator.
__
Adrien, Nathalie, and the Gorilla sit through some traffic. Nathalie scrolls through her tablet, “You have a piano lesson in two hours, then tomorrow after school, another photoshoot...”
Adrien just zones out as she drones on in her monotonous voice. Plagg pokes his head out of his pocket and gives him a bored look as he munches on a piece of cheese. Adrien feels himself dozing off when suddenly- “ADRIEN AGRESTE!”
Nathalie put a protective hand on Adrien’s shoulder and ushered for him to duck down. She looked out the window, seeing nothing but cars and a few people getting out of there to see what’s going on. It was quiet for a moment when suddenly, an arm penetrates the roof, making Adrien let out a yelp as the hand grabbed his head, two more burst through and grab his face. Nathalie reacts, hits the first arm with her tablet, making it recoil, and grabs the other two arms wrists, “Adrien, run!”
With a nod, Adrien bolted out of the car and ran down the sidewalk, catching a glimpse of the Akuma as he rounded a corner and made his way into an alley. Plagg flew out of his pocket, eyes widened, “Did you see that guy?!”
Adrien nodded, “Hawkmoth is officially twisted.”
PLAGG, CLAWS OUT!
__
Reverstrator finally releases himself from Nathalie’s grip and runs off to find Adrien, “WHERE ARE YOU?!”
“Lookin’ for me?!”, Chat Noir’s boot made contact with his stomach, sending him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him, “I know I’m no Adrien Agreste, but you gotta admit, I’m way better.”, he smirked
Reverstrator got back up, “That, we can agree on. Adrien Agreste is a backstabbing two-timer who steals people in relationships!”
“What are you talking about?!”
Chat Noir furrowed his brown in confusion, and he didn’t have time to react when a fire hose drawn by Reverstrator sprayed him with a powerful blast of water. Chat backed away, grabbed his baton, and spun it around so it acted like a shield, deflecting the blast
“Marc, Nathaniel! Stop!”, Ladybug yelled as she dropped in and wrapped her yoyo around Reverstrator
“Don’t call me that! I’m Reverstrator now!” Suddenly, his torso started rotating around rapidly, unwinding Ladybug’s yoyo. Chat surged towards him with his staff ready. Reverstrator grabbed the staff with one set of hands and used the other set to grab Chat Noir by his waist then fling him into the streets. Ladybug threw her yoyo at him, but he managed to catch it just an inch away from his head. Grabbing the string of his yoyo with all of his hands, Reverstrator kept a tight grip as he spun his torso around and then flung Ladybug right into Chat Noir when he abruptly let go of the yoyo
Reverstrator got out his pen and drew a hole on his tablet, then a second later, one appears beneath the heroes and they fall in, “See? That’s how you get rid of heroes!”
“...”
“Oh, silent treatment, huh?!”
“Reverstrator! Why didn’t you take their Miraculous before sending them into the hole?!”, Hawkmoth asked, enraged
Reverstrator rolled his eyes, “They can’t get out of there. I’ll come back for them later.” He leaped onto a roof and made his way to the Agreste mansion
__
“Oh, I hope Marinette’s okay,” Rose voiced her concern as she, Juleka, and Alix walked back into the school when they saw that Reverstrator was gone
Juleka places a hand on her shoulder, “Maybe she just got separated while we were running. I’m sure she’s okay.”
Alix agreed, “Yeah, she can take care of herself. Maybe she just hid in the locker room.” The three of them walk into the locker room and look around for the pigtailed girl, “Marinette?!” She called out, “Marinette?!”
Juleka knocks on a few lockers, “Marinette? You in here?”
Rose walks out of the bathroom and shakes her head, “I don’t think she’s in here.”
Alix furrowed her brow in confusion, “Okay, maybe she got swept up in a group. Jules, you might be right about her getting separated.” Juleka smiled at that
Rose sighed with relief and then sat down on the bench, “Well, that’s good.” She felt her foot brush up against something and looked down to see the photo face-down on the floor, “Hm?” She picked up the photo, flipped it over, and her eyes widened in shock, “... Alix? Could you take a look at this?” She hands the photo over to Alix. The pink-haired girl gave the photo an incredulous look, “WHAT THE HELL?!” She stomps over to Juleka who’s looking down at something in her hands, “Are you seeing this?! I did not kiss Nathaniel!... Jules?” Juleka shows her and Rose what she’s looking at.
Rose gasped, “That’s why Reverstrator is after Adrien!”
“So if Nathaniel saw this photo, then Marc must’ve seen the other one.” Juleka turns to Alix, “So Reverstrator might be after you next.”
“But I didn’t kiss Nath!” She exclaimed, “And Marc definitely didn’t kiss Adrien!” She takes the photo out of Juleka’s hand and examines both photos, “These had to have been photoshopped, o-or something!”
Rose notices something on one of the photos, “Hey, what’s that?” She points to an orange smudge in the corner of the photo of Alix and Nathaniel kissing, “Looks like nail polish.” Juleka smirks, “Or Nathaniel uses hair dye.”
“Wait.” Alix narrows her eyes at the nail polish stain, “There’s only one person in the whole class who wears orange nail polish.”
“LILA!”, Rose and Juleka said at the same time
Alix nodded, “It makes sense. They know she’s lying too, so of course, she’d pull this shit! We gotta tell them before they go after Adrien!” She’s about to head out of the locker room, but Juleka stops her by placing a hand on her shoulder, “But what about you?” “I’ll be fine. It’s Lila you should be worried about when they find out what she did.” After that, she stormed out of the locker room with Juleka and Rose behind her.
__
Ladybug and Chat Noir were still in the hole. Ladybug tried using her yoyo to get out, but there was nothing for it to wrap around outside the hole. Chat Noir then wrapped his arms around Ladybug and extended his staff so that they rose out of the hole
“Nice thinking, Chat.” Ladybug commended as Chat shortened his staff
Chat smiled, “Thank you, m’lady. Now let’s go!” He and Ladybug vaulted and swung away
__
Reverstrator landed on top of a roof and just stands there, “... Why can’t I move? What are you doing?!”
“We need to talk right now!”, Reverser’s voice shouted
“I don’t want to!”, he yelled back while covering his ears, hoping that will block out his voice
“Well, I’m not letting you go until we talk!... Please?”
Reverstrator sighed, “Fine.” The monochrome eyes slowly opened, and immediately a few tears pour out as Reverstrator has a conversation with himself
Reverser speaks through Reverstrator, “... Why would you do this? W-what did I do wrong? I... I love you and you just...” One of his right hands wipes away the tears. Evillustrator speaks through Reverstrator, “I could ask you the same thing. I-I don’t know why you’re mad, but you really hurt me.”
“How did I hurt you? You kissed Alix!”
“W-what?! I never kissed Alix!... Is this why you’re mad at her? You think we kissed?”
“... Yeah.”
“No! That never happened! And I saw the photo of you kissing Adrien!” The turquoise eyes start crying, “Then I saw you and him laughing. An-and I just-”
“Well, that’s only because he was telling me what you said to Lila in class! I-I would never cheat on you. I love you...”
“I’d never cheat on you either, and Alix would never hurt you like that.” Reverstrator’s right hands wipe away the tears forming in the monochrome eyes
“I’d never do something like that to you... But where did the photo come from?”
The turquoise eyes narrowed when they noticed Alix, Juleka, and Rose walking down the sidewalk, “Let’s find out.”
__
“When I see that girl tomorrow in class, I’m gonna-!”
Reverstrator dropped down right in front of the three girls, startling them and cutting off Alix’s rant, “ALIX!” Upon seeing the menacing glare he was giving their friend, Juleka and Rose shielded Alix from the Akuma
“You better explain why there’s a picture of you kissing Nathaniel!”, Reverser shouted through the Akuma and summoned two paper airplanes in the two left hands
Alix gently nudged Juleka and Rose out of the way and approached the Akuma, but the two girls held onto their friend’s arms for protection, “Nath, Marc...” Hearing Reverstrator let out a low growl, she corrected herself, “Reverstrator, those photos are fake! I never kissed Nathaniel, and Adrien never kissed Marc! We wouldn’t do that!”
Before Reverstrator could say anything, Juleka spoke, “Lila faked those photos. W-we found some of her nail polish smeared on the back of one of them
“That... That...”
“Lignerish shlang!”
Without saying another word, Reverstrator crushed the paper airplanes in his hands and ran off to find the lying Italian who nearly destroyed a beautiful relationship. Alix called out to him, but he was already gone, leaping over the city once again. A second later, Ladybug and Chat Noir land by them. “Are you okay?” Ladybug asked as she checks to see if Reverstrator hurt them in any way
Alix nodded, “Yeah, we’re fine. But it’s Lila that you gotta save.”
Ladybug tried not to show her disgust at the mention of the liar, but Chat Noir wasn’t holding back, “What’d she do now?” he asked bitterly
“’Now?’“ Rose parroted
Chat continued, “Yeah. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s pissed off an Akuma.”
“Chat,” Ladybug hissed, “Not now.” She turned back to Alix, “So what happened?”
“Lila photoshopped a photo so it would look like Marc kissed Adrien, and Nathaniel kissed me,” she explained. Off the heroes’ looks of disgust, she continued, “Yeah, and all because they knew that she was lying!”
Ladybug took a sharp inhale. That liar could ruin her life all she wanted, but rope her friends and cousin into this? There will be hell to pay, “Alright. I guess we have to save her again. The three of you better get to safety.” Then she and Chat swung and vaulted after the Akuma as the three girls just stood there
“We’re gonna see how this goes, aren’t we?” Juleka asked after a few seconds of silence
Alix nodded, “Hell, yeah!” She exclaimed as they began springing in the direction of Reverstrator and the heroes went, “Hey, if we’re lucky, Lila might be exposed in front of everyone.”
__
Lila was walking on air. Marc and Nathaniel were probably beating that pesky bug to a bloody pulp right now. She was a little miffed that they didn’t slice her open with one of those swords or reverse her powers so she’d be useless as always. And hopefully, when she fails, those two f*gs will become public enemy numbers one and two. She could spin a whole sob story about how they were jealous of her relationship with Ladybug and they’ll be banished from Paris. Maybe she could even throw in something about Marinette and those d*kes she hangs out with. They are close; maybe get the idea of them working for Hawkmoth into those idiots’ heads-
“So, what do you think of doing another interview tomorrow?”
‘Ugh. Remember your fanbase, remember your fanbase,’ Lila reminded herself every time she hung out with Alya, “Alya, that’d be wonderful! I’d love to!” She exclaimed, before quickly dropping her expression, “But I just hope I’ll be okay to do it tomorrow. I’m just so worried about my bestie getting hurt!”
Alya nodded, “Yeah, Reverstrator doesn’t seem like the type of Akuma to hold back. But, I’m sure she’ll be fine... Though, I wonder why Marc and Nathaniel got akumatized in the first place.”
Lila internally smirked, ‘Perfect,’ “You don’t think it was because of me, do you?”
Alya immediately went to comfort her, “Girl, I’m sure it was just something else. Maybe stressed out from their comic, or-”
“But we haven’t been on the best terms lately, and-” She choked back a sob, “I can’t help but feel that I’m the reason they were Akumatized... Or... Maybe they were jealous that I’m friends with Ladybug?”
Alya frowned, “Well then, that’s just not right. Once they go back to normal, we’re gonna confront them about this!”
“ROSSI!”
Parisians cleared the way as Reverstrator dropped down from above and landed in the middle of Pont des Arts. “It’s time to reveal every single one of your lies!” Four monochrome paper airplanes materialized in his hands, “REVERSION!”
Lila ducked out of the way as the planes came for her, and they instead hit a few pedestrians who started revealing everything they’ve lied about, “I-I didn’t do anything! Please, whatever happened, I can help you!” She whined while throwing in a few tears for good measure
“ENOUGH!” Evillustrator’s pen materialized in one of his left hands, and the tablet on his right arm. He began drawing, “You won’t try to tear us apart ever again!” A buzz-saw appeared beside him and spun its way towards the two girls. Not taking any chances, Lila grabbed Alya and put her in front of her like a shield
“LILA?!”, Alya screamed as she struggled to get out of her hold, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The more she struggled, the more Lila’s nails dug into her skin and she let out a pained scream
“Call it off! Erase it!”, “I’m doing it!” The buzz saw was erased from existence, and Alya was safe. Lila pushed Alya to the ground then ran away. Reverstrator was about to run after her, but when he saw the look of betrayal on Alya’s face, he said to her, “I’d start looking for new friends if I were you.” And he ran after Lila, leaving Alya horrified at what just happened
‘How could she do that?’ She thought to herself, ‘She used me as a human shield, I-I could have died. Why would she do this?... I thought we were friends.’
Rousing her from her thoughts was the sound of a notification from her phone. She wiped the tears streaming down her cheeks and checked her phone. She furrowed her brow as she read what was on her screen. Aurore had made a post on her blog, Bug & Cat Chat. She wasn’t a fan of the blonde girl having a blog that rivaled her own and stole most of her viewers, but she kept tabs to see what she posted and how she could make the Ladyblog better. ‘Ladybug’s Supposed Bestie Roots for Akuma?’
__
Lila ran as fast as she could down the streets of Paris, but Reverstrator was faster. She dodged every paper plane, every sword, dagger, and flaming arrow, shoving pedestrians out of her way and almost getting them hit in the process. When the attacks stopped, Lila stopped running and took a few breaths.
“Damn it, Hawkmoth,” she cursed under her breath, “Control your freaks.” This moment of peace was cut short by a scream. Lila looked back and saw a car being tossed into the air and heading right for her. She leaped out of the way as the car hit the ground
“Lie-La~” Reverstrator called out, “It would be easier for everyone here if you just gave yourself up!” He started lifting another car
Lila rubbed her eyes to make it look like she’s crying, “I didn’t do anything! Why are you after me?!” She looked through her hands and saw people in the vicinity giving her wary looks, ‘Why are none of these idiots helping me?! Can’t they see I’m in danger?!’
“Mommy! That’s the girl who put the Ladyblogger in danger!” A little boy shouted
Lila looked again and saw many of the citizens scowling at or backing away from her. Some were even looking down at their phones. When she listened closely, she could clearly make out Alya’s panicked voice coming from their phones
‘Who the hell recorded that?!’
“Aurore got a video of her rooting for the Akuma!”
“She wanted Ladybug dead!”
“I bet she’s working for Hawkmoth!”
Lila scowled, ‘That blonde b*mbo!’ She put her hands behind her back and pinched her wrists to make herself cry, “I-I’d never do that! I’d never put Ladybug in danger!” Another car was thrown her way, she ran with Reverser hot on her tail
“IT’S NO USE RUNNING, LILA! JUST GIVE YOURSELF UP! EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE REALLY LIKE!”
Lila was about the round a corner, but Reverstrator grabbed her by the back of her jacket and held her up in the air, “It’s over! Now confess everything you’ve lied about!”
Even when her life was on the line, Lila would not own up to her lies, “I didn’t do anything wrong! I don’t know why you’re after me, but-”
“ENOUGH!” Evillustrator summoned a paper airplane, “You are now forced to tell the truth! Reversion- HEY!” He tried to yank his arm away as Ladybug’s yoyo wrapped around his wrist
“Reverstrator, stop!” Ladybug called out as she and Chat Noir arrived, “Everyone already knows that Lila is dangerous-”
“SHUT UP LADYBUG! NO ONE ASKED YOU SHIT!”, Lila screeched, making everyone gasp. Lila was about to say more, but one of Reverstrator’s other hands wrapped around her neck and she started choking, but then he dropped her to the ground when Ladybug yanked on her yoyo and flung him into the side of a building
Chat narrowed his eyes at Lila who had taken off running a while ago, “Better hurry before she causes more trouble.”
Ladybug nodded then called for her, “LUCKY CHARM!” What dropped in her hands was, “Another yoyo?”
Chat Noir extended his staff, “Better figure out how to use it quick; Reverstrator won’t go down so easy!”
Reverstrator started drawing again, and another buzz saw came spinning for them. Chat Noir jumped in front of Ladybug and yelled out, “CATACLYSM!” The buzz saw crumbled into black dust, and immediately, the heroes were barraged by arrows. And with his free hands, he threw paper airplanes at them. They take cover behind a flipped car. Not wanting to risk getting shot by an arrow or reversed, Ladybug used the mirror in her yoyo to find a way to use her lucky charm
Use your yoyo to deflect his attacks
Wrap both yoyo’s around Reverstrator’s arms
He has super strength, so you won’t be able to hold him down on your own
Tie the ends of the yoyos to the lamp posts; they’re bolted tight to the ground
Break the necklace, catch the Akuma
Ladybug turned to Chat Noir with a determined look, “Hey, Kitty? Ever use a yoyo before?” With a grin, Chat takes the lucky charm yoyo and extends his staff. Ladybug spins her yoyo; the two run out from behind the car and start deflecting Reverstrator’s planes and arrows. Once they got close enough, Ladybug wrapped her yoyo around Reverstrator’s left arms, and Chat wrapped the Lucky Charm yoyo around the right arms. They ran in opposite directions and tied the yoyos around lamp posts so he can’t get free.
“NO!” He growled with tears in his eyes, “You won’t separate us!”
Ladybug walked over, reached into the monochrome hoodie, and pulled out a black heart-shaped necklace. She threw it to the ground, making it shatter into many pieces so the Akuma would fly out. She quickly unwrapped her yoyo, “No more evil-doing for you little Akuma... Time to De-Evilize!” She caught the Akuma, “Gotcha!” Fluttering out from the yoyo was a pure white butterfly, “Bye-bye, little butterfly.”
Chat Noir tossed her the lucky charm yoyo. She tossed it into the air and yelled out, “MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!” The yoyo burst into millions of ladybugs. The swept around the city, fixing the school, getting rid of the weapons drawn by Reverstrator, removing the reversion curse of citizens who were hit by the paper airplanes, and finally, Reverstrator was washed over by a black and purple mist that lifted up and revealed Marc and Nathaniel passed out on the ground
Ladybug and Chat Noir did their signature fist-bump, “Pound it!”
“Ugh,” Nathaniel got up and rubbed his head, “What the hell...?” His eyes widened when he saw Marc on the ground, “Rainbow!” He rushed over to his boyfriend’s side, “Baby, are you okay?” Marc’s eyes fluttered open, and Nathaniel let out a relieved sigh, “Marc, I’m so sorry I thought you cheated on me, I- You’d never do that! I just-” “Nath...” “When I saw that photo, I just panicked!” “Nath!” Nathaniel was cut off by Marc throwing his arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. “... I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions either. Nath, I’m sorry.”
Ladybug and Chat Noir offered their hands and helped the two boys up, “I’m guessing you guys remember what happened.”
Nathaniel furrowed his brow, “I-I just remember seeing that photo of Marc kissing Adrien...” No one noticed the look of shock on Chat’s face, “Then I remember Alix mentioning...” His expression darkened, “...Lila.” Marc held his hand and kissed his cheek, “She’s sort of had out for us ever since we pointed out a few holes in her lies.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’m sure you won’t be seeing much of her anymore.” At the superheroine’s words, the two boys smiled. Suddenly, the distinct beeping of Ladybug and Chat’s miraculous’ were heard
“Well, we best be off,” Chat said as he extended his staff and vaulted away
Ladybug gave the two one last smile, “Bug out.” and she swung away
__
Hawkmoth threw his can to the ground, “NO! How could they have beaten Reverstrator? He should have unstoppable! Ladybug, I swear, I will have your Miraculous!”
__
Lila felt all eyes on her as she walked into Dupont. Normally she would preen at the attention she was receiving, but these looks were hate-filled. They all looked like they wanted her dead. Ignoring the glares, she put on a prideful demeanor as she strutted her way to class...
...Where she was met with even more death glares.
Alix stood from her seat, “You’ve got some fucking nerve coming back here, Rossi.”
She reared back, “Oh, Alix!” tears began to pour, “How could you say something like that?!”, she started sobbing into her hands but no one was buying her fake tears
Nino wrapped his arms protectively around Alya and glared at the Italian, “Just get lost, Lila. Everyone in Paris saw the shit you pulled.”
“I-I don’t know what-”
“YOU PUSHED ALYA IN FRONT OF A BUZZ SAW, YOU BITCH!” Marinette screamed as she stormed over towards the Italian, “You could have killed her!”
Lila backed away from the enraged pigtailed girl, “I-I was trying to push her out of the way, but my carpel tunnel acted up, and-”
“Cut the crap, Rossi!” Nathaniel yelled, “Marc and I almost killed Alya because of you!”
“It wasn’t my fault you two got akumatized!”
“IT WAS!” The entire room went silent when the redhead slammed his fist on the desk, “You photoshopped pictures of us cheating on each other, and that’s what got us akumatized!”
Lila forced tears out of her eyes, “I’d never do something like that!” she whined
Juleka spoke up, “We found your nail polish on one of the photos,” She held up the photo and pointed to the orange nail polish. Before Lila could retort, Marinette held up one of her hands, her nails were still painted the same shade of orange as the nail polish on the photo
“Th-that was just a coincidence! It’s a very popular color!”
Chloe laughed, “Newsflash, Rossi. Raw sienna looks good on no one. Especially not you.”
Adrien stood from his seat, “And I’m sure you can explain why there’s a video of you cheering for the Akuma,” he sent Nathaniel an apologetic look, “then saying Akuma’s can’t do anything right.”
The Italian went silent before, “Ow! My head hurts! See, while I was in Africa, I hit my head and-”
“That explains a lot,” Ivan muttered
“B-but guys, I’d never...” Seeing that no one was buying a single thing she said, she scowled, “Alright, fine! So I pushed her in front of me, so what?! Better her than me!” Marinette and Nino looked ready to strangle her. She points to Nathaniel, “And you and your f*ggot boyfriend should learn your place you k**e!”
The entire room gasped at the slur used against their friend
“Lila Rossi!” Everyone turned to see Mme. Bustier standing at the doorway, “Principal’s office, now!”
“B-but Mme. Bustier!” Lila stammered
“NOW!” She repeated, “I will not have that type of language used in my classroom!”
“But Nathaniel cursed me out yesterday!”
Mme. Bustier nodded, “Yes, but no one could understand him.” She shot the redhead an apologetic smile and he smiled back, “You on the other hand, we understood you loud and clear. I will not tolerate the use of derogatory terms in this class! Now go!” She points to the door. Defeated, Lila trudges out but not before she adds, “And I’ll be giving your mother a call as well.”
Mme. Bustier followed her out and slammed the door behind her, leaving the classroom in silence
“... Okay!” Kim yelled out, “No one’s saying it, so I will.” He approaches Marinette, “Mari, I-I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you. You’re one of the most honest people I know, and I just picked that... Cáo nói dối over my own sister.”
Marinette smiled and embraced Kim, “Thanks, Kimmy.” The athlete wrapped his arms around her, “Anytime, em gái.” The whole room started apologizing to the students who didn’t believe Lila’s stories and gathered for a group hug
Marinette hummed, “Guys, this is nice... But if you ever do this again, I will not hesitate to knock some sense into each and every one of you. And believe me. I will be very violent.”
Mylene chuckled nervously, “Noted.”
__
“Hey, Rainbow.” Marc looked up from his journal and saw Nathaniel standing by the stairs, “Hey.” Nathaniel went under the stairs and sat next to Marc before littering his face with kisses, making the black-haired boy blush
“What’s got you so happy?”
Nathaniel smirked, “Two things. First: Lila’s being arrested for possibly working with Hawkmoth,” off Marc’s incredulous look, he nodded, “Seriously! After that video Aurore posted, the police took her in for questioning.”
Marc tackled Nathaniel into a hug, “That’s amazing! So, what’s the second thing?” He gives Nathaniel a knowing look
“Well,” he takes Marc’s hand and kisses it, “Ever since we were fused together, I just... I’ve never felt closer to you. Even though we were Akumatized, it just felt amazing.”
Marc can’t help but blush, “Yeah. I-I know we were arguing most of the time, but I still loved being that close to you.” His smile dropped a little, “I could feel how upset you were. That also showed how much you really care about me.”
“Of course I do, Rainbow,” Nathaniel said as he caressed his cheek, “You’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I was prepared to murder Adrien because of that photo.”
“And I was going to throttle Alix...”
“... Not our best moment.” “No, not really.”
“But,” Nathaniel pulls his sketchbook out from his messenger bag, “It does give me a few ideas for our next comic.”
Marc shows Nathaniel the page he was working on, “Me too.”
#marc x nathaniel#miraculous ladybug salt#Miraculous Ladybug#Reverstrator#Reverser#Evillustrator#alya redemption#lila gets exposed#ao3fic
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Who are you?
Summary: welcome, meet ultimate despair Dorothy and Makoto
Notes: what’s this? Rae wrote her Danganronpa X GrePre crossover that’s not as dark as the last one that will never see the light of day? :000
TW: death/blood/world destruction
Again it’s Danganronpa inspire.
~~~~~~~~
Makoto stop mid monologue about how TC were hypocrites. His expression went from a face full of anger, to boredom.
Lowering the sword he yawned and looked up at the ceiling, “Jesus Christ I told you this be boring. Let’s just get on with it already. Their expressions are so plain.”
Everyone in the room looked confused. Akemi looked at Laurent thinking this was part of TC’s plan, Laurent looking at the director thinking it was some act she made Makoto do.
“Hey, bitch I know you can hear me” Makoto continued “Get on with it, or I might just throw myself out the window from boredom”
Familiar laugh to half of TC echo through the room. Laurent’s eye widen, scanning the area fractionally looking. It wasn’t in his head, everyone heard it, even Oz was looking.
The doors swung open and out she step. Flipping her white hair over her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkling, her iconic pink lip stick vibrante as ever. But something was off. The way she smiled didnt set off any brightness or joy, it sent a chilling feeling down everyone’s spine.
“Gheez Makoto! Did you have to stop half way? I was actually enjoying your performance!!” Dorothy walked to him and threw her arms around the Japanese man smiling “ah! I could just tell every word you spoke plunge even more despair into all their hearts!! You’re such a good actor! Oh you’ve come such a long way from that kid I found on the streets!” She pulled at his cheeks cooing him.
Annoyed, Makoto pushed her off “It was boring. Their reactions were so predictable.”
Everyone stared in confusion. No one knew what was going on, how did they know each other? Dorothy was alive?
Laurent took a step towards her “Dorothy.? Is it really you?”
“Yup! In the flesh Laurie!” She smiled and grabbed Makoto’s shoulder “and you’ve all meet my little successor Makoto Edamura. Such a talented young man, is he not?”
Oz looked at his son “so this whole time...you-“
“Yes I knew.” Makoto cut him off “I’ve worked under her since you left”
“That long?!” Oz spoke in shock
“Better to teach them when they’re young right?” Dorothy laughed “again, such a talented young man. You have to admit, his performance was phenomenal!!”
Akemi spoke up “I do not understand. Who are you? What is going on?”
The one thing Laurent could agree on with this woman “what is going on.? How do you two know each other.?”
“Right I should probably reintroduce myself” Dorothy pulled out little hair pin, it was the head of a cartoon bear, the left white and the right black. She pinned it in her hair and took a bow
“Dorothy, I’m the ultimate despair. And this!” She gestured to Makoto “it’s Makoto Edmaura, my partner, and the second ultimate despair.” She patted his cheek smiling proudly.
Makoto’s expression remain blank. Everyone looking at the two like they’ve lost their minds.
Abby growled “ok virgin, enough with the games. Did you hit your head or something? Stop this.”
“You’re annoying.” Makoto snapped at her “when you were a suicidal manic you didn’t fear death. So boring. You couldn’t even appreciate the despair that came with death. People like you annoy me”
“I’m going to knock the sense into you!” Abby tried to get up was was still restrain.
However someone did take action.
“ENOUGH OF THIS.” Yao grabbed Makoto by the collar raising his fist “I don’t know what game you’re playing but I have enough.”
Makoto remained unpashed, sighing “shame, you would have been a good blacken for the game”
Dorothy nodded in agreement “well, looks like nothing can be done now.” She pulled out a remote and pressed a button.
A loud buzz was heard through the room. Before anyone knew it, spears came flying, shooting into Yao. He let go of Makoto who step back, a slight smile dancing upon his face.
Everyone looked in horror, as blood ran down the spears, Yao’s body twitching.
“T-the hell...?” He muttered “I don’t....how did you even....? You....damn....bastards...” The spears retracted, and Yao fell to the floor dead.
Ishigami let out of blood curling scream and threw an arm up to shield Akemi, who had her mouth covered in horror.
Laurent knelt down and checked for a pulse, praying this was some elaborate con Makoto set up to get even. There was no pulse. Yao was dead.
Laurent looked up at Dorothy with a pain expression “but...we don’t-“
“We don’t kill people? Old news. Old life. I can’t believe I stuck to those morals, how boring, death is so wonderful” an insane smile danced upon her lips “did you see it Laurie? That expression before he died? Such despair...ahhh!” She hugged herself laughing “such a wonderful feeling! I remember how amazing it felt when I thought I was going to die! The thrill! The excitement! Despair is truly such a wonderful thing!”
Liu step forward, his face stonecold “tell me what is your motivate here? What do you two so call ultimate despairs want?”
“It’s simple really” Makoto explained “as we speak right now, the whole world is falling apart.” He took the remote Dorothy had, making a TV appear. Switching on the channel, everyone’s face snuck into deeper despair.
The world was literally burning. People were rioting, there was death on every corner.
“No that’s not real...” Cythina spoke “there’s no way that’s real.”
“But it is.” Makoto said. “Of course we didn’t do it alone. We had some help.” He switch the board cast again.
Salazar walked away from Casano’s burning mansion, the sounds of gunfire behind him, people of LA rushing to kill each other for the name of despair.
Clark stood in front of his people giving a speech. The crowd erupted of cheers, as everyone took to the city. Fire roar, soaring as high as the planes that flew overhead dropping bombs. Clark watched with a smile as his kingdom fell into despair.
Thomas walked through an art gallery, covered in blood. He walked over to a painting, and smeared the blood on him onto the painting. He smiled recreating the painting in his image. Smiling at his proud work, he took the painting down, and walked out of the gallery. He sat on the bench waiting, and watch as the gallery exploded. People on fire running screaming. He pulled out his paintbrush and started to paint the beautiful despair that London had caught.
Cythina cried and shook her head “no! That can’t be real! Thomas would never do that! Never!”
“But Cythina” Dorothy grabbed her chin smiling “he did. Everything you see is live.”
“We almost forgot” makoto switched the channel “are special little warriors of hope”
Cohen along with the others who were sold the trading company, sat on top of piled of rumble, smiling and watching the adults demise. From their safe haven, they threw water balloons full of gasoline to spread fire below.
“If it was true why hasn’t someone come up to warn us?” Akemi said “I think we hear everything going on, and-“
“That’s cause you’re on an island.” Makoto pulled back the shades to reveal the ocean “that’s a whole other thing but it’s too boring to explain”
Akemi’s face dropped again. She covered her mouth thinking of her son back in Japan. Was he alive?
Oz growled, snatching the sword from Makoto; and pointed it to Dorothy.
“Enough! I don’t know what you’re playing but this is enough!”
“Careful Ozzy” Dorothy’s voice dropped “you don’t want to end up like Yao do you?” She gestured to his dead body.
Oz shook at the venom that dropped from her lips. Slowly lowering the sword he tried to keep a stonecold face.
“Please this isn’t real..” Laurent said stepping towards Makoto “edamame please. You got me ok? We’re even. You can drop the act.”
“If only it was an act” Makoto said “I assure you, this is all true, Laurie.” Makoto pulled out a picture and showed Laurent.
Dorothy with one hand upon a teen Makoto shoulder, and another on Miki Edmaura’s back, they were in the hospital. All of them smiling. There was a get well soon ballon along with flowers by Miki’s bedside.
Laurent wanted to believe it was photoshopped, but, something told him it was very much real.
“She was so nice” Makoto said “the one person I really cared for. But I knew in order for thing to move along, she had to go”
Everyone felt another harsh chill run through their bodies.
“Makoto....” Oz spoke “did you.....kill your mother...?”
“In a way I guess I did. The despair finished the job really. When you’re only child gets taken away to prison while you’re bedridden, it must leave a big empty hole in your heart. I think the despair killed her, not the sickness”
Abby felt herself shaking, in fear, this was not their Makoto.
“Who are you?!” Abby yelled “who the hell are you?!”
Makoto looked at her “My name is Makoto Edmaura, ultimate despair, successor of ultimate despair Dorothy.” A big smile spread across his face.
The first time they seen a smile on this despair Makoto. Makoto’s smile use to bring such brightness, and now...such darkness.
“Welcome contests!!!!” Dorothy spread out her arms smiling “to the very first killing game!!!! Broadcast live across the world!!”
Makoto laughed smiling “will you find that shining hope you think still exist? Or shall you plunge into the claws of despair?”
Anguished filled the room. Everyone stared hopelessly, their lives at the mercy of the ultimate despairs.
#great pretender#the great pretender#grepre#makoto edamura#edamura makoto#great pretender anime#dorothy great pretender#great pretender fanfic#great pretender au
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More Than Meets the Eye #16- All the Greatest Love Songs are Secretly About Heroin
Dang, been a minute since we got into the series proper. What all happened again?
Oh. Right. That.
…So anyway, let’s brush up on our Ultra Magnus history!
There was a massive fight on top of a spaceship. Swoop was there, Impactor was there, Overlord was there, Heretech was there, Killmaster was there- shit was lit. Ultra Magnus was doing his thing, though it looks like this was before he got LASIK done, because he’s got a visor on.
Then Ultra Magnus got shot in the gut and fell off the spaceship. It was so scary his hand started spasming.
Later on, we return to a place we’ve seen before, albeit from the Decepticon side.
Magnus, your badge isn’t up to code, my guy! Better get that sorted, before your current self comes out of his medically induced coma, invents time travel, and comes to beat you up.
Also, Pious Maximus? What is your friggin’ DEAL, bro? What the actual hell is your deal?
All the K-Cons start falling out of the sky, and Magnus orders everyone to take cover, as a familiar-looking bomb that literally has his name written on it lands bang on target. It’s such an intense experience, his hands start spasming.
Later still, Magnus is in the middle of dealing with the Simanzi Massacre, and it looks like his visor’s seen better days. Hopefully it was a reading pair, and not something he actually needed to see. Rotorstorm is also there, because his character apparently only exists to suffer. Magnus and his team rise from the muck and the mire, coming ashore right on top of a Cybernought, which promptly fries Magnus with its hand lasers. He gets so crispy, his hands start spasming.
For anyone having trouble parsing the scraps of rended metal that used to be Rewind of Lower Petrohex here, allow me a moment to break him down. That cylinder in the lower left corner is his camera, the wire coming off of it is where it plugged into his head, and that squarish chunk with the clean, round hole in it is probably part of his helmet. The other chunky bits I couldn’t tell you what they are, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that Chromedome absolutely put the dog to sleep with that blast last issue.
Inside the Lost Light, Swerve’s trying to be a nice guy by putting on some tunes for Ultra Magnus, who got his spark shot by Overlord last issue, but all it’s really done is make Ratchet get distracted.
Magnus is in a bad way, as was established by First Aid last issue, and it doesn’t seem like Ratchet’s having any more luck than had been predicted. Swerve’s here for emotional support, and also because he’s got medical training. Tailgate’s here for cleanup duty. Drift’s off in the corner making snide remarks about the medical equipment, probably because he’s mad his legs are still off.
Drift looks like he’s been chiseled out of stone here, and I kind of love it. Forget softboi uwu Dwift, I want more of this guy who’ll bite into a teddybear cactus and not even flinch.
Agustin Padilla’s back on the scene for this issue, and he’s decided that everyone’s going to be elongated in as many ways as he can manage in 20 pages. Tailgate and Swerve? Tallest they’ll ever be in the series. They’re as tall as Cyclonus, and he’s a fucking space jet. Someone’s got a chevron? You better believe that thing’s scraping the gotdang ceiling. Drift’s kitty-cat ears almost never fit into the panel, because those suckers are LONG today. It’s like they’ve all been put through a taffy-puller. There are a lot of little quirks with this art, but this is one I can kind of get behind, if only because it’s so distinctive.
Getting back to the story, Drift’s talking about the Death Clock here- no, not the animated band from Adult Swim, but an actual medical device that can calculate the moment a shrinking spark will give out, down to the second. It only measures the lifespans of the terminally ill, so Swerve hasn’t accidentally given himself even more depression by sticking his little hands in the shiny light without a thought as to what the device he’s messing with might do.
Ultra Magnus has about ten days to live. This makes Tailgate incredibly upset, because he, unlike everyone else on the ship, hasn’t experienced the horrors of war and death.
Ratchet’s right, though. There’s certainly a chance that Tailgate, who’s been shown to react to stressful situations by having panic attacks to the point of blacking out, could have a very severe response to what is his first major catastrophe. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder usually isn’t an immediate development, but being proactive about your mental health is never a bad thing if you can swing it. Hell, with how bad the Overlord situation was, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rung was booked solid long enough for Tailgate to actually have time to develop PTSD.
Rodimus is on the intercom to address the situation that just took place, because man oh man, was it a doozy. He intends to hold an inquiry to figure out just what the hell happened and how Overlord got on the Lost Light to begin with. As he tells everyone what’s going to happen, our focus shifts to Chromedome, who’s standing on the outside of the ship, staring off into space.
Man, I hope Chromedome’s on the front half, because this is a fucking grim scene to witness.
Skids comes out, having been looking for Chromedome. Trailcutter of all people pointed him in the right direction- which I suppose makes sense, given that he was on the Ethics Committee on Kimia. He probably would know Chromedome and Rewind decently well by this point.
Chromedome turns around to show off his mourning black Autobot badge, freshly photoshopped onto his chest for our viewing pleasure. It’s especially blatant when contrasting with Padilla’s rougher linework style.
Skids asks our brand-new widower how he’s holding up, and Chromedome says he’s fine, which is funny, because the other day he was all:
Chromedome has a moment of reminiscing, playing connect-the-dots with the stars like he and Rewind used to do all the time.
Skids, they were married for 250,000 years.
Skids might actually have been one of the worse people to have found Chromedome, if this is what he’s going to say, and then immediately leave. He’s so awkward and clearly uncomfortable and doesn’t want to be there. Does he feel weird about Chromedome knowing more about him than he himself does? Does Skids not have access to any of his memories related to mourning? Geez, I hope nobody needs him to help them through a difficult emotional time for a good while, because this was painful to watch.
Back inside the ship, Rung’s come over to Rodimus’ room to see what all the crashing and banging is about. It would seem our dear captain’s upset, and has decided to work through his frustrations by destroying his private quarters, perhaps in an attempt to summon the wrath of Ultra Magnus, thus saving him through the power of his own mess-induced rage. Rung comes to sit with Rodimus, I guess giving up his search for Chromedome, and the two of them discuss Magnus. Specifically, they discuss Magnus’ memos, and how much Rodimus despises receiving them, because they make him feel like he’s not doing his job right. He stopped even opening them, they made him feel so bad.
If you subscribe to the headcanon of Rodimus having ADHD, you could potentially read this as being a manifestation of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. As it is within the story proper, Rung’s decided to ignore this tidbit of information to get at the more pressing issues, like why exactly Rodimus felt the need to wreck his room.
This is about the point where the art for Rodimus becomes roughly 90% spot blacks, and it’s highly suggested that Rung get out while the getting’s good.
Oh, well this is going to be awkward.
Later on, we’re at the funeral. There’s five coffins, though not all of them actually contain a body. Everyone’s here to see their friends off, even Cyclonus, who was invited to the wake by Chromedome himself. Awful nice of him to do that, given their history.
The lineup in the front row is a bunch of chatterboxes, and they prove that very quickly as Swerve, Skids, and Whirl theorize on the contents of Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase, which is also here at the funeral. Swerve swears himself to the duty of finding out what’s inside, on threat of death should he fail.
A short time skip is had, and Rodimus is revealed to be wearing his ceremonial funeral cape and terrifying vampire arm spikes to this shindig, as he sends Tripodeca, who is surely the most beloved of all Autobots, off with as many kind words as he can muster in the time they have. Everyone says goodbye, and we get to Rewind’s turn. Rodimus has a moment of pause, as Rung gives him the most withering look I believe he will ever produce in the entirety of the run of MTMTE/Lost Light.
Rodimus concedes to giving Rewind the credit for saving everyone from Overlord posthumously, as well as Fortress Maximus and Chromedome, labelling himself as a failure on that front. Chromedome comes up to the podium for a few words on the love of his life.
…well, it’s been a long day for everyone, I suppose.
Chromedome sits back down, right next to Brainstorm because they’re besties, as Brainstorm stares him down like he knows something Chromedome doesn’t.
Probably because he does.
After the funeral, Brainstorm pays Chromedome a visit, finding him in the middle of spring cleaning. He’s taking all of Rewind’s stuff and shoving it in a box to be destroyed.
Does it count as foreshadowing if it’s like a page before the reveal? I guess so.
Chromedome is trying to ease Brainstorm’s mind about the inquiry Rodimus is conducting, saying that the guy ought to talk to Drift before he gets TOO antsy about spilling the beans- perhaps a touch too late there, Domey- but Brainstorm isn’t here for any of that.
So you’re saying Chromedome/Dominus isn’t going to be endgame.
Turns out Chromedome’s been collecting dead spouses, and he wasn’t even aware of it. When faced with this inherent truth about his personal relationship with grief, Chromedome only has this to say:
Time for a pop quiz!
When the burden of life is too much to bear, what is an addict most likely to do? Is it:
A) Quit cold turkey
B) Seek help for their addiction
C) Relapse
If you answered C, you get a gold star, and a harsh reminder that addiction is a fucking monster that will devour your life and meaningful relationships, leaving you with nothing but itself for company.
Chromedome has had a problem with injecting since he got good enough at it to get his own set of finger needles, and he’s been completely dependent on other people to get himself to even close to stopping the habit. His character bio on the crew roster page has, up until this point, outright claimed this.
Now Rewind’s gone, and there’s really nothing stopping him from just taking that pain away. Brainstorm certainly can’t do it, though not for lack of trying.
Chromedome says that he won’t go through with his plan, but Brainstorm knows he’s lying, because they’ve done this song and dance before. At this point, asking Chromedome to not inject is just a courtesy to the deceased.
No wonder Chromedome invited Cyclonus to the funeral- probably figured why the hell not, since he wouldn’t remember it anyway.
Brainstorm gives Chromedome a data slug- the last one Rewind ever made, shot through the door just before it sliced Chromedome’s arm off, and found by Fort Max. Brainstorm leaves, probably to go prepare himself for that awful, hollow feeling he’ll be getting the next time he sees Chromedome.
Over in the shuttle bay, Rodimus is addressing the crew, Chromedome is retconned into being Toxin because he’s not supposed to be in this scene, and Drift is named as the sole conspirator in the Overlord debacle. Rodimus just starts tearing into Drift, and while he does, we cut over to the medibay, where some zombie nonsense is going on.
Golly, seems like there’s some flavor of undead on the Lost Light every other week, doesn’t it?
Rodimus strips Drift of his Autobot badge and tells him to get the fuck out.
Back at Chromedome’s room, he’s decided to take a gander at what Rewind left behind, plugging the data slug into the computer.
Man, this part always makes me a little weepy.
I can’t do Rewind’s final message justice, not in the choppy format I present here- which is perhaps a bit ironic, given the nature of how it’s presented. In the final moments he had, Rewind pieced together a plea for Chromedome to love himself, and to remember that he was- and still is- loved. He shared his own fears of them being apart, and how he knows how hard the coming days will be. He begged Chromedome to be kind to himself, because he- whether he believes it or not- has grown from the person he was in the New Institute.
As this message plays out, we see Drift swarmed by furious Autobots, who get violent as he makes his way off the Lost Light, only to be helped back to his feet by none other than Ratchet, before climbing into a shuttle, surely never to be seen again.
Shane McCarthy slipped Roberts a twenty to set up a slowburn between his OC and Ratchet all the way back in MTMTE #4. This is the start of the pining portion of their relationship.
God, just- there’s a reason Roberts has claimed this issue as one of his best, and it’s this fucking message. Please, if you somehow have gotten to this post without reading the comics- well, first, how, and second- go and READ THEM. I promise it’s worth it, they’re beautiful and funny and full of heart, even when everyone’s being a dick to each other.
Rewind leaves Chromedome with one final piece, which probably didn’t feel like enough, but was all he could manage in the time he had left.
I’m basically legally obligated to post this panel.
Let’s take a moment to consider Rewind as a character. He’s an archivist, and one who’s gotten very good at his job over the millennia. The guy’s OBSESSED with history, and recording as much of it as possible.
Which stands to reason that he knew about Chromedome’s past conjunx endurae. I mean, why wouldn’t he? It would be public record- even if you don’t necessarily get a marriage license on Cybertron, Chromedome would have been on the paperwork with these other guys somewhere, and the fact that he wouldn’t be able to answer the question of “Who’s this guy you lived with for several thousand years?” Would imply some… rather unfortunate things.
Rewind also has a hard time letting go of things- he gets jealous of Chromedome’s past relationship with Prowl any time it’s brought up, and he’s still looking for his ex-husband after what’s probably been at least a million years. That, combined with the way Rewind lives his life- you know, recording every single moment of it- gives me the impression that he really, really wouldn’t enjoy the idea of being forgotten. He wants Chromedome to stop injecting because it’ll kill him, of course he does, but he also wouldn’t want to be erased.
The video cuts off, leaving Chromedome alone. It’s all up to him now, whether Rewind gets to stay in his heart now.
Chromedome/Dominus is still on the table.
With THAT crisis of love dealt with, we move back on to that weird zombie nonsense we saw a little bit ago. Ultra Magnus is missing. Odd, that.
Ratchet, how many times are your patients going to have to disappear from your medibay before it’s less of a “them” problem, and more of a “you” problem?
As Ratchet goes off to search the rest of the ward, Tailgate accidentally bumps into the death clock, which gives him a nasty little surprise: apparently he’s only got three days to live.
Yeah, this is the point where the comic kicks into overdrive, plotwise- there are no brakes on this train anymore.
#transformers#jro#mtmte#issue 16#maccadam#Hannzreads#text post#long post#overthinking about robots#incoming analysis#comic script writing
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horrible stories i have about supernatural porn
this isn’t a blog that i usually post spn content on but my main blog is sfw because i have some minors following it so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ anyway these are stories about porn, not porn stories themselves (i do have a link for the last one, but i don’t want to post it in public, because i’m a firm believer of not making fun of fanfic in public). im putting it behind a cut because it’s absolutely gonna ruin your day. if you’re in the polycule you can reblog this bc not everyone has my sideblog but if you’re sitting there going “what’s the polycule” then you can’t
for context, i was on the kmeme for spn in early 2009 before it became nothing but extreme underage and dog porn. i watched it transform into the uh place it is now and eventually bailed. two of the worst spn porn stories i can think of are as follows:
story the first: the spn kmeme had a very strict policy of no kinkshaming. everything is allowed, even underage, bestiality, etc. there was some discourse on the kmeme once about HOW young is too young, exactly? because someone posted a request for filling involving john/sam but sam was, yes, AN INFANT. there was a lot of back and forth about whether or not the person requesting was being a troll and whether or not the people on the request thread were kinkshaming. eventually they ruled in favor of this prompt. it was filled twice.
story the second: i was long gone by the time this posted but it still made waves over to where i was and it’s like, a classic leopards ate my face moment but also it makes me want to die. the kink meme both 1. allows bestiality and 2. has a section for rpf. so obviously the kmeme being what it is there was quite a bit of j*red p*dalecki fucking his dog. i don’t know why. it’s UTTERLY cursed. anyway, the dog died (very sad) and so someone posted a combination prompt of.........rpf/bestiality/NECROPHILIA. they wanted to see the dog being given a, how can we put this, final goodbye. cue more discourse similar to the above. THIS prompt was eventually ruled as a troll prompt and was taken down (but the other one was fine?!?!?!)
stories i have that don’t involve the kink meme: the artist mythagowood. DO NOT GOOGLE “mythagowood supernatural” unless you are prepared to see truly unsettling things. this person photoshops images of the cast engaging in tentacle porn, mpreg, prolapse porn, etc etc. the most famous of all of these is “ass bees” which involves j*red p*dalecki spreading them to his prolapsed asshole covered in, well, yeah, you get the idea. there was a rumor going around that this infamously horrible art is what inspired the “bees?” card in CAH, but no one has ever been able to prove it one way or another
other things: for a christmas event i was participating in, everyone was supposed to prompt 5 things they wanted and then fill at least one prompt someone else left. i thought of four prompts, but blanked on a fifth, and then as a joke i added “draw dean like one of your french girls - wearing this one only this” and posted a picture of the samulet. lo: one of the most famous artists in the fandom actually took me up on it. full frontal. hyperrealistic. it was...incredible. i’ll always be grateful for the hard work she must have put in.
and finally, for a tamer and less cursed example: my favorite dean castiel fic is the one where cas can’t nut until dean says his full name (castiel winchester, obviously). the first time i read this and liveblogged it at @maulthots i laughed so hard i cried. we have spent an inordinate amount of time since committed to the bit:
Sam at the worst possible time: Castiel Winchester
Cas: UNNGGHHH
someone: hey whats your full legal name
castiel: already crossing his legs
Cas applies for a driver's license and then gets arrested for public indecency
cas goes in to sign the adoption papers for jack and the pen starts shaking in his hand
social worker: and the last name?
cas: HNNNNNNHGGGH
dean loses cas in a walmart and gets them to make an announcement over the pa and knows which direction to go by following the sound of the nut
cas gets pulled over for speeding and they ask for his license and he has to carefully keep his eyes off of the place where he signed his name
cop: castiel winchester huh
cas: HHHHHHHRRRG
dean and cas get into a pizza earing contest and cas successfully finishes the last slice. sam stands up and proclaims, "castiel wins--"
"HUUOOOGGGGGH"
cas turns on the television ready to enjoy a nice relaxing evening of genre tv
oh no. its the vampire diaries
OH NO...HIS EYES DRIFT TO THE CORNER
C
W
“HRRRRRRRKKK”
anyway. it’s a really good fic. i won’t name it in public because it’s rude to make fun of fics in public but absolutely DM me if you want the link. it’ll make you cry i swear
#personal#liz watches spn#i don't know if i have that tag on this blog but in case i wanna be able to find it again later. yk.
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Paint Me a Memory Chapter Twelve
Okay, so this one will be a little bit different, but I adore this chapter so much. I hope you all like it. If you want to be added to any of my tag lists, send me an ask.
@heli0s-writes @seasaurusrrex @imaginingbucky are all super talented and inspire me daily with their insanely amazing works. If you haven’t followed them by now, you definitely should.
A massive thank you to @captainsteveevans for making this mood board. I love it desperately and she is my go-to whenever I need any made.
Pairing: Bucky X Reader
Warnings: Swearing, mentions of naughty thoughts. Nothing too bad. Barest mentions of Quill.
Series Master List
Here we go.
Chapter Twelve
Bucky
Your scent fills the limited space of my car, sweet perfume coupled with my favorite smell of paint, and I can hardly focus. You shut the door softly, making sure it clicks, and let out a sigh.
I carefully pick up the hot chocolate in the cup holder and hand it to you. “Everything okay?”
“My professor that I told you about. He thinks I’m pouting.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I don’t like that your professor laughed at you for wanting to learn something new,” I mutter.
“Especially since he was the one who told me I needed to try new mediums.” You roll your eyes and I desperately want to punch this clown for you.
“Is he that impossible with your classmates?” I ask.
“Dunno.” You shift in your seat and take a sip of your hot chocolate. I get the feeling you’re hiding something from me, but you aren’t quite ready to share.
And that’s okay. I can be patient.
“What stuff did you bring to show me?” I ask.
“Some sketches, a few old paintings that were deemed not as good.” You shrug. “But I liked them all the same. And based on what you showed me, I think you will.” You hesitate. “At least, I hope you will.”
I send you a reassuring smile. “I’m sure I will.” I angle my car towards a warehouse district.
“Is it safe out here?” You ask.
“Safe enough. I have a security system that’s armed at all times. But at any rate, I won’t leave you all alone. I’ll be here working, too.”
“Oh, good.” You relax a little and I try not to read too much into that. “Have you ever worked with marble before?” You ask, adjusting yourself to face me a little.
“I’ve dabbled. I didn’t really like it. It was too hard, not enough soft features. I liked sculpting clay better, or painting.” I glance over at you, the delicate curve of your cheek and I know I’ll be struggling to get that shape perfectly right in my dreams.
I pull my car in front of my warehouse and park. You climb out, retrieving your portfolio from the back seat. I unlock the door and let you in, catching another whiff of your perfume. I turn on the overhead lights and disable the alarm, resetting it immediately.
“Wow.” You mutter, looking around. I fidget nervously behind you, waiting for a more definite reaction. “No wonder your stuff is so amazing. Why do you ever leave?” You turn to look at me all wide-eyed and I let out a breathy chuckle.
“Mostly because Steve and Sam make me.”
“Your friends?” You ask as I lead you further in. “You mentioned them the other day, but we didn’t talk much about them.”
“Yeah. Steve more so than Sam, but I can’t have Steve without Wilson.” I roll my eyes and you chuckle.
“Is he that bad?”
“Nah. I just like making his life miserable.”
“I can appreciate that. I enjoy making Peter’s life miserable, too.”
“Here, set your stuff down.” I gesture to the couch and you set your portfolio down. I help you out of your jacket, draping it over the back. Your fingers trail lightly over the back of the couch, tracing the fabric. I watch you for a second, mesmerized by your nimble fingers.
“Sorry.” You clear your throat.
“For what?” I gesture away from the lounge area I have. You simply shrug. “Nothing wrong with being tactile. It’s actually useful for marble working.” I smile softly.
“I just like knowing the way things feel.”
“Like I said, nothing wrong with that. So, this is my living room, if you will. The fridge is usually always stocked, as are the cabinets. You’re welcome to anything while you’re here. If there’s anything in particular you’d like as a snack, just let me know.” I ramble, trying to make you feel comfortable.
My nerves are through the roof at the thought of you being here, but now that I’ve seen you in here, I never want you to leave.
The living area I’ve set up is modest, two couches, a kitchen counter, sink, cabinets, and a fridge. It sits towards the front of the warehouse, out of the way and leaving most of the space for me to work.
I lead you around the half wall of cabinets and your eyes get wide, looking around. I have my studio set up into segments, or smaller cubicles, depending on what I want to work on. I have a photoshop set up in one corner with a darkroom attached; a separate, brightly lit section for when I want to paint-cluttered with paintings, half-finished canvases, and paint splatter anywhere.
Another section dedicated to when I work with pastels, charcoal or when I just want to sketch. Another corner is set up for when I want to model with clay or something a little more physical. The center of the big warehouse is open, bright light from the large skylights above shine down on three large workbenches.
“Your brain is amazing.” You mutter and I feel my cheeks heating up. “What’s over there in that area?” You ask, pointing towards the very front corner.
“Glass blowing, if I ever get around to learning.” I say with a shrug. “Come on. I’ll show you where I have you set up.” I hold out my hand and you slip your small one into mine. I lead you to the middle where the three large workbenches are. Each bench has a hunk of marble covered with a sheet, ready and waiting for you to work on.
“It has the best light in all of the building, the most space and I’ll be close by if you need help.”
“I can’t believe you did all of this for me.” You press your free hand to your face and my heart skips at the thought of you crying.
“It’s okay. It gives me a chance to spend more time with you.” I worry for half a second that that was too far, but the smile on your face wipes my doubt away instantly.
“Okay, Romeo. How do I do this?” You ask, setting your cup down and pulling your hair back into a messy bun.
“Right.” I open one of the drawers on the bottom of the workbenches and pull out a rolled-up tool kit. “Here. For you.” I say softly, placing the kit in your hands. Your fingers deftly untie the string and you unroll it.
Chisels of different sizes are nestled in their pockets, smaller mallets are in the last two spots. “I wondered why it was so heavy.” You chuckle. “Thank you, Bucky.” You say, the sincerity drips off your words and all I can do is smile.
“Do, uh... do you know what you want to make?” I ask, stumbling over my words a little, but fuck you make me nervous.
“I do. A couple, dancing.” You nod confidently, fingers tracing the chisels.
“Alright, you should make a rough sketch on the marble, that way you have a general idea of what way you’re going.” I say, taking a step back.
“What do I use to do that?” You ask, your eyes focused completely on the marble. I open another drawer and place the charcoal stick in your palm, letting my fingers trail over the back of your hand.
You watch the marble for a second, head tilted, plump bottom lip caught between your teeth. I realize belatedly that I may have left out an instruction, but then you move and you start sketching the lines over the rough surface.
I pick up one of the point chisels and the mallet. You turn to me and I hold them out for you. “It’s a good idea to start with the point chisel to get rid of the majority of the bulk. Just go slow, I hope you have good aim.”
You turn back around and place the point against the marble. Your tiny hand tightens and retightens around the iron, testing your grip and stability. I know exactly what’s going to happen, it happens to everyone and it won’t be the last time, but I still cringe to think about your delicate hands being hurt.
You rest the mallet against the head before giving it a gentle tap. It barely makes a mark on the hard surface; however, it does slide off and clip your fingers.
You gasp, a strangled whine escaping. “Ow-shit. I see what you mean about good aim.” You mutter, shaking your hand. I step closer, taking your wrists and rubbing your fingers before placing a gentle kiss to them.
“You okay?” I ask. You nod and I turn you back around. “Grip it tighter, a little further down,” I say, wrapping my fingers around yours around the chisel. Your grip tightens and you lean back against my chest slightly. “Good. And now your mallet.” I guide your hand up, but you hesitate.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” You mutter.
I press my forehead against the back of your head with a small smile. “I’ll be fine. You won’t hurt me, doll. Give it a good, hard smack.” I tell you, guiding your hand back. You do and the mallet doesn’t hit our fingers and it chips away at the hard material.
“See? Perfect.” I say, looking down at you, cradled against my chest and I realize suddenly just how many liberties I’ve taken just to get close to you. I pull back, clearing my throat and letting you go. “Have at it.”
Your eyes completely light up and you take another swing. I miss having you in my arms, feeling the way you press into me, but at the same time, watching you work is fascinating.
You give the object in front of you every ounce of your attention. Not one detail goes unnoticed and if you give everything you do this level of attention, I have incredibly high hopes.
After I’m sure you’ve gotten the hang of it and I’m not needed, I drift away to work on my own stuff. Not that I have any deadlines. Wilson already has my finished stuff for my upcoming art show.
I settle back in my sketch area, where I have a perfect view of you, and grab my sketchbook. I flip to a new page, starting to sketch you working. Your hair is already starting to escape from your elastic, hanging in your face and sticking to your neck. But you hardly seem to notice.
Your mallet slips and it cracks against your fingers again. You drop the chisel with a clatter, hopping around.
“Son of a bitch.” You hiss.
I set my sketch pad down as you come towards me, hand held out. I smile to myself and take your hand in mine and pressing it between my palms.
“That hurt.” You sigh as I bring your hand to my mouth.
“Won’t be the last time, doll.” I say softly, pressing your fingers to my lips. “We should probably get you gloves. The chisels are gonna tear up your pretty little hands.” I grin.
You roll your eyes. “I’m not worried about my hands. The paint stripper and turpentine don’t do me any favors.”
“All better?” I ask and you nod.
“Thanks.” Your eyes suddenly turn guarded as you pull your hand free.
“Any time.” I smile. You turn back, heading back for your marble and I pick up my sketch pad again.
This time it’s your profile, angular like a Greek goddess, hair tumbling down around your shoulders like when we went to the museum. I almost couldn’t take my eyes off you long enough that day to show you what I loved so much.
Then my imagination runs away from me and I’ve drawn you leaning over the viewer, hair hanging in your face, some strands sticking to your forehead and neck. Your eyes dilated to almost black, lips parted softly.
Shit.
I put my sketchbook away, shifting uncomfortably. Thinking about you hovering over me, soft little puffs of air escaping, moving your hair, it’s getting me in trouble.
I wait for a few minutes for my pants to get comfortable again before I get up. I walk towards you, trying desperately to keep my thoughts pure.
You’re making pretty significant progress at chipping away the excess, but I can tell your hands are starting to hurt.
“No broken fingers yet?” I ask, leaning against the bench next to you.
“No, but I don’t think I can open my hands.”
I carefully pry the chisel and mallet out of your grip and gesture to the bench behind us. You brace your clenched hand against the hardtop and try to slide up onto the counter. I chuckle and lift you up easily, setting you down.
“Stay. I’ll be right back.” I head over to the iron staircase and jog up the steps, taking them two at a time. I open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and grab my lotion bottle. You weren’t lying about the paint thinners and turpentines being brutal on your skin. I make my way back down to you and set the bottle next to your leg.
“What are you doing?” You ask, eying me curiously.
“Helping your hands. You should think about getting an actual massage at some point though, because this is gonna kill your shoulders.” I say, squeezing out some lotion into my palm and gripping your hand. I start slowly massaging the knots out of your palm and fingers.
Your eyes close, head dropping back as your lips part. “Wow, that’s good.” You moan and I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m trying to be a gentleman here; you’re not making it easy.
“Jesus, Bucky.” You sigh and I chuckle.
“Just let me know if I hurt you.” I say, pulling on your fingers, stretching them out.
“At this point, it feels so good that I honestly don’t care.”
I grin and drag my thumbs down the fleshy part of your palm.
“Fuck, don’t stop.” You groan and it takes everything I have not to kiss you right now. I massage your hand until it can move freely. You happily place your other hand in my palm.
“Feeling better?” I ask as I work your hand.
“Yeah, thank you.”
I squeeze your hand again and let go. “Want anything to drink?” I ask, stepping back.
“I’ll take some water.” You smile. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Up the stairs. It’s just about the only thing up there, so, you can’t really miss it.”
“Thanks, handsome.” You push yourself off the bench and head for the stairs. I head for the kitchenette and get you your glass of water. I eye my bottle of bourbon, thinking about just a sip to settle my nerves. But I ultimately decide against it. I’m already having a hard enough time controlling myself around you-best not to add alcohol into the mix.
The crack of the mallet against the head of the chisel startled me. I hadn’t realized you were back. I bring your water over to you, setting it on the backbench.
In my head, images of you float through my mind.
Homey.
Domestic.
I bring you a cup of coffee in your favorite mug, my arms snaking around your waist, face nuzzling into your soft hair and Jesus, what have you done to me?
“Thanks.” You smile. “Did you want to look at the stuff I brought?”
“Yeah.” I head back over to the couch, picking up the heavy case. I carry it back and lay it out on the workbench behind you and open it up.
“I saw your article, by the way.” You say over your shoulder.
“Oh god.” I groan and you laugh.
“You looked good. The journalist was into you.” You comment and I jerk, looking up at you.
“You could tell that?”
“Oh yeah. She used a lot of very flattering descriptions.” You grin.
“Shit.”
You glance over your shoulder quickly before turning back around.
“You okay?”
“I’m nervous. You’re...you.” You sigh.
“I’ll go easy on you.” I tease and you chuckle.
“Thanks for that.”
I lift open the case and pick up the first sketch, feeling myself freeze. I stare at the sketch for a long time, mesmerizing the lines so carefully drawn.
Jesus, fuck me.
I gingerly turn it over and move on to the canvas. Your attention to detail is incredible.
I can feel your tension, nerves stretched too thin, but I can’t ease them right now. I’m too dumbstruck. I carefully, slowly look through the sketches and your paintings.
Finally, you smack the chisel on the table. “Okay. Say something. I can’t take the silence.” You whine.
I set the last paper down and look up at you, keeping my face devoid of any emotion, which is hard because I just wanna laugh at you. “I don’t understand.” I say eventually.
“Oh no.” You cover your face. “Okay, tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
“How are you not the center of your own show?” I ask and you drop your hands.
“What?”
“Your shit’s good. Better than mine. And I’m no slouch. Are you not submitting it anywhere?” I frown. “You said something about your work not being good enough?”
You sigh and walk over to your purse. You dig inside for just a second before you come back with a fistful of about 15 or 20 envelopes.
“I have been. They just don’t like what I send in.” You place them in my hand. “Hence the marble. If this doesn’t work, then maybe it’s not meant to be.” You say coldly and turn back to the table.
I don’t miss the way you didn’t deny your work is better than mine. You know how good you are. I carefully read through the letters, frowning more and more.
“How are you submitting them?” I ask.
“My professor. He has some connections at some galleries.” You say.
“The same professor who laughed at you?”
“Yeah.” You sigh loudly, exhaling hard through your nose.
“You don’t like him?” I guess. Not that I can blame you, he seems like an asshole.
“I don’t like anyone, Barnes.” You say harshly before flashing me a quick smile. “Except for you. Because you’re nice. And handsome.”
I drop a wink in your direction. “You know, I can probably put a word in with the Maximoff twins. Get them to change their mind.” I offer, but somehow, I already know you won’t accept.
“I appreciate it, Bucky, but no thank you. If I’m going to get recognized, I want it to be because of me, not because someone made them.” You say gently.
I nod for a second, thinking just how much I like you right now. “That’s good. Because I really didn’t want to call Pietro. He’s kind of full of himself.”
You laugh and pick up the chisel. “I’m almost done with the bulk, I think.” You say.
“Alright. So, more sketches on what needs to be removed and then you’ll use this. It’s called a tooth chisel. This is for finer details.” I show you how to hold it and you nod, rolling your shoulders.
“Need a break?” I ask.
“Not yet. I want to keep going.”
“Alright. Let me know if you need me to kiss any fingers better.” I say before I can stop myself.
“Done.”
“Mind if I play some music?” I ask.
“Please.” You nod, turning back around. I turn on my favorite playlist and start packing up your art, an uncomfortable feeling about it in the pit of my stomach.
I want to do something about it to help you, but I don’t want you mad at me. I drift back over to my sketch pad, hopefully, to keep my mind above your waist this time.
I don’t realize that it’s growing dark until you come over. Dust is covering your face and hair and fuck you look so beautiful all a mess like that.
“Are you planning on keeping me here forever, handsome?” Your voice breaks through my reverie and I look at you. An apologetic grin stretches across your face.
“If I could, I would, doll.” I glance at my watch, realizing it’s approaching 10:30. “How did it get so late?” I groan, stretching and cracking my back slightly before setting my closed sketchbook on my desk. “You hungry?”
“Yeah, definitely. Mind if I clean up first?” You ask, wiggling your fingers.
“Go for it.” I smile. I should have suggested you stop a while ago. You’re going to be so sore tomorrow.
Chapter Thirteen
Everything Tag List:
@everythingisoverrated @dsakita @shreddedparchment @bitsandbobsandstuff @after-avenging-hours @alexblrus @thinkingsofamadwoman @i-dont-want-to-be-called @thefridgeismybestie @fortheloveofallthatsholy @crazychaotic @pleasureoftheguiltiestvariety @redstarstan @justreadingfics @themistsofmyavalon @sebastianstanslefteyebrow @wkemeup @thiccbinch @glide-thru @elliee1497 @ellaenchanted91 @part-time-patronus @janeyboo @jensensjaredsandmishaslover @thirstybitchqueen @xxloki81xx @stuckonjbbarnes @browngirlmagic @geeksareunique @nicoleplacee @lexshead @gambitsqueen @sebbbystaaan @lokisironthrone
Paint Me a Memory Tag List:
@katshrev @pantrashtic @buckysmischief @pinnedandneedled @estillion14 @alagalaska @seduce-me-with-your-weirdness @i-dont-want-to-get-out-of-bed @fandom-addict-aesthetics @voltage-my2dlove @flyawayprincess @buckybarneshairpullingkink @what-is-your-plan-today
#paint me a memory#mermaidxatxheart-writes#Bucky Barnes#bucky fanfic#bucky barns x reader#bucky barnes x reader#bucky x y/n#bucky x you#reader insert#bucky barnes reader insert#social media au#social media#romance#marvel#marvel fanfic#artist!bucky#artist!reader#bucky x artist!reader
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THE OFFICIAL DBD STORE SELLS A HUNTRESS (and shirtless david) BODY PILLOW AND IM 👀👀👀👀👀👀👌👌👌👌
Keep ‘em comin’ lads
(Haha. I do gotta say tho Anon, if you want a body pillow for DbD, please consider getting a custom one instead. I think you’d actually like it much better! The rest was meant to be under a cut but tumblr is the dumbest shit site coding wise & I made this on mobile, which will not allow you to add read mores anymore. In past this has been no problem bc I can just save as a draft & edit + post on my laptop or edit the second I post & throw in a read-more but apparently now if you make a post on mobile you can never edit it in desktop again. : ) I love that. So fucking much! But this is going to be long now & I physically cannot fix that bc it also won’t let me swap it to html now it’s posted : ) : ) : ) fuck this site : ) —anyway! On a brighter note, here’s my pitch:
Okay! So to start.
First up. Let’s look at what the devs are offering you.
Here are the official body pillows. Now, these aren’t the worst pictures of Anna and David I’ve ever seen, but they’re not great. David’s in his default queue pose, I got no idea wtf Anna’s doing, and neither of them have interesting, good, or attractive poses, lighting, expressions, or detail. Considering this is decently funded company with multiple artists on staff and full body 3D adjustable rendered models of Anna & David on every computer there, it’s lazy as hell. It’s not even as good art as their official sketches or character renders or promo art. They know how to do the work:
They’re just being lazy.
Okay, though, but you really want a body pillow, so what to do? Well, maybe it’ll be cheap enough you don’t care about the quality too much. So, how much will this cost you? For me to ship to myself in the us with the cheapest shipping option, Anna would cost me $80.
Okay, so. That sucks. But you really want this and what else can you do? There’s nothing else to pick.
OH WAIT. Yes there is! So here’s some actually good news for ya 💪
If you want a custom body pillow, you have two options: 1, buy a custom pillow case and a pillow separately, or 2, buy a custom pillow with the image on the pillow print itself. Now, you can get the second option, but it is exponentially more expensive. I’ve seen maybe 60something-70 as the cheapest option for this, although I didn’t spend a ton of time looking. Still, if you want to go full hog, it’s possible. If you don’t mind a pillowcase/the cheaper option, though, (and many pillow cases are custom to the exact specified pillow size and aren’t really noticeable at all), it’s a good deal. For example: A body pillow can be bought at many stores for about 15 bucks. There is some variance in pricing for size, shape, and material, but here I’d like to add the official DbD site doesn’t even list dimensions for their body pillow, let alone material. So, for me to get what I want if I wanted this, I could buy a $15 pillow at a store, and then a pillowcase from a place that I could get it custom made & delivered, IE price + shipping is $30 from here https://www.etsy.com/listing/653983430/custom-21-x-60-zipper-body-pillowcase?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=custom+body+pillow&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&bes=1
So we’re at about $45 right now. (eBay offers cheaper custom pillowcase options but I didn’t want to try to vet sellers for quality & reliability making this post & this is a good price).
This leaves about $35 to commission an artist for something to put on the pillow case. Now, price for commission varies greatly from artist to artist, and full body is the most expensive base option for a single subject, but there’s definitely people offering really freaking incredible commissions at this price, and sometimes even lower. Even though their art should really be worth more than that. Unfortunately, we artists gotta eat. And a lot of the people who buy commissions are also young adults who gotta eat and don’t have a ton of cash. 🤷🏻♀️ So there’s a lot of people who’d be genuinely very happy to be paid for that commission even though it kinda sucks we be there. And if you want to commission someone more expensive, sure you’ll be spending more on the body pillow than DbD officials $80ish. But uh. Would you rather give the same devs who picked the most racist Claudette design they could put into the game for the most recent costume contest $80 for one of these:
Or
Spend $37 for a David of @eggchef ‘s lookin this kinda fine:
https://eggchef.tumblr.com/post/190185302972/david-and-jake-are-both-just-rich-kids-who-said
$40 for a full body Anna of @guud-night ‘s in the style they did this: https://guud-night.tumblr.com/post/185148722468/summer
Or $42 for a full body Anna like this one by @sleazy-art https://sleazy-art.tumblr.com/post/169548091038
or $70 for a full body of @guud-night ‘s in the style of this Anna seen here https://guud-night.tumblr.com/post/165476621798/the-huntress
The fan artists do better work—I mean think of how amazing a pillow could look if your heart cries for one. Vs the low-grade renders the devs be offering. They do so much better it’s like a “Look at your body pillow. Now look at the body pillow the devs told you not to worry about” meme it truly is. TBH, you could screenshot a DbD store screen with Anna or David, edit out the BG in photoshop, and already have a better 3D image than the official offering. 😂 And with an artist? 👌 Mmmmm. Anyway, haha. There was my in-depth pitch to buy from fans instead of official. I was just very motivated to *Robin Williams Genie voice* Illuminate the possibilities! I hope it may have given you inspiration for something even more beautiful than what you thought your heart desired :’-)
#ask#anonymous#dead by daylight#i was gonna just link to posts but auto image for that kept being torsos so i screenshotted blogs including poster/description#& put that with the link each time. so#visual references of artist works are clearly screenshots of the blog in question instead of just the art itself & are lower quality#screenshots. also linked to post in question each time. however! if you dont want the screenshot up in this ask answer or do not want to be#tagged in it @ the three artists i tagged. just message me & as soon as i see the messgae ill take it down#you were all good artists whose commision info id seen/remembered & had David/Anna art up so i wanted to toss the lead your way if anon be#on the prowl for some good ass art commissions#body pillows w charcaters on them actually scare me lol#but i know theyre wildly popular so I guess thats a minority take haha#anon i saw this ask at like 4 am and it was the funniest possible thjng to see at 4am thank you#long post
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DELAIN: Chillin’ As Doomsday Approaches
In the band’s press release, you state that Apocalypse & Chill will surprise your listeners. What are some of these surprises you have in store for them?
We always write our music pretty organically, so we set out with every album to make it bigger, better, and louder. But it’s not like we’re going to completely change. We just go with whatever inspiration brings us. However, on this album there are some new elements. We’ve got a real choir, we’ve got Timo screaming, and we have full instrumental tracks, which we’ve never done before. There are definitely some parts where we really explored what we could do differently. And then what I mainly think will surprise our listeners is, especially in the first half of the record, the sound is very electronic, without going away from sounding like Delain. They’re all very much from a pop and electronic side of the spectrum. And I think that some of our fans who like us for our previous material, they will kind of be scratching their heads during the first half. But towards the second half of the album, it picks up on the orchestral elements again and becomes more symphonic. There’s plenty of new things on the record, but I definitely think that our fans will be able to appreciate what we’ve done.
How did these electronic influences creep in? Was there something specific you were listening to or interested in that made you want to incorporate it into your music?
I don’t know. I think that within the writing team, Martijn comes up with really 80s synth parts and I often come up with kind of like 90s dance parts. Those two mix well in our music. But it’s not like we said, “We’re going to incorporate this.” When we meet up to write, we all take some ideas with us, like a verse or a chorus or a theme or whatever. We sit down and listen to it and see what we want to work on all together. That’s how those ideas work themselves into the music.
With these ideas, themes, and lyrical inspirations, was there anything going on in your life or the world in general that catapulted these ideas into the songs?
Yeah, I think so. One thing that’s relevant for the way that we’d written this album is the fact that we’ve recorded it very fragmented. Martijn is a producer who really spearheaded this idea of “let’s do everything in several blocks of just a couple of songs” instead of in one go. Because first of all, we didn’t have enough time to have one big block for writing and recording and mixing the entire album because we’ve been touring like crazy. So, this gave us a lot of flexibility, but also the chance to go back on the songs now. All these ideas come from different places as well. But I must say that over the last few years, definitely a lot of it has been inspired by the concerns about the world today. If you open up a newspaper, if you turn on the TV, you see the world quite literally being on fire. And then if you open your socials, you’ll see everyone living their most perfect lives. There is this great contrast between the two where you wonder how can these actually exist at the same time and is this even the same world? And I think that contrast is also visible in the songs on our album.
The visual of the album cover and the promo photos have a 1950s cinematic movie star theme. Is that the concept or theme behind it?
It was really that contrast between the impending doom that you sense when you look at the news these days and then at the same time the complete projections that is very much the majority of things you see on socials. That was very interesting. Since it is so much about zeitgeist, Netflix and chill, it’s a very 2019 thing. So, we felt like the play on words was really fitting for this album. And then when I was playing with the idea of that title…it’s not like I think of a song first and then the title and then the artwork. Usually when you think of a title, there is an image in your head. Or when you think of the music, you see something, like you can imagine it. And for this title right away, I could imagine someone lounging while the world is on fire. I actually put this image together in Photoshop, but I am not a very practiced designer. We really liked that image. We’ve been also looking for images that were more towards the kind of covers that we usually have, like the more art nouveau/romantic/goth imagery, but it just didn’t fit the theme and the title as well as this one. What we eventually did to give it that identity and authenticity that my mockup was lacking, is we gave it to this collage artist. She works really analog. She cuts up images and papers and she reworked the image into what is now the cover and also continued that for the promo photos in the inside. Inside of the booklet you’ll find all of us wearing sunglasses and having different natural disasters reflected in our sunglasses. We put that topic throughout the entire artwork. Not that a lot of people get to see CD booklets these days, but for those who do buy the physical thing, we always try to give it something extra.
How did getting Beast in Black’s Yannis Papadopoulos to sing on “One Second” come about? Did you specifically write his part or realized after the fact that he’d be a good fit?
We realized afterwards that it would be a good fit. We really like working with guest musicians. It’s always a very nice surprise to see what other people, other creatives come up with when they listen to your music. Yannis, we’ve been in touch with him for a while. We met him in Greece. I remember during an after party at a show he taught me a bunch of Greek curse words! We had a few songs where we thought we could really use a guest here, we could really imagine his voice there. Then we were at a festival this summer and they played there as well, and that’s I think when the deal was struck. We gave him a choice. We had three songs where he could imagine it. We always try to give our guests an amount of freedom, so they can really make it their own.
The video for “Burning Bridges” has such cool visuals and beautiful scenery. Where was that shot, and how did the concept and the characters come about?
It was filmed in Snowdonia, which is a gorgeous part of Wales. We filmed it with the company Video Inc., which is a company that we’ve actually worked with for four different videos in one year. In 2019, we did four videos with them, including “Ghost House Heart.” The idea behind “Burning Bridges” for me lyrically was really that the protagonist of the song keeps leaving his surroundings in order to get away from the negative energy there—the negative energies are following him. The real question is, are those negative energies actually coming from your surroundings or are you the one bringing them? And then leaving and burning your bridges behind you will solve absolutely nothing. That was the idea that we wanted to work with for the video as well. What I really like about Video Inc. and how they work is we’ve had in the past where we pitched a song to other video companies and they came up with all these ideas that didn’t fit the song at all. And then we thought, “Oh, we have to give him some more input.” So, any images or ideas that we have with the themes, we send them over, but sometimes then people just say, “Okay, we’ll do that.” And what I really like about Video Inc. is they take the idea and then they go over it. They’re the video makers, that’s their expertise, and they give their own twist to it. “Burning Bridges” is definitely one of the most dramatic ones of the four videos, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
You’re the frontwoman and the main focal point of the band, but the album closer “Combustion” is a cool instrumental that gives the rest of the band a chance to shine. Was this a song specifically created as an instrumental or music that you had trouble finding words for it?
It wasn’t meant to be a song with lyrics ever. Actually, this song was written by Timo and I’m sure that Joey also had a say in it because his drumming parts are very prominent. They actually started performing this song as a showpiece Joey had at his graduation at music school, and they performed it there. We really loved that song and that performance. Another thing is when we write songs for Delain, we really like pop structured songs. None of us in the band are ego trippers, none of us try to show off what we can do. We just do what the song needs, but on this track, they really get to shine. And I think that it’s really cool to give them that moment to shine because we have some really fantastic musicians in the band and they play very functional parts in the regular songs. So, I think that this is a great opportunity for them to show what they’ve got. Also, this is an egocentric reasoning, but for me, a lot of the songs have become much harder to sing. I really appreciate the two minutes of taking a breath during the shows! I think that on the album Apocalypse & Chill, that song for me, represents the explosion, the combustion, the apocalypse itself, if you will. I think it’s got a very symbolic function on this record.
What’s the music scene like in the Netherlands? You’re a very well known international touring band, but what was your humble beginning like?
Delain is a little bit of an odd example in that case because Martijn had rolled out of Within Temptation, who were at their breakthrough, and he had so many well known guests on this album that he wrote and that took a long time. There was a lot of work that went into that, and he had a whole big business plan that he used to get to the labels as well. But we got into that label straightaway for the first record because of all that hard work that Martijn had already put into it and the planning he did and the whole set up of the project. But, if I look at the scene that I was in before I got involved with that, the Dutch metal scene is a very small scene. Everyone knows each other, everyone is in everybody’s bands. I was I think in four bands at that moment. I was in a band, a guitarist in that band was doing a project, and I was in that project and then Martijn did arrangements for that project. And that’s where he heard me. So, he asked me for his project. I know that’s a very confusing sentence, but that may be a good representation of the Dutch music scene. It’s very interesting because a lot of metal comes from the Netherlands and actually a lot of symphonic metal comes from the Netherlands. But you would never tell if you looked at the Dutch mainstream music media. I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s not exotic enough for us, or maybe it’s because it’s too exotic. The Dutch popular music is basically just dance and hip-hop. And I have nothing against dance and hip-hop, but sometimes it’s weird to me. I do these Dutch guest things and there will be people from multiple genres, and I will always be the one with the most followers on Instagram and Facebook. And they will be like, “But we don’t know you!” And that’s very typical for Holland, I think. Music that is very well known internationally is not really well known in the Netherlands itself. On the other hand, it also has its benefits because I bet that even if Delain would have a massive hit in the genre that I could still go grocery shopping without people recognizing me!
Delain has been around for 18 years and you have this new album out and upcoming gigs for the next few years. What are you looking forward to the most in the near future?
We have already reached so many things that we wanted to reach with Delain. It’s been really amazing. It’s been an absolute roller coaster. Martijn and I do most of the work behind the scenes, and we’re a really tight team and we both have started talking about how we might want to start doing some things outside of Delain every now and then. I think our biggest goal for now is to really find a balance and do anything in order to keep making beautiful music together. Because if I look at what we’ve done in the past, if I look at the album that we made now, I’m just really, really proud. It is really a product of our team. The sum is more than its parts, so to speak. I just really hope that we can keep doing that and make a lot more beautiful music and hope that people keep enjoying it. Delain has been around for 18 years and you have this new album out and upcoming gigs for the next few years. What are you looking forward to the most in the near future?
We have already reached so many things that we wanted to reach with Delain. It’s been really amazing. It’s been an absolute roller coaster. Martijn and I do most of the work behind the scenes, and we’re a really tight team and we both have started talking about how we might want to start doing some things outside of Delain every now and then. I think our biggest goal for now is to really find a balance and do anything in order to keep making beautiful music together. Because if I look at what we’ve done in the past, if I look at the album that we made now, I’m just really, really proud. It is really a product of our team. The sum is more than its parts, so to speak. I just really hope that we can keep doing that and make a lot more beautiful music and hope that people keep enjoying it.
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His Bloody Rose (Stefano Valentini fanfiction) Chapter 19 - Four Letters, Three words
I walked through the gallery, allowing one foot to be placed in front of the other.
"How? How can you not remember me?!" the man cried out once I answered.
"I... I don't know, I just..."
"After everything, dio mio, you have to go and lose yourself?!"
I looked at some pictures hanging in the hallway I turned down. They were unexpected, for a gallery, but they were something to look at and think about at least.
"Maybe calm down, just... Start from the beginning..."
"There isn't a beginning to start from!"
I raised a hand, but he grabbed it before I could gesture for him to settle down. He made an angry grumble, releasing my hand and stepping back. He stormed off into the darkness, leaving me alone again.
I ran my fingers along the wallpaper as I explored. It was painful, almost every step leading me to feel pain shooting through my side. But it was at least better, at least to me, than laying on a couch with a giant spotlight trained on me.
That man eventually approached me a few minutes later, sitting down on the couch next to me. He sat down a glass of red wine and a small plate of food.
"Eat, bella. You must regain your strength."
I was hesitant, and ignored the gnawing feeling of hunger. He watched me with baited breath, a calmed look across his face.
Eventually he sighed, then picked up the wine and tipped some into his mouth. Once he swallowed without hesitation, he picked up small samplings of food and ate some as well. He chewed, swallowed, and turned the fork towards me.
"I am not hungry tonight, as I have too much work to do." He waved a finger slightly, and brushed his fingers through his bangs. "But I hope that will prove to you that I do not intend to harm you."
I slid my fingers across a gilded frame. A picture titled "Bouquet" sat before me. A small golden plaque beneath it, hammered into the wall as though the picture was meant to sit there forever. I wondered if the piece had been manipulated in Photoshop, or if they were somehow real.
I heard a click behind me, making me turn around. There was nothing there, making me swallow and wonder if it was possible for any ghosts to be in Union. That is, if I was still in Union.
I glanced over the blue dress, reddened by blood and rose petals cascading down. I looked as a gust of wind seem to carry them in motion away from the woman's body. I saw the scissors in her hand, a mask, or what could be her face, in another. She leaned elegantly against a table, silent elegance in portrayal in her existence.
I sighed, thinking to myself. These were all pricking at the back of my mind, but I couldn't reach them in the darkness. I had seen some of these pictures before, but where or when continually escaped me.
I turned and continued down the hallway. I kept exploring the empty, darkened building, hoping to find some shred as to who that man was. I tried to find the answers as to why he, these pictures, and my own life kept escaping me.
-Stefano's P.O.V.-
"Son of a bitch!" I shouted aloud.
I threw my enlarger across the room, anger taking hold of me.
"How?!"
I tore down a clothes line that held drying pictures, scattering still developing photos and used gloves.
"How?!"
I picked up a blurry image of one of the men that had come to Union. I tore it in half and threw it into the sink.
"How can she not remember me?!"
I stood in the silence of my dark room, extending it further and making it turn into a hallway. I had been granted the most wonderful gift, finding I was able to shape this world as I pleased. I had everything I could have possibly asked for.
I sank to my knees. I buried my face in my hands, screaming incoherently. I jumped between English and Italian with reckless abandon, just wanting whatever was listening to know how much agony I was in.
Was this some sort of twisted fate? My price for the ability to create my work?
Her memories for unlimited materials.
Was this his doing? That man...
No, he was even less than that. If he was behind this, I would slice him into pieces where he stood the next time he faced me.
He promised me everything I could ever want, for that girl. The little girl in pink pajamas and a short black bob of hair. He called her "the core," and she was apparently far too important to allow to wander the streets.
I grumbled to myself, turning to a counter as I stood. "(My dear beauty... Please, I would do anything for you, and you knew it. Did you forget me because you came her, to this town? Or did they manipulate you, like they tried to do to me?)"
I knew my pride was to strong to admit it aloud, but I had forgotten who I was. I forgot my work, what inspired me most. I forgot my life when I came to this town, and I couldn't remember the one person who had stolen my affections.
She was living in Union with me, and I didn't even notice.
I slid my hand over one of my pieces. The proof of her as my art sitting next to the piece of the man in the chair. Ryan Turner, I believe. It was cathartic to kill someone who had the same name as the man who hurt her. I still need to make a nameplate for this work, but for now I could be satisfied.
I quietly inhaled. Counting to ten, slowly exhaling to calm myself. I smiled down at her picture. She was here, at least. The night I had been taken, I had simply taken her home and asked her to be my date for the next time my gallery showed. Once she was safely home, I decided to go to a Mu Center, or whatever they were called. I didn't want my correspondence with them to go any further.
"Stefano..."
I jerked my head to where I heard her. There was nothing there, almost as usual.
"A-ah..."
I closed my eye, pushing my hands into my head.
"N-no, no not again..."
"Ah, p-please..."
"Stop it, stop... You're not real..."
"I love you! Ah, I... I love you!!"
The sound she made as her orgasm crashed over her body took over my head. Our first night together, haunting me. Soon would come my second night with her, in the gallery. Then would be her shrieking. The sound of her trying to scream when almost no one could hear. The time I wasn't there to help her. The time I doubted her, the time I thought she had instantly went to someone else. I had abandoned her that night, and the terror in her eyes has been following me like a demon in the night.
"I... I love you..."
The ache I've been plagued with. The yearning for her touch. The want for her voice.
I backed away from her photo.
I love you.
"Stefano..."
I love you!
I covered my face, seething in anger.
"I... I l-love you, Stefano..."
I slammed my fist on the counter. I could almost hear the shattering
"Bella...!" I shouted.
I fell to the ground, holding onto the counter as my knees hit the tile. I held my hand over my mouth, feeling a burn in my heart. I tried to keep from hyperventilating.
It wasn't so gentle, so soft. Not anymore. It burned in pain, cracking my heart open and making it burst again and again and again.
"(My muse,)" I muttered in my native tongue. "(My dear, my beauty, my one...)"
"Stefano--!"
"I know, my dear, I know."
I slid my hand from my mouth. I pressed it over my chest. I could feel my heartbeat through the skin, beating its way out of my chest.
A few days ago, I had brought her to my gallery. I lay her along a couch and placed a curtain over her. I couldn't keep from posing her briefly, so excited my muse has returned for me. I took several pictures of her beaten and bloodied body as she slept.
It angered me that someone has hurt her, but I felt turmoil as she looked so... Beautiful.
Someone had gone over my work. I laughed at the time; it felt like "L. H. O. O. Q." in a way, someone adding a new part to my art and throwing her back into the world. Oh, my poor muse stumbling through that door so bloodied and frightened. Oh, how lovely that she was so frightened she couldn't recognized me...
But now I know so much better. I didn't want to know better.
I wanted my Rose.
The woman who cracked open the cavity in my chest and created the most wonderful art through me. The woman who would force me to make art from myself if I wished to see it. I wanted the Rose who kissed me, and made me question myself. I wanted the woman who made me hurt when I wasn't with her.
I wanted the Rose that trusted me. The Rose that called me in the night to tell me her nightmare, the Rose that held me when someone fired a gun and shot off fireworks.
We had already been through so much when they took me. We had been staying at each others house every other day, and she had stayed with me for so many days before I had gone.
I walked away from my red room, slipping a piece of paper out of my pocket. I slid out the black letter from the envelope. I sneered at it, having received the duplicate letter that ensnared me in this town after the world began to fall apart and I discovered my gift.
I remembered leaving her home, and going back to mine to get everything I needed. I decided to get some work around my house done now that I could relax since my gallery had been unveiled. After I had changed my sheets, I found that letter again. I read over the letter and decided I should head to one of those centers to tell them I wasn't interested. That was the only way I could opt out of that service, since they had such strange exiting details.
When I entered the Mu Center I had found, I walked to the receptionist and gave my full name. After I began discussing leaving the letters program, or whatever it was I was involved with.
And after that I couldn't remember a thing.
I woke in a place I somehow recognized. It was like a dream, a studio house with two floors. I could remember almost immediately weeks of moving into a new home. I had boxes of belongings to put away, and a welcome letter waiting on the table.
I couldn't remember what had changed my mind. I couldn't remember what made me decide to move to a new town. I couldn't remember more than being excited on moving into a new town.
I couldn't remember my Rose.
I grabbed my white pen out of my pocket. I growled quietly to myself in my anger, and threw the letter on a side table. I defiled the letter in my anger, scrawling violently across the paper. "LIES! ALL LIES!"
They lied to me about opting out of that ludicrous program. He lied that I would get everything I wanted. He lied about what he would give, about his religious front. He lied about even caring about what I wrote about in my letters.
He only gave a damn when he realized I was useful. He tried to sing me praise, false interest and fake encouragement.
I slammed the letter on the side table in the hallway. I walked away, my will slamming the metal bars down to lock it away forever. No one would see their words again, no one would be fooled with false promises and fake gods.
I walked away, feeling a little better now that I've ruined some of his "perfection." His perfection is useless and he was only a simpleton. I laughed quietly. I will speak to him, I will confront him. I will force him to give me back my muse's memories. I will force him to let go of her.
If he wanted to barter, so be it. I will get what I truly want, and I will not allow her to slip away from me again.
#Stefano Valentini#The Evil Within 2#tew#tew2#the evil within stefano#stefano valentini fanfiction#tew2 stefano#stefano#His Bloody Rose#Chapter 19#Four letters#three words
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Twilight Rewrite First Sight (iii)
There were five of them sitting in the far corner of the room. They weren’t talking or eating although there was a tray of untouched food in front of each of them. They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.
They were all beautiful, although they didn't look anything alike.
Three of them were boys. One was huge; built like a serious weight lifter. He had smooth ebony skin which was complemented with dark curly hair. He looked like he could be a star footballer, and, going by his sheer size, I was sure you would not want to be tackled by him.
Another had honey locks that were styled in such a way that they fell to his shoulders, somewhat covering his porcelain white face. He didn’t seem to be as tall as the first, but I figured he would be taller than any of my table-mates. He seemed kind of… edgy. He gave off an intense vibe, and I knew this was a guy I never wanted to piss off.
The last boy was smaller. Like the previous boy, his skin was pale. It reminded me of piano keys. His hair colour was somewhere in between red and brown; a bronze shade. His hair was messy, but it reminded me of the girls in Phoenix who would spend an hour perfecting a ‘messy bun’. Like he had deliberately styled his hair to look this way. To be fair, it was a good look. It made him look even younger than the other two, who could have easily passed for college students.
Looks-wise, the girls were opposites. The tall one was stunning. She had legs that went on forever, topped with a beautiful figure. She wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of a swimwear magazine. Her hair looked like it was weaved from liquid gold; it flowed gently down to the base of her spine. Her skin tone seemed to match the boy with the honey-coloured locks.
Everything about the other girl seemed tiny. She had gorgeous pixielike features. Her hair was dark and cropped short; styled to accentuate her beautiful walnut-coloured face. Everything about her seemed graceful, from her build to the way she sat in her seat.
The five of them were so different. And yet, they were all exactly the same. Even in this sunless town, them all seemed physically drained of any warmth; as if they had not seen the sun in a very very long time. Hell, they were even paler than me. Despite the range in hair colour, they all had dark eyes - which looked black from where I sat - with deep shadows under their eyes, as if they were all suffering from insomnia. Or maybe they were all just recovering from broken noses. Except that all of their features were straight, angular.
But that isn’t why I couldn’t look away.
All of their faces were inhumanly, insanely beautiful. All five of them - gorgeous. These were faces that you never saw in real life, only photoshopped or airbrushed on billboards or magazines. Or in portraits or statutes, housed in elite art museums. It was difficult to believe they were real.
It took me a few moments to decide who was the most beautiful. I concluded it was the bronze-haired boy, although the stunning blond girl gave him tough competition. The boy was perfect. This perfection was an upsetting, disturbing kind.
They were all looking away — away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. It reminded me of models posed carefully for an ad campaign for the most expensive, luxurious perfume on the market.
As I watched, the petite girl rose with her tray — unopened drink, unbitten apple — and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer's step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who hadn’t moved.
"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd forgotten.
As she looked up to see who I meant - though she had probably guessed from my tone - suddenly he looked at us, the boy I had deemed physically perfect. He looked at my neighbour for just a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to mine.
He looked away quickly, faster than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, his face held nothing of interest - it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in involuntary response, having already decided not to answer.
My neighbour giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.
She muttered her answer under her breath. “Those are the Cullens and the Hales. Emmett and Edward Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who just left was Alice Cullen. They live with Dr Cullen and his wife.”
I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, slender fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I was convinced he was speaking quietly to them.
Weird names. Old-fashioned names. The kind of names grandparents had. Maybe that was trendy here? Small town names? Then I finally remembered that the girl beside me was called Jessica, a perfectly common name.There were two Jessicas in my history class in Arizona.
“They’re all… quite good-looking.” Understatement of the century.
“Aren’t they?” Agreed Jessica with yet another giggle. She continued on, “They’re all together though! Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper, I mean. And they live together!”
Her voice gave away just how small-town she was; the shock and condemnation, I thought critically. I had to admit that even in Phoenix, this would cause gossip.
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related…"
"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in his twenties or early thirties. They're, like, all adopted. The Hales are twins - they’re the two blondes - and they're foster children."
"They look a little old for foster children."
"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were like thirteen. She’s their aunt. I heard she took them in because like their grandma died.”
I noticed she said the last bit with a look on her face that made it seem that the death of a relative was not a good enough reason to look after your niece and nephew at such a young age.
“Edward is technically Dr Cullen’s brother,” she continued. “Dr Cullen adopted him when he was old enough. Then he adopted Alice and Emmett; they were like Edward’s foster siblings.”
"Wow, that’s so lovely of them - to take care of all those kids when they're so young and everything."
"I guess so," Jessica admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that she didn't like the doctor and his wife for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their children, I presumed the reason was jealousy. "I think that Mrs. Cullen can't have any kids, though," she added, as if that in any way lessened their kindness.
Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to stare at the walls and not eat.
"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them during one of my summers here.
"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me. "They just moved down like two years ago from somewhere in Alaska."
I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn't the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any stretch of the imagination.
As I examined them, the youngest, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in his expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.
"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today — he had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.
"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but like don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are pretty enough for him." She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he'd turned her down.
I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at him again. His face was turned away, but I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he too was smiling.
After a few more minutes, the remaining four of them left the table. They all were noticeably graceful even the big, brawny one. It was unsettling to watch. The one named Edward didn't look at me again.
I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. She was shy, too, though she had a gentleness to her. Despite not being a particularly social individual, I hoped we would become friends. She gave off such a lovely aura.
When we entered the classroom, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to. She already had a lab partner. In fact, all the desks were filled but one. Three rows back, I recognised Edward Cullen by the unusual colour of his hair, sitting next to that single open seat.
As I walked past the desks to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching him surreptitiously. Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. His face jerked up and he stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face. It was furious. Hostile. I looked away quickly, stunned, going red again. I stumbled over a book on the floor and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.
I’d been right about the eyes. They were black - coal black.
Mr. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions and no mention of my full name. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, bewildered by the antagonistic glare he'd given me.
I didn't look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad. Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hair. It smelled like strawberries, the scent of my favourite shampoo. It seemed an innocent enough odour. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, making a dark curtain between us, and scooted my stool to the right, giving him as much space as possible. I tried to pay attention to the teacher.
Unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I'd already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, always looking down. I tried to focus on making my diagrams as detailed as possible.
I couldn't stop myself from peeking occasionally through the wall of my hair at the strange boy next to me. During the whole class, he never once relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible. I could see his hand on his left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin. This, too, he never relaxed. He had the long sleeves of his white shirt pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular beneath his light skin. He wasn't nearly as slight as he'd looked next to his huge brother.
The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for his fist to relax? It never did; he continued to sit so still it looked like he wasn't breathing. What the hell was wrong with him? Was this his normal behaviour? Was he mid-mental breakdown? I questioned my judgement on Jessica's bitterness at lunch today. Maybe she was not as resentful as I'd thought. His odd behaviour couldn't have anything to do with me. He didn't know me from Eve.
I peeked up at him one more time, and regretted it. He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind. I finally had a reference for that phrase. I really wished I didn’t.
At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Edward Cullen was out of his seat. Fluidly he rose — he was much taller than I'd thought — his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.
I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after him. He was so mean. It wasn't fair. I began gathering up my things slowly, trying to block the anger that filled me, for fear my eyes would tear up. For some reason my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts. I usually cried when I was angry, a humiliating tendency.
"Aren't you Isabella Swan?" a male voice asked.
I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced boy, his pale blond hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. I’d have put money on the fact that he was definitely a mommy’s-boy. He however, obviously didn't think I smelled bad.
"Bella," I corrected him, with a smile.
"I'm Mike."
"Hi, Mike."
"Do you need any help finding your next class?"
"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it, thanks."
"That's my next class, too." He seemed thrilled, though it wasn't that big of a coincidence in a school this small.
We walked to class together; he was a talker - he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He'd lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was also in my English class. He was the friendliest person I'd met today.
But he lost some of this friendliness as we were entering the gym when he asked, "So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that."
I cringed. So I wasn't the only one who had noticed. And, apparently, that wasn't Edward Cullen's usual behaviour. Shit. I decided to play dumb.
"Was that the boy I sat next to in Biology?" I asked artlessly.
"Yes," he said. "He looked like he was in pain or something."
"I don't know," I responded. "We never spoke."
"He's a weird guy." Mike lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. "If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you."
I smiled at him before walking through the girls' locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring. I hoped that wouldn’t become an issue. Still, it wasn't enough to ease my irritation.
The Gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform but didn't make me change for today's class. At home, only two years of PE. were required. Here, PE was mandatory all four years. Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth.
I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. Remembering how many injuries I had sustained - and worse, inflicted - playing volleyball, I felt faintly nauseated.
The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had drifted away, but the wind was strong, and colder. I wrapped my arms around myself. When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out.
Edward Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. I again recognised that tousled bronze hair. He didn't appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free.
He was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time — any other time. I just couldn't believe that this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the Biology room. The look on his face must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.
The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Edward Cullen's back stiffened, and he turned slowly to glare at me with piercing, hate-filled eyes; despite this I noted that his face was absurdly handsome For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. He turned back to the receptionist.
"Never mind, then," he said hastily in a voice like velvet. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." And he turned on his heel without another look at me, and disappeared out the door.
I went meekly to the desk, my face drained of colour, and handed Mrs Cope the signed slip.
"How did your first day go, dear?" the receptionist asked maternally.
"Fine," I lied, my voice weak. She didn't look convinced.
When I got to the truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this damp green hole. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life.
I headed back to Charlie's house, fighting tears the whole way there.
#twilight rewrite#charlieswan-squad#first sight#first sight part three#twilight#new moon#eclipse#breaking dawn
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Out of the Blue: Chapter 2
Cover art: @redheadgleek
Beta extraordinaire: @hkvoyage
Links: AO3, FF.net
Author’s Note:
The Twitter feed mentioned in this chapter circulated around Tumblr a while back, and I just KNEW I had to turn it into a fic one day :D
This is the blog post in question: https://lilyvandersteen.tumblr.com/post/190456831744/thesorrowoflizards-awful-brew
Chapter 2: A Good Idea
“This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!” said Mrs. Bennet, more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance.
(An excerpt from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Kurt sipped from his cocktail and leaned back contently. It was Friday night, he didn’t have any shifts at the diner the following day, and all his favorite girls were here for a night out, even Mercedes and Brittany. Life was good.
It was fun catching up with everyone. He told them all about the photo shoots he’d helped his boss Isabelle with at Vogue, and the articles he’d written for the website. Quinn was interning with a district attorney at the moment, and talked about the court cases she’d attended so far. Tina had been helping out a vet treating farm animals exclusively, and told stories about cows calving and a horse that had to be put down after breaking its leg. Mercedes’ tour was a big success, and she was thinking of taking it overseas. Brittany, who was one of the back-up dancers at Mercedes’ concerts, was all for that plan, and summed up all the cities she wanted to visit.
Rachel, for once, wasn’t monopolizing the conversation, seeing as she was sad about another short relationship that hadn’t worked out. And Santana was more mellow than usual, seeing as she had Brittany with her.
The two of them were cuddling and whispering softly and smiling, and it sent a pang of jealousy through Kurt. He didn’t envy Santana the long-distance relationship. He’d witnessed first-hand how hard it was for her sometimes. But he did long for that bond that Santana and Brittany had. He too wanted someone who’d understand him with half a word, who’d move mountains just to be with him and who’d look at him as though he were the most precious jewel on earth.
All he’d ever had in the way of relationships was an admirer called Chandler when he was still in Ohio. Kurt had liked the compliments Chandler had showered him with, and had liked getting Chandler’s undivided attention. It was flattering, and it did wonders for his self-esteem. See? Someone thought he was worth talking to! Someone appreciated his fashion sense!
That was why he’d agreed to go on a date with Chandler, and after that a second one. They’d gone to the cinema together, and then shopping at the mall another time. And Kurt was pretty sure that Chandler expected more to come of it, looking at Kurt with hope in his eyes at the end of each date. But Kurt couldn’t bring himself to kiss Chandler. Not when he didn’t feel anything for him other than gratitude and kinship.
So their relationship petered out before it could even begin, and Kurt couldn’t say he regretted it. But he’d very much hoped that his dating prospects would improve upon moving to New York City, and that hadn’t been the case.
Yes, the leader of the Adam’s Apples show choir had recruited him with a serenade, but he’d made no move beyond that, and Kurt hadn’t dared ask him out.
And when he’d started his Madonna cover band, he’d developed a crush on Elliott – could you blame him? – and admitted to it one night after a gig, half-drunk and giggly, only to be told that he was about five years too late to make his move. That was how long Elliott had been dating his boyfriend, and when he brought Mark along to rehearsal the next time, they proved to be ridiculously happy and in love. So no luck there, either.
It wasn’t his looks, he knew that much. In his stage combat lessons, he could see other students check out his body, which had filled out nicely. But none of them ever came on to him, and anyway, Kurt wasn’t sure he’d be interested in just a hook-up.
Still, it wasn’t fun to be the only one of his friends who’d never even been kissed. Other than by a girl or a bully, but that didn’t count. It didn’t, okay?
When Kurt tuned back into the conversation, he heard that they were talking about a tweet Tina had found on her Twitter feed that encouraged people getting married to send an invitation to all billionaires they could find the address of. If you got lucky, those billionaires’ secretaries would think you were a friend or relative of their boss and would send you a gift.
“Wouldn’t it be great if one of us got married so we could get some decent stuff for the loft?” Santana asked. "We barely have anything, and we could ask for all of it! A blender. A coffee machine. A panini maker. And, you know, bedding. Sleeping on the sofa would feel a lot better if I had a decent pillow and comforter. And bath towels. Big and thick ones."
“Oh yes,” Kurt chimed in. “A wok, a food processor, a real Le Creuset pan. Good knives. Matching sets of plates and cutlery. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but just more. Now we have to wash up after every meal because we only have six of everything.”
“A vacuum cleaner that actually works,” Rachel sighed. “It was nice of Carole to give us her old one, but let’s face it, its best days are over. Oh, and what about a quality throw blanket to hang over the sofa, to hide the stains?”
Kurt nodded. “I also want a full-length mirror for the bathroom, and a nicer hamper for the dirty laundry. The kind that doubles as a bench.”
Rachel put her chin in her hands and stared dreamily into space. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“It would,” Santana and Kurt agreed.
“Too bad none of us are getting married anytime soon,” Kurt mused.
“Well, I’m not seeing anyone, and neither are you,” Rachel said, “so technically, we could get fake hitched, but I don’t think anyone would buy you and I getting married. The wedding would be fabulous, of course, but obviously fake.”
Kurt suppressed a shudder, and Santana threw her head back and laughed.
Rachel pressed on, “But Santana could totally get married. What about it, Santana? At least you and Brittany are dating.”
The proposition shut Santana up at once. She stared at Rachel with her mouth wide open.
“I’d like to be married to you,” Brittany piped up, smiling softly and kissing Santana on the nose. “And I’m sure Kurt would help us plan the wedding, wouldn’t you, Kurt?”
Kurt grinned at her. “You know it!”
“And I know just what the invitation should look like!”
Brittany took a piece of crayon from behind her ear and started sketching a tree with hearts instead of leaves.
“That’s beautiful, honey,” Santana murmured, and Brittany beamed at her. “So we’re doing this?”
Santana nodded, and claimed Brittany’s lips for a lingering kiss.
“Okay, okay, that’s as much foreplay as I can stomach,” Kurt said. “Let’s get back to the loft. You can have my bed tonight if you promise not to be loud and not to get the bed linens dirty. Use a towel.”
Brittany kissed Kurt on the cheek. “Thank you, Kurtie!”
When they reached the loft, though, Brittany made no move to join Santana in Kurt’s bedroom. Instead, she badgered Kurt into opening Photoshop on his laptop so she could recreate the love tree in digital format. She added a recent picture of her and Santana, and looked up examples of wedding invitations on the internet to see what information should be on the card.
Before Kurt knew it, Brittany had commandeered all of his expensive ivory drawing paper to print the invitations on, and she set Rachel to work Googling names and addresses of billionaires.
Soon, Kurt was calligraphing these addresses onto hot pink and deep purple envelopes from Rachel’s stationary set, while Brittany was setting up an online wedding registry.
When that was done, she used up all of Rachel’s stamps to frank the invitations, and then ran out to go post them.
Rachel and Santana were already fast asleep by the time Brittany came back, and Kurt had almost drifted off when he heard a cheery, “There, all done!”
He chuckled at Brittany’s enthusiasm, closed his eyes and was out like a light.
The next day, they all woke up with hangovers and no recollection of their wacky wedding scheme nor the fake invitations Brittany had sent.
On Monday evening, though, Santana blanched and gasped when she checked her e-mails during dinner. “Dios mio!”
“What is it?” asked Rachel, spearing three green beans onto her fork.
“Brittany! She actually sent out wedding invites! And somebody has accepted the invitation. Who goes to a wedding of people they don’t know at all? And what on earth are we gonna do?”
“Wait, what? Who is this person?”
Rachel looked over Santana’s shoulder at the screen. “Cooper Anderson… Oh yeah, that’s the guy from those FreeCreditRating.com commercials, you remember? We all had that jingle as our ringtone for a while.”
“You mean YOU did,” Santana muttered, rolling his eyes.
Kurt wisely didn’t mention he’d had that ringtone, too.
Oh, he remembered the FreeCreditRating guy only too well. He even had a signed poster of him somewhere, that dated back to a talent show at the Westerville mall. Cooper Anderson had been one of the judges of the show, and Kurt had taken part just to get to see him in the flesh. Kurt had been the runner-up of the competition, after Rachel, and had gotten to shake Mr. Anderson’s hand and stammer about how much he admired him. And Mr. Anderson had been so gracious about it all, giving Kurt a 1,000 Watt smile and asking him if he’d like an autograph. So Kurt had whipped out his latest edition of Vogue and had Mr. Anderson sign a perfume ad he starred in.
Kurt smiled at the recollection, and nodded along when Rachel continued to gush about Mr. Anderson.
“He’s ever so handsome. And ever so rich. He’s a Westerville Anderson, so he comes from old money, and then he started this advertising company that everyone uses nowadays, so now he’s a billionaire ten times over.”
“Nice!” said Santana. “So whatever he buys us as a present, it’ll be worth it. But how are we going to pull this off in… What?! Less than a week! Britt put this Saturday as the wedding date!”
“WHAT?!!” Kurt and Rachel shrieked in unison.
Santana waved at the screen. “See for yourself. This Saturday, at 6.30 p.m., in our loft.”
Kurt shook his head in disbelief. “Five days! Neither of you have wedding dresses, we don’t have an officiant, we don’t have a wedding cake nor any other party food, we don’t have any flowers or decorations fit for a wedding. This is a disaster!”
“But you CAN do it, right?”
Santana’s hand clamped around Kurt’s arm like a vice, and she looked up at him beseechingly. “Please help us out? You organized Burt and Carole’s wedding in a week too, right?”
“Two weeks,” Kurt corrected absent-mindedly, his brain already working overtime. “I suppose I could manage it. But you’d owe me. Big time. I want at least half of the wedding present haul.”
“Done.”
Rachel clapped her hands and cheered. “Can we look at what people have bought you already?”
Santana clicked through to the wedding registry, and her face went slack with horror.
“What?” Kurt asked.
“Britt only put cat stuff on the list,” Santana groaned as she scrolled through the list. “Nothing but cat stuff.”
“She did what?” Rachel screeched.
Kurt didn’t say a word. He took over the mouse and checked what had been bought already. So far, Cooper Anderson was the only one who had chosen something. He had put his name down for a pet pavilion that was worth a cool 25 grand. 25 grand! For something so ridiculous! You could fit out an entire kitchen with that amount of money! What a waste!!
“Ugh, as much as I love Britt, I kind of hate her right now,” he murmured, and he heard Santana and Rachel hum in assent.
Kurt clicked on “Edit your wedding registry” and started to delete all of Brittany’s choices, one by one, muttering curses under his breath when he arrived at the costly pet pavilion that he couldn’t delete because it had already been bought.
“Now, before anyone else buys something we don’t want or need, let’s add all the stuff that we DO want,” he said, and between the three of them, they compiled a decent list.
When he’d clicked on “Save changes”, Kurt let out a deep breath. “Well, looks like I’ve got some wedding planning to do. This had better be worth it, San!”
Santana was still too shaken up to snark back. She just looked at Kurt like a deer caught in the headlights. “Can we do this?”
Kurt nodded. “We can do this. Calling Isabelle straight away!”
Isabelle, when she heard the story, laughed for five minutes straight, but then promised all the help she could offer. “Bring the brides along tomorrow, I’ll find them dresses and shoes, no problem. And you can use whatever decorations we have lying around here. What else do you need?”
“Rings for the brides. Dresses for two bridesmaids, I’ll bring them too. A three-piece suit for both me and the officiant,” Kurt started listing. “The others are on their own and will have to dig up whatever formal wear they’ve got lying around. Then, what else, let me think… Chairs for the ceremony. The weather will be nice on Saturday, thankfully, so we’ll have the ceremony and the reception on the roof of our building. There’s a railing all around, so it’s safe, and I’ve already made a cosy corner there that we sit in when the loft gets too hot. Very sturdy and well-made trelliswork. I will just have to decorate it.”
Isabelle hummed. “White roses. We’ve got tons of fake ones from the May issue, remember? You’re welcome to them, but make sure we get them back afterwards.”
“Will do,” Kurt promised. “The guests will have to go through our loft to get to the roof, though. You can only get there using the fire escape. So we will need a cover for our sofa. It’s in a terrible state. Stains all over. Ugh, we’ll have to start by cleaning the whole loft top to bottom. Girls, you WILL help!!”
Rachel and Santana murmured their agreement, and Santana went to look for cleaning supplies, while Rachel started to tackle the piled-up dishes in the sink.
“Oh, and could I borrow a few of those high tables people can stand around to eat finger food? We’ve got no room for a sit-down dinner.”
“Reception tables,” Isabelle said. “Yep, we have about twenty of them, and you’re not going to need that many, are you?”
“Nope. Five or six will do. Plus decent tablecloths for those tables, so that they don’t look cheap. I’d also like twinkle lights. As many as you can spare. And some sheer fabric or tulle I can wrap them in before I drape them all over the terrace.”
“Right, I’ll find you some,” Isabelle promised. “Do you need vases for flowers?”
Kurt hummed, thinking hard. “Nope, I’ll repurpose some empty wine bottles. Dipped in silver glitter, they’ll look fab. I’ll hang some on the railing and I’ll put the others on the reception tables. And some in the loft as well. And maybe some twinkle lights there, too. If you have some other decoration ideas, please let me know. Oh, and wedding favors! What do I do for wedding favors? For my dad and stepmom, I put a wheelbarrow with seed packets in the garden, with a sign that said, ‘Take one and watch love grow’. But that only works for a garden wedding.”
Isabelle hummed. “Let me think about it and get back to you. What are you going to do about the food?”
“Make it myself. Thank heavens we have a big fridge and freezer. We’re going to need every inch of space.”
Isabelle tutted. “Don’t overdo it, Kurt. You don’t want to fall asleep halfway through the wedding because you’ve been working day and night to make this perfect.”
“I’ll make everyone help.”
The steel in Kurt’s voice made Rachel and Santana look up from their work in alarm, but they didn’t protest. They knew all too well it was futile.
The rest of the week passed in a frenzy of cleaning, cooking, baking, decorating as well as inviting and briefing their other friends.
Elliott agreed to act as the officiant for the wedding, Artie offered his services as a DJ and Tina volunteered to be the photographer. Mercedes and Artie rehearsed the song for the first dance while the brides worked on the dance itself. Sam made himself invaluable running errands and assisting Kurt from dusk till dawn, and didn’t give a peep in protest when Kurt sat him down for a haircut.
By Saturday afternoon, the loft and the terrace both looked splendid. The twinkle lights wrapped in tulle gave the loft ceiling and the terrace a dreamy but festive air, and the silver bottles holding colorful flowers added to the splendor without making it tacky.
Kurt was hard at work decorating the top tier of the wedding cake while Elliott rehearsed the ceremony with San and Britt, Rachel prompting them whenever they faltered.
When the cake was safely stowed away in the fridge, Kurt checked the wedding registry one last time. It seemed like all his work had served some purpose after all. Their scheme had worked out pretty well. Brittany and Santana had received a gift from no less than eighteen billionaires, some of it pricey stuff. The Louis XV pet pavilion was a sad waste of money, of course, but Kurt was pleased with the other gifts, and was mentally already picking his favorites.
Humming happily, he helped zip up dresses and arrange the brides’ and bridesmaids’ hair, and then went to his bedroom to put his suit on and check on his coif.
When he headed back to the living room, he noticed that all their friends had arrived, and grimaced at all the noise they produced. He hadn’t slept properly in days, and he felt a headache coming on, throbbing at his temples.
Artie was testing the music installation, and soon all of the former Glee clubbers were singing and laughing and dancing. Kurt slunk away to the kitchen and put his head against the cool metal of the fridge to soothe the pain.
He’d almost dozed off when a loud voice rang through the loft. Mr. Anderson! He’d arrived!
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hi! i've always wanted to ask how you got into doing art / photo manipulations in the way that you do? your style is so unique and beautiful, i was wondering if you took inspo from any other sources? hope that made sense, have a nice day!
hi! thank you so much for your kind words about my work and my style! ❤and this is seriously the most interesting ask i’ve ever gotten in my entire life, so thank you so much for that too, anon! it’s a pretty long story, but i’ll try not to ramble (and if i do i’m sorry)
first thing you should know i was drawing since i was a little kid, literally no other activity could occupy me that much, so i basically taught myself to draw (my whole family draws, but it’s more of a hobbie for my parents and my brother and they never really taught me, just gave me freedom to try)
i’m saying that just so you know i had a major traditional drawing background before i’ve tried anything digital
then when i was like 15 i entered my first ever fandom, which was twilight and i’m not ashamed (maybe a little), and in that time in fandom one the most popular activities was - doing fanfiction cover for other people’s stories, and so i thought i want to be able to do that! and i’ve started to descover for myself what photoshop is
and for the next few years i was teaching myself to work with this program and at first, of course, it was A BIG MESS:
but i’ve managed to understand what works and what not, and people started to request fanfic covers from me, so i made them (it wasn’t like commission because at this point fandom didn’t figure out we can do that yet), it was something like this:
so for all those years i taught myself how to work with colors, croping, textures, text, everything, but i never added drawn details to it because i’ve never knew what a drawing tablet even is
but for all those covers it was often necessary to make manips and i’ve started to learn how to do that too and (as with everything) it was a… not good at first, i mean look at it:
as you can see it was… a journey
then one day i’ve discovered what a drawing tablet is (when i was in glee fandom a few years later and everyone was drawing digital stuff), so i begged my parents to buy me my first drawing tablet (i was a shitty one let me tell you and it died like a year later, but that’s not the point)
and with it i’ve started doing what oh so many people on the internet do (which was the first step towards what i’m doing now), i took different pictures, maniped them together and TRACED all the lines on top of it with the new layer, and then just blurred the original pictures that were still on the bottom layer, and i wasn’t telling people about how i did it, so they thought i’ve drawn it all from the scratch (don’t do it, people, just say you traced it, no one cares):
so it looked… ok? but now when i look at it i think it’s all messy and… yeah, no, it’s not good at allbut for all those years i was watching so many people who photomanipulated pictures too (in a very different style than i do, but oh so beautifully), it wasn’t like one or two artist that i admired, it was seeing those thing now and then, and mostly in the works of people who were still doing all those fic covers, but were getting better and better at it
and then i saw that some book covers look like that too, like those amazing smooth manips that i’ve always wanted to know how to do
what i didn’t understand back then was that i’ve already knew, i’ve already done that, but i’ve messed it up every time i was tracing over my manips trying to pretend it’s a drawing, instead of just working on the pistures i’ve manipulated and try and make them look more whole and realystic
at some point i even made a few manips that looked distantly like what i’m doing now:
and i just sort of rejected this idea of doing manips, because i wanted to teach myself to draw digitally, not photomanipulate
and then i started to try and make manips like those (like i saw on book and fic covers) for the covers i was making (still) and it worked and i liked how it looked:
so i thought why not try to do that not for a cover, but just like an illustration, and i made this one piece and it changed everything:
you can find it here on tumblr
i saw people talking in the comments and tags about how it looks like a picture and like a drawing at the same time and i thought: ok, maybe i’m onto something here, maybe i do want to make stuff like that
and so i did
and in the middle of making the second one of these i’ve lost my first tablet, i finished it using mouse (it was hell) and it turned out looking like that:
you can find it here on tumblr
and then a few month later i got a new tablet (which i’m working with to this day) and i’ve just started to make things like that more and more, it felt like i finally found my style, but it was taking me so much time to make each one of those that in a year all i’ve made was:
7 pieces… ok i’ve also made some gifs and i’ve tried drawing chibi for the first time that year too, but you get the point, it was hard for me to learn how to do it quickly, but at the same time be satisfied with how each finished piece looks
and then it was just hours and hours and hours of practice and pain (kidding about the pain, but not really, it was tough) and here we are now, that piece i’ve made last week for will tudor’s birthday has 5 characters on it and it took me like two and half days (?) to make it, if you’d shown me this manip a few years ago when i’ve just started and told me i did it in such a short time i would never believe you
so everything comes with practice, and if you want to be able to do something - be curious, try things you were afraid to try before, look at the other people who does it (but not too much, because you have your own style and your own road to it) and most importantly just… just make something, even if at first you’ll thing it looks like a mess, trust me, i know what a mess is, it gets better ❤
#Anonymous#bee answers#this is a long post#sorry for that#i promised not to ramble and i blew it#anyway look it's like the history of me#it looks like a fucking power point presentation i'm so sorry
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My Little Sister ☆ Can’t Be This Cute!
Chapter 1 | Kiss Kiss Fall in Love!
Pairings: Noctis/Reader
Genre: Romance
Tags: Pre-Canon | Fluff and Humor | Eventual Romance | Slow Burn | Enemies to Friends to Lovers | Reader-Insert | Big Brother Ignis | Idol Reader
Characters: Noctis, Ignis, Prompto, Gladio, & You, an Idol!
Chapter Rating: G
Crossposted on: ao3
Summary: Noctis thought he knew everything about his Advisor. And then there’s some.
i: “Dude.” Prompto says.
Noctis does his best impression of The Thinker dating from M.E. 655.
“Iggy’s into this kind of thing.” Prompto asks, sans question mark. The shock definitely got to him. “Did you know about it.”
Bros gotta protect each other’s secrets, right? Right. But the bro code never outlined an emergency protocol when two bros are pitted against each other. Who’s to say which bro is more important to him? ‘cause Prompto’s a bro, Ignis’ a bro, and asking him to pick between two bros is like asking him to choose either Assassin’s Creed or King’s Knight.
i:
Maybe Ignis has a thing for things like this, Noctis reasons. Under all that elegant pomp and heavily accented words rolling off a tongue peculiarly eloquent in jabs, steam-soft shirts and slacks swishing about as he walks, maybe he secretly harboured an interest in things betraying his stern and stoic stature. Being the personal advisor to the prince grants him no leeway in freely expressing his interests beyond what Noctis eats, which meetings Noctis should be attending, when Noctis finishes classes, and whether or not Noctis got over his lachanophobia. Which, according to Ignis Posh Scientia, is fear of vegetables.
(Noctis so does not have a fear of vegetables.)
(He just doesn’t like them.)
(Very much.)
None of his internal monologues answered why on Eos in this standard Audi commissioned to every Citadel staff, in this dull sedan with its immaculate leather trim and waxed dashboard, Ignis kept a CD.
An idol CD. The kind you’d find in a budget bin somewhere in Rock Corner for 90% off just because they want to get rid of trashy music as soon as possible lest it besmirches their shop’s status. Flashy pink booklet with signature of the iNTERGALACTiC ★ DiVΔ done in gold, sprawled all over its childish arrangement of what seems to be said Intergalactic Diva in the idolesque ensemble of flouncy skirt, crisp blazer scattered with silvery military embellishment, wearing the laciest pair of platform heels while simultaneously surrounded with stuffed toys. Stuffed toys. As if the whole setup made sense only to the art director like some army veteran crossing over the whole cute couture concept they’ve got going on here.
Noctis takes another good look at the CD. A deeper, closer, more intimate look at the girly plastic casing and its tracklist on the back as though it’d explain the enigma suddenly surrounding the secret life of his 21-year-old Advisor and his secret stash.
Six minutes later, Noctis replaces the CD where it belongs: Right in the deepest, darkest corner of the glove compartment, where no eyes may venture where his accidentally went.
And then he went on searching for his missing phone.
ii:
A month and a half later, Noctis is pleased to announce that he’s entirely forgotten about the idol debacle. While the matter had loitered around the recesses of his mind for a maximum of two days, it’s all water-under-the-bridge kind of thing because nobody got hurt and he’s not about to make fun of his Advisor for repressing the urge to listen to the peppy trills of an idol singing about high school crushes and unrequited love. Everyone’s got their own jam, like Prompto who’s always blasting Ron Goodwin out of one earpiece whenever they gather to demolish their assignments, and then there’s Gladio who’d sometimes slink onto the sofa with his nose buried in either An Inquiry into the Good or Romancing Sir Sigurd, and there’s no in-between.
In fact, Noctis is actually more than happy to safeguard Ignis’ secret for the rest of his entire life just because he’s such a bro (or in his case, he conveniently forgot about it), but he’s also failed to take into account that Prompto’s exceptionally good at noticing things. Photographer quirk, he calls it.
“Dude.” Prompto says.
Noctis does his best impression of The Thinker dating from M.E. 655.
“Iggy’s into this kind of thing.” Prompto asks, sans question mark. The shock definitely got to him. “Did you know about it.”
Bros gotta protect each other’s secrets, right? Right. But the bro code never outlined an emergency protocol when two bros are pitted against each other. Who’s to say which bro is more important to him? ‘cause Prompto’s a bro, Ignis’ a bro, and asking him to pick between two bros is like asking him to choose either Assassin’s Creed or King’s Knight.
Noctis weighs the two. He chances a glance at Prompto’s shell-shocked stance of a hand barely touching the glossy cover of an・an unrolled from the boring brown paperbag of weekly groceries. There it is again, that iNTERGALACTiC ★ DiVΔ graces the cover in all of your majestic glory. Forgoing all the sparkling cuteness of a girleen for elegance, pearls in your sedate coiffure, smoky makeup and that white-tipped-fingernails thing girls do when they want to be extra fancy. You're pretty—no, beautiful, actually—but then again, when is a magazine cover not photoshopped? Yeah.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you this,” Prompto goes on at Noctis’ extended silence, “cuz I thought he was Moogling some recipe for dinner but dude, he was ordering her CD off Amazon. Thought that was a one-time thing so I was pretty meh about it,” he shrugs, “but y’know, it was so not a one-time thing because it was a five-time thing—”
Noctis makes a sound in his throat. Never underestimate a photographer’s quirk.
“—and I’m really not gonna judge if he’s into idols since they’re cute,” Prompto nods along to his rambling which gets Noctis to nod along just to show he’s listening and oh he’s listening all right, “but it got me thinking.”
And when Prompto starts thinking, that’s when Noctis should start getting really worried.
As if guided by his instincts more than his rational mind, the blond extracts an・an and smoothens it on the table, palms pressing down the corners like this elusive evidence of Ignis’ intersecting interest in the idol world will do a comical poof and disappear in curly smoke. His stare hardens more than a diamond. “Iggy’s birthday’s around the corner, right?”
“Uh.” Noctis really can’t see where this is going and subtly wonders if abusing the powers of the Oracle would grant him a vision into the future for something like this. Would Luna grant him her strength in times of great emergency if he blasted a message through Umbra? “I guess? It’s next week. February 7th.”
Prompto makes a sound in his throat that is eerily similar to Noctis’. And when he turns, Noctis thinks the light in his eyes is bright enough to banish the impending gloom and doom prophesized in the future. He might as well be the King of Light at this rate.
Prompto says, “Dude. I’ve got an idea.”
iii:
When Prompto says he has an idea, it’d normally be a great idea. “Wanna ditch and hang out at the arcade?” he’d ask, to which a 16-year-old Noctis would do a 180 from returning to class after lunch and misuse his warping talent to zip in and out of his classroom with his bag through the window, and they’d rendezvous at Club Sega just for diversion tactics. Blasting through zombie brains and kicking each other’s ass in Street Fighter, they’d spend the whole evening there unless Ignis hears them play hooky, usually by way of a ‘concerned’ teacher ratting them out at the very last second. At most, Noctis gets an earful that he evades with practiced ignorance with all that regurgitated nonsense of he’s the prince and he shouldn’t be skipping school, but.
This idea.
It’s very bad.
Noctis doesn’t know why, but it’s very bad.
Going up to the receptionist counter and boldly proclaiming that he’s the prince isn’t at the top of list of things he wanted to do because he’s really not into blatant exploitation of his title. But hey, it works. It takes one slack-jawed, starry-eyed intern whispering in awe, “Prince Noctis? Can I get your autograph please?” and a ballpen hastily scrawling across lipstick-smudged napkin later, he finds himself fidgeting on a stool in a bright dressing room, bulbs lining the mirror blasting him with light. Rolling racks are hanging with the most absurd yet lavishly decorated dresses decked in chiffons and sequins in all the colours a rainbow has to offer. Striped tophat completes what he thinks is a feminine form of a tuxedo, while thigh-high boots are stationed under a rugged combo of punk-rock aesthetics involving a PVC-belted skirt and metallic studs. The world of an idol is far more fearsome than the life of a prince destined to die, he thinks.
Prompto turns to him with the most scandalised expression ever after taking stock of the myriad of makeup products littered on the countertop, gasping, “That was way easier than I thought.”
“I’m just glad they didn’t kick up a huge fuss over it,” Noctis grunts. Then, as if the weight of what they’re doing is finally hitting him with the force of Gladio’s blows, Noctis blows a limp lock of hair out of his face. “We’re really doing this.”
Prompto cocks a brow and appropriates the plastic stool across him. “Dude, you’ve got a better birthday bash idea going on?”
Noctis couldn’t answer that.
No, really, he couldn’t even answer that because the moment he opens his mouth, the door opens instead. What’s he supposed to do other than to gape like a fish out of water, an expression he’s seen from all the fishes he strung up on his line, when you flounced right in? That hair cannot be natural, Noctis thinks, as he eyes the way light powders pastel purple tresses crowned by roses. Hands from who he thinks is your personal stylist are fussing over the deep wrinkles left by the rippling of your complicated dress, while the bespectacled woman beside you glares at him from behind a clipboard. Petals flaking from your cheek to your collarbone, filigrees cresting your shoulders—unless Photoshop worked in real-time, there’s no way a person would look that unearthly.
The way Prompto’s jaw is hanging tells him that he’s not alone in his thoughts.
Contact lenses are obviously the explanation behind your roseate eyes, there’s no other way he’s going to accept someone else having eyes that pretty. And false eyelashes, the kind that Gladio babbled about when Iris broke his bank wanting to experiment with makeup, yeah, that stuff’s definitely glued someway somehow on your eyelids. It makes sense that an idol’s job is to look pretty because looks sell either way and everyone loves a pretty face, so. Yeah. Noctis doesn’t know where he’s going with his train of thoughts because it’s on the verge of derailing right now, especially when those eyes flit to seek his and the corners of glossy lips curl with a sanguine smile.
You are unhesitant in striding forward to offer him your hand. Confident. Bold. Singsong sweet, the singer you are. “You must be Prince Noctis,” you say, and he’s never known that his name would sound that nice on someone else’s tongue. “Sorry you had to see me like this, I was in the middle of a shoot when you arrived.”
What was he supposed to say at times like this again?
Right, first: The handshake.
His legs are jelly-filled donuts when he stands and his arms are wet spaghetti. Prompto almost toppled his stool when he gets to his feet to receive your hand after Noctis. “I, ah,” Noctis starts, smooth because they never rehearsed this far? And how is he supposed to be making demands as a prince to an idol? When Prompto’s rapidly zoning into outer space and ascending to Astral realm instead of helping him out right now? “Uh—I. We,” he quickly rectifies the moment the Bespectacled Woman’s dirty look peeps from the rim of her glasses, “we’re here to ask if you’d meet with my friend.”
And here is where he stops, just because your brows stitch together following a quizzical tilt of head.
That stuff only looks cute in anime.
And it doesn’t help that you look 100% anime right now.
A quick darting of your eyes from Noctis to Prompto has your smile deepening. “So that’s him?”
You’re definitely getting the wrong idea here and it’s up to Noctis to save the day by jamming his elbow right in Prompto’s side. An embarrassing yelp that shot Prompto’s soul straight into his body later, the blond’s back in commission with a shaky laugh. “Ha—who, me? N-no, not this Argentum!”
…or maybe not.
Noctis wills himself to stomach Bespectacled Woman’s increasingly incensed glare and tries to remember why he’s doing this in the first place. For his bro. For Ignis Scientia. Best advisor. Birthday. Gotta make it meaningful. Idols. Cute idols. Huge fan. You. Right. “He’s not here right now,” Noctis corrects the misunderstanding as confusion clouds your face, “because we’re trying to keep it a secret. His birthday’s on February 7 and we’re trying to make it a surprise party because he’s a big fan of yours.” At your unrelenting stare, he deflates a little. “He’s, ah, my personal advisor.”
For a second, silence reigns.
“Oh,” you say.
He doesn’t get a chance to consult what ‘oh’ means in Idol-Speak when Bespectacled Woman interjects, “So big of a fan until the prince himself has to abuse his authority and make Diva miss out on Gucci?” And boy, Noctis hates being on the other end of Death Ray shooting from her eyes.
But you’re quicker to laugh at his honesty, batting the woman on her arm. “It’s okay, Isolde, I got this.” And for him, a mischievous smile replaces your prior confusion as you offer yet another handshake, this time for another reason altogether. “Aite, you’ve got yourself a deal! Let’s make this an epic birthday bash, yeah?”
When things work out far too easily, one should be suspicious.
Noctis, however, chalks it up to good luck when he hears Prompto splitting into a deafening, “Woohoo!” and answers your smile with a grin. The biggest, widest grin he could muster.
Because this is going to be the best birthday party ever.
iv:
This is not the best birthday party.
Ever.
There are tears down your cheeks and you’re choking on your words. Your makeup should’ve been a mess but some part of Noctis is thanking the Astrals that guided your makeup artist to apply waterproof ones, probably out of sheer experience, because he’s never seen anyone bawling this bad before. Whatever Iris had before doesn’t even cut close to this. Fists balled in your skirt, this verbal fisticuff doesn’t even look like it’s coming close to an ending. Even a fear-frozen Prompto’s clutching a gawking Gladio by the bicep and they’re far, far away from the warzone while Noctis is the only idiot brave enough to remain where he first sat.
That is, right in between an eerily silent Ignis and a Diva well underway your waterworks.
“You know well by now that my duty to Prince Noctis cannot be taken lightly,” asserts his Advisor in the calmest, coldest manner that could’ve frosted the entirety of Leide. “I’ve explained it to you time and time again that I’m—“
“You’re the advisor, I get it,” you choke out, “but I wanted a big brother that I could’ve talked to! All you did was to toss me aside like I was—“
“I never tossed you aside,” Ignis rebukes, the hiss of his words coming from thinning lips that is gradually downturned. “I received your calls, I replied to your messages, I listened to mother and father talking about you—“
“I’m always the one who has to do all the texting, calling!” you shriek in a pitch only sopranos could trill. Tears trekking down your cheeks, you are a sobbing, shuddering mess to Noctis’ left, the backs of your hands swiping away teardrops swaying off your jawline. “When did you ever call me!? When did you even bother to say good morning to me!? It’s always me who has to tell you—“
“I have a job,” Ignis retorts, adjusting his glasses from sliding down the bridge of his nose. “If I’m not carrying out my duties as an Advisor, I am at the Citadel attending meetings—“
This is crazy.
He’s going crazy.
In all honesty, he’s never tried watching soap operas for this very same reason: He can’t handle the drama. All the tears, all the angry exchanges, plots doing a backflip from I-love-you-so-much-I-will-die-for-you to I-don’t-love-you-anymore-because-we-are-actually-siblings-separated-at-birth. Galahdan soaps are notorious for pulling the rug under Prompto’s feet and making him drop series faster than his runs. But this? This is another level of drama, one that has Noctis nursing his throbbing temples because who would’ve guessed that said Intergalactic Diva is his Advisor’s little sister? And who would’ve guessed that not only Gladiolus Amicitia has a little sister, Ignis Scientia, too, has a little sister of his own?
Definitely not Noctis.
And definitely not Prompto and Gladio too, judging from how their eyeballs are playing ping-pong with how they’re chasing after Ignis’ accusations, only to have your indignant interruption instead.
While that explains why Ignis hides idol CDs and bought girly magazines, it does a poor job in explaining why he’s caught in a crossfire between the Scientias.
“You hate me,” you spit out, and woah what part of the episode did Noctis miss out? He’s pretty sure he paused on the whole you-never-spent-time-with-me, so how did it end up this way?
Ignis removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes scrunched tight with a pain only a brother could feel. “I do not hate you. I’ve never hated you, (y/n), never.”
“You hate me ever since I said I wanted to be an idol,” you sob out an octave lower, reddened eyes stabbing Ignis’ accusatorily. With how your bottom lip is quivering, it’s a wonder how your words manage to come out as a whole, sans stutters. “You said it’s a shameless job, you said they’re just exploiting high schoolers, you said—“
“But I respected your decision—“
“After ma and pa made you—“
“That’s because I was worried about you—“
“And I keep telling you not to worry because you met Isolde and you met Ninian and you met Watanabe—“
“And they are nice people but—“
—yeah, Noctis needs time out here because this sounds like a huge misunderstanding.
He composed a three-second plan and had it executed by standing up slowly and letting the chair drag right behind him across hardwood, letting the painful skrrrrrrrrrrrrrr scream cut off what's left of the argument. And what an epic entry into the fray it is, Noctis thinks. Ignis is riveted by his uncharacteristic boldness and has resorted to clicking his mouth shut. Your sobs don’t stop, but at least your red-eyed red-nosed red-cheeked face wordlessly thanked him for the interruption. From the sidelines, Prompto’s mouthing at him don’t do it Noct don’t get involved in the family feud but Six, Noct needs to straighten things out because technically he’s mildly at fault here for eating up his Advisor’s time by 70% even though it’s Ignis’ job, he thinks you don’t know how much Ignis actually cherishes your journey to idolhood and bought your CDs and magazines, and someone’s gotta eat that delicious two-tiered fondant-frosted cake on the table.
Besides, he’s going to be the King of Lucis, damn it, so what kind of king would he be if he can’t solve a petty squabble between two siblings?
Turning to Ignis, Noctis breathes out. “I got this.”
Ignis does not think he got this. “Noct—“
Turning to you, Noctis snatches a napkin from his armiger and crams it in your hand. “Listen, Iggy doesn’t mean anything bad,” he starts as you’re carefully dabbing your eyes, teeth raking across gloss-sticky lips. “I’m the reason he can’t spend a lot of time with you because it’s his job as my advisor and there’s no helping it.” This is where Ignis makes an indignant noise and tries to cut in, but Noctis warp-strikes to his next sentence. “—And that part where you said Specs doesn’t care about you? You’re wrong. He bought a magazine with you on the cover. He even had your CD in his car.”
Ignis makes another noise that sounds torn between vehement denial and dying embarrassment. “Noct—“
Prompto, the greatest wingman in every GTA heist they pulled off, nods so rapidly in his corner until he looks like he’s having a seizure. “Yeah—no, seriously, he did,” he convinces you when you turn disbelieving eyes at him, napkin crumpling under fancy nails. “And I saw him going on Amazon trying to get all your limited edition albums. Five times.”
“Oh Gods,” Ignis chokes out, burning an interesting shade that contrasts with his hair. “Prompto—“
“And we didn’t know that Ignis had a sibling because if we knew that Iggy had a little sis, we would’ve made him spend more time at home,” Gladio asserts, leaving his seat. “I know how ya feel because I’ve got a lil’ sister too. She calls me and texts me and nags me all the time if I don’t spend at least a weekend with her. Don’t get me wrong,” he adds when you turn sullen, putting up a hand to stop whatever retort you prepared, “I appreciate it when she does things like that for me. Sure, it gets annoying when I get nagged for missing movie night, but she’s my little sister and I got nobody else to protect except for this scrawny ass prince we have here.”
Noctis balks at the jab aimed specifically for him, fighting off the heat burning up his cheeks. “Shut up. You’re missing the point.”
“—a-anyway, the point here is that Iggy really cares for you even when you think he doesn’t!” Prompto crows when you look like you traded your sullen expression for a wobbling lower lip and eyes flooding with fresh tears. “We swear this is probably just a huge misunderstanding and we can probably talk this out to fix it! Right, Ignis?”
Such bros they are, never once allowing Ignis to shoulder the blame alone. Always we and never him.
Ignis looks like he has half the mind to surrender to the Astrals’ machinations hell bent on messing up his birthday—only, everything comes to a stop when you sniff. A loud sniff. And erupt into the biggest bawling session ever, dashing straight to Ignis’ arms. His poor Advisor gets his life squeezed out of him, smothered in his little sister’s death grip, but Noctis knows the glassy sheen in his green eyes isn’t a trick of light.
Noctis clicks his mouth shut and eyeballs Prompto and Gladio, who’re trading self-satisfied smirks between the three. Sure, maybe you’re crying harder than Iris when she got ratted out at the Citadel, and sure, the sounds are hideous like a behemoth’s mating cry, but it’s a job well done for all of them.
All’s well ends well.
v:
It is much later on, when you’ve dried your tears and Ignis changed out of a tear-streaked snot-soaked shirt, that they’re all gathered round the dining table with party poppers readied and candles glowing. That delicious two-tiered fondant-frosted cake dips under Ignis’ plastic knife and, under a shower of glitter paper and confetti, Noctis plates the first slice for the man of the hour. Turning 22 is hard work for Ignis who’s probably grown up feeling like he’s 30 all the time, and his Advisor probably deserves a medal of honour from the king for putting up with Noctis all the time, but this?
Eating cake together with his friends?
And having solved the sibling squabble between an attention-starved little sister and her excessively diligent big brother?
This is the closest he could get, he guesses.
one:
They’re crowding around him again.
“It must be nice being the prince! I bet you can do whatever you want!”
“So how many servants do you have? Ten? A hundred?”
“Noooo, it must be a thousand!”
Noctis Lucis Caelum, the name of the prince who stole your brother. Iggie was promised to the prince ever since he turned eight, and stopped being eight at that moment. For a boy who stole Iggie, he doesn’t look special. Sullen and withdrawn, cherub cheeks and choppy bangs. Hardly a word passing his lips as though nobody is deserving of his voice. You know, because you sit right beside him in class. Always staring at the skies as though the Astrals spoke to him in tones a human can’t, the prince surely daydreams of things only a prince could daydream about. Living in the grand Citadel with a hundred—no, a thousand helping hands, and your brother is simply one of his faceless servants.
You do not know if you detest him for stealing Iggie away or if you envy him instead.
Because he gets to spend more time with Iggie than you ever did.
two:
This is a memory you removed from your treasure box, a careful hand dusting over the grime caking the frame. It is a class picture of all the first graders, bobbed haircuts and flushed skin from sitting under a sun, trying to stare into the camera as sunlight flares off its lens. Arranged from left to right in the first row: Asuka and Sheryl are inseparable from the start; Ben, Jonathan, and Yukio are the rascals always running down the hallways when the teacher says not to; your homeroom teacher, Madam Maria, who teaches maths before lunch; crybaby Aina who doesn’t like eating alone; fraternal twins, Rebecca and Junior are always holding hands; Noctis and you, two seemingly unrelated people who are, in all actuality, related to each other by way of Ignis Scientia.
Even as you take a closer look at the yellowing photograph curling around the edges, you still don’t know what Noctis is thinking about.
Does he know about you?
Does he know about your existence?
What about your family name? Surely he’s noticed it?
If so, will he finally relate you to your brother?
Will he finally notice you?
And will he finally return Iggie to you?
three:
Mother packed your lunch today; your favourites, rice with heart-shaped sprinkles in pink, deep-fried chicken, egg mayo salad, and steamed crab cakes. Here, you are swinging your legs, chopsticks picking off one treat after another. Asuka and Sheryl are giggling from the corner of the classroom, trading side dishes like sisters from the same womb. Aina’s gone ahead and joined Rebecca and Junior at their tables, dragging her chair over with a ringing scratch over the tiles. Somewhere outside the class, on the field below, the boys are immersed in a quick football game and trying to outdo each other for the qualifiers next week. They’ll surely come back into class later, reeking of salty sweat in this humid summer, which makes you bite into your crab cake a bit harder.
At least they have friends, you think.
At least they’re not alone, you think.
Not lonely like me, you think.
Is the prince capable of feeling loneliness like you do?
Of course not.
He always has your brother with you.
Always.
NOTES:
first off: if you feel you aint cute, you cute af. You cute as all hells in this fic. Believe in yourself you a cutie patootie 2019!
secondly: we’re going to be dealing with a lot of body image & skin problems & self-esteem issues in this fic, so that’s a heads up.
thirdly: HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGNIS SCIENTIA!
Chapter 2: What ‘bout My Star?
Someone stands before Noctis, and it’s not his bespectacled Advisor brooding on his tendency to sleep in, which is truly unbecoming for a prince. It’s a girl, veiled by an anti-pollen face mask, wearing the roundest pair of hipster glasses he’s ever seen. Nondescript snapback, shirt and acid wash jeans—what is this, why does he feel oddly scrutinized under her eyes and why does she even look at him that way?
Noctis blinks in hopes of clearing the mirage, fails to find an explanation, and affords a minute of silence before going, “Uh?”
For a moment, he thinks she’s smiling—her eyes crinkle upwards, but when it comes, it shakes the breath out of him. “Morning, Noctis. Diva here.”
It, meaning your imaginary punch to his solar plexus.
#noctis x reader#noctis/reader#Noctis Lucis Caelum#ffxv#final fantasy xv#final fantasy xv fanfic#fanfic#my little sister#ignis scientia#prompto argentum#gladiolus amicitia#happy birthday ignis!#man this fic is long overdue#if you think this fic is shits and giggles#man yall are gonna hate me
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Terrarium Nova
Would you guys believe this started out as me trying to practice trees & use up some leftover paints sitting in/on my palettes from other projects?
The tree practicing is for a different project I'll be doing later, and I'll share the specifics of then
But yeah, I have a good amount of leftover watercolor dried onto a couple of cheap palettes, as well as some acrylics paints in a palette meant to keep them fresh (but unless you monitor it and spritz them with water every couple of days, they will still eventually dry up) and I really hate to waste any of it if I can help it, especially when it's my slightly nicer stuff. (Some of it was, some of it wasn't)
So I figured I'd try to kill two birds with one stone, and the end result ended up looking pretty cool, although I do still have some more paint that didn't get used here, so this may not be the last random-ish painting you see from me.
Oh, and I was also recycling a little bit since I used the back of a giant piece of watercolor paper I had previously used as a protective mat for my desk.
I started with the tree shapes, mostly inspired by Bonsai trunks, and that actually did use up pretty much all of the dark brownish paint I was using, so I was off to a strong start. Then I went in with some metallic watercolor that was leftover from my Butterfly Babe piece, which dried with more of the black and silver I had mixed into it on top for reason unbeknownst to me, so the first little hill/mound I made naturally came out darker and more silvery than the additional hills I added later than came out decidedly more gold.
I think after that I added in the orange sun/planet (in my head it's the sun but a lot of the details here are very ambiguous in what they could potentially be) and an accompanying orange horizon line. Originally, I thought I was going to be making a very sunset-ish background with possibly a very red sky and mixing the yellows in more, but that obviously didn't end up happening. I was kinda just going with what I felt like and where the paint wanted to take me.
So I ended up going in with the yellows (and later red and magenta) leftover from my $50 vs $4 Watercolors piece (these ones being the $50 ones, the $4 ones were put on a separate palette while I was using them so I wouldn't get the two mixed up) and ended up making many yellow hills to fill out the background some more, though admittedly the ones on the left kinda got away from me a little.
And I'll pause here to say that I was using water brushes throughout this entire piece as opposed to actual paintbrushes, and every time I use those (at least when I'm getting proper water flow) I find that I tend to have a somewhat easier time getting certain watercolor effects, mostly when it comes to blending out hard edges. It's funny to me, as a lot of artists would say water brushes have a higher learning curve than regular brushes, and I'm sure some have a harder time with them. I think the main reason I have an easier time might be because back at the beginning of the year when I started re-discovering watercolor, the first set of paints that got (the Viviva watercolor sheets, for anyone who's curious) came with a water brush, and at the time I had never used one and was really excited to try it, as well as I just didn't have a ton of brushes at my disposal. Likewise, I spent a lot of my time learning watercolors on a water brush, whereas, naturally, most artists learn primarily on regular brushes.
To be fair, I would like to one day invest in a slightly nicer set than the cheaper set of different size water brushes that I currently have, as these don't always flow correctly and at least one has a very slow leak where the top screws on, which hasn't caused any painting problems but is just kind of annoying because it very slowly gets my hand wet while I'm using it.
Anyway. I then decided I hadn't used enough of that metallic paint and went in and added some dots of various sizes in the sky, since I didn't really feel like trying to make proper stars of any kind, but I wanted more up there and that seemed like a good place for more metallic paint.
After that, the plan was to start on my red sky, but I started putting the red down and realized I hadn't cleaned my brush very good, so I got this interesting shimmery darker red color, and since I had already messed up, I liked the color enough I decided to make a moon out of it, which is why that red pot is hanging out over on the left side there. Why this "moon" and the "sun" are out at the same time, I couldn't tell you. Sometimes things just happen in art.
That led me to the decision that instead of covering the whole sky in a color, I would just add some clouds, and I decided to got with the expensive magenta on my palette. Things were going fine until I grabbed more paint than water (as I was hoping for kind of pale/blended out soft clouds) and I ended up with some pretty nasty unblended lines one of the clouds and it was notably darker at the top than the others. And so I introduced the technique of "this one cloud got messed up so the rest of you have to suffer!" And I also kind of had to be okay with none of the blending and layering on them turning out super smooth or nice for consistency's sake. And you know, it's not fine art or anything, but it doesn't look as terrible as I thought it was going to. (Though that could really be said for this entire piece. )
I also ended up adding in the purple-y mountains in the foreground after feeling bad that I'd neglected some of the paints I'd originally been intended to use the most, and I think in the end it adds a nice contrast and kind of ties the magenta clouds into the piece as a whole more.
I knew I still wanted to do leaves on my trees, which were still just bare trunks and branches by this point, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for them yet, so I did this kind of dome thing for the sky, after acknowledge I did not want to have to try and get a smooth, consistent blue wash around everything else I'd already painted in. (Yes, I once again forgot the principal rule of painting--put the background in first)
While that dried, I took a break to ponder my next move.
I hadn't used any of the acrylic paints that I had leftover (more than I originally would've had too, as I ended up making a sign for my mom that I haven't decided yet if I want to post or not) and one of the colors was green, which is a very basic choice for leaves, but I already had so many other strange colors going on that the basic blue sky and some simple green leaves didn't seem like asking too much. So then I just had to decide what the leaves were going to look like.
In the end, I went with using the back end of a paintbrush to dot on some of the green and some of this pale, yellowy color, and a little of a mixture I made using those two colors together (originally for the sign, not this), and I tried to place the dots in mostly realistic places for leaves. And admittedly I could've done a lot more leaves and really filled out the trees, but I felt like it looked better with more of the trunk and branches showing.
I also went with the dot thing partially to carry over the dots in the sky. I'm not really sure what kind of theme that is, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
And then last but not least, I signed it with a purple gelly roll, trying to balance in both color and placement just a wee bit.
Funnily enough, the most tedious part of this process was actually what came after it was finished.
Because I was working on a giant piece of watercolor paper that was previously a mat for my desk, and I wasn't really sure how this was going to turn out, naturally I wasn't really thinking about what size I was painting at while I was working. And wouldn't you know it, my poor painting here ended up being too long to fit in my scanner all at once. So I had to cut it out of the giant piece of paper and then scan it twice; once to get one end, and then a second time to get the other end. Then, of course, the two pieces had to be stitched together in Photoshop, which wasn't too bad.
I then spent more minutes than I care to admit trying to figure out how/to what extent the best way was to single out the little oval-ish shape of the painting, as I thought that would be much nicer than leaving the ugly bits an pieces of white scanner background. I tried to keep the actual edges smooth, though I nixed the idea of having it be a perfect oval shape right from the get-go, mostly because of how much of the edges would get cut off in one area or another. So the shape itself is very imperfect.
Still, I think in the end everything turned out pretty nice.
And admittedly after how the later part of last week went for me, it felt really nice to just kind of go in and not really worry about the details or if everything was turning out exactly right or whatever. Sometimes you need to do something that's just loose and has very few rules to it like this. Personally, I think I really needed this at this time in particular, and for as unplanned and simple as it is, I'm really happy with how it turned out.
The title is a little random; the shape and what I did with the sky kinda reminded me of a terrarium, and much like a nova is the birth of a star, this was a pretty spontaneous birth of a...planet, I guess. I almost called it "Terra Nova" (roughly "earth star birth") but upon Googling that because it sounded familiar, I decided I did not want to name it after a movie that came out in 2011 that I know nothing about and have no affiliation with.
Anyway, things might be a little slower on the art front this week, as I have a bit of a tall order to-do list, but for the foreseeable future things are going to be somewhat interesting here; I finally ordered a gouache set I've had my eye on, and it should be here by the end of the week, as well as the tree thing I mentioned at the top of the description, and another project I've done some preliminary work for...Jeez, I have an awful lot to try to squeeze in before Inktober starts, don't I?
Perhaps I'd best go and get started on all that.
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Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings
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Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram
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I’ll Take a Sling of Singapore Sludge, Thank You
Axis Mundi is the name. Learn it well.
It wasn't two months ago that I stumbled upon 'The Depths' (2019), debut EP by sludge metal trio AXIS MUNDI. I'm aware of merely a handful of heavy bands from the Republic of Singapore (which is totally my fault, I'm sure), but it wasn't just the novelty of relative obscurity that gave the band its allure. When I listened to The Depths, it was its hard-biting heaviness, gritty realism, and (I confess) the courage to cover Nirvana that ultimately endeared me to vocalist Sathish Kumar, guitarist Vinod Dass, and drummer Mitch Goon. Following is my exchange with Vinod about the band's origins, the meaning behind their name, and what it's like to be oh so sludge in Singapore.
☿
I have to say, we haven't encountered too many sludge or death-doom bands in Singapore, but it's encouraging to see more and more with each passing year. Tell us, if you please, how Axis Mundi got its start and introduce us to the members of the band.
The idea to form this band came to me in early 2018 after coming back to home soil after staying abroad for about two years. I got my first exposure to the sludge and stoner doom in Melbourne Australia by getting my face completely melted off by Dixie and gang from Weedeater, it was one of the first gigs I attended in Melbourne and it really resonated with me as it was something completely fresh and different from the mainly thrash and death scene metal -- the whole lineup for this band all played and still play in death metal bands back home. (laughs) And seeing then drummer Travis Owens bouncing sticks off the floor while destroying the drums was a life changing experience no doubt.
I had some things to express and found myself naturally starting to write in the direction of sludge and doom and decided it was time to get some partners in crime, so I got in touch with Mitch for drums, since we played together in a previous band for close to a decade and I knew his hard hitting style would suit the sound I was going for.
I then hit up Sathish, who was the vocalist of his band I was sessioning bass for. I loved his low growls and aggression and thought it was a perfect fit for what I wanted. We formed around march of 2018, so it is a very fresh band although its members have been (and still are) close friends for more than a decade.
What is the significance of the name Axis Mundi?
The term Axis Mundi hit me after getting into the study of symbols and their significance to the human mind. I had always found them interesting and the deeper I read into them the symbol of the World Tree kept reappearing in art and media I resonated with, especially during the writing phase of this EP, so I let things take their course. Its basic idea is the center of the universe, the connection of higher and lower, heaven and earth, Consciousness and the Unconscious.
What are some distinctives of your style? Asked another way, how would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you before?
What resulted from the three of us coming together was a blend of the sludge and doom riffs together with a faster tempo coupled with brutal vocals. I was listening to a lot of High on Fire, Monolord and Nails, my drummer was listening to Dyscarnate and Aborted and my vocalist was pushing Full of Hell and Comeback Kid. So ideas were pulled from all these sources!
You have a new EP! Walk us through it, please, track by track (sharing any background about each song's composition and recording, lyrical and thematic tie-ins, and any anecdotes that come to mind related to each).
Track 1 – The Depths
The Depths EP by Axis Mundi
The basic idea behind this track was it was going to be a noise track introducing the album and was meant to put the idea of being “down in the depths” to the listener, which was kind of how I was feeling as I wrote this record, so I though this was a good place to begin. I took this chance to give some Bladerunner 2049 worship. That movie was a goddamn religious experience sonically and visually.
Track 2 – Summoning the Serpent
The Depths EP by Axis Mundi
This song was the first song to be completed in terms of writing for the EP. It was one of the cases where I had a couple of riffs and had no idea how to bring them together or even if they were going to be part of the same song, but the moment the band came together, everything fit together like a jigsaw puzzle out of the blue, that kind of creative spark is the shit I live for. The basic idea for the song is the looking inside of oneself to come face to face with your fears and your flaws, to summon them up like a serpent and face them.
Track 3 – Revelations
The Depths EP by Axis Mundi
The opening riff of this song is the riff which gave birth to the band, it was one of the first riffs written, but it was also one of the last songs to be completed as we were writing for an album. The writing process for this song was really one of patience, I would try some ideas out with the band, they wouldn’t work and we would be back at the drawing board, but I remember I had to keep reminding myself not to rush things and cram some jackass riff in there just to finish the song. It had to feel right.
The driving force of this song was one of searching -- searching for clarity, for vision, for meaning. It ties in with Track 2 as Summoning the Serpent is like an admission of wrongdoing and Revelations is like a search for a new path.
Track 4 – Territorial Pissings
The Depths EP by Axis Mundi
I am a super huge Nirvana fan and I knew I wanted to cover one of their songs for this release. I also wanted to do it our way and put our own twist to it as I love it when bands do that. This was another song that came out the way it was in like 10 minutes, and now that I’m thinking about it, the chorus of this song actually ties in with Revelations. (laughs) Life is strange.
Who is responsible for the album art and what does it signify?
The album art work is done by Faris Samri, a killer drummer I used to play with in a black metal band! I happened upon some of his designs and thought he could take my rough demo for the album art to the next level. I came into contact with the Adinkra symbol "Hye Won Hye" which basically means "that which cannot be burnt," a West African symbol of endurance, which I thought was perfect for the EP. I then decided to recreate the symbol with the goat skull and Christ on the cross, which is the voluntary acceptance of suffering, symbolically speaking. The skull and cross was mirrored downward, creating the symbol of Hye Won Hye, as well as signifying the duality within a person, light and dark, love and hate and the struggle to balance them. Faris took it to the next level with the addition of flames to the lower half. Here is his take on it:
“The artwork was meant to resemble an Adinkran symbol of endurance. Reading more into its origins, it is said that the symbol got its meaning from traditional priests who were capable of walking on fire without being burnt. This made me inclined to include the element of fire from its history into my illustration.
I began by drawing the first goat skull, engulfing it in flames, scorching some of its original skeletal features. Before I began on the second skull, I realised I was not fond of the idea of having two identical burning goat skulls, as I could have easily duplicated the one i had just drawn and inverted it to complete the illustration. Referring back to the bed of fire the priests had to walk on, I decided to illustrate flames in the shape of the goat skull instead of the actual skull. These newly drawn flames will enter through the first goat skull, which exhibits the skull’s imperishability in such circumstances.
The next step was to colour the piece, which I did on Photoshop as I wanted to experiment with a selection of palettes I had come up with. The colours chosen mostly had a gore or horror vibe about them, referencing older metal album artworks from bands like Slipknot or Mastodon, to Horror film posters such as It or Blair Witch Project.”
What are some of the bands you play with in Singapore and, more specifically, how is the doom-sludge scene in your country?
Mitch and I played in a death metal outfit called Zaganoth, which was our first serious band and Sathish used to head another death metal band called Stillborn and both bands used to play shows with each other in the past!
Now besides playing in this band I play guitars for Truth Be Known a death/funcore veteran band that is heading down south to Australia for the Dead of Winter Festival! I also play in a band called Mucus Mortuary which is a -- well, I don’t have words to describe this band you have to see it for yourself. (laughs)
The sludge and doom scene in Singapore is pretty small even within the heavy music scene here (might be the insane laws against drugs but who knows eh?) however the bands that are currently holding up the banner are killer, check out Marijannah, Hrvst and Beelzebud!
Thank you so much for visiting with Doomed & Stoned! We wish you much success now and in the future.
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to some music coming out of a dot in the world map! I am humbled and grateful for this opportunity and may The Doomed and Stoned Show last for many seasons to come!
God Luck and Good Speed.
The Great Axis Mundi Giveaway!
Come one, come all! Get your own copy of 'The Depths' (2019) by Axis Mundi by grabbing one of the available download codes below. Hurry, these will go quickly! Redeem them here.
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