AuDHD | 20s | they/them This blog is dedicated to all things creativity, whether it's my art, crochet, or just my rants on books or fanfic I'm reading. Hope you enjoy your stay! icon by PrincessRaevinFlash
I try to keep track of all the stuff I post with tags. This blog is mostly OC, but there might be an occasional repost relevant to my content. I’ll do my best to tag trigger warnings. Please send in an ask or DM me if you’d like me to tag something in future. Please keep in mind that I’m an adult and may post mature content at times, though it’ll always be tagged and highly unlikely to be NSFW.
Category tags are linked at the bottom of this post. My current content is art, crochet, and reading. I’ll also occasionally post content related to my cats. They’ll be tagged both with the #cats tag, and their names, #Cheese Chips and #Jumanji. Also have a general about me tag in case someone cares.
For prompts, StSg with this quote, dealer’s choice on who is who LOL. “What’s the height of stupidity?” “I don’t fucking know, how tall are you again?”
Slightly adjusted, hope you enjoy 😄
There is a certain balancing act to visiting the House of the Children of the Star. Arrive too often and you are turned away, arrive during ceremonies and you are turned away with prejudice, teleport in and it won't end in anything but a fight. Weekday evenings are a solid enough bet. Satoru wouldn't put money on it, but on average it works out better than weekends.
"Your hair looks particularly shiny today, Manami," Satoru says when the door opens. He takes a step before she can close it again. "Is it a new conditioner?"
It is, he's seen the hair care subscription on her credit card statements. Should she really be using the cult's business card for personal expenses? Ah, not his business.
"Follow me, please," she only says.
Satoru could take this path in his sleep. Passes the double doors to the congregation room, two meeting rooms, the IT closet where Miguel is fiddling with some wires. Satoru waves without turning his head. In the break room, Mimiko and Nanako are playing badminton. Their glares are adorable. Satoru throws a pack of chocolates to the nearest one, ignoring Manami's grumble. He's tried hating them for their role in Suguru's defection, but they're just too cute. The chocolates aren't thrown back at him, which means that the poor kids aren't being plied with sugar enough here. He hopes Suguru isn't becoming a health nut. There's only so much that Satoru can take.
Past the courtyard, past the small gate, past the front door of the small house on the cult's grounds in which Suguru resides. Satoru pats himself on the back. His timing is perfect. Suguru is eating dinner.
"Suguru! You haven't been responding to my texts," Satoru says, settling in across from him at the table. Behind him, Manami vanishes somewhere, already forgotten.
Suguru sets his rice down on the table. "I changed my number."
"I've been texting the new one."
"Have you?" Suguru hums.
Is there a newer one? Satoru must be getting lax in his stalking. "I saw Larue on the way in. Have you replaced me with a newer model? I could wear heart-shaped nipple pasties for you."
"I'd prefer you didn't. It looks bad enough on him." Suguru leaves for a moment, then returns with a second bowl and chopsticks that he passes to Satoru. "And how have you been spending your time?"
"I have a fascinating new student," Satoru says as way of peacekeeping.
It's always easier to get Suguru to let him stay when Suguru thinks he's getting information out of him. Satoru starts with the important business, such as Yuuta's taste in ice cream, before continuing on to his high hopes for this year's students. It's nothing confidential. Just as Satoru has spies in the cult, so does Suguru in jujutsu society. Satoru's got two of the council members pinged as cultists. He likes to blackmail them about it occasionally just to keep them on their toes.
Suguru in turn tells him about Mimiko and Nanako. He keeps the cult shit to a minimum, only three tangents about monkeys that Satoru tunes out with the ease of long experience.
Satoru kisses him before he can get too caught up in it, pulling Suguru in from across the table. Suguru allows it. Nice. He tastes like his terrible tea, which is less pleasant, but it's not long before Satoru kisses the taste out of his mouth, until it's just them.
It's always nice when it's just them.
Later, when night has fallen and so have Suguru's usual reservations, and they're in bed together, Satoru thinks as he frequently does: I could kidnap you. Spirit you away to a Gojo clan property. Set up a barrier. He doesn't fool himself into thinking that he'd be able to keep Suguru, not forever, but a few days together would be nice. Suguru is a beast in bed when he's angry. And he usually is, beneath that fake smile.
"What would you say is the height of stupidity?" Satoru asks idly. His bedmate isn't asleep yet. They're in that nebulous stage between first and second rounds, when Suguru's pretending they won't go again.
"Hundred nighty centimeters," Suguru replies. "And a half."
"Wrong."
"Are you including your hair in your height these days?" Suguru tugs lightly at Satoru's hair for emphasis. "You haven't grown taller in five years."
"Have you been secretly measuring me?"
"Against myself, perhaps."
"Feeling me up in my sleep with a tape measure?"
"I don't know where you get these ideas from."
I would do it to you, Satoru thinks, absurdly. If the dimensions of your neck and skull would help me understand your twisty little brain, I would do it.
There was a period three or four years ago when Satoru gave marriage the old college try. Everything else had failed. It's not like he had anything to lose. He measured Suguru's ring finger with a spare piece of ribbon while Suguru slept. Satoru knew even as he did it that it wouldn't work, but it was a lark, dragging Shoko to a jewelry store and getting her opinion on them all. The salesman thought at first that the ring was for her. Satoru happily spent the next twenty minutes disabusing him of that notion with a highly redacted version of his and Suguru's grand love affair. In his tale, they were high school sweethearts who were cruelly torn apart by scheming parents, and now they worked at their parents' rival laundromats and met only under the full moon light. He and Shoko went out for drinks afterwards.
"Are we putting this down under masochism or sadism?" Shoko said at the time.
Gojo sipped at his cocktail. "Half and half. It'll be funny. Are you sure you don't want to be there for the proposal?"
"You couldn't pay me." Before Satoru could argue, and he would argue his point well, she added, "You really couldn't. I get secondhand embarrassment."
"You get secondhand amusement."
"Not about this," Shoko said. "Is this really how it's going to be the rest of our lives?"
"You know I don't believe in long-term plans. Aside from the big one." One stops believing in plans when one's best friend defects from society in the most public of ways. Very tragic stuff. "I'll invite you to the wedding."
Anyway, there wasn't a wedding, is the point. Who has the time for weddings these days? All that wedding planning, choosing flowers and tablecloths and getting overly sentimental in your vows and whatever the hell people do. And there's the fact that Suguru threw the back ring at him and they yelled at each other about how they're both so misunderstood and wah-wah and it was likely picked up off the ground the next day by some cult member. Maybe it was pawned or maybe it was reused for someone else's proposal. Satoru would have enjoyed dramatically throwing it into the sea, but if some cultists must find happiness on the back of his misfortune, then he'll begrudgingly allow it. Probably bad form to stalk every cult member until they cough it up. Suguru gets all overdramatic when Satoru makes his stalking too overt, as though he doesn't do the same in turn. He should have stuck a tracker inside the ring. Suguru's hair might have stood up in anger, all sexy-like.
Here and now, Suguru asks, "Are you reconsidering our arrangement?"
"What are you talking about?"
Suguru's voice is too even. "You visit less these days. I understand the position that you're in. You have a range of conflicting responsibilities. The teaching duties that you're so fond of already put a strain on your exorcisms. It wouldn't be unreasonable for things to come to an end."
Satoru rolls over onto his side to face him. Suguru doesn't do the same, continuing to stare up at the ceiling. That's fine; Satoru sees it all. "You turn me away half the times I visit. You can't expect me to knock every day like I did when we were seventeen. I don't have the stamina. Take pity."
"I don't want you to come every day," Suguru says in turn.
Satoru can't help it, the fondness. He reaches for Suguru, runs a hand along his arm, tugs at Suguru's fingers. Lingers only the briefest moment on his bare ring finger. I can't have you distracting me from the cause, Suguru once told him, closing the door on his face, and Satoru sees it as the highest of compliments. Only Satoru is a distraction for the fearsome curse user Getou Suguru. Likely, Suguru would allow his visits more frequently if Satoru didn't argue with him each time, but that's a lost cause. Only the bed is a neutral zone.
"You don't want me on a schedule," Satoru says. "I've tried to optimize for the best chance I have of being allowed in, after a long stretch of trial and error mind you. I'll adjust it if you tell me how to make you happy."
Suguru stays quiet. Satoru wasn't expecting an answer anyway. He stretches an arm around his chest, kisses his shoulder, then his nape. Give it another few years and they'll have been doing this for more than half their lives. It's a miracle, one he doesn't take for granted, not with how much Suguru makes him work for it. It's what he gets for falling in love with someone who's at all times only a hop and a skip away from throwing the rest of his sanity out with the bathwater. At least Suguru makes it fun.
"I'll come more often," Satoru says. Maybe he'll try experimenting with different days of the week again. Maybe Wednesdays are the key.
It won't make Suguru happy. Underneath all that anger and megalomania, there's not much that can, really. He assumes Suguru knows this. Or maybe he's too in denial for it. Or maybe Suguru's found the path to happiness and he walks it when Satoru isn't watching him. Unlikely, that one.
"The cause is more important than personal happiness," Suguru says eventually, his fingers carding through Satoru's hair.
Satoru pouts even if Suguru won't appreciate his cute expression, still not looking at him properly. "No cult talk in bed. We agreed to this. It's either cult talk or blowjobs, you only get one."
"You don't enforce it. I assume you're similarly lax with your students. All sweets and no discipline."
"Maybe I want them to join my cult. We could have rival cults. We'll set up our headquarters across the street from yours like a rival fast food chain." Actually, now there's an idea…
"You're impossible."
"Limitless. Impossible. Same difference." Ah, Suguru might kick him out of bed for this, but, "It's not too late to—"
A hand closes over his mouth. It doesn't leave, not even when Satoru nips at his skin. At least Suguru's looking at him now.
Come on, run away with me, Satoru thinks, and he's seventeen again. In some ways he'll always be seventeen. Youthful spirit. Perfect looks. Banging on the cult's door because teleporting in without invitation means that Suguru won't see him. Ditch this place. Ditch the whole society. What do our ambitions amount to at the end of the day? It's all a bunch of nonsense.
"You're always like this," Suguru starts.
Satoru lifts Suguru's hand from his mouth only long enough to reply, "You could wear me out some more."
Suguru doesn't answer immediately. When he does, there's something tired in his tone. He takes his hand away, but not his gaze. "Don't you get tired of this?"
"No."
"No?"
Satoru sighs, all put-upon. "I don't know what you want me to say. No, I don't get tired of you. I never have. I'll be back again sooner next time. I've let you get too complacent. It's my fault, darling. You've been feeling underappreciated."
Ah, there's that expression. He's thinking about smothering me with a pillow, Satoru thinks, delighted. Sometimes Suguru even acts on the impulse. It's very cute, very high school.
Worse than being smothered: Suguru moves over onto his side, facing away from Satoru. It's too far. Immediately pressing up against his back, Satoru settles his chin on Suguru's shoulder and watches him reach for something in the top drawer of his bedside table.
It's a ring. Ah, maybe kidnapping is still on the table. A romantic kidnapping. "You kept it."
"Of course I kept it."
Is this an of course type situation? Maybe it is. Maybe he's supposed to have known Suguru likes useless knickknacks. "I love you. Beyond reason."
"I know."
"Don't Han Solo me. He's not as cool as me. He doesn't even have a cursed technique."
Suguru turns the ring over a few times before slipping it on. "There is very little in this world that is beautiful. You have always been the shining exception. I love you, Satoru."
But not beyond reason, Satoru thinks. It's alright. Well, not quite, but the lightness in his chest when he sees the ring on Suguru's finger is enough. Satoru kisses him about it, from his lips down to that ring that he thought he'd never see Suguru wear. It's a perfect fit.
When Satoru next sees him, Suguru is still wearing it.
"I won't do a ceremony," Suguru warns.
"That's fine. I'll have one without you. I'll send you pictures."
"I'll change my number again," his lover grumbles, but he kisses him, too.
Satoru doesn't get himself a ring. He goes back to the shop, tries on a dozen, buys a necklace to tease Utahime with. All of the rings fit wrong, he tells Shoko, trying to make her choose for him until he gets them both kicked out of the jeweler's. It's a good thing one arrives in the mail for him.
It's been a while! Work has been busy haha. Been working on crochet stuff in the background, though, so will be posting updates soon. Will probably post some book-related stuff soon, too ^^
Quick render of a recent kitty design I bought. Still deciding on a name for her, though the working one is Zinnia. She's a chocolate point girlie, her rainbow stripes are dyed with various plants and berries. You can see her full design on ToyHouse.
Picked up a duvet cover project I started months ago and finally finished the first row of squares. My first project with overlay crochet :) pattern is Witty Kitty done in bulky yarn, specifically Yarnart Merino Bulky. Now to put it away for another few months before I do the next row of squares LOL
Another small project. Stash buster to use up some of my leftover blanket yarn. Still have a bit of the pink and green, but didn’t want the bed to get too big for the windowsill :)
No pattern, just made a rectangle with lemon peel stitch (alternate SC and DC, then DC into SC and SC into DC), then folded in half and HDC around :)) chips already likes it, Jum is skeptical.
Small crochet project :) arm warmers up to my elbows without thumb holes. I slightly modified this pattern to have ribbing on both ends. I also narrowed the pattern at the wrists —did 31 rows sc 2ch, then did decrease row by chaining just one between sc.
As all my recent projects, I used Yarnart Pacific Chunky. Got a really good price on it so I bought a good amount LOL
Forgot to update after sharing these sketches since I finally worked out markings. Might remove the marking on the bald section of their tail, still deciding. Sketchy ref for my revamped secondary ‘sona, Lost. They represent my mental health — they over groom with strong negative emotions, sometimes to the point of being completely hairless, other than the fur on their head. They’re a Lykoi and I love them.
More cardigan progress from today. While my experience making this project has largely been annoyance and frustration, I’m really liking how it looks and sits on me. Very comfy. Finished the collar today, made and seamed the sleeves. Also spent like 40 minutes twisting yarn into rope for the lacing on the back. All that’s left is pockets, finishing the edging so that the faux fur collar flows better, and weaving in ends. Photos aren’t the best, but I’ll try and get better ones when I finally finish this thing lol. I live alone and there’s one corridor in my house that has a big mirror and gets vaguely decent light.
In brighter news, I made too much of the rope for lacing, and Jum thinks it’s the best toy ever.
Bloody Spade, by Brittany M. Willows (sci-fi fantasy)
Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd (nonfiction audiobook)
10% Happier by Dan Harris (nonfiction psychology)
Currently watching:
Dimension 20: Burrow's End
Currently obsessed with:
A number of things, surprisingly. Getting back into reading actual books (as opposed to fanfic), crocheting is going smoothly and is almost a daily activity, plus got back into digital art, which I've also been pretty consistent about :))
Tagging:
I'm pretty new, so I'll tag some off-site friends lol @wynnefic @jadejabberwock <3
Another Chips-mandated crochet break. This part of the pattern has more herringbone double crochets than I hoped 😭 cat cuddles came at an opportune time ahah.
WIP shots of a long-suffering crochet project, feat my cat-mandated break. I’m so fucking happy to be don’t with the main rectangle of this cocoon shrug, even though I’m not totally done with herringbone half-double crochet, as I need to elongate the back so it fits me better 😭 at least it’s way less stitches. You can see the place I accidentally went up in 0.5mm in hook size, but given I’ll be seaming along the edge, and this is a shrug, I didn’t see the point of spending the time on blocking. Let’s hope it doesn’t come back to bite me in the arse later. Like my last project, this is all in Yarnart Pacific Chunky, just in the blue/red/purple colourway.
You can find the pattern here!
I was in the middle of seaming when Cheese Chips decided it was time for him to get attention and not my project 😅 main reason I’m posting a WIP right now, as he’s not really letting me move LOL
Currently reading my second LGBT fantasy/sci-fi book of the year. I'm really enjoying it so far, though I'm only a few chapters in. I don't really read much YA anymore, but I don't regret picking this one up (it's on KU, for those subscribed!). It really feels like reading an action adventure manga, but as a book. The playing card thematics are fun, and the setup, like in a lot of good manga, is quite intriguing. Leaving a quote and a summary of the book below!
"Then there were those who walked the line somewhere in between—people like Iori, who weren’t quite sure where they belonged. But in a society obsessed with black and white, gray didn’t fly. Gray was unpredictable."
A girl full of heart
A thief touched by darkness
A boy with a fiery temper
An unwitting servant of evil
The era of magic was once thought to be a myth, but after the Reemergence ushered forces both dark and light into the mundane world, it has since become a harsh reality. Now those affected by this strange power—a specialized group of Empowered called Jokers, known collectively as Cardplay—must protect their world from the darkness that threatens to consume it, all the while fighting for equality in a society clinging to normalcy.
But the Reemergence was only the beginning.
When another influx occurs on the seventh anniversary of that fateful event, an unfortunate encounter at ground zero lands Iori Ryone, a teenage boy in possession of a corrupt and legendary magic, in the care of recent Joker graduate Ellen Amelia Jane. From him, she learns the Reemergence may not have been the inevitable natural disaster it first seemed.
Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that separates the magical realms from the mundane. The question is, can Cardplay stop them before it’s too late?
Been working on revamping a beloved 'sona of mine, as their design became too similar to my current (and, fingers crossed) permanent design of my main 'sona, Mau. Lost is now a scrunkly perpetual scruffy teenager of a Lykoi cat. Still perpetually anxious, though!
Just need to work out how to simplify and adapt their markings to play nicely with the increased amount of fur, as they used to be mostly bald.
Recently finished this lovely crochet shawl! Pattern can be found here. I made it out of Yarnart Pacific Chunky, and, as a result, it's very cosy from the wool content which is exactly what I was going for. Followed the pattern pretty exactly, just added some length and width so it fit me a bit better :)
