Artist/Fan of stuff

I do a lot of illustrations from fandoms that I like. Sometimes I'll do animatics or animations. ✨ Commissions are OPEN✨

[noodle-the-queen]

Ao3 does not need an algorithm, you're just lazy

Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE

Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted

Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative

Purity culture is ruining fan culture and you all are fucking annoying

[twilightofthesandwiches]

So Flame Princess and her Fionnaworld Counterpart DJ Flame are both seeing new people right now. And I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they’re not seeing alternative universe counterparts of the same character, considering how Fennel’s counterpart, Fern, is like dead and/or a tree right now.

Which, like, maybe doesn’t feel like such a big deal, until you realize… this is basically the first time this happens in the AT Multiverse? Friendships and animosities often get shuffled around, but characters do seem to have the same love interest across universes, and if they're dead/busy/not even born in that timeline, they're just totally single.

Marceline and Bonnibel are kind of a Thing even in the timelines where they’re mortal enemies. And alongside Finn/Huntress Wizard’s situationship and Fionna and Hunter burgeoning mutual crushes, Farmworld Finn’s dead partner is also heavily implied to be Huntress’ counterpart, judging from his kids’ similarities to her human versions…

And the ‘Soup of Theseus’ being an actual concept called “Hunter’s Stew”.

So it kinda feels like the Adventure Time Multiverse might run on some sort of Universal Constant Soulmate rules… Or at least that’s how it seemed in Season One.

Now with DJ Flame/Fennel and Flame Princess/Probably Not a Tree, that raises the possibility the whole thing isn't that set in stone. I mean, it's not like we've seen that many alternative universes, maybe this is all less 'Universal Constants' and more 'coincidences'?

Especially now as this season is clearly tackling the idea of, like, the romantic Happily Ever After and having One True Love Validated By Actual Magic.

With Fionna's rationalization for trying to get back together with DJ Flame being clearly framed as misguided…

And all the Princesses rushing for a chance to Officially Magically Validate their relationship with Finn…

And the acknowledgement that Finn and FP's love was real and it was a beautiful and powerful thing… but it also didn't last forever and that's okay.

Like, out of all the characters in Adventure Time, Finn would really make the perfect poster boy for 'hey maybe we don't all have One Perfect Destined Soulmate, maybe we just need to figure this relationship thing out'. So this whole set-up, plus the FPs having new and obviously-distinct paramours, feels like good groundwork to explore that.

[odinsblog]

Wow. Talk about attention to detail.

Video here: https://twitter.com/javi_draws/status/965260617790738432?s=21

[spookyold-saintjm]

I will probably reblog this every time I see it on my dash because it’s absolutely stunning

[onyxai]

This is literally insane. How did you have the patience. Tell me your secrets o’ art god.

[i-say-ok]

ok!!! :0

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

Part of me is like “neat. Reblog,” and part of me is like “I understand now why impressionism took off, because there’s a 0% chance the artist wasn’t like ‘fuck this shit’ by the halfway point.”

[thevictoriancyberhobbit]

The Little Vampire (1986) out of context my beloved

[nasfera2]

I wish Americans fucked with more foreign music. You don’t have to know the language to appreciate a good record. Folks in other countries listen to our music and don’t speak a lick of english. Music needs no translator

[liltimmys]

yall wont trick me into listening to kpop

[emily84]

You can try Radiooooo.com - The Musical Time Machine!!

choose a country, pick a decade, and GO!!

you’ll get an endless streaming of songs (ad free!).

I personally found myself loving 1970s Ghana, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire! Also 1920s and 1970s Japan for sure! Cambodian music: spectacular. Love Armenia and Mali as well. I’ve been told 70s Germany is weird and 30s Algeria is cool but I haven’t gotten around to those yet. Italy’s 1960s is bomb ofc but I’m biased ;)

[randomslasher]

This is the best website anyone has ever shared.

[padmerry]

Stan twins: codependency & identity issues

“I tell you it’s unnatural for siblings to get along as well as you do,” says Stan to Dipper and Mabel in Not What He Seems, clearly missing his own relationship with Ford before things started to change. “We used to be like Dipper and Mabel,” says Ford in Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls. Were they really, though?

I think what many people don’t get about Stan and Ford’s dynamic as children, or even as teenagers, is that, no matter what Stan and Ford think or say about it, they were not like Mabel and Dipper. That just highlights their lack of self-awareness. Here’s a canon analysis for anyone who cares to understand my point:

Mabel and Dipper have overall very different interests and hobbies and act separately on them. They have other friends and spend time with them—well, at least Mabel has Candy and Grenda, as the bubbly social butterfly she is; Dipper, on the other hand, seems way more preoccupied with deciphering the mysteries of Journal 3, but doesn’t miss an opportunity to be included in Wendy’s cool teenage group, as seen in episodes The Inconveniencing and The Love God (in the latter, he seems to be actually succeeding). As fraternal twins of different genders, no matter how alike they look (and despite Mabel’s joke of being “girl Dipper”), they still manage to retain pretty distinct identities. No issue here.

Mabel does her sleepovers, goes to boy band shows, and has encounters with potential crushes. When a surprised Dipper asks her about her vampire love in The Deep End, she points out, “I don’t tell you everything.” Dipper, meanwhile, explored the town with Soos, went to Wendy’s house, hung out with her teen gang, and overall lived many adventures without Mabel, such as trying to prove himself a man with help of the Manotaurs. I think the episode that shows the healthy independence Dipper and Mabel had from each other the best is probably Carpe Diem, inspired in Alex’s real life frustration with his sister, Ariel, but it can be observed all through the series:

What is shown to us in AToTS already differs from that. The Stan twins were inseparable, and each other’s only friends, as Stan establishes early on in his narrative: “Those bullies may have been right about us not making many friends, but when push comes to shove, you only really need one.”

With his question to Ford in the Lost Legends comic, The Jersey Devil’s in the Details, Stan implies they really did everything together, in a way reminiscent of Phineas and Ferb: “So what’re we gonna do today, buddy?”

Even small details, like the toys in their room, served to show the difference between the Stans and Dipper & Mabel, as Matt Chapman clarifies on the episode’s official commentary:

You also see that at this age, all the stuff that would cross over, that would appeal to both of them. You know, it’s not just like, oh, there’s science stuff here and then there’s like—I don’t know—what little Stan would be into. It’s like, no, they both like all this.

“But Mabel was just as desperate in Dipper and Mabel vs the Future as Stan was in A Tale of Two Stans!” Yes, true. She was, and I do believe her relationship with Dipper was the most important one in her life. But do you think the facts that a) she was already terrified of growing up, as shown in the episode Summerween, b) Candy and Grenda declined her invitations to their birthday party, c) Wendy showed her the apparently terrible reality of being a teenager, and d) Stan told her that it would be fine because at least she would always have Dipper... had nothing to with it? Originally her parents were going to forbid her from bringing Waddles to Piedmont, as revealed in the episode commentary of Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future, as just one more heartbreaking thing on the pile of Mabel’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. (Of course, teen Stan’s circumstances were aggravated by the bad home situation he was being “left alone” in by Ford—just like Mabel! Whose parents were arguing, per TBoB canon, to the point of giving Dipper recurring nightmares.)

Another very important thing is that the poor girl was twelve years old, while Stan was presumably seventeen-ish, an age at which separation would be normal and even expected, with the time for college approaching. In fact, differently from what happened with Mabel, whose imminent separation from Dipper came out of left field through an unexpected proposal by Ford (foreshadowed only by her slight discomfort over how close Ford and Dipper were becoming), there was a blatant rift between the teen Stans that Ford went so far as to acknowledge to Stan’s face. Using Stan’s own words from the Land Before Swine commentary: “Anyway, cut to high school, the guy’s never kissed a girl, prom is coming up, and he asked me for advice. ‘Stanley, I know things have been a little weird between you and me with college, but can you talk to me about girls?’” That was before prom (the one in which a girl threw fruit punch at Ford), mind you.

And still, this is what Stan thinks when he realizes Ford is going to accept the scholarship: “Without Ford, I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn’t make it without him.” He saw himself as only half of a whole—no wonder, with the way both twins were pushed to believe this since their birth, when they were both named Stan.

When asked about Shermie, Alex observed that a crucial part of their dynamic is that they only had each other. No younger or older brother to support them. The quote from HanaHyperfixates’ and ThatGFFan’s interview:

In terms of Shermie, I remember asking Rob or somebody at some point, like, “Would Shermie be here, logically? Do we have to see him?” I don’t really wanna see him. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in Stan and Ford being—sort of having only each other and then losing each other because of their different life paths.

I think the suggestion was, “Maybe Shermie would be a baby. Maybe that would happen.” And being like, “okay sure.”

Let’s not forget, too, the only time Ford ever mentions Shermie in Journal 3—“Sherman Pines’s,” surname and all:

From my own observations about their parents, that point is only driven further home.

Filbrick is, well, Filbrick. I don’t think I need to explain much here; every one of us has different interpretations and headcanons about him, but they seem to all agree on the common factor he wasn’t a good father—how much that can be justified by their time period or stretched to accommodate the most heartwrenching stangst is up for debate, just not a subject for this post.

Caryn is more complicated. I think Filbrick was definitely ‘worse’ than her, so to speak, at least in a more obvious way, and she has canonically demonstrated considerable fondness for Stan in particular—according to her, Stan’s rambunctiousness can be attributed to an excess of “personality,” he’s her “little free spirit.” She was, most notably, one of the two people present at Stan’s funeral if the info on the new website is to be trusted. We see her smiling brightly in the picture of the baby Stan twins included in TBoB, which hints at the fact she indeed liked her kids.

But the fact that she, as an adult, didn’t intervene when Stan was kicked out is simply, in my point of view, inexcusable. One could say she was momentarily paralyzed from an overwhelming fear of Filbrick, as a supposed victim herself, but a) that’s already entering headcanon domain, and b) I think that’s far from the truth and directly contradicting the comics, in which she looks happy and relaxed in the company of Filbrick: initiating contact and kissing him on the cheek, comfortingly stroking his back, looking at him with can only be described as tenderness... I don’t think Filbrick is meant to be seen as a monster, not in an exaggerated way. (He’s shown to be touched by Stan’s little stunt with the golden chain, too.) Just a really shitty father, in a common, boring, more nuanced, no less traumatizing, way.

Borrowing a paragraph from a previous analysis:

To me, the most telling thing of all is the fact Stan calls for Ford to help him, not his own mother. Ford, his brother, same age as him, who was at the moment beyond furious with him and very unlikely to show any compassion. Ford, whose attempts to change Filbrick’s mind would more likely than not have been unsuccessful. Not Caryn, adult, who probably had much greater sway over Filbrick. They say a child’s first instinct is to call for their mama. Clearly not in this case!

I’m not saying, here, that Caryn didn’t care about her boys. I elaborate more on her in the meta referenced above, here.

I find it adorable how easily, without any previous prompting, baby Stanley opens up to Ford about his feelings in the comics. The sheer vulnerability of this moment, seeking Ford’s reassurance that he wasn’t a bad kid; the implicit, profound trust, especially coming from someone like Stan, who grows into a man packed to the gills with toxic masculinity due to what he learned from his father. And the manner in which Ford gently comforts him, as if he were used to doing so. As Stan, too, had been shown to do when Crampelter mocked Ford’s fingers. They were clearly accustomed to being each other’s emotional pillars, in the way that kids who learned early on that they can’t count on adults or lean on the authority figures in their lives start building their own little safe space.

The way I see it, the Stan twins got along extremely well, for better or for worse. No obnoxious sibling bickering. No fights and conflict. How could they? They were literally each other’s only friend. If anything, their first major fight was caused by lack of communication, among many other things; they repressed their frustrations with each other to a ridiculous point instead of simply externalizing them like you would expect of an average sibling dynamic.

Second of all, they were monozygotic aka identical twins, as strongly hinted in the show, comics, and books, and as confirmed by Alex on the TBoB website, the behind-the-scenes DVD commentaries, and Twitter. The first mention of it, in 2015, below:

They were both named Stan, they had the same face. I’ve read irl identical twins’ confessions about the nature of such a relationship re: identity issues and how people tend to treat you, and it’s often not pretty. In the Stan twins’ case, their sense of identity was beyond blurry, and it’s not difficult to see why. If you pay attention to the show or the comics, you’ll see many hints of this unhealthiness: the way they were both called to the principal’s office (“Pines twins,” even though only Ford was an interested party), the way Stan was called “a dumber, sweatier version” of Ford by Crampelter, the way they had already pretended to be each other before, not in their childhood but adolescence (Stan’s idea, according to hilarious extra material in the DVDs).

Baby Ford, in the comics, has demonstrated a tendency to shoulder the blame that should only be attributed to Stan. For example, when he exclaims, “Oh my God! We killed the Sibling Brothers!” Ford, honey, if anyone had killed the Sibling Brothers, it would’ve been your brother, the person who shoved them in the first place. Not you.

I find it adorable that he also grounded himself for Stan! Filbrick had been very clear about grounding Stan, only, not both twins. But Ford stays with him as if he were grounded as well, as if he didn’t even have a choice. Where Stan was, there was Ford, not far behind.

They were an unit. Inseparable. As simple as that.

Until they weren’t.

The science fair incident happens, of course—and it’s worth noting Ford doesn’t consider the possibility that Stan sabotaged him out of jealousy or envy of his success for even a second! Instead, he immediately assumes Stan broke his machine so Ford would stay with him!

Did their codependency end with their separation, then? I’ve seen many people believing that yes, it did.

But mullet!Stan, now an adult, ten years after his fight with Ford, still resents Ford for not staying with him “forever”:

Not only that, but as Rob Renzetti (who is Gravity Falls’ supervising producer and story editor and the co-author of Journal 3) phrased it in this separate interview by HanaHyperfixates, Ford’s absence in Stan’s life haunted him and shaped all his relationships:

Um, I mean, to me that’s—I mean, really, Stan—Stan’s life has been… it’s been… sad, and lonely, since—he really… his brother was his best friend, and he loved him so, and I don’t think, you know, I don’t think any other relationship ever worked out for him, because of what happened between him and his brother.

And by the end of it all, you get Bill calling Stan “co-dependant” (British Bill?) on the TBoB website:

I know you might think, at first, that we should take Bill’s insults with a grain of salt, since he’s 1) Bill and 2) petty and desperate. But Bill has also a track record of trying to hit where he thinks will hurt the most, and he knows people. His insult here is not an isolated thing either. It might have been easily dismissed, I agree, if not for all the other evidence for the Stans’ codependency that I’m currently showing you. It’s just one proof out of many, just reinforcing an idea that’s already presented quite clearly.

If you’re still not convinced, Alex has revealed in HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan’s interview that Ford’s entire character was built around the type of person that could plausibility explain Stan’s neediness:

Ford was very much us building backwards. The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it’s like, you know the damage someone’s family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?

But Stan’s codependency, imo, was always easier to see than Ford’s, to the point people mistakenly think Stan cared more about Ford than Ford about him. (I’ve dedicated an entire meta to debunking that assumption as well, here.)

In the commentary of Society of the Blind Eye, though, Alex added, referring to Ford and Fiddleford’s friendship:

Ford as somebody who lost Stan is kinda looking for—even though he rejected his brother, he kinda needs, he needs that other person, and he tried to find that in this kinda sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

What Alex said about Ford’s relationship with Fiddleford can easily be applied to Ford’s relationship with Bill and with Dipper, since Ford needs “that other person,” needs to be one half of a duo. Ford has tried to recreate his dynamic with Stan again, and again, and again:

And then, of course, we have Ford’s proposal.

What’s really cool about this first image (below) is that it was drawn before Stan even accepted Ford’s proposal, and parallels their childhood picture in Ford’s pocket (one that, per Word of God, Ford has always carried with him, even before his portal days, as explained here) in a very obvious manner:

Ford was already excitedly fantasizing, drawing fanart of them together, picking their outfits and the name of the boat.

But more than that, he also says:

[...] I think it’s time for the Pines twins to join forces again. At least, I hope so. I haven’t discussed my idea with Stan yet. But if I know my brother, he will jump at the chance to find “money and babes.”

And this, to me, expresses both his hope that Stan would welcome his idea and agree to sail away with him and his almost certainty that it is exactly what is going to happen. Ford does mention Stan’s love for “money and babes,” but do you guys think Ford didn’t know what (or better yet, whom) Stan actually loved? In AToTS, Journal 3, and TBoB’s new canon material, we can observe that same certainty. In all three instances, Ford immediately assumes that Stan will show up and come for his call via postcard with no indication whatsoever that the possibility of Stan declining showed up in his mind.

Alex has also commented, in the first interview I’ve referenced:

Those characters at sea—it was so rich. They’re really really funny, because they both have major major blind spots. I can kinda write stories about them as a duo forever, because you can always excuse them both getting hyped on a bad idea for their own reasons, and then you can always come up with a reason for them to disagree about it, and it’s always sweet to see them come together again, because they’re so full of themselves, but they are also both so damaged they desperately need each other.

Not only reinforcing the idea that their codependency was—or at least eventually became—mutual, but confirming that things returned to their status quo. Ford has a black & white mindset, the only way he knows how to be with Stan is a codependent way. They’re either separated and estranged or they’re sailing completely alone on a boat for the rest of their lives. Either rivals or best friends forever. There’s no middle ground for him.

[mounzain]

had to share this

[rainbowravioli]

How It Was Told / How It Happened

[princess-okkotsu-deactivated202]

MOVIE RANT BELOW YOU CAN IGNORE ME LOL JUST IN MY FEELS OK

I just watched Encanto yesterday by the way and as a Colombian I love what they did with this movie. There are small details that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t familiar with the culture but I just had to make this appreciation post:

The clothing they wear is very typical of the clothing worn in the villages of the mountains down to the stitching! It was all so vibrant and beautiful! And the fact that they stitched the main characters name onto her skirt was such a great detail! Even the little bag that she was carrying is exactly like the bags that are crafted there - my grandpa would buy them as gifts for me and my sister and they are always so beautiful - bright colors and covered in flowers!

Also the architecture of the houses is JUST LIKE my great grandparents village!! My mom and grandma watched the movie with me also and were telling me about how they identified with this story so well. Personal note but my great grandparents actually had to flee their village on horseback with their two babies just like in the movie because they were threatened by assassins (wild I know). So my mom was like “bruh that abuela is MY ABUELA”

When it comes to the appearances, I’m so glad that they made the cast a mix of skin tones, hair types, overall a mix of appearances - because that is totally what we are like! The abuela looks just like my grandma - fairer skin, relatively straightish hair. Meanwhile I’d say I look a lot more like the main character - medium tone skin with curly hair but the curls aren’t tight. And my sister turned out like the MC’s cousin Camilo, similar skin color but MUCH tighter curls. I saw so many of my family and friends in those characters I could go on about this all day!

Also, THE FOOD! Don’t get me started on the food! There are certain foods that are ‘typically’ served in colombian restaurants here in America that are not actually what we eat back in Colombia. I appreciate that they actually used OUR food in this movie. Like the arepas for example. Here in america usually the restaurants serve the corn arepas with cheese on top. I’ve never been to a restaurant that serves arepas the way we actually make them - with the cheese already in the corn mixture. But in the movie they were EXACTLY how we make them I wanted to cry ok. And the buñelos looked so good ffs the breakfast they had together after the engagement party was literally the breakfast my grandma would make for me as a kid like 😭

And the music was so very obviously inspired by not just salsa (aka generic carribean Spanish music) but vallenato (a genre of music that is almost exclusively Colombian) and other genres of music, it was overall very inspired by everything we listen to not just the generic salsa you hear at parties

PLUS the casual use of Spanish pet names like “mija” and “abuela” had me cheesing okay

ALSO WHEN MIRABELS FATHER SAID MIERCOLES I WAS DYING AKDHSKDJSKD (it’s a PG way to say shit in Spanish jajaja)

Actually everything about her dad was precious also when he played the intro chords to La Rebelíon I was ACTUALLY CRYING OF LAUGHTER like whoever chose the music for this KNOWS COLOMBIANS SO WELL LIKE????? If you aren’t familiar with Joe Arroyo you wouldn’t have understood why her dad was playing those chords but like - that is literally the one song that will make ANYONE stand up and dance so when Abuela was like “let’s get back to dancing” and Mirabels dad started playing the intro chords to that song on the piano it was so funny ok

Also real talk I think I have a crush on Luisa

*CORRECTION the song was En Barranquilla Me Quedo and as someone who is FROM BARRANQUILLA I wanna formally say I’m going to crawl into a rock and die now for my mistakes*

[all-the-heart-you-cannot-see]

Things about Encanto only a colombian can tell you.

I love how ethnically diverse the cast is, considering colombia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries of latin america (i think only after brazil) the ambiance of the movie is of the zona cafetera, where most people are white so im really pleased to see they included brown and afrocolombians.

I also like that the costume design is inspired by different colombian regions, the kid with the hat is wearing a Sombrero vueltiao, typical from the colombian coast, as it is the rest of his outfit, then the boy next to him is wearing a ruana, and I inmediately think of Boyaca and the little girl next to him with the dress is more typically dressed like someone from El Eje Cafetero, where the movie is set. I’ve seen the blouse the little black girl is wearing before but i cant remember where and finally the little boy next to her is wearing a guayabera, which is a formal shirt also worn in the Colombian coast. update: Maribel’s outfit  colorful skirt specifically reminds me of Santander and the little black girl’s outfit is a typical cundiboyacense dress! (i don’t know if dress is the right word, im fighting against the lenguage here) 

There is a chiguiro with baby chiguiros and a Tapir and a Colombia Guacamaya and it watered my crops, improved my notes and cleared my skin. I fucking love it.

When the Vallenato started playing i fucking cried, its a rythm originated in Colombia as a mish mash of our african, indigenous and spanish ancestry and the sound of the acordeon gave me CHILLS. (Would recommend Todo de cabeza from Calet Morales if you speak spanish and are heartbroken)

The white cumbia dress is very recognizable, i wished they had used a San Juanero dress, which is way prettier and would’ve fit right in with the aesthetic, but since the soundtrack seems to be heavely composed of Vallenato it would look out of place, at least for us Colombians. Look for videos of San Juan ero on Youtube is a beautiful dance, my grandmother’s dream always was for me to compete on the San Juanero pageant but ummm…I’ve never had the amount of grace and poise those ladies have lol.

The entire house is colombian inspired, but this is a detail inspired specifically on my hometown, the flowered balconies of Cartagena.

And the alpargatas 🥲, typically worn on the interior of Colombia

[amoklime]

this. blooper.

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Shatner: … shit.

Nimoy: That’s alright, baby. I made a mistake this morning.

[archatlas]

The Art of Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He currently lives and works between New York and Connecticut, USA. His artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums. Kaphar cuts, bends, sculpts and mixes the work of Classic and Renaissance painters, creating formal games and new tales between fiction and quotation.

[monsttarchive]

I’ve actually seen some of his art up close. this is really cool

[neil-gaiman]

Also an incredibly nice, brilliant man. I got to spend a few days in his company once, and was in awe of his point of view.

[chaoticcultist]

Sirens don't really do Scary Stories.

“-and on her door-handle… WAS THE RUSTY HOOK!!!” Giulia yelled with a big grin as Luca shrieked. Alberto decided he liked horror stories, they always resulted in Luca clinging to him.

The adults around the backyard bonfire chuckled at their children’s antics. “Very good, Giulietta.” Massimo’s baritone voice rumbled sweetly. “You even had me scared at the end there.”

“What about you guys?” Alberto asked, directing the question to the three elder Paguros across from him and the younger one in his arms. “Do you have any scary stories? Like, with ghost-fish and stuff?”

Luca looked up at Alberto, not at all loosening his grip on the older boy. “Sirens don’t really do scary stories. I think that’s a surface thing.”

“Yeah,” Lorenzo piped up. “The ocean is already a terrifying place without making up more things to be scared of.”

Alberto just blew a short raspberry. “That’s lame.”

Daniella seemed to mull over something before coming to a conclusion. “There was something pretty horrifying that happened in the reef colony about 8 years ago. I had never been so scared in my life…”

Luca sat back up straight, still holding Alberto’s hand. He didn’t look frightened anymore, just apprehensive and uncomfortable as he addressed his mom. “Are you talking about the golden eyed man?”

Daniella shuddered at the words as they left her child's mouth. Nonna Paguro placed a comforting hand on her shoulder in response. “Go ahead and tell the story, we all need to get it off our chests. Don’t we?”

She gave an unreadable look to Luca and he squirmed uncomfortably.

Massimo waved his hand in front of him. “Don’t feel forced. This is meant to be for fun, we wouldn’t want to dredge up bad memories.”

Lorenzo shrugged. “I don’t know… as a siren himself, Alberto should hear the story at least once. Now’s as good a time as any.”

Luca moved back in closer to Alberto’s side, gripping his arm with his free hand. “I hate this story.” he frowned.

Daniella took a deep breath. “Just a little while after Luca had turned 6, he started having these terrible dreams. He would cry to us about a golden eyed man watching him, and he stopped being able to sleep through the night.” she rubbed at her eyes tiredly, remembering those sleepless nights when she thought her biggest problem was a restless guppy. “One day, he refused to set a fin in his room. He said the golden eyed man would take him if he did…”

Her gaze went to her mom, and the wrinkled old woman gave a small nod. “He was so insistent, I actually took him to sleep in the goatfish barn with me that night, just to show him the alternative to sleeping in his bed. I thought it was so silly, until I saw it.” The old woman looked directly at Luca, almost as if making sure he was still there.

Alberto didn’t like this story either. He held onto Luca tighter, wanting the confirmation he was still there too. Something about this tale seemed horribly familiar somehow. “In the middle of the night, the silhouette of… something like a siren, was hovering outside Luca’s window. It just stayed there for so long, I couldn’t move a muscle. I held Luca tight so he couldn’t move a muscle either.” She wrapped her arms around herself as some sort of macabre visual aid.

“After a while, it finally left, but as it turned, I could see that it had huge, unnaturally gold glowing eyes.” Her own eyes were wide, the memory playing back in her mind in perfect detail.

It was Lorenzo’s turn to pick up the story. “That morning, we woke up to one of our neighbors screaming. She had gone to wake up her daughter, but the guppy was just… gone.” He shuddered, taking his wife’s hand. “When mom brought Luca back in and told us what she saw, Luca started crying and told us-”

“Cod, I’ll never get that out of my head!” Daniella interrupted with gritted teeth.

“What?!” Giulia asked anxiously, on the edge of her seat and feeling like her teeth were going to shatter.

“The one part of this story I actually remember…” Luca mumbled miserably from Alberto’s grip. The older boy was shaking like a leaf. “I told them ‘he couldn’t find me, so he took her instead.’.”

Daniella was gripping at her heart as Alberto gulped down a breath. “So Alberto, you see, the ocean can be a very scary place. We feel it’s important you know that… those creatures are out there, just in case…”

Alberto stood up, bringing the tightly held Luca up with him, and walked over to sit between Daniella and Massimo. He pulled on Massimo’s shirt and Daniella’s skirt to signal them to scoot closer. They, along with everyone else around the fire, shifted to be closer to the two boy’s. Luca looked a bit dissociated, and Alberto looked downright terrified.

“Can I tell you my own story?” He asked with a shaking voice.

Nonna Paguro understood what the boy wanted to tell immediately. “Go ahead, Alberto. Did you also see the golden eyed man?”

Alberto swallowed hard. “When I was seven, I was on top of our tower watching the anchovies- stars with my dad when I saw something in the water. What looked like glowing yellow eyes staring right at me from the shallows. I told my dad about it but he just sort of brushed me off. He told me not to worry because ‘they can’t come up on land like us.’.”

Luca hummed curiously as Alberto cleared his throat, looking almost guiltily up at the Paguro parents. “He also told me to stay out of the water for a few days, they’d get bored and find some other kid to eat.”

[artbychromo]

keeping time with each other~

[rorita13]

I saw Mr. Peabody and Sherman today. It’s just now that clicked how many parallels they have. 

I’m hoping to get more done.

[eyelovveu]

Love like you by Rebecca Sugar but its Alberto and Luca 😳

Forgive me this is like super sloppy I kinda rushed it because I’ve been busy and I wanted to finish this so badly 

ALSO credits to @galaxiic​ who came up with the huge brain idea that Alberto fits perfectly with this song-

[numjumo]

THE PART WHEN LUCA RUNNING AWAY FROM THE TOWER AND ALBERTO CRIES 😭😭omg i cant

[elioli-art]

Franny vs Gaston!