video games my love, why must you hurt me

hello! i'm not sure if you remember me, a while ago i asked about digital art and if it's possible to do on an ipad or something similar. i was really grateful for your response and i got an ipad over christmas! i didn't realize how expensive the pencils were though and was only able to get one recently. now that i have all of that, i download the first art program i saw (ibispaint x, i don't know how good that is) and feel super overwhelmed by everything, all the tools and brushes and i have no idea where to begin. i know this is a super broad topic, but i don't know if you have any advice for a beginner hoping to become a digital artist? or know of any resources? thank you so much in advance and no worries if this topic is too broad to really get into properly!

Oh hey!! Congrats on getting an iPad! And yeah, shopping for the pens is a big pain in the butt, but I'm glad you finally got it all setup!

So most of the advice I'm gonna give you is very basic, starter advice that can apply to virtually any digital art software, as the vast majority of them are built with the exact same base tools, they just vary in their intended purposes which means they may differ in more advanced settings and what they offer beyond the basics (ex. Photoshop has more colors than Clip Studio because it's built for editing high quality photos whereas Clip Studio is meant to emulate comic art, but Clip Studio offers more in the way of comic-creating tools such as specialized rulers, 3D material support, built-in screentoning, etc. and all of the software available will tend to have different brush engines, meaning it doesn't always 'feel' the same to draw in one software as it does in another).

Your bestest friends:

Layers! This is the biggest pro to going digital, because now you can work with layers! So anything you draw on each layer is preserved and can't touch or affect whatever's on the other ones :3 You can find the layers tab in Ibis Paint X in the bottom right, don't be afraid to make a bunch of them and mess around with what you can do. Play around with the different blending mode settings (in Ibis Paint it's the menu that's labelled 'Normal' in the layers popup) especially Multiply, Color Dodge, and Overlay, as those three are the most commonly used to make coloring more efficient and give your art some extra pop.

Lasso/marquee/magic wand tools! These are basic selection tools that allow you to select an area within the layer you're working on, so that whatever you paint won't travel outside of that area. The Lasso is a free draw tool, the marquee tool is typically 4 sides by default (so squares/rectangles) and the magic wand detects and selects a closed area with one click! (just note that by default it's only on the layer you're on, so if you use it on a layer that has nothing, it will typically select the entire canvas).

Alpha locking! This is a simple button setting you can click to 'lock' the layer you're working on, which basically means that whatever you've drawn on that layer, anything you add can't travel outside of that drawing. So if you want to quickly shade something without going outside the lines, alpha locking is your solution!

Clipping groups/layers! This is a bit more advanced but is basically an even better version of alpha locking that you can use in conjunction with it. Clipping layers are basically additional layers that , when you click the 'clipping group' button, 'attaches' that new layer to the layer that's below it. It performs the same function as the alpha lock by preventing whatever you draw on that layer from travelling outside of it, HOWEVER it comes with the added benefit that it's on an entirely different layer, meaning you can erase and mess with whatever's on that new layer as much as you like and it won't hurt the base layer. It kinda follows the same logic as animation cels !

Masking! Y'know when you're doing a traditional painting, and you put down tape to cover the area so you can paint over it and later remove the tape and everything underneath is untouched? That's basically what masking is! Once you put down a layer mask, using the erase tool on it will 'erase' whatever the mask is applied to, and using the brush will make it magically return! This may sound silly at first, but I find masking is especially helpful if you want to erase something on the layer you're working on without it disappearing forever! It's also really helpful for comic work because you can mask whatever's outside of the panels and voila, nothing you draw will travel outside of those panels!

Stabilization! I don't know how extensive Ibis Paint X is with offering stabilization tools, but many digital art software comes with it and it's a LIFE SAVER for new digital artists adjusting to the feel of digital art. It essentially 'slows down' the output of the ink on the canvas which helps a lot with getting cleaner lines in fewer tries. It's not quite as big of a deal when drawing on iPads because obviously you have more control by default by drawing directly on the screen, but it can still be really helpful when you need to pace your hand ahead of the actual drawing tool to pull cleaner lines!

That's pretty much all I can think of for now! But here are some other commonly asked questions:

1.) There are so many brushes to choose from, which one do I use?

The round brush is small but mighty. Virtually anything can be painted with it, it's simple, but malleable, especially when you start messing around with the hardness and opacity settings. Don't get too lost in the sauce with the brushes that are available to you, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed by all the options and variety. Some artists still work purely with just round brushes, some artists have custom brushes they like to use to speed up their drawing process or achieve certain textures. Play around with them, but don't get too stressed about which one you use because there's no wrong answer, the right brush to use is the one that gets the job done ! <3

2.) What canvas size should I use?

It depends on a variety of factors such as whether or not you're planning to print, where you're going to be posting it, etc. By default I like to work on 8.5 x 11 inch canvases (standard printer paper size) at 350 dpi, which if you want to make that canvas in Ibis Paint X, means you just have to make a canvas with a pixel ratio of 2975 x 3850 pixels! Just note that the lower you go in either pixel count or dpi, the lower the resolution, so it's typically encouraged you work at a minimum of 300 dpi (but you usually don't have to go any higher than 600) to ensure you don't wind up with any blurry low res JPG's/PNG's.

3.) Should I export my final drawing as JPG or PNG?

This is usually just up to personal preference, but like the canvas size, it depends on what you're using the image for. You can always export as both, the biggest difference between them is that PNG is lossless meaning you won't experience image compression like you will with JPG, BUT you're also going to have much larger image sizes. JPG is often fine for any standard posting, PNG is typically recommended if you want to have a drawing with a transparent background for printing (as JPG can't do transparent backgrounds) or if you just want to have a really high res image file for sharing outside of social media sites (as social media sites like FB/IG/etc. will typically compress the hell out of your images anyways)

Here are some other super helpful resources as well if you need some visual and/or audio guides:

Sinix Design - How to Learn Digital Painting (Beginners)

Marc Brunet - The Beginner's Guide to Digital Art

Skynix Art - 50 Digital Art Tips in 5 Minutes

One thing I also like to do is watch speedpaints of digital artists as it can really help pull back the curtain on what they're doing (or at least, it can help you see what they start with which can help you better picture the process of turning a blank canvas into a finished work of art!) And though I don't do it as often, if there's an artist whose work I REALLY like, I'll try and find their actual work files (many bigger artists sell them on their crowdfunding sites/Gumroad/etc.) so that I can actually break the drawings apart layer by layer for the purpose of analysis. Of course, all that is something that you'll grasp better over time as you learn the tools and learn to recognize what artists are doing in their own workflow, so don't worry if you don't glean a whole lot of info from the "big guys" right away, you should always be referencing artists who are higher along the skill ceiling from you but not too high that they're using techniques and tools that are outside of your realm of understanding.

Other than that, just try to have fun, don't stress too much about it, and save often!!! Part of creating art is learning to be at peace with the process, so don't stress too much if it takes you a while to get adjusted to the layouts and tools - at the end of the day, digital art is another medium entirely, so it's not uncommon at all for traditional artists to need a lot of practice to 'switch' to digital, because they both utilize different tools and techniques. Be patient with yourself, always be on the hunt for new resources and guides and references, and don't be afraid to experiment and make mistakes (the best part about digital art? Mistakes don't cost you any paint or materials!)

Good luck!! And congrats again! 🥰

2023 Media Thread (Re-do to add a Read More Link)

Spark The Electric Jester 3:

Man I was holding off on spoilers for MONTHS until the holidays when I could get this game, and I only beat it in the beginning of the year and well…HOLY SHIT I didn’t know I needed existentialism in my funny little platformer- Gameplay is INSANELY solid, like honestly some of my favorite platforming controls I have ever used! Music is top notch as well!

Nier Automata: The End of YoRHa Edition:

Holy fuck how did I manage to avoid spoilers for this game for YEARS??? That ending was beautiful~ (Yes I did do all the main endings)

Chrono Trigger: I should preface this by saying I did modify this game a tiiiiny bit to have PS4 button prompts and fixing the Classic filter. Other than that, I can see why it’s a lot of people’s favorite RPG! Short enough in case you wanna replay it, and the foundation of the NG+ system definitely helps incentivize replays! Can’t wait to play Chrono Cross!

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII:

I binged both FFXIII and FFXIII-2 during October and November of last year, but took a short break to avoid burnout. And well, yeah this game was neat! I will admit though that since there’s no way to REWIND time like in Majora’s Mask that I got INSANELY stressed out but that didn’t take away from the sweet release of seeing these characters I love finally get their well-deserved happy ending :)

Mega Man Zero:

I put this one off and on throughout like 2 years because I just wasn’t good at it, but it taught me a VERY good lesson in perseverance! Really excited to play Zero 2!

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion: ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK ;w; Story was pretty…alright for the most part, but I couldn’t feel attached to any of the original characters :/ Honestly my eyes were on Zack just…being real with what’s going on. I may not feel bad for when people he cares about dies, but I can EASILY emphasize with him because I know that HE knows them. Knows them more than we ever will know. Also the gameplay and music are fucking stellar.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes:

I should preface all of this by saying I don’t remember what order I beat all of these in lmao. Anyways my route was Golden Wildfire and the story for it is such an improvement over its equivalent in Three Houses!!! I love Shez so much as a protagonist even if his outfit is a tiny bit dumb.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

Man I really wanted to like this. And like, music and area wise I loved it! But the story feels…It just doesn’t feel like the finality for all we’ve done so far. I could not care at all for Meteion because they spend approximately like 20 or 30 minutes making us meet them and then throwing us IMMEDIATELY into the angst like, no. This isn’t even a case of “Well I don’t care but I can understand why others do” NO THE GAME MAKES YOUR WOL FEEL BAD AS WELL, MEANING YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO CARE! NO! I DON’T! I was able to at least pretend a little bit to roleplay as needed but man. At least Footfalls and the post-endwalker dungeon themes kick ass though. (Warrior of Light’s name for me is M’bahlon Tia)

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe

SO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE I love kirby games sm and this is no exception. REALLY loved how hard the Magolor Epilogue got at certain points though that was great.

Fire Emblem Awakening

I CAN SEE WHY THIS SAVED THE FRANCHISE WHEN IT CAME OUT!! It’s a REALLY good game! I went with the default male Robin settings since that’s what’s in Smash Bros. And man just, everything about this game is AMAZING!!! Sadly cannot see myself replaying it anytime. I could just load my endgame save and grind out support conversations with other characters or do that…new game plus thing I think it was?

Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer

I did this event initially back when it came out (and in fact is the main reason why I played the game in the first place) But I got horrible units and died super often, and revived every chance I got. But losing my save data and getting a better unit HEAVILY boosted my chances of getting through the event and man, it was a lot of fun! I love seeing tiny mona :3 JUST LOOK AT HOW SMOL HE IS AAAAAAAAA

Mighty Gunvolt Burst:

I had a lot of fun with this one! I used one of the DLC characters (I think they’re the Zero character from Mighty Number 9 but) it’s a great romp!

EDIT: ALSO SHOULD MENTION IT FUCKING OWO’D ME

Final Fantasy XV

“Walk tall…my friends.” I got this game YEARS ago but haven’t truly delved into it recently. And well… That ending got to me. It really did. The gameplay took me so long to get used to (especially since I had been more used to the more refined gameplay of Final Fantasy 7 Remake 3 years prior) Music is amazing, love the characters! I just wish the other episodes were finished and weren’t just put in a novel :/

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

HOLY FUCK THIS GAME WAS SO COOL. I always heard like, right, about how good this game was but I figured it was just nostalgia talking for people. NOPE. As someone who’s first paper mario game was super (never beat it, I was a really stupid child) and then played Sticker Star (Again, very stupid child but also that game is bullshit because everything is so obtuse and it sucks) But this? This was a big breath of fresh air. I am so excited to go back and play 64 and Super!!!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Honestly? Way better than I was expecting. You can FEEL nintendo had a strangle-hold on the movie’s production though from how Chris Pratt in the final movie actually fucking voice acts somewhat (it’s a start), there’s no bad Illumination tropes, Peach is a dragoon, Toad and Bowser easily steal the show, and just, ALL THE REFERENCES WOW. EVEN THE NEWER THINGS. I didn’t see any Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi references though which makes me sad. I hope that if there’s a sequel it’s actually better and doesn’t fall into any traps movie sequels usually do, maybe even say if the other kingdoms from Mario Odyssey are in this universe (and maybe Isle Defino) The movie definitely could have used an extra 20 minutes spread throughout to add more to the main group dynamic.

Mega Man Zero 2

OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER BALANCE-WISE HOLY SHIT Cyber-elves requirements to be leveled up were MASSIVELY lowered and the enemy AI isn’t as overly aggressive! Loved the music too, especially Departure and the ending theme which was adapted for the song Clover! Can’t wait to do Zero 3!

WARE WA MESSIAH NARI! HAHAHA!

Mega Man Zero 3 was really good, but either I am getting way too good at these games or they are getting easier haha. Loved the music and gameplay though, and how Cyber Elves were handled here is absolutely the best they have ever been! If there’s any game in this series I am gonna replay, it’s Zero 3 without a doubt! On to Mega Man Zero 4, the last of the GBA era.

Mega Man Zero 4

I finally did it. I beat the entire Mega Man Zero series. While I do not agree with how the parts and cyber elf system were handled, It was not a bad experience by any means! It felt nice following Zero’s character arc throughout these games. I’m maybe gonna take a break before I tackle Mega Man ZX, but hey, I feel like that game’s gonna be fun! It’s the only one I actually OWN on its original hardware after all! :D

Sonic and the Black Knight

This was a fun distraction for a few hours! I had a lot of fun with this! Granted the second King Arthur fight took me an hour but besides that it was a quick and good romp! Probably has one of the best final boss themes in a sonic game I’ve ever heard! :D

The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past

Pretty fun game all things considered, but I didn’t like how punishing some of the design philosophies were in the end parts of the game. Music’s great though! Maybe I’ll revisit it one day, but not anytime soon. Still, can’t say I disliked my experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Where…do I even begin with this?…It was…genuinely amazing. I was waiting for a sequel to Breath of the Wild for years, and during my high school years I was wondering how they would even follow it up! Doing a sequel to an open-world game is harder than a lot of other genres.      But yet….they did it. They somehow did it. Those 6 years of development time more than paid off. It felt…amazing to run around a changed Hyrule from the last game. The mechanics were amazing, and the character development was really cool! The new rune abilities are dope!!!    BUT THE MUSIC MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THE MUSIC OH THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD THE ENDING MUSIC MADE ME ACTUALLY CRY AHHHHHHHH PLAY THIS GAME PLAY IT NOW

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

And here we are! Finally got around to this! It was a really dope game! Loved the combat and music! I even did most of the bonus content and the Ultimate Cup Z, but I kept dying at the final phase of the final boss of that so I just gave up lol, it’s purely bonus content anyways lol. But honestly I loved this game! Can’t wait for the next mainline kirby game!

The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

FINALLY GOT AROUND TO PLAYING THIS ONE! I owned this on real hardware since its release date but never got far. I finally got around to it with the motivation of beating Tears of the Kingdom, and I gotta say, it’s pretty good! Not exactly like, absolutely top tier game that everyone MUST play but, it’s decent! Bosses are a big sour point though. Music was pretty decent, though the final dungeon theme is a bore. Only other current Zelda games I gotta beat are the 2D/Top-Down ones, so maybe I’ll do one of those next! Possibly either Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks.

Pokémon Scarlet

HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING SEQUENCE WAS ACTUALLY COOL AS HELL!!! Like yeah, the game has its decent chunk of technical issues but, holy shit….those last two hours of the main story are phenomenal. TOBY FOX CONTINUES TO BE THE GOAT THE MUSIC HE COMPOSED IS AMAZING! I love how easier it is to capture pokemon compared to Sword and Shield as well. I do like Dynamax raids more as a multiplayer component, but I much prefer the Tera mechanic in terms of PVP. I stlll need to do the post game before the dlc comes out later this year, but all I really got is just the refights against the gym leaders and all that jazz. There’s also the Needle thingies I gotta pull out and the wall things I gotta investigate in order to get the other legendaries, but all I really care about is finishing the core of the main story, I got other games to get to lol. Probably thinking of either Paper Mario or Chrono Cross next haha.

Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final: Build & Ex-Aid with Legend Riders

Okay so context: my friend @arcadiusdragoneyes​ is showing me and @darkspine576​ Kamen Rider Build since it’s one of his favorites and he wanted to indoctrinate introduce us into Kamen Rider AND IT’S FUCKING WORKING. I only know one part of this crossover, but I think it did a good job of giving across the feel of the other Kamen Rider series very well! Kamen Rider Build is so extra I love it. Can’t wait to finish Kamen Rider Build!

Come Away With Me

Summary: N/A [I want you to read this and figure it out yourself @amorfista ♥] Edit: I was gonna put something here, but nah. You got this babe!

Pairing: Me and my husband, Plo. You and yo husband, Savage.

Word Count: 2.3k

Rating: Not telling. KTNXBAI. Edit: Angst / Fluff

Notes: I couldn’t write for Savage because I know very little of him apart from what I got from you. But I trust how you draw him, trust how you speak of him, trust even the insecurities that make you crumble about him; I trust you. Trust. ~ Many thanks to @botherbother-blog because I also needed quick consult over Savage ♥ Appreciate it, my friend! ♥

Color thingies because I'm deranged to not use them: Orange: Plo Koon Pink: Me - because babe, I have no self-control and I wanna be part of this because I made it for you? ilsym ♥ Red: Also me because still, no self-control omfg? Blue: You ♥ Green: Thoughts, You ♥ Yellow: Savage Opress Purple: Song ♥

Perfect divider by @idontgetanysleep with itty, bitty, cutie-patootie Plo Koon face ♥

Thank you for being unapologetically you ♥

So please play this first because I will be so angry if you didn't ♥ - I want you to be upset first because omg, babe need you to be conflicted? Because I can't carry the pain of it all? Because I'm just genuinely unhinged as a default? - Okay, done? Good. Now, pull up the second song, set it on loop and then die with meeeeeeeeeeeee ♥ Please play this in loop ♥

“Have we a deal, sunshine?”

It would have been a full-on collision if the 212th was among the 501st and 104th raining heavily from all possible entryways of the cavernous haven that held the crowned princes captive — entourage had been wiped clean by the Republic’s finest. The unsung hunter with an idle rifle lax on her side had sashayed her way past scouts and troops that now chatter in doubt whether they have procured tampered intel from a now deemed incredulous source, or they have been bested by elusion. 

“Come on big boy, Mommy doesn’t have all day. Well — she does but, you know what I mean.”

The timing couldn’t even be more perfect as distant howling from wolves stalked and seeped through cracks in between boulders piled over. The choice was simple; escape with a ‘yes’ or die with a ‘no’ — never anything in between.

He didn’t have to say anything after a very audible scoff — now whether that was directed at the huntress, the situation at bay, or the fact that a very disgruntled Maul paced impatiently and seethed so horrendously that it was, as the huntress would often say ‘sus-vibes’.

“Count to three, always three — never more, never less, yes?” 

Pleased beyond compare, she tossed two small chip-like devices with singular buttons that beeped in unison; one in vibrant tangerine and the other of coy periwinkle. As they vanish in comparison to the striped palms that cradled them like fragile glass, the huntress takes a step forward and gently taps his cheek thrice; always three — never more, never less.

“Tangie (tangerine) go boom, Peri (periwinkle) go zoom.”

And just as she said and slithered through a makeshift tunnel and up onto the sandy grains, she clicked her ankles twice and activated the thrusters — watching the sparks ignite that needed one more tap to get it going; always three — never more, never less.

***

“You’ve surely outdone yourself, P. I have to say, I’m digging the vibe.” “High praise, high praise.” “Hey! That’s not very Kel Dor of you. You’re supposed to say something regal and … proper.” “...”

“...” “Well, go on. Don’t keep me hanging, babylove.” “Very well.” Plo clears his throat and procures a very dignified baritone response. “Exalted preeminence…?” “Babe, you know that was shit, right?” “Language, my sweet. But yes, that was indeed…” Plo merely sighed, nodded and backed away. “Now come along, my darling.”

***

Come away with me in the night

And so he finds you again, laying in the designated cot under the comfort of your own insecurities.

“Hey. You stop that now or I will come get you myself and break every horn on his head.” 

You laughed, at least you thought you did — willed yourself to believe in the lie that you’ve woven with such grace that it would put kings and queens to shame; the same lie you’ve meticulously etched upon every touch, every breath, every thought, every word that would always fall upon deaf ears. Not because they refused to listen, but because you knew that even the faintest of whispers would be too loud.

— too. damn. loud.

So you deny yourself in fear of becoming more than the encumbered weight upon shoulders that have already sagged from the avoirdupois of the galaxy itself; repulsed by the conundrum of hate and love in the same sentence that you’ve starved yourself of and from his anger, that you have surrendered yourself to the role of dirt — a maid droid with some, at best, questionable information that would endure Maul’s relentlessness that Savage would always make sure he would never cross a line. 

“I mean it, babe. I will break all his kriffin’ horns and grind —”

You can’t help but wonder if gratitude is enough; you accept it under the premise that they stay with you — or that they allow you to stay with them. To be given that privilege, to bask in their greatness; to worship him and all encompassing him — to surrender in hopes of a morsel of trust, if not affection.

“I’m fine — I promise! Please, just… Go faff over Plo or something.”

You laughed, at least you thought you did — willed yourself to believe that this was your resplendent point of no return; that this was the grandiose moment in which you would liberate yourself from the shackles you’ve adorned like fine jewelry to match the king himself. 

That maybe if you had been as beautiful as he is; had painted your nails at a point, had bruised your lips with the finest rouge, or have held your hair in a seductive knot that bore not only your skin but the desolation of your soul  with each passing moment that you’ve shed tears that would just… not… stop.  

That maybe if you had presented yourself or have written a masterpiece with an allure so potent, trust would have fallen so callously  upon sweet hands for the taking. That maybe if you had a better hold on emotions that spilled with such rawness, you would not have wept so much and had offered joy — not this. 

This…. This painful existence has made you doubt every reason to linger. That beyond how much you might love him, there is no longer any cause to continue this charade — this unnerving circus of a concept that for him to be angry, for him to bestow upon you this carnal need of fury, he would first have to care about you. 

That maybe… 

“We leave in half an hour. Prepare yourself.”

And you indeed do as you’re told;  prepare yourself devoid of candor that you’ve stayed true to your purpose — a maid droid with some, at best, questionable information that would endure Maul’s relentlessness that Savage would always make sure he would never cross a line. But at this moment, it was only Savage. 

Savage who needed something, anything; a massage, a clean up, food, a pilot — something, anything, everything but you.

***

“Borrowed.” Heavy like fluids that taint your cheeks with salt, his voice rumbles, but soft? — soft like velvet ribbons that knot quaintly around your neck as you board a smaller ship. You nodded, tugged by the galvanic tune of his voice that drew your feet onto the ramp and your hand — heavens, your hand, your beautiful, blessed hand that had touched me with such divinity that it revealed the sacrilegious tenderness of your heart. Your beautiful, delicate, exquisite heart that I would die for — that honors each passing second to be called a friend. [ I love you ♥ I’m such a sap! ]

Maker, break me — smite me from where I stand for there is no place in the vastness of the galaxy do they belong other than upon his.

Come away with me in the nightCome away with me

“Careful.”

With her heart? Like come on, Savage.  You gotta put in the work, babe!

He’s held your hand once before, right? When fingers brushed as you served him sustenance while Maul hissed on the side like a proper untrusting ball of fiery rage, glaring daggers at Savage who held onto his saber. You’ve brushed upon stern shoulders and arms when the wound needed cleaning and or the mechanical contraption failed to accommodate an angle — just as you have, but once, placed upon the sweetest kiss of your fingertips along the broken crown that did very little to diminish the sovereign he has on you while you applied whatever it was that made him groan, grunt, and sigh some few nights ago. 

When he had taken you by the wrists because you’ve flown far too close to the sun — now whether it was the liquid gold of his entirety or the kindled orbs of his soul, it had been all but a blur.

And I will write you a songCome away with me on a bus

“Are…. Are you comfortable?” And once more, that velveteen ribbon had knotted even tighter, forcing you to swallow what little life you had left, what little dignity you thought should have been robbed of you. And so you do as you always do, starve. 

Come away where they can't tempt us with their lies

“Yes, my lord.” Fallen from grace, hazel meets the silver flooring of the ship — hands seek straps to bury yourself in the comfort of the chair, distancing yourself from tempestuous Gods of Celestia who a friend had devoted her nights to pray for you, of you, to you, with you, always and a day as she says.

[ Yes, it be me, bestie ♥ I pray you for and happy things ♥ ]

And I want to walk with you On a cloudy day

“Auroras.” The journey was silent, never loud with Savage — never, only with Maul. And indeed, Auroras — a burst of lights mangled by a plethora of colors that had painted the sky of fine blues and purples, of greens and pinks, tangies (tangerine) and peries (periwinkle), but never a shade finer than the sun that glimmered on the very face that had consumed you — mind, body, heart, and soul; never a finer shade indeed.

In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high

And now there were emeralds before your feet; fine, lush virescent fields of a vacant park that overlooked a river of sorts and mud. And beyond, by where lonely rivers flow to sea, to the open arms of the sea, is a table with a pair of chairs.

Your friend had always told you that the Gods of Celestia are always unkind to those who are — unkind to the kind. It had always baffled you how truly kriffed up Celestian Law is, but you weren’t one so it didn’t matter.

You were happy to have a friend — no matter how much of an unhinged bitch she is and how much she thirsted for a certain Kel Dor Master Jedi to an unhealthy degree.

But you adore her, adore her with all your heart as you’ve told her aplenty — and in turn, she adores you more than you could ever best her.

She adores you enough to lie and claim she’d draw you but ends up writing a sappy fic because she has absolutely no self-control and cannot draw for shit and her self-insert game be too damn strong even for herself.

And so we carry on.

So won't you try to come

Unforgiving were the short gusts of wind that blew locks of hazel over your face that had seemingly pulled you into arms lean and muscular, yet gentle. The same pull that drew the sun back into your smaller frame and a marked fingers sprawled to caress your face with such a dignified stroke, it had called upon the stray locks to twine in between and be lulled to the back of your head. 

His gaze lingered — so did yours.

And whatever it was, be it the Force that trembled the sovereign before you or the Gods of Celestia drawn to this magnificent spectacle that happens to be observed by a distant figure of a Kel Dor frame with his talons mindful over the muffled screams of the aforementioned, unhinged Celestian woman, who flailed her arms high enough for you to smile. 

Come away with me and we'll kiss On a mountaintop

And again, before the crude interruption of the intruders, whatever it was, be it the Force that trembled the sovereign before you or the Gods of Celestia drawn to this magnificent spectacle, it happened.

Just. Like. That.

Come away with me And I'll never stop loving you

Lips so silken and laced with release that you felt your body quiver as it bestowed upon you the highest form of opulent gratification— as if his lips were either Midas’ touch of gold from lore of childhood or one of all deities that hail the sun had confounded it’s fiery blaze of passion upon your supple, sweet lips.

And I want to wake up with the rain Falling on a tin roof

The scent of pine resin permeating the air, the symphonic cacophony of birds that glided over the small city of your homeworld, the pitter-patter and click of silly, little river crabs that assaulted the tablecloth so vehemently that it had drawn Savage’s gaze to the creature before turning to address to the approaching couple.

[ Sorry babe, you ain’t making out with Savage if I’m not making out with Plo. Fair trade ♥ ]

They bore plates and trays of food; an assortment of anything unfamiliar to both Kel Dor and Zabrak — only to you and this bitch who decided to walk in when the kissing was happening. 

Plo, unprompted and perhaps as evenly an emotional wreck as your friend — one could only speculate seeing his enigmatic allure is brought upon by his antiox mask; placed a rather assuring hand over Savage’s shoulder and an approving squeeze. 

“Please enjoy.” Plo Koon would say, offering a delightful nod as you and Savage took to your seats. “I will see to it that your dinner remains unperturbed.”

You could help but laugh as you watched the Master Jedi take your friend by the waist and haul her over his shoulder. You would have commented but he had bested you with an amused tone. “Forgive my primitive manner of doing so, as it is a necessity.” 

While I'm safe there in your arms

You hear your friend whine and beg for, as she calls it, ‘five minutes of tea’ — to which Plo Koon sighed with such resignation over the fact that this mode of ‘disposing’ nuisance (your overly eager friend), had brought him to a defeated and compromising position.

[ Yes, babes. We getting lucky tonight ♥ LOL ]

“A… dire… necessity.” Plo trails off, patting your friend’s rear three times. And somewhere, somehow, you find yourself in chorus with the Master Jedi. 

“Always three — never more, never less.” “Always three — never more, never less.”

As the couple departed, your smile never fading, Savage calls to you.

So all I ask is for you

Not by 'you' or 'hey'. But calls to you. Speaks your name with so much reverence and warmth you feel it in your chest — so much that your own called upon yourself and placed a hand over your heart.

To come away with me in the night

"(insertnamehere). Will you... Come away with me?"

ok maybe zarya's is fine. Even if it was an ability, I'd only want it to have a 2 second cooldown. But yeah, Torb Cass and Zen alt fires are kinda lame, and I say the same for Widow Ashe Ana Symmetra and Winston. For those first three, Scope could just be a toggled thing imo. And in general I think everyone should have 4 weapons/abilities, one Passive, and obviously their uktimate. Reaper and Tracer are also examples of one's that I'd like fixed.

I mean at the point of a 2 second cooldown, that's almost the exact same uptime as normal, considering the slow fire rate and how you only get four shots per reload. It's just kind of an arbitrary change.

I also don't get how... toggling scopes would work? Like... you. already do that. with the alt fire. that's just arbitrarily adding an extra button, which I should point out because Overwatch is also a console game and thus must have a default controller scheme, is a limited commodity. And again, I don't really see much use when, like I explained, even Ana's scope with its minimal differences compared to unscoped fire, the kits of the heroes with those scope attacks are well rounded and really don't need an extra function.

Symmetra and Winston's alt fires aren't far off from Zarya's if you give it a thought, they're long-range shots that require extra ammo and have generally slower DPS than their limited range beam primary fires. Symmetra would be gutted if you got rid of either of her primary or secondary fire without proper compensation. Winston's meanwhile is more like a nice quality of life improvement that makes his somewhat basic gameplay loop a good bit more interesting, and lets him confirm kills by himself where he otherwise couldn't, which is important especially in OW2 where there's one less teammate to help finish off an enemy he couldn't alone.

As for the more general notion that every hero should have the full set of basic abilities and a passive... I mean... I get it... but I also disagree? at least a little? For one I think the requirement of everybody having a passive is just. Insanely arbitrary. It's a fun thought experiment, but to be frank it's also tedious trying to think of giving EVERY character a unique passive that has a meaningful impact on their gameplay, especially when they already have a well-defined kit. What even counts as a passive? I've heard the suggestion that Cassidy getting a headshot with revolver should take a second off his Roll cooldown, and while I like the idea, I don't know if that warrants being called a passive when you could just as easily call it a mechanic of Combat Roll or his primary fire. And again, I gotta reiterate, there's like 5 other "basic shooty fighter guys" that don't have passives and don't NEED passives. Soldier, Ashe, Cassidy, Widowmaker, Sojourn, Tracer. The "what to do" and "why to do it" just aren't there.

I do more so agree with at least wanting to give every character a full set of 4 abilities/attacks... kinda. See Reaper's lack of a secondary fire is not only mildly irritating for perfectionists, but also is an open space for something to address some of his weaknesses. While I think characters having flaws is fine and in fact very cool, Reaper's struggle past point-blank range is obscene, and despite his existing abilities getting tons of buffs over the years, he still struggles to exist if he can't flank into ambushing an enemy at breathing distance. How he hasn't gotten any kind of ranged projectile like a smoke grenade like in the initial reveal cinematic or something is beyond me. Tracer meanwhile... is fine. She's barely been touched over the years aside from minor tweaks to Pulse Bomb and her exact damage numbers in the shift to 5v5, and I think that more than anything speaks to how solid her existing kit is. She really doesn't need an extra ability, as tempting as it is to force one onto her. Similar story to Bastion, who's been much more hectic balance-wise over the game's history, but I think his recent dominance before getting nerfed shows that his kit is probably fine despite the fact he lacks an Ability 2.

I get the desire to make every character equally complicated for the sake of "fairness", I really do, but that's just not how game design works. Some characters are simpler and have less fancy buttons or traits than others, and that's fine and cool actually! It makes for a range of playstyles and design philosophies coexisting in a really cool way. The fact that a character as simple as Tracer can be just as respectable a pick as someone super complex in terms of ability count like Ramattra is really neat! So arbitrarily forcing "complexity" onto characters can just as easily help as it can hurt. Remember the recent Mei rework? She got a passive! And people didn't like it!

So yeah, while I think some additions to kit complexity are great, like Zen's kick and trading Hog's awkward alt fire for a new ability, it's not essential for every character to follow suit.

Alright you dudes want to know how bad I am at coding?

So I need to make a dialog tree in godot for a pretty writing-heavy RPG-type game. It needs to be fast and scalable. I know all about .json files, enough to know fast is what they're not. So I set my little fatally deranged brain to work devising an alternative.

Now, what is .json? It's just a means to store data. Well, I can store data anywhere. And more, with a .gd script I can store data DYNAMICALLY straight from the editor.

So I set about making a data script.

Oh yeah, public variables. Love 'em. I don't even bother to get rid of the default functions cause who gives a shit.

Anyway, easy part's done. Now I gotta make something out of this. I want the text to trigger conditional on the player entering some kind of area, or zone. A TextArea, maybe. I make the zone and give it collision, then I place my script on a useless node that does nothing.

Look at that, it even looks like ass on this post. Lovely.

Anyway, you might notice that there's a script in the trigger. That's my secret weapon. Let's take a look.

Pretty standard so far, we establish a bunch of variables and make some funny comments. Next slide.

Now this doesn't look scalable, does it? But the thing is, the dialogue scene is always going to have a "Tree" child. This really doesn't affect anything beyond looking pretty.

Let's keep going.

Big ugly loop here. What it does is it goes through each of our dialog choice buttons, and if it detects any of them is pressed, prints onto the text log what you pressed, then updates currentBranch to be the designated child Tree that has more data.

Hang on! There's only one Tree node!

Well, here's the beauty of this: by copying the Tree node onto ITSELF, I can make an infinitely recursive tree of dialogues and options. Observe:

This is TextArea in its final form, on a real node doing real things at runtime. Look at the happy family of trees, each a universe of writing waiting to be explored. Just set the scene to local and copy and paste away.

Anyway, there's a function called new_message(). What's that about?

Not much. It prints the response to the dialog option the player picked and does some backend stuff to make sure the options get updated properly. Moving on.

All this bit does is erase the options from the UI if the player moves out of the zone.

To recap: the player enters a zone, gets served a message and dialogue options, and depending on which they pick the node containing data is updated, the UI is cleaned, and the process begins again. Here's how it goes on runtime:

AND IT'S SCALABLE! I CAN DO IT FOREVER!

(This is a bad way to solve a real problem, I'm only doing this because I am pressed for time for a prototype. Use .json. Don't do drugs.)

#JakeReviewsItch

A Short Hike

by adamgryu

Genre: Adventure, Platformer

Pitch: The real hike up the mountain is the friends you made along the way. A cozy, relaxed adventure of traversal challenges and running errands.

My expectations: I played this game almost three years ago. I finished it, I liked it, I never understood the passionate adoration for it.

Review:

A Short Walk defaults (left) to "chunky pixels," with options for higher resolutions (right).

You know what games people like? Animal Crossing and Zelda’s Wild Breath.

A Short Hike takes place on a cute, little island populated by cute, little animals with cute, little errands they can’t be bothered to do themselves. Fishing, digging up clearly marked spots, watering plants, buying hats, knocking money out of rocks with a shovel… Animal Crossing was more than an influence or inspiration. The look is copied. The music is copied. The only things that aren’t stolen from Animal Crossing come from Zelda.

All the aforementioned activities lead, after a fashion, to collecting gold feathers, which function as stamina. Increased stamina is vital for climbing taller cliffs. The primary goal is to reach a mountain peak, which means a whole lotta climbing and gliding and falling. And in case you’re thinking, “Lots of games have climbing and stamina,” there are a few unmarked digging spots with a striking resemblance to Korok seed puzzles.

It’s a fusion that works, though. This is a breezy, harmless romp (an hour to reach credits; several more for 100% completion) that’s packed with charm. Charm copied from other, better games, but as fan art goes, A Short Hike reaches impressive heights.

+ Animal Crossing and Wild Breath, innit? Two great tastes that taste great together. + Loads of side quests and hidden treasures for those who care; the freedom to ignore most of that for those who don't. + Nails just about everything it set out to do. Indie games often reach beyond their means, and that's not the case here. Nothing's sloppy or unfinished. + As someone who plays PC games with a third-party Switch controller that games natively mistake for an Xbox controller, I can't tell you how nice it is when a game lets me redefine a button and chose how that's button prompts will look in game. No need for Steam Big Picture workarounds! It says "A" and I press the A Button!

– The whole time I was playing, I was thinking about how much more fun I would have with the real Zelda and Animal Crossing. Of course, those games are a significantly bigger time investment, and they carry hefty price tags, so maybe A Short Walk is a better choice for you. – I love simple controls! We don't need all those buttons! But maybe a game where the primary actions are talking, jumping, and climbing shouldn't use the same button for all three. – One active item at a time, with no shortcuts. The item menu places every item in a straight line, not a circle or a grid, adding needless steps when switching items. Picking up a new item automatically makes it active. Minor but irritating. – SPOILER/CONTENT WARNING: There's some sick mom stuff that comes out of nowhere. I'm going to assume the writer is injecting something real and personal with this story beat. That emotional challenge could be the reason he made this game. Whatever the case, it is tonally disorienting. There are hints of darkness here and there—grumbling about college debt, bones popping out of the graves for us sickos who can't resist using a shovel everywhere—but this is the only moment that I thought truly broke the cheery, escapist tone. Maybe that contrast is supposed to make it hit harder, but it didn't work for me at all, and it seems like a potentially nasty surprise for those who really need a few hours of cheery escapism.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍

Bottom Line: Couldn't be more derivative, but that won't stop the dopamine from flowing as you scale rocks and compulsively gather shells. Not a full meal, but a very tasty snack. Just watch out for that story twist if you have any sensitivities.

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

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Crusader Kings 2 Decision ID List | download

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 The life of the ruler in the Crusader Kings series can be difficult, but luckily you can bend the rules a little bit. The most basic form of cheating and I mean beyond what the game actually encourages you to do. This is especially useful to get as much money as you want, as you can simply have all the other rulers within the diplomatic range send you monetary gifts. Of course, you can use the same exploit to force other rulers to do other things you want, like sending you marriage requests that are convenient for you for instance, matrilineal marriages for your daughters , swear fealty as your vassals, surrender during a war, and generally execute plays in your favor. In order to use them you need to start the game in debug mode. On the Steam client, right-click on the game and select Properties, then under the General tab, click the Set Launch Options button. This only works if Ironman mode is deactivated. Commands that are a toggle for instance the yesmen cheat can be turned off by using them a second time. This is all we know so far about how to cheat in Crusader Kings 3, all codes, and console commands. We hope it helps you bend destiny to your will. Crusader Kings 3 is currently available exclusively for PC and if you want to know just how good it is, you can read our review. Connect with us. Continue Reading. To Top. Adds [amount] of age to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Negative values lower it. Adds a pressed claim on [title id] to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all doctrine IDs. Adds [amount] of stress to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [regiment id] of of men-at-arms to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all regiment IDs. Adds [perk id] to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all perk IDs. Pressing tab reveals all law IDs. Adds [relation id] between [character id] and [character id], if only one character is specified then between the player character and them. Adds [trait id] to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all trait IDs. Adds [amount] of experience to all lifestyles of [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Default Adds [amount] of diplomacy lifestyle experience to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of martial lifestyle experience to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of stewardship lifestyle experience to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of intrigue lifestyle experience to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of learning lifestyle experience to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of diplomacy skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of martial skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of stewardship skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of intrigue skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of learning skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Adds [amount] of prowess skill to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Removes all character modifiers from [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all era IDs. Default current era. Pressing tab reveals all innovation IDs. Gives all lifestyle perks to [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Entering it again disables it. Impregnates female [character id] with father [character id], if no character is specified then an unknown father. Removes the current nickname from [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Removes [relation id] between [character id] and [character id], if only one character is specified then between the player character and them. Removes [trait id] from [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Changes the culture to [culture id] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all culture IDs. Sets the dread to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Changes the faith to [faith id] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Pressing tab reveals all faith IDs. Sets the focus to [focus id] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Changes the sexual orientation to [sexuality id] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the stress to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the diplomacy skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the martial skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the stewardship skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the intrigue skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the learning skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Sets the prowess skill to [amount] for [character id], if no character is specified then the player character. Executes the commands in [file name]. Adds the given law to the scoped character. Skips the cost and the pass effect, and the revoke effects of the current law. Adds a secret. This is due to the game generating the tooltip before it actually has a Secret that exists to work off of. Test rigorously and use custom tooltips if necessary. Creating a Secret in the immediate and then running effects on it in an event option should produce perfectly normal tooltips. Sets the both-way truce against the specified character. Sets the truce against the specified character. Changes the county control of a title. If the title has higher tier than county, the effect will propagate down to all counties below it. Changes the development level of a title. Changes the development progress of a title. Scoped character is the prisoner. Accepts any static modifier see also improson effect. Until they get a new reason, they cannot banish the target again. Until they get a new reason, they cannot divorce the target again. Until they get a new reason, they cannot execute the target again. Until they get a new reason, they cannot imprison the target again. Create an alliance between the scoped character and the target. The allied through characters determine who gets checked against for if the alliance should persist or not. Kills a character. Where X is a character and Y is one of the death reason keys. Forbid the scope character from joining the target scheme as an agent and kick the character out if already in the scheme. X is a character, Y is a flag, Z is a static modifier. Makes the target character a concubine of the scope character, the target should not be imprisoned. Makes a current trait of a character inactive. The scope character will no longer be prunable after their death. Use with care, as this will make everyone related to them unprunable too. The scope character immediately pays gold corresponding to their income to the target character. AI budget short term. Removes a hook on a character. If type is specified, the hook will only be removed if it is of that type. Remove the cooldown on using an interaction against the target character for the scoped character. Removes a temporary opinion modifier. Where X is a character, Y is the opinion modifier, Z tells whether to remove all instances of the modifier or just one. Removes the given law from the scoped character. Removes a trait from a character. Sets the name and adjective of the scoped title back to being based on its key. Sets the prefix of the scoped title back to being based on its key. Adds a temporary reverse opinion modifier. X is a scripted modifier name. Sends a message to the player playing the character in the scope and then executes any effects inside. Changes what faith a character has executing the effects for it. Changes what faith a character has, as if they used the faith-view interaction minus the piety cost. Sets the color of the title to the same as the target title shifted very slightly to not be identical. Sets if the title should disallow automatic claims meaning claims will only be added by script, and by pressed claims being inherited. Scope must be player-controlled. Target cannot be player-controlled. Spawns an army for this character. If the character is not at war, the regiments will be created, but the army will not be spawned. Force the Councillor to revert to the default task. Any relevant percentage progress will be lost even if the councillor was performing the default task already. Starts a war. X is a casus belli type, Y is the target character, Z i the optional claimant, W1, W2….

followers instagram

The same way YouTubers ask their viewers to abide by them at the end of their movies, You may also inquire viewers to observe you For additional information.

Consider your Instagram bio plus your final 9 posts as your very first perception on Instagram. Do they successfully communicate some degree of consistency by means of persona, filters, colours, or format?

Within this guidebook, we’ll provide you with how you can expand your Instagram follower profile and maximize engagement, although escalating a huge subsequent eventually—one which’s packed with real enthusiasts, not bots or faux followers.

Ponieważ wszyscy obserwatorzy i polubienia, które otrzymujesz, pochodzą od prawdziwych ludzi, Twoje konto nie jest naraż1 na blokadę lub inne negatywne działania. Dodatkowo InsBottleGetInsitaGetInsita jest rozwijana przez profesjonalny zespół, co zapewnia jej one hundred% bezpieczeństwo i czystość. Możesz zdobyć w niej darmowych i prawdziwych obserwujących oraz polubienia bez żadnych zmartwień i strachu.

–followers instagram Twój profil był perfekcyjny, a zdjęcie profilowe ciekawe. – poświęć czas na tworzenie ciekawego instagram tales. Krótkie filmiki przyciągają uwagę i czynią konto bardziej dynamicznym. – dopracuj bio swojego profilu  – na autoreklamę profilu masz mało miejsca, dlatego istotne jest, by znaleźć odpowiednie słowa kluczowe, chwytliwe, ale pasujące do Twojej działalności hashtagi, a także wykorzystaj emotikony. Bio to również miejsce, gdzie zainteresowani mogą dowiedzieć się więcej o Tobie. Na długie opisy nie znajdziesz tam miejsca, ale na hyperlink do strony internetowej, profilu na facebooku czy bloga już tak.

Gaining followers and an audience on Instagram is now progressively difficult and competitive. That’s why we’re maintaining a tally of floor-breaking applications like Route Social that enable influencers and businesses expand throughout a tumultuous but explosive era within the social media marketplace.

A focused strategy consists of examining what has and it has not worked to suit your needs previously. By viewing IconoSquare’s optimization area, you instagram followers can get an in depth analysis of the submitting history versus engagement. This report will even emphasize the most effective situations in the day and times of the week to put up.

How are you distinct from other solutions? Any support that asks for the Instagram password or makes use of any kind of automation or bots is violating Instagram Conditions of Services and places your account at risk of permaban.

The coin distribution is kind of honest as compared with other applications. You can certainly obtain them as per your need.

Attaining followers and an audience on Instagram is now significantly tough and competitive. That’s why we’re keeping track of ground-breaking equipment like Path Social that aid influencers and companies develop all through a tumultuous but explosive era from the social networking market.

 Beyond introducing the suitable hashtags and using the very best filters to get a lot more Instagram followers, It's also advisable to take into account the timing of your posts.

This application is quick and highly responsive. Right here You must Trade the coins with followers to have every little thing excellent.

W lepszej jakości można kupić konta wyglądające naturalnie, więc nawet nikt nie zorientuje się co do kupowania followersów na Instagramie. Tak czy siak jest to promocja jak każda inna i na pewno warto jej spróbować ponieważ wydaje się być to naprawdę duży stosunek ceny do jakości.

The quantity of followers you will get is set to ten by default considering that it is the trial provider. If you decide to invest in a lot more followers, click on the "Additional Followers" button and move forward.

the time has come for me to create a dragon. usual OC nonsense warnings apply. this is also a pretty long one.

true dragon form

so this is obviously extremely different from the norm, and dragons themselves are extremely varied. most of my dragon-knowledge comes from d&d, but I'm going to pull generally from all kinds of fantasy dragons, so don't expect me to stick rigidly to the d&d ruleset, or even loosely. I'm going to have three sort of sub-facets, just so i can adapt everything a little better. taking from Pokemon, I'm going to call these forms. so let's get started.

EDIT: this post is being updated with a link to the default Candy

the primary form of dragon facet candy, and the default I'll refer to as "dragon facet". this is your very traditional European dragon with four legs and a pair of wings.

as dragons go, true dragon Candy is relatively small - but still significantly larger than humanoids. her torso is about a dozen feet in length, with an eight-foot neck and a twenty foot whiplike tail. she's generally slender and lithe, with greater concern for movement than muscle. (she remains substantially stronger than most humanoids, but as dragons go she's below-average in terms of physical strength) she has a 30-foot wingspan, with each wing reaching 14 to 15 feet when fully extended. these wings are pretty substantial in coverage, giving her huge lift, allowing her to lazily fly high in the sky. uniquely, she has a sort of in-built roller that allows her to tighten and sweep the wings, generating less lift, but massively improving midair control, allowing her to quickly switch between lazy gliding and intense high-speed and high-maneuverability flight. her body has slight indents behind her legs, allowing her to fold them in and increase aerodynamics.

her coat of scales is a deep royal purple, fading to dark blue-gray on her belly and wings. "accessories", such as horns, claws, and so on, are all dark gray with bright yellow tips. her teeth do not have yellow tips. her head is adorned with two curling horns, spiraling from the sides of her head around ¾ of a turn before ending in points. her teeth are kept at a full inch long and wicked sharp, excepting two fangs at the front, which grow like saber teeth to a length of three inches. her claws, five to a hand, are kept sharpened at all times. her tail is entirely smooth along its length, and if somehow cut off, will grow back fully within a week, depending on how much was removed. her eyes are pure yellow. each wing has two claws, which can be used as extremely inefficient manipulators, but are better than nothing if her other hands are full.

she has control over lightning and wind. similar to her other facets, this lightning is not accompanied by thunder, allowing her to be extremely stealthy with her lightning attacks. her control over wind allows her to fly even lazier, or if her wings are damaged beyond flight, she can bring herself out of a crash landing. she prefers to magically manifest lightning, but in a pinch, is fully capable of exhaling lightning bolts. unfortunately, because this is a separate type of magic, she can't silence the thunder, so she uses her breath weapon only as a last resort. sometimes this means she's bullied for not having a breath attack (something most dragons are very proud of having)

as dragons tend to be, true dragon Candy is lazy, prideful, and aloof. she generally sees little reason to converse with the lesser species (particularly humans), so she generally keeps to herself. of course, if others seek her out, she'll indulge them for as long as they're interesting, but the moment she gets bored she's liable to simply fly off without a word. she isn't violent, but if she's insulted by someone (she sees as) less powerful than her, she will fight back with no mercy. insulting her also isn't easy; it generally takes many repeated presses of very specific buttons to set her off, and usually she'll simply fly off before it gets to that point.

wyvern form

this form is generally more feral than true dragon form, and has a different body shape. she has two legs and two wings and is smaller. she has a six foot torso, three foot neck, and ten foot tail. her wingspan is fourteen feet, making each wing 6-7 feet each. she lacks the sophisticated roller in her wings, instead they're always swept back into "combat mode". she remains rather slender, but is relatively more muscular than true dragon form.

her coloration remain unchanged, but her teeth are all fully yellow and she has no saber teeth. in addition, she now has venom, with each tooth and claw secreting a thin yellow fluid. the venom is relatively weak, enough just to weaken and slow victims, but it's also extremely conductive to electricity, making victims much more likely to get hit by her lightning abilities. being more feral, she no longer fears thunder as much, and makes extensive use of her lightning breath, often spreading splats of venom as she exhales, creating a wide shotgun blast of lightning accompanied by a concussive blast of thunder. she's still frightened by this, so every time she uses this attack, she reflexively leaps back and takes flight. in addition, she now has three claws to a wing, and each is much more dexterous.

she's much more feral, but still capable of reasoning. she never speaks to lesser species, even if they seek her out, instead simply flying off or attacking. she can be bribed to listen with offerings of food - particularly with large quantities of sweets - but she will rarely respond with words.

humanoid form

this is more for settings that require a more dragon-born type of design, where she's fully humanoid but has draconic traits.

she stands at her default height. her horns are reduced in relative size, with less curling. her wingspan (when she's allowed wings) is eight feet, and her wings resemble those of her wyvern form, with no rollers and always set into "combat mode". her claws and teeth are now retractable, and fully yellow. her eyes are fully yellow, but with thin bluish purple reptilian slit-shaped pupils.

she maintains skill with lightning and wind magic, and maintains the thunderous breath, resulting in a preference to using her magic instead. she can also choose to secrete her wyvern form's venom, though only through her teeth.

she maintains the deep-purple-blue scales, and takes great pride in their beauty.

as personality goes, she's notably more haughty than her default, but not nearly so prideful or lazy as her true dragon form. she also sees no issue speaking to creatures she would otherwise consider lesser.

Some of my lovely friends asked to show how I do my blending, so here is a very long tutorial! I will explain how to:

Blend GIFs with lots of movement

Blend three or more GIFs on one canvas

You will need:

Any version of Photoshop with a timeline

Basic-intermediate knowledge of GIF making (including cropping, how to use adjustment layers for color correction, applying layer masks, and placing multiple GIFs on one canvas)

Since the way I blend depends on the footage I'm able to work with, I often end up going in a different direction than I first planned. So this isn't a strict step-by-step guide that can be applied to everything you make. These are just some tips!

Read the rest under the cut.

TERMINOLOGY:

(Pretty sure you already know this but I will be repeating these a lot here, so just in case!)

Highlights & Shadows - The highlights are the brightest parts of the image. The shadows are the darkest parts. Remember that just because it's bright doesn't mean it's actually white, and just because it's dark doesn't mean it's actually black!

Negative Space - This refers to empty space around your subject. When there's negative space, it's easier to spot the focal point of the image.

BLENDING GIFS WITH LOTS OF MOVEMENT

Number of GIFs: 2 Main GIF: Closeup of Sam (“big!Sam”) Secondary GIF: Sam flying (“flying!Sam”)

STEP 1: Find the right scenes Since the subject of the secondary GIF is much smaller and basically cuts across the frame, it’s important (but not always essential!) that the main GIF has less movement and a decent amount of negative space.

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Make your GIFs like how you usually do (Important: Remember that your GIFs need to have the same number of frames). When it’s time to crop, it’s best to have the two files opened in Photoshop at the same time so you can compare them against each other. It’s absolutely fine for them to overlap because that’s the whole point! The secondary GIF has Sam flying in from the top left to the bottom right, so I cropped the main GIF with him off-center so there would be space to see flying!Sam.

Now we have these two GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one and adjust the blend mode. Setting the blend mode to Screen usually works, but in this case, this is how it looks:

As you can see, the highlights in the main GIF are obscuring flying!Sam in the first frames. You can only see him clearly when he’s flying over big!Sam’s face. This is because the shadows on the top GIF will lighten and/or disappear against the highlights of the bottom GIF when set to Screen. It would be too complicated to fix this with a brush (which we will get to later) because of the movement in the secondary GIF, so instead I set the blending mode to Multiply, which is the opposite of Screen. Now here is the GIF:

We can now see flying!Sam. But the blue of the sky is now a pseudo-filter over big!Sam’s face up until the last frames. So I applied a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer over the secondary GIF to remove those colors. The sky in the GIF is made up of cyans and blues, so I dragged those sliders down to -100. Here is how it looks now:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want So that big!Sam’s face isn’t covered by flying!Sam’s wings and that pesky airplane up top, we have to use a brush to erase those parts. In the Layers panel, make sure your GIF layers (in this case, groups/folders) are selected and click the Add Layer Mask button. A little rectangle next to the layer/group name will show up like so:

Then in the Tools panel, click the Brush tool, pick a soft brush and set the size to around 180-210px. The larger the brush, the softer the look. I learned this from Becca (@inejz-ghafa) who made an amazing tutorial a while back (will link it in the source at the bottom)! Adjust the brush size if you have to.

Now click on the little rectangle layer mask of the group you want to erase (in this case, the secondary GIF). When you do this, the Foreground and Background Colors buttons in the Tools panel will revert to the default black and white.

Painting with black will erase and painting with white will undo the erasure. So I erased the airplane and the bits of the wings covering his face. I didn’t erase the parts that overlap with his uniform, just to keep the effect of flying!Sam zooming across the GIF. And here is our finished product:

BLENDING THREE OR MORE GIFS ON ONE CANVAS

We will be working with these two GIFs since they use different techniques:

STEP 1: Compose your image Find the scenes you want to put in your GIF and choose which of those is the most important. Once you've decided on that, you can build the rest of the elements around it.

Sam's GIF: Multiple Exposure Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bloodied shield Secondary GIF: Closeup of Sam Tertiary GIF: Bucky with the shield

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Since the shield is the most important part, I made it the largest GIF and cropped it close to emphasize the star and the blood. I made Sam's GIF the same size, but cropped it with his face off-center so that the star wouldn't completely cover his face. Again, it's totally fine for the images to overlap! The tertiary GIF is the least important so I cropped it smaller. To determine the size of that GIF compared to the shield, I made the Rulers visible (View > Rulers; or Ctrl+R) then clicked the top ruler and dragged down to create a guide to where I wanted the smaller GIF to end. Then I measured from the bottom of the GIF up to the guide to determine the height of the smaller GIF. (Tip: It's better to make the tertiary GIF too large than too small. That way, you have more to work with. So size it larger than it will appear on the final GIF.)

This is only a stylistic choice for this particular set, but I removed the blue from the shield and set the tertiary GIF to black and white, so that the only notable colors in the GIF are red, black and white. Varying up the coloring of each GIF (i.e. color vs. monochrome) adds some spice to the image, so play around with these different styles if you like!

Here are our three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs At first, I made the main GIF of the shield the bottom GIF. Then I placed the secondary GIF over it and set the blend mode to Screen, but found that it lacked depth. So I switched them and made the Sam GIF the bottom GIF (blend mode: Pass Through) and placed the shield GIF (blend mode: Screen) over it. And this is what I got:

Notice how the window behind Sam on the left side is distracting? It also partially obscures the star. So I went back to Sam’s GIF, created a New Layer and painted over the window with a black brush. Now here is our GIF:

This is just my personal preference, but I wanted the area around the star to be a solid black rather than gray, so this time I created a New Layer over the shield GIF and applied a layer of black with the Paint Bucket tool, setting the blend mode to Soft Light. Now we’re done with the main and secondary GIFs:

Now let’s add the last GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want Lastly, I erased the warehouse rafters over Sam’s face and a bit of his shirt and the warehouse floor on the bottom right corner using Layer Masks and a soft brush (like in the first tutorial). And we’re done!

Bucky's GIF: Silhouette Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bucky holding the notebook Secondary GIF: View of the sunrise from the boat Tertiary GIF: Sam and Bucky walking away

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs To achieve this silhouette effect, the main GIF needs to have a clear focal point, which means it’s better to have negative space around the subject and for there to be minimal movement. In this case, the subject is made up of Bucky’s hands, notebook, and part of his shirt; and there’s some movement but we can still work with that. The other two GIFs will then be placed “inside” the subject. Because the negative space in the main GIF consists of highlights, I chose a secondary GIF which emphasized the shadows. For the smallest GIF, I used a guide like in the previous tutorial to measure its size.

We have these three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one. In my case, I didn’t measure it right so I had to nudge the top GIF a bit to the right to fit it inside the silhouette. The important thing is that the edge of the secondary GIF should not overlap with the silhouette itself, or else the illusion “breaks.”

Now let’s add the third GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want For this GIF, there’s a lot we need to erase! Using Layer Masks and a soft brush again, erase the parts of the secondary GIF that extend beyond the silhouette. It’s entirely based on personal preference if you want to keep some parts of the secondary GIF outside the silhouette (like I did here) or if you want them completely removed. And for the small GIF, erase the edges for it to blend with the secondary GIF while also staying within the silhouette of the main one.

Now here is our finished GIF:

And that’s it! If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope this was useful! Remember, there is no definitive way to blend GIFs, so keep experimenting. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes either, because we learn a lot from those. Happy Photoshop-ing!

- Elle

late night calls (with you) | d.w

reader misses dean.

gif by @canonspngifs

angsty for no reason, fluffy too, listened to iu’s through the night the whole time while writing this, not set in any particular szn

“OH AND NO phones this whole weekend.”

jody shoots you a pointed look, a playful smile lingering on her lips.

you make sure your eyes roll all the way to the back as everyone slowly but surely turns to smirk at you.

even alex, now who was she to speak on excessive usage of phones?

“i won’t die if i don’t get to use my phone, just so you guys know.” you huff, crossing your arms in annoyance as donna barks with laughter.

so, you had to give up your actual phone, the other one too and the other, other one sitting in the car as well.

claire made a whole show out of it, collecting each and every one in a bucket labelled distractions crossed out in red.

“time to bring out the vodka!”

you can’t help crack a chuckle at jody’s scandalized expression at claire’s screech.

it was going to be one hell of a girls weekend.

——————————————————————————

your heart is in your mouth, pounding with each light step towards the bathroom. a slight weight tugs the pocket of your cardigan downwards, it’s your old flip phone.

in your defense, you didn’t even know it was still with you. (well, you kind of did but it’s not your fault claire couldn’t find it.)

you cringe as the door creaks open, pushing it one inch at a time until there’s enough space to slide in.

the phone takes a lifetime to switch on, you’re luck there’s a bar of charge left.

your fingers fumble around, accidentally pressing the wrong buttons each time you press one right. jesus, how did you use this back then?

the contact list doesn’t extend beyond one click of the down arrow key.

bobby.

bobby fbi.

bobby home.

your heart clenches a little, remembering how easy it was to just call bobby up whenever you wanted. he was within your reach, a phonecall or just a drive away.

it’s crazy the little things we take for granted.

a few more names pop up, all dead or estranged, mostly dead and you feel sick to your guts.

you hurriedly hit the back button several times until the ugly, default wallpaper, with pixels you can count, greets you.

dean’s number materialises on the screen as you punch in the numbers to his personal cell, meant for only sam and you.

he picks up on the third ring, “ok, who did you kill to get this phone?”

you deadpan, slightest bit of annoyance flaring “ha ha, dean. i risk my life to call and that’s the first thing you say?”

his laughter crackles in your ear, he seems to switch the phone towards the other ear.

“jody gave me the low down about girls weekend. no phones, no men and definitely no insanely hot boyfriends.”

you perch yourself on top of the toilet bowl, barely just hovering over it. it’s uncomfortable but better than standing idly.

“looks like that won’t be a problem for me.”

he gasps so loudly you have to muffle the phone with your hands, manically shushing him.

“i’m hiding in the bathroom, can you be a little more quiet?” you hiss, keeping an ear perked up for any telling sounds outside.

you’re met with silence and a gentle buzz of static letting you know dean’s still on call.

“hello?”

“thought you didn’t want me to speak.” he whispers, probably wearing a shit-eating-but-also-adorable grin.

you almost crush the poor flip phone in your bare hand, “yeah, i didn’t mean to shut up, you ass.”

he’s chuckling again but you’re well prepared to muffle the phone this time, quite possibly damaging the ancient speakers.

“you know, even if we’re miles apart, the sky we share will always be the same.”

you mock gag at his words, “did you steal that from a movie or something?”

dean scoffs through the phone and you can practically see his eyes roll back.

“i’m a romantic, you’re just a boring, old realist.”

a muffled chuckle leaves your lips, free hand clamping it shut, hyperaware of a cabin full of hunters who sleep with a loaded gun under their pillow.

you peek a glance up, the moon’s not even out, little to no stars jewelled beside. you think you see a tiny sparkle in the distance if you squint hard enough.

“there are no stars on my end.”

“that’s cause you’re not looking in the mirror.”

a giggle escapes your lips despite your attempts to remain indifferent towards his god awful pick up lines, like always.

you can almost hear his smile through the phone, he’s probably pumping his fist up in the air in proud victory.

unadmittedly, something about the shared night sky is intimate, tugs at your heart. it’s a jarring, welcomed constant in both of your lives.

one too many car rides spent under the night sky, sometimes admiring it with a mildly infuriatingly warm beer and an equally riveting squabble with sam over who gets to ride shotgun next.

a longing want overwhelms you, you have so much to say, so much more dean needs to know.

time feels stolen, borrowed every second you spend with him. you’re always scrambling to cook a new recipe or go to that new diner around the block. never stopping because just in case.

just in case a hunt goes wrong, just in case you piss off the wrong deities, the wrong witches or the wrong demons.

just in case he dies.

the words die in your throat each time, etch themselves in your diary instead. they stay locked up in the confines of pages, wash away like the engravings of your initials he always draws on the sand of kansas beach.

his initials rests on the nook of your clavicle around a delicate, silver chain.

d.w.

he’d gifted it to you the previous christmas, citing the importance of you wearing it all the time so those shrimp jack asses stop hitting on you.

sam pointed out how it doesn’t lessen the chances of you getting hit on because strangers couldn’t possibly know what d.w stands for or who he/she is.

dean placed bugs in his bed that night.

god, you miss his petty ass already.

“i miss you.” you blurt out while he’s rambling on about sam’s poor outfit choices for his most recent date.

a pause, he seems to absorb, understand the depth of your words.

“i know,” his voice’s softer, hushed like the sky might hear and tell the moon, “i know.”

the way he says that, you’re sure you’re falling for him all over again.

“i have half a mind to come and bring you back home right now.” he teases lightly, an edge in his voice that seems to suggest otherwise.

you simply smile, fingers lifting to trace his initials on your neck. it’s silent for a while, comfortable and you bask in it, knowing he’s on the other side doing the same.

“what are you doing?” you ask after a while, drawing your knees to your chest, resting your chin in the nook of their valley.

“just thinking of you.” he muses. you should be chuckling at that, teasing him for such a cheesy line but your heart just swells ten fold.

“can you promise me something?”

dean hums, gulping down a drink, probably a cold beer. (which you strongly, strongly disagree with. he just waves you off whenever you bring up his cholesterol and all the old age stuff.)

“don’t die, okay? atleast not before me.”

he chuckles lightly, “you usually only say that before a hunt, or when i have a plate of bacon infront of me.”

“i know, just reminding you.”

it comes off sadder than intended, your desparation slips in right at the end and he seems to notice.

“i solemnly promise that i won’t die. it’s a pinky swear and you know how serious i am

about these pinkies.”

you raise your pinky to no one in particular, imagining his snug around yours, thumbs meeting in unison, a kiss on your lips to seal it.

a yawn involuntarily escapes your mouth, eyes watering slightly and it hurts to keep them open.

“hey sleepyhead, don’t doze off on me.” he mumbles, sounding half asleep himself.

“i’m no-.”

a light flickers on outside, streaming in through the keyhole.

“shit, i think they’re on to me.” you whisper, frantically flushing the toilet. your arm knocks over a shampoo rack in the process, no doubtedly waking everyone up to atrociously loud clanging.

dean has the nerve to laugh at your predicament, “just make sure you come home to me whole.”

XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 Review

I drew this with an XP-Pen Artist Pro 24, which the team at XP-Pen kindly sent to me for review. I’ve had to opportunity to use this tablet on-and-off over the course of the past several weeks, and while there were a few issues my overall impression is positive.

Unboxing / Contents

Apart from the 24” display tablet itself, the package comes with the usual cabling peripherals, plus some bonus extras. If your machine supports a USB-C connection for display, you’ll only need the one cable (plus the power connection). Otherwise, there’s a HDMI and a USB-C to USB converter included as well.

The extras include: an additional stylus, a one-size-fits-all artist’s glove, and a microfiber cloth.

The container for the stylus twists open to reveal 8 extra stylus nibs. Its cap can also be removed to use as a stylus holder.

Driver (Installation & General Use)

There were a few issues with installation, mostly tied to interactions between the driver, Windows 10 and Windows Ink.

Initially, brush strokes were offset from the stylus’ point of contact with the screen by about 3-4 centimetres when attempting to draw in Photoshop CS6. Random straight strokes also occurred frequently. This same problem did not occur in MS Paint or Photoshop CC 2019. This was fixed by changing the UI scaling setting for the monitor in Windows settings from 125% (which was apparently the default) to 100%.

Initially, brush strokes had no pen pressure in Photoshop CC 2019. Photoshop CS6, on the other hand, did (but suffered from the previous offset problem). This was fixed by turning on the Windows Ink setting in the XP-Pen driver menu. So in other words: CC 2019 needs Windows Ink on to recognise pen pressure, while CS6 didn’t, but was affected by UI scaling.

Interestingly, if Windows Task Manager was in focus and Windows Ink was not enabled in driver settings, stylus input was not recognised at all. There may be other programs that have this issue, but this was the only one I encountered so far.

I will say that I’ve had many problems with Wacom drivers interacting badly with Windows Ink and other things in the past before, so these types of issues are not exclusive to the XP-Pen drivers.

I’m currently using driver version 3.0.5, a beta build that has a lovely UI; it’s clear and laid out well. I did also try version 1.6.4 initially, which was fine — the UI for that version was similar to the layout you find with Wacom drivers.

Apart from the issues during installation that required troubleshooting, I haven’t had many major complaints with the driver in day-to-day use, I do think that there are a few areas for improvement, however.

The driver stops working correctly each time the computer is set to sleep and woken up again. To fix this the driver must be exited from the system tray and then relaunched.

There also doesn’t seem to be a way to bind WIN+SHIFT+ARROW to any of the express keys. WIN+SHIFT+ARROW (left or right arrow) is the Windows shortcut to quickly move a focused window to another monitor, so it’s something I use a lot if I’m on a multi-monitor setup. Unfortunately, attempting to set this shortcut in the express keys menu will simply move the actual driver window over to the other monitor while the custom input is not properly recognised in the text field.

The driver does offer a “switch monitor” option for the express keys that when clicked will transfer your stylus input to another monitor, which is extremely useful.

Screen

At 24” with a 2560x1440p QHD resolution, images are sharp and crisp even when viewed from a close range while drawing. Genuinely, it feels great to paint on based off this aspect alone.

The colour temperature is set to 6500K by default in the the driver settings. I think initially it felt just a touch too saturated, but overall I’m fairly happy with the colour display.

The monitor has touch-sensitive inputs on the top right corner: a -/+ for quickly adjusting the brightness, a menu for further settings, and power. I found myself using these to adjust the brightness throughout the day frequently. The power input requires a few seconds of continued contact from your finger to react, which prevents you from accidentally brushing it and turning the monitor on/off.

The monitor comes with a built-in stand. I found it easy to adjust to different viewing angles and also incredibly sturdy. I had no problems leaning on the monitor while drawing.

The monitor also comes with a pre-applied anti-glare screen protector. I wasn’t bothered by it and it seems to be holding out well after several weeks of use. I think the screen itself definitely needs the additional anti-glare, as being a display tablet means that it’s significantly more reflective than my main display.

Stylus

My first impression of the stylus was that it’s lighter in comparison to the Wacom styluses that I’m used to — there is very little to no weighting on the back end of the stylus, which makes it feel noticeably different when gripped. To be honest, though, I forgot about it when I was actually painting. Still, I would prefer a bit more weighting because I do think it makes the stylus more comfortable to hold overall for long periods of time.

There’s also no eraser nib, but I’ve personally never used those on Wacom tablets (I always use shortcuts to switch between brush and eraser instead) so this was a non-issue for me.

The two shortcut buttons on the side of the stylus sit quite flat to the surface, so I think they would be less likely to bother people who don’t use them. I use them a lot, however, and found that they were still easy to click despite being quite flat.

Unfortunately however I ran into a curious issue with using one of the stylus buttons to activate the eyedropper tool. When the “alt” key is mapped to one of the triggers on the stylus, activation of the eyedropper function in Photoshop (tested in both CS6 and CC 2019) is somewhat unreliable. That is, when the “alt” key is held down, the expected result is that once you tap the stylus on the canvas, a “mouse-click” will be triggered and the eyedropper will activate. While this works perfectly fine if you hold down “alt” from the keyboard (or hold down an “alt” that’s bound to one of the 20 express keys), when you hold “alt” from a stylus trigger I found that tapping quickly with the stylus only seemed to activate the eyedropper about 50% of the time. In order to activate it more reliably, I had to press harder and longer with the stylus, which can become tiring and slowed down my painting process. I also found that frequently, pressing down longer would lock me into the eyedropping function until I clicked the trigger key again.

After submitting feedback about this XP-Pen’s R&D department, I was informed that this issue occurs because the stylus is only able to send one message to the tablet at a time. Pressing “alt” on the stylus and trying to “click” at the same time counts as two messages, which may interact with each other unexpectedly. This is why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

The buttons seem to otherwise work completely fine for any other functions that don’t require the stylus to send two simultaneous messages, so unless you’re like me and like to bind “alt” to a stylus trigger, this won’t affect you.

Pen Pressure & Activation Force

Most current-gen tablets flash a big number for the pen pressure levels as a selling point. Having used tablets with 512, 2k, 4k and 8k levels of pressure sensitivity, I’d say I noticed the biggest difference when switching from 512 to 2k, but in my opinion beyond 2k the change is minimal and has no real impact on the way I draw. The XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 comes with 8192 levels of sensitivty, which is a very big number, but in practical application all I can say is that it works the way I expect it to and I don’t have any complaints regarding the transition between pressure levels on the default linear pressure curve.

More importantly I did notice that the IAF (initial activation force) was not as low as I would have liked. Very light input is not recognised, or only partially recognised before dropping off and on again. In a practical sense this doesn’t actually impact me through most of (perhaps 97%) of the painting process, but it did give me pause once in a while when I wanted to make a really light stroke and had to adjust my method. The drivers for this tablet do come with a pressure curve you can adjust to your preferences, so this can help a little, although after some tests I preferred to leave mine on the default setting.

Summary of Drawing Experience (tl;dr)

I think the mark of a good tool or piece of hardware is that it does not draw attention to itself during the course of its use. An ideal drawing experience allows me to be fully immersed in the act of drawing without having my focus shifted to dealing with the tool. With this in mind the XP-Pen Artist Pro performed very well for the most part, but was held back by a couple of issues.

Pros:

The monitor resolution honestly feels great to look at; the pixel density means that I can basically forget about pixels even with my face positioned closer to the screen.

The parallax between the tip of the stylus and the actual position of input was very minimal and basically not noticeable for me, especially after the simple calibration process offered by the driver.

At normal room temperature (say up to about mid-20’s celsius) the monitor screen stays impressively cool to the touch and I was never bothered by resting my drawing hand on its surface even when painting for long sessions.

The 20 express keys and 2 roller rings are extremely helpful and I actually found myself using all of them, despite initially thinking that I’d only need half of them. The keys are also comfortable and responsive to click (which sounds like it should obviously be so, but having used some Intuos iterations in the past which had some very annoying-to-click express keys, I don’t take this feature for granted anymore).

Cons:

The driver needs to be restarted everytime the computer wakes from sleep in order to work.

Higher IAF was noticeable when very light strokes were desirable. Also, the input will on rare occasions glitch by performing a completely straight max opacity + max brush size stroke. This seemed to happen primarily when I was trying to get light strokes to register. (It didn’t happen often enough to bother me much since it’s just a quick undo, but it did happen enough times that I noticed it.)

The issue with eyedropping using “alt” mapped to a stylus trigger as detailed above. Quite unlucky for someone like me who has over a decade of muscle memory for this particular mapping.

Overall, as I said at the beginning, my impression of the tablet is positive. While I think it has room for improvement when it comes to driver performance and the initial activation force especially, it also has a lot to offer at a highly competitive price point ($900USD at retail), and it would’ve been amazing if something like this had been available to me back when I first started digital painting. As I do enjoy using it for the most part I’ll probably continue to use it on-and-off in future.

bassists do it deeper

pairing: yunho x genderneutral!reader genre + tags: smut, band au | kink discovery, exhibitionism, a brief segment of semi-public sex, hand kink, size kink, yunho monster cock bc this deserves a tag, power play, switch dynamics (i think??), dom!yunho pulls through in the end, unprotected sex wc: 6.3k

note: big thanks to my fav babie @lustjoong​ for motivating me to combine the two ideas i had for the prompt into one and motivating me to finish this!! here’s my take on the unspoken obligatory yunho size kink fic every ateez smut writer should have written once but make him a bassist. also, the band au to this pwp is literally just there as an excuse to make yeosang the lead singer of the band bc if kq won’t give yeosang lines, i will 

A lot can happen throughout a single weekend, as your English professor suddenly quitting her job, your brother Yeosang almost burning down the kitchen from deep frying an egg, an influx of voicemails in your inbox all sent from Wooyoung, as well as Yeosang’s punk rock band losing a member. It’s a lot to process when all you’ve done is stay the night at Yuqi’s, even harder so when Wooyoung keeps repeating every five seconds that Seonghwa quit the band. (”Why did it have to be Seonghwa who left Stereowave? He was the hottest one!”)

That being said, you expected to come home to a beyond grumpy Yeosang who was trying to find a replacement asap. A band without a bassist sounds empty, and while Stereowave has garnered a big enough fanbase over the years that wouldn’t mind the band continuing as a trio, it just feels wrong. Besides, branding a group consisting of Yeosang the frontman, San the guitarist, Mingi the drummer, and nobody covering the bassist position a band doesn’t sit right.

You were prepared for the worst; a messy kitchen, Yeosang walking around in clothes he wore for five days straight, possibly the outbreak of World War III depending on how shitty he’s feeling. But instead, you find the kitchen exceptionally clean and Yeosang acting as if nothing ever happened.

“Can you help set up the camera? The guys and I wanna film a new song.”

“Uh, sure,” you answer irritatedly. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned about finding a replacement for Seonghwa though?”

“Oh, we already have a new bassist,” he waves off casually, “What are you gaping at? Shut that jaw of yours before flies fly into your nasty mouth.”

“First of all, rude.” Yeosang rolls his eyes at that comment. For a split second, you’re contemplating letting him figure out on his own how to use the camera because he’s the walking embodiment of a technology illiterate, but your curiosity about the new band member is bigger. “But how did you manage to find a new replacement so fast? It’s been like, what, a day since Seonghwa left?”

Yeosang sighs. “He’s been thinking of quitting for weeks now, so I had enough time to look for a new bassist. It’s not that big of a deal anyway.”

And this is exactly why you should never get dicked down by your bandmate several times in a month, you think to yourself. Seonghwa and Yeosang thought they were slick, but everyone figured they were more than friends. Needless to say, it was only a matter of time until the strain of their relationship wreaked havoc within the band.

“So,” you say as you two walk to the makeshift studio in the basement, “Is the new guy good? What’s his name?”

The change of topic makes Yeosang relax visibly. There’s a sheepish smile on his face and he replies, “You’ll see.”

You arch a brow. For some reason, that doesn’t settle comfortably in your gut. Then there’s the fact that Yeosang is slightly skipping, and that makes you more concerned than relieved. Because Yeosang barely skips, only when he’s being petty and is planning on pranking somebody. (Most of the time, it’s San.)

The faint vibrations of drums and guitars ring in your ears before you step a foot into the basement. Mingi is the first to acknowledge your presence, immediately dampening the cymbals before waving at you. That causes the other two guys to stop playing their instruments and turn their heads around. You greet San like you normally do, and when your eyes flit to the new addition, all brightness drops from your face.

“What. The. Fuck.”

Yunho cocks his head to the side almost tauntingly, eyes challenging. The corners of his mouth quirk upwards, though more with the intention of saying hah you thought you’d never see me again. “Hello to you too, honey. Looks like fate brought us together once more, eh?”

You blink multiple times to make sure your eyes aren’t deceiving you. To your dismay, they sure aren’t. It really is Yunho standing right next to an utterly confused San, and the bass in his hands just confirms it furthermore.

“Since when do you play an instrument?” you gawk. There’s no fucking way he could’ve had time to pick up music, not when his schedule was already jammed with basketball training and student council activities. Then again, that was his schedule in middle school.

“Since I was fifteen,” he drawls, unaffected by your outburst. “Any other questions, honey? Preferably something along the lines of how have you been? I expected a warmer welcome from you, not gonna lie.”

“What does Yeosang even see in you?” you splutter instead, disgust prevalent in your voice.

“Talent. Believe it or not.”

“Guys, no fighting,” Yeosang warns, but you’re too busy sending Yunho daggers and every pg rated curse under the sun your brain can wrack up.

Meanwhile, San shifts his weight on one leg awkwardly and asks in the background as your verbal dispute continues, “Are they exes or something?”

“Nah, just childhood enemies,” Mingi mumbles, clearly used to your interactions to the point where he’s becoming bored of it. He’s heard all the profanities too many times coming out from the same mouth, hence why he isn’t as disturbed as San is.

“Listen up, you piec—“ 

“(y/n), the camera. Help your older brother out, will ya?” Yeosang cuts you off urgently, the warning tone in his words hard to miss.

“Yeah, help your brother out, shorty,” Yunho snickers. Appalled by his blatant shamelessness, you scowl.

“I’m not that short—!”

“Still shorter than I am, shorty. Or do you prefer honey?”

World War III would’ve broken out right then and there if it weren’t for Yeosang’s death glare — you know, the look he has etched on his face whenever he means business and is willing to go so far and expose all of the nasty mishaps you’ve done in middle school, which is definitely something that should never see the light of day.

“I prefer neither,” you mutter after weighing the gravity of Yeosang’s wrath, avoiding any eyes before you set up the camera. Luckily, nobody further comments on that and eventually, everybody resumes practicing their parts of the songs.

Just in time as Mingi takes another short break to chug his water down, you stumble across a problem. “Uh, Yeosang? You should buy a new camera. This is still usable, but you might have to reset every ten minutes or so.”

A groan leaves him, followed by a shrill guitar riff, and you can see that he’d prefer death over spending money for a new one. “Can’t you just stay here during practice and reset it? You also get to hear some new tracks of the upcoming EP!” That fucker, he’s just too lazy to run forward and press a button every few minutes.

“I have to be on standby for the Block B ticket sale,” you lie. Technically, it’s not really a lie because you do plan on going to the Block B concert with Wooyoung, but 1) the ticket sale isn’t even today and 2) it’s always Wooyoung who buys the tickets. Yeosang doesn’t need to know that though. Any excuse is better than having to sit through practice and see if Yunho is as good as he claims.

Seems like Yeosang desperately doesn’t want to keep running back and forth to reset the camera as he suddenly says, “You can do it here too.” You would argue that the garage has its separate WiFi and only the band members have access to it, but then: “You can use my laptop instead.”

And letting you use his laptop is something he never does. You failed to submit an assignment in time because your own laptop broke down and he didn’t let you borrow his computer for even that.

“Fine,” you sigh in defeat. Yeosang thanks you with a smile so obnoxiously sweet it makes you gag. When all he gets in return from you is the middle finger, his demeanor drops and he mutters something inaudible under his breath, pointing to the small table at the side where all their phones and laptops are lying before he goes back to the others.

Once all four of them are in position and ready to play, you press the record button before flipping yourself onto the old patchwork couch Yeosang bought at a garage sale for only thirty quid a few years back. To your surprise, Yeosang’s MacBook is already unlocked, the default wallpaper of mountains and northern lights quite jarring to your eyes.

When given the rare chance to have unlimited access to your sibling’s devices, it’s self-explanatory what to do. You either a) go through all of their accounts and find as much dirt as possible about them that serves as good material for future blackmail purposes or b) sign them up to as many online subscriptions as possible that will make them go crazy. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work on Yeosang because 1) he doesn’t mind online subscriptions, and 2) he never checks his email account, hence why his inbox is filled with over 2000 mails, a third of them most likely unopened. On top of that, his MacBook is strictly meant for work, so if you really wanted to find out his most embarrassing secrets, your only shot is his phone.

That being said, you’re left with option c) which is checking out Block B’s concert merch since that’s the only sensible thing you can do right now. Forget productivity; that isn’t doable when Yeosang’s deep timbre is blaring in your ears along with the instruments. To be honest, you really enjoy Stereowave’s music and that’s on their music, not because your brother is the lead singer. You’ve enjoyed each of their performances and perhaps you’ve been indulging in the privilege of hearing their new songs first.

But now that Yunho’s involved, suddenly the prospect of having a new favorite band sounds tempting. What was Yuqi’s favorite band again? Day6? You should take a closer look at their discography.

As much as you want to mute the sound, from San’s riffs to Mingi’s drum solo, you fail to do so. One moment you’re opening the search browser, and in the next, your eyes are set on the group. They’re practicing like they usually do; fun etched on their faces as they lose themselves in the music. Yeosang is singing as if he was performing in front of a million viewers while San improvises a solo on a whim. Mingi messes up the beat for a split second after failing to catch his stick and somehow, your eyes have zoomed in on Yunho. It doesn’t take you five seconds to realize:

Yunho is good.

While he might not seem as fired up as the other three, he’s visibly relaxed. Just like Seonghwa, he plays smoothly and isn’t overpowered by the others, but he seems to have an easier time gliding his fingers across the fingerboard. The bassline is easy to filter out, not the generic pattern you can find in every second pop song, yet still compliments the other instruments.

He can play, fair game. However, that’s the least of your worries. You’re more attentive to the ratio of his hands to the bass. His hands are larger than Seonghwa’s by far, no doubt. That makes sense given his height, maybe an inch taller than Mingi. But Mingi doesn’t have that big hands. Doesn’t that mean that Yunho’s body is disproportional?

Before you know it, you drag your gaze from his shoes up to his legs and stop at his hands briefly, only to proceed upwards until you see the cocky smirk and amused eyes directed at you. All clogs in your brain come to a stillstand and despite that, that’s when you realize you’ve been 1) enjoying his music, 2) checking him out, and 3) checking him out and caught red-handed.

It feels as if you were living on the sun instead of on Earth as you burn up in embarrassment. Knowing there’s no way you can deflect what you just did, you quickly turn back to the laptop, the Google search bar staring back at you.

You’re about to type in something when the search history pops up, catching your eyes. A gasp leaves you but it goes under the music, everyone too immersed in their own thing to notice the prevalent horror settling on your face.

exhibitionism

getting off in public

best crowded places to have sex and get away with it

You blink, thinking that your sleep deprivation got the worst out of you and that you’ve finally reached the stage where you start hallucinating. Except, you know you’re not hallucinating. After going through the words again and again, you know that you’re really not fucking hallucinating and that your nonexistent sleep cycle isn’t as bad as Yuqi makes it out to be.

When you said you wanted to dig up dirt on your brother, you didn’t mean it in the form of his kinks. Money can’t buy everything, but how you wish it could so you could unsee that shocking discovery.

Since this is Yeosang’s work computer and he’s signed into his Google account, he must make use of the drive to save a copy of his ideas. It probably won’t amount to anything since he’s the walking embodiment of staying unbothered, but writing him a note on his docs about how he’s made your life worse by not clearing his search history is better than staying silent.

You click on the little icon on the top right corner, expecting to see Yeosang’s name right above the email address. But then you see Yunho’s name instead, and suddenly everything makes much more sense.

This was never Yeosang’s laptop to begin with.

To say you’re at a loss of words is an understatement. There’s no way someone could have as little self-awareness and leave their laptop unlocked, let alone Yunho out of all people. Then again, the last thing you expected from him was to play the bass and blend well with the rest of the band as if he’s always been the bassist of Stereowave and not the newly found replacement.

This is absolutely bonkers. But:

You could have fun with it. Maybe it’s for the better that money can’t buy everything.

Besides dozens of articles about semi-public sex and even a blogpost titled Shagging in Broad Daylight for Dummies, his search history of the last 24 hours consists of many forum links discussing the morality of exhibitionism, conspiracy theories, and hand care guides. You wheeze when you see the private playlist he saved on his YouTube account; a collection of videos about filing your nails properly and the best hand cream brands for dry skin.

Yeosang calls in for a break, and everyone’s grateful for it. San lets out a relieved noise as he places his guitar on the stand before catching the water bottle Mingi chucks at him.

“My arms are beat,” Mingi complains.

San sends him an incredulous look and snorts, “All you do is bang! crash! ppang! while my throat is fucked! And so are my legs!”

“Not my fault if you keep doing your high pitched oows! while jumping around like a— like a cricket!”

“A cricket? Are you serious?”

“I’m tired, okay!”

“Then that means we should call it a day and go home and rest, right?”

“Choi San, I think you’re onto something.”

“Absolutely not,” Yeosang deadpans, causing the bickering duo to pout in sync. “We have lots to do especially since Yunho’s now part of the band.” When all he’s met with is an attempt of cute puppy eyes that rather looks like a bad rendition of any horror movie featuring creepy dolls, Yeosang sighs, “I ordered chicken for dinner and yes, it’s on me.”

In an instant, Mingi and San’s faces brighten up and they’re celebrating as if they won a free cruise to the Bahamas. They don’t hesitate to envelop Yeosang in a bear hug, crushing the life out of him. A chuckle escapes you at the sight of your brother wringing for his sanity. Sometimes you wonder how on Earth those three guys are the same three guys who perform in abandoned warehouses, jamming out their punk rock songs while looking all edgy (in a cool way that has at least half of their fans thirsting after them).

Meanwhile, Yunho drops himself on the other end of the couch. Propping his right leg on the coffee table in front, he digs around in his pockets before pulling something out.

“Since when do you file your nails?” You pointedly raise a brow at him. Although your extensive research on his browser history already answered that question, you ask him just for the sake of it.

“Hand care is important, shorty,” Yunho replies, keeping his eyes trained on his fingers as he works the file around a nail. “If Kageyama Tobio files his nails, I can too. But enough with the small talk, what do you want?”

“I didn’t peg you as an exhibitionist.”

His hand stops moving. Yunho looks up at you, irritation written all over his features. “Because I file my nails...? A bold assumption, honey.”

There’s a reason why Yunho has always gotten away with pretty much everything. He’s a good actor who’s able to feign innocence at any time. His posture is relaxed, voice genuinely sounding flabbergasted that not even your shit-eating grin can throw him off guard.

You can’t, but your proof will do the job.

“I never said it’s because of your hand fixation.” You turn the laptop screen his way and once his eyes flicker on it and decipher the words, his face falls. Gone is the faux-confusion; as all color drains from him, his eyes look like they’re about to fall out of their sockets. “Is it really a bold assumption now, honey?”

Yunho inhales sharply when you scoot closer to him and put a firm hand on his left leg, his laptop now closed and long forgotten. Your fingers are placed too high for it to be friendly, skimming lightly on the inside of his thigh. Yeosang and the others are busy minding their own business but the chance of getting caught in the act is still there. The simple realization has adrenaline running a hundred miles an hour in your veins, and with the way Yunho clenches his jaw — a desperate attempt to fight the groan that’s threatening in the back of his throat — you’re not the only one who’s aroused by the setup.

Slowly, your hand inches closer to his growing bulge. Before you can dare yet another experimental squeeze, Yunho’s hand surges forward and holds your wrist in a vice grip.

“Don’t,” he snarls through gritted teeth, but it sounds sadder than it is intimidating when he’s sporting a boner right in front of your eyes.

You cock your head to the side, almost in a mocking demeanor. “You sure? Think about it, it’s a win-win situation. You get to live out your exhibitionist right here in front of your new bandmates, and I get the confirmation that you’re into it. But if you really don’t want to…” you try to retreat your hand but Yunho doesn’t let you budge, hand still enclosed around yours. That won’t do as an answer.

“Which one is it? Say it, Yunho,” you assert, narrowing your eyes. Yunho looks distraught, feverishly biting his lip while he’s internally fighting with himself, but he eventually chokes out a response.

“As long as nobody notices—”

“You either say you want me to touch you or not. I don’t want any roundabout stories.”

“Touch me,” he whispers defeatedly and the grip on your hand disappears completely. “But I swear to God if anyone realizes what you’re doing— hhnh—!” he cuts himself off with a low moan when you cup him over the material of his jeans.

“Yes yes, I get it. I don’t need Yeosang to know about this,” you dismiss. “And oh wow, you’re getting hard fast when I���m just touching you over your pants.”

“Just get to it.”

The snappish attitude causes you to stop dead in your tracks. “You think you’re in the position to tell me what to do? I can be mean too, y’know,” you start nonchalantly, a stark contrast to the way your heart is shaking in your ribcage. The power you suddenly hold is exhilarating. “I could just leave you like this, and then you’d have to try to cover your situation down there while practice goes on. How would the others react if they only knew your dick is hard? Probably won’t take them too long to find out since standing for a long time can be tiring, hm?”

Yunho’s head lolls back in response as he’s struggling to keep his eyes open. His breathing is uneven and the resulting moan that follows suit makes you smirk. You lightly smack the inside of his thigh, causing another wave of arousal to rupture in him. He chokes out a hushed ‘f-fuck’ and at this point, the constriction around his cock must be bordering painful.

“Who would’ve thought that the big bad Jeong Yunho is actually a submissive bitch who’s hungry for attention?” you ask gleefully, delivering another slap before stroking the area. “Who would’ve fucking thought you were a sub?”

“I-I’m not— shit, s-stop that, hngh— a fucking sub.”

“Yeah yeah, say that to yourself.” You rip your gaze away from Yunho’s flushed face to check if the coast is clear before targeting his fisted hands. He stiffens when you pry his hand open and bring three digits to your lips, sticking your tongue out to give kitten licks to his fingertips before pushing them into your mouth. You hum, suck, swirl your tongue around his fingers, giggling when all he does is stare at you wordlessly, unable to form any coherent thoughts. “See? Not even once have you put up a fight.”

That seems to snap him out of his daze. In an instant, his eyes darken and his jaw clenches.

“Oh honey, you know, you really shouldn’t tease me.”

You snicker, seeing through his bluff. “Wow, I’m so scared. What do you wanna do? Leave practice right now? Drag me to my room and pound me into the mattress?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“You could never, sub.”

Whatever strands of self-control were still residing in Yunho have turned to dust by now. One moment he’s towering over you in full height, looking down on your sitting form in bitter distaste, and in the next, he’s dragging you out of the basement, unaffected by the sudden silence and Yeosang, Mingi and San’s confused expressions.

Once you’re in the living room, Yunho wastes no time crowding you against the wall and crashing his lips against yours. The kiss is a messy clash of teeth and tongues, but it leaves you hot and lightheaded and aching for more. Yunho knows no limits and snakes one arm around your waist to pull you closer to him, the other hand fisting your hair. He tugs harshly and the sharp sting sends all your nerves into a frenzy.

“Bedroom. Now.” The sudden huskiness in his tone catches you off guard and you wonder when his voice has ever sounded so rough. You moan into the kiss, fisting his shirt as you stumble your way to your bedroom.

Yunho pins you against the door once you’re in your bedroom. His lips are addictive, just like the groans he slips in kisses and his hands roaming your body. He gets rid of your clothes until you’re left in your underwear, then forces a knee between your legs to keep them from closing. Your eyes roll back at the friction, growing needier and hotter when he presses his thigh against you harder. 

When you finally pull away, his eyes are hooded and his lips are red and swollen. There’s no trace of inhibitions left in him as he watches you like a predator. With horror, you realize that the tables have turned, and when he easily locks both of your wrists above your head with one hand only, that’s when you know you’re undisputedly powerless against him.

“Who’s the sub now?” he pants, eyes sparkling with glee.

“Still y-you.” The response sounds pathetic to your own ears, but you have too big of an ego to admit it out loud. Yunho doesn’t buy it either if his quirked brow wasn’t telling enough.

“Still in denial, honey? I see. Guess I’ll have to do more then.” His free hand reaches down to tug on the waistband of your underwear, only to let it snap against your skin. The slight sting is enough to render your knees into mush and set fog into your vision. He does it again, and then he actually tugs the fabric down and you finally grab his motives.

“You’re bluffing— y-you wouldn’t put y-your fingers,” you ramble, hyperaware about how dangerously close his fingers are. Just when you think he’s about to shove a digit in, he pulls away completely.

“You know, you keep talking about my hands. It’s always my hands this, my hands that,” Yunho says casually, giving his nails a quick glance before meeting your eyes. “Rather than me having a hand fixation, it’s you who has a thing for hands. My hands specifically.”

You don’t like how every word is true. You don’t want to acknowledge that he’s correct. Verbally, because your body is moving on its own and has betrayed you long ago.

Yunho taps on your bottom lip and you comply reluctantly, letting him shove the same three fingers you sucked before. Mumbling unintelligible words under his breath, he watches intently as you hum around him, eyes fluttering shut when he slowly moves them in and out of your mouth. A whine escapes you when he pulls them out for good, soaked wet with your spit.

“Tell me.” Yunho grins, “Tell me what you like about them. Or else I’ll leave you hanging.” He’s not lying and you know it. The look he sends you is enough proof that he wouldn’t hesitate to leave you high and dry.

You don’t like how he’s stringing you on like a rag doll. You don’t like how he’s stripping you off your dignity step by step. Strangely enough, you feel yourself leaking and wanting nothing but his pretty long fingers inside of you.

“I like how they, agh I— I l-like how—” you stutter, losing all levels of rationality when he suddenly circles around your entrance. Yunho urges you to continue and it takes up all of your brainpower to pick up where you left off, “—they’re so long and big and pretty—”

“So you have a size kink.”

You stare at him in disbelief. Now that, that’s something he shouldn’t have deduced. “W-wha— I don’t!”

“Seems to me that you have one though. You kept stressing how big and bad and tall I was after all.” You stiffen. Did you? Did you really? You don’t recall saying it that many times but it's hard to think straight when Yunho still has your wrists above your head and is looking down at you in a downright patronizing way. It leaves you trembling pitifully, feeling called out and feeling so, so small.

He really wants you to hit your lowest peak because he doesn’t stop there. “Who’s the real sub here? Is it really me? Or is it you who likes feeling so short, small, tiny.” His smirk widens when your breath hitches ever so slightly. “I fucking knew it.”

“You don’t know shit,” you bark back, but to no avail. Your credibility has diminished the moment he caught up to your kinks.

“Say whatever you want but that won’t change the fact that you’re tiny baby,” he pauses, takes his bottom lip between his teeth as he’s giving you a thorough once-over and then enunciates the next syllables with such clarity that forces time to stop, “My tiny, helpless baby.”

The pet name breaks you. It’s the final trigger that takes all your inhibitions away and the pathetic size of an ego that was left in your stubborn head.

“Please,” your voice cracks but that’s the least of your worries. You can’t move, can’t talk back, and won’t get anything in return. Yunho is right in front of you, finding satisfaction in your internal destruction and yet, after all of the things he’s slaughtered you to, he won’t give you anything in return.

“Just a little bit more, baby. I’ll give you what you want if you repeat after me; I’m your—”

“I’m your tiny, helpless baby who desperately wants you to fuck me.” Yunho is mildly taken aback that you were still able to think and get it right before he even finished his sentence. “Now get on to it, Yunho. Please.”

You’re sniffling at this point, begging for any kind of stimulation that shoots you to the stars. You’re fucking sniffling, and that’s all it takes for Yunho to manhandle you on the bed. A gasp escapes you, not expecting this turn of events at all. It all happens in a flash and the next thing you know, you’re on all fours, face buried in the pillow.

“Yunho, I t-thought y-you’d fuck me,” you complain, glancing behind to see what’s taking him so long. Your mouth waters at the sight.

“Patience, baby,” he says as he’s unbuckling his belt, taking his sweet time. You rub your legs together to ease the tension, but you can’t really say you’re not enjoying the show. Yunho’s lean, slightly defined, and once he’s only left in his underwear, you swallow heavily. There’s a large, dark patch on the fabric and the bulge seems more prominent than before.

If your mouth was only watering, you’re drooling by now. Yunho takes off his boxers, revealing his painfully hard cock, tip red and oozing precum. Just like the rest of him, he’s abnormally huge.

You have two thoughts. One: Fuck, you want him. Now. Two:

“That’s never going to fit inside of me.”

“Oh it will,” he says with such confidence it gives you shivers. “I’ll pound you into the mattress and you’ll take it all.”

He grabs you by your thighs to pull you closer to him before positioning himself right behind you. “W-wait!” you cry, heart suddenly feeling heavy in your chest, “D-don’t just put it in without prep— o-oh, hnngh—” your body feels like jelly when Yunho presses two spit-coated fingers past your entrance, stretching you out with finesse.

“I’m not that heartless,” he chuckles amusedly, right at the same time he curls his digits right against your sweet spot, sending you headfirst into bliss. “You’re so small you wouldn’t be able to take an inch without prep.”

You only whine into the pillow, arching your back as he continues his ministrations. Once Yunho deems you stretched out enough, he retreats his fingers and replaces them immediately with his cock.

The difference is like night and day. It’s like his fingers didn’t amount to anything compared to this. The high-pitched cry that escapes you is loud as you grasp onto the pillow for dear life.

“How can you be so big?” you pant. There’s no way he’s past four inches deep inside of you. You’re far from being filled, but your walls are already clenching hard around him.

“Bassists do it deeper for a reason.” The innuendo is tacky but in your current headspace, it sounds like the sexiest thing you’ve ever heard. Yunho stills his hips, letting you get used to him. “How are you feeling?”

“Guh—” he chuckles at your inability to form coherent words, let alone thoughts. “So big.”

“You’ll get used to it, honey.” He leans forward to pet your hair. “Tell me when I can move,” he adds gently, and you swear you could melt right then.

It takes you a moment to get your breathing steady, and then he pushes more of his length inside. Whimpering, you writhe beneath him, feeling as if you’re being torn apart. Meanwhile, he’s breathing hard through his nose, trying his damn hardest to go as slow as possible. At a certain point, Yunho stops pressing for more and pulls out ever so slightly before rocking his hips back forward. It starts out slowly, but he gradually picks up the pace and you lose yourself into him.

“Faster,” you moan, bending your back for an even deeper angle. “Hnngh, so full. Want m-more.”

“You were right, you can’t take me to the hilt.” Yunho readjusts his grip on his hips and you know that bruises are going to last until the end of the week. “God, you’re so fucking small that you can’t take me to the fucking hilt.”

Your vision turns foggy once the meaning gets through you. Now that he’s saying it, how much of his cock is inside of you? Half of it? A third? He’s stretching you out so well, filling you up so impossibly deep and that wasn’t even his everything?

“That’s not— want more of you, all of you,” you stammer, not realizing what you’re even saying. “Baby wants all of you.” God, you’re so drunk and desperate for his cock that you can’t refer yourself in the first person anymore.

Yunho reacts just as perplexed, eyes widening. His hips still once more, and though you’d want to shout at him to keep on moving, you don’t find the energy to move your head, or even lift a finger.

“So fucking greedy,” he growls, pulling out of you completely. Not even a second later, he flips you around on your back so that you’re facing him dead in the eye, and then he pushes back in. The new position has you gurgling on broken words as your arms flail around for dear life.

Yunho throws a leg over his shoulder, creating a deeper angle. You don’t know if he’s actually giving you more if he’s managed to force more of him into you. All you register is the messy squelch of liquids and your moans bouncing off the walls. You can’t even see properly, everything a blur and a mix of different colors.

“I’m gonna cum,” you whimper, sensing your demise nearing closer and closer.

“Then cum,” Yunho orders in between groans, then adds in a louder voice, “You hear that baby? Cum and make a mess out of yourself.”

Your orgasm crashes onto you in a big singular wave as you tremble under his frame, walls clenching around him tightly. His name leaves your mouth like a mantra as you continue to convulse. Yunho pulls out moments later, just to spurt white on your abdomen. His face is flushed and beads of sweat are forming on his forehead while he jerks himself dry.

It’s a miracle that Yunho hasn’t toppled on you once he slowly comes down from his high. The fog in your vision clears up gradually, but your limbs are as good as worthless. You won’t be able to move freely for a good day or two.

As you continue to blink at the ceiling, only finding the energy to breathe, Yunho grabs the box of tissues from your nightstand and wipes himself off before doing the same to you. His touch is gentle unlike before, and you’d thank him if your vocal cords were still functioning.

You’re about to drift to sleep until he suddenly leans down and pecks your lips. In an instant, you narrow your eyes at him and ask, “What was that for?”

“You had some cum on your lip. I wanted to taste too.” Yunho smiles cheekily and runs his tongue against his bottom lip, then grimaces. “It tastes... yikes.”

He cleans you up in silence before plopping onto the bed right next to you. No words are exchanged up until you say, “Yeosang is going to kill you.”

“He can’t afford to kill me. He needs me for the band,” he muses.

“He’ll still kill you.”

“I appreciate the concern, honey.”

“Just scram back to practice.”

“Don’t you want to go to the bathroom first?”

“I can do it myself.”

“Oh really?”

“... Yunho, help me on my legs and then scram back to practice.”

Meanwhile, back in the basement, the guys are waiting for their bandmate to come back so they can finally finish practice and then eat chicken.

“You sure (y/n) and Yunho are only childhood enemies? They’ve been going at it like rabbits if he isn’t back here yet!” San exclaims, throwing his arms up for dramatic effect.

Mingi can’t counter that because San has a point, so he whips his head to Yeosang. “Dude, you sure they’re not in a relationship? They have to be at least fuckbuddies! Or fuckrivals? Fuckenemies? Or…”

“I do not know and I do not care,” Yeosang says blankly, looking like he’s about to bang his head against the wall because he sure won’t walk into your room and curse his eyes for the rest of his life. Damnit, all he wants is to practice and get the band together; their next gig is only a few weeks away. “In fact, I want to unsee what I just saw and unhear what you just said.”