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greypetrel · 10 months

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WIP Whenever

Tagged again by @shivunin and @daggerbeanart, thank you very much! I'm on holiday right now, so I'm a little bit slow and working traditionally but...

I found an Art Nouveau piece and thought that oh look that's Radha. And redrawn it on my sketchbook. And coloured it with watercolours. I have... A love/hate relationship with watercolours, but I haven't brought any markers with me this year to force myself to use them more. And since it's been a while since I've been wanting to do a couple set in Art Nouveau style with her and Aisling... Here. Your muse of Writing and History, Prophet's Laurel all around and PURPLE. The paper is blotchy and not the right one, don't mind that, OOPS.

DadWolf going on, page 5. This page has been... Something that picked me a little off the ground. I'll speak about it more when it won't come out as terribly sad and sappy. I'm looking at those bookshelves and shivering at the idea of colouring them, for now.

Not Dragon Age related, and I'll hope you'll forgive me... But yeah. I am a sucker for trash movies, and John Wick is... It's a trash movie with a lot of money and Keanu Reeves and I love the saga. The sketch on the left was drawn... I think in 2017 when I first saw the first movie and snickered a lot because in Russian he's nicknamed "Baba Yaga"... Which isn't really the boogeyman. It's an old witch that lives in the woods in Slavic folklore, in a tiny hut with chicken legs. And travels on a cauldron. I kept the chicken legs as a reference to the hut. But well I fount the sketch and thought to redraw it. Adding the dog because the dog is VERY important.

Writing-wise I'm a little slow at the moment, but here's a piece from Monster Fic that I don't know if I'll keep. The night right after the Arbor Wilds, Aisling got back, managed to quarrel awfully with Cassandra AND Cullen. Everyone is miserable.

Tagging: @transprincecaspian @zenstrike @scribbledquillz @heniareth @herearedragons @oxygenforthewicked @layalu and YOU who are reading this!

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Abelas told her she shouldn’t really roam on her own in the Temple, particularly at night. The complex was built on the side of a cliff that opened on more forest down below, with gentle hills and mountains in the background facing west. In some places, where balconies had been long ago, the balaustrade had long fallen, leaving just openings on nothing: the incautious visitor could all too easily fall to their death.

But she was left with very little to do, after unloading Little Brother and setting up a camp in the big atrium for them… Four. Because it ended up that one of the Templars gave in for good, and didn’t really feel like going out. Not with the whole of the Inquisition army ready to jump on him. No one there could really disagree, and since the man -George, a burly man in his fourties, with a ruddy face that spoke of many laughters and evenings spent drinking with friends and eyes that still sparkled even if they were heavily rimmed in red- had been so quick in lowering his sword and yielding…

Aisling had given him one of the cots that were packed on her horse, insisted when he tried to say that no, that was hers, and just… Curled around her saddle, using it as a pillow and rolling herself in a blanket side by side with Radha, and allowed herself to cry.

Except, no tears came forth.

She was grateful of being there, and opening her eyes, looking at remnants of a past long gone, something that every First would have killed to find. Something that poor Taven actually died to find. It’s huge, it’s been kept in wondrous state… And it’s inhabited. It’s inhabited, and she has the way to ask to her heart’s content.

And yet, all she can think of is that the Herald of Andraste would be up in a camp on the top of a hill, after a round of greetings and congratulations with the Empress, the Marquise of the Dales and all the nobles they rallied to the help. After that, she would have pretended to retire in her tent and slipped right out to slowly reach and sneak in the Commander’s one, and sleep curled against his warm frame, caressed by hands that were always cold, held and safe and loved.

And yet, she’s just Aisling, a Dalish mage that touched the wrong artifact and now has gained a unique ability, the mask has been left in her tent up the hill, and she feels giddy from both the sensation of having stood up for herself and the idea of all that she wants to ask to the elves there and explore and learn there. At the same time, tho, the giddiness is chased around by regret, the slimy feeling of being ignoring responsibilities, that she should be up there and doing her job, that she let everyone down. Nobody who stopped in the Temple was happy: Radha is angry because Morrigan drank from the Well, and both Aisling and Solas stopped her when Aisling turned down the chance. Solas is in one of his moods and hurt from Radha being angry.

Her heart beats too fast, her thoughts are too quick: she knows she won’t be sleeping any time soon, unless she does something. So, she lets go of the saddle, quietly slips out of the blanket and leaves on tip-toes, bringing the blanket with her and careful not to wake her sister up.

She saw the old balcony on her way to the baths, and even if there’s no more an old elven guide and the corridors are dark, she can find her way back with ease. The moon is shining up above between the canopies, and the corridors are large, easy to follow. She could maybe activate the magical lanterns that glows very dimly hanging from the ceilings, but on a second thought, she doesn’t know where the other elves sleep, here, and she doesn’t want to risk waking someone up and having to explain why exactly she’s walking around on her own. “I miss my boyfriend, but he believes I am the elven tool of the big plan of a deity I don’t believe in and so I can’t sleep” sounds too pitiful, and who knows whether they’ll approve of her being with a human.

She takes a couple of wrong turns, confused in the darkness, but in the end she finds the place she was looking for. The old pavement is broken, but bathed in moonlight, and even with the plenilune the stars are still shining, more than she can count. It’s beautiful and it’s terribly lonely, and Aisling wonders who was the last person that leaned into that balcony to see stars and enjoy the view. How many centuries passed, what were they thinking.

She curls in a corner, draping the blanket around her shoulders as she leans over the wall. One leg gets bent under the opposite knee, the other foot dwindling in the void. There’s a waterfall roaring nearby, an owl screeches somewhere in the distance, and a choir of crickets are there to lull her to sleep. The breeze is chilly, in spite of the day having been hot enough. It’s a perfect summer evening, and the stars are twinkling and she is not pretending anymore to be someone she isn’t, and she is alone.

Tears stars to fall, because she is not pretending to be someone or something that she isn’t, and the result is that she is alone. And Mythal, it feels like emerging from underwater, but keeping her breath has been so good and warm that she really thinks she could stay underwater forever.

It’s just tiredness making her think that way, she knows -she knows herself well-, the hour is very late and the day has been incredibly long, the choice she had to make a hard one, and one she doesn’t think was the right one. It’s everything, and it’s nothing, and she will feel a little better in the morning.

She lets the crickets and the owl lull her to sleep.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #inquisitor lavellan #wip wednesday #dadwolf au #john wick #aislin lavellan #greypetrel #writing petrel

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scruffyssketchbook · 3 months

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Hi.... Umm... How old was Lem when he started to be a breeder... Just asking because i think he was younger than Vay when he had Nego, right?... And how did Dusk and other Lem friends took It? Bad right or .. good??? I DONT know how somevee would feel about this...

Lem was very young! Very much younger than Vay was when he had Nego. Too young.

Pokémon trainers don’t care about ages when breeding pokemon sadly, and this is pretty normalized (only for Pokemon born in captivity). The trainer already planned to make him a breeder since before he hatched. And there was nothing any of the Pokémon could have done about it, as that’s just how the Pokémon games are. The trainers word is law. (Except if they were traded) Ofc, none of them took it well. And before any accusations towards me come, no I do not support or condone this stuff irl or anything. This is just a mimicry of how Pokémon Players play the Pokemon games with their digital creatures, as other things are in the comic.

(Ramble starts here)

When I was 13 and playing Pokemon Platinum (the game the characters are from) I wanted to breed eevees, so I put Harmony and Rick in the daycare and bred around 15 eevees including the main boys. Because they didn’t give me any girls, I forced Harmony to breed with Lem (cause he wasn’t going to evolve and I thought nothing of it) and their first egg was Dawn. In a comic I drew showing off the event, There was commentary on how wrong it was that this happened, but I kept Harmony and Lem in the daycare anyways cause I didn’t care. So when I made SSEC at 14, and based the comic around the events of my pokemon game and the previous comics I drew, this aspect stayed.

Ofc, now that I am an adult, I think that this and other messed up pokemon game stuff being in the comic is awful, and have made strides to remove it. I don’t particularly really care that this type of stuff is common in actual Pokemon games anymore, like yeah it’s in the world but I don’t like it and am uncomfortable with it so why is it still a thing? Like. It might be the game world, but it’s not the actual games I don’t have to follow all the rules plus it’s not like I am directly making commentary on the Pokémon games in SSEC. and I’m not stupid enough anymore to be delulu and think everything is fine because of XYZ convoluted plotline I made up or telling myself “the Pokemon world is actually pretty F’ed up, so ofc this stuff is here” or even still tell myself “Well I can’t change this at all cause it’s part of the lore” cause that is not the type of story I want to tell with the characters anymore. (I am not only talking about the Lem stuff, but other aspects of the comic as well) I spent the last 4 years since 2019 trying to fix all of the issues I saw with the comic, but at this point I am tired and don’t really want to. All of the redraws, the plot fixes and patches, it’s too much really. For what? I could just say “Oh yeah it’s like this because the pokemon world is F’ed up” and leave it like that, because that IS why all of this stuff is here, and messing with the original plots and trying to “fix” what I saw as issues just made things more weird and confusing. So I COULD keep it like it is, but like I don’t want to?? I don’t want to change the lore either, or have conflicting takes on different aspects of the world, or have plot lines that make no type of sense with the current canon because I wrote them when I was 14-15 and never took them out despite it being REALLY DUMB, or having to stick with things I hate because I have to keep up with the canon, but those are issues to me as well.

So many issues 😑

SSEC might seem nice on the surface to some people, there are thousands of pages of character development and lore writing that I have made, each of the main characters are super detailed and I can write full college leveled essays on each of the minute aspects of their personality, but its foundation is a mess and has weird things in it cause I wrote it when I was a child.

TLDR- 🙂 SSEC’s world is F’d up, yes I know.

And to conclude with Lem and his future, Roses are pretty flowers, don’t you think?

If any of you want me to talk to about Pokemon Ethics and how Pokemon in the games have no rights, I’d love to talk about it!!! It’s a very interesting topic to me!

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miru667 · 1 year

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hi there, miru ! it’s surely been awhile since i’ve visited your blog , and i was always shy to directly interact with you, but this time, i want to say a lot of things, and i hope you’ll find some time to read.

i remember how i stumbled across your account when i was 8 or so, around the time when you just started posting about the lorax and the fandom was growing up. at first, i simply checked your blog out of boredom as a kid since you were the only person i followed here, but later on, i really got interested and often would go back home from school and run to read your new posts, no matter what was it, just because i liked them, and i guess my little mind wanted to explore more about the fandom in general. (: i grew up wishing i was as “cool” as you, and really wanted to talk to you, but guess the unknownness made me nervous enough so i always brushed it off. and no matter how cheesy it sounds ,just going through your blog at least once a day helped me with most of my sad days. you were a huge affect to my childhood, and going through your page again after so long made me feel such a bittersweet nostalgia , i nearly cried catching up with things haha. you were the reason i found out about the lorax in general and joined the fandom , as well as inspired me to try drawing ( i remember using your art as a base when i was 12 ,,, but shhh, let’s keep it a secret (; )

it’s been so long since then, and sometimes it’s hard to believe how much i’ve grown up, as well as you did too. i’ll never forget these days when being a young kid i would try to redraw your onceler fan art , or make a small silly slideshows with your drawings to some goofy songs, LMAO. (i still have them, by the way… eugh. cringeee) and getting to spend my growing up surrounded by such an amazing fandom and amazing people like you has truly built me up as a person, and i couldn’t be more grateful i’ve found out about you back then, because i don’t know who i would be right now if i never did. thank you so much miru, keep going, be happy, and no matter how time passes by , you’ll always be one of my biggest inspirations, and i’ll continue looking up to you. <3

•

now , ending the cheesy paragraph above, i’m a little curious about some things, feel free not to answer them if you’re uncomfortable! i’m not pressuring you.

1 ; i’ll start off with a simple one. how are you doing, how’s life in general? (:

2 ; did you know that your small onceler height headcannon you’ve made back in 2013 is showing up on google as an actual height of his , making a lot of people (especially on tik tok. boy, they’re going feral over that fact…) believe it’s his canon height ? they’re actually saying it’s his actual confirmed height and etc. , so i was always wondering how does it feel to have your headcannon being considered by the whole onceler fandom as canon, haha. :D

3 ; speaking about tik tok, you mentioned you don’t have it at all. why don’t you try to get it, and post your art in there? trust me, a lot of people absolutely adore your work in here and considering the fact onceler fandom is apparently biggering again , that could be a nice idea , since personally i think you’re really underrated and deserve some more recognition (:

4 ; what’s your actual opinion on oncest? because honestly , i remember how people drooled over this ship to death back in 10s, however i was never really fond of it and,, you know what i meaannn, it simply didn’t feel right for me at all. (,: did you immediately start liking it since you have some art about it , and what are your thoughts about it now ?

5 ; how old were you when you joined the whole lorax fandom?

6; you obviously have a lot of good memories with the Onceler fandom , as i do too, but there is also some bad memories for me, and some that i wish i could completely erase from my mind haha. how is it for you? like, were there perhaps some situations that happened to you in the fandom that make you shiver in a pleasedon’tremindme way? i’d love to listen if there is some!

7 ; and , the last one. i literally have been a huge fan of your for awhile now , and i was wondering if you’d ever want to maybe ,, talk, y’know? and become friends , perhaps? ;;;;; i feel like i’m being too pushy atp ,but i’m still a little nervous so i’m sorry if i act weird,, (,: but either way, remember you’re amazing, and i hope you have a good day/night !!

thank you for reading my non-sense to the end, lol. i hope i didn’t take off much time <33

Omg,,,Q_Q?? Thank you for sending this message, I wouldn't have known otherwise that I've made such an impact on someone's life, like...it's truly humbling. You were 8?? 😭 And I was really the only blog you followed?? 😭 Back then I did not think about how others might've been using my blog; I myself had always been the one looking up to others, and here you were all that time looking up to me...I guess it's really magical, the way we don't know who in the world might be thinking about us. I hope you're doing well. Your slideshows are not cringe. Or rather, you were cringe and free, and I think that's wonderful.

For your questions then:

I guess I'm doing okay. I have friends who care about me, and I'm able to support myself with my job, so with those two things alone, I'm already very lucky.

If you mean this post: [link] I didn't make this headcanon! As you can see on the post, tumblr user torikabori made it, and I simply reblogged it. I think there's been a few fandom headcanons that have mistakenly been posted on wikis and tvtropes as canon, and I really wish it didn't happen that way, because I don't like misinformation being spread. I've said this before but if it's not in the Lorax DVD, or in any official interviews, or in any concept art, then it's NOT canon. Do not trust google, wiki, tvtropes, or word of mouth.

I,,, reallllllyyyy don't see myself getting into tiktok ;w; Having to be a slave to algorithms and numbers really turns me off, and I can barely keep up with posting on social media anymore. I've almost completely abandoned my instagram, and I'm half a year behind in posting my art to tumblr haha. So I wouldn't be able to keep up with tiktok anyway. Thank you for thinking I deserve more recognition though! 🥺

I think in the early years of the fandom I drew it because it was popular, but since then I've been more true to myself and I only draw what my heart desires now. So now I can say that I've never shipped oncest, though I've shipped onceler askblogs together before. And I'll always be a fan of 7212, though that's not the classic oncest we're referring to here. But I still support whoever does ship it, I think that's totally cool!

I was a young adult!

You are not alone, so many of us from 2012 have gone through bad times in the fandom at least once. For me specifically, it's been 11 years that I've been here, so do you think I could have avoided every single possible bad situation? ;) I won't be sharing any stories, but the onceler fandom would not be what it is today without both the good AND bad, I guarantee you that.

You can feel free to message me anytime you like! I'm not much of a talker since I'm often busy, and I rarely ever message first, but I'll always be courteous to anyone who messages me. As for friendship, I think it should just happen naturally, if it happens!

#miruask #alicecaaaaat #thank you again for this sweet message!!!#okay wait but what were you doing on tumblr when you were 8 ksdjhgjkd AHHHHHH #i didn't even go on the internet until i was 13 it truly is a different world now #i didn't have any social media until i was 17 or 18 #oncelersapologist

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ask-epitale · 2 years

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Update on the comic

I was just thinking about making an update post yesterday, and getting an ask just solidified that thought.

(tl;dr, life was a mess, I’m not going to continue the comic for a while so it’s on a hiatus for who knows how long, and when I do return, i’m going to redo what currently exists of the comic before continuing officially. Asks will be turned off, use replies if you want more info)

I haven’t done much with the comic because I was dealing with depression without fully realizing it was depression. I finally got it diagnosed, so I’m working on it, but it’s still slow going. In the middle of making epitale, I was dealing with it, leading to weeks where I would post nothing. it was also not helped that at one point, my hard drive kicked the bucket, making me lose all my files, and then there was also an issue with the old hunk of junk i used until I got a new computer which caused a number of the layers to outright disappear (you can see this best with the comics in grillbys where we started on one side of the counter and moved to the other because i didn’t want to remake the old scene and not work right.)

I’ve seen a number of fan comics go the route of ‘hey, I don’t really want to work on this anymore, but here’s what would have happened’ and while this was half ask blog, half story comic blog, I don’t entirely want to do that. Sure, I’m going to give some details later in this post, but I’m not going to give the whole thing. Why? Well....

Making the comic with the stints of depression wasn’t so much I wasn’t doing art, more so, the comic felt less like something i wanted to do and more something that was expected, which made it feel forced sometimes. And then there was also the issue that since I was still doing art, my style evolved and I changed how I would draw things. (blob gaster into full skele gaster as an example). this made me less want to come back because I didn’t want to be changing style every page as well as the fact that the way I was doing it before wasn’t the best way, and even a single panel could take a while, or I would just alter the heads or hands slightly.

so all together, depression, art changes, complexity of art, fun, etc all made me not want to work on it. at least not publically. The other mods that were listed around here (mod bun, kiwi and bear) were all friends who sort of helped out with some of the ideas, but the story, blog running, art, etc was all mine (mod cat) one of the mods helped me the most with idea stuff, so much so that we have a full discord group we used for it, but it ended up evolving into stuff that’s... very non canon. I could potentially share tidbits from that eventually if anyone wants that, but I doubt that would happen. I’m going to turn asks off though, so turn to replies to request those.

as it currently stands, i have no clue when I would work on the comic again. that being said, when I do, I won’t be continuing the story. Not exactly. I won’t be deleting anything, just tagging them as old, but when I bring back the comic, I’m going to be... sort of restarting. I’m going to be redrawing the pages in an art style I can more easily do as well as fixing up things I’m no longer happy with (like how I draw undyne, and I might not redo the starting scene with sans and papyrus and the mod cat annoying dog substitute.)

One thing I will be slightly redoing is Dee, which i will just explain in a following post as when I first made them, I had a slightly different idea from what they are now (and what I have thought of them for a few years.

#epitale comic #epitale comic status #not a page

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blackyuna · 7 months

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Stars Palette drawing rules:

use only 24 colors that represents each talent

no blending

just my thoughts just the cut

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━★

I was gonna post this without the link to my inspiration. But this morning I randomly found it!! It was a Hakka drawing by WhiSha on Twitter (it was just a WIP when I saw it). I normally would bookmark posts but for some reason I didn’t bookmark that drawing. I know I liked it but I have this habit of going on my Twitter likes and would unconsciously like it again, thus removing the like. It’s been months and I don’t even know if the artist tagged the drawing. But today I found it! Funny thing about Twitter, you can search posts made by a user if you go to their profile and use the search box on the page BUT this only works on mobile.

Initially, I was planning to do just a couple of drawings. The simplest one I think would be Miyabi and it didn’t take me long to draw it. It wasn’t good though, so I ended up redrawing it. I was gonna stop after Arurandeisu but I don’t know I just feel like doing more. I did stop drawing by May to draw other things. Then continued in the last half of September and drew the first three graduates. I guess I was somewhat still sad because of Magni and Vesper. I was gonna stop at that but just to make it look good as a post on Tumblr, I also drew Roberu.

Then I just continued until I realized, I only needed to draw a bit more and I would have drawn all 24 Holostars talents. So I just drew the rest..

I really don’t know what I was thinking. Whenever I draw, I would either listen to Magnus Archives or a true crime podcast. Surprisingly therapeutic honestly.

I had 2 rules when I started. First one is obvious, use only the 24 colors representing Holostars. There are official Hex codes (mainly for Rio and Tempus HQ) but the rest I based on the background of the talent profile from the Holostars Official website. For Kaoru and Suzaku, I came across the color codes on Twitter. But I do take advantage of the canvas color which is always white. I’d like to think the color white represents Yagoo or Daidou Shinove. And the last rule, no blending. I was thinking, when you blend there will be a new color in between.

I do make sure to try to incorporate all the colors, which would explain why the details on Bettel’s collar are colored differently. Of course I couldn’t do that for all the talents so I just drew stars on the empty space.

I used an app called Sketchbook. When drawing I mainly used one brush that draws the sharpest lines, nothing much to say about that.

There were a couple of drawings I was worried about which is why I drew them last. But along the way, I kind of figured out what to do. Not all of the drawings were perfect. And when I couldn’t figure out what to do, I just changed the color instead of staying faithful to the design. Of course I wanted to stay as close to the original design, sometimes it just doesn’t work.

One drawing that surprised me was the Magni drawing. I was substituting colors but Magni with blond hair (Temma’s color), just looks weird. It feels like looking at a Magni we haven’t met. But somehow I managed to make it look different using grey for hair shadows (Vesper’s color) and using the skin shadow color (Rikka’s color). Then make sure to have a clear but subtle divide between hair and skin color. I was avoiding outlining the drawing but sometimes I can’t avoid it.

There are also moments that I’m thinking of a pose that would fit the talent’s personality (like Shien, Shinri and Uyu), then regret it cause gloves are hard to color especially because all of their gloves are black! But I kept it, especially Shinri cause I really want to draw his blue hand.

I wanted to draw Oga right from the beginning since he is one of my kamioshi but then again I was hesitant since Oga’s color scheme is dark. Also out of all the Stars, his skin tone is darker and it doesn’t look right to suddenly give him a light skin tone just cause it's convenient. I was going back and forth with the skin tone, I was debating Rikka’s color or Shinri’s color for the skin tone. Though Shinri’s color is probably the closest, it’s way too dark. I also wanted to color the hair mainly Magni’s color but there is no other darker color to give his hair shadows. So I ended up using the darkest blue (Izuru’s color) as base for the hair and every single black piece of clothing. Of course the colors are quite different from the original but it actually looks nice.

I’m planning to post the clean version. If you have noticed, on the posts I made, it has the line art. But I haven’t decided if I should post the clean version on the post I already created or post 3 new image sets (having 8 drawings each) for the clean version.

Well I’m done! I’m definitely gonna try and draw some other things. If I feel like it. But since I’m also doing a drawing summary for this year, I will definitely draw a couple more before the year ends. Heck, maybe I’ll draw Yagoo.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━★

If the links aren’t working, here are the URL you can copy paste: Rio debut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEmz1bLVUNk Tempus HQ debut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jar19J3HXQY Color codes from Twitter: https://twitter.com/byongbyongbyong/status/1610860361745567745 Hakka WIP by Whisha: https://twitter.com/WhiSha_Sub/status/1643568245503324160 Hakka finished by Whisha: https://twitter.com/WhiSha_Sub/status/1643947160222695424

#blog #stars palette

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randomwritingsfortheworld · 1 year

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Old Art

When Steve was thawed from the ice and had some time to adjust to working for SHIELD, he spent time looking through the internet, hoping to catch up on current events and major events since he went under. What he wasn’t prepared for was how much of the internet there was. Sam gave him recommendations to look into online but Google was overwhelming in how much info it gave him. The most confusing for him was message forums that he ended up finding during his research because a poster would ask a question that he found interesting. That is how Steve ended up learning that he had no clue what half the internet slang was.

He learned that the meaning and usage of certain slang terms change quickly and frequently. Most people don’t use the term Vine anymore, now it’s Tiktok. Steve did like seeing emojis. They looked funny to him. Urban dictionary was a helpful resource for him but Steve quickly learned that the internet didn’t think that site was useful. Regardless he was glad it helped him figure out the meaning of slang and how to decipher texts that were mostly emojis.

Steve found Wikipedia the most useful and the most distracting. Many nights he’d look up an article about a major event that Sam told him to look into and a few hours later, he’d be reading about something completely different. He’d end up telling Bucky in the middle of the night about what he found out, even though half the time Bucky wasn’t interested. Bucky had a suspicion Steve did it to help distract him when he woke up from his nightmares, but he wasn't going to burst his best friend's bubble by telling him it doesn't work.

Once the battle of Thanos was resolved, Steve got back into art. With the help of Nat, Steve made an art page. She had to show him how to scan his work to post it digitally but once he started, the support exploded. Steve was taken aback at how many people looked at his artwork and complimented it. It did give him encouragement to do more. In the span of a few weeks, Steve had posted redraws of his old artwork that he made in the 30’s while attending college. The public ate it up which made Steve a bit proud of himself.

“I had no idea you drew.” Sam hummed as he watched Steve upload the last piece he could remember drawing before going in the ice.

Steve shrugged. “Never asked.”

“I don’t go up to people and ask if they can draw.”

“You should.”

“It might work for you Captain but not me.” Sam lightly punched his arm as he laughed. “Where did you learn to draw?”

“Auburndale Art School.”

“I have no idea where that is.”

Bucky placed a drink in front of Steve before handing Sam his. “It’s in Brooklyn.”

“Did you go too?” Sam eyed Bucky curiously.

Bucky took a drink of his coffee. “We had the same classes.”

“Do you draw too?”

“I went for the ladies.” Bucky glanced at the computer screen. “Do you think Montgomery still has our projects?”

Steve chuckled. “I think she’s dead by now, Buck.”

“I feel like she’d try to outlive us all out of spite.”

Sam watched the exchange as he took a slow drink. “Was she a bad teacher?”

“She was the worst. Always saying my work was shit.”

“Well you never really tried to actually learn how to draw.”

Bucky gave Steve a glare. “I was a decent artist. It wasn’t perfect like she wanted it to be.”

“She knew you were there just for the nude models.”

“I turned in my work.” Bucky grumbled as Steve and Sam laughed.

“Why don’t you share your art?” Sam suggested.

Bucky frowned. “I don’t think any of it exists anymore.”

“You can redraw it like I am.”

Bucky seemed to think it over. “But who would want to see it?”

"You do realize you have a fan base online right?" Sam took a drink as he gave Bucky a skeptical look.

Bucky studied Sam, not quite believing him. "I do?"

"Chicks like the troubled brooding guy now."

"I don't brood."

Steve and Sam gave him a doubtful look. "You do." Bucky scowled at Sam but before he could argue more, he cut him off. "Just give it a try and see where it goes. It doesn't hurt."

Bucky glanced between the two. "Fine."

A few days later, Bucky shared a random drawing on Steve's page and was bombarded with support. It reignited a spark in Bucky and it didn't take long for the team to find the two drawing together occasionally during downtime between missions.

#james buchanan barnes #sam wilson #steve rogers #marvel #mcu

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vargaslovinghours · 2 years

Text

Half a dozen in one (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5)

Oh no the Apotheosis is back and it wants to play, that’s never a good thing

Scriabin is not into it

I wanted to draw King Scriabin but I goofed up the crown so bad lol, at least his face is cute ✨

Pokemon Vargases! From that time that I forgot how to draw their Pokemon versions lol. You have to approach Espeon!Edgar gently, he’s easily spooked

Sylveon!Scriabin is such an attention hog, poor Edgar haha

*puts my feelers around you condescendingly*

Sleeping on each other, always ♥ Even sleeping, they’re still intertwined lightly, Edgar’s hand on Scriabin’s shoulder and Scriabin’s on Edgar’s arm ♪

I had an idea about Scriabin “reading” Edgar’s mind by guessing how he feels about something, but I unfortunately forgot the specifics just as I was writing it down, so frustrating

I do remember that it was something a lot closer to how Scriabin felt about that thing and he was describing how he felt, not just Edgar, but he realized too late

Made him feel isolated :(

Apology hugs 💕

Who wrote this eviction notice, this is a cave?? I just think they turned out really cute here haha ♪

Stop being naked >:0

Don’t wanna get used to it >:(

After all the Father and Daddy puns, I had to lol. Lady!Edgar with her hair down is just so prettyyyyyy

Two mops, makin’ out

For whatever reason, I started a teeny tiny little ScriAnimal series - first up is Scriabat with hand-wings because lol

I was watching a video of someone with their bird who was munching on the inside of their glasses stem haha

Scriabird is here to scream and knock things off the counters

And cutely chew on things

We are stopping this sketchdump for a Jake appreciation minute ♥ Thank you for appreciating Jake, now back to our regularly scheduled programming

A quick and silly digital doodle - waxing via tape is not recommended

Got the urge to draw dragons again, Scriabin needs to settle and Edgar is in protecc mode. His hugs are even harder to escape than normal!

The original sketch for sleepy Edgar - I couldn’t decide whether to use “World’s #1 Dad” or “World’s Best Dad”, so I just used both for the final version lol. Did Todd give it to him? Did Scriabin? Did they both get him nearly-matching mugs??

One of the early drafts for the ‘17 redraw; this was actually all drawn on one layer (on purpose! lol), which was a really fun experiment with some brushes I rarely use. I liked the angle of Edgar’s face too, he looks so smug haha ♪

Tiny Edgar doodle for a quick reference, he’s so cute ♥

I wasn’t kidding when I said it took a while to get Alone Together right, I was this close to giving up and just doing it the easy way several times before finally getting the trick down - I’m glad I didn’t but sheesh!

I started a pretty long mini idea that I managed to get like 90% of the way through before deciding I didn’t like it lol, but there were still some really fun poses and expressions

“What is it?” Light concern Edgar ♥

Probably the most complex panel of the set, as much as I like the leg poses I’m also frustrated by them lol - didn’t help that my page smudged >:P

A little bit of expression practice, the cute thing is Scriabin

I heard it, we all heard it, everybody saw!

Couple’a Scriabins to practice hair differences. I’ve gotten used to making him simultaneously fluffy and sleek like on the left, but I really love a True Floof look too, with many more starts and stops, it’s really fun ♪

Uppies!

Oscillates between “Why” and “You can’t tell me what to do”

Brain baby Weirdly enough, this was actually inspired by a skin-horror idea I had but decided was a little too body-horror-y and so I repurposed it lol

Some goofy matryoshka dolls haha. They remind me of Near’s finger puppets from Death Note somehow hmm

More hair differences, using opposing methods of line directionality while shading and texturing Scriabin’s hair. Pushing up from under gives this really nice line weight; it’s harder to do consistently because I keep wanting to sweep down, but when it works, the shadows fall exactly where they should and it’s lovely ✨ And like I said, pulling down is a lot easier, and because of that I can get these really uniform lines - I prefer the tapered effect, but pulling definitely has its uses and-

Hey wait a minute-

Golden floof ✨ This is actually really hard to see IRL lol

Edgar Warmup to see if my tablet was working properly, didn’t have time to pull up refs so from memory it is!

And that’s February through May again! Lots of silly little things, and a surprising number of scrapped larger ideas hmmm

#💟#Doodles #Sketchdump #Art #Edgar #Scriabin #Jake #A short and sweet one this time around #Also wow Nny didn't get any placement this time around - I guess he did show up a big more frequently in normal sets lol #Kind of anyway #Got a few of the classics running around - Apotheosized!Edgar - Lady!Edgar - Snake Charmer #Mostly all regular Vargas stuff tho ♪#And no blood! Wow!#That I Definitely got out of my system in the meantime lol #I think the only ones I didn't talk about as much as I wanted to were the Scriabirds - I actually love drawing birds I just don't very much #They're simultaneously so sleek and fluffy and poofy and goofy! Love birds!#And Scriabin's coat was really fun to draw over wings haha ♪#I really should draw the Vargeons again - ironically the birds turned out way more how they're supposed look lol #I still have a few more longer ideas that I'd like to finish up that didn't quite make the cut for May #I started them in May but it's looking increasingly like they'll be a June+ thing lol #Guess it's yet to be seen on whether or not they'll make the next sketchdump! Since I've jinxed it every time so far haha ♪

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maurofonseca · 3 years

Text

Sonic Learns to Drive- some thoughts in retrospective

wHuh, just realised Tumblr’s font with its weird line weights is likely done for readability for dyslexic people. cool

Anyway I just posted this on twitter, thought I’d post it here too, and then ramble a bit on my thoughts looking back. I’ve tried to write this more structured but found I just didn’t have much interesting to say like that lol

On the last post, where I showed all the cameos I bluntly sneaked into the story, I mentioned I’d made a Classic-style design for Nite, but that it hadn’t been approved, so when I drew it in the page, I was asked to redraw it with his actual design. Well, here it is.

Like I said in the post, the main inspiration here was Owl Jolson from Looney Tunes- Classic Sonic often lifted designs from classic cartoons (compare Vector to the crocodiles in Fantasia), though admittedly moreso from Disney, not WB. But everyone loves Owl Jolson, so how could I not, lol. Other design cues taken from Old Man Owl from the Sonic OVA, Dr. Fukurokov from Tails Adventure, and of course, the shoes and headphones are from Vector, to tie to the Chaotix.

Anyway, using this as the cue to give some thoughts on the work I did.

I trawled through a lot of places to see reactions to it. Here, twitter, 4chan, etc. Saw a lot of praise, and also a decent chunk of negativity, as to be expected. Appreciated it all overall- the praise did legit soothe my heart a bit, as I felt very unsatisfied with a lot of the work I’d done, and the negativity was either just so silly as to be ignorable or stuff I can actually agree to- I do agree, for instance, that just shoving a thousand very obvious cameos can be very distracting, especially in instances where you can TELL something’s a reference, but you can’t tell WHAT to.

With that said my biggest worries were in stuff like the inking and the drawings themselves, which generally got either praise or no remark, which does feel like a weight off my shoulders. Especially coming right after the wonderful art in the main story, and right before the wonderful art in the last story, my story looked like the ugly duckling, but people enjoyed it anyway, and I’m thankful.

You see, for whatever reason that I don’t know because it’s above my paygrade, I actually got the script fairly late into the production. I won’t give specifics about exact times, but I felt it made my art look rushed, especially the inking- although again, easy for me to see that when I knew the circumstances. It’s why the car inside isn’t as detailed as I’d planned in the concept art, or why perspective can get so wonky, or a dozen other negatives I can point out and make people go “oh I hadn’t noticed but now I do, thanks, idiot”.

On that note I want to praise Valentina Pinto, who coloured the story - if my deadline was tight, hers was about half of mine, even more absurdly tight, AND she had to put up with my repeated notes going “no paint this small thing this colour because it’s a reference to that”. Champ.

So, yeah. I can only hope that next time you guys see me do pencils, I’ll be able to present something a bit more polished- I’m considering outright asking for an inker rather than try and ink myself- and just keep improving from story to story (especially now I’m working on a new, much more powerful computer).

Some final notes regarding concerns people had after my last post-

No, IDW wasn’t at risk of anything due to me sneaking unauthorised cameos. At worst the only risk was always only ever that I’d be the one to not be given more work, it’d fall on me, not on the company.

Multiple people commented Kip looks like an Animal Crossing character. I don’t see it but I don’t mind the comparison, Animal Crossing’s got good designs.

One day I’ll get to give representation to the few games I forgot to this time :P

I don’t know if I’ll do retrospectives like this for everything I do- there IS a lot of wisdom in just shutting up and not being this transparent about things since the fandom will grab and exaggerate and read as much of it maliciously as they can, at least certain sections- but in the end, I feel this one deserved it. My debut in the medium as a professional, you know?

Have a good one everyone, see you whenever the next cool stuff comes out. Keep an eye out, some of it is starting to appear already ;)

#idw sonic #classic sonic #nite the owl

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fuckthisshitimin · 3 years

Text

Need your loving

“I love you.”

He’s on Allura’s couch and the night outside is young. It’s only ten, on a friday night. He should be out. Dancing or something. With her.

But he just wants that. Just want the comfort of this place that somehow feels more like home than his own appartement, he just wants her presence somewhere near. He wishes she’d hold him. But they cuddled for most the afternoon already, and she has work to do. He guesses she’ll smile a bit and answer she loves him too. Because she does. Not in the way Lance first thought he wanted her to. She loves him with a gentleness he never expected, when she looks at him, he knows he’s special.

They’re not lovers. But damn, they love each other.

She takes off her glasses, putting them down near her tablet. She mindlessly grabs her empty mug of coffee when she turns to look at him. He’s got her attention. He didn’t expect that.

“Are you okay?”

And he clenches his jaw, gulps because he doesn’t want to keep her from working. When he thinks about it... He knows he wants it. Her full attention. He craves it. And nothing she already gave is enough. He wants her to make a fresh teapot, but he knows he should be the one doing it. He hasn’t worked at all today, and the photographs still untouched on his computer can wait another two days before editing. She’s been on zoom meetings all morning with her editor to discuss the pages she sent, while he slept in her bed. She had lunch with her girlfriend and when she came back he was still here, and she took care of him. And now she started correcting her pages, redrawing, really, she’s been a busy bee. Yet, he wants her to make tea for him. That’s unfair. He knows it.

“I’m good.”

He’ll make tea himself, if he manages to get up from the couch. He’ll make tea for her, too. Rose tea. It’s their favorite. Soemthing that belongs to this relationship in particular, and sometimes he thinks if he loses her he’ll never be able to drink it again.

She gets up from her desk, and he regrets everything. Everything in his posture, in his tone, that could have betrayed the hole in his chest. He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want her to stop working.

Oh, here it is. The sharp sting of guilt. He wants her to know. He wants her to stop working and watch upon him instead. Is he manipulating her? Did he just manipulate her into caring for him? He feels them. The kind of tears that rise from the chest, uncomfortable, getting saltier in his lungs with every breath he takes. Soon he’ll cry. Oh, no. He doesn’t want that.

He knows.

Damn, he knows how he works. He shouldn’t be here. He’ll distract her. He’s distracting her. Allura hates distractions. He’ll die if she ever hates him. He wants to hide in the cushion when she walks to him, her heavy socks muffling the sounds of her steps.

“You only say I love you when you’re depressed.”

He knows he should feel indignated. But he doesn’t feel like there’s any kind of dignity in him now. He can’t answer with a playful tone, his voice is flat when he says:

“No, I don’t.”

And he closes his eyes, because if she looks at them she’ll know everything, and it wouldn’t be fair. She’s in a good mood, she deserves to stay in a good mood.

“Right. But you said it five times just this afternoon. And you are more affectionate when you’re down. That’s how you get attention.”

“I’m sorry.” He wishes he could be more convincing. He would be, if he wasn’t relishing the contact of her fingers on his forehead, if he didn’t wrap his arms around her waist, keeping her close. He can hear her heartbeat. “Get back to work, I’ll make tea.”

Her fingers are slow, careful in his hair. It’s messy, but not long enough to get really tangled. Not like hers. “I do have to work. But you’re more important.”

He breathes in sharply, it’s a blade in his lungs, it begs the tears to come out. “No I’m not.” He’s not. He’s not worht it. But he needs it. How can it be, that all options are awful?

“Yes you are. You’re my bae, boy.”

He almost scoffs, it’s almost a laugh, but tears come out instead, a small sob and she holds him closer. His breath is hard to keep even. He hates it, hates it. He doesn’t want to be like that. His throat is tight. He doesn’t think he can talk.

“Do you want to do a face mask?”

He wants to say No, I’m ugly, but he knows she’ll argue. He wants her to. He wants her to say he’s pretty. If she means it enough, maybe he’ll believe it. But he can’t do that. Can’t manipulate her into reassuring him. No, that’s what bad people do. So he just shakes his head. He wants to do xanax and smoke and sleep in her arms. He knows he can’t ask that either.

“Rose tea?”

“I’m sorry I’m like that.”

She holds him tight. So, so tight. He believes, for a second, that she’ll never let him go. “It’s okay, Lance. I’m here.”

“You can’t always be here for me. It’s not fair.”

“Well, right now, I can. So I’ll make us tea. And I’ll tell you I love you, and I’ll tell you how happy you make me until you believe it.”

“You’re not that patient.”

She laughs. And it’s a miracle, really. That he can feel so bad and still make her laugh. She’s a miracle. A blessing.

“You’re the exception, Lance. You’re worth spending all my patience on you.”

He can’t answer. It’s too sincere. He doesn’t want to ruin it with his bad mood. He doesn’t want to make her elaborate. She means it. He knows it. It’s perfect as it is, it has to be. He sniffs, and as she drifts away, her scent lingers. She’ll be back. She’ll make tea, and then she’ll be back. Her lips are soft on his forehead.

“I love you, too.”

#allurance #platonic allurance #qpr allurance #qpr #queerplatonic #lance #allura #lance mcclain #allura vld #allura voltron #voltron fic #tw depression #hpd #actually hpd #watch how hard i can project on this character #voltron #vld #my writing

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goldenkamuyhunting · 3 years

Text

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 282 “Moment”

A new chapter is out and again we’re granted...

...yeah, knowledge. Which is all good and well but not so fun. Oh well, to improve things Noda also inserted a small fight but let’s go with order.

The first thing we see is a colour page showing Sugimoto, Asirpa and Shiraishi running somewhere, struggling to go ahead of each other, as if to symbolize how they’re racing to find the gold. The atmosphere is light, probably to contrast on how heavy things are about to become.

The first page… is basically a redraw of the previous 2 pages.

Shiraishi says Tsurumi won’t solve the code and then realizes there are soldiers behind them.

I wonder if this is because Noda has already planned to change things in the volume version. We’ll see.

Anyway the 3 soldiers barely manage to say ‘hey, these guys are…’ that Toni Anji immediately starts shooting at them. One falls, the other is wounded, the third manages to hide behind a wall. Sugimoto though goes above the wall and jumps on the soldier, stabbing him straight in the head with his bayonet, something we saw him doing also during the war.

The wounded soldier attempts to shoot at Sugimoto but Hijikata first shoot his shoulder to stop him from firing, then decapitated him with his sword.

I should probably mention Noda has apparently returned to make gory killing scenes as it’s a long while Sugimoto didn’t stab someone right in the head and Hijikata decapitated someone.

Anyway Toni can’t hear any footstep so they figure there are no other soldiers nearby but Sugimoto finds a telegram on one of the deceased soldiers, sent from Sapporo one hour ago ordering to all Tsurumi’s soldiers to converge on Fort Goryokaku as fast as they can. The sender if, of course, Tsurumi, who has also figured out where the gold was.

Shiraishi feels faint, I guess he’s not thrilled at the idea of facing the whole 7th division, Sugimoto remembers everyone how Tsurumi had men all around Hokkaido to search for convicts so assumes the ones they just fought were stationed at Hakodate.

Nagakura thinks that since he doubt Tsurumi could have caught the afternoon train and the next would be in the morning of the day after with a trip that takes 13 hours they might have a whole day before Tsurumi will be there.

Sugimoto though thinks Tsurumi will just order one of the steam locomotives to carry him to Sapporo right there so they’ve a lot less time than anticipated. While Shiraishi panics further the group wonder where the gold could be.

Hijikata suggests Wilk’s group might have hidden it under the floor of a building so as not to be seen digging.

Sugimoto thinks it would have been simpler and quiecker to toss it into the moat as it would require no digging at all (I take the water there is not trasparent or someone would have noticed it immediately)...

...while Toni Anji suggests they could have hidden it into a well...

...with Shiraishi panicking further and tossing himself into the nearest one with no luck.

Honestly I hope it’s in neither of the three but some other place more interesting but maybe it’s just me.

All of sudden Sugimoto notices Kadokura, Kirawus and Kantarou are missing. Nagakura explains they remained at the station to search for horsedrawn carts which they’ll need to carry away the gold.

Asirpa realizes even if they were to find the gold fast enough it would take them a lot to take it away…

...and the group realizes that they would need 90 carts to take it away in a single blow.

Shiraishi argues in a rude manner with Ushiyama, clearly finding impossible to find 90 carts and then turns to Hijikata, asking him if he has a plan and Ushiyama, strangling Shiraishi as he evidently hadn’t appreciated Shiraishi’s reply to his suggestion, points out nobody imagined they would end up in that situation, possibly not even Wilk.

So Sugimoto says, since they’ve no other option, they can only fight.

They should entrench themselves in the fort and stand against Tsurumi and Co… because okay, Sugimoto depleted Tsurumi’s forces and maybe he hopes Tsurumi never got replacement but I genuinely doubt he depleted them in such a relevant way that from 100 they became… let’s say… 20… plus Tsurumi controls Yodogawa so he can force him to send more soldiers to his aid. So okay, main character and all but they’re just 11 men which count among them some elements that aren’t really fearsome warriors so I think they’re slightly at disadvantage. They don’t even have Vasily or Ogata to help them with their sniping techniques, nor Boutarou or Tanigaki.

So I don’t want to say it will be a piece of cake for Tsurumi to sweep them away because that’s a story and the main character always win but… they’re slightly outnumbered.

Everyone seems to think so except for Sugimoto who claims Hijikata should have already taken steps to prepare for the battle… and yes, Hijikata confirms reinforcements are coming with the afternoon steam locomotive, Kantarou waiting for them at the station.

And then we’re shown the reinforcements coming and YES! It’s Sofia and her men which seems to be a lot and all unknown and unnamed so that they’re basically red shirts whose life is as expendable as the ones of the nameless soldiers of the 7th.

I’ve to say Russian revolutionaries in this manga have a peculiar way to board trains as, instead than inside it, they’re all above the roof shooting in the air just in case someone hadn’t noticed them there.

Guys, please, save the ammunitions, they might come in use later on!

Sofia pours on herself some liquor and, unless this is a ritual to prepare herself to the battle, I fear they’re all drunk.

Hijikata points out Sofia’s guerrillas are hardened veterans who fought in countless battles with the Russian army. So they surely prove useful. I hope they’ve a translator there because Sofia’s knowledge of Japanese was poor and I don’t dare to hope the one of her men to be better.

Hijikata then explains that they’ve another advantage as this will be his second time fighting in Fort Goryokaku so he’s an expert in how to do battle there.

The chapter ends here and since this one was another informative chapter, necessary to get the situation but not so much thrilling I’ll spend two words on someone we’ve no info about, namely Vasily and Ogata.

Vasily wasn’t seen of the train and we don’t know if he managed to regroup with Sugimoto or was left in Sapporo. He would have been a powerful asset for the group as he can snipe from a distance but they can’t really communicate with him due to the language barrier. There’s to wonder if Vasily joined Sofia’s group, which would still come at hand.

Of course since Sugimoto’s group left him behind it can even be Tsurumi found and deployed him in his forces since Tsurumi and Tsukishima talk Russian just fine and Vasily is in this gold hunt merely to track Ogata down.

We’ll see. Honestly I’ve been waiting for so long for Vasily to do something useful and I hope the fact Noda depicted him on the cover of the next volume might mean it’ll be his time to shine.

Then we’ve Ogata who also has conveniently disappeared.

Did Hijikata keep in contact with him from behind Sugimoto’s back?

Or did Ogata managed to tail after Sofia, since she’s travelling in such a discreet and inconspicuous manner?

Or he just alerted Central the code had been solved?

We know that Ogata was, supposedly, a spy for Central (unless he was a spy for Tsurumi pretending to be a spy for Central because… well, it’s Tsurumi, what did you expect?) but Ogata had a quite different goal from Kikuta.

While Kikuta was there TO SUPPORT TSURUMI IN FINDING THE GOLD and then alerting Central when Tsurumi would have done it so that Central could get the gold and wipe away both Tsurumi and Hijikata, Ogata has always acted in order TO PREVENT TSURUMI FROM FINDING THE GOLD.

Are there two opposing forces in Central, fighting among them, one wanting for the gold to be found and the other for it to remain hidden and Ogata works for the latter?

Or has he decided this by himself, against Central’s wishes? If he fulfilling Hanazawa’s dying wish or something like that since his father had always been the main motivator in his life? We’ll see.

Well, for now that’s all, action will probably start soon so let’s enjoy this period of quiet.

#Golden Kamuy #Sugimoto Saichi #Asirpa #Shiraishi Yoshitake #Wilk #Hijikata Toshizou #Nagakura Shinpachi #Toni Anji #Ushiyama Tatsuuma #Kadokura Toshiyuki #Okuyama Kantarou #Kirawus #Sofia #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Golden Kamuy Ramblings and Theories

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ghosttotheparty · 3 years

Text

while the world ends around us (make believe with me)

8. Oh, it’s like I’m looking down from the ceiling above AO3

“I just don’t see why I can’t call her or something,” Lucas says dryly, mixing the sugar into his coffee.

“We’ve talked about this,” his dad huffs from behind him, where he’s sitting at the table. “She needs space to recover.”

Lucas lifts the spoon and looks at the sugar, sparkling in the spoon, and drops it back in the mug, stirring more aggressively.

“Yeah, but she has space,” he says without turning to look at him. “I think she could heal a little better if she had support.”

“She has support.”

“She has doctors and pills,” Lucas says. “Which helps, but having her son support her would help too.”

“You can write her a letter,” he says dismissively.

Lucas tosses the spoon into the sink loudly.

“Why would I write her a letter like it’s the fucking nineteenth century,” he says “when I can Skype her or something?” He turns to lean against the counter, but his father is still looking at his laptop in front of him, doing fucking whatever. “Her doctor told me I can schedule a call and—”

“No.”

Lucas grips the countertop behind him, until his nails are digging into it, until it feels like it might crack and crumble. He takes a sharp inhale before speaking.

“She won’t even get a letter for a while, I wanna have an actual conversation with her.”

“I said no.”

“You’re not even listening—”

“I don’t need to listen. I gave you an answer.”

Lucas stares at the back of his head, his heart pounding, livid at his insouciance, at how he just doesn’t care.

“I…” Lucas starts, shaking his head. “I just think if we actually talked about it, you could see what I mean.”

“Lucas…” his father huffs, like he’s the exasperated one. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

“I tried talking to you about it last night— I need your permission to call her,” he says adamantly.

“You’re not getting it,” he says calmly. “Give her space .”

“She—”

“Lucas, drop it,” he snaps finally, turning to look over his shoulder. He looks angry, and a part of Lucas feels gratified. Fucking finally he looks, even if just a fraction, as angry as Lucas feels. (Another part of him is startled. Every time he gets angry, it’s this quick, this sudden. It’s always sharp anger, preceded by silence, by indifference, until he snaps.) “You’re not getting permission. You can write her a letter.”

Lucas states back, relaxing his face. A part of him wants to give his father the same treatment, the same unreasonable coolness, the dryness. A part of him wants to walk out, and leave him angry.

He doesn’t.

“Would you even send it if I wrote one?” he asks calmly.

His father is quiet, still staring with furrowed brows.

“God, you really just don’t like her,” Lucas says. “You just don’t want me to talk to her.”

“You don’t need to.”

“She’s my mother,” he says, leaning forward, losing some of the stoicism he’s trying to maintain.

“And I’m your father.”

“You didn’t raise me,” Lucas snaps. “And I’m fucking glad you didn’t,” he mutters as he walks out of the room, leaving his father sputtering some nonsense, bullshit that Lucas doesn’t even bother acknowledging.

He shuts him up by slamming his bedroom door (or maybe he just can’t hear him anymore), and he stands there for a few seconds, just shaking, just trembling, just trying and trying and trying to take a deep breath, but it doesn’t work, and he explodes.

“Motherfucker!”

He swipes his hand across the top of one of the cardboard boxes (the goddamn cardboard boxes), snatching a sketchbook and flinging it behind himself, throwing it into the door.

His eyes squeeze shut and he falls to his knees as the sketchbook hits the door loudly, splitting open, and the papers fly in the air, falling around him. He hears the pages hit the ground, soft scrapes against the uneven wood that sound like the screeches of metal on the inside of Lucas’s skull.

He whimpers, his eyes squeezing shut tighter and tighter until it hurts as he presses his hands over his ears, drowning out the sound of his father tossing silverware into the drawer, the loud, shrill clattering, the drawer slamming shut like it’s in competition with Lucas’s bedroom door. Lucas’s head dips lower until his forehead presses into the floor, gritting his teeth against the whimpers that escape him as his father begins to shout at him through the doors, through the walls.

Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup.

Lucas doesn’t realise he’s speaking out loud, softly murmuring the words to the floor, until he finally does shut up, until the apartment lays deathly silent, as if in apocalypse. Lucas opens his eyes and stops whispering, staring at the floor. It’s so close that it’s blurry, swirls of dusty brown and age. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the edge of a sheet of paper that floated down next to him.

He looks at the drawing, slowly, tentatively moving his hands away from his ears as he lifts his head. His eyes focus on the sketch.

He almost wants to look away from it, almost wants to crawl closer to it and snatch it from the ground in a tight fist, almost wants to crumple it and tear it up until it’s dust.

Instead he stares at it, only breaking eye contact with it when he startled, jumping and wincing as the front door slams shut in the dead silence of the apartment. It echoes through Lucas’s head as he deflates, sighing and collapsing onto the floor.

He moans softly, pressing his forehead against the grainy wood, lifting his arms to press them to his chest, feeling it rise and fall as he sighs heavily.

Piece of shit.

He ends up climbing into bed, tugging the blanket over his head and blocking out the sunlight. It still comes through the blanket, pressing against his eyelids in faint shades of red and purple.

He pulls it down when his phone vibrates, and he looks at it dejectedly, his eyes hooded as the screen lights up and it buzzes against the floor. When he lifts his head he can read Jens’s name on the screen, but he lets his head fall and he rolls away before he can read what Jens is saying.

He stares at the blank wall, biting his trembling lip when his phone buzzes again.

And again.

- - -

Lucas only comes out from under the blanket when he can’t stay still any more, when he gets tired of bouncing his foot against his mattress and tapping his fingertips against the floor with his hand hanging off the side of his bed just to hear the noise.

His father still hasn’t returned, (Lucas wonders briefly where he is, where he could be. Out drinking? With friends? Lucas would be surprised if he has any.) but Lucas still walks as lightly as possible to the kitchen, carefully stepping over the creaky floorboards in the hallway like his dad is going to come out of nowhere.

He opens the fridge (to stare for a while before shutting it and leaving it like he usually does), but stops when he sees his forgotten coffee.

The mug is cold to the touch so he pours it into a bigger glass with some ice and sticks a straw in it, taking a sip and wincing at its bitterness (though he doesn’t bother finding more sugar) as he goes back to his room.

He kicks some paper out of the way when he enters his room, navigating it in the sudden dimness he hadn’t noticed until now. There’s light coming through the blinds, casting pale stripes across the floor, and they shift like illusions as the papers slide across the floor.

He doesn’t bother trying to pick them up. He barely spares them a glance. He knows them well. He could redraw them in his sleep.

They’re all people. Some of the pages are covered with messy pencil sketches of Kes and Jayden and Isa and Noah, smudged and blended under Lucas’s hand. He never fixed them, or tried to avoid the smudges. None of the drawings felt like real drawings, like actual portraits he wanted to put effort into. They just made him feel better. Some of them are random people from the internet, photos he’s screenshotted from Pinterest, because he likes the slope of their noses and the angle of their eyes.

And then there’s Jens.

Lucas is embarrassed, if he’s honest. He’d never show them to anyone. He barely even looks at them himself, except the few times he gets stuck, looking at it like Jens is right in front of him, even though he’s only ever seen him in Instagram photos and over Facetime and Skype.

Some of his drawings even capture the graininess of the photos, the blur of his screen as Jens grins at him. (Somehow the drawings give Lucas the same swoop in his stomach and flutter in his chest.)

Lucas sets his coffee on the ground next to his mattress before grabbing the drawings off the ground, quickly, rushed, his cheeks burning even though he’s completely alone. He stuffs them into a box, ignoring the way they bunch and wrinkle and fold so they fit before he slams it shut, pressing the worn and papered tape over the seam harshly so it stays closed.

He grabs his phone from the ground before flipping onto his bed, huffing and leaning against the wall before picking up the coffee and taking a few gulps to nurse his headache. (Though the caffeine probably won’t help much in the long run.)

He scrolls through his notifications as he sips the coffee.

Jens hey do you wanna zoom with the guys?? lucas???? l u c a s lu :(((

Moyo bro you there?? we miss you 💔

Robbe hey we’re video chatting if you want to join! :)

Aaron lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas

Jens is everything okay? call me when you want

The final message was sent a while after the others, and Lucas’s chest tightens.

He takes one last gulp of coffee before he sets the cup down (the ice cubes were watering it down anyway) and slides back so his head is propped up against his tower of pillows, and he calls him.

He answers quickly, before Lucas’s head is even settled.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says lightly, and even his expression softens. “‘S fine.”

Jens is quiet for a second before he says, “You don’t wanna talk about it?”

Lucas really can’t tell if it’s a question or not. Either way, his face falls and he squeezes his eyes shut as he inhales deeply. Jens can see right through him.

“Not really,” he says quietly.

“That’s okay,” Jens says softly. “Would you rather talk about how Nick is definitely in love with Gatby?”

Lucas startles and scoffs before a giggle is ripped right out of his chest.

“What?”

“You don’t see it? It’s so obvious!”

“I mean— I’m not arguing with you, I just…” He closes his eyes again, grinning at the ceiling. “Do you have textual evidence?” he asks, annunciating and imitating Ms Peeters.

“Uh, the book?” Jens says sassily, and Lucas almost giggles again. He can just imagine the furrow of Jens’s eyebrows and jut of his chin. “He follows Gatsby everywhere, he’s all he thinks about!”

I’d follow you anywhere.

“He’s the narrator,” Lucas says, ignoring the thought.

“Okay, and why do you think— What’s his name? Fitz— Fitzgerald?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Why do you think Fitzgerald chose to make Nick the narrator instead of choosing to use third person narration?”

Lucas pauses, processing his question.

“What, are you my final?”

A laugh bursts out of Jens.

“I don’t know,” Lucas sighs. “Why do you think?”

“Uh…” Jens sighs thoughtfully and there’s a rustle of fabric. Lucas wonders if he’s laying down too. “I think he just thought the gays needed a win.”

Lucas laughs loudly, rolling onto his side and shaking head, his eyes squeezing shut under his smile.

“I don’t think people were that invested in us back then,” he says as he settles.

And then he freezes, his eyes flying open.

He didn’t mean to let out so soon.

He’d been thinking about it, how to go about telling Jens that he’s embarrassingly gay without scaring him off. (Though he also reminded himself that Jens’s best friend is gay. Though, he also reminded himself, Robbe’s known Jens a lot longer than he has.)

He stayed up last night with it on his mind, whether it’s worth it or not, telling Jens he’s gay, and risk Jens thinking he likes him. (He wouldn’t be wrong, of course. That’s another thing that kept Lucas up: the way the mere thought of him, or his voice, makes Lucas’s heart flutter, makes his breath shorten, the way the fucking thought of seeing him in person makes Lucas gasp in excitement. He has it bad.)

“Maybe not, but you don’t think Fitzgerald was a little gay?” Jens says, paying no mind, and Lucas’s eyes open to the stack of boxes in front of him.

“What?” he says, laughing.

“You don’t think so?”

“He had a wife.”

“Oh, did he?”

“Yeah, her name was Zelda.”

“That’s a dope name. Okay, whatever, he had a wife. Sure. He still could have been a little gay.”

“I guess?”

“No straight person speaks that poetically.”

Lucas snorts, rolling over more until he’s almost laying on his stomach. He rests his chin on her forearm, holding his phone to his ear as he looks outside, seeing the city between the blinds.

“Then that would prove that Nick is gay, not Gatsby.”

“I never said Gatsby was gay,” Jens says, followed by another rustling sound and a soft huff of breath, like he’s mirroring Lucas. “Just the author. And Nick.”

“So it’s about unrequited romance?” Lucas says, his chest tightening slightly. He takes a deep breath as quietly as he can, feeling suddenly like his lungs won’t fill quite right.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jens says softly. “He’s watching Gatsby fall in love with Daisy, that’s heartbreaking.”

Lucas swallows.

“Gatsby was already in love with Daisy.”

“Right.” Jens takes a breath and Lucas closes his eyes for a second. He wonders what it would be like to fall asleep like this, with his phone pressed to his ear, with Jens’s voice whispering to him. “Nick was falling in love with Gatsby, and watching Gatsby be in love with someone else. Is that worse?”

Lucas thinks for a second, about the day, the second he realised his crush on Kes.

He was sitting across the table from him at a cafe, and Kes had kicked him in the shin by accident before looking under the table and kicking him again. Lucas had laughed and tried to kick him back but missed, kicking the table so hard it jostled, and Kes burst with laughter as Lucas hissed “Shit!” and grabbed the edge of the table to steady it.

Lucas had listened to Kes laugh. And looked at the way Kes was looking at him, his eyes bright with amusement. He’d even dropped his phone to laugh before setting his forehead on the table when Lucas shushed him, seeing a woman at another table turn to look.

And he remembers watching Kes fall for Isa.

Watching kiss her and pull her close when all Lucas wanted to hold his hand.

“I think it might be.”

Jens hums thoughtfully.

“We could write an essay about that.”

“Oh,” Lucas says, blinking. “We could.”

“Ms Peeters would definitely like it. She likes in-depth analyses. Even if they make no sense.”

Lucas chuckles, trying to forget about Kes.

It’s not hard to forget right now.

Not with Jens’s voice in his ear.

“We still have to finish reading it,” Lucas says.

“Of course.” Jens sighs. “I can see why you like it so much.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

They’re quiet for a second, and Lucas looks out the window. It’s dark now, and there are still bright windows scattered around the city. The street lamp across the street from his building flickers. Lucas wonders if stars flicker before they go out too.

“Lu?” Jens says softly, and Lucas closes his eyes. No one ever called him that before Jens. (No one does now either. He wonders if anyone else will. He hopes not.)

“Mmhmm?”

“Are you better now?”

“Yeah,” he says after a pause. “I am, actually.” You have that effect on me, he doesn’t add.

“Do you wanna talk about it now?”

Lucas smiles softly. It doesn’t feel like Jens is just curious. Like if Lucas were to say no, Jens would just say that’s okay.

Which gives him more bravery.

“It’s just…” he starts, huffing softly. “My dad. I’m so sick of him.”

Jens hums quietly.

Lucas squeezes his eyes shut and his lip quivers.

“I just—” he chokes. “I’m so fucking tired of this place.”

“Which place?”

“Just— I don’t know,” he says before burying his face in his arm. “This city, this apartment.” He lifts his head. “Mainly this apartment. All these fucking boxes.”

“When we— When we can meet up,” Jens stammers out, “I’ll take you places.” He sounds so sincere, so desperate, that Lucas’s heart squeezes. He shuts his eyes, hanging onto every word. “Wherever you want. Wherever we can go. I’ll leave Lotte with my dad, and we can stay out as long as you need to.”

Lucas muffles a sob into his arm, clutching the phone like a lifeline.

“And until then we can call whenever you want, and we can call my friends—” He cuts off. “Oh!”

Lucas rubs his face on his sleeve, letting out a breath.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, uhm…”

Lucas can sense his hesitation, and smiles.

“Tell me.”

“My friends and I were gonna have another call, I thought you’d like to join?” He pauses again. “The guys, but also some others.”

“Will they like me?” Lucas asks, only half joking. His voice is small.

“Of course.”

“When?”

“I don’t know yet, probably Friday? But they talked about Thursday, I’ll text you when we figure it out.”

“Okay.”

“And you can call or text any of them whenever, if you need a distraction or…”

“Jens?” Lucas whispers after a quiet second.

“Yeah?”

Lucas shuts his eyes again.

“Thank you.”

- - -

There aren’t many other people Lucas talks to from school. He exchanges messages with Mohamed from literature for a little bit, but the conversation doesn’t really go anywhere. The only other message he gets is from a girl, Élina, who he doesn’t recognise, but most of her posts were photographed at school. (Lucas wandered around the campus after arriving in Antwerp, just to see. There was no one there, save for an older woman who looked at Lucas disdainfully.)

Her message, heyyyyy youre new right?, makes Lucas cringe, reading it in the same voice as the girls that used to approach him at parties. The girls that he would flirt back with, doing everything in his power to ignore the uncomfortable churn in his stomach, the twisting of his nerves as the girls reached out and pushed his curls back or brushed their fingertips over his jaw and freckles. It made him so viscerally uncomfortable that for a while he wondered if he could be attracted to anyone at all. He even did research, finding out about the spectrums of asexuality and aromanticism, trying to find what fit, but nothing ever did. It was then that he decided he should probably experiment, and eventually he realised he doesn’t mind hands touching his hair and face softly or eyes looking at him like that when it’s another boy.

He still pretended, though. Even when his phone had the notifications set to not appear on his screen, notifications from pretty boys and their photos and slick words, he would press girls against walls and listen to their giggles and whispers, ignoring the ugly thoughts he couldn’t stop thinking.

He’s tired of pretending.

So when Élina sends him a message one night as he waits for Jens to get Lotte to sleep, a message that reads sooo do you have a girlfriend 👀, he sets his jaw and takes a deep breath before responding.

élina i’m gay

She responds with the laughing emoji, and he waits as she types, until lol no worries appears, followed by lucky boys ;).

He exhales and responds with a smiley face.

- - -

“Hey,” Lucas says softly when Moyo appears on his screen.

“Hey,” he says back, whispering. “Why are we quiet?”

Lucas chuckles, wrinkling his nose at him.

“My dad’s in the living room,” he explains. “You don’t have to be quiet. I have headphones.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Where is everyone?”

“They’re coming,” Moyo says, checking his phone. “How’ve you been?”

Lucas hesitates, wondering if he should tell him anything he’s told Jens. But he doesn’t want to fuck up the mood before the party’s even started.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ve been doing homework and stuff.”

“Gross.”

“Copying Jens’s maths.”

“As you should.”

“Oh my god!” Lucas says, setting his laptop on his bed as he remembers suddenly.

“You good?”

“Yeah, I just…” He pauses as he reaches to grab his sketchbook from the ground next to him. “I had something for you, I just remembered.” He sits back to see Moyo’s eyebrows raised.

“For me?”

“Something to show you, yeah.” He grabs his phone. “I’ll text you a picture, hold on.”

He waits as it sends, awkwardly tilting his head back and forth until Moyo lets out an Oh!

“Holy— Oh my god!” His voice has risen several octaves, and Lucas giggles, his eyes squinting under his grin. “That’s me!”

“Yeah!”

“You actually— Oh my god.” Moyo pulls his phone close to his face, hiding himself from Lucas as he looks at the photo of the sketch more intently.

“I said you have a nice face.”

“Lucaaaassss,” Moyo whines, and Lucas giggles again, leaning down and resting his chin on his hands happily. “This is so cool.”

Lucas is relieved, if he’s honest. He’d done the drawing late last night, looking back and forth between his sketchbook and a photo from Moyo’s Instagram.

“You like it?”

Moyo lets out an indignant noise, looking at Lucas with wide eyes.

“I fucking love it, bro.”

“Yeah?”

Moyo’s box shifts as Lucas grins at him, and Jens appears next to him.

“Hey,” Jens says brightly as Lucas’s eyes move to him. “What’s up?”

“Can I show him, Luc?” Moyo asks excitedly, and it takes Lucas a second to rip his eyes away from Jens’s pixelated face to answer, “Yeah, course.”

“I’ll text it.”

“What’s going on?” Jens asks, confused, and a little thrill goes through Lucas at the sight of his wrinkled brow.

“Lucas drew me!”

Jens’s eyebrows raise and he grins.

“Yeah?”

Lucas’s face burns when Jens receives the photo, when Jens exclaims that it’s so fucking good, man, when Jens looks up at him through the camera, and Lucas can feel his eyes on him, his delight.

“You wanted to draw someone and you chose Moyo?” Jens asks, grinning as Moyo lets out an offended “Hey!”

Lucas’s face burns again, and he hopes Jens (and Moyo, he supposes) can’t see his cheeks bloom. He shrugs, forcing a grin.

“I said he has a nice face.”

As Moyo playfully shoos at him, saying “Oh, stop it,” and looking back at the drawing, Jens’s eyebrows quirk up and his eyes widen as he leans forward slightly.

Oh.

Oh no.

Lucas glances at Moyo, who is still looking down, and then back at Jens, shaking his head. Jens’s brows raise more and he starts to smile, starts to beam, amusement in his eyes.

No, Lucas mouths, shaking his head harder, but before they can continue their silent conversation, the boxes shift again and a girl’s voice says, “What’s up, fuckers?”

“Luca,” Moyo says indignantly, as Jens laughs. It takes Lucas a second to look away from Jens to the girl, who has her hand clapped over her mouth.

“I don’t know you,” she says, dropping it and leaning close. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he assures her. “We’re basically already friends.”

“I’m Luca,” she says, holding a hand out to the camera.

“Lucas.”

He copies her and they shake, both laughing lightly.

“Where is everyone?” Luca asks.

“They’ll be here soon,” Jens says.

It takes a little while for them all to arrive.

Zoë comes in next (she smiles when Lucas compliments her hair), followed by Aaron and Amber who, Lucas has to agree with Aaron, is very pretty. Not Lucas’s type (obviously), but pretty nonetheless. Robbe and Sander arrive next, almost simultaneously, and after an onslaught of teasing from Moyo and Luca, Jens interrupts to tell Lucas to show Sander his art.

“Uhhh…” Lucas grabs at his phone before looking up again. “Moyo.”

“On it,” Moyo says sharply, looking away and lifting his phone.

Lucas flushes under Sander’s praise.

Yasmina joins next, already smiling as she appears on Lucas’s screen. She’s wearing a yellow hijab, and the brightness of her smile with the soft fabric makes Lucas think of the sun. (He tells her, exclaiming “You look like sunshine!” to which she responds with a squeal and a bright, flushed, broad smile.)

Jana appears last.

She’s smiling when she appears too, but it’s a smaller smile, almost sad.

“Hey,” Zoë says when Jana’s arrival interrupts conversation. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jana says dismissively. “Where’s the new kid? I gotta find you.” Her eyes scan her screen and Lucas waves his hand. “Ah!”

“Lucas,” he says, pressing his hand to his chest.

“Jana,” she says with a smile.

She’s sweet. Her laugh is nice.

Lucas knows he doesn’t really have a reason to not like her. But he can’t seem to help it as he listens to her tease Jens, to Jens tease her. As he watches Jens’s eyes while Jana speaks, as he watches Jana’s eyes as Jens speaks. There’s nothing for him really to go on, nothing really to suggest anything between them except Lucas’s overthinking.

He can’t stop overthinking.

He can’t even tell if Jens’s eyes are really softening when Jana speaks or if it’s just Lucas’s mind telling him they are, or if Jens is really saying Jana in a certain way.

(He can’t really tell if Jana is Daisy or not.)

It’s dark when everyone leaves. Dark dark. In everyone’s room, except Amber, who leaves all her lights on, including a lamp next to her. Zoë leaves first, because We have school tomorrow!, followed by Robbe because he’s actively falling asleep.

Jana leaves last, still chatting with Jens, who involves Lucas for his input. It’s sweet, especially as Lucas just… sits there, listening and watching.

He still gives her a friendly bye-bye wave when she leaves. It’s not her fault he’s the way he is. And she really is nice.

“So,” Jens says firmly when it’s just them, rocking forward and making the same face he did earlier, when Moyo wasn’t looking.

“No,” Lucas answers, already shaking his head.

“You don’t know what I’m gonna say!” Jens exclaims, delighted. His voice is hushed, and he’s wearing headphones (he’d gotten them out about halfway through the call), looking awfully lovely.

“I know exactly what you’re going to say, and the answer is no.”

“No what?”

“No,” Lucas insists, not really wanting to say it. “I don’t have a crush on Moyo.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Jens makes a face full of doubt, complete with raised eyebrows and a downward tilted chin.

“I don’t.”

“You said he has a nice face,” Jens teases.

“He does,” Lucas insists. “But so does… Yasmina. That doesn’t mean I have a crush on her.”

“…Okay, fair.”

Lucas doesn’t tell him about the drawings.

The ones stuffed into the boxes in his room, hidden away where he doesn’t have to see them, the ones of photos from Jens’s Instagram, the ones of subtle screenshots Lucas takes during their Facetime calls, the ones of Jens focussing on his maths homework while Lucas pretends to pay attention. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tell him about them. He doesn’t know what he’ll do with them.

“What did you think of the girls?” Jens asks, setting his chin on her forearm. He’s laying on his stomach, and Lucas wants to memorise the image: Jens looking up at him with sleep in his eyes, looking awfully precious.

“They’re really nice,” Lucas says honestly. He almost mirrors him, but instead he moves onto his side, resting his legs around the laptop and laying on his head on a curled arm. “Amber makes me think of someone I know in Utrecht.”

“Is she also a human strawberry?”

Lucas blinks.

“Actually, yeah. That’s…”

“I’m a genius,” Jens sighs, and Lucas makes a face.

“Fuck you,” Jens laughs, his eyes squinting, and then closing completely as he yawns into his arm.

“You should sleep.”

“You should sleep,” Jens retorts, laying his head down and looking at Lucas. His eyelids are low. Lucas’s heart skips a beat. “I don’t wanna go to bed,” Jens complains, oblivious to Lucas’s internal crisis of the admiration of sleepy Jens.

“We have school tomorrow,” he points out.

“You’re worth it,” Jens mumbles.

And Lucas fucking f a l l s .

“Cheesy bitch,” he says, ignoring his heart’s free-fall, and Jens giggles. It’s a sleepy laugh, raw and unfiltered, and Lucas smiles at it.

“Jens?” Lucas asks softly after a minute, and Jens’s eyes flutter open. Maybe he was asleep. But he smiles when his eyes settle on Lucas.

“Mmhmm?”

“Did you mean it? That you… That you’ll take me around when we can meet up?”

Jens’s brows furrow for a second and he lifts his head.

“Yeah, of course.” He sets his chin on his arm. “I’ll take you wherever. We’ll have to stay distanced for a while but…” He shrugs. “I’ll keep you out of your apartment.”

Lucas nuzzles into his arm and Jens lays his head down again, still looking at him.

“You don’t think it’ll be awkward?” Lucas says. “Last time I met up with someone from the internet it was super awkward.”

He doesn’t mention that he’d met the boy on a dating app, and that they’d hooked up and left.

“I won’t let it be,” Jens says, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll let my full extrovert personality come out.” He sighs. “You can be awkward if you want. I won’t.”

“Okay,” Lucas whispers. He’s not sure if Jens hears.

#i dont even remember the last time I updated this #idek if anyones reading it lmao #but yall i swear im still writing this #i have a lot going on but I haven't abandoned my boys #anyway #go stretch and drink water #eat something yummy #tell someone you love them #wtfock #skam nl #wtfock fic #skam nl fic #vds #van der stoffels #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #while the world ends around us (make believe with me)#ninety percent of the things i made italicized arent italicized im so mad what the fuck @ ao3

13 notes · View notes

peach-the-owl · 3 years

Note

Maybe one with Kima and Allura? The reader is an artist and one day they start to leave little notes with sketches for them in random places where they can find them and it's just them being a good friend trying to make them smile during the day.

Aww, I love Kima and Allura so much, their relationship is just so precious 🥰 I hope this turned out well

Also might’ve let myself get carried away with the idea, it’s a bit long 😅

Little Notes

Allura & Kima & Artist!Reader (Platonic)

You were making your way over to Allura's for a visit knowing she had been stressing out over Kima being missing from her mission in Kraghammer and hoping to calm some of those nerves. You walk up to the doors of her tower and give a knock, after a small wait the door opens to reveal the arcanist herself.

"(Y/n)! It’s been awhile, how are you?" She asks slightly surprised by your sudden appearance.

"Hello Allura, sorry about not informing you of my arrival." You sheepishly scratch at the back of your head in apology. "Do you mind if I come in? If not I can just-"

"No no, it’s alright." She stops you and steps out of the way for you to enter the tower. You welcome yourself in and go to sit in your usual spot whenever you’d visit. "I’m actually glad you decided to pop in, I’ve needed a distraction what with everything going on." Allura admits. At this point you pull out your sketchbook and pencil you always carry with you and start to add some fine line work to a piece you’d been working on for weeks now, never seeming to get it quite right.

"I know you’ve been stressing over this, which is exactly why I wanted to come over. So why don’t you tell me about what you’ve been up to recently." You suggest, not looking away from your drawing. You knew this wouldn’t bother Allura because for the years you've known each other, while it looked like you weren’t paying attention to the conversation you actually were, listening very carefully to every word being spoken to you. Allura went on to tell you about her work with the council and some of the worries she has for Kima, you adding in your own thoughts to the conversation every now and again. She then told you about her allies, the adventuring group known as Vox Machina that she asked to help find Kima, you knew about this group and what they did for the royal family but didn’t know them as personally as Allura did.

"I just hope nothing terrible has happened." Allura finally concludes after her long rant. You give an amused hum and sigh, taking proper notice that you’d wandered away from your project and had several random doodles covering the page. However instead of hindering you this placed a wonderful idea into your head.

"Relax Ally, if these people are as capable as you say then they’ll find Kima in no time. Just relax and breath, alright." You look up at her this time seeing her nod and take a few deep breaths. While she was distracted with that you carefully tear out some of the doodles, writing little messages of encouragement on the back of them and stand up. You sneakily slipping one of the notes between the cushion of the chair having it stick out just enough to be noticeable but not too obvious. "It’s been lovely, thank you for having me over but it’s getting late. I should really be making my way home."

"Allow me to walk you out." Allura offers which you happily accept, sneakily hiding the little drawings along the way in various places for Allura to hopefully find later. "I really appreciated the visit, helps to confide in a friend. You’re welcome back anytime." Allura gives you a quick hug that you return before the two of you part ways until next time.

It had been a while since your little visit and felt it only fair to check in and see how everything was going. When you arrive you’re relieved to see that Kima had returned in one piece, while Allura was occupied with thanking Vox Machina for their efforts you quietly shuffle over. You then watch as Kima and Allura share a small moment by staring at each other before they run into each other’s arms, you smile a little at this before deciding to quickly jump in.

"No it’s fine, just pretend I’m not here." You joke gaining everyone’s attention, you walk over to the two and without missing a beat Kima gives you a playful punch in the arm. "I swear to Bahamut Kima, you’re gonna break my arm one of these days." You slightly hiss from the pain.

"Nah if I meant to do that, it'd already be broken." Kima says slyly, you roll your eyes before properly hugging your friend, slipping a little note you’d made into her armour.

"Well now who’s this one?" The red Dragonborn asks. After some proper introductions with the group Allura invites everyone into her tower for tea, you hang back a second unsure if you should join them or just head home early.

"Don’t just stand there, the offer stands for you too." Allura gives a warm smile and ushers you inside.

"I know I just didn’t want to feel like I was overcrowding the place, plus I’m sure you’d like to catch up with Kima." You say meekly. You make your way up and automatically go to sit in your usual spot, pulling out your sketchbook as both a distraction and to continue on a commission for a client you’d received. Enjoying some tea and listening to the conversation between everyone else, Kima leans over your shoulder to look at your work.

"The hell is that supposed to be?" She asks quietly, staring at your drawing.

"Art." You reply cheekily. You catch her rolling her eyes at the corner of yours.

"I know what it is, but what is it?"

"The client asked for something abstract, so this is the result so far." You precede to erase and redraw a few of the lines you’d made until you felt satisfied.

"I don’t get it." You stifle a laugh, Kima didn’t really have an artistic eye but you appreciated that she at least tried to understand your craft whenever the two of you got to interact with each other.

"Shouldn’t you be involved in this conversation? Not to be rude or anything but it sounds important." You look up at Kima now to which she scratches at the back of her head, you can now see the blush on her cheeks.

"His questions were making me a little uncomfortable." She gestures over to the goliath, Grog. You give a reassuring pat her on the shoulder, sneaking another note into her armour before you realize something.

"Sorry to interrupt but what time is it?" After some fumbled reply’s Allura gives you her best estimation. "I have to go, I’ve got client to meet today and sooo much work to do. Thank you for the tea Allura, it was lovely to meet you all and thank you for safely bringing Kima back." You give a bit of a rushed goodbye as you gather up your things and hurry out of the tower, pausing briefly at the door to hide one more note for Allura to find later.

Time came and went, work piled up leaving you busy to no end, the only contact you had with your friends being the letters you’d write each other telling of what you’d been up to. However once the dragons came your world went crashing down, you had longed for a break away from all the work on your shoulders but not like this. Your home was in shambles, your hard work that took you months to complete destroyed in seconds, you considered yourself lucky to have made it out alive. Now you were but another refugee in Whitestone praying for a miracle while doodling in your sketchbook, the only thing that survived with you albeit slightly charred at the corners.

"Oh my gosh! You’re alive!" You hear a familiar voice call, looking over to see Kima run up to you. You give each other hug and once you let go Kima punches your arm.

"Every time I swear." You sigh with a small laugh, rubbing your arm.

"Gotta keep that arm strength up for your art stuff." Kima jokes, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "Anyways, do you know where Ally is?" You shake your head.

"I don’t, but I assume she’s alive, that woman’s a tough cookie." Kima nods in agreement.

"Would you like to help us?" Keyleth asks.

"Me? No I couldn’t, I’ve never really been the adventuring type, I much prefer swinging around a paintbrush over a sword." You politely decline the offer. "But I would like to advise one thing," you pat Kima's shoulder, once again slipping in a note you’d made into her armour in hopes of bringing encouragement. "Don’t do anything rash that could get you killed." Kima gives a quiet "yeah I know" and with that you watch the party continue on their way.

You did what you could with what little resources you had to build up and regain some normality to your life, starting a little side business of making motivational cards for anyone needing an extra pick me up. Folks seemed to really like it, each card having a personalized picture and message written on it, doing what you could to help keep hope alive in these trying times. When you met up with Kima and Allura again Allura was relived to see you were still alive and standing strong. They invited you over to the abode they were staying at together, which put a new idea into your head. Before you arrived for your visit with them you had made more of your little notes for them, this time making a few that you hoped would help spark the romance between the two you’ve seen since day one (secret wingman). When you arrived they gave you a quick tour of the place, leaving opportunities for you to slip the notes into various places around the house, making you wonder if this time they were doing it on purpose having finally caught on to your little gimmick. You all sat down and sipped away at some tea or coffee while talking about the actions going forward, as the evening came you bid your friends a goodnight and made your way back to your temporary living quarters…

More time flew by, the Chroma Conclave was since defeated and Emon was slowly rebuilding itself, a time of peace finally setting in and you had a lot of work ahead of you if you were ever going to be able to buildup your home from scratch. The only downside was you didn’t have the gold to pay for everything, your work as an artist didn’t always pay a lot but it was enough to keep you stable but having to pay to acquire materials for the house and art studio was another story entirely. Your then approached by two very familiar people.

"Allura! Kima! So good to see you both again. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write or visit often lately, been quite busy trying to re-establish myself." You greet your friends and notice the large bag Kima's carrying.

"It’s alright we’ve been rather busy ourselves with everything going on. We actually wished to talk with you." Allura gives you a gentle smile.

"Well I’d normally like to welcome you into my home, but as you can see it’s… not much of a home yet." You half-joke gesturing to the still ruined state of your house, the broken paintings you once had all having been stripped away when the Cinder King still ruled.

"That was actually one of the things we wished to speak with you about, Kima if you would." She turns to Kima who in turn hulls the bag over her shoulder letting it clatter to the ground, and you can hear the jangling of coin inside. "I believe this should help accommodate everything you need for your home and work." You stare jaw dropped at the bag filled to the brim with gold.

"I-This is very generous of you. I simply can’t just take your money." You say out of shock at the large gold pile in front of you.

"Think of it as payment for all you’ve done for us." Allura smiles and gives you an expectant look.

"All I’ve done? I haven’t really done anything to help."

"Sure you have, back when Kima was missing finding those papers with the little drawings and messages really helped keep me calm and cheer me up through all the stress." Allura explains.

"Yeah, or the ones you managed to slip into my armour. Little distracting at first but invigorating when I was in a tough spot in battle." Kima jumps in. You just smile, all you were doing was trying to be nice and encouraging to your friends unknowing of the effects it apparently lead to.

"Still, not all is from us." Allura suddenly cuts into your thoughts, you look at her confused. "That was the second thing we wanted to talk with you about. Some of this is a sort of upfront payment for a few commissions from our friends, half now to help you and half later once you've completed their requests."

"There’s more!?" You were almost lightheaded from the information, but shake it off and refocus yourself. "I’d love to, please fill me in on all the details."

"First off Keyleth asked for a landscape piece of her home in Zephrah, Keyleth will easily help bring you to and from her home whenever you’re ready. Next Percy wanted a portrait made for castle Whitestone, he said he’d fill in the rest of the details upon your arrival. Finally," Allura gives a bit of a sigh, "there’s Taryon… he wants a, and I quote, 'self portrait made with nothing but the finest oil paints you can get your hands on for the Slayer's Cake.'"

"So basically the plan is to visit Whitestone once my home's rebuilt. That should be fine, one question though, who’s Taryon?"

"Trust me, you’ll know who he is when you meet him."

"Sounds like quite the character." You say with a hint of nervousness. "Well if that’s everything, I should get to work. Thank you again for everything." You go to collect the heavy bag of gold only to pause when you hear Kima speak up.

"Ally did you still wanna… you know ask about the thing?" She had leaned closer to Allura to ask but you still heard her.

"What thing?" You question to which Allura perks up a bit in realization.

"I almost completely forgotten. Right, there was one more, very special request." You look at the two in silence, Allura walks up to you and takes one of your hands in hers. "(Y/n), Kima and I have a very important and special request of you." You just nod and wait for her to continue. "We were wondering if you could make us something special for… for our wedding." You stare wide eyed in awe.

"You two are getting married? That’s amazing! About time too." You cheer.

"Not so loud please, we just want a simple and private wedding you know, a few eye witnesses for the event. You don’t have to make anything grand, if anything we’d like what you make to be similar to the notes you’ve always left us." You press your hands together and hold back the urge to just scream to the heavens in happiness for them. When you manage to calm yourself enough you look back that the couple and give them a large smile.

"I’d be honoured to make something for your wedding." You give them both a hug and reset your sights on your shambled home. "Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a house to get built."

"Hold on, I still have one more thing for you." Kima interrupts this time. Before you can ask you feel a punch impact your arm, you suck back the pain as you rub the spot she hit. "Alright now your free to start." She gives you a smug look.

"Every. Single. Time." You playfully glare back. You had a long road ahead of you and you were certain it’d only be a matter of time before the peace is disturbed again but for now you wanted to focus on the present. Like you said, you had a lot of work to do.

#critical role #critical role & reader #vox machina #vox machina & reader #allura #allura vysoren #kima #kima of vord #allura x kima #allura & reader #kima & reader #npc appreciation month #nothing romantic here

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captainofthetidesbreath · 4 years

Text

The Nein as quotes from Polygon’s Unraveled

Because @hit-it-or-crit-it urged me I totally should get around to doing this after our brief discussion on the Nein and Unraveled after my screencap redraw, here it is—

Beau: “Listen to these quotes: ‘All warfare is based on deception,’ ‘If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him,’ ‘Steal their hats.’”

A strong contender: “But do I regret reading the Geneva Conventions? Of course not. Knowledge is its own reward. Could I really call this an Unraveled if I didn’t spend a whole day reading 224 pages of dense legalese for no good reason? Of course I couldn’t.”

Caduceus: “And if you have bugs in your house and you make the conscious decision to WANT those bugs in your house, they aren't pests, they're pets...s.”

A strong contender was: “[authoritatively] And that is no good, is it? [earnest] Is it? I actually have... um, I'm a little confused right now.”

Caleb: “With all the spell-casting and shouting you must do as Dragonborn, who really has time to read all these books? I do. Apparently.”

I absolutely agree that “God has cursed me for my hubris, and my work is never finished.” is absolutely a Caleb quote. I hear you—I hear your questions constantly. However, is it not just the state of wizardry in which you are cursed by God for your hubris? I opted for a more specific Caleb vibe, and that is books.

Fjord: “It's very hard to cuddle with someone when there's an inferiority complex between you.”

Now, I know "But when all hope seemed lost, I had an epiphany. ‘I am going to throw myself into the sea.’" is PEAK Fjord. I even did a quick screenshot redraw for it. But, also, this choice encapsulates WHY Fjord is going to throw himself into the sea—will someone please let Fjord cuddle every single one of his friends? Also, “I fully expect my boss, Tara Long, to put me out of my misery when I stop being useful. That's good management.” and “I know how much it would disappoint my friends if I changed my appearance.” were also strong contenders. Fjord is just, honestly, a pile of BDG quotes.

Jester: “[holding cat] So, here is Zuko, Barbarian class level 63. I love him with all my heart, and he loves me just the same. [gets whacked in the face by cat]”

Folks probably expected the one about cults: “And before you get upset with me saying, ‘Brian, aren’t you just starting a cult?’, look at this question answered by cutegirlcorr! Technically speaking, religions and cults are the same thing!” But, I can never turn down a good Sprinkle joke. And it feels like it better captures Jester’s energy.

Molly: “If I can't be accurate, I sure as hell am gonna be extra.”

A strong contender: “They'll see me as an artistic genius that's right and incomparably handsome.”

Veth: “[exasperated laughter] The Red Bull's wearing off.”

Veth is just the entire video where Brian searches for the hottest Castlevania monster. Just pick any quote out of that video: “[holding up image of Slogra] If you're not attracted to this, you're wrong.”, “That hyena can get it!”, “If someone comes up to me and introduces themselves to me as Duke Mirage, my pants are already off.” But, I feel the exhausted oh shit of this choice better captures Veth outside of her being thirsty for Mr. Minotaur.

Yasha: “When I was a kid, my mom thought I had a nutritional deficit because I kept wanting to eat mushrooms so much, like I only ate mushrooms for a whole week.”

A strong contender: “And finally we are cutting all of the recipes that include monster parts because we all know the true monster is man. [long stare into camera] And cannibalism is frowned upon in New York.” I just felt the chosen more captured the almost dead-pan and strange whimsy Yasha has.

Bonus:

Essek: “Why does no one understand the time break except for me, Brian David Gilbert? Why am I the only scholar in time break studies?”

Strong alternatives are “And if you'll excuse me, I have to go do my dark bidding in these spreadsheets.” and “That starts in stage one of all villains: you have to be contacted by a future version of yourself.”

Yeza: “Acid man was meant to be a chemist. What's he good for, titrations? [beat] That's a chemistry joke.”

Trent: “Once you've got that boy under your possession, time to get real into unethical science.”

The Bright Queen: “You sweet summer child. You babe swaddled in the cashmere blanket of ignorance.”

Dairon: “‘When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,’ but that’s bullshit. I love what I do, and let me tell you something—I’ve worked some days.”

Yussa: “Come on in. Hope you're not as big of an asshole as the past few of your friends.”

#long post for ts #Critical Role #Critical Role things #Sorry lmao it's such a long post but I didn't wanna cut down my commentary bc I'm wordy

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ryuichirou · 3 years

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I really don’t understand the story of /tw/ in general. People are using them so much and for everything: it’s so fucking annoying and ridiculous! They even put it for food!??! If we should follow their silly reasonings, TV should put a content warning for every single fucking thing, even food programs. And what’s even the point??? Cause surely I can’t get it at all.

I feel like new generations are pretty much spoiled, so used to live in a crystal cage that expect the whole internet/world to be ready to adapt at their poor and fragile sensibility at any moment. This is a fucking joke, I swear: these (most of times underaged) persons don’t know shit about life, and it shows so much.

The only content that should be tagged is 18+ or NSWF (whatever they call it) content, and that’s totally enough: if they find a page where the creator says there’s the kind of content they don’t like they should just move the fuck on and ignore the page, instead of being angry or flustered because not every content is specifically made for them or doesn’t align with their sometimesboringwhenitcomestoantis taste. But even if they find a pic in their tl about something they don’t like, what’s so difficult in blocking the artist and just ignore the thing? If a pic is able to ruin their whole day, well I guess there’s a serious psychological problem behind the surface. If their sensibility is that much fragile that they need a tw for every single thing, they either need to stop using internet or contact a therapist to resolve their issues imo. If their life is so empty that they can’t stand some artists making a drawing of something they don’t like or that somehow triggers them (Awwwww poor things, as if I give a shit🙄) they should start going out more, experiencing some fresh grass or hanging out with some friends.

I’m so done of these persons making a fucking dictatorship on the internet, feeling allowed to say whatever the fuck they want cause “buhuhu, how dare u hurting my poor soul so bad!!!!” Who the fuck cares? Who the fuck are you??? You are literally noone to me, I don’t know you and I don’t even wanna know you: I make this content for myself in first place and eventually for every one who shares my tastes. Don’t like it? Well, I don’t give a damn and I don’t feel sorry at all: internet is a goddamn free place, where you can find everything. Didn’t mommy and daddy told u that? Welcome in the world, hon! But imma tell u a secret right away: you have the right and the POSSIBILITY to ignore the content you don’t like (WOW!), keep scrolling (OMG!!) and especially leave artists/content creators the fuck alone, you spoiled child, cause yeah the world doesn’t revolve around your tiny ass.

Am I being harsh? Yeah, I know. But I’ve reached my limit with this thing, and this is exeedingly ridiculous.

As a content creator myself, I totally understand you guys. I love you, I love the content you produce and I’ll keep supporting you forever.

Omg Anon look at us getting all mad over this thing haha, but yeah. It’s pretty much exactly how you described.

While I do understand that food isn't exactly what I draw and I understand that people have different limits to what they want and don’t want to see, it’s impossible to consider every single thing that might affect someone. I think it's people's responsibility to manage their own timelines - that's what I do constantly because there's a lot of stuff I never want to see in my life. Maybe it’s us growing up in a completely different internet space (and time…), maybe it’s a matter of taste, but unless it’s an example of severe cruelty or realistically rendered rotting piece of flesh, i.e. something that could legitimately scar a person, I’m sorry, but I can’t see myself tagging these types of drawings… It’s not even graphic, it’s just an anime boy head with some blood on it, you can’t even see the cut and you wouldn’t stop to think about it twice. I redrew a screencap with Eren's arm being bitten off where you can see meat and even the bone, and there, for some surprising reason, nobody said anything. Is it because it was in the manga? I don't know. Zeke's flying head was also in the manga. I plan on redrawing Eren cutting off his leg and eye poking properly this time, it's also fucking graphic. Most of the time I don't even know what tags to use (the mushroom drawing with poorly drawn holes and barely any shading that people enjoyed complaining about - what the fuck did I draw? Body horror? Because I don't consider this child scribble body horror, one of the prompts for the month is actually "body horror", so this wasn't it. It was just a creepy thing, somewhat gross), and if I were to use most of them, like I said, it breaks my posts.

My overall blog has a warning (a poor one thanks to the symbol limit which is mostly eaten by me screaming about the prohibition of reposting my art), and I think it's more than enough.

I can live without people constantly going "what", "wtf", "no", "nah", "the fuck/hell", and whatever unoriginal comment they can come up with under my drawings. If you have nothing to say, then shut the fuck up, how about that. I'm sorry that my art is somewhat popular, and people see it.

Anyways. Thanks a lot for your support and love, we appreciate it a lot <3

#replies

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toastedbuckwheat · 5 years

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Hello! May I ask how you draw? I'm currently learning how to myself and would be highly interested into a step to step process by you! Like from sketch to the done thing (no color necessary)

Hello there!

I dunno how I feel about showing how I work/giving advice to someone who’s learning (and I say it as a pro artist who went through years of traditional art education) because when I do the illustrations you see here on my tumblr I BREAK THE RULES you’d learn though life drawing routine, and give in to bad habits, and my methods are rather unplanned and chaotic which makes it difficult to pinpoint significant stages. But I used my portable potato to take some photos during working on my last piece, so I’ll throw it here with a bit of an explanation of what’s going on.

Before I begin - and because you’re about to look at a mess of a WIP - I’d like to give you some general advice that generally makes life easier when you draw (again, things that I learned in traditional arts education - another artist might advise you the complete opposite, dunno!)

Work holistically. Forget them satisfying-to-look-at clips on instagram showing someone produce a hyperrealistic portrait starting from an eye, with each and every element emerging being finished before they proceed to another part. It takes a lot of talent, yes, but these are ppl redrawing a photo in a kind of a mechanical manner. Most artists don’t work this way. Especially if you’re working without a reference, or if you’re doing a life drawing - your process will be layering and changing and finding what works best to give an impression of what you’re drawing rather than reproduce the exact image, and your artwork is likely to look messy most of the time.That said: don’t start with the details. Don’t spend too much time on a particular part while neglecting others. Your goal is to keep the whole piece at the same level of ‘finished’ (even though it’s unfinished - do I make sense?) before you’re confident that everything is where it should be and proceed to the details. So sketch out the composition first. See how things fit, what’s the dynamics. You’ll save yourself from limbs sticking out from the frame, odd proportions etc etc.

Because it’s a game of relationships between different parts of the picture/scene. I ask you not to worry about finishing a single element before laying out the rest because you’ll find that said element will look different once the other part appears! For instance - you might think that the colour you picked for a character’s hair is already very dark. But once you’re done with the night sky background, you’ll find that it’s in fact too light, and doesn’t work well with the cold palette. You’ll have to revisit different parts of the image as you go to balance these relationships and make the picture work as a whole.

Give an impression of something being there without actually drawing it ‘properly’- because details are hard, mate. You’ll see that my lineart usually has hardly any, and my colouring is large unrefined stains, but the finished thing looks convincing. Like, fuck, I can never focus on how Crowley’s eyes are really shaped. So I just turn them into large glowing yellow ellipses crossed by a line, and heard no protests so far.

Don’t panic if you messed up (you probably didn’t anyway). It might turn out to be a completely unnoticeable mistake - because, remember, things work together to balance each other, so another finished off prominent element will probably drown that badly placed line that looked so visible and out of place a second ago.

It might not look good before it’s finished. I’m mostly immune to it after years of drawing, and my recent illustrations all follow a specific method (ykno, my sunset glow effects and all that) so I can kinda predict the next stage. But I do my linearts on a specially picked crap paper, I don’t bother erasing the smudged graphite, and it looks messy af until I make the background white in Photoshop. Conclusion: you might have a moment of doubt as you work through a piece, but try to break through it - I often suddenly start to like what I cursed a minute before! - and try to finish it even if it’s meant to be bad. This way, looking through your past pieces, you’ll see the progress. And trust me, I can’t even look at my art from literally three months ago. It’s normal.

Now, pics! The sketches are paler in real life, but I increased the contrast a little so you can see something.

1. Laying out the composition!

I wanted to just show them kissing, but I got carried away due to some Art Nouveau inspiration. As you might have noticed, most of my illustrations are quite self-contained (ykno - they look like a sticker on a plain background). So I wanted a tight swirl bordered by Aziraphale’s wings creating a sort of rounded, yin-yang like bubble around them. Consequently I made the whole composition revolve around their heads.

2. Adding more details to the sketch. It’s messy af. It will be messy until I’m done. It’s fine.

3. These are the fineliners I use for the linearts! They are made by Uni-ball and come in light and dark grey. I also sometimes use the guy on the left - ‘Touch’ sign pen by Pentel, when I want more brush-like, wider strokes. I work in grey because when I scan it and do my usual boring trick with sunlight highlights - which is an Overlay mode layer in Photoshop - the highlights ‘burn out’ the lines too and make them vanish a little, and the lighting effect gets more striking. I also like to use the light grey ones to make something look pencil-y without actually using pencil, because pencil fucking smudges.

4. It smudges! So because I am right handed, I start inking from the right hand side, no matter how tempted I am to do their faces first.

5. You can see the composition directions here. I made it intuitively, but ofc some ppl actually use grids etc to lay out their drawings.

6. See how pale ans thin the lineart was at first? I kept adjusting it as new inked parts were appearing. It starts to look nice and consistent now!

7. Finished lineart? There are some mistakes which I later corrected in PS. Notice that Aziraphale’s face has hardly any details on it - I tried to make the drawing suggest his expression rather than risk overdoing it.

8. Photoshop time!! You can totally do what I did here even if you don’t have a graphic tablet. I used Curves tool to enhance the lineart, then Quick Selection Tool to select the background around around my sticker-like piece and filled it white (on a new layer ofc). I keep this white layer on top of the layer order so it works as a mask as I colour. I decided I did not like the hatching shading underneath Aziraphale’s halo, so I erased it with a Stamp tool (because I wanna keep the textured grey fill my crap paper naturally gives me!). It’s done roughly but won’t be visible once the thing is coloured.

9. And the reason why I keep the grey shade instead of easily getting rid of it by using Curves/Levels is because when I set this layer to Multiply mode and colour underneath, it gives me this nice desaturated look like from an old cheap paper comic page. It works as a natural filter! But of course I can’t do bright colours this way, so all my glowing highlights happen ABOVE the lineart layer - on a separate layer in Overlay mode!

Finished thing here!

_____

Commission infoBuy Me a Coffee - help me with my transitioning expenses!Prints and stickers and things on my Redbubble!

#ask the buckwheat #long post #tutorial #drawing advice #drawing tutorial #good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fanart #good omens art #my illustrations #doodles #toastedbuckwheat

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