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vickyvicarious · 8 months

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Hi! So I'm working on a Dracula story of my own and I need help finding the character descriptions for the Crew. I know Jonathan gets white hair from shock at one point, but everything else is fuzzy. I think Lucy's a blonde and I seem to remember Van Helsing being described with red hair too, but I'm not sure if those things are actually in the book or a product of the adaptations.

Yeah, I can try to help you out. Honestly, most characters don't get very detailed descriptions, but I'll see what I can find... I'm going to be summing up what physical descriptions we know of, followed by an example quote for each characteristic in bullet points beneath.

I only looked in detail up to where we are now/a few specific scenes I remember from later on. I can add more if I notice it, but I think this covers the physical descriptors pretty well, since as far as I recall we don't get much new stuff later on.

Jonathan Harker: Has a young-looking face. His hair is brown until 3 October, when it turns white. Likely clean-shaven most of the time, since he's upset by his shaving mirror getting broken. At least used to have a 'quiet dignity'. Looks clever and full of energy (when not ill), but also quiet and business-like, so probably not a very tall or super muscular manly man.

5 May - "He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service."

8 May - "It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal."

24 August - "I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished."

30 September - "He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. [...] After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here to-day."

3 October - "Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. [...] Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame."

Mina Harker nee Murray: Very little physical description here. According to Jack she looks dainty and sweet and pretty. Her hair is beautiful. Temporarily has a scar on her forehead. Her teeth maybe start getting sharper when she's turning into a vampire.

29 September - "a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: "Dr. Seward, is it not?" [...] She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying."

3 October - "As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. [...] Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle,"

5 October - "Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard."

Lucy Westenra: Definitely pretty, probably in an 'innocent/sweet' looking way based on other peoples' comments. Based on Mina's tracking of her health/color even early on, it seems like she might look pale/anemic on a semi-regular basis even before being bitten. Either pudgy when healthy, or too thin when ill, since her getting fat is mentioned as a positive sign of improving health. Wrinkles her face adorably at times. Super voluptuous as a vampire, and her presumably-blond (sunny) hair is now described as dark. Possibly red eyes as a vampire? Though Jack doesn't mention her eyes looking different when she was sleeping and van Helsing lifted her eyelids to look at them, so maybe not. 19 years old (maybe twenty when she died).

24 May - "Here am I, who shall be twenty in September,"

24 July - "Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever,"

27 July - "Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had."

30 August - "I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat."

20 September - "He had even brushed Lucy's hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples."

29 September - "a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. [...] Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew."

Arthur Holmwood: Tall, handsome, curly hair. ...That's it, that's all we've got. Jack thinks he's very manly.

9 May - "I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???"

7 September - "When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed."

Jack Seward: Handsome, good forehead, strong jaw. Common consensus usually gives him glasses and dark hair although neither is mentioned in the book. We have a canon age for him (29), unlike almost everyone else. Lucy says he's resolute and calm and imperturbable, but the way others react to him tends to disprove that since several other characters seem to be able to read him pretty well.

11 May - "He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts."

24 May - "I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead."

Quincey Morris: Looks young apparently. Sadly never once described as wearing a cowboy hat. Presumably handsome since Lucy talks up how charming he is, and Jack talks up how manly he is, but it's possible that's mostly force of personality.

24 May - "He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures.

Abraham van Helsing: Tan/brown skin. Red hair, stocky frame. Clean shaven, high forehead. Blue eyes. Square chin, large mouth and nose, bushy eyebrows. Old, but it's unclear exactly how old.

20 August - "Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it."

25 September - "a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods."

26 September - "It was so funny to hear my wife called "Madam Mina" by this kindly, strong-faced old man."

...and I know you didn't ask for him specifically, but just for completeness...

Count Dracula: Tall, thin, long mustache, bushy eyebrows, very pale, red lips, sharp teeth, hairy palms, dressed in black. He has a high forehead, a hooked nose, pointy ears, and red eyes. White hair at the start, which goes to grey and eventually black as he gets younger in appearance. No beard in Transylvania but he's sporting one in London. Bad breath, sleeps with his eyes open. His charming or suave smile is mentioned multiple times during Jonathan's stay. Shovel scar on his forehead after 30 June.

5 May - "Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. [...] His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal."

30 June - "There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated."

18 September - "a tall, thin chap, with a 'ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin' through it. He had a 'ard, cold look and red eyes,"

22 September - "a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. [...] His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's."

3 October - "a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him."

#dracula daily #dracula daily spoilers #jonathan harker #mina murray #lucy westenra #arthur holmwood #jack seward #quincey morris #van helsing #count dracula #anonymous #replies #if you want to mimic the characters' writing styles... most of them don't spend long on describing the appearance of others #or at least not of people they already know.

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the-beginning-is-ending · 8 days

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HOUSE M.D × WarriorCats

FelidaeMD is yet another crossover between HouseMD and WarriorCats, where I will be actively rewriting the series, along with adjusting it to fit the warriors series.

This is a remaster post for the designs that I created before, and overall I might make a fic for this AU, but no promises! Anyone is free to use these designs for unrelated things or for their own stories and AUs.

Designs + info under the cut!

LINENCURL - LINENSTAR ( Cuddy )

Norwegian-Forest-Cat based! I took inspiration off of a sheep, because of her bangs within the show always reminded me of one.. and idk she has sheep vibes. She also has extra toes on one of her front paws! No reason, just cuz I thought it'd be cool.

JASPERWREN ( Wilson )

Based on an American-Curl +a little heart-like dot on his face! He's the Mediator of the clan they're within, cuz I thought it'd be fitting. More wavy-ish fur.

HARSHGUST ( House )

He's a Cornish-Rex mix. I saw this in a certain Warriors-AU and really liked it, but I can't remember the goddamned name of it (going feral rn). Either way, credits to them! One of his front claws is declawed, just for some detail, and he is the main medicine cat of the clan. Also! Cats, and many animals, can get blood clots and things like that, so it's the same thing that fucked up his leg. No monster or anything like that.

EVERGREENFALL ( Foreman )

I really love his design.. idk why.. he's a Burmese mix, and yeah! He's another medicine cat that House mentored, and stuff like that. Simple. Idk I just love drawing him too!! Also! Extra toes like Cuddy, cuz after all, he does replace her.

AIRYCHIRP ( Cameron )

A Somali! I couldn't decide if I wanted to lean blonde or brown, cuz I think of both when I see her... but I thought an in-between would fit better. I love her chronically sad look... she's so funky...

RAVENCOIL ( Chase )

A marbled Bengal. He didn't change much... as u can tell. It's just him. Same paws / tail being a lighter color as House, following in his paw steps and stuff.... idk. he.

REEDHAIL ( Thirteen )

No real reasoning in her design! I decided on a rex mix with other stuff in there cuz I thought her being a mix was more fitting, is all. (I think the rex part came to me from the same au as the house-rex thing, but I can't remember! sry!!)

VASTAMBER ( Amber )

Her design came easily to me. I saw it since day one, as a simple wirehair cat. It just immediately came to mind. This graceful, golden wirehair who just always looks so.. oddly relaxed.

COLDTAIL ( Taub )

Scottish fold was so obvious.. and also from the same one as House/13, I believe? Idk I just thought it was rlly fitting! I wish I could've gone further with his design, but overall, it's Taub. I think it matches him well enough! itty bitty guy....

LYREKRILL ( Kutner )

Kutner was either gonna be a snowshoe or Siamese, and I thought Siamese fit better, so here he is! I rlly like how simple he is, and Siamese are honestly some of my favorite cats so obv I like him... if only he stuck around for longer. But he definitely made his impact on the show.

Since I cannot add anymore images (yes, very unfortunate) and Vogler / Tritter didn't change designs one bit, they won't be in this post. I'll post them later on probably, but yeah.

They did get clean refs tho.

Plainsclan — Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital

Boarclan — Voglers Clan

PrincetonClan — Clan near the edges of the city where Vogler comes from

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nichiperi · 10 months

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Your colours are so bright and vibrant without clashing, I love it! How do you get that effect?

Ooooh I'll be happy to show you! I LIVE for bright-ass colors!!

Now.... Unfortunately the only good recent example I have on me at the moment is my autopsy Zim, but I'll censor the guts for you just in case and put an uncensored version below the cut. Usually I delete everything but the original sketch and the final version of a piece.

STEP 1: I take the original sketch and completely desaturate it and heighten the contrast! Here I try to bring out the lines as much as possible 'cause it'll make step 2 a lot easier.

STEP 2: I use my photo editing app (Meitu) to clean up the sketch as much as I want! In this one, I wanted it to look a little messy, but I just wanted the background clean. And THEN, I apply a filter!! This is important for later. Not only will it kinda smooth things out a little bit, but it tinted the lines eeeeever so slightly to be cool-toned.

STEP 3: I use my art app (Tayasui Sketches) to color the image and add a background. I really like this art program cause it has some A++++ textures! I don't need to go too crazy with the colors here. Usually, my colors are even fairly light at this stage. I just need them strong enough to survive the next step. Step 4 is where the real magic happens, so without further ado....

STEP 4: I go back to Meitu and I GO. TOTALLY. NUTS. Usually I begin by applying another filter to bring out the colors a bit more, and then I go into the manual editing and GO TO TOWN on those color settings. On this one, I cooled it down, tinted it pink a bit, and then went HARD on upping the blues and pinks in the image. Because the lines were already cool-toned, they turned completely blue at this stage! Then I may occasionally add another filter on top of that, and then BAM! Bright-ass colors!! The way to my heart. (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

That probably seems a bit chaotic, but I hope it was still informative if not entertaining!! XD

Uncensored version below! TW GORE

#thanks for your ask!! ( ◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧#invader zim #illustration #aesthetic #my art #edit #tw gore

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husbandhannie · 2 years

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pink spice

pairing: dino x reader

word count: 925

genre: fluff

contains: food mentions, food crimes, kissing

a/n: written for @starlightjoong. hi sol! congrats on completing the semester :). i did not proofread this, i'll do it later.

taglist: @itsveronicaxxx @zurikyo @husbandhoshi @starlightjoong @junhui-recs.

"are you cooking?"

chan looks up at your astonished question, his eyes averting from the pan of rice he was carefully stirring. he knows how much you dislike waking up to an empty bed on his days off, but you suppose it's okay if he's making you breakfast.

or brunch. it's almost noon. you had a late night.

"yeah", he smiles, fond eyes scanning the doubtful expression on your freshly washed face, "oh, don't be worried. it's just fried rice, it's going great!"

you smile at his enthusiasm, not entirely confident that it is, infact, going great. you walk over to stand behind him and wrap your arms around his waist, humming contently against his cotton-clad skin. the fried rice does look good, you concur. ofcourse whether it tastes good is a different matter entirely.

"wanna try it?", a hand rests on yours, callous thumb rubbing circles on your skin. it's really not bad, it spells out.

"sure", you mumble, letting him maneuver you to stand beside him, obediently taking the spoonful of rice he offers.

oh. it is good.

"how is it?", he asks nervously.

"good", you say after swallowing, "really good, chan. perfect".

"really?", he grins, soft pink dusting his cheeks, "you're not just saying that?"

"not at all, this is actually really good"

"thanks, babe", he murmurs shyly and turns to stir the contents of the pan again. clearing his throat, he adds, "is it spicy enough?"

it probably is, you think. but you've always preferred your food spicier than the standard palette.

"it's good enough", you answer, "i could do with a bit more spice, you know how i am".

"yeah", sweet eyes flutter to meet yours, "i know".

"i'll clear the table", you pipe, remembering the mess you left it in last night, "you get this ready".

you exit the kitchen before he can respond, your feet halting at the sight of the table. your things are still on it, but they're stacked up neatly - pens tucked away in their pouch and your laptop in its sage green sleeve. the last time you saw the table, your stuff was laying on it haphazardly - a result of the long hours you spent completing the last assignment of a long semester. too tired to even get up, you had dozed off with your head on the table, the hard wood feeling comfortable in your exhausted state. if it wasn't for your boyfriend and his ability to coax you into moving to the bedroom, you're sure you would've woken up with a severely cramped neck.

"you cleaned up", you murmur wondrously before padding over to him and pressing a firm kiss on his cheek, "thank you".

"you're welcome", he responds softly in a low voice, one arm moving to squeeze your hip affectionately, "go put everything away, i'll plate this up".

you nod and step away, turning back to steal one last kiss before speed-walking out of the kitchen, the grin on your face matching his.

[...]

"channie", you start, willing yourself to sound less shocked, "what happened?"

when you returned to the kitchen after putting your things away in record time of under four minutes, you didn't expect to find, well, this.

"i, uh", he mumbles, "i was going to add that chili oil we bought last week", he swallows, "you know the organic one from the farmer's market?"

"uh huh", you eye the contents of the pan, "and the oil made the rice pink?"

"no, it was - ", he stirs idly, "you know that food coloring we bought for cupcakes?"

you do remember that. the two of you had decided to give cooking a shot, and for some reason decided on baking as your first task. the results of the misadventure are still very vivid in your mind.

"keep going", you prod.

"well, both the coloring and oil bottles have similar size and have dark glass, and - ", he trails off, "well".

well, that explains why the rice is so extremely pink. chan knows how much you like chili oil, he probably added a fair bit of - atleast what he thought was - the spicy substance. if there was something you learned from your baking experiment (apart from, you know, knowing that you're not fit for baking), it's that the pink food coloring is very potent.

"oh god", you can't help but chuckle incredulously, a resigned smile ghosting on chan's face at the sound, "oh my god".

"yeah", he runs a hand through his hair, looking at you with apologetic eyes, "yeah".

"okay so", you start after managing to get your laughter somewhat under control, "it should still taste fine, right? it just looks like", you pause, "that".

chan nods, his eyes fixed on the pink affront.

"what's that?", you point to a grayish-brown cylinder-like ingredient on the pan.

"green onion", he answers, "now we know what we get when green and pink are mixed".

"oh god", you lean forward, taking in more details, "why is there so much of it?"

"because you like it", he pouts.

"oh, channie", you wrap your arms around him from the side, giggling against his skin, "i do like it. it's true".

"don't make fun of me", he mutters sulkily, wrapping an arm around you, "i added the chili oil too, after. it tastes good".

"see? it tastes good. that's what matters", you murmur soothingly, "i love you".

"even though i'm feeding you pink rice?"

"well, that does change things a little", you tease, laughing at his answering whine and leaning to peck his lips, "but even then. love you".

a/n: if you liked this, you might enjoy @neonun-au's doyoung fic, it gave me the colored catastrophe idea.

#seventeen fluff #svt fluff #dino fluff #lee chan fluff #lee chan x reader #dino x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #dino

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nancypullen · 5 months

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A Monday in January

It's just a week before I start my new job at the library. I am cautiously optimistic. I know without a doubt that I can do the job and do it well, though I'm probably a bit rusty. My concern has been improving my wardrobe a bit. Lucky for me, the library has a very casual dress code, but I don't think they want me showing up in sweatshirts. That's been my uniform for far too long. I need one of those What Not to Wear interventions. Today I wore this sweatshirt, purchased from an Etsy shop.

It's actually perfect for the library because it's a nod to Mr. Darcy's insult to Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. I mean, that's literature, folks. Still, they'd like for me to wear business casual so I've been attempting to add a few pieces here and there. When taking stock of my closet I realized that I'm apparently a collector of black pants. Straight legs, boot cut, leggings, ponte, denim - you name it, I've got 'em. I need a couple pairs of nice indigo/dark wash jeans, they look good with just about anything. I have enough tops and sweaters to rotate. I doubt anyone will really notice what I'm wearing. But, because I have Xmas money and gift cards I traveled to Easton today to shop at the Kohl's there. It was so frustrating. I found plenty of pretty things, but the whole store looked like it had been ransacked. If I found a sweater or top I liked, the color I wanted wasn't available in my size. I refuse to buy anything I don't truly like, so if I want the cobalt blue but they've only got my size in beige, I'm not getting it. I spent hours in the store and finally came out with two tops and a necklace. I found a pair of shoes I liked but again, no 6 or 6 1/2 in stock. I came home and found them on the Kohl's website and ordered them. So that's enough of a happy ending for me. I'll always be tidy and clean, I'll accessorize and then slap on some lipstick. Granny chic! I mentioned the sweatshirt I purchased on Etsy. I was gifted a very generous Etsy gift card for Christmas and I've had a ball spending it. Look at this treasure.

I ordered a beautiful journal, and had a quote and my initials added. I'm filling it with my thoughts, my poetry, and sometimes my melancholy ramblings. If you love it as much as I do, you can order your own here:

Choose the color, your own quote or saying (whatever inspires you) and get to writing. Wouldn't this be a lovely gift? It's beautifully made and quite thick.

I couldn't love it more. It's perfect for me during this season of my life. I am truly out looking for myself. The mister is upstairs on a Zoom photo club meeting, I think they have a guest speaker or something. I'm downstairs with both kitties enjoying the quiet. I just downloaded a couple of books from the library so I've got some good reading for the stormy day ahead.

I'm okay with everything but a power outage. Let the storm rage, but I'm going to need to heat up my soup, ya' know? And speaking of books, I'm considering joining the Modern Prairie Book Club. Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura/Halfpint Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie has a company called Modern Prairie - I loooove all of it, the cookware, the home goods, the clothing, the recipes, everything.

I absolutely love the Modern Prairie Instagram account -

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Modern Prairie (@officialmodernprairie)

instagram

so of course I was intrigued by the book club. She mentioned revisiting old books that we all read once upon a time and discussing how we view them now, decades later. I laughed when I saw the first book choice.

Then I got nostalgic (it's been more than fifty years for me!!) and then I became curious. I think I'll give it a whirl. What's the worst that can happen, I'll change my mind and go back to reading Lisa Jewell or Liane Moriarty? No big deal. Best case scenario is that I'm able to recapture some of that sweetness and simplicity. So that's where I'm at on this quiet Monday evening in January - optimistic about the new job, but yearning for the past at the same time. I suppose that's normal for most of us, isn't it? Looking forward with hope while trying to hang onto the best of what was. Sending out loads of love tonight. I hope it finds you and wraps you in a hug. Stay safe, stay well. XOXO, Nancy

#Instagram

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ja-lin · 11 months

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WORK IN PROGRESS POST!!!

I needed to take a break from coding the story cause my wrist was dying from typing...so I started working on the mini-CGs (there might be 6 total), and the main CG. I'm really torn which scenes I want the main CG to be, so I'm just testing these out. There's 3 very important scenes, and it's SOOO hard to choose.

When I started this project, I tried out a new method to do large drawings. I now draw the overall composition, then add color. Then I stand back from my computer and look at it. I zoom in, I zoom out. I make sure the colors and composition look good at thumbnail size.

Then, I clean up the lines and use my own sketch as a reference...

After studying a lot of Lovestruck art, I think as long as composition and colors are good, the illustration will come together. Cause I noticed a lot of times, the anatomy for official Lovestruck art is wonky...but the composition and colors make up for it.

I don't think I'll ever surpass my episode 6 CG though, that was MANY MANY coffees and boba later...it took me 3 days. I think that might be my favorite piece so far for this project!

Some trivia, but I used the below screencap from an aerial act video as the reference picture for the episode 6 main CG! I was like wow...this pose is cool, I want Onyx sitting like that! But, make it more romantic, make it like she's a goddess from the heavens. She has to be the one looking down, he has to be the one looking up ect; ect;

It was a long thought process to draw ep6 main CG...but I'm very happy how it turned out.

Anyways, I hope to look back on these posts...I treat this blog like a personal journal, a record of what I'm learning and how crazy I am on some days. After I finish this project...I'll probably go back and read all my posts for fun.

#my journey in making a visual novel fanfic solo

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imalayla · 2 years

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I've got to get this shit off my mind or I'll go insane

GUTTER PROJECT:

TOP PRIORITY to preserve house integrity

I have 2 in shape downspouts. I need AT LEAST 3 more. unsure, I need to measure my house. How to do this? Will one of those long measuring tapes work well enough? I will need 3 adapters and 3 extenders to go with the 3 downspouts. I will also need the appropriate amount of brackets. I need the actual gutters that go around the fascia (?) of the roof. This will include 5 outside corners, 1 inside corner, and two end caps.

Last but not least, I need A LADDER so I can REACH. I will price check all of these tomorrow.

Should i buy all new gutters and downspouts to replace the aging ones that's on my house now? Vinyl stuff seems pretty cheap, but maybe that's for a reason. Aluminum is sensory hell. I could also get PVC pipe to extend the downspouts 10 feet away from the house as is recommended. Not sure what to do on the north side of my house, since it's directly beside my neighbors but I'll hopefully figure out some sort of drainage situation. Anything is better than what I have now, lol. Maybe I can hide it in the yard, and that way when I plant my native grasses, they'll have a little irrigation system.

Need to get three more flood lights for the motion sensor light in the front porch.

LIVING ROOM PROJECT:

NOT top priority functionally, but it depresses me how ugly the living room looks so I'd like to improve my QOL...

Currently have enough supplies to scrape and sand all the wood trim in the living room. Also have the appropriate amount of drop cloths and tape to protect the floors. Nothing is stopping me besides executive dysfunction and the front door. I really would like to take the front door off the hinges so I can scrape it and install the weather stripping properly. i don't know anyone locally that can help me, so I'm kind of fucked there. Once that's scraped, I will buy some semi-gloss Kiltz oil based primer, prime the trim, and ponder on a color scheme later (though I have ideas.)

Once that is done, I will start scraping the walls to prepare for my attempt at skim coating. Should I buy stuff to fill in the cracks in the plaster? Is that something within my skill set? or will this just add another layer of executive dysfunction that will block me from doing this?

Supplies needed for skim coating: Drywall mud, paint roller & long arm, bucket for drywall mud, tray for rolling off paint roller, drywall knives (whatever they're called), sanding blocks with an extendable arm. Eggshell Kiltz primer (probably not oil based, but I'm not sure yet.) Will ponder on actual paint colors later, though I have ideas.

Want the bamboo roll up shades, as they're pretty appropriate for the house and I like them more than these ugly wide white blinds. Want the rainbow privacy film you can apply to the windows so they offer some privacy while allowing light in.

BATHROOM PROJECT:

LOWER PRIORITY but it's also pretty ugly and since i have all the supplies, why not...

Pretty much have all the supplies necessary for this. Need to take down the things screwed into the walls (shelves, hand towel holder) and commit to scraping the wallpaper and old paint off the walls. Sand a little. Spackle some of the holes. Prime. Also need to scrape & sand & prime the wooden trim, same method as living room. Will ponder on actual color schemes once everything is scraped and primed. Probably no skim coating needed in the bathroom. Want rainbow privacy film for that as well. Maybe a bamboo roll up shade as well? Also find out if HVAC people can do a bathroom vent installation.

Want to get some floating shelves, or perhaps one of those storage things that goes over the toilet. Far in the future, I want to pull the old shelves out of the linen closet in there, clean it, spackle the cracks, scrape old paint off, and then repaint and install new wire shelves for better organizing. It'll look more "modern" but it won't affect the character of the house since it's behind a door.

YARD PROJECTS:

Rent chainsaw, buy triclopyr, cut down the nandina and other invasive bushes i have in my yard, paint cut stumps to kill.

Start planning what to plant in the early spring. Thinking of bushes for around the house and in front of the fence to block visibility to the road. Native grasses and small trees in the front and side yard.

Eventually I would love to have the fence facing the road replaced with privacy fencing, but this is not a priority yet. Also would love to find out if we could somehow pour a concrete pad on the south side of the house for parking, so I don't have to park in the street, or in the back yard.

OTHER THINGS THE HOUSE NEEDS

Get quote for bringing electrical up to code -> MEDIUM PRIORITY

Get HVAC unit tuned up -> HIGH PRIORITY

Get more insulation blown into attic -> HIGH PRIORITY

Get roofer to evaluate the water damage -> MEDIUM PRIORITY

Get plumber to look at our pipes and see if any of the old ones on the sides of the house can be removed, so there will be less holes in the roof (Plus it will look nicer) -> LOW PRIORITY

Get quote for installing a tankless water heater -> MEDIUM PRIORITY

Kitchen projects, mud room, and back area of the house are unfortunately the lowest priority right now but there's so much that I want to redo there too. It's just going to be way more involved, and currently it's "functional" so whatever.

#I love my house SO MUCH i have so many plans that I know will probably not come true #because eventually we want to move to north carolina #but it's kind of depressing me because my god i love my house #i want to live in her forever #why can't i pick her up and take her to north carolina with me #she is expensive #but i adore her #she feels safe to me #the more i work on her #the more i feel connected to her #personal #howse #house projects #house

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oops-prow-did-it-again · 2 years

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Update (please read)

This includes a general update about me, update about my sideblogs, tags, and also a small ask at the bottom w/ an art dump, so pls read all even tho it's a little long. I'd really appreciate it <3

so I finally decided to start using my queue system and stop feeling like such a pos all the time. this is part of my attempt at forcing myself to feel a little better on a daily basis. It's not that Im suddenly spending more time on Tumblr; I've ALWAYS been spending tons of time on Tumblr. I've just been in a bit of a funk for a long time where I was convinced I wasn't "good enough" (whatever that means) to interact with hardly anybody or anything.

But lol this is Tumblr..... if people don't like me interacting, they can block me. Ofc I'll try to respect DNIs and all but you get what I mean.

I'm going to try to clean up @undead-prowess and @plates-of-va as well and start posting to them more. I still am working on the next chapter of my Pokemon fanfic, but that has been delayed due to my cars needing a lot of work lately, and me having to help with that.

Also, my tags, explained (I promise this'll be the final time):

#oops prow queued again - queued post. the system posted it automatically. any tags were added when I queued it

#spicy prow - my custom nsfw tag. This just means a post that might be a little incendiary or not something you'd read in front of your grandparents. It doesn't mean that I think the post content is trashy or sexual or anything like that necessarily. It just means that if you're scrolling tumblr at work, you probably don't wanna see this post lol. This tag may also include discourse-y posts.

#nsfw-ish / #nsfwish - same story as the above, but more explicitly about specific language or sexual content. A post might offhandedly just say 'tits' and while that isn't, like, BAD, I just want to give people that are in compromising situations a choice to clean up their dash.

#here prow goes again - discourse tag. block it if you hate arguments. I try to avoid arguments honestly bc they're not worth the time but I'm not averse to posting them on occasion. I may also use a general 'discourse' tag.

#pin for prow pls - personal tag for stuff I really want to try to remember. helps narrow down posts for things I'd like to review later.

A lot of other tags (memes, videos, etc) are pretty self explanatory. I've moved away from my "non pokemon" tag, but if anyone really WANTS me to bring that back, I'm happy to bring it back. Just let me know.

Furthermore, ya boi is broke and currently waiting the 200+ average days for a decision on disability benefits, and even if I get them, they'll probably be garbage. If you can spare some change, it'd be greatly appreciated, even if it was like, a single dollar. I can also do art commissions, sfw or nsfw.

P@yPal || $silfurgames

My commission prices are flexible, but in general, for a single character, it's $10 for a sketch, $20 for a flat color w/ sketch, $30 for flat color w/ clean lines, $40 for shaded color w/ clean lines. For each additional character, add 35% of the price (so two characters for shaded color w/ clean lines would be $40+35%=$54).

I am willing to TRY to draw anything, but without references, I am best at animals (mammals, most reptiles, and many fictional creatures). With references I am willing to try anything.

Here's some samples of my work, not all of which I've posted here before:

#pin for prow pls #oops-prow-did-it again #please read #boost

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terrylearns2code · 1 year

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controlling a camera!

in this next chapter I'm going to learn about cameras. very cool!

Making a background sprite

I made a background sprite so that its noticeable when the player moves with the camera. I had to change the color of my character's shirt.

I also resized the game room so I had lots of space to run around in. I wonder what happens if I run off the edges of the screen when the camera follows shoggy around?

Update: the camera stops moving, but shog here will just walk off the edge of the screen. The camera resumes following the shog when he comes back. I'll probably add code at some point to prevent the player character walking into the nether.

Making enumerators

my instructor had me set up an enumerator in a new game object called "controller" which will probably handle a lot of systems and top processes in the game.

I don't understand why I need an enumerator, other than the fact that it is global. The syntax of it is weird, too.

Update: I learned later that even though I've written an enumerator here, it is accessible by the game before the game object "controller" has been created. very handy! still think the syntax to create one sucks though. Gamemaker recommends in its documentation to put all enumerators into a separate script so you don't have to go chasing them down later, which is a good tip!

Making a camera

gamemaker has a camera object. takes a LOT of arguments to set it up. I'm sure I'll be looking up what they all are every time I have to create one.

Making a "view"

games can have multiple views, to which several cameras can be assigned, I assume making it easy to change from view to view like on a TV show. first I have to enable them, then assign my camera to the first view.

destroying the camera when the room ends

I never knew what the clean up event is for, but should the room end, I guess writing this code destroys the camera. I anticipate at some point during this tutorial, we will make players leave the room.

The camera is warped!

my poor baby ;_; I wish I could spend more time learning why this is going on, but as you can see the camera is stretching what it sees to fill a game window, but I never defined the game window to be this size!

Creating an initializing room and accessing its code

to access a room's creation code, I have to open it in the inspector. In the new update, I didn't like how gamemaker would automatically open the inspector when I went into a room at first, but now I don't mind it so much.

game surface vs game window

in the room's creation code, I am changing the game's *surface* and its *window size*. what's the fucking difference? I do not know. These are things that I will research later.

error: make sure that the initialization room is set to the home room, or the room that runs first. In newer versions of gamemaker, you have to access a new window to do it rather than reorder rooms in the library. I forgot to do it, and the camera view stayed warped, because it never ran the initialization room.

I wonder what would happen if I ran this code in an object, rather than in the creation code of an initialization room? Things to discover at a later time.

#learning gamemaker

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ikimaru · 2 years

Note

You probably get asked this a ton but how do you make your drawings?

Like progress wise. I would love to see like a timelapse or a progress video on how you do sketches, poses, rendering, colors etc.

Anyways keep up the good work!

hello! anything that isn't an illustration is pretty straightforward sketch > cleaning (I try not to clean up too much if it's just a pic for fun but sometimes I end up doing it anyway fjksd) > flat colors > shading, sometimes I'll decide on a background color beforehand esp if I'm going for a specific color palette or add some overlay layers later!

the illustrations are usually sketch+ background at the same time and just very chaotic with the coloring lol tho it depends from the picture, but I don’t have a specific method for sketching or planning poses other than I decide them in my mind first and then try to draw them, and occasionally look up refs if I’m stuck on something

and as usual u can find my old speedpaints on YT! (= thank you!

#Sunnyasks

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spikefromlr · 3 years

Text

So Pretty When You Cry

18+

Aged up Chase!

~~~~

"We have to hurry, everyone will be back soon." Chase pleads with you, his voice strained slightly.

"I wonder what they'd think, hmm? Their 'mission leader' on his knees, with a vibrator up his ass, begging to cum. You think they'd still take you seriously?" You taunt, reveling in the whimpers that come from him.

His cock steadily leaks at your words, the tip an angry red color, begging for release.

Chase never understood why this type of humiliation turned him on, instead of turning him into Spike, but he decided not to question it.

"C'mon baby please, let me?" Chase asks, tugging at the restraints keeping his hands behind his back.

"Let you what? You know if you want something, you have to say it." You tell him, reaching to stroke his cock, making it even harder for him to talk.

"Can- can I cum, please?"

"Hmmm, I don't know, you think you deserve it?" You ask, leaning forward to kiss his neck, just the way he likes.

You use your unoccupied hand to grab the vibrator remote, turning it up a notch, resulting in a loud moan from Chase.

"Please, please, just let me cum. I'll- I'll be good, so good, just let me cum for you, please."

Just as you're about to respond, you hear a *ping* from your phone, alerting you that someone's home. "Well, looks like it's too late." You tell him, watching as his face drops. "You should probably clean up, they'll be down here any minute." Freeing him of his restraints, you watch as he scrambles to grab his clothes from the ground beside him and put them on. You lean against the cyberdesk, trying to look as casual as possible.

When he goes to take out the vibrator, you stop him, "Leave it.", and he does, not having time to argue.

By the time everyone is exiting the elevator, Chase has made it so you're standing in front of him while he sits on the desk, covering his "problem".

"Hey, you two, what're you doing down here? I thought you were upstairs studying." Mr. Davenport asks, walking in with Adam, Bree, and Leo.

"Yeah, we were but we finished pretty quickly. Perks of dating the smartest man in the world I guess?" You say nonchalantly, making Chase wonder how you're so calm when your hand was just on his dick not even five minutes ago.

"I still can't believe Chasey here is dating anyone, especially someone so out of his league." Adam adds in, like he always does when someone brings up you and Chase. You see Leo subtly smack Adam's arm, trying to get him to shut up.

"Leo, it's fine. But I've been meaning to ask, when do we get to meet your boo Adam?" You ask, tired of him constantly picking on your boyfriend.

You smirk to yourself when he goes quiet, and you turn so you're facing Chase, knowing he's been quiet the whole time for a reason.

"You okay babe? You don't look so good." You reach the back of your hand up to his cheek, then forehead, seeing that they actually are warm, but not for the reasons you're pretending they are.

"Yeah I'm not feeling the best." Chase plays into your charade, hoping to leave the lab as soon as possible. He can still feel the low vibrations and it's taking everything out of him to not cum in front of his entire family.

Turning to the team, you tell them, "I'm gonna take Chase upstairs, make him some soup or something. Talk to y'all later!", dragging Chase onto the elevator before anyone has a chance to question anything.

As soon as the elevator doors close, you back Chase against the wall, sweeping him into a bruising kiss, one of your hands making its way to curl around his neck and the other going to palm the bulge in his pants.

Chase whimpers in your mouth at the overwhelming feeling of your hand on his cock and the restriction of airflow.

You hear the *ding* of the elevator, and you back away with a smile, leaving Chase frustrated once again. He knew this was part of the game you played, but he wanted it to end already! He follows you into the hallway, realizing that you brought him to the floor with the spare rooms.

Following you like a dog on a leash, Chase lets you lead him into one of the rooms.

You hold the door for him, closing it after he walks in. He turns to you and you bring him in for another kiss, maneuvering him so that he's sitting on the bed and you go to straddle him.

You grind your centre onto his, your hands going into his hair, pulling slightly. Pulling away, you whisper against his lips, "Tell me what you want."

"Just wanna cum, please." He begs, his eyes starting to water from the constant stimulation on his prostate, and the pleasure/pain he's getting from you pulling his hair.

"Who would've thought that little ol' me could get The Chase Davenport, to be reduced to a begging, moaning, mess? Ain't I powerful?" You flaunt, completely ignoring his request.

You feel him start to grind himself up into you, his head falling to the crook of your neck and his arms wrapping around you.

"Aww, you gonna cum in your pants? I didn't know you were that pathetic."

Chase was practically incoherent by now, mumbling out things that sounded like "please" and curses you'd never usually hear him say.

Pitying him, you move his head from the crease of your neck, taking in his flushed and wet cheeks. Wet, from the tears that are fully running now, and you lean forward to kiss them away.

"So pretty when you cry." You murmur against his lips before softly kissing him. You pull back only to say, "Go ahead and cum for me.", before pulling him back in for another kiss.

You feel him writhe against you, and you grind yourself onto him to work him through his orgasm, relishing in the mewls and whimpers that come from his mouth, the only word he's able to form being your name.

You turn the vibrator completely off as he comes down from his high, planting little kisses all over his face before finally landing one on his lips, watching as his lips turn up in a smile.

"Holy shit.”

You giggle at his words, watching as his face quickly turns to an uncomfortable look.

“As fun as that was, I now need a shower and fresh pants.” He grimaces, motioning for you to get up from his lap.

You get up, making your way towards the door, “This room is connected to a bathroom so you go shower, and I’ll sneak down and get you some fresh clothes. Sound good?”

Chase stands up, the front of his pants stained with his release, making him walk awkwardly towards the bathroom, “Sounds good.”, and you can’t help but laugh as you watch him waddle, causing him to call back to you, saying “Oh shut it!”, with a playful smile.

________

You take the elevator downstairs to the lab, leaving Chase to shower, and when you exit you’re met with four pairs of accusing eyes.

“Heyyy, everyone. Just comin’ down to get Chase some warm clothes, think he might have a little cold or something.” You say, walking as fast as possible to grab his hoodie and joggers.

“You know the funny part about this expensive lab, Y/N?” Mr.Davenport starts, using your choice of words to describe the lab, “It’s the expensive security cameras and smart-home system!”, your face drops, “Wanna know what they shared with me about you and Chase’s time in the lab?” He says with a faux smile.

“No not really.” You respond, hanging your head in defeat.

“Good, because I don’t think I could stand to hear him say any of what I just saw.” Leo pipes up, fake gagging, Adam and Bree following him.

“Anything you wanna say on you and Chase’s behalf?” Davenport says, looking like he’s close to puking too.

“We’ll clean the lab?”

“Good answer.”

~~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed!! I’ve been rewatching Lab Rats and it made me realize how underrated and attractive Chase is lol! Feel free to like and comment!

#sub chase Davenport #chase davenport #lab rats #smut #leo dooley #donald davenport #bree davenport #CHASE IS SO ADORABLE #i just think hes neat okay #chase davenport imagine #imagines #mediocre smut #begging #caught #aged up #chase davenport smut

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munsonenthisiast · 3 years

Text

Then & Forever

A/N: I wrote this in like five days and had my bestie edit. This is my first time writing anything, but I love Josh so-

Summary: Since you started working for GVF, you and Josh had grown close to each other over the years. This time you hope your feelings don't get in the way of ruining everything you built.

Contains: Smut, drinking, smoking, cursing

WC: 10.9k

"So you're saying that. . . you've never played an instrument before?" Sam pointed at his bass. You laughed at the question, sipping your beer. "Correct." Sam furrowed his face in confusion. "Then why do you have a degree IN music if you can't play?" Josh hit Sam on the shoulder with a pencil making a small face. You shrugged your shoulders, swishing the alcohol around your mouth. "I don't know, It's just something I've never wanted to do, you know. I guess it's one thing knowing about an instrument rather than playing it."

Everyone nodded in agreement. "Well, if you did play anything I'm sure you'd be really good at it." Josh smiled towards you. He went back to writing in his journal while everyone else went back to respectively playing their own instruments.

But for you, it seemed a long way home. Never did it cross your mind that you would basically be living with four different people from time to time. Especially not so quickly. Greta Van Fleet was your first job, and really, first anything. From high school until now, you were alone. Which made you a little grumpy when working with people, but none the less you warmed up to them quickly. Especially Josh, who always seemed attached to the hip with you.

Josh may have annoyed you a tiny bit at first, but his euphoric mind is what intrigued you in the first place. He always seemed so wise, knowing the right answer to everything. And the way he wrote the lyrics to songs, just naturally appeared to him somehow. It was truly magic.

Jake smacked you on the arm, calling for your attention. "Ok, what do you think of this." He pulled the guitar over his lap, playing the notes he came up with. You quickly wrote down the notes he played, looking out for any correction. "So what do you think?" He asked, flailing his arms around. Running your pencil down the piece of paper, you started to shake your head. "I think it sounds pretty good," you said looking at Josh, who also nodded his head in compliance. "What would also sound cool is if you gave it a little vibrato during a live show."

Jake smiled writing the commentary down on a sticky note. "You know, for not knowing how to play, you really are smart with this kind of stuff." You glared your eyes at him, snickering just a little bit. Everyone worked for a couple of more hours, before calling it a night. Danny and Sam were practically sleeping on each other.

You shook Sam awake, snatching his car keys from his hand. "We'll both be dead if you drive, and were the most important in the band. Well, besides Danny. And Jake. And Josh." You twirled the keys around your finger while Sam stretched to get awake. Josh flipped all the pages over in his journal, turning to you. "We got pretty far today, don't you think?" Josh smiled at his brothers, who were already arguing about something. "Yeah. Maybe we'll get better stuff done tomorrow, you know. This is supposed to be the 'fun' part," you said using air quotations, "but the most boring part out of everything. But maybe, in the end, it'll all be worth it." you hit Josh's arm softly.

"Are you going with Sam?" you nodded quickly. "Yeah, I kind of promised him I would help him with some stuff in the morning." Josh looked sadder than ever. You smiled at Josh, noticing Sam waiting by the door with Jake and Danny. "I'll see you later." You gave Josh a quick kiss on the head.

"Let's go." you wiggled a finger at Sam, practically dragging him to the car. The ride to Sam's house was fairly quiet other than the little snores coming from him. It was nice to get a moment or two of peace to yourself. Working and living with four grown men gave no room for privacy. Everything is shared between you all. Which you had to admit, scared you a little at first because you've always grown up with a sister and maybe a few girlfriends here and there; but you were never as close to them, then as you were to the band.

The house was quiet when you walked in, dark and dim from the night sky. Sam immediately walked to his bedroom, and passed out on his bed. Which left you alone in the kitchen. Putting some of the items away in cabinets, you looked around at all the brothers' family photos, including some of Danny. It made you smile to yourself to see some of them so young and happy. Maybe a little vulnerable too. You were a little envious of how confident some of them had been with their work, just being able to put themselves out there, accepting failure. Not you though. Failure made you angry, furious even. Sometimes it got so bad, you'd hide away for days without any contact with the outside world.

After putting all the trash away, you headed back to the spare room. You turned on all the lights, changing into some warmer clothing. Crawling under the sheets, sleep came easy that night.

When you woke up, the blinds had been left the night before causing you to shoot out of bed. Quickly rubbing your eyes, you went to the bathroom to clean up a bit. When you walked towards the kitchen, your feet padded beneath you. Sam still wasn't up, which was pretty normal. You started some coffee and cooked breakfast for the two of you. Though, something triggered you to open a forbidden drawer and bum a cigarette. Quickly lighting it, you messed around with food until it was cooked.

"A cigarette at 8 in the morning?" Sam questioned groggily, clad in just sweatpants. "Well, you know me; I only smoke when I'm forgetting something." You both said in unison. You quickly waved him off, pouring food onto a plate for both of you. "I wonder WHO you're forgetting." You scrunched your face, looking around the room. "What do you mean who?" Sam scoffed. "Josh," You quickly rolled your eyes, slamming the plate down on the table "Eat the fucking food you loser." You both contently ate in peace while making some playful banter here and there. "So what exactly do you need help with?" Sam pulled out a cigarette from the cartridge, silently lighting.

"I need help with a decision." Sam stared at you while you nodded your in question, pretending like you at least understood what he was talking about. "Look, I just want you to go with me to buy another bass, ok. And I want to go to the record store." Narrowing your eyes, you pulled the cigarette from him. "I feel like this is something completely different than what you're telling me." Sam shook his head slowly. "Nope. I still want to keep the mint-colored bass, but I just want to have a cool collection, you know. Oh, let's buy something expensive!" He pointed the smoke at you, while you collected the dishes to put in the sink. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, please. We can not go broke. Not like last time." You shuddered at the thought.

"Thanks for the food. I'm gonna get ready." You flinched your eyebrows and kept washing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. You quickly went back to the room for a change of clothes. By the time you were done, Sam was waiting at the door for you. Grabbing your coat and your shoes, you both headed out the door. Sam was walking coolly beside you, as you both looked around the town. Shops were lining down the small street, with cars passing through. He put his arm around your shoulder as you both passed through large crowds. Finally finding the music shop, you both walked in, heading to a certain section.

"So remind me," He paused to look at a sleek grey bass, flipping it over a couple of times. "Why don't you ever get with Josh? I mean he obviously likes you." You scoffed a little bit at his statement. "I thought we were here for you Sam, not to talk about me." You picked up a dark wood bass, showing it to Sam. "I mean with that same logic why don't I ever get with you? I mean we're close, right?" He rolled his eyes, still playing with the instrument you showed him.

"I think I like this one." Sam brought it up to the counter, talking to the girl up front. Who seemed to really enjoy the conversation they were having. Turning on your heel, you waited by the door playing with some random drum sticks. Sam eventually walked over and led you out. "It'll be delivered in a couple of weeks. I bought a whole new one." You pursed your lips smiling at Sam. "Did you also manage to snag that poor girl's number?"

Sam pushed you upside the head as you walked into the record store. You both parted ways looking at different sections. You flipped through vintage albums, picking out random ones you thought everyone would enjoy. After looking through some more, Sam found you and walked to the front to pay. "You found quite a lot there," Sam said, peeking through the ones in your hand.

"Yeah, figured I could add a bit to my very depressing collection." you chuckled, looking at one of the sleek covers. "Don't you have like two?" you glared back at Sam. "Which I believe are both of your band's albums." Sam laughed. You both paid, bags in hand.

"So what now?" you asked Sam as you both mindlessly walked around. "Probably go home. Want me to take you back?" You nodded in agreement and headed back to his car.

After saying goodbye to Sam, you walked back up the stairs to your apartment. When you opened the door, Josh appeared from your room, causing you to nearly break the table in the hallway.

"What the hell Josh!" He shrugged his shoulders, making his way to the couch. "What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting until you got back from hanging out with my brother. What were you two doing anyway?" Pouring a glass of water from the sink, you took a sip, and made your way to the couch next to Josh. You leaned your head back on the cushion, staring at the ceiling. "Sam bought a pretty hefty bass, and bought more records." You looked over at Josh. "What about you?"

"Well you know," he sighed. "Tried to work on writing up some new lyrics. Even went over to Danny's and Jake's to work some stuff out. It's coming along nicely." Setting the cup down on the coffee table, you looped an arm around Josh's, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Good. It'll come out beautifully in the end," you said patting his hand. You sniffed, sitting up in your seat. "Are you staying for dinner?" Josh hummed looking up at you. "Oh yeah. I was actually wondering if I could stay for the night; get's kind of lonely at my place." You nodded.

"Yeah, that's fine." You walked over to the kitchen. "Anything in mind you want to eat?" you asked. "Uh, how about that chicken. The one you make with the rice, mushrooms, and asparagus." You started to pull out the pots and pans, placing them on the stove. You leaned back on the counter watching everything cook. To be quite frank, you didn't know how you would handle Josh staying over. Of course, you and Josh were rather close, it even shocked people that you knew each other so well. After all, he knew you better than your own blood.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. On one hand, it would give you time to think some things over and ponder the questions Sam had asked you earlier today. And then you could for sure decide what you wanted to do. You grabbed some plates and moved the food over to the table. Josh was already seated, patiently awaiting your arrival.

"Looks good, as always." he complimented, raising his hands towards you. "Thanks, Josh." you smiled.

"So," he said, chewing his food. "What happened at the music store?" Rolling your eyes at the thought of Sam annoying you, you told him about how he was flirting with the girl at the front desk. "I mean just giggling, and laughing, it was like watching teenagers make out." You made a small coughing noise thinking about Sam flirting with that poor girl. "But, you know, as they say, there's someone for everyone," you said sarcastically, shaking your head. Josh let out a high-pitched laugh at Sam. "That's Sam for you. He bore you with anything else?"

You thought about all the moments were Sam had bullied you over liking Josh or falling in love with Josh. Of course, you loved Josh but you weren't sure whether you were 'in love' with him per se. He was practically your other half. Nobody else could compare to that. But it was hard to decipher whether you even liked him like that. "You know. The usual; stuff about when you all were younger and more embarrassing moments."

Josh covered his face with his hands, groaning. "I hope it wasn't all too bad." He shook his head, eating the last bits of food. "Not at all, actually." As you both finished your plates, you sat in comfortable silence. That was until Josh spoke out about something.

"Hey remember that time- ugh geez, when was it," he asked, pressing on his face. "Probably around the time I first met you, and I pretty much knew then you hated my fucking guts, man" You let out a breath at the thought of Josh thinking you hated him. "But that was also the time I kept catching you listening to the album at the time. Just over and over and over again." Josh just shook his head thinking of you. "I didn't- hate you," you confessed. "I just really didn't know how to be around people so much. I did like that album though." you laughed, pointing at Josh. Who also laughed along with you. "Look, I'm sorry I made you feel that way; I just, I've never really had close friends like you." Before he could say anything back, you picked up the plates, placing them in the sink.

From inside the kitchen, you could hear him talking to his brothers on the phone. The usual screaming, laughing, and anger from whatever stupid joke someone told. It honestly made you wish you were closer to your own sister. Whom you haven't spoken to in the past ten years. After you finished off with the dishes, you walked to your bedroom. Which was hard to admit, but you had an entire wall full of Greta Van Fleet photos from when you first started working with them because you had a hard time telling who was who.

"Oh, I remember these photos!" Josh exclaimed as walked into your room. He marveled at all the photos you had printed out and plastered on the wall. Some even had labels of all the boy's names. "Yeah, a little creepy, don't you think?"

Josh shrugged. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because you didn't know who we were, and I know some people have a hard time differentiating between us twins." You turned around and opened up the bag full of record vinyl, handing some to Josh. "Here, I bought some for you earlier, and I figured I could use some- given the only two I have are from your band." He giggled, flipping through the different albums. "Oh, Bob Dylan! What a legend and old Michael Jackson! Very good stuff." You patted his shoulder as you put away all the other albums on a shelf.

"So, the spare bedroom should be good-" Josh cut you off. "I was hoping to sleep with you, actually. Unless that makes you too uncomfortable." You nearly choked on your own spit when Josh asked you that. You really didn't think he'd be that lonely. "Um, no that's fine. I'm sure I have someone's clothes here you can use." He grinned.

"Thanks." You handed him some spare clothes and left him to change in the bathroom. When you returned he was already tucked in, facing the wall with the pictures. Turning off the light, you quietly slid in next to him. You'd never really been in this much of an intimate situation, no less next to Josh. It wasn't awkward, but it was just hard to decipher the feelings of the both of you, and where he was going with his suggestion. "Can I ask you something?" Josh whispered. He turned around to face you closer.

"What was your initial thought when you first met me?" You laughed a little to yourself. "When I first met you I wanted to be exactly like you." Josh propped himself up on his elbow, leaning even closer to you.

"What about me?" he asked. "I don't know. You were always so confident, and the way you carried yourself; just, it made me so mad and angry that I couldn't be like that. Maybe that's why it came off that I hated you a little bit." Josh laid back down.

"Listen, you'll always be the best thing that happened to me. When I first met you, I thought you had the most brilliant mind out of everyone I ever met. Except for Danny. He's got an excellent brain." You smacked his arm laughing out loud.

"Thank you, Josh." You rolled over onto your side, hoping to fall asleep soon. Before you did though, you felt Josh slip an arm around your side; his face falling into the back of your neck. Soon, both of you fell asleep together.

When morning came the next day, Josh was still entangled in your back, but this time his arm was hugging you tighter. At any slight movement, he just pulled you closer. Finally giving up from moving away from Josh, you laid there silently in his arms. You silently traced the creases in his hand, thinking absentmindedly. He stirred a tiny bit but never woke. You took this time to turn around and look at him. His arm still wrapped around tightly on your shoulder; causing you to bury your face into his chest.

Inhaling his warm scent, you just about closed your eyes imagining a world where you were in love with him, and he loved you back. At this moment, he started to finally wake up. You decided to keep your eyes closed, too embarrassed to see what his reaction would be to find you both like this. You could feel Josh's eyes looking around the room before they made their way down to you. Feeling the certainty of him staring down at you made you panic a little. But then you could feel his hand start to part through your hair, moving it out of your face. His movement followed by leaning forward, giving you a long slow kiss on the forehead.

Then there was the fine sensation of his lips lingering on your skin. He started whispering your name, shaking you awake. You slowly blinked your eyes to make it look like you hadn't really been awake all this time. He smiled brightly when you both made eye contact. "Good morning," he said softly. You smiled, placing a hand on his chest. "Good morning Josh."

Letting out a little yawn, you turned over and sat up on the side of the bed. You sipped on some water that had been on you bedside for a while, then stretched out. "What do you plan on doing today?" you asked groggily. "Everyone wanted to meet up today and go over some stuff. Wanna join?" you quickly nodded your head.

"Great. Well then, I'll go take a shower and get ready." He walked away silently, leaving you all alone once more. Deciding against the better of things, you too got up to shower. While waiting for the water to heat up, you traced against the spots where Josh's hand had been.

It's like there was a space left on you, but you could only feel the invisible touch leftover from him. Jumping in the shower felt like you were committing a terrible sin. The handprint of Josh washed away as every drop of water hit your body. But it felt just as warm and comforting as him. After quickly getting dressed, you met Josh at the front door who was holding it open for you. The crisp autumn air surprised you in the face when you walked outside. The sidewalks weren't too busy but crowded to perfection

You both got in the car and drove to the studio. Everyone was already there by the time you two made it; For some reason, Josh had wanted to stop to get everyone coffee and a bagel, which you really couldn't say no to. Sam raised his eyebrows at you when you walked in with Josh pretty late. You hit him on the arm lightly. Sam rubbed the part of his arm, cursing you off. Everyone, including you, walked into a backroom set with all the instruments anyone could think of, and two very well-loved on couches.

The lights in the room were set to a dim, vintage-style brown, illuminating everyone's tan features. Josh handed the food out, starting the conversation. It varied from topic to topic.

"How is everyone?"

"Are there new ideas anyone wants to talk about?"

"How about we do this instead of that."

Josh snapped his fingers in front of your face, waving his hand around. "Hey silly, I asked you a question." you looked up quickly, meeting everyone's gaze. "Huh?"

"I said do you have any ideas on what we should wear?" You pulled out a small sketchbook from your jacket pocket showing Josh, and the rest of the band on the different aesthetics for clothing. "I was thinking about stitching some nudity art on the back for Josh. I'll probably go shopping for some silk and thread. I found this really cool jacket piece for Jake; I'll add some things on it, and a shiny blazer for Sam. As for Danny, I found these really nice pants, but I have to tailor them. I'm still trying to find a smooth shirt to go with."

You wrote down some reminder notes giving the rest some time to process anything and get started. Josh sat next to you on one of the couches, pulling out his note journal. He pointed out some of the lyrics, whispering to himself before showing it to you. "I came up with these this morning." your cheeks turned red, though you doubt Josh could see given how dark it was. You read through the lines in each glorious manner. They each had a delicate touch to them, written with something personal

It reminded you of something ethereal. Like being in outer space, and getting to look at all the planets from afar. "What are you thinking?" Josh asked. You let out a short breath before answering. "I think it's good. Really good in fact. I can feel it's personal to you, you know."

Before he could respond, there was a line of curses causing you both to look up. Jake was yelling at himself and the guitar in his hands with a tiny string poking out from the neck of the guitar.

"This fucking piece of shit keeps breaking," he he groaned, with gritted teeth. Rolling your eyes, you went to the other grabbing some new guitar strings. Handing them back Jake, he mumbled out a thank you. "Guess what, it's not that hard to get up and get new strings, Jake. I just did it by myself." Everyone laughed at your taunting to Jake, getting rid of his frustrated mood.

"Well, you're the best." He poked your shoulder. You headed back to another room to think about some more things. Possibly about Josh; but the majority for the band. Really working with them, never gave you time to put yourself out there. Which wasn't a terrible thing. In fact, you preferred not to out. You've always had a one-track mind. Focused too much on one thing, forgetting completely about anything else. It's probably why you'd failed out of most schools during your high school and college career. It always ended up being too much for your brain to handle.

Maybe that's what you feared most. Things always getting in the way; either making you angry, or angry enough to run away and never look back. You didn't want that with Josh. Nor did you want that for this band. You made some more scratch notes, listening to the muffled sound of music. After a while, you doodled in your notebook for some clothing ideas. Stitching had been one of the many skills that stuck with you since when. You never really knew where you learned to do such a thing.

Josh always told you how marvelous your work was. That it belonged in a museum of some sort. He knew somehow that you'd do great things with art. When sketching became boring, you shopped around online for some fabric, and thread, ordering what you needed. When finished some smaller portions of work, you fell back on the couch pushing your hair out of your face. Josh walked in at the right time, pulling you back into the studio.

"We hashed some things out, figured what don't and do want for some of the songs. Think we'll be ready to record in a few weeks." All the boys cheered each other on, pushing each other around. "I think this calls for a celebration over some drinks."

"Great idea. There's a bar a couple of blocks from here. What do you say?" Everyone hummed in agreement, piling out the door. Josh had a hand on your back as he walked you out through all the doors.

When you walked inside there were a few people seated around. It wasn't overbearing crazy. Everyone took a seat at the bar ordering drinks. You had already taken a couple of tequila shots to loosen up for the night. "So tell me," Josh slouched down in his seat. "What do you think the future holds for this band." You giggled, already a little drunk.

"What I think doesn't matter Josh. I think that you'll be successful in whatever you choose to do. I think it's you as the leader to help everyone along. In my opinion, they're here to support you and your ideas. I mean, of course, they have their own input but you get what I'm saying." Josh nodded along, sipping his drink. "That's quite a mouthful, but yeah. I'd do anything for these people. For Christ's sake, three of them are my brothers. And Danny I've known for like ever." He pointed to them, which they were all fighting about something.

Josh shook his head, looking down at the floor. He placed a hand on your shoulder as he left for another drink. Sam soon replaced Josh, slouching in the same position. "What were you two talking about." He waved a finger around your face. To which, you quickly swatted away. "He loves you, Sam. We love you. I love you, Sam."

Sam pursed his lips, squinting his eyes. "You're that drunk already?" You hummed looking at your watch seeing as only twenty minutes had passed. "Well Sam, the night's still young, so I'm willing to get fucking wasted if you are." He quickly nodded his head, ordering the two of you more drinks. As the night went on, all of you managed to play twelve rounds of pool (none of which you won), a game of cards, and meet totally random people. You, including the boys, were completely wasted and it wasn't even one in the morning. Danny and Jake had left to go god knows where, leaving you, Sam, and Josh talking to some random girl at a table. Looking over at Josh, you felt your heart hurt a little.

Sometimes you wish you had the assertiveness that Josh had to talk to him. Deep down you knew he would never reject you. He would randomly bring up why you never got together, but you always dismissed the conversation too scared of what might happen. Sam slipped next to you, turning his chair around to face you. He followed your line of sight, his eyes landing on Josh laughing with the same girl who's been here for hours.

"Look, if it pisses you off that much, talk to him later. It's not like he's gonna hate you for the rest of his life. He practically loves you to death." You shook your head, taking another drink of your beer. "I'm just- I'm not mad- I'll just never be able to be that person who can just randomly walk up to a person and fall 'in love' with them." You cried. Every time you think about it, you just want to go to bed and hide. "But how come I never end up with people like you or Jake or even sweet people like Danny. Why does it have to be Josh?"

Sam sat up in his chair, turning it back around to face the bar. "Why don't you try it. Maybe you fighting inside that big head of yours really doesn't like Josh after all." Sam said as he cradled your face, shaking it around. "Really?" Sam shrugged. "What's the worse that can happen? If something happens, so be it. Never hurts to try anything."

Sam bent down quickly, kissing you softly. His lips felt smooth against yours like running a hand over pliable silk. He swiftly ran a hand through your hair, pulling your face closer to his. Finally, he pulled away, smiling down at you.

"Nope." you shook your head. "Well hey, at least we know." He patted your shoulder, walking away towards a game of cards being played.

The next day you woke up with an intense headache. There was some leftover water and Ibuprofen on your nightstand. You didn't know how you made it back home or really remember anything at all from the night before.

You downed the pill and some water, making your way slowly to the bathroom, balancing yourself on a wall. You turned on the shower letting the hot water settle the uneasiness in your stomach. The pounding inside your head kept going on for what felt like hours. It didn't help either that you were trying so hard to remember the night before. Of course, you knew that you drank more than you could handle. Then there was Sam. But it all stopped there.

The shower helped a little bit. You danced around to find some clothes to get ready, or at least look decent. After getting ready, you drove back to Sam's. When he opened the door, you noticed Jake and Danny were there already. Except for no Josh. Not that it was out of the ordinary, it was just something you expected.

You made your way through his kitchen, pulling out a cigarette. "I don't think you really wanna be smoking that right now." You glared at him before putting the smoke out. "Um, do you remember what happened last night?" You asked, rubbing the small spot on your head in hopes to get rid of the pain. Sam bit into a piece of food, answering with his mouth full. "We kissed. Yeah," he nodded in assurance. "Yeah, we kissed." You let your head fall into your hands, groaning.

"How'd I get home?" Sam hummed, pointing his piece of food at you. "Josh. Although, he seemed pretty pissed at me. You were also super drunk." Right, you thought. Of course, this would happen to you. Partially you blamed yourself for being so stuck-up and bitchy most of the time, but part of you wishes Sam just pushed you away. Why were you so indecisive all the damn time? For once, it would be nice if you could make a whole-hearted decision without going out and fucking everything up.

You scratched around your eye, watching Sam as he went to go sit next to Jake.

4 weeks later. . .

It really had been almost a whole month that you had gone without talking to Josh. Some nights you wish you could pick up your phone and just text him, but you know it would go unnoticed. It hurt just a little bit. Every day you blamed yourself for screwing things up. When was it not your fault that something went wrong?

You sat bored at home. You tried to catch up on different things like laundry, cleaning, reorganizing literally everything, but nothing seemed to work. You muffled curses under your breath at nothing. That was until you got a text from Jake saying that everyone needed your 'strong womanly brain' to work with. Over the four-week period, you hadn't really talked with the other band members except for Danny (who seriously cares for anybody and everything), and Sam who just random stuff.

You flipped through a random magazine, flipping through the pages reading about the different styles and how to flaunt them. That was until a text from Sam disturbed you saying that everyone needed you at the studio ASAP.

You ran to your door faster than ever, quickly putting on your coat and shoes. When you arrived, no one was seen at first, so you went to the back and everyone was gathered around in a large, huddled circle. Jake was the first to greet you, Sam following close behind.

"Hey! I haven't seen you in a long time." Jake towered over you, pulling you into his side. "Yeah, my mom called. Wanted me to go see her." you lied, looking at Sam, who had just turned in the other direction. "Well, I hope she's doing good. Look, I wanted to see your opinion on some things. Just general stuff, okay?" you nodded. He led you back to a table and passed some papers around, and a little CD that had pre-recorded music. Before any of you could speak though, a door creaked loudly, and out came Josh with a petite girl beside him. His smile immediately disappeared when his eyes landed on you.

The girl looked. . . nice. In other words, she looked like a pleasant enough girl Josh would pick from a crowd. She had a tan, rich skin like his. With wavy, brown hair. Unlike Josh, she had more hazel-green eyes. Everyone stood there awkwardly, looking around at each other. You scratched the top of your head, eyes facing down towards the table. Jake cleared his throat before grabbing a seat for Josh, and the girl.

And of course, to make more room they were both seated in between you and Jake, making her sit right next to you. You smiled nervously towards her as she got herself situated. For a while, you stared at the velvet walls as Jake led on the conversation. You felt a little poke on your arm and noticed she was trying to talk to you.

"Hi, I'm Logan," she whispered. The one thing you noticed about Logan was her smile. It reminded you of Josh. His naturally bright teeth could make anyone instantly happier. "Y/N," you said curtly. You weren't the one to start a conversation, but luckily she made it easy.

"So, how do you know Josh?" she asked, pointing to him. You played around with your nails, turning to look at her. "Uh, I work for him," Not 'I'm his best friend or anything. Totally just ruined the relationship I had by kissing his younger brother because I'm really in love with the man your dating' "And them too, of course." you gave a hesitant laugh, pointing to the rest of them. She bit her lip, turning to listen to the conversation, and then back to you.

"How long have you known all of them, or like worked for them I guess?"

"Around three years. This will be my fourth I think." she nodded with your answer. Finally, she turned back around to listen to what Josh was saying.

You looked back down at the disc, swirling it around on the table. This is hard, you thought. It's all you can think about. Logan's so kind towards you; not the weirdly hostile type. She's not annoying, not inconclusive about anything. Logan's perfect in her own way. She's perfect to Josh. Something you've always wanted, but you, yourself stopped you from having.

"So, uh Y/N, can you take a listen to the CD?" Jake asked you. "Yeah. It'll just be a little later though. I have to finish some other stuff." There was silence as everyone stared at you. Including Josh, who seemed to have a permanent look on you.

"I can listen; if you're busy," Logan speaking up caught you by surprise. It may have angered you a bit because that was your job, to listen. You just looked back at Sam anxiously, who shook his head at you.

"Oh, my bad," Josh said loudly. "This is my girlfriend- Logan. Who you have all met before, but not Y/N. Forgot to introduce you two." If everyone hadn't been in the room right now, you would've gotten up and hit him right across the head. Logan kindly smiled back at you. "Yeah, we were talking earlier," She said pointing to you. "Well, as I said, I can listen if you can't."

If it was anybody else, you would've said something back already. But who were you to yell at this kind, beautiful woman next to you? Though, Sam must've read you wrong since quietly grabbed your wrist. "Sure," you said, handing the CD to Logan. Sitting back in your chair, defeated, what else were you supposed to do?

Another lousy week passed, and you wanted to jump off a roof. It had been raining for the past few days, never letting up once. No one had really made contact with you except Danny (you secretly loved him to death), and Sam. You were pretty sure the rest had picked up on the tense atmosphere and didn't want to bother you. No doubt, you probably wouldn't want to speak with yourself either.

You shrugged off a sweater, playing with the end of your sheets. Life was so boring now without any entertainment from anyone. You eventually rolled over on your back, staring a hole into the ceiling. You went over every excuse and explanation you could give to Josh. You understood why he was mad, you figured that much. But sometimes you wish he had his smart wisdom back to understand you better.

You fell to the floor sometime later, reading something random off the shelf. You flipped through the pages mindlessly before you heard some knocking at your door. You ran quickly, opening the door to find Sam standing there with bottles of gin and tequila in his hand. Laughing quietly, you led him inside, finding some bottles for drinks.

"What brings you around?" you raised your eyebrows, pouring some tequila for you and Sam. "Josh," he cleared his throat, taking a few sips. "What about Josh?" Trying to hold your breath, made you curious as to why Josh's younger brother was so angry at him. In fact, you wanted to burst out laughing. "He's so stubborn with everything, and the way he talks about you. God- it's like- I've never seen so much hatred from him." Sam shook his head downing the rest of his drink. He poured some more in his cup and your cup.

You took Sam's hand leading him to your room. You put on Labi Siffre, an old, classic album. You also turned on one of your dim colored lights. They lit up Sam's cheekbones perfectly, making his pale skin glow flawlessly. It looked smooth enough to run a finger over and feel the gentle, velvety skin of Sam.

"How does he talk about me?" Sam closed his eyes, thinking. "He just doesn't let go of the subject. Anytime you or I come up, it's just this rage of fury from him. He almost shuts down essentially. You know," he burped. "They all went out tonight."

You hummed at that. "They all went out, leaving behind you and me." You scoffed at the thought of Josh with Logan at your favorite bar or restaurant. "I'm so sorry Sam." You rubbed his arm, looking down at the floor next to your bed. "That was you and your brother's relationship, and I just," you flicked your hands, making a whoosh sound. Sam laughed, leaning into your side. "Don't worry about it. I like helping you out. Josh can be a little much sometimes."

You elbowed him in the side thinking about something. "Hey whatever happened to the girl from the music shop? You ever talk to her lately?"

"Yeah," he huffed out. "We've been talking lately. She wants to meet up sometime soon, but I don't know." You cocked your head to the side. "Why not. You clearly like her and she really likes you. I don't remember when the last time some actually liked you." Sam pretended he was hurt, pushing you to the side. "I'll ask her sometime when I'm not busy. She's nice."

"And pretty?" you questioned. Sam let out a laugh, swirling the alcohol in his cup. "Very pretty." You both let out sighs sitting in comfortable silence. Although, your mind was occupied with thoughts of Josh, swirling around and never-ending. There were times you just wanted to get up and say fuck it and try to at least explain. But of course, the rejection of him never wanting to be your friend again would kill you. Maybe this was the universe's cruel way of saying you and Josh were never meant to be together in the first place.

If so, you hated it.

Surprisingly, Sam was the first to wake up. Which rarely happens considering how well you knew him. The poor boy slept through everything. He started shaking you awake, poking and tickling your sides. "Are you dead, jeez?" You quickly rubbed your eyes, sitting up. "Sorry, the alcohol must've really knocked me out." Sam stifled a yawn, sitting on the edge of your bed. "Well, we can do one of two things today," he noted. "We can either go to the studio and face my brother, or we can- do nothing else. That's really it. I kind of swore I would be there today."

You couldn't stay inside any longer. You decided against the greater good to tag along with Sam. Maybe you could talk with Josh, and clear the air. "Can I go with you?" Sam nodded feverishly. "Of course; that's like your job."

"It doesn't feel like it. Logan's pretty much taking over, so what's the point of me." You scoffed thinking of the mellow girl who seemed to get along with everyone. You hated to slander her, but you just wanted Josh back. You and Sam left in a rush, hastily driving to the studio. You walked inside with a cigarette dangling from your lips, smoke escaping through your nose. Sweat seeped from your palms making you excited and nervous at the same time. You felt like an outsider coming in on your job. Thinking about seeing Josh made it worse.

"Hello, Hello Y/N" Danny strutted over, hairs sticking to his forehead. He pulled you in for a tight hug, nearly suffocating you. "Hey, Daniel." you moved the hairs around his face so you could see him better. "Long time, no see, man." He laughed walking back to his seat behind the drum kit. You followed Sam to the other rooms where Jake and Josh might be hiding. Sure enough, Josh was standing next to his twin, listening to a riff he was playing. They immediately stopped talking to each other. Josh scoffed at you as Sam led you inside, beside him.

"Look what the cat dragged in!" Josh said it lowly, spitting it towards you. Your eyes looked down, not daring to ever lookup. "Hey Josh," Sam patted him on the shoulder. You looked awkwardly around the room looking for a means to escape. When you realized there wasn't one, you looked back at Josh. He quietly talked to Jake about something before turning to you. You tried to look away fast enough, but his eyes caught yours. Josh started to stalk close to you, exhaling a breath. "Hey," you thought he might've not heard you, but his response caught you off guard.

"Hey, Y/N" He sniffled a little bit before turning towards you. "Care to take a walk with me? Could use some fresh air." You nodded your head silently, following after him. If your anxiety hadn't kicked in yet, it sure as hell did now. Josh was never a person to scare you. He was too light and giddy for him to be somewhat freighting.

He walked slightly behind you with a hand on the small of your back. Josh eventually let go of you when you both made it to the sidewalk. The people around you made the silence slightly more comfortable but you wished you had something to think about other than Josh. After a few more moments of silence, you decided to speak up, but Josh beat you to it. "I'm sorry for being an ass," he cleared it all out on one breath. You scoffed at him. "I think you were being more than an ass, Josh." He suddenly slowed his walking to match your pace.

"You pretty much left me in the wind. I thought I lost my best friend," you nudged him softly in the ribcage, laughing. He held a hand over his chest, heaving out a relieved breath. "I thought you were going to hate me forever." You pointed at him before saying: "Pull anything like that again, and I'll do more than just hate you forever."

Josh held his hands up abruptly like you had caught him stealing something. "I promise." You smirked. The both of you walked around endlessly making small talk here and there. Part of you was glad that you and Josh had cleared the air. Although, you hadn't really talked with him about Sam. It embarrassed you just thinking about the whole situation.

After you made a full round of the streets, Josh walked you back inside the studio. It was hours before anyone ever got to go home. The moon had fully risen and was shining brightly in the sky. You stared up like a child, holding on tightly to your coat. When you were making your way towards Sam's car Josh had grabbed you by the elbow.

"Y/N," Josh fiddled around with the collar of his jacket, looking down at the concrete. Even though it was pitch black outside, you could tell Josh's face was heating up. "I was wondering if you wanted to come back with me? I know Sam was taking you home, but I still feel like we need to talk." A small smile started to quickly form. You nodded not thinking about the harm that could come from staying with Josh.

"Yeah, sure." you let a hesitant sigh before following him once more. When you arrived inside Josh's home it felt almost foreign. There were slightly disheveled things around, but nothing had really changed. It still had all the same scattered records on the coffee table as well as random books set around the countertops. Josh flipped on the light switch and went towards the kitchen. He came back out and handed you a cup of water before taking off his coat.

"I know, it's been a long time since we spoke," he started. "or even hung out together."

You nodded, sipping some of the water. "Yeah, I kind of missed that."

After you and Josh got situated, he led you back to his room. There was a dim lamp, along with some new fairy lights scattered around the ceiling. "Fairy lights?" You pointed to the little bulbs sparkling brightly. "Oh, yeah," Josh was picking out a record, finally placing it on the player. It was an album you hadn't heard before, but it seemed to fit the mood well enough. Looking around for a little bit longer you come to find some old pictures on the floor. Squatting down, you noticed they were photos of his brothers and Daniel when they were younger. But what really caught your attention was a stack neatly dedicated to you.

Some of the photos had showcased some of you and Josh's late adventures, and the concerts you had appeared to. One in particular in which Josh had his arms wrapped around your middle, seated around a bonfire. That was a night you remember very clearly. That was when you realized how much you loved Josh. He never left your side and coddled you close to him. The memory warmed your heart making it beat a tiny bit faster.

"That was a very hot summer night if I remember correctly." Josh peered over your shoulder, studying the picture. "Yeah, it was. Then I passed out inside the van right after that," you laughed loudly, tossing your head back. Running a finger over your face in the picture still reminiscing on the sweet memory, you could feel Josh watching you from across the room.

"Can you come up here for a sec?" Josh patted his mattress, motioning to you. You could tell he was nervous still when he started to fumble around with his nails, not making much eye contact. "Do you remember when I asked you why you envied me so much?" He let out a slow breath, nudging you a little bit with his elbow. You realized the change in the situation and started to mirror his nervous tics.

"Yeah, I just- wish I could carry myself like you. You're always the most confident person in the room; you know things Josh that no one could ever know." The two of you sat in silence for a little bit after you answered. Josh hesitated before speaking again but continued on after pondering for a bit. "Well, I never felt that way around you. For the longest time, I would beat myself up just thinking about how wonderful you are Y/N. The way you think of me is how I always thought of you. Just not as confident because of how quiet you are sometimes." He laughed out the last part making you smile back.

"God, sometimes I just want to cry because of how amazing you are Y/N. Everything you've done for this band, everything you've done for me; I just - I love you." You slowly turned your head to look at Josh, replaying the words over and over again in your head.

He loves you.

"I'm going to assume you mean in it in that way Josh or this would be very embarrassing." Josh snickered, putting both hands on the side of your face. "I mean it in every way possible." He finally pressed his lips to yours, feeling the velvet touch of each other. Josh ran his fingers through your hair, pressing his tongue in an open-mouthed kiss. You moaned quietly when he started to press kisses along your jaw, down to your neck. You could feel his hands start to travel down to your waist, hugging you tightly as it showed in the picture.

Josh continued to bite down on your skin and sucked, leaving bright red marks behind. His fingers squeezed down on your hips before traveling under your shirt. He placed a knee between your legs, pushing you further into the mattress. You looked at each other momentarily as Josh slipped you out of your shirt. He ran his hands over your stomach making you flinch at the sudden touch.

"Josh," His name came out as a whine as Josh slipped off your bra, throwing it towards the floor. You caught the look of awe when his eyes landed on your breasts, your chest heaving slightly. He returned to kissing down your neck making his way down your collar bone. Your hands made their way to his hair, tugging at it when his mouth made contact with your nipple.

He sucked gently, swirling his tongue around the hardened bud. All you could think about was the euphoric thoughts running through your brain. All you could see were stars, showing up in random directions making you lost in the feeling. Josh continued for a while before slowly traveling down to your legs.

Josh looked at you for approval, to which you vaguely nodded in return, before pulling off your pants. You shuddered at the delicate touch of his fingers ghosting along your skin. His hands traveled back up your calves, pressing at your thighs. The room suddenly became too hot as his fingers wrapped around the strap of your underwear, pulling them down your legs. Your breathing was so ragged by now that you thought Josh might've pointed it out already, but he continued to stare down at you with the most mesmerizing look in his eyes. You knew at this point if this had been anyone else, you probably would've wanted to hide under the bed. Something so comforting about Josh made it feel natural to in his grasps.

Josh started down at your ankles, pressing hard kisses up your legs. He hovered over your pelvis just before kissing around your clit. Your legs immediately started to close at the feeling, but his hand pushed them back farther. "Josh, oh my god!" You moaned out into nothing. He continued sucking hard on your clit making the stars in your head come closer to earth.

"Josh, please," Your hands pulled at his curls as he lapped around your center. "You're so fucking wet for me Y/N. Jesus," He moaned into your heat making you squirm on the bed.

"Please Josh, use your fingers, please." You whined mercilessly at the thought of coming around his fingers. It wasn't long before you felt two fingers drag inside of you, along with the feeling of him sucking your clit. You could feel yourself getting nearer to your orgasm as he curled his fingers against your g-spot. "Josh, don't fucking stop!"

At the perfect moment, everything seemed to fall apart in the most beautiful way. You leaned your head back into the pillow as your vision turned white with little black dots appearing randomly. Josh's breath fanned over your heat before he stood up to take off some of his clothes.

"Can't really have sex if I'm still dressed like I'm going to fucking prom or something, Jesus." You giggled loudly while you watched him crawl back over you. Josh pressed a soft kiss to your lips, grinding his hips against you. Your hand slowly ran over his chest, grabbing onto his belt. You fumbled around until you managed to get it undone along with his pants. Josh stared at your face, admiring your features. "I don't think I'll be able to take you seriously for much longer if you don't do something," you whispered.

"Oh yeah?" Josh raised an eyebrow, smiling at you. You slowly reached past his briefs making contact with his hard-on, causing him to moan quietly and start kissing you again.

"Uh, I don't think I have any condoms on me; I didn't really envision fucking you tonight." You smirked, wrapping your arms around his neck. "It's okay. I'm on the pill." You pulled his underwear down, hiking your legs around his hips loosely. You could feel yourself getting wetter as he passively rolled his forefinger over your clit. You kissed him hard, sucking on his tongue. "Fuck me, please," you begged. Josh looked deeply into your eyes, then grabbing your legs and wrapping them around his hips, tightly. He teased you, rubbing himself up and down your center.

You exhaled as he entered you, wrapping a hand around his bicep to steady yourself. Josh's head fell into your neck, feeling his warm breath as he trusted in slowly. He lifted his head to kiss you; He used his hand to move the hairs out of your face, wrapping it around your cranium. "You are so- prepossessing." He whispered, his thrust becoming faster.

Your nails dug into his shoulder blades after he set such a brutal pace that you didn't think you'd be able to keep up with. You took note of how his curls stuck to his forehead. Whenever he thrust in, you could feel yourself getting closer and closer. His thrust started to shake the bed only spurring you on more. Your hands grabbed at his torso, holding onto him tightly.

"Josh," you breathed out, words lost as they left your mouth. "Don't stop." Josh looked between your bodies as they pressed together. He thrust in deep, pressing you into the bed further. You cursed under your breath, trying to hold back the moans only releasing small high-pitched whines. Your head fell back against the pillow, all the tension releasing your body slowly. "Fuck," Josh moaned into your collarbone. He tightened his grip on your thigh, quickening his thrusts.

You ran your fingers along the nape of his neck, feeling the little hairs stick to his body. Josh moaned, feeling him cum deep inside you. His head fell into your neck as you both tried to catch your breath. Josh smiled, pressing kisses to your chest before laying down next to you.

"Fuck you're amazing," Josh mumbled into your ear. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder pulling your head to his chest. His hands ran down your arm, squeezing the tiny bit of flesh. "Tell me something I don't already know Joshua." You flipped over onto your side, Josh following in pursuit. He tightened his arm once more around your stomach this time. He pressed small kisses along your shoulder, laying his face into your hair.

"I love you," He mumbled.

"I love you too." You placed your hand over his, peace finding you easy tonight.

When you woke up the next morning, Josh still had you in his arms, snoring softly. Like you, he liked to get up when it was still dark out, but given last night you couldn't blame either of yourselves for wanting to sleep in. Josh woke up sometime after, pressing small kisses into the nape of your neck down to your shoulder blades.

"Good morning," he said quietly, wrapping his legs around yours, pulling his body closer to yours.

"Morning Josh." You closed your eyes allowing the quiet of the room to comfort you. It seemed pretty peaceful outside, from what you could hear at least. But your mind was running a thousand miles a minute. How did a three-year friendship change so drastically? If someone told you that three years later you'd be sleeping with Josh, you probably start cursing them out at the bare minimum. Josh infuriated you at the beginning, but what changed that you couldn't get enough? Maybe it was his style? Everyone loves Josh's style. He doesn't really care what goes together, as long as it fits him and his outrageous personality. Speaking of which, Josh's personality was unspoken of. People turned heads when he walked through doors because he was always the life of the party. Normal people just naturally gravitate towards him. Heck, you couldn't even keep up the 'holding a grudge' façade for too long because Josh helped you. Maybe you thanked him for that instead.

"I think we need to get up," you said, patting his hand. He protested that you two keep sleeping longer because it's too early. "Josh it's like," you squinted your eyes towards the clock. "Nine am." You yelled, pushing his arm of you.

You ran into the bathroom to pee before jumping in the shower. After taking some time cleaning yourself and changing into something more comfortable (which ended up being one of Josh's old college sweatshirts because he insisted you looked really good in them) you both left to the studio. Of course, the first one to greet you was your favorite out of the four, Daniel. After he finished talking with Josh, he led the both of you to a back room. It was a large decorated room that you hadn't really been in much. The walls were in stripes of inverted red along with carpet having a velvet touch to it. Plaques labeled the wall with other types of scandalous music art.

Jake and Sam walked in together already arguing about something. "Lookey here," Jake pulled you into a side hug, and Sam passed you a drink. "I thought my smoking habits were bad, but drinking at ten in the morning?" you tutted Sam away from you, taking a seat at a large table. "It helps me think more clearly."

Josh took a seat next to you, placing a hand on your thigh. "Hey, you never showed me the finish drawing for your clothing ideas." You raised your eyebrows and said: "I wonder why." You cocked your head to the side, and Josh frowned at you. Snickering to yourself, you handed him a sketchbook. "These are- really good, Y/N. I forgot you could draw so well." You doodled around the paper of a sketched-out Josh in what would be fashion attire for next year. "One of my many hobbies."

He patted your leg before turning his attention to his twin. Sam waltzed over to your side, a cigarette hanging from his lips. "Is that my brother's sweatshirt?" You glared at him before answering a subtle yes. Sam gasped in a fake manner, holding a hand across his heart.

"Are you two in love with each other finally?" Sam laughed at you giving him a side-eye. "Good. you make Josh happy." Content with that, he left to go sit next to Danny. You played around with the drawing some more, later on, moving to a computer to work there. Everyone left you alone to go play in another room which seems to help numb the background noise. Though, it didn't last long until Josh walked through the door. He strutted over to you, rubbing a hand on your back before sitting down.

"How's it goin' in there?" You closed the laptop, turning your attention towards him. Josh talked about how everything's coming along nicely, and Jake is stubborn about everything or how Sam is always messing up. You hummed, following along. Not that you would ever tell Josh, but sometimes you never would really listen to what he was saying, but you loved to watch his hand movements or the expressions on his face. It added to his character. "I meant to ask you some time ago, but uh- whatever happened to Logan?" Josh immediately froze, looking down to the floor like a scolded puppy.

"I told her I would talk to her later this week." You shook your head, crossing your arms. "What?"

"Nothing; I was just thinking we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me oodling with your brother." Josh laughed at your choice of words, placing his hand softly on yours. "I think it was both us Y/N."

'Well, in my defense Sam is kind of hot now that I think about it." Josh slapped your shoulder. "Mmmm, you're right Sam does have that 'sense' to him." Time seemed to fly by the five of you, constantly arguing, laughing, or just goofing off with each other. It felt good to be back with everybody, and not walking around on eggshells. Sometimes the moment was so pleasant, you never wanted it to end.

It was eerily quiet when you walked inside Josh's home. It was nighttime, and the moon was full, shining brightly through the curtains. "Don't you ever wish you could see the stars?" Josh asked randomly.

"Light pollution man," He mumbled out, yeah, heading towards his bedroom. You peeked outside the window one more time, catching a glimpse of the clouds in the sky. Josh had changed into some comfier clothing and slid under the covers. You followed in pursuit, still wearing his old college t-shirt. "Where do you think we'll be in ten years?" The question had taken you by surprise. You knew he had a tendency to think a lot about the future, which was kind of admirable, but you had a hard time figuring out what the future would hold for you.

"That's hard to tell; Not unless I kill you first, but uh, I think we'll still be together, and so will the band. I guess it's just up to the rest of us." Josh hummed at your input. He flipped over on his side to look at you. "I hope we're together forever." Your face started to blush, although you doubt Josh could see, this time you wished he did.

"Me too." Your voice came out with full confidence knowing every ounce of you could never let him go. "Hey, do you think you'd ever let me wear your outfits after this next tour? They're kind of stylish if I say so myself." Josh laughed out loud. "I don't think they'd fit you, honey." You scoffed, pouting.

"Josh, I hate to break it to you but you're not that big." A playful laugh escaped your mouth while you pinched his arm. He pushed you back in return. "I meant your height." He shook his head. You turned around, allowing Josh to trap you in his arms.

"I hope I get to see you in heaven. If there is one." The sound of his voice made you want to cry. It was soft whisper that it felt so delicate at this moment.

"I think if you've seen me then, you will see me forever."

#greta van fleet #josh kiszka #sam kiskza #jake kiszka #danny wagner #jake gvf #josh kiszka x reader

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haeyeongs · 3 years

Note

can you plase share a tutorial of how you made the pinned vincenzo gifset? TT thank you <3

Hi! Yes, of course! I'm sorry this took me so long to finally reply but here's my tutorial on how I made the blended gifs in this gifset!

1. The base

The process is very similar for each of the 3 gifs. First, you need to pick which scene will the base of your gif. You can crop your gif the way you want but keep in mind that you need space somewhere to put a second scene! Try not to pick busy shots because those will be harder to work with. Negative space and plain background are your best friends! The tricky part is that the other scene you will add on top of the base gif will only be nicely blended if it's put on a very dark or a very light area. Below are the shots I've chosen to be my base and, as you will notice, there is negative space around the main subject. Those dark areas will be where I'll add my new layers later.

Vincenzo's shoulder on the first gif makes a perfect area for blending layers because it is not only black but also is very plain! Chayoung's face adds a lot of contrast against this dark space

On the 2nd gif, there isn't a lot of space around her but there's enough on the right for what I have in mind so it's fine

Same with the 3rd gif. I cropped it so her face would be on the left, which leaves a bit of space on the right to add my new layers later

Our base gifs aren't done yet, we have to make the background cleaner so our blending results will look better. I will pick black because the background colors of the scenes I've selected are closer to black than white. However, if you're doing this with brighter shots, you should use white or any bright color! Add a new layer, select the brush tool (make sure it's set as a soft brush) and paint on top of the area you'll add your blended layers later.

This isn't a mandatory step but, in most cases, it is very useful! As an exemple, my 2nd gif needed it. As you can see on the previous picture, Chayoung is standing outside and the street lights are visible behind her on the right. Because this is where I will insert Vincenzo later, I need to clean up this area to end up with a plain and dark background. Here's the result after I added soft brush layers:

You can color your base gif now if you want to or do it later, it's up to you!

2. Blending

You're done with your base layer, which means it's now time to work on the gif you'll be blending! Finding the right scenes to blend is the hardest part of the process and you'll probably need to try this several times before you feel satisfied with your result. Don't feel bad about it, I'm also struggling and it's ok! It takes some practice to understand how blending works so be patient!

Put your gifs on the same file

Before blending our gifs together, we need to have them both on the same file. First, just open the gif you've selected to be blended and make sure you're working with timeline and not layers for all of your gifs (here's where to convert to timeline if you need help). Select all the layers from your future blended gif and put them all in one folder. Now, they are ready to join the base gif! Just select the folder and drag it to your base gif. Place it roughly where you want it to be and resize it if it needs to be.

Now that you have both gifs on the same file, you may need to adjust the length of your gif. Indeed, it is very likely that your base gif and your blended gif don't have the same number of frames, which means that one of your gif may run longer than the other. This is what happened with the first gif of my gifset. As you can see on the timeline below, the gif I wanted to blend was shorter than my base gif.

To fix this, just clic on the right handle on top of the timeline and slide it where your shorter gif ends. Your final gif will now end when the shortest gif ends!

Blending mode

It's now time to change the folder's blending mode! Since I'm making dark gifs, I will be selecting the folder and setting its blending mode to lighten. Below is the before and after of my middle gif. You can try using different blending modes as the result will be really different from one gif to another. Sometimes, screen gives a nice result as well. However, if you're working with light backgrounds, lighten will not work at all and you'll have to set it as darken instead. I really suggest you to experiment with different modes and colors to understand how it works!

Here, changing the blending mode helps making a smooth transition between Chayoung and Vincenzo but it's not enough for the rest of the gif because the edges of Vincenzo's gif are still visible, as well as the lights in the background. It's fine, let's just apply a layer mask!

Layer mask

To use a layer mask, make sure you've selected the folder you've set the blending mode to lighten and click on this icon. The layer mask will help us hide what we don't want to show! Select the eraser and make it as soft as possible. Now, erase the parts you want to hide. Don't worry, it won't actually erase your layers, it will simply hide those parts! If you erased too much, just pick the brush tool and paint on top of the areas you want to be visible.

Here's my result. Looks better, right?

I'm almost done with the blending process of this gif but I feel like Vincenzo's part needs more contrasts... When you're blending gifs, contrasts are important because they can drastically change your result. I haven't applied any coloring layer to Vincenzo's gif yet so I will increase the blacks and whites using a levels layer. But... if I create a new layer, it will also apply to Chayoung, right? So how do we do? It's actually simple: we will be creating a clipping mask!

Clipping mask

I need to add a levels layer so this is what I will be clipping but the clipping mask technique can be used with any kind of layer! I create a levels layer and make sure this layer is placed right above the blended folder. Then, we right-click on it and select "create clipping mask". It's done! Now, the layer will only apply for what is inside the folder (it doesn't have to be a folder, you can also clip a layer to another layer).

You're done with blending!

You're now free to color your gif the way you want! Remember you can create clipping masks if you need to color the scenes separately. Here's my final result:

I've used to same blending process for the other gifs as well. You can blend as many scenes as you want. For instance, I've used 3 different scenes for the last gif but the process was the same!

My final step was to add the quote on each gif. The main font I've used is Blastrick (which isn't a free font but I was able to get it for free a while ago when it was part of Creative Market's weekly free goods). I've used Algerian for the word "mine" on the last gif and I believe this font was actually pre-installed in Windows so you might have it too on your computer!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope this will inspire you to try this technique!

#itsphotoshop #fyeahps #ps help #blending tutorial #blending gifs tutorial #gif overlay tutorial #*photoshop #*#darckxlady #reply #text

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laurensxox · 3 years

Text

Fandom :: The Arcana

Pairing :: Julian Devorak x Reader (Not Apprentice)

Requested? :: no

Warning/s :: Julian's Route (Upright) and New Tale Spoilers, Named Apprentice, Female Reader, Chronic Illness, Swearing, Author is projecting their longing

Genre :: Angst

Summary :: Julian spends the night reminiscing over childhood memories and longing to go back to the past where he was in Nevivon again, playing as carefree as one can be with the one person he truly cared about other than his younger sister

Author's Note :: Stark, if you're reading this, I'm fighting you for this dramatic, self-sacrificing dumbdumb-

Song Inspiration :: Talking to the Moon by Bruno Mars

Portia's Cottage :: Just After Sundown

A chuckle left the auburn haired man as he watches Pasha relay stories of their childhood to their friends, informing them of how they were raised by a group of grandmothers and how their parents actually perished from a shipwreck caused by a rather strong storm. Mazelinka quickly add in how much of a troublemaker the two of them has become as the years pass by, didn't even waste the chance to tell them about the tooth fairy situation which caused Julian to go beet red in mild embarassment. Their friends were in no need to know that story!

Shaking his head, he let a more genuine smile form on his face. As embarrassed as he is right now, he was happy to see everyone laughing jovially without the fear of Lucio's plans with the Devil weighing on their shoulders. A warm sensation forms in his chest as he tries to hold in his laughter as Pasha nearly slips on her feet with her excitement to share their history. It was nice to be able to just laugh and and thrive in the positive energy inside the cottage! Even Muriel, their very introverted friend, seems to be relaxed as he lets Allen (Apprentice) braid his hair using flower stems while Asra leans on his side.

Looking at the trio and sensing the strong forming bond between Pasha and the Countess, Julian couldn't help the small pang of longing swell somewhere within himself. He couldn't stop his mind from pushing forward memories he tried to bury and lock away.

"Ilya, help! I'm slipping!"

"Don't worry, I'll catch you!"

The longing pang quickly turned to pain as the memories rushes back to the surface. He could feel his hand start to tremble as the formerly locked away memories barrels it's way to the front of his mind. Jumbled memories of playing tag and tending to scraped knees should have made him feel fond but it makes feel nothing but longing. Longing for a time and companionship he knows he'll never be able to have again.

Taking a deep breath, he hadn't noticed that he had closed his eyes until he opened them. With him being occupied with trying to stir himself away from the path of self-loathing once again, he hadn't noticed how quiet the cottage had gotten, its other residents looking at him with concerned eyes. Not even the Familiars scattered in the room made a noise.

He forced a laugh to ease the sudden change of atmosphere in the cottage, hoping it sounded convincing enough to clear the concern away from his family and friends' eyes. While he has come to terms that it's okay to ask and receive help instead of keeping things to himself, he still struggles with it. And it was obvious with the way he tries to act like he was okay, that he wasn't just bombarded with memories he doesn't want to remember.

"What is with that look, my dear friends? I am perfectly well, no worries!" he exclaimed, giving them his usual smirk and raised eyebrow, internally hoping it'll be enough to convince them that there was nothing to be concerned about. "There is nothing in this world that this handsome and smart devil can't handle!" His little comment about himself seems to be the right thing to say as his friends immediately rolled their eyes in fond exasperation. Although, by the look of his sister and honorary grandmother, he guessed that they have seen right through him and he can already see his funeral-

He gave a small sigh and let a small weary look replace his earlier expression, "I'll just head outside to take in a quick breath of fresh air," he said as he quickly exited the cottage before his two family member could say anything. Knowing that they'll probably just follow right after him, he quickly made his way away from the cottage and into the hedge maze by the palace gardens. It took him a while to get to the center but he was relieved to see it empty. Consul Valerius has taken to drinking his usual wine there in this time so he was quite happy to see that for once, the Consul broke his routine. He needed to be alone right now.

Taking a seat in one of the chairs surrounding a rounded table, he crossed his arms on the table and used it to rest his head upon. Taking another deep breath to calm his racing heart, he closed his eyes.

Maybe he needs to stop locking away these memories, he has only done so before due to his need to focus on finding the cure for the plague and then having to focus to not get caught by the patrolling palace guards when he was still a wanted convict. The memories and the longing for his childhood best friend used to be a big distraction for him while he was still working under Valdemar.

He didn't need to do any of those anymore... So maybe...

The soft rapid footsteps echoed in the small forest near the town of Nevivon, followed by the childish giggling of two children. Both children wore a tattered white sheet of cloth, the corners wrapped around their necks in a way that resembles that of a cape. Whilst in their heads rests crudely made paper crowns.

Young Julian and his best friend, (Y/N), were already considered too old for these kind of games by some of the grandmas and fellow children but the two gave them no mind, choosing to continue living in their fantasy world until they were truly too old for it.

The two children stopped once they have reached the center of the forest where a small meadow hides in. It was decorated by dozens of wild flowers and the breeze were always refreshing. The two has deemed this as their spot when they had first found it years ago, back when they were much younger.

They call the meadow as their kingdom, where they are the rulers, side by side as King and Queen. The wild flowers are their loyal subjects and sometimes, when Pasha joins them, she acts as their ambassador.

Young Julian kneeled as they reach the very center that they always keep clean, it was their designated throne room. The young boy carefully plucked a blue hued flower from the ground, he didn't know what kind of flower it was but it was pretty, a perfect gift for his 'Queen'

As if mocking the reminiscing man, right across from him and innocently clinging to the hedge wall was the very same flower that he had picked back then. He didn't know if he wants to sneer at it or be fond of it. He wished he has a glass of Salty Bitters right now, maybe he should have headed to Rowdy Raven instead of here.

"Would you have approved of the man that I have become, (Y/N)?" he whispered as he stares at the flower, as if it would miraculously turn into his childhood friend and answer him. Maybe that was possible? Allen did transform him into Asra back then, would the illusion work on a plant as well? But then again, that will be all it'll ever be. Just an illusion.

The grandmas all exchanged fond gazes as they watch their resident troublemakers sing songs with all their heart, their love for the dramatic was very much obvious at that moment.

Little Portia was banging on pots like drums by the sidelines, sometimes singing some lines as well when prompted by either her older brother or the girl she was starting to see as her older sister.

He stood up from his place and started to make his way out of maze. He wasn't going to go back in the cottage nor was he in any hurry, he just felt too restless to stay sitted in one place. He has gotten used to always moving around with all his running from guards and fighting a Major Arcana. But before he went back to trying to find his way in the maze, he stopped in front of the flower that he has been staring at.

It was a small flower with 6 petals that looks blue and violet at the same time, the bud in the middle was light green in color and it was the only flower growing in the hedge. From what Julian remembers, these flowers grow in bundles. So to see one so alone, well, it didn't help the growing hole inside him.

Gently plucking the flower like he did so in his childhood, he observed the flower a little more before making his way back into maze, taking the small flower with him. Surely, the Countess would not mind him plucking such a small wild flower, now would she?

Julian looked up from his book as he felt something soft being places om his hair, looking up, he saw (Y/N) placing what looks to be a bunch of flowers weaved together in a circlet manner on top of his head. Something similar on her own head as well.

"What are you doing, peanut?" he asked the girl, gently closing his book and waiting for the other to finish adjusting the flowers. He had taken to calling her 'Peanut' after he had caught her trying to sneakily take the peanuts in the communal pantry. He didn't snitch to the grandmas, of course.

"Just adjusting your flower crown, bum-bum" she answered, making small more adjustments before appearing satisfied that the flower crown both looks good and will surely stay on her friend's head when they begin to trek their way home later.

The Doctor surprisingly got out pretty easy, definitely faster than when he was first trying to get to the heart of the maze. Looking down at the flower, he let a sad smile adorn his face.

"I suppose even after all these years, you're still my lucky charm, huh, (Y/N)?" he mumbled under his breath, giving the one of the petals a small kiss before continuing to walk.

He didn't really have a destination, the palace grounds was vast and there are still some areas of it that he hasn't been to. Maybe a little exploring wouldn't hurt? He hopes Pasha wouldn't get too worried if he takes too long to get back to her cottage, he does often find himself in troubling situations.

"You know what? I wouldn't even ask how you manage to be in this situation." (Y/N) said, crossing her arms as she narrows her eyes at the boy dangling before her.

Julian had, at that moment, managed to get himself tangled in the vines surrounding the branches of the tree. Truth be told, he was trying to climb the tree in order to get fresh fruits for his sister and best friend. But when he finally managed to get on a branch, a crow suddenly flew out of its nest and caused him to go off balance, fortunately being caught by the vines, no matter how tangled up he got.

He wouldn't tell her that though, lord knows she wouldn't let him live it down.

"Why, my dear peanut, I was just trying to see how strong these vines are and if they would make a good rope!" It was honestly a good excuse for him, but apprently not good enough for (Y/N) as she just raised her eyebrow at him, clearly not believing him.

After a good bit of exploring, he manages to find himself near the fountains where he saw the trio couple making their way back to the palace. Were they on their way home already? How long has he been outside? Shaking his head, he called for their attention and made his way to them.

"Going home already?" he asked, raising a brow as he observes the many colorful flowers adoring Muriel's hair. It was quite a new look on the tall man but it surprisingly suits him. Seeing his friend give him a narrowed look, he moved his gaze to the two magicians.

"Yeah, I'm feeling quite a bit tired already and Asra wanted to do a quick inventory of the stocks we have left in the shop" Allen explained, moving to lightly keep their wild green hair out of their sight. It was getting a little long, they might need a cut soon. "Though, we don't plan to stay there for the whole night, just a quick inventory and dinner then straight to Muri's where we'll sleep for tonight" the apprentice added, giving the taller doctor a smile.

"I see, I see! Well, don't let me hold you back for any longer, have a safe walk home!" he exclaimed, moving to walk further before he was stopped by a gentle grip on his wrist. Turning back, he saw that it was Allen who held him back. He could see the concern swirling in their green eyes but the smile never faltered away from their face. "Yes, dear?" he asked.

"You know you can talk to us if there's something bothering you, right? You don't have to if you're not comfortable but just remember that we're here, okay?" Moved by their words, Julian pulled them into a sideway hug and let out a genuine laugh. He was so lucky to have his friends. Sometimes he still thinks he doesn't deserve them but he knew to keep it to himself for now. He didn't fancy sitting through another lecture session about his self worth by his sister again.

"Aw, Allen, don't you worry about lil 'ol me! I'm quite alright now!" That was a lie, he was far from alright, but his friend doesn't need to know that. "I may talk to Pasha and Mazelinka about it so no need to worry that cute little head of yours" That seemed to settle the Apprentice as they pulled away from the hug and gave his arm one last pat before moving to stand between their partners.

"You should do that now before Portia wears a hole in her carpet with how much she's pacing when we left" Asra said before he and the other two gave the auburn haired man one last wave and left.

Deciding to do as his magician friend said, he started his way back to his sister's cottage. Earlier was such a good day, it wouldn't do to plague his sister with worries and sour up the light mood. He already did that earlier before he walked out, best not make it worse.

Looking up at the dark sky, he smiled as he admires the scattered stars. It was a beautiful night, the full moon was giving the world such a soft look and it made things seem so peaceful. It made him feel like he was back to laying in the meadow near Nevivon. Like he was laying next to... Next to...

He wasn't able to wipe away his tears before they begun to fall down his cheeks. A sob fought its way out of his throat as he falls to a crouch.

Fuck, he wants to go back. He really really wants to go back-

Julian observed the wide sky and the many stars on them, it was a beautiful night and the night breeze was cold and as he lays on the equally cool grass of the meadow, it soothes his heated skin. It made him sigh in contentment, what more could he want?

Looking at his left, he smiled as he sees his sleeping sister. The little girl had decided to join them that night in their nightly star gazing but it didn't take long before she fell asleep, not used to staying up later than her bedtime. He'll have to carry her home later on.

The sight on his right took his breath away. Blush rushed to his face as he seems to see his best friend in a completely different light.

There, laying beside him, was (Y/N). The moonlight was softly hitting her face, and it made her (eye color) so much more brighter like gems, like the stars that littered the dark sky above them. Her laugh as she continues to talk about the astrology that she learned from Mazelinka, sounds like soothing bells to his ears.

Since when has his peanut became this... pretty?

He longs to be in her arms again, he longs to hear her voice again. No doubt it would still sound like music to his ears. He wants to make flower crowns again, he wants to play king and queen again, he wants to stargaze with her again, he wants to sneakily steal cookies, hangout by the hot springs, pick flowers for the grandmas, share lessons with Lilinka, he wants to...

He really wants to see her again.

Julian sat on her bed by her side, his hand gently holding her weaker and much fragile one, her illness eating away her strength. Her ring finger still holds the flower ring he had made earlier that week, it was already wilting but the girl refuses to take it off.

"I made up my mind." he said, breaking the solemn silence in the room. It made the other look at him curiously, waiting for him to elaborate.

"I'll take the offer to study medicine in Prakra" he explained, finally looking at his best friend and secretly, the girl who has his heart in her gentle grip for he doesn't think his bestfriend could ever be harsh, other than when she's twisting his ear for getting in trouble without her

But he can't, he knew he can't. She probably hates him, gotten word of his 'crimes' and no longer sees him as her best friend. But as a murderer, a plague doctor who assisted his superior on experimenting to dying plague victims in search of the cure.

She probably already has a family of her own now, has 3 children like she once said she wanted. Probably has a nice spouse that always makes her laugh and will never hurt her. A spouse that doesn't have their sins still haunting them in every step and breath they take.

"You're leaving me?" the pain in her voice was clear, she was hurt at the thought. They had planned to wait for her to be cured before they decide to go out of their hometown to travel, to study medicine like they always dreamed of.

"Not for long, I know we planned to study together but..." He took a deep breath, "I'm doing this for you, (Y/N), I want to study now for you"

Silence filled the room once again.

Julian clutched up at his coat, the place right over his heart where it hurts the most. He had completely fallen to his knees, tears continues to drip down to the ground from his eyes, his other hand gripping the ground.

Whispered apologies leaving his mouth over and over again.

"Promise me you'll come back? That you won't forget about me?"

Julian stared at his love's dull but hopeful (eye color) orbs, hisbhand momentarily leaving hers to gently caress her cheek.

"I'm so sorry... (Y/N), I'm so sorry..."

"I promise"

"I broke our promise... I'm so sorry, my love..."

[...]

Meanwhile, in the same meadow of Julian's memories, sits a much grown up version of the girl in his memories. Body trembling as sobs come right after one another, clutching a bundle of those same blue wildflowers to her chest. Her eyes tightly shut as tears falls to the ground of her childhood. The girl looked up, staring at the same moon that Julian was previously admiring.

"Where are you, Ilya? I thought you'll come back... You promised... You promised..."

Anyone interested in a reunion sequel? 👀

My apologies if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, I just woke up when I finished this lol

Anyways, I hope you all liked this! Let me know what you think, don't be shy! 💙

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