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spencersawkward · 3 years

Note

I love your ff first of all, I'm obsessed and second of all I would ask you a suggestion, idk if maybe is that too much and you're totally free to not do that but you ever thought to do something in the line of the knive kink? I think it will be awesome

i'm so sorry this took so long! big thanks to my guardian angel @voidsfilm for giving me inspiration bc i literally struggled with this one more than i should have. never written a knife kink but i’m glad i tried lol.

summary: reader finds an antique knife that Matthew's kept in a drawer.

content warnings: unprotected penetrative sex, fingering, oral (male receiving), knife play (no blood drawn), Soft!Dom MGG, degradation and praise.

word count: 3.6k

masterlist

if there is one thing I absolutely despise, it's working out. getting sweaty, running until my legs hurt and my lungs are burning for air... not really my thing.

but when Matthew brought up the idea a couple months into our relationship, I couldn't say no to him: he had a goofy smile on his face and the kind of look in his eyes that made me relent and ask what kind of stuff he wanted to do.

I think that I've found the one thing that Matthew can't make fun.

"I'm gonna pass out." I bend over and set my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Matthew slows to a stop a few feet ahead, turning around and making a strained expression.

"oh, come on." but his voice is pretty breathless, too. he gently guides me off the path so that we don't get in the way of the other people out enjoying the day. a couple walks by us with their dog, strolling calmly, and I feel a rush of envy. if our workout routine had consisted of a few pleasant ambles around the city, I would have been totally willing.

"Matthew, I wanna go home." I whine impatiently. the only nice thing about this is that he's got one of those stupid sweatbands on his head to keep his hair out of his face, and it makes him look like a 1980's housewife.

"we can go home in fifteen minutes." he smiles, puts his hands on his hips, stretching in an exaggerated way.

"do you promise?" I brush a piece of hair out of my face.

"promise," he's lucky he looks so cute in his workout outfit. "we can even get one of those fancy juices for you on the way back."

"seriously?" I light up. this might actually be worth it; they have this amazing mango and lime combination that I can't ever manage to recreate with our own blender.

"if you beat me to the rock, then sure." he references the enormous boulder in Central Park that we both gawked at on our first date-- ever since then, it's been the end point for our runs. my lips curl into a grin.

"you're on." I take off, making sure to push him out of the way in order to gain a head start. he lets out something of a protestation but is quick to follow. I can feel his feet pounding behind me, trying to catch up.

I may not be good at running long distances, but I'm sure as hell faster than he is.

...

it's quiet when I step out of the bedroom, drying my hair with the towel and wandering into the living room. Matthew is sitting at the table with his sketchbook, drawing god knows what while he waits for me to finish up.

"what are you up to?" I ask softly as I plop down across from him. my head is slightly tilted while the towel rubs my scalp.

"I'm not really sure." he shrugs, frowning and holding up the notebook from a distance as if that'll help him figure out what to do.

"can I see when you're done?"

"of course," he sets it on the table again, then runs a fingertip across his chin. "actually, can you do me a favor?"

"sure."

"I have a set of colored pencils in the desk over there," he points to an old piece of furniture under the window. "would you mind getting them for me?"

"yep," I reply, getting up and leaving the towel on the table. "least I can do after kicking your ass."

on the walk past him, Matthew grabs my waist and pulls me into him, attacks me with tickles. I squeal and hit his shoulder.

"stop!" I laugh.

"you barely beat me!" he gives a dazzling smile and finally lets me go. I lightly smack him upside the head and head over to the desk, rifling through the drawers for the colored pencils he wanted.

as I push around various art supplies, glue sticks and random paintbrushes that look to be on the brink of falling apart, my fingers pass something cool and metallic. I grab the thing and pull it out.

it's a knife; like, a fancy one with an intricately decorated handle and what seems to be a pretty dulled edge. before he can notice what I've found, I start to move the thing between my hands curiously. there's a nice weight to it, but it's definitely old.

"hey, Matthew?" I ask warily.

"yeah?" so unassuming and sweet.

"why do you have a knife?"

there's a scratching as he gets up from the table to walk over to me. I lean against the desk. Matthew doesn't seem too bothered by what I'm saying at all, only gently taking the weapon out of my hands and examining it himself.

"oh, yeah!" he lets out something like a laugh. I raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue. "do you remember when we went antiquing in Cape Cod, like, a month ago?"

"yeah." I nod at the memory. he'd been lucky enough to get some vacation days and we'd spent them sitting by the water with glasses of wine and nothing but time to talk. it really was a great trip, now that I think about it.

"I found it there." he still hasn't looked up and I realize that there's something he's not telling me. I don't know what I'm missing, but I start to get nervous.

"...why?"

"I was gonna ask then, but I guess I just forgot." his tongue darts out across his bottom lip as he lifts his face to meet my gaze. my heart thuds when he opens his mouth again. "I kinda wanted to try something."

"like?"

"I've been thinking about maybe using knives... in a sexual way."

"what?" I frown, confused by his wording. Matthew seems to realize that he's phrased it awkwardly and shifts his stance. he keeps glancing between the object and my face like he's worried about scaring me away.

"I don't mean I'm gonna stab you or anything," he laughs. "I just mean I think it sounds fun."

my hand finds his, brushing my palm over the steel to touch it myself again. there's a curiosity that burns through me now, something I'm a little unsure about but not enough so to deny the possibility of trying it.

"what do you wanna do with it?" I peek up at him. he bites his lip. we're speaking in gentle tones and I notice that our bodies have gotten closer within the last few moments. a warmth, a tension.

"like, pressing the blade flat against your skin while I fuck you." he takes the thing and demonstrates. the cool silver rests on my neck, too dull to really threaten a serious cut if he were to move too quickly. a shiver runs down my spine at the sensation of the metal.

I gulp, feel the curve of my throat push against it when I swallow. it's nice.

"oh." is all I say. Matthew is watching me intently, but he doesn't make any motion away from it. like he's entranced by the sight of me with a knife to my throat.

"are you interested?" he asks.

I mull it over. on the one hand, weapon play is something I've never considered in my sex life before. Matthew and I aren't vanilla, but this hasn't crossed my mind. that said, now that I can really feel it, there is a desire forming in my stomach. it would be a strange, new sensation.

"yes." the confirmation makes him smile a little. he lowers the thing and instead wraps me in his arms, kisses me passionately until our tongues are dancing over each other. I love how he holds me, our torsos against each other while my body leans slightly back to accept the weight of his touch.

he goes to my head like alcohol. and it's even more surreal when I feel the blade move under the hem of my shirt to rest against my back. I smile into his mouth. he doesn't do anything with it, just leaves it to remind me.

he starts to rut his hips against my lower stomach, getting aroused at the proximity of our bodies and the heated nature of our kiss. there's an urgency to all of it, like he's holding back. I don't want him to hold back; I want him to give me everything he has, everything beneath the surface.

my fingers twine in his hair and tug on the ends, causing him to groan into our embrace. there's no way we're going to make it all the way to the bedroom with the way he's grabbing at my body, so I stumble backwards towards the couch until the backs of my thighs hit the arm of it.

"you're horny." I giggle slightly when he pushes the hem of my shirt up my body, his nails dragging over my ribcage and trailing the object along with it. I feel the excitement growing.

"I'm just glad you're willing to try this." he murmurs the words, holds our foreheads together before his lips eagerly seek mine out, again. somehow, even with a weapon leveled against me, I can sense the love in every single action. I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't trust him to treat me with the utmost care.

I work at the buttons of his shirt, pushing it over his lovely shoulders and arms as he unclasps my bra. we're fervent, greedy in our movements, trying to kiss despite the attention needed to remove our clothes. mostly we just tangle up in each other until there's nothing left but my shorts for him to shove down my legs. he keeps his pants on.

"c'mon, beautiful." he mutters, pushing my legs open so that I'm sitting on the arm of the couch. he tilts my head and leans closer to suck on my bottom lip, and then starts to massage my tits. I can feel the handle of the weapon against my nipple.

when he reaches to slide his finger between my folds, I hiss out a breath at the cold sensation of his skin.

"is this because of me or the knife, baby?" he asks, corners of his mouth twitching up while I moan into his mouth. he starts to rub my clit with the collected wetness, teasing me too much. I want to fall back, but I can't. I won't let myself.

"both." I find myself turned on by the way the blade sits against my ribs again. the edge is just sharp enough to elicit a reaction from my body.

"feel that?" he angles the thing the slightest bit. I exhale and nod.

that isn't the response he's looking for, however, because he moves it so that it's under my chin. goosebumps on my skin while I pant uselessly against the weapon. I can feel it press harder with every breath out of my lungs, and I love it. I love the risk it brings out of me.

while Matthew dips his index inside my pussy, I writhe against it and tilt my head even more so he has better access.

"look at you," he lets out a dark chuckle, thrusts into me to the last digit. "you want more of this, don't you?"

"yes, sir." I breathe. my neck is actively moving against the metal. I glance down at his body and see his erection straining against his pants, craving release but finding none as he plunges his fingers in and out of me. I can hardly breathe from sheer focus on the sensations he's giving me right now.

"what are you looking at, sweetheart?" he quickens the pace of his movements and uses the object to make me focus on his face.

"you're hard." the words nearly die on my lips. he stares darkly at me, lifting his brows just enough to make me question whether I should have spoken at all. I bite my lip in anticipation.

"and what are you gonna do about it?" his voice is raspy as he stands back, removes his fingers from my pussy, and lets me drop to my knees. I'm weak both from the stimulation and from the loss of it, but I make quick work of undoing his belt, pulling the pants down his legs until I'm face-to-face with his cock. it sits against his stomach, throbbing impatiently while he watches. he uses the metallic point under my jaw to angle my face up to his.

"are you gonna suck me off, baby?" he smirks. I nod rigorously with wide eyes and an open mouth, dragging my tongue along the underside. Matthew's nose scrunches up for a moment at the shock of contact when I tease the head. all his concentration is on watching me wrap my hand around the shaft and pumping him gently. "spit on it."

I obey and spit right onto the tip before rubbing my thumb over the top to gather the precum. as I start to swirl my tongue and move my lips onto him, he throws his head back, lets out a wanton noise. it urges me on. I take every moment with a deliberate attention to the veins and sensitive spot he has.

"that's it, that's it." he rasps while knotting his hand in my hair. the other keeps the knife pressed to my throat. he lets me move on my own for a bit, gauging my desires from the way my eyes attempt to memorize the sight of his face above me, that jaw dropped in licentious craving. I can tell that he wants to fuck my face, but I go slow just to draw it out a little. it makes the soreness of my jaw worth it when he gets all impatient and flustered.

I hollow my cheeks and bob on his dick, bat my lashes, pull myself off him for a second just to kiss the tip.

"can I use your mouth?" he asks through a restrained groan. I open it and nod, sighing at the feeling of his fingers twining through my hair again before he pushes back into the opening. now that he's got full control, he starts to develop his own movements, sometimes meeting his thrusts by pressing my face against him.

he gets deep in it, never losing his grip on the knife, until my nose is pressed to his stomach. my throat closes instinctively around him even more tightly, and he lets out a guttural moan.

"such a cute mouth when I'm using it." he thrusts until I gag and then he's smiling. "get up."

he removes himself so fast, my eyes water at the sudden lack of blockage in my throat. I gulp air while he hooks his hands under my arms and hoists me up. I'm about to turn around so I can lift my leg and give him better access, but he sits me on the arm of the couch and parts my thighs.

"I wanna see your pretty face." he leans down and pecks my cheek. I smile at the surprising tenderness-- although it doesn't last long. steel sits against the space between my neck and collarbone. it's only a moment before he positions himself between my legs and slides his cock into me.

my back arches and I look him in the eyes, gasping.

"fuck, baby." he drags out the first word as he inches inside. I mewl helplessly at the way he stretches me out, my pussy clenching every few seconds. he keeps one hand on my lower back to support me and bring me closer to his pelvis, and then we're staring into each other's eyes as he finally settles in it.

his hips start to thrust into me, hopeful for any kind of contact while I accustom myself to the shape of him. it happens every time, despite the amount of times we've done this. and I'm bad at patience, but he's worse. his body stutters against mine.

"is it good enough, sir?" I ask quietly. he tightens his grip on my back and on the blade, the edge threatening my skin the perfect amount. I suck in a breath at the way it stings a little.

"you're doing perfectly." he recognizes what I want to hear as he finds my sweet spot and begins to hit it repeatedly, smoothly works my body. I swear there are planets in my eyes when I stare at the expressions on his face, both of us so wrapped up in each other that every other thought becomes obsolete.

he moves the knife to under my chin to rest on my throat.

"feel that?"

I nod so the edge bites more. he smirks.

"just to show you who you belong to."

my hips push up to meet his thrusts, needing more stimulation, more friction. what I want is for him to be relentless, to slam into my body with the kind of hunger I know he has. there are sounds, movements, that he's made before that make me want him to use them. but he's withholding, probably hesitant about the dangerous object on my pulse point.

"I belong to you, sir." I egg him on. he likes the sound of that, grunting and starting to pound into me.

"yeah? you're my dirty little whore." he speaks through gritted teeth. I shiver.

"mhmm."

"I use you how I want, when I want." his fingertips dig into my skin and he yanks me closer so that he can hit a new angle. I let out a surprised noise when he brushes my g-spot. it's otherworldly and I expose more of my neck to him.

"my little slut likes pain, huh?" he nudges the weapon harder into my skin. it doesn't draw blood, but I can sense the mark it'll leave. I love it.

"yes, sir." we're both getting needy, but we can't hold each other the way that we want to in our given positions. my palms are occupied on the arm of the couch to hold myself up and one of his hands is too busy holding the object for us to fuck as deeply as we need.

"are you gonna take it like a good girl when I cum in it?" he mutters. he runs his tongue over my jawline and the weapon nicks my skin. I moan at the mingling of sensations that's building all across my body.

"yes, sir." I plead. it's nearly unbearable, how much I want him. we're chasing our orgasms and I know what will finish me off. he knows, too.

Matthew drops the knife. it clatters to the ground, but there's no time for me to register it with the way he grabs my hips and lifts me into the air, my legs wrapping around his waist while he keeps fucking into me. he maneuvers us with shocking ease, laying me on the couch and positioning himself at the right moment so that I can drag my nails over his back and keep my thighs locked around him.

"mmm... baby, I'm gonna cum." he drives into me recklessly, both of us finally able to cling to each other. the angle is just enough to stimulate my clit and I nod, using the leverage of my legs to pull myself to him and roll my hips for friction.

Matthew slams my body into the couch, grunting in my ear as he finds his climax inside me. it's so deep, I have to work to keep the yell inside, but he's not done. he rides it out and plows into me while I reach the edge.

"tell me how it feels." he orders in my ear. I sigh.

"so-- so good, sir." my voice is thin. "I'm close."

"show me." he leaves bruises on my hips with his hands. I feel the knot finally snap, every muscle in my stomach spasming chaotically. I finish with a loud moan, begging him to drag it out further. my vision nearly goes black at the tide that threatens to overtake my body.

"Matthew--" I gasp. he moans quietly at the way I say his name, still rocking his body into mine while I come down from the shocks of orgasm. it's nearly overwhelming, the pleasure running through my body.

slowly, we come to a stillness and he drops his head into my shoulder, panting. he doesn't let go at first, but then he withdraws from my pussy and lets me take a rest. I lay there on the couch while he kneels between my legs, pressing gentle kisses to my neck.

"I love you." he repeats it over and over.

"I love you, too," I hope he can feel the meaning, despite the sheer exhaustion in my tone. he runs his fingertips across the red marks where the thing went a little too deeply, but I'm not worried about it. "we should try that again, sometime."

"you liked it?" he smiles brightly. I love the lines by his eyes.

"definitely."

he lets out a cheerful noise and buries his face back into my throat because he knows how much it tickles. I screech and giggle, my legs kicking wildly around me. more contented than ever before.

#mgg #matthew gray gubler #mgg oneshot #mgg smut #mgg x reader #knife kink #knifeplay

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meruz · 3 years

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Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for?

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha.

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at [email protected].

<33333333333333333333333333

#ask #anonymous

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trashboatprince · 3 years

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Since I’m still in a sci-fi mood (along with, like, monsters and romance stuff too, but that’s always there), and I haven’t been able to really... make any new written content recently, I decided to rework an old one-shot I wrote for the space pirate au with how my Henry, Hugo, met Bendy in it.

I honestly don’t remember if I ever posted it here, I know I posted it on discord for my friends to read, but I’m posting up a better version here. Plus, rewriting an old drabble might help me get back into the swing of things when it comes to writing! Especially since I’ve got a zine entry to work on.

As always, Hugo is a half human/half alien (Asterian), and he’s fourteen in this. Bendy is a being from another universe or dimension, it’s unclear where Bendy’s from, but he’s a demon.

Asterians are a race of aliens that have the ability to travel through the vacuum of space with no need to breathe and have bioluminescent skin, but because Hugo is part human, he can’t last as long in space as he should.

On with the fic!

Hugo had lost count of how long he had been left on this stupid hunk of space rock, but he knew that he would probably be dead in due time.

He considered that he’s probably got about an hour or two left, and knowing the Butcher Gang, they’ll either show up last minute to watch him suffer before putting him back on the ship, or they’ll just let him perish. They’re real jackasses like that.

At least he took his sketchbook with him after they threw him off the ship for their own enjoyment, but still, not much to draw when all around him was just inky darkness and a weak light source from a distant star.

He sighed, soundless, his skin gently flashing a neon green, starting from his face down to his fingertips.

“Dat’s a real fancy trick ya can do, kid.”

Hugo’s eyes widened and he turned, shocked to have heard a voice, when he normally couldn’t hear anything in the vacuum of space. He was surprised to see something moving in the darkness of space around him. Something shifted, specks of lights moving around in front of him, before something formed. It looked like a wide, cartoon-ish smile, and from there a whiteness started to spread, forming an odd shape. Then two black, nearly full ovals, with little cuts in them, appeared in the white. It was a face!

“Hiya!” The face greeted in a childish voice, though clearly accented. The shape got closer and as it stepped onto the rock with Hugo, the half-human saw a shape form.

The darkness of space took on legs, oddly shaped, along with a long tail, them a small body that was sorta shaped like a bean. Arms with clawed hands followed, and the face seemed to have more of a head shape to it, though clearly shaped like a strange crescent form. The blackness of the body was covered in what looked like stars, twinkling and flashing, a variety of colors.

“What?” The strange creature asked. “Ya not gonna greet me?”

Hugo frowned, gesturing to his throat and then opened his mouth before shaking his head, his skin flashing involuntarily.

“Ah, right,” The creature nodded, frowning, “ya guys in dis universe can’t talk in da vacuum of space. Hold on.”

He snapped his fingers, the snap actually made a sound, and a bubble surrounded the whole rock. Hugo let out a surprised laugh, before slapping a hand over his mouth, blinking. “W-what?”

“Just a li’l trick, super easy to do!” A grin formed on the other’s face. “It’s made outta natural gases dat drift around us, can’t just make it all, ya know, willy-nilly, but it’s super simple! So, what’s yours dat mine’s Bendy!”

Hugo had to take a moment to register what this guy, Bendy, has said. “It’s, uh, it’s Hugo.” He replied, coughing, trying to sound deeper than he naturally was.

“Hugo, huh?” Bendy grinned brightly. “Nice to meet’cha! So, whatcha doin’ out here in an asteroid belt? Not really a social spot fer ya... what are you?”

“I dunno.” Hugo shrugged. “Human and somethin’ else, I reckon. What exactly are you?”

“Demon!”

“Demon? You mean, like, those human monsters?”

Bendy snorted loudly at this. “Pah-lease! Nonononononono- weeeellll... yes? No? Maybe so! Hard to tell, I mean, demons an’ angels aren’t technically natural to dis dimension, but we exist! We’ve been to Earth! I’ve been there, a number of times, really nice, an’ kinda bad, but it’s got lots of fun stuff there! Ya ever been?”

Hugo shook his head. “No, never really been in that area of the galaxy. Been, uh, stuck in situations were I don’t get to pick where I go.”

The grin slipped on Bendy’s face, as if he was reading the situation and figured out what Hugo was referring to. “Ah, I getcha. Still, maybe you’ll get to see it! It’s pretty neat!” The grin returned and cosmic eyes glanced to the sketchbook resting next to Hugo. “Oh! Ya draw?”

There was a nod, and Bendy asked to see. Hugo let him and Bendy started to look at the sketches and drawings Hugo’s done over the past few months. He seemed rather excited and giddy about them, chatting and pointing out what he loved, or pointed out what was good but could use some improvement.

It was... kinda nice, Hugo thought as he sat there, listening to Bendy ramble on and on. He hadn’t really had anyone to talk to in ages, not since his escape from his previous life and being cabin boy on the Butcher Gang’s ship didn’t give him much respect from anyone onboard, so having a strange being this excited to talk to him was like a breath of fresh air.

“So, why are ya sittin’ on this floatin’ rock, Hugo?” Bendy asked after a while, when their conversation had turned into small talk and such.

“I got left behind for no good reason by the Butcher Gang, they’re the pirates I ‘work’ for.” Hugo stuck out his tongue, making a face. “They’re a bunch of lowlife bastards, is what they are! I bet I could be a better pirate than them any day!”

“You wanna be a pirate?”

“Yeah!” Hugo got to his feet, grinning. “I wanted to be a ranger when I was a kid, but I think a pirate would be cooler! Better! I can make a name for myself, I can rule the skies in my own ship! One day, I’ll have my name known across the galaxy! People will fear the name Hugo, no more lookin’ down on me and thinkin’ I’m just some freak or useless mutt!”

Bendy stared at him for a moment, quietly, and Hugo suddenly felt self conscious, before Bendy’s grin grew even bigger than it had before, nearly face splitting. His eyes sparkled with stars, brightly, it was so strange. “That... SOUNDS AMAZIN’! Can I join!? Can I be part of yer crew, Hugo!?”

Hugo was a bit caught off-guard by this. “You... you wanna be part of my crew? Why?”

“Cause dat sounds like so much fun! Look, I’m a drifter, I explore wherever I drift to, but dat gets so borin’ after so long! An’ bein’ a space pirate sounds like a blast! I’ll help you escape, an’ you an’ I can go on a bajillion adventures together!”

Bendy shoved his hand out at Hugo, smiling. “I’ll make yer dreams come true, Hugo. If ya want mah help.”

“...” Hugo looked at the offered hand. “What do you get outta this? No offense, but from what I know about demons, they like to make deals.”

“None taken.” Bendy shrugged, casually. “I getcha, not easy to trust a demon, we do have a rep fer deals an’ da like, kinda ruins it fer the honest demons like me. But listen, all I want outta this is a fun life! An’ I think yer just da guy to make dat happen.” He winked and Hugo chuckled.

“Alright, you’ve got a deal, Bendy!” Hugo took the offered hand with manic glee.

“Wait, you just... took the deal? Just like that?” Harrison asked, raising an eyebrow. “Did you not consider that it could have been a trick?”

“Honestly?” Hugo shrugged. “I considered that, yeah, but Bendy sounded honest, and somethin’ about him screamed ‘he’ll be the most important friend you’ll ever have’. And I was right.”

Hugo chuckled, rubbing at his right palm, where black mark was in his skin, like a tattoo. It was Bendy’s mark, meant for protection and connection. Harrison had asked about it, had asked how Hugo had even met Bendy, and the pirate decided to tell him.

“Do you regret it?” Harrison asked as he looked at the mark.

“Nope, never have, never will. Bendy and I are friends till the end.”

“I see... wait, how the heck did you two become father and son then?”

“Oh, see, now that’s a really funny story! So, when I was fifteen...”

It had been a slip from Bendy, by the way, he has accidentally called Hugo ‘dad’ and then it sorta just stuck around. Hugo has embraced the role of dad with his whole being, especially since he can get away with dad jokes now.

But yeah, here’s how these two met in this au!

Harrison is my friend inkspottie’s Henry, by the way.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim bendy #henry stein #hugo #space pirate au #john's drabbles

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themoonsbeloved · 3 years

Note

i was wondering, do you have any beginner henna tips?

I'm assuming this is an ask in response to my mentioning of henna classes. I just wanna provide a lil context, the classes I did on discord last year weren't teaching folk henna in the traditional sense, but teaching typical henna elements and motifs inspired by art therapy (drawing on paper). Basically no henna cones were involved and I don't consider myself a professional in any way lol it was just a fun project I ended up doing because miss Covid was fresh and new and I wanted to provide something relaxing to ppl online.

Anyway so I when I started I had no guidance, and I would just study other henna artist's works on instagram and try it myself just to figure out and understand how certain designs were made. I still do that now! There's an advantage to that because all the knowledge I've obtained about henna is all from instagram. Now you have IGTV and reels and whatnot, so you can actually watch people's process. Idk about you lot but when it comes to art I need to actually see it in real time, visually so I have a better grasp on how something is done. So make use of instagram, there's a huge henna community on there and so much content.

But before that, I suggest getting used to the actual tool you're using. First you need natural henna paste (not the store bought ones, but the homemade fresh henna paste that many local henna artists make and sell) because the goal is to have a stringy, smooth consistency which helps with control and technique, such as draping the henna to create straight lines, dots, applying enough pressure for thin and thick lines like leaves etc. So getting used to the paste, and getting used to the consistency and practicing your technique will really help before you even begin trying out actual designs. Like when I wanna warm up I just repeat the same basic elements, use the draping technique and make a whole bunch of lines and grids, dots and leaves everywhere. And I feel this approach would help for beginners too, by starting with one element and repeating it again and again until you've got it down.

Also, to be very honest the only tool you really need is henna cones. You dont NEED a white acrylic hand/board to practice henna on, if anything just pop out the glass from behind a frame and slip a piece of white paper under it so you can see what you're doing. You can easily clean off the henna paste on glass and it won't stain. But if you're not bothered or don't have any frames lying around just practice on paper, preferably thicker paper (like from a sketchbook) since it will stain, and throw it out once you're done (or you can preserve it by spraying acrylic sealant). So yeah other than the actual henna cones, you don't need to go out of your way to buy extra things.

But also, there's youtube videos. One particular henna youtuber called Artpassion is amazing and has playlists of free online tutorials/classes for every level (beginners, advanced, bridal etc). Her videos are literally so so helpful especially if you're a beginner. Literally bless her soul for providing free classes because most of the time attending a henna course is expensive.

Hope this covers everything! If there's anything else you want to know about or if I've missed something just let me know.

#henna

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beanzykin · 3 years

Text

Spideychelle Valentines Day Special

Gif not by me

"C'mon dude, just suck it up, walk over to her, and give her the flowers." Ned pestered a flushed Peter. There was no way he could walk over to the most beautiful girl in the world and give her some lame flowers.

First off, he was nowhere near her cool factor. Secondly, does Mj even like flowers? And third, he was just stalling…

"That's hard, Ned!" He looked between Mj's locker and the exit behind him. "I know… This is just my payback for pushing me to ask Betty out on a date last week," Ned smiled at the thought of his new girlfriend. "That's completely different. Betty likes you, and it's painfully obvious that she'd say yes,"

Ned sighed for what felt like the trillionth time today. "And how was I supposed to know she'd say yes?" Peter stayed quiet for a second before realizing Ned was right.

"See. Now take your chances, it's Friday and most likely the last time you'll see her before Valentine's day,"

Before Peter was given the chance to reply, the bell saved him from being the next drawing in Michelle's crisis sketchbook.

"Welp, looks like fate said no." Ned protested at Peter's runaway, but he knew that his buddy had spiderman things to do.

No one would suspect the one and only Spiderman to have girl troubles. But when you're a huge dork underneath the spandex that-not to mention-has to stay a secret, well, then you're sorta screwed.

Leave it up to Flash to make Peter believe no one could love his geeky side.

Stumbling on his feet as he swiftly landed on a roof, Peter noticed an oddly familiar figure sitting in the side. He attempted to regain his balance while he made his way over to the entity.

"Hey," he softly greeted, feet kicking off the edge and looking out at the horizon in front of him. "Hey…, Spidey," It was Michelle. Why would Michelle be here?

"I- uhh...are you alright?" he asked timidly, still stunned at the sight of Michelle. “No, but that doesn’t matter at the moment,” Sceptical, Peter prepped his next question. “Sure it does, I mean, it should,” Mj just sighed, to her knowledge, spiderman didn’t know her, neither did he care for her feelings.

“Since when did ‘Spiderman’ care about a teenage girl’s boy troubles,” Well, the answer was never… But he was extremely interested in this particular teenage girl’s love life. “I’ll have you know I’m a teenager myself,” Bad move.

Michelle looked up at him, unbelievingly. “What?” Damn it, Parker, you idiot. “I said… “I’ll have you know I”-” She interrupted his customary ramble. “Woah, woah, woah. Don’t try to cover it up, you said you are a teenager,”

“Were. I was.” Narrowing her eyes and raising an eyebrow, Mj finally turned to face him. That’s when Peter noticed a bouquet of flowers in her hands. “Flowers?” I guess it was a good thing I didn’t ask her… “You want ‘em?” She motioned the Lillies toward him, mentally begging for him to take them because she had no idea what to do with the flowers later. Probably throw them off the side of this building and cry over how stupid she was to allow herself to even remotely like someone.

Might as well accept them from her then give them to her…

Taking the flowers, Peter examined them closely, noticing how perfect they looked, he felt bad. “They were for this boy I’ve liked since eighth grade, but,” her pitch changed to something intriguing, “I saw him around the corner with his best friend holding flowers, pretty certain they were for someone else…” She pressed her lips together into a tight, exaggerated smile.

“How do you know they weren’t for you?” His heart ached at the fact that Michelle liked someone else, but he wasn’t Peter right now. He was your supporting, Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman. “I’m not sure why they would be for me…” Now, it hurt him that Michelle liked someone else, but what hurt him even more was the fact that she thought there was no reason for someone to like her back.

His masked eyes narrowed into slits. “There’s plenty of reasons!” Michelle raised another eyebrow at the spider. “You barely know me?” Spiderman doesn't but Peter does. “I know enough by just talking on this roof that there’s a massive list of amazing things about you hidden somewhere in someone’s pocket,” Stifling a laugh, Mj regained herself to quip back at Peter. “If so, then that’s creepy,”

Peter didn’t fail to notice how he already made her laugh, at least he could make her happy. It was silent for a moment before Michelle said something that instantly stuck with him.

“His name is Peter,” Peter… Like, me Peter, or a different Peter? “I- What?” To his dismay, Peter’s voice just kept getting higher, it was bound for something he didn’t mean to say to come out. “Like, Peter…?” “Parker…?” She finished his sentence in the same stupid pitch as he started it, clearly mocking him. “What? Do you know him?” That’s when her panic started to settle in. “If you do, don’t tell him! God, that would be so embarrassing…”

Inside the suit, there were alarms going off in his flushed pink head. She liked him, him. Peter had to clear his throat before he answered, he was so thankful Michelle couldn’t see his face right now. “I don’t know… a Peter,” Michelle hummed.

“What makes you think he wouldn’t like you though…?” I thought it was painfully obvious… “I don’t think there’s much to like about me… I’m a huge dick to everyone, especially him. Which sucks, because whenever I try to have a normal conversation with him I end up acting like a Jerk. it’s not like I try to, I don’t wanna hurt him,” She rambled, her hands flailing around. “Maybe… He likes it,” I do, and I think it’s even cuter because you’re trying to be nice. “Highly doubt it,”

He wanted to hug her close. To be able to let her know that he loves everything about her. From her frizzy brown hair to her jerky insights, everything Michelle did made his heart flutter and it certainly is one of the best feelings out there. (One of the first being the butterflies she gives him)

“Do you ever plan on telling him?” Mj took a deep breath, the many thoughts of what his reaction would be running through her head. “No… I don’t think I will,”

“Well, then you’d never know,”

“I do know, and the answer would be no,”

Her answer was so confident it pained him. “I oughta get going now,” The spider looked up to see Michelle picking herself up off the ground. “Thanks again, give the flowers to someone nice, or keep ‘em, I couldn’t care less,” She gave a small wave and opened the door from the roof to the inside of the building.

“Bye, Spidey,”

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radishaur · 4 years

Note

If the zuko requests are still open, may I request hcs or a short story (whatever you prefer) of zuko x artist reader where he first joins the gang and the reader wants to show support to him but they’re way too shy and awkward so they just secretly give him drawings to cheer him up or offer advice?? Maybe he has a crush on them but thinks they too don’t trust him yet? I just had this general idea. You could totally change stuff up if you’d like :)

“Sorry! I was the person who just asked the artist reader! I didn’t put a gender but maybe female? The reader could be a nonbender if that’s fine? Sorry about that :)”

Absolutely! I love the artist trope so much. Some of my favorite Zuko fics have had the reader as an artist. I hope I meet your expectations! I may have gotten carried away but oops. I just love this trope.

- Zoe

•••

Drawings (Zuko x Reader)

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Part: 1/1

Summary: See Request

•••

“Hello, Zuko here.”

As soon as we heard his voice, everybody sprung into action. Well, everybody except me. Toph, Katara, and Aang got into bending positions and Sokka prepared to throw his boomerang. I stood slightly off to the side in shock.

He looked different than the last time I had seen him. It seemed to be a pattern. Each time I saw him after a while, he always had a new hairstyle and seemed more....himself. He seemed like a completely different person than the angry ponytail adorning teenager that had invaded the Northern Water Tribe.

That was the first time I had seen him. I unknowingly helped him by saving him from drowning. I had pulled him out from under the ice in a drain pipe on the day of the siege. He wasn’t wearing Fire Nation clothing then, so I didn’t know better until I saw him fighting Katara and capturing Aang. I felt so bad about almost dooming the world to eternal hell that I left the tribe to join them on their adventures.

The next time I saw him was when his Uncle was hit and then later in Ba Sing Se. I was shocked to see him serving tea in the lower ring of an Earth Kingdom town, but I didn’t rat him out. Instead, I took to sketching him. I would sit outside the shop and look in through the windows. His hair was longer now and I couldn’t deny how handsome he was. Without the ponytail I had a hard time denying it.

And now, as he stood here in the temple, I saw the next version of him. The Zuko with longer hair and a deeply rooted regret. He was shy and awkward, much like he had been in Ba Sing Se, but this time he wasn’t confused. He didn’t look like he was fighting any inner battles anymore. He just looked hopeful. Hopeful that he could change the path he chose for himself.

It wasn’t until I heard him say my name that I realized I hadn’t been listening.

“You saved my life in the Northern Water Tribe. And you didn’t rat me out in Ba Sing Se when you found out I was there. You had to have seen something good in me,” he pleaded.

“You knew he was there?! And you didn’t say anything?!” Katara yelled angrily, sending a glare in my direction.

I hung my head in guilt before looking back up at Zuko. My heart ached seeing the expression he wore, but I knew I was already in hot water.

“I’m sorry Zuko. If they don’t trust you then neither do I,” I said before turning and walking away.

I didn’t want to stay. I knew exactly what would happen if I did. I wouldn’t be able to watch him walk away without insisting they were wrong about him. My mother used to say my unwavering trust in people was both a blessing and a curse. I see now that she was right.

Katara stayed angry at me for the rest of the day. I didn’t blame her. Even I still felt guilty that I had kept it a secret after he betrayed us. Although I guess you can’t really betray a side you were never on. Nevertheless it still stung.

Just as I had come to terms with the fact that Zuko would never be a part of the team, he managed to save us from Combustion Man. Aang agreed to have Zuko as his teacher after the group agreed he could stay. Secretly, I was glad they had changed their minds. I knew that it would take a long time for them to get used to him being around though, so I decided to try and do something small to make him feel less alone.

After everybody went to sleep, I decided to draw him a picture of his Uncle. I had seen him frequently when I was outside the tea shop. My memory was a little bit rough on the details but I hoped that he would look similar enough. I ripped the paper out of my sketchbook and slipped it under his door.

The next morning, he seemed to be a little bit brighter which made me smile. After that it ended up becoming routine. Everybody would go to sleep and I would slip him another drawing. Sometimes I would shove them under his door, sometimes I would stuff it into his bag of stuff, and sometimes I would leave it somewhere I knew he would find it. Each time, he would always look a little happier afterwards.

It wasn’t until we were on Ember Island that my little secret became not so secret.

I had never told any of the gang that I could draw. I mean it seemed like such a useless talent compared to their bending. Even Sokka knew how to fight with a sword. When it came to fighting I was a complete waste. I couldn’t bend and I had never learned how to defend myself. The Northern Water Tribe had a strict rule about women learning how to fight: they didn’t.

It wasn’t until we were sitting out around a campfire that the fact I could draw was even discussed. Everybody had been going around the circle and sharing a secret. When it got to me, I shrugged it off.

“I don’t really have any secrets. I’m pretty boring,” I said.

“That’s such a lie! I know you have at least one secret,” Sokka said, a cheeky grin on his face.

“W-What?” I asked, my heart racing slightly.

“I’ve seen your sketchbook. You’re an amazing artist,” he continued, acting all casual.

“Sokka!” I exclaimed, a blush now breaking out across my face.

“You can draw?” Zuko asked in shock.

He seemed to be connecting the dots in his head and I wanted nothing more than to dig myself into the ground and disappear. I just hoped they didn’t-

“I wanna see it!” Aang said gleefully.

I just hoped they didn’t ask to see it.

“I really don’t want to-“ I began to reply before Katara cut me off.

“I bet it’s in her stuff!” she called out before shooting up and going to grab my stuff off of Appa.

I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

“No!” I yelled out, running after her.

If they looked at it I would die on the spot. Not only would Zuko realize that I was the one giving him drawings, but they would all see the million sketches I had of him as well. Oh boy, there were a lot. Technically I had sketched all of them, but Zuko took up about half the sketchbook. It would be mortifying for them to figure out I had a massive crush on him.

“I found it!” Katara said as she held the sketchbook in her hands.

“Give me that,” I said, snatching the book out of her hands before holding it tightly to my chest.

“Oh, come onnnnn,” Sokka begged, coming closer to try and grab it from me.

I hastily avoided him and continued clutching the sketchbook for dear life.

“Guys, maybe we should leave it,” Zuko said, clearly not wanting to escalate the situation.

Little did he know why I was actually protecting this sketchbook so heavily. He probably thought it was just because I didn’t want them to see my art. Which, technically I didn’t, but not because I thought it was bad. I gulped as Sokka began cornering me.

“Y/N please,” Aang pleaded, standing next to Sokka, “We promise not to judge! We just wanna see!”

“I really don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I responded, shifting the book behind me.

I gasped when I felt the book get ripped from my grasp. I turned around to see Katara, smiling victoriously as she brought the book out by the campfire. Sokka and Aang ran over to her.

I dragged my hands down my face. I’m sure it was about as red as a tomato at this point. Is this what it felt like to die? I watched them from my position a few feet away, too scared to move.

“Hey, these are amazing!” Aang said.

I couldn’t help but catch Zuko’s gaze. The recognition in his eyes made it clear he knew I was the one slipping him drawings. I felt my face burn in embarrassment. And this wasn’t even the worst part.

I stayed rooted to the ground as the gang flipped through the pages. The beginning of the sketchbook was just drawings of the Northern Water Tribe. Then, it morphed into drawings of all of the gang minus Toph. Not that she could even see. She was still sitting on the log bench, not invested in the situation at all.

The next pages had some sketches of Zuko with his ponytail, mixed with some sketches of the oasis. They were still just complimenting the drawings, oblivious to the horror the next few pages would cause me. Eventually, it moved into drawings of our travels across the Earth Kingdom and Toph began to appear.

After that was the pages I was dreading. The first few drawings were of Ba Sing Se. Innocent drawings of beautiful buildings and random citizens. But then it turned into Zuko. Pages upon pages of Zuko and his Uncle in the tea shop. They all got quiet as they continued flipping. Mixed in with Zuko and his Uncle were some few other sketches, but it was clear that Zuko had become the focus of the sketches.

I couldn’t bear to look at them. I could only imagine their expressions. If they hadn’t figured out by now why Zuko was the center of my drawings, they would as they kept going.

The next sketches were of some of the Fire Nation villages we had stayed in. But after that, there Zuko was again. And this time they would definitely know. Some of my sketches were accompanied by scrawled notes on the side. A random look how cute he is or he looked so hot training with Aang today scribbled next to the sketches. The silence was so thick it could be cut with a knife.

“Y/N, I-“ Sokka started, clearly feeling guilty for bringing up my secret talent now.

“Don’t” I hissed, finally sending a glare his way.

I hadn’t even realized I was crying until I felt the taste of salt brush my lips. I wiped my tears angrily as they all sat there silently.

“Y/N-“ he tried again.

“I said don’t!” I screamed before storming off to my room.

I slammed the door behind me and made sure to lock it before I slide to the floor. I held a hand to my mouth to muffle the sobs that were now escaping me. This was my worst nightmare. How had everything gone to shit so fast.

•••

Y/N had run off and I was stuck to my seat. I couldn’t stop looking at her sketches. They way she drew me felt like I was looking in the mirror. It was like watching my transformation as a person with my own two eyes.

“Guys, we really messed up,” Sokka said, still feeling guilty for instigating the situation.

“I had no idea....I just thought she was self conscious of her talent,” Katara said quietly.

“What do we do?” Aang asked.

“You’re the Avatar! You’re supposed to know how to solve this,” Sokka exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.

I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t even sure I could hear them. I flipped the next few pages and my thoughts were confirmed when I saw that there were a few pages ripped out of the back. I pulled one of her drawings out of my pocket and unfolded it, placed the ripped edge into the book. It was a perfect match.

“Zuko, what are you doing? You shouldn’t rip pages out of her book,” Katara scolded, reaching down to snatch the book away from me.

“I didn’t. She’s been giving me drawings. Look,” I explained, pulling out another of her drawings from my pocket, “Ever since I joined you guys at the temple I’ve been getting drawings. I didn’t know who it was, but....”

I handed the drawings over to them. One of them was of my Uncle. Another one was of my duel swords. Another of a tiny dragon. They ranged from simple tiny sketches to full blown detailed drawings.

As they looked them over, I couldn’t help but let my fingers trace a drawing of me in her book. I was smiling and looking off into the distance at something. Under it, in her neat scribbled handwriting was written: the first time he’s smiled :).

“I can’t believe she likes me,” I whispered.

I didn’t expect them to hear me, but they all stopped. I blushed slightly when I noticed them all looking at me. Katara looked furious.

“Listen here. You don’t have to like her back, but don’t you dare say anything to her that will break her heart,” she threatened, her eyes glaring into me.

“N-No! I......like her back.....actually,” I admitted, looking back at the sketches in her book.

I saw the three of them look at Toph, who had been sitting silently on the log the entire time.

“He’s not lying,” she said.

It was after a few moments of silence that I finally spoke again.

“I think I should go talk to her,” I suggested, standing up with her sketchbook in hand.

“Good luck,” Aang said, giving me an assuring smile as I walked inside.

I didn’t know what I was going to say. I didn’t know where to even start. There were a millions things I could say to her and none of them would be good enough. Instead, I found myself standing outside of her door in silence.

I took a deep breath and knocked. I could hear shuffling inside the room. I got no response.

“Y/N it’s me. Please let me in,” I begged, placing my palm against the door.

I was about to turn and walk away when I finally heard footsteps inside. I let my hand fall back down to my side as the door creaked open. Y/N stood to the side of the door without looking at me and motioned for me to come in. I did and she closed the door behind me.

“I’m sorry.” “Thank you.”

“Oh, ummmm. You first,” she mumbled.

“I wanted to say thank you. For the drawings. They made my day every time I got one,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck as I blushed.

“O-Oh. Uh....yea. You just looked so....sad, I guess. I thought maybe it would make you feel more comfortable around us,” she mumbled, still refusing to look at me.

I chuckled slightly and crossed my arms, looking down at my feet.

“Well it worked,” I said, smiling at the floor.

She shuffled across from me. I forced myself to look up at her and caught her gaze. She had tears brimming over her eyes and her face was red from embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry. I know I probably seem like a total creep right now. I know this can never happen. I just.....I don’t know. I tried so hard not to like you but I -“ she started rambling and I couldn’t stop myself anymore.

I pulled her face up to look at me and smashed my lips onto hers. It took her a moment of shock to register what was happening, but as soon as she did she was kissing me back immediately. I finally pulled apart and wrapped my arms around her in a hug.

“You’re amazing. You’re so special and so talented and too good for me. But I like you too. I like you so so much. I never said anything because I thought you hated me,” I admitted, laughing through the tears that started falling down my face.

“You thought I hated you? How could I ever hate you?” she asked, stepping back to look at me.

“Because I went home with Azula and I tried capturing the Avatar for months and I chased you across the world and I’ve made your lives miserable for so long,” I exclaimed, still in disbelief that she actually liked me back.

“Well, I don’t hate you. At all. You’ve proven that you’ve changed and that’s all that matters to me. Besides, you never actually physically hurt any of us, unlike Azula,” she joked, laughing slightly.

I pulled her into a hug once more and buried my head into her neck. I had never been happier than right now in this moment. I promised myself at that very moment that I would do everything I could to become the man she saw me as. To become the man she deserved.

To be the man in her drawings.

#zuko imagine #zuko x reader #zuko #prince zuko fanfic #prince zuko fanfiction #prince zuko fic #prince zuko

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musictrash0426 · 3 years

Text

Killing Stalking

My name is Elizabeth Stevens, I’m 17 and it is one month until my senior year of highschool. Most of my friends are going crazy trying to plan out their futures. However, unlike my peers, I've known what I've wanted to be since I was 13. I want to be an artist, my parents fully support my decision which is nice. They have bought me plenty of professional quality supplies since my 14th birthday when they saw all the hard work I put into my art. I've even started selling prints of my work on Redbubble. I also have quite the following

Overall I live in a pretty good neighbourhood. It has great people, including my best friend Kai who lives a few streets over. My family and I live in a pretty large house. It has three floors which is a little big if you ask me. There are only the three of us living here, me, mom and dad. But with that being said my parents gave me the entire basement on my 13th birthday. They also helped me set up every room down here the way I want. Not much has changed, even after being down here for four years..

When you come down the stairs you are greeted with my lounge area. Where we have a couch, tv, game system, large bookshelf and some other things. Next we have my room where I have a fairly minimal look. I have a large bed, large dresser, a walk in closet, and my vanity where I do my makeup. The next room is probably my favourite; it's my art studio. Like I said my parents have supported me over the years so I have a lot of supplies. Honestly I couldn't be more grateful for them and everything they’ve given me. I have a full easel, desk, and a lot of supplies, markers, colour pencils, paint (water, acrylic, oils), alongside my new drawing tablet.

This morning when I got up, I went to my art room and started sketching. I've gotten into this habit as it helps me get into a creative mindset, along with getting into drawing for the day. Once I stop doodling I start to make a list of the things of supplies I had recently run out of.

As I was about to leave, I asked my parents if they needed anything. My mom told me to get her a drink from Starbucks on my way home as she knows I’m planning on going there anyways.

I get into my car and drive to the art store. Luckily this store is only 10 minutes from my house. I walk into the store and look for the supplies on my list. While going through the store, grabbing the things I needed, I decided I also wanted to try out a new paint while I was here. I got some winsor and newton acrylics in red, blue,yellow, sienna, black and white along with some mixing pallets. I also got a canvas as I want to make a large painting later.

My mom texted me asking if I could pick up milk and eggs. So I ran into the supermarket and picked up the few things she wanted. I then went to starbucks, got both my parents, and myself a few drinks, and went home.

I got out of my car balancing shopping bags on my arm,the drinks in my hand and I went inside. I put the milk and eggs in the fridge, gave my parents their drinks and made my way down to my art room to put my supplies away. I started brainstorming ideas of what I want to paint and I finally came up with a concept I liked. I open my sketchbook and I start to draw the rough copy of the picture before blowing it up on the canvas and painting it. While I am drawing out the picture I'm watching lavendertowne’s creepypastas series as it's one of my favourites on youtube.

In my concentration, I lose track of time, and before I know it it’s 4:30 pm. My mom walks to my art room saying her and dad are going on a trip for the next week. So I get the house to myself, which is cool. I've been home alone before. “Elle, you can have Kai over to stay for the week if you want.” mom said. “Also I transferred some money into your account so you and Kai can just order some food if you guys get hungry.”

“Thanks mom,” I say “ I love you.”

“Love you too sweetie.”

I walk upstairs with mom as her and dad are about to leave. I hug them goodbye and tell them to have a safe trip.

I decide to take mom up with her offer and invite Kai over for the week. Lately I haven't been wanting to be home alone. So I called him and he said he’d be over in 10 minutes.

I grab a glass of water and wait, before I knew it there was a knock on my door and it was Kai. I give him a hug and he smiles.

“It’s like we haven't seen each other in a while.” Kai teases me. We saw each other yesterday and I called him late last night because I just wanted to talk to someone.

Kai has literally been my best friend since we were both in diapers. Our moms grew up together so it was bound to happen that we would too. He’s my biggest support system, he’s one of the only people who know how I got into art. I watched a lot of anime growing up, I still do, and the art style is what got me into wanting to be an artist.

“Have you started a new piece yet?” Kai asked

“Yeah I have! And I just finished the rough copy” I say.

“Can I watch you work on it?”

“Of course you can silly,” I say with a grin. I show Kai the canvas to let him gauge what I’ve been working on.

“It looks really good!” But his face saddens a little bit. “Are you doing alright?” I give him a confused look. “You tend to draw horror pieces when you're trying to get yourself into a better place.”

Horror pieces are my favourite to draw. I don't have an explanation for it, but I've always liked them. Maybe it's because I loved horror shows growing up but who knows. I look back at all my works and Kai’s right. I tend to do these pictures more when I'm not the best headspace.

“You really know me, at this point it's mostly subconscious” I laugh “I was also watching creepypasta videos so the idea could have come from that. Anyways, what do you think about it so far?”

“I love it of course!” Kai says

I work on transferring it onto the canvas and after about 2 hours the pencil sketch is laid out. Once that's done we decide to go to the movies. We went and saw whatever Kai wanted to see. He picked some rom com which I wasn't mad at as I enjoy these types of movies.

After the movie we went to a sushi place for dinner. I wasn't that hungry so I got the rest of mine to go. Then we went to the supermarket to get some candy and pop for tonight. We decided that we were going to stay up quite a bit of the night so I can work on my artwork and we can just talk about life and stuff. We pull into the parking lot and head inside. This store is open 24/7 so we have plenty of time to get our stuff, but still it is 11:30pm and something makes the air feel very eerie tonight.

After walking around the store Kai and I look at eachother and we both feel like something is off because this uneasy feeling Kai and I hurry up and grab what we wanted. Kai and I decided to pick up Sour Patch Kids, gummy bears and some chips. We then went into the drink aisle where I picked out Dr. Pepper, and ginger ale. Kai picked out diet Pepsi and cream soda. We picked out the four flavours that we both love. We then decided to get a tub of cotton candy ice cream. As we were turning there was this lady who crashed her cart into ours as we were on our way to check out. I looked up and noticed that it was the same lady that had been in each aisle with us, which honestly didn’t make any sense as we just went to the isles we needed.

We check out of the store and head back to the car. After putting everything in the trunk of the car, I look up and see the same woman still there. What the fuck?

“Hey Kai, can you take the cart back please?” He nods and I get into the car and lock it.

I hear a knock that startles me and I look up. It was just Kai. I unlocked the door and he got in. “Wanna tell me why you had the door locked Elle?”

I look over and the woman gets into the car next to us oh great my horror brain made something out of nothing. She was also probably having a movie night with some of her friends.

“It’s nothing Kai, I think I’m just psyching myself out.”

“Okay.” With that we drove back to my place right in the nic of time too as it just started to rain. We shut off all the lights and lock the doors and windows upstairs. We head back down to my studio and I set up everything to begin painting.

I wanted something in the background while I was working so I put on Another. Kai and I have already watched it a few times but we didn’t want to start something new since I wouldn't be able to give it my full attention. Also it's a horror anime so it will put me in the mood for my painting.

I looked down at the outline I drew; it was a girl who had gone psychotic and had a knife in her hand. My plan is to add blood to her once the painting is completely dry, but first I start by painting the eyes. When they are finished they look very dead and already mentally gone inside. I take a break and lay my head on Kai’s shoulder.

“Tired?” he asks me.

“No, I just wanted a break.” We continue watching the anime after two more episodes. There was a bang of thunder and a flash of lightning, I looked out the small window and saw what looked to be a figure of a woman. I looked back to get a better look but she's gone. I must just be seeing things.

I brush it off then get back to my painting. About an hour later I finish painting the skin and I see another flash out of the corner of my eye. I think to myself how odd that is because there was no thunder. I brushed it off as the volume of the show probably just covered the sound. I decided to be done with painting for the night, so we moved out into the lounge area and continued watching Another. There was another flash and in the window we saw her. The woman from the supermarket was in my window.We were going to call the cops then with another flash she's gone.

We decided we couldn't take anymore horror tonight so we put on Ouran Highschool Host Club a few hours later we were on the episode where a character named Tamaki was trying to figure out his friend Haruhi’s biggest fear. When we see a flash of lightning in the episode, it also flashes here, and we see her silhouette again and she vanishes with the lightning once more.

Creeped out we went to my room and lay in bed, I cuddled into Kai because honestly I was shaking and needed comfort.

In the morning Kai and I woke up to banging on the door. I checked the time and it was 8:30 am. We got up and checked no one was there, but there was an envelope that said Elizabeth Steevens and Kai Kalua I brought it inside.

“Ummmm Kai?”

“Yeah?”

I turn the envelope to show him. We were both scared and didn't know what to do. We opened it and there were at least 40 photos of us, starting from when we were coming out of the movie. There were photos of us at the sushi restaurant, the grocery store, and the worst ones of all the ones that were taken looking into my house. Ones of us in my art room, in the lounge, and ones of us asleep in my bed.

Panicked, I call the police and they tell us to come down to the station. Since neither of us knew the woman's name they said there was nothing they could really do for us except to have us tell them if something else happens. Some help they were, I thought.

Kai and I went back to my studio and I continued working on the piece. This time our show of choice was Miria Nikki. As I was painting the hair I saw another flash and considering what happened last night we decided to go to my parents office and check the security cameras and lo and behold she's there on the property.

“Kai whats that in her hand?”

“I don’t know,”

I looked closer and saw that it was a knife. We once again called the police and this time they came, but hearing a car must have scared her. They came inside and asked to watch the cameras with us. Only this time she was at the back door that's connected to the kitchen and of course I happened to leave it unlocked…

“Oh Elizabeth, Kai, come out come out wherever you are..” The woman sang out menacingly. Her voice rang through the house loudly causing me to look to one of the officers for advice

He nods for Kai and I walk out.

“There you two are,”

“Do we know you?” I ask, genuinely confused as to who this woman is.

“Yeah I don't know who you are either.” Kai said just as confused.

“I'm Chloe. I am in your art class.” She says.

We were both confused; we don’t remember having ever seen her before. Our art class had six people in it, us two, three other of our friends and some weird girl who doesn't talk to anybody.

“... you’re the weird girl in our class aren’t you?” Kai questions.

“What did you call me?” She asked with a defensive tone.

“What did you expect him to say, you literally refuse to talk to us. Then whenever the teacher praises my work, you get angry. Besides who goes around taking pictures of people in their own house! That is fucking creepy.” I say

“I get angry because you always get the spotlight! Give someone else a turn.”

“Elle gets the attention because she actually shows her artwork, you just sit in the back of the class and do nothing. If you want attention why ignore us when we try talking to you? What is your problem? And why do you have a knife?” You can tell Kai is starting to lose patience with the situation, as his questions get increasingly aggressive.

“So I can get rid of my competition,” she smiles sweetly.

“What competition? There is no competition Chloe” I ask

“What competition? I have liked Kai forever!” Chloe says frustrated, slightly getting closer to the two of them with the knife.

Kai puts one hand out towards her, while using the other to pull me back with him a couple steps, creating distance between her and I before he speaks again.“I will never like you. Besides there is only one person I like, and hate to break it to sweetheart but it's not you.” This makes me curious who Kai was referring to.

“Then who is it then?” she asks angrily

That's when Kai kissed me. I kissed him back, albeit slightly flustered. This caused Chloe to become enraged, she came towards us with the knife and that's when the cops came out and told her to put the knife down. She complied and dropped the knife as she didn’t realize that the police were here.

One of the two cops took her away as the other came and told us they were going to hold her and do a mental assessment on her. He also checked to see if Kai and I were okay. After we tell him we are he also leaves, leaving Kai and I alone to deal with this new revelation.

“Do you actually like me? Or were you just saying that to get her to stop…” anxious about the answer since I have liked Kai for a while, but didn't want to make things awkward with him.

“Elle I have liked you for a while but I didn't want to lose you.” Kai says as he pulls me closer to him.

I don't know how to respond, all my mind was telling me was ‘kiss him’. I pull him in by his shoulders to another kiss, quickly dispelling doubts either of us had. Kai placed his hands on my waist and melted into it. He pulls away and leans his forehead against mine, just holding me. For the first time in a few days I felt safe.

“Kai?” I ask in a quiet tone almost a whisper.

“Yeah sweetheart?”

“Can you stay while my parents are gone?” I don’t feel safe enough to be home alone, and you wanted to stay in the comfort that he gave you.

“Of course I can angel.”

#anime #alone #creepy #artist #high school #home alone #horror #oneshot #senior #stalker

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thisstableground · 3 years

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Hello! I wanna start drawing again and I'm really fond of your style, I was wondering, do you have any drawing tips? ❤️

okay sorry this took a couple days to reply to because i wanted to think about it, but i think my main advice is to divide up your artistic time into practice and art. this drawfee video on how to practice effectively explains it really well (this section is at around 13 minutes, i haven’t watched the rest of it yet bc it’s a long vid but i bet there’s other good advice in there too): practice is input, drawing is output. practice is learning new information about things you don't know how to do – you're not making a final piece.

practice is things like:

experimenting with different ways of holding the pen/pencil. holding a pen/pencil for drawing is different than how you'd hold it for writing – you want to hold it higher up, and use looser arm movements. different angles will give different effects (see here). holding a pen for a tablet is different to both a traditional pencil and a writing grip. if you have a tablet that picks up on palm contact, try getting a drawing glove so that you don't have to hold your hand at an unnatural angle. draw different lines and shapes and get used to the different effects you can make.

experimenting with different ways of moving your hand. a general rule to follow here is the bigger the shape, the more of your arm you should use to draw it. a lot of people draw primarily with just their fingers or wrists moving because they feel more control there, which is great for fine detail work but doesn't translate well to bigger sweeping shapes, and thats where you end up with wobbly lines or having to draw several scratchy lines instead of one smooth curve. if you want more confident lines you need to draw from the elbow, or the shoulder. it takes some getting used to but it's definitely worth it for keeping your drawings lively instead of stiff, and your wrist will also feel less strain.

learning to draw basic 3 dimensional shapes. boxes, cylinders, spheres. just draw a whole lot of them from different angles.

learning how to break down a complex form into basic shapes. a good way to do this is tracing – tracing has a bad rap as being stealing, but as long as you're not uploading a traced image and passing it off as your own it's a great way to train your eye to understand how forms work together, particularly for something complex like anatomy. draw over an image and break it down into basic shapes. then try to copy those shapes onto your own paper without tracing. do it over and over until you're better at it. (this method of redrawing is called iterative drawing, it's a great practice technique).

theres broader practice and then narrow. having a mix of both is good: quick sketching a whole figure some days, other days really focusing in on like “this is how a nose work”. go with what feels right in the moment.

and then the output, the actual drawing, is when all this practice pays off - these are your pieces that you work on to show people, or the things that you want to make, this is where you chase your creativity and passion. keeping them separate really helps to stop your art feeling like a chore and keeps you from overworking your full pieces (incorporating too much practice into your creative art); it also stops you stagnating or becoming frustrated with your lack of improvement (not practicing enough).

you don't have to be super strict with yourself about when to do which thing; you'll probably go through phases of doing a lot of practice, and then phases of doing a lot of drawing. if you're really struggling with one thing, that's often a sign that you need to do more of the other to balance things out.

other advice:

learn to be bad at art. this is good during practice with things like timed figure drawing or whatever where you just don't have time to make it good, but it's also good in drawing/creating: just letting yourself make “bad” or silly or quick things for the fun of it or to get an idea out. nothing has to be perfect and the earlier you learn to be bad at art the quicker you'll get good at art, and the more you'll enjoy it too

to expand on that, while tablet drawing is great, i've found that i improve a lot more rapidly when i do at least some of my practice a) on paper but also b) in pen or marker or paint, anything non-erasable. the ability to undo and erase infinitely in digital art is great for full pieces but doing your practices in pen means you're forced to be lot less precious and so you learn quicker how to be more decisive and confident with your lines because whatever you put there, you’re stuck with it.

if you're stuck, try something completely out of your comfort zone. use different materials, restrict yourself to a specific colour palette, ask for prompts, set a timer. sometimes there's just too much choice about what to do and it can be paralysing: giving yourself a totally arbitrary restriction can actually push you to be more creative and to get out of a rut (recommending more drawfee here, their random shapes challenge videos are a really good example of this)

you don't have to find your style. it'll find you. it's good to observe what you like about other people's art and try to consciously think about it, it can be really good to ty and mimic those elements yourself during your practice, but for your actual drawings you don't need to think about your style because as your ability improves it will come out naturally.

this applies mostly to traditional, but try to have your paper tilted slightly rather than flat on the desk – i prop my hardback sketchbooks up on a book. if you have your paper flat then you're more likely to get a little bit of a perspective distortion from top to bottom, especially if you're working from a reference, because you're looking at the paper from a different angle than you're looking at the reference so it can look fine when you're drawing but then when you look at it head-on it's just a little off. it also makes it easier to not hunch up over it and get a backache.

FLIP THAT CANVAS. i don't know why this works but its a time-honoured artist technique for making sure that there's reasonable symmetry especially for drawing people: draw your picture out, then flip it. you'll be able to see a lot clearer where the proportions are off. make changes, flip it again, keep doing that. it's harder with traditional media to do this but if you have some tracing paper you can turn that over, or just take a photo of your work and flip that.

a little frustration can be good if it’s motivating you, but if it's so much that you're tearing up your drawings or wanting to quit, you either need to change up your approach for a while or you need to take a bit of a break. i know people say you have to draw every day and if that works for you then do that, but personally, i don’t: i go through phases of drawing all the time then not at all for a few weeks, and that works better for me than forcing myself to work on it every day and i often come back to it a lot better because i’ve given all the practice time to actually sink in. breaks are an important part of learning, whether its hour or a day or a week of just walking the fuck away from the sketchbook and doing something else.

stretch your arms and wrists often, especially if you're drawing for several hours. here's the routine i use, it’s only ten minutes but it makes a big difference. and if you've overdone it and your hand or wrist or back is hurting, don't push through it. drawing is surprisingly physical and i’ve fucked my hands up real bad several times not listening to a slight ache and having it turn into full on RSI

i hope some of that helps! there are a lot more specifics i could get into about a million different things but the overall gist of this is that you should be aware of all the different options you have and can dabble in, and try to find a balance of learning and creating that allows you to improve without sucking all the joy out of it.

#tinywhim

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hazelenergy · 4 years

Text

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use.

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research.

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards.

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn.

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing. Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later.

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources!

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world.

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece.

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines.

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get.

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things:

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline.

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart.

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through.

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully.

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens.

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already, SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome.

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough.

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast.

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day.

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing!

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post!

#digital art #my art #okay to reblog #how to #long post

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gambissanctum · 3 years

Text

Nostalgia Ultra: Jenn X Khalil/Strawberry Swing (Fanfic part 3)

"When we were kids, we hand-painted strawberries on a swing . Every moment was so precious then, I'm still kicking it, I'm daydreaming on a strawberry swing."

Over the next year, Philky and I got really close. I learned he was a former ASA member that fell on hard times and that clearly had a drinking problem. Painkiller and I got more accustomed to each other. He was still an asshole but a hell of a lot more tolerable. Philky and I struck a deal that if I broke into this abandoned ASA bunker that he would help me get a handle on PainKiller.We ended up using the money to create our lab and bar. In addition to Philky I also met Donald and Priscilia. Donald who at the time was in a similar state that I had met Philky in, was an ex-military guy with a lot of medical knowledge. He has a duality about himself too. I think that's how we bonded so quickly. He's always a voice of reason amongst the chaos and good at keeping us all in line.

Priscilla is originally from New Orleans. She is a firecracker with southern charm. She moved to Gothan for few years and use to strip. While in Gotham she got into it with people you don't want problems with so she like me decided it was time to find a new place. She came into the bar one day looking for a bartending job. She's been here ever since. She's also a meta with the power of telepathy, shapeshifting and she's even skilled in Martial arts. Needless to say, she's been an asset since she walked in those doors 6 months ago.

"Hey Khalil, you good?" Priscilla snapped her fingers in front of my face at the bar. I snap myself back into the present. "Painkiller" I shrug. "He giving you trouble again? You know I can go in there and whoop his ass" she suggested. She was always volunteering to fight with PainKiller. To be honest I think both of them enjoyed the fights. "Nah, you're good, he says hello though" I replied. "I bet he had more to say than that" she laughed. Since Priscilia is telepathic she can get into the head of just about anybody. She calls it a blessing and a curse because sometimes she can control it, sometimes she can't. Sometimes she hears multiple conversations at once, which can be overwhelming for her. That's where Philky comes in. He's helped her control things a bit better. I think collectively we're all just works in progress here in Akashic Valley.

We were closed up for the night so I headed to my room. I was having one of those nights again. Not bad just reminiscing. I hadn't sketched in a while so I dusted off my sketchbook and pencils and got to work. There was a sketch I was working on I hadn't finished yet. A little time had passed and there was a knock on the door.

I looked up to see Priscilia standing there. " You drawing Jenn?" she teased. Priscilla was like a big sister in a lot of ways. " How'd you know?" I asked. "Khalil I can read minds...." she laughed.

"Aye stop doing that " I threw a pillow at her. " This time it was on accident, I swear" she raised her hands. "Pain Killer is gonna catch you off guard one of these days" I joked."Mane, PK don't want none of this" she started punching the air. Pris had been through a lot too but she was always making things lighter for everyone around her. "Speaking of reading minds, you wanna know what she's thinking right now?" She folded her arms raising a brow. "You can do that?" I was curious. I didn't want to invade Jennifer's privacy but I did want to know.

"I told you Philkys been helping me" she reminded me. She started to concentrate. When she's tapping in so to speak she looks like she's in a trance. Her eyes gloss over and turn a glowing white."She's on a roof...smoking weed". I chuckled a bit. "Sounds like Jenn". " Someone just joined her on the roof, looks like a guy". "Probably TC" I replied."No, actually this guy looks a lot like you....". She was confused at first but she tried to concentrate more.

"This is almost uncanny, this guy looks more like you than PK does". I started to get concerned."What?"

"Philky taught me how to hop to another person's consciousness outside of my original target....let me hop on to this guy. I don't trust this". She tapped over into the guy's brain. Her eyes widened. "What! What do you see Pris?!" I inquired. " This guy does not have good intentions at all. It's a shapeshifter. I think Jennifer is in trouble."What is he thinking Pris?" Her eyes reverted back and she looked me directly in the eyes. "Nothing good, I think he's going to kidnap her". I felt like time stopped for a moment. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Who would want to kidnap Jen?

I grab my phone and call TC. "Hey Khalil? Are you alright? It's kinda late" he answered.

"Yeah, I know.I think something bad is about to happen to Jenn. I need you or Anissa to go over to the house like now." My anxiety was high.I knew time was of the essence.

"How do you know? What's going on?" TC sounded like he was half awake so this call and request was coming out of left field.

"There's a guy who looks like me on the roof with Jennifer right now. It's a shapeshifter and we think he's going to try to harm Jenn, you have to go now." I pleaded.

I look over a Priscilla she's back in the trance. That was until she started shaking. I rushed off the phone with TC as he agreed to go to the house. "Pris!" I yelled out running over to her convulsing body. Just then Donald and Philky ran in. "What's going on? Philky ran over to aid Priscilia. "Let's get her to the lab".

TC attempts to call Jenn but there's no answer. He contacts Anissa and she tells him she's on the way there too. TC gets to the house first but Jenn was already gone. There didn't seem to be any signs of struggle but there was a letter on her vanity.

It read:

" Hey J,

I know it's been a while. I've been trying to stay out the way. Forgive me if this is too much. I could understand if you still want nothing to do with me but I needed to get his off my chest. You've been a light in my life even when everyone else gave up on me.

I cherish the memory of the strawberry swing, where we first met. The moment I saw you, I knew you were going to be an important part of my life.

When I look at you, I just want to protect you even though I know you don't need my protection.

Over the past year, I've made some friends and they have helped with my control of PainKiller. The good news is I don't have the kill order anymore. I really want to see you. If you are okay with it please meet me on the roof for old times sake Saturday night.

All my love,

Khalil

Anissa comes in. "What's going on? Where's Jenn?" she asked."That's what I'm trying to figure out, look at this." TC hands Anissa the letter. She reads it. "Khalil?" "Yes and No, so from what Khalil told me there's a shapeshifter impersonating him and I think it got to Jenn."

#black lightning #blacklightning #painkiller #jenniferpierce #gambissanctum #lightning #khalil payne #pain killer #china anne mcclain #jordan calloway

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justcallmefox89 · 4 years

Text

Artist in the Devildom

Jax has just arrived in the Devildom as the newest human exchange student at R.A.D. With Arianthi and the seven lords of the Devildom to guide them this exchange year should be a breeze. Right?

Written from the perspective of my non-binary OC, Jax Montgomery. Jax uses they/them pronouns.

This story takes place in the Truth or Dare AU where Mammon and Arianthi get engaged.

I would like to give a massive shout-out and heartfelt thank you to @fivenightsat-enbys for all their help and being so wonderfully patient with me and my questions.

The flash of bright white light is blinding, and my body feels like it’s falling through an endless tunnel. I know that this is allegedly safe, but that doesn’t stop me from scrunching my eyes closed and letting out a high pitched scream. I’m still screaming when I feel my feet touch solid ground. After a few seconds I simmer down and open my eyes, blinking away stars.

Once I can see again I find myself standing in front of two men and a girl around my age, in an office that can only be described as rich old white man aesthetic. Lots of large dark oak furniture, some obviously antique oil paintings of naked people and things I’ll probably have nightmares about later. Gold lighting fixtures.

Into it. Very into it.

I clutch onto my duffel bag and octopus plushie, shuffling my feet and giving them all an awkward wave.

“Yo,” I say, attempting a smile.

Given the current state of my stomach and the fact that I was currently standing in the Devildom, face to face with some real life demons, it feels a little forced.

Why did I agree to this? Definitely, most probably, in the top three of my worst ideas of all time.

The taller of the two men steps forward, flashing me an enthusiastic grin.

“Jax Monteiro? Welcome to the Royal Academy of Diavolo. We’re so excited to have another human student here!”

“Whoa! Down boy,” the girl says, stepping towards me with giggle, patting the auburn haired man on the arm. “Give them a second to adjust. Portal jumping is harder on us poor humans than it is on you all.”

She holds out her hand. “Hi Jax, I’m Arianthi Wolf. I’m the ambassador to all the exchange students here at R.A.D. And I’m a human student too, so you’re not all alone down here.”

She gives me a soft smile of reassurance.

I quickly give her hand a shake, returning the smile, mine more genuine this time. Arianthi is about six or seven inches shorter than me, with long curly black hair and bright green eyes. A smattering of freckles runs across her nose and cheeks, standing out against her pale skin.

I’d love to draw her.

I’m itching to get my hands on my sketchbook.

The guys too. And this room is insane.

She motions at the auburn haired man next to her. He towers over her, looking like a giant standing next to a pixie. I’ve always considered myself tall at 6′3, but this guy has a good six or seven inches on me.

This must be how mom felt when she asked me to get stuff off the high shelves at the grocery store.

“This is Lord Diavolo, founder of R.A.D., and the human, angel, demon exchange program here. The goal is to bring the celestial realm, human realm, and the Devildom closer together and foster a better understanding between the three.” She pauses for breath. “He’s also the prince of the Devildom.”

Holy shit.

“Do I need to like, bow or something?” I ask nervously.

Diavolo chuckles. “Please don’t. I just wanted to welcome you to the Devildom before returning to my duties. Arianthi will help you get settled in and go over your course schedule with you. You’ll be staying with her at the House of Lamentation along with the seven lords of the Devildom.” He gives me a boyish grin. “I hope your year with us is less eventful than Arianthi’s first year.”

“Diavolo!” Arianthi gives him an exasperated grin while he waggles his eyebrows at her.

He holds his hand up, laughing. “Sorry princess, I couldn’t resist.”

Princess? Oh, I’m totally asking her for a story time once we’re alone.

Diavolo motions the other man in the room forward. He’s closer to my size, with delicate features, turquoise hair, and moss green eyes.

“This is my servant Barbatos. If you find yourself needing anything and are unable to reach Arianthi or any of the lords, he can help you.”

Barbatos offers me a small nod.

“Barbatos is the one who really runs things here.” Arianthi gives me a mischievous smirk. “He’s also an amazing chef. The best baker in all three realms. His devilberry tarts are to die for.”

She mimes swooning.

Barbatos beams at her praise. “You flatter me Arianthi.”

Diavolo rubs his hands together, smiling. “Well, we really do need to be going. I have to welcome the new angels to Purgatory Hall. I’ll leave you to it Arianthi. Don’t worry Jax, you’re in very good hands.”

He gives Arianthi a wink.

Hate to break it to you Diavolo but as cute as she is, I’m more interested in how good your hands are.

“Dia!” Arianthi gives him a dirty look. “Stop that! I’m sure Jax doesn’t appreciate it, and you know Mammon hates it when you do that.”

Mammon? A third player has entered the game. This could be some spicy telenovela shit. Must. Know. Now.

Diavolo just chuckles at her and exits the room, Barbatos in tow.

“Okay, tell me everything princess. I have to know.” I smirk at her and she rolls her eyes good naturally.

“Dia and I were a.....thing for a while.” She waves her hand dismissively, looking slightly annoyed. “He’s still a little in his feelings about things, but I’m engaged now. Sometimes he likes to push my fiance’s buttons. Diavolo is a lot of fun but he is a world class shit stirrer.”

“Mammon is the fiance?” I guess.

She gives me a soft smile. “Yeah. He lives at the House of Lamentation too, so you’ll be meeting him soon. Anyways, we should get going. Do you need help carrying anything?”

I hold up my duffel bag and my plushie. “This is all I brought with me. But you can carry Samson if you want.”

I hand over the large purple octopus.

“He. Is. Adorable. Levi would love him.” She cuddles Samson close to her chest as she leads me out of Diavolo’s office.

“So, right now we’re in the Demon Lord’s Castle. Diavolo and Barbatos live here, and there are always some high ranking demons staying here too, trying to get in good with Diavolo. You’ll be here off and on throughout the year for parties and things like that. Hopefully you’ll escape the “bonding sleepover” ordeal I went through my first year.” She shudders.

“Bonding sleepover? Like a summer camp bonding sleepover?” I quirk an eyebrow at her.

She gives me a long suffering look. “Dia is like a kid in a candy store when it comes to human world activities. It was his idea.”

I chuckle. “It was that bad?”

Arianthi holds up a hands and starts ticking events off on her fingers.

“I got sucked into an evil possessed painting with some others and we ended up in the dungeon. In the dungeon we were almost eaten by Henry 1.0, who may be the biggest snake to ever exist, like anywhere. Then when we tried to get a picture of Lucifer sleeping we ended up getting chased by Cerberus and we wound up in the dungeon again. Where Henry 1.0 tried to eat us. Again. And there was a pillow fight where everyone ended up unconscious except for Diavolo and Lucifer. And me, but only because I was hiding under my bed.”

I stare at her, mouth open, debating if she’s being serious or not. She looks back at me, face unchanged.

“Oh, wow, you’re actually being serious,” I say.

I don’t know if I’m terrified or....nope. Definitely a little terrified after that story. And why did they want a picture of Lucifer sleeping?

As if she can sense my fear Arianthi gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I know it sounds insane but every day isn’t going to be like that here. And you’ll always have someone looking out for you.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief and give her a quick grin. “Thanks, Arianthi.”

We make our way outside, and I’m startled by the fog and dim sunlight.

It’s the middle of the day, right? Or does time work differently here?

I must look confused because Arianthi quickly explains. “Time works the same here, but the weather is different from the human realm. We don’t get bright sunlight down here.”

She shrugs apologetically.

“It’s all good,” I tell her with a smile. “I figured things would be different when I agreed to all this.”

She giggles. “At least they gave you some warning. I was one of the first humans picked for the program and they just zapped me out of my apartment without warning. One minute I’m on my couch watching The Great British Bake Off, and the next I’m down here. Mammon and Asmo had to take me shopping for a whole new wardrobe.”

“Damn.” I join in on her laughter. “So how did you adjust to being here?”

Her mouth scrunches to one side as she ponders my question. “It was hard, that first month. None of the demons were really used to humans, and a lot of them didn’t want me here. But I gradually got closer to the brothers and that helped. Now it’s hard to imagine my life without them. They’re family now, you know?”

I nod. “Do you think I’ll have any issues here?”

“Nah.” She shakes her head. “I’ll be looking out for you and whatever classes we don’t have together you’ll have with one of the boys. Lucifer made sure of it. But if you do want to go out somewhere be sure to take me or one of them with you. Some of the lower level demons are still assholes about humans being here. I get a little more respect now that I’m Mammon’s fiancee and a full time resident of the House of Lamentation.”

We meander through the R.A.D. campus, Arianthi pointing out various buildings and explaining the curriculum to me.

“Ok, so......the seven demon lords that we’ll be living with. Lay it on me. I wanna know what I’m getting into.”

Arianthi takes a deep breath. “I’ll just give you the rundown from oldest to youngest. Hold on, because this family is a roller coaster of ‘what the fuck’.”

I snort out a little laugh. “I’m from Florida. There is literally nothing here that can shock me.”

“If you say so,” Arianthi replies with a smirk. “Buckle up buttercup, because we’re going to run through this fast. Oh, and the brothers are ranked in accordance to how powerful they are, not their actual ages. But they are all thousands of years old, in case you were wondering. Anyways the oldest is Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride. He’s Diavolo’s second in command down here. Very serious, doesn’t laugh much. He’s like the dad at the House of Lamentation. But not the fun kind. Don’t let any of the others talk you into trying to prank him. Unless I’m in on it, because I’m always down for that shit.”

I have found my people.

“The second oldest is Mammon and he’s the Avatar of Greed. Don’t leave anything valuable laying around or he’ll take it and try to sell it for some quick Grimm.”

“Wait? Isn’t Mammon your fiance?” I’m confused.

She gives me a self-deprecating shrug. “The heart wants what the heart wants. We’ve been working on the stealing thing, but at the end of the day he is the Avatar of Greed and it’s hard to control that. He models too, to earn some extra Grimm. I’ve been pushing for him to do more of that to curb the stealing. Oh! I forgot, Grimm is our currency down here. I’ll hook you up with some so don’t worry about that.”

“Oh no you don’t have to-” I try to protest but she cuts me off with a smile.

“Really, I want to. I want you to be able to enjoy your time here, not worrying about trying to find a part time job to earn some cash.”

“Lucifer is the house dad, but you’re totally the house mom aren’t you?”

Seriously, this girl might be an angel.

She blushes a little. “Um....guilty. I sort of fell into it my first year here. The boys needed someone to take care of them then.” She pauses. “They still sort of do honestly.”

I laugh. “Alright, who’s next? Hit me with it.”

Arianthi pauses, like she’s trying to come up with the right words. “Levi. Well Leviathan, but you can call him Levi. He’s more introverted than the rest. Very into gaming, anime, movies.......and a book series called The Seven Lords.”

“I’ve read that!” I exclaim. “Great series. I brought some anime with me too.”

“Cool.” She grins at me. “Sounds like you guys have some things in common. I bet he’d love to see some anime from the human realm. He’s obsessed with Ruri-Chan too, but I’ll let him explain all of that to you. He’s also the leader of Hell’s Navy because of the whole lord of the sea thing he’s got going on. And he’s the Avatar of Envy, so try not to take any of the things he says too seriously when he’s acting jealous.”

“Wait, what? Lord of the sea thing?”

Mind. Blown.

“Yep.” She nods enthusiastically. “He can summon and control sea monsters and all sorts of underwater nightmare fuel.”

“Bad fucking ass.”

“Right?” She laughs. “On to the next. This is where things get kinda weird.”

“Weirder than summoning sea monsters?” I ask.

“Like daddy who is also my brother weird.” She answers with a straight face.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I say with a laugh.

“Satan is the fourth brother. He’s the Avatar of Wrath so try not to piss him off. He’s very intelligent, loves to read. But don’t touch his books without permission. Actually, just stay out of his room all together.”

I look at her and smirk. “This is all fascinating but I’m still waiting on the daddy/brother angle.”

She laughs. “Ok, ok, ok. When the boys fell from heaven Lucifer’s rage was so intense that it became a sentient entity.”

“Satan?”

She shoots me some finger guns. “Exactly. Lucifer and the other brothers raised him. He gets a few characteristics from each of them, but he’s most like Lucifer. Which pisses him off because he hates the thought of being like Lucifer. And Lucifer doesn’t want to think of Satan as his son, so everyone just refers to Satan as their brother.”

I shake my head in wonder. “It’s just like being back in Florida.”

Suddenly a white haired demon comes and grabs Arianthi from behind, picking her up and spinning her around.

“Yo, what the hell?” I yelp in surprise.

The demon sets her down, hugging her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder and nuzzling his face into her neck. Arianthi lets out a high pitched squeal as his hair and nose tickle her. He eventually stops, staring at me suspiciously over her shoulder.

“Hey babe, who’s he?”

Awkward.........

Arianthi elbows his ribs. “Mammon, this is Jax. They’re the new human exchange student who’s going to be staying with us this year. So be nice to them.”

She stresses my pronouns and a look of realization crosses Mammon’s face.

“Oh shit!” He looks contrite. “I am so sorry. I shoulda thought before I said anything.”

He releases Arianthi and holds out his hand.

I shake it. “No worries. It happens. Thanks for apologizing though.”

He gives me a crooked grin. “Still, I am really sorry. Won’t happen again. And if anybody tries to mess with ya since you’re the new human around here, THE Great Mammon will handle it.”

Arianthi rolls her eyes fondly at me and shakes her head behind his back. “I’m sure Jax appreciates the sentiment, but everything will be ok.”

I grin back at Mammon. “Arianthi’s probably right, I should be fine. It’s cool of you to offer though.”

Arianthi wraps her arms around his waist and looks up at him adoringly. “But if any demon does try to give Jax a hard time I’ll tell my big, strong, handsome fiance and let him sort them out.”

Mammon puffs up with pride and he looks down at her lovingly. “Damn right ya will.” He presses a kiss to her forehead. As he pulls away he notices Samson in her arms. “Oi! What is that?”

“Isn’t he cute?” Arianthi holds him up and wiggles one of his tentacles.

I shrug and kick away a rock. “He’s mine,” I admit.

“Cute as hell,” Mammon says, one slender finger reaching out to touch the plush fabric. “Levi would love ‘em.”

“That what’s she said.” I gesture at Arianthi.

He chuckles, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “I just wanted to tell ya hi baby. I gotta run to the store real quick then get back to the house. I’m on dinner duty tonight with Levi.”

Arianthi stretches up on her tiptoes to give him a soft kiss on the lips. “Ok, I’ll see you at home.”

“See ya later. Bye Jax.” Mammon gives us a small wave and starts to walk away.

“Oh! Don’t forget that Beel had practice today so make extra! He’ll be hungrier than usual!” She calls out after him.

He turns around and blows her a kiss to acknowledge that he heard her. She smiles as she watches him walk away, then turns back to me, serious.

“I really am sorry about that. I’ve told everyone your preferred pronouns so it shouldn’t happen again and if it does -”

I hold up my hands and give her a small smile. “Hey, hey, hey. Shit happens. And it’s not like he did it on purpose. Plus he apologized, then offered to look out for me which was pretty cool of him.”

She still looks concerned. “I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t be yourself. Especially at home. I want you to be comfortable here.”

“It really is fine. He figured out his mistake and apologized, and I bet it won’t ever happen again.” I smile and gently nudge her with my elbow. “And if anybody starts some shit I’ll just let the house mom take care of it.”

Arianthi gives me a soft shove and laughs. “Damn right you will. I’ve got your back down here.”

We start walking again.

“Ok, who’s next in the line up?” I ask.

She gives a big sigh. “The Avatar of Lust, Asmodeus. You can call him Asmo, everybody does.”

“Lust hmmm?” I raise my eyebrows.

“He’s sweet, he really is. Very into self-care and indulgence. Just don’t spend any time alone with him until we know how his powers affect you.”

I look at her in shock. “Are you saying he’d try to.......?”

“No! Nothing like that,” Arianthi reassures me. “Asmo would never force anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. But since he is the Avatar of Lust he’s able to bring out other people deepest wishes, kinda like a walking aphrodisiac. Some people are immune to it, others can learn to block it out. Those that aren’t have a tendency to.......overindulge in their most decadent desires.” She gives me a pointed look. “So until we know how you’ll react, no alone time with Asmo.”

I make my most serious face and give her a quick salute. “Yes ma’am.”

She uses one of Samson’s tentacles to slap my arm and laughs. “Smart ass.”

I smirk. “Alright, Asmo is number five so who are the last two?”

Arianthi chews on her lower lip for a moment, as if internally debating what she wants to tell me. Finally she gives me a small smile and starts to talk.

“Beelzebub is sixth and Belphegor is seventh. We call them the twins though, because their father created them at the same time, and they’re extremely close. They’re together almost all the time.”

I interrupt. “Wait, their father? Like God?”

Arianthi’s eyes grow dark and she scowls. “He’s a piece of shit,” she mutters.

“Did you just call God a piece of shit?” I ask her, shocked.

“When there’s a dad out there who can make my dad look like Father of the Year, then you know the guy’s a total ass bag,” she growls.

“You just called God an ass bag. I feel like I’m missing a lot of backstory here,” I respond.

She shakes her head as if she’s shaking away her negative thoughts. “I’m sorry Jax. There’s a lot of history you’ll learn this year, and how the boys fell from grace is part of it. It was hard on all of them, but Beel and Belphie took the hardest hit. It will be up to them to tell you their side of things though, in their own time.”

“No worries. I’ve got patience for days.” I grin at her. “You’ve got serious beef with God huh?

“I’d throat punch him if someone gave me half a chance,” she answers seriously.

“You don’t look like it but you’re frightening.” I laugh. “But it’s the kind of frightening I want on my side at all times.”

She laughs with me. “I told you I have your back Jax. Always.”

“That means a lot Arianthi.”

Not many people do now days.

“So Beelzebub and Belphegor?” I ask.

“Beel and Belphie.” She smiles to herself. “Beel is the Avatar of Gluttony, and his food intake is phenomenal. Do not ever come between him and his food, and if you see a container in the fridge with his name on it, don’t even breathe near it. He once wrecked the kitchen and one of the walls to my old room because Mammon and I ate some of his custard.”

I stare at her.

“It’s like I haven’t even left Florida,” I whisper reverently, and she huffs out an amused laugh.

“A lot of people treat Beel like food is his only interest, but it really isn’t. He plays sports and he works out everyday, so if you ever want to join him for a workout he’d be thrilled to have a buddy. He’s really sweet, thoughtful, and kind. And sensitive, but he tries to hide it so he can stay looking strong for the people he cares about. He never wants to let anybody down if they need him. He’ll open up if he gets close to you though.”

“It sounds like you guys are really close,” I say quietly.

I wonder how Mammon feels about that?

She stops walking and turns to look at me, a shadow passing over her face. “I’m an only child and my mom and dad weren’t very good at the whole parenting thing. I wound up in foster care when I was 5. Stayed there until I aged out. I would have given anything for a big brother like Beel back then. He’s really taken care of me since I’ve been here, and been nothing but supportive of me.” She gives me a shaky smile. “I’ve got my big brother now so I try to look out for him however I can.”

“He sounds like a really good guy,” I say, suddenly feeling guilty for my earlier thought.

“He is,” Arianthi answers and we resume walking. “Belphie is the Avatar of Sloth, so he’s constantly sleepy. He can nap anywhere, and he gets super cuddly with people when he does, so if that’s not your jam be sure to let him know. Don’t touch his cow pillow. He’s pretty sarcastic and he can be hard to get to know, but he’s sweet when you do.”

We turn a corner and she stops in front of a large three story house. Even though it’s well maintained and beautifully built something feels a little......off about it.

This place would give the house from Texas Chainsaw Massacre a run for it’s money in the creepy as shit category.

“Here we are!” she says brightly. “The House of Lamentation, and your new home for the next year.”

My eyes dart around, taking in every detail of the house as we walk up the steps to the front door.

Arianthi suddenly pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “Jax there’s something else you should know about the house before we go in.”

“Ok?” I say, confused.

“Satan is a little bit of a crazy cat lady. He’s rescues strays and keeps them until he finds new homes for them. Lucifer says he can only have one in the house at a time, so you may occasionally be called upon to help hide one. Or five.”

“Totally ok,” I answer with a grin, relieved that the big secret is just contraband kitties. “I love cats so no problem on that front.”

She smiles at me as she opens the door. “Great!”

We walk into the foyer and she shuts the door behind us.

“Also, allegedly some guy murdered his whole family here a long time ago. So this place is probably haunted.” She smirks at me.

“Of fucking course it is,” I mutter, playfully giving her a dirty look.

“If it makes you feel better I’ve never seen any paranormal stuff as long as I’ve been here.”

“It does. A little bit.” I look over and smile at her. “Oof!”

I ram into something large, solid and......warm? I look in front of me and see a very large, very muscled chest. I tip my head back until I see a pair of friendly violet eyes looking into mine.

“Beel!” Arianthi gives him a quick squeeze. “This is Jax, the new exchange student.”

“Sorry for running into you,” I say. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

I take a step back so I can get a better look at him. Like Diavolo, he is huge. And built. Really built. His shaggy, bright orange hair highlights the color of his eyes.

“It’s ok,” he tells me, smiling before he takes a large bite of the sandwich he’s holding. He squeezes Arianthi back. “Hey Arianthi. When’s Mammon coming home? He’s supposed to make dinner tonight and I’m starving.”

That smile is goddamn adorable.

I shake my head.

Get it together. You’ve seen cute guys before. But he is beyond cute. And built. And taller than me. And if he’s everything Arianthi says he is............

I quickly slam that thought back into its box and tune into their conversation.

Arianthi is frowning. “He should be back soon. If he isn’t I’ll help Levi get things going so dinner isn’t late.”

He beams at her. “Thanks Arianthi.” He turns that megawatt smile to me. “Do you need any help getting your stuff to your room Jax?”

I’m flustered. Why am I flustered? I don’t get flustered.

“N-n-no. Thanks though.” I give him a small smile.

Did I just stutter? Oh god.

I internally cringe.

I see Arianthi’s eyes flicker between the two of us, and she gives me a mischievous smile.

“We might need help later though. In case they want another dresser or any of the furniture from my old room brought into their room,” she tells him.

Beel gives us another easy grin. “No problem. I’ll be in my room if you need me before dinner starts. See you later Jax.”

He ambles away, munching on his sandwich.

“See you,” I call after him.

I look to my right and see Arianthi looking at me with a shit eating grin on her face.

“Shut up,” I mutter.

“He’s cute right?” She nudges me with her elbow.

Oh my sweet baby Jesus yes!

“He’s ok,” I say, trying to stay nonchalant. “Seems nice.”

“Is nice Jax code for a “total snack”? Or “I want to climb him like a tree and never come down”?” She snickers, teasing me.

“Ok, you are officially the worst,” I tease back, reaching out and ruffling her hair.

“But am I officially the worst and right that you think Beel is a cutie?” She raises her eyebrows.

I’m saved from answering by Mammon bursting in through the front door, two shopping bags in hand.

“Oi! H-h-hey Jax. Hi baby.” A faint pink blush dusts his cheeks and he tries to quickly edge past us. “Runnin’ a little late, gotta get dinner goi-”

Arianthi snags the hem of his jacket, stopping him his tracks. “What’s the rush my love?”

“N-n-no rush. Just wanna get dinner on time. Ya know how Beel gets.”

What is he so nervous about?

I’m suddenly very suspicious.

Please don’t be a fuck boy Mammon.

She pulls him closer and loops her arms around his neck, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Mammon?”

“Y-yeah baby?”

“Why do you smell likes witches?” Arianthi keeps her voice light, arching an eyebrow at Mammon.

Ooh, I know that look. Mom used to give me that look all the time. Wait, witches? They have witches down here too?!

“I maybe, mighta stopped at a little card game on the way to the store.” Mammon’s tone is smug, despite the guilty look on his face.

Arianthi rolls her eyes, smiling. “How much did you win?”

“650 Grimm.” He smiles back at her.

She holds her hand out in a “gimme” gesture.

Mammon groans, reaches into his jacket pocket, and hands her a thick stack of bills. “Come on baby. Aren’t ya gonna let me keep any of it?”

She quickly divides the money, handing half to me and pocketing the rest.

“Wait, what’s this for?” I ask, confused.

“We agreed that whenever Mammon goes gambling half of whatever he wins goes to you, so you’ll have Grimm for whatever you need here. And the other half goes to a joint project we’re working on.” Arianthi laces her fingers with Mammon’s and cuddles into his side.

Mammon’s irritation is instantly gone, replaced by a dreamy smile as he squeezes her hand and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“That joint project is going to be amazing. I just know it,” he softly whispers.

“What’s the project?” I ask, curious. “If it needs any artwork, I could totally help you guys out with it.”

Arianthi disentangles herself from Mammon. “It’s a surprise for his brothers. It’s really sweet of you to offer Jax, but I wouldn’t want to bother you -”

“You won’t! You wouldn’t be,” I interrupt. “I feel bad just taking your money like this, even if you guys did plan it. So let me help you out with whatever art you may need done for this project.”

“That’s really cool of ya Jax,” Mammon says, grinning at me. “We appreciate it.”

“Seriously,” Arianthi echoes. “I saw some of your art when I went through your student profile. They are insanely freaking talented,” she tells Mammon.

I can feel my face turning red. “I’m not that great,” I manage to mumble.

“Hey, if you’re good at somethin’ don’t go bein’ modest about it,” Mammon tells me. “I gotta go get started on the food before Beel smashes down another wall. See ya at dinner.”

“See you,” we respond in unison as he moves towards the kitchen.

“We should get you settled into you room,” Arianthi tells me. “I’ll show you the kitchen after dinner; you’re on dish duty with me tonight. I hope that’s ok.”

“Totally fine.” We start climbing a set of stairs. “So are you going to let me in on what this surprise project is?”

“Are you going to tell me what you really think of Beel?” She counters with a smirk.

“Touche.” I smirk back.

“Ok, here you are.” She stops in front of a closed door.

“That’s Beel and Belphie’s room,” she says, gesturing to the door to the right of mine. “And Mammon and I are to the left of you. My private library and office is on the other side of our bedroom. If you ever need to use it you’re more than welcome to; I never lock the door. I’ll show you where everyone else’s rooms are tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” I smile at her as she hands Samson to me.

“I’ll let you check out your room and unpack your stuff. If you think of anything you want for your room we can go check out my old room tomorrow and see if you like anything in there. I’ll come get you in about an hour for dinner. If you need anything before then just knock, ok?”

“Ok.” I open the door to my room, then think of something. “Hey Arianthi? Will my iPhone work down here?”

She shakes her head. “No, but we’ll get you set up with a D.D.D., which is the Devildom version of an iPhone. Barbatos is supposed to bring one by in the morning for you.”

“Oh cool, thanks.” I smile at her and she turns to go into her room.

“Hey,” I say quickly.

She pauses in her doorway and turns towards me. “What’s up hun?”

“You would’ve made a really good big sister.”

She gives me a gentle smile. “Thanks Jax. That means a lot.”

She slips into her room, softly closing the door behind her.

I step into my new room and start looking around. There’s a desk, a couch, a small dresser, and what has to be a king size bed.

Fucking awesome. And an en suite bathroom? I officially love this place.

I drop my bag onto the floor and wander over to look out the window. My room looks out over a wide expanse of forest.

Pretty view.

When I turn back around I notice that someone has left a pile of things stacked in the far corner of the room, next to my desk. Someone has left me a bunch of............ art supplies?!

An easel, canvas, charcoal, sketchpads, pencils, oil paints; I eagerly rummage through what looks to be anything my little artist’s heart could ever possibly need or want.

Arianthi. Had to be. Her thoughtful ass would do something like this.

Grinning to myself I shuffle over to the bed and flop down, cuddling Samson to my chest.

I think I’m gonna like it here.

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noodlecupcakeswritings · 4 years

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Undercover - Chapter 14 (A LokixRaven AU)

Loki won the battle of New York and now rules over Earth after eliminating Thor and Hawkeye. The remaining Avengers have gone into hiding, waiting for a chance to take back their planet. Raven (OC) is their key to doing so.

This fic is pretty much porn and with this AU Raven and Loki have no previous history.

Please leave comments, kudos and reblogs if you like it. It really helps me out as a writer, lemme know if you wanna be on the taglist as well :)

Warnings: Language, Fluff, Feelings

Chapter 14

Loki’s P.O.V

The traitor’s body was hung outside the palace gates as a warning, and I made my way to Raven’s quarters as promised. Knocking first to announce my presence, I entered her room. Raven sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and one tempting pale leg exposed by the slit in her dress. I considered kneeling and kissing my way up that leg, but decided against it. She was still just a mortal; she didn’t deserve a God to kneel before her. Whilst I knew Collin’s accusation had been a lie, there was a slight part of me that now doubted Raven. Perhaps it was because I saw myself as unlovable. Perhaps she was too good to be true.

The rational part of my brain argued back. If that were true why would she have laid herself bare to me, she had no reason to tell me about her past and yet she had seen me as someone she could trust with such information. I wanted to do the same, tell her everything, but that small seed of doubt made me hold back. Most of my life before this involved me being second best and having information withheld from me. Why would she be any different? I was her king, and she was nothing but a slave. And she should be kneeling upon my arrival. “Kneel,” I ordered softly.

In one fluid motion, Raven sunk off the bed and on to her knees before me. She gazed up at me, looking about ready to do anything I asked of her, ready to prove her loyalty. Cupping her cheek, I bent down to kiss her softly. Maybe I was letting my doubts and self-loathing colour my vision. I should go, take some time to think this all over, to make sure I didn’t do something I might later regret. “Forgive me, my dear. I need some time to reflect upon today’s events.” I sighed. Turning away from her so I couldn’t see the disappointment on her face, I headed for the door.

“No.” Raven said firmly. Quickly she was on her feet, putting herself between me and the door. There was that defiant side again. If any other slave had done this or spoken to me in a such a way, I would have punished them. Yet here I was breaking my own rules yet again for her. “I am not letting that traitor come between us,” she continued. “Step aside, Raven. Please.” “Not until you look at me in the eye and tell me if you really believe his words.”

Raven approached me, cupping my cheek tenderly and making me meet her gaze. She looked hurt, and that only made me feel even worse. “You really think I came here with an ulterior motive? That I’m some kind of spy? Why would someone like Shield hire a murderer like me?” She asked. “I…” I trailed off, unsure what to say. “Loki, I have no reason to betray you.” “But you do. I took your world by force, enslaved it, ruined it. You and everyone else have reason to betray me.”

Her gaze turned sympathetic, “you did. But you haven’t ruined it.” “Look outside at your city, its destroyed.” “Let me prove to you that you haven’t destroyed my planet. Let me prove to you that there’s still beauty in the planet you rule over.” “You…you want us to go outside?” “It’s your planet, we can go anywhere you wish.” Whilst I had done my research on the planet, there were so many places to go that I didn’t know where to begin.

“Where would you want to go?” I asked. This made her pause, as if my question had taken her by surprise. Her gaze dropped as she thought about her answer. “Me? But this is about you,” Raven responded. “You said you wanted to show me there was still beauty here, tell me where. There must have been somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.” “Theres quite a few places I’ve always wanted to go, it’s just trying to decide which one.” “Then don’t decide which one. Decide what you want to see first.”

As she made her decision, I conjured the tesseract from the weapons vault. Raven eyed it suspiciously, looking at me for an explanation. “This is how we’ll get around. Hold it with me and think of the place you want to go most,” I explained. Cautiously Raven placed her hand on top of the glowing blue cube and closed her eyes. In a matter of seconds, the tesseract took us to her desired location. Before us was a vast lake, mountains in the distance and surrounding us were purple flowers that looked similar to lavender. Unfamiliar with the location, I turned to Raven who was looking around in pure wonder, a smile across her face that reached her eyes.

“It really works?” She asked. “You doubted me?” I couldn’t help but smirk. Raven raised her brows at me, “you doubted my loyalty not five minutes ago.” Touché. “So where exactly are we?” I asked. “Lake Tekapo. New Zealand. I’ve never been this far from home before.” She continued looking around as if she still couldn’t believe it. Suddenly she practically threw herself in my arms, thanking me profusely.

After a moment, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close and feeling content. This was the first time I’d really held her outside of aftercare. All too quickly she pulled away, looking slightly concerned. “We didn’t pack any clothes. I didn’t bring my sketchbook,” She panicked. Smirking, I conjured the black leather-bound book for her, handing it over. Ravens worries seemed to ease, but she also seemed fascinated by my use of magic. “I’ve never really seen you use your magic before. What else can you do?” She asked. “We’re here for the beautiful sights of your planet, not for my sorcery. Besides, you could have shown me many beautiful sights back in your bedroom. But this isn’t bad,” I smirked.

“I’m holding you too that.” She retorted with her own smirk. “When I said beautiful places around your planet, I figured you’d suggest Paris or Rome.” “We can visit the Eiffel tower if that’s something you’d like to see. Paris is romantic, yes, but it’s also what everyone else would pick. Besides, I wanted to see natural beauty over man-made beauty.” “Or is it because there’s different kinds of flowers to draw here? What are these anyway?” I motioned to the purple plant. “Lupins. And I’ll have you know some of the places I want to go have no flowers to draw. Maybe I’ll have to find a new muse.”

Raven found a place amongst the Lupins to sit, looking out at the landscape. “You don’t think this is beautiful. Or at least peaceful?” She asked. Instead of focusing on the landscape, all I could focus on was her. Her hair could have easily made her blend in amongst the Lupins as they were mostly the same shade. And she looked at ease here. More than she did at the palace. Leaving the palace had me slightly anxious. It was the first time I’d ventured out like this and with another person. Clones were in place in case of an attack, and the Chitauri were always ready.

“It’s peaceful,” I agreed. Eventually I took a seat next to her, Raven already sketching away and adding to the cast collection of drawn flowers in her book. After half an hour, she turned to me. “Would you mind if I drew you?” She asked. “Me?” “You’re a good subject. A handsome one.” She started sketching, glancing between me and her book every few moments. The time it took her to sketch gave me time to consider our arrangement. I’d never treated a slave like this. Yes, I had gotten close to previous slaves but never been on a...date with them.

Especially never let one leave the palace whether I’m with them. Maybe this alternative approach would bring us closer. Maybe she could finally be the one. Perhaps when I opened up to her about my heritage, she wouldn’t be judgemental. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

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Raven and I continued to travel around the globe visiting many places. The marble caves of Chile, the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Japan, and luckily it was blossom season. We also visited the beautiful Plitvice Lakes of Croatia, the otherworldly black sanded beach of Reynisjara, Iceland and the peaceful, secluded Faroe Islands. I had to admit, Earth seemed more and more beautiful with every place we visited. Raven decided there was one last place she wanted to visit, Tromso, Norway. The weather was colder, so I conjured Raven some much warmer clothes.

“And you wanted to come here because?” I asked. “You’ll see tonight. Hopefully.” We spent the day exploring the bay as it was quieter, meaning less attention being drawn to us. Besides, I could conceal us from the mortals if need be. I just wanted time with her. It felt like most past worries I could forget about. I could just enjoy these moments we shared. The past week and a half had been bliss. I felt ready to tell her everything, ready to pour my heart and soul out to her.

Evening fell and Raven had forced me to hike to the hillside, sitting down beside me. The black sky was dotted with stars, the moon high and full. “We’ve stargazed already this week,” I mentioned. “Just wait.” After another half an hour of nothing, a green and yellow aura appeared across the sky. Raven smiled widely, looking up at the sky in wonder. Oh, Earth was beautiful indeed. Seeing such an aura reminded me of Asgard, made me miss it. It would have been nice to take Raven there if things had been different.

But the bridge was broken, I could never return, and nobody could leave. Ravens fingers brushed against mine hesitantly, as if asking to be held. Lacing my fingers with hers, she took that as a sign to rest her head on my shoulder. This was the most affection I’d received in years. It brought a soft smile to my face. I didn’t want this trip of ours to end, but we had to return to the palace, eventually.

“I’m glad I got to share all this with you, Loki,” Raven spoke softly. Turning to look at her, I leaned in to kiss her. Raven melted into the kiss, wrapping her arms around me. Pushing me down, she straddled me with a soft smirk. “Someone could see, my dear,” I teased. “As if you’d let anybody see me like that.” “Your right.”

Taglist: @sweetfictionalworld, @therealityhelix, @darkprincessloki92, @skulliebythesea, @fizzyxcustard, @myownviperroom, @jana-banana-fana, @lostinimaginaryplaces

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mcrmadness · 3 years

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Rambling about my (dä fan)art...

I was writing another post and this kinda got out of hand and turned into me talking about my art overall. I’m gonna put this under the cut because I don’t know if people are interested in my art nor especially in my thought about it and my “art history” basically, but if you are, then I hope you enjoy.

And yes, this is gonna be about my die ärzte fanart mainly!

So let’s start with the HELL coverart drawing because that’s what I was talking about originally:

I’m extremely happy with how the drawing turned out in the end and I like that feeling of success when I’m happy with something I have created. That is not always self-evident with myself. More than often I have plain hated my drawings or have felt like there should be something done differently, or something that I could always improve at and do better. So this feeling where I’m actually content and happy with what I have created is something new and different. I have a dopamine rush every time I look at that drawing. I like the drawing. I think it looks nice. And I’m extremely happy about this fact and I am not afraid of admitting it. Perfectionism is a curse and a gift. It can sometimes make your life a living hell when something that is perfectly good still feels like it’s not enough. When everyone else sees that what you have done is actually good or even great but your brain just keeps repeating how it’s shit and everyone else is just delusional and that they don’t see what you see. And this is like the polar opposite of that feeling. It wasn’t other people who were delusional, it was you and youself all along. You were the one seeing the image in your head and the drawing not matching that image. Other people saw only what you had created and couldn’t compare it to anything. And that doesn’t mean it was never good.

So whenever I do these comics and comic style drawings nowadays, I just feel so happy. I feel that I am no longer failing them, I feel like I can draw the image I see in my head. I finally feel like I can draw, I have some skills, I’m not a professional and maybe not as good as everyone else but I’m good at what I’m doing. This is my thing and I’m good at it and it’s enough. And I love it when I feel like I’m improving. For years I felt like I was stuck, like my skills would have been glitching somehow, I didn’t get better no matter how much I drew. But I guess I tried too much and was too harsh on myself because I believed that a drawing is good only when no reference photos have been used. And I sucked at drawing without them. I still do! I was staring at the Hell coverart the whole time I was drawing! I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I didn’t! And this feels particularly good also because this is the first time I have tried something different with these comics. I have never tried to draw a photo or existing picture with this style. I have only drawn my comics and those I have created all by myself. The clothes come from what I have seen in videos and photos but the plots are created by me alone, with a idea coming from somewhere actual usually, as inspirations do.

For comics I do look at reference photos of people sitting or standing, or I look at the mirror, or even take photos of my own hand to be able to draw something. And that’s lots of fun and also challenging because I’m mixing there my old habit of portrait drawing with my less serious comic book style but I really really do like the combination. It also makes me feel that I am memorizing what I draw and the next time when I need to draw that same posture, I no longer need the reference photos because they’re no in my brain. And in my muscle memory. My hand remembers how to do the lines now.

Here you can see one of the sketches I did in 2018 - I had this image in my head and I wanted to draw it and I just... drew it in my sketchbook. Didn’t use pencil. But now I’ve noticed I like doing these on proper paper instead of the sketchbook AND it’s so much more fun to first draw the sketch with the pencil and then draw on it with the fineliners. That I have always done with the comics (apart from one) because they take more time than these quick sketches. But here you can see Farin’s legs on the first image - I think I might have looked at reference photos for that but then it was so much easier to do the to the comic I made in 2019.

I have now also figured out that a big part of my style is not to draw just simple straight lines. I like making those sketch-like lines even with the marker. They look more rough but that’s something I like seeing with my art. That’s what I was missing when I was staring at the lines I had drawn before and hated every detail of them. They were too clean and neat.

^These two I have also drawn on my sketchbook in 2018 and I don’t really know why. I guess I was still a bit stupid and didn’t really realize I’m drawing again. But anyway, they both were inspired by my own fanfiction I have written a long time ago. It’s one of my favorite self-written fanfics and it had these two scenes I just saw in my head and felt like I could try drawing them. Maybe that’s why they are in my sketchbook, I wasn’t sure if they were going to turn out even good... The marker around the second one obviously was shit and the paper wasn’t good for it, and I never finished with it so it looks a bit weird. Do I need to say that I really enjoy drawing very small, repetative details, like those tiles? It’s so soothing, almost like a therapy.

I think that quitting antidepressants in 2013 has done so much good for my creativity. If you compare my work from 2011 to 2019, the difference is huge - all are just parts from my comics:

Can you guess see the difference? But have to admit I am jealous for myself for how I have drawn Farin’s hair to the 2011 one and maybe have forgotten to color Farin’s arm but... I actually had so long pause from drwing (~8 years) that I forgot how I did that and had to use THAT as a reference when I was trying to draw late 80s Farin’s at some point last or this year :D

Anyway, my style with the shadows is a little different when I use colored pencils than when I use markers. This is from my latest comic from this year, where I experimented with Promarkers the way I had never done before and I really like how it came to be:

I have owned this set of Promarkers (black + 5 greys) for years and have never really used them, apart from the black which I usually used for the thick lines anyway. And wanted to see if I could find some use for the greys too! (Yes that’s Bela back there - this comic was an alternative ending for Für Immer music video :D)

And I wanna end this post with a face progress comparison for all three. During this I also noticed that before I used to draw their side profiles and it was really difficult to find images where I’d have drawn from from the front. And nowadays I have mainly drawn them from the front and it’s hard to find side profiles! Interesting! Here’s one of Farin and Bela from a drawing I made this year:

Also the hand that was so much fun to draw but I also took photos of my own hand in that posture in order to even draw that - that was fun! :D

But here are the last three images - using the HELL one as the last for each, of course:

Bela has always been the easiest to draw. And the first one of these three is actually from my first ever Bela&Farin comic! I didn’t color their skin back then. With the next ones I already did color their skins too but I used darker colors to do the shadows. Nowadays I do the shadows with fineliners. Or it depends - that 2019 one doesn’t have that lol.

Damn it was so difficult to find something where I’d have draw Farin from the front :D And I see the HELL one literally is my second (or third) time drawing Farin with his grin. Or if you count all those numerous extra mouths I drew because I failed the first one, then I have drawn his grin at least 15 times by now. I probably can draw his teeth with no reference photos from now on.

I haven’t drawn Rod too many times. I can actually count about... 5 times? And then there’s only 2 times when I’ve drawn his side profile but he’s at the background. I don’t know if I’ve ever really succeeded at that, I usually try to draw his head a more round and his eyes smaller than for Bela and Farin and I was actually bit worried for the HELL one and was wondering if I’m going to ruin the whole thing. But in fact, that was actually easiest of them to draw. And STILL I’m surprised by how alike he looks in that last one. In fact, I think his dacial features are perfect for a carricature drawing so you don’t need to do more than a few lines for the mouth and it looks like his mouth. The middle one was for a drawing I made for a friend and with this I actually looked at photos so that I could draw some of his hairstyles from the 90s and I liked this one the best and it was also quite easy to draw too.

Do I even have to say that I’m not extremely motivated what comes to drawing? I feel like my creative has become what it has never been before. I still don’t really know what to draw but I just feel that whatever it is I’ll start next, it will be good. And if it doesn’t... who cares? I had so much fun with those extra mouths of Farin which was maybe visible from the video I filmed, and that is what makes drawing worth it. Before I took the drawing process so seriously and a mistake felt like the end of the world but now I laugh at them and make fun of them and don’t take them too seriously. And I always have ways to fix these, or I can redraw. Just like I did with Farin’s mouth (or a half of his face actually) for this newest drawing. The most important thing is that I’m having fun and enjoying what I do, that way usually the outcome will also be a success.

I have now at least 2 dä comics on my to-do list (I don’t remember if there’s a third one too) + one pencil drawing that is halfway there. It will take one more night/day for it to get it finished. I also have probably 5 ideas for self-comics etc. in my sketchbook and I try to find some time to work on those. Or actually I have a plenty of time. Adhd, time blindness and executive dysfunction just make it feel as if I didn’t :D Can’t wait to get working on my next drawing projects, tho!

(I wish I knew how to make art for a living even but that’s a topic that will need its own post which I’m probably do in a near future if I don’t forget :D)

#mcrmadness’ art talk #mcrmadness draws #the post has lots of text but also quite a many images #dä fanart #die ärzte #I have been drawing dä comics since 2010 - the old ones are very stupid but whatever :D #long post

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kammieceleek · 4 years

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Halfling: Chapter 2, Nightmare

The sound of dripping water was all that was keeping him sane.

Callum counted it in eights, using it to keep his mind from wandering to his imprisoned wife and missing child. Granted, he was imprisoned, too, but Claudia wasn't torturing him—nowhere nearly as badly as the elves were treating Rayla. He gripped his chains in fury at the sound of her screaming in pain. Rayla's training as an assassin and her upbringing among the Moonshadow elves had taught her not to show pain. The last time he'd heard her scream like that had been when she was laboring to bring their precious Sarai into the world almost six years prior.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Solitude made up most of his existence in this underground dungeon. Claudia was the only person he ever saw and she was less than welcome. His former friend brought him food, trying in vain to get him to abandon Rayla and join her and her father. There was no way he'd do that, though; dark magic was vile and twisted and evil. It had almost killed him the one time he'd done it. Even now he hated the fact that he'd been driven to that extreme in his efforts to protect the love of his life. And when she wasn't trying to turn him against his wife, she was attempting to get Sarai's location out of him.

"Please, Callum. If you tell me where she is, I'll bring her here and she can live in your cell while we figure things out."

"I'm not letting you touch my daughter."

"But…"

"Sarai is pure and good and shouldn't be forced to deal with the likes of you. And if I can do anything to keep her out of you and your father's hands, I'll do it. Even if it means I have to die."

"She's not natural, Callum! She's a halfling—a disgusting cross between a human and an elf!"

"Then why bother trying to find her?" Callum fixed Claudia with a murderous gaze he'd picked up from Rayla over the years. "Leave me alone."

Claudia bit her lip.

"Because… because she's important to you. And I care about you, Callum. Why do you think I didn't kill you and I'm not letting the elves near you?"

"The feeling isn't mutual. Go away, Claudia."

"Fine. But I'll be back."

Rayla's screams reached his ears again and he covered them, fighting back tears. He was powerless, really and truly powerless against Claudia and her little elven army. The shackles that bound him kept him from using magic, though they did give him more mobility than ones he'd seen back in Katolis when he was a child. Callum had no way to escape, no way to find Sarai even if he could use his power. Part of him hoped she'd gone to the Storm Spire, but something told the mage his daughter had run as far and as fast as she could. If she'd gone to Zym, the elves would've found her already. No, Sarai had left the area entirely and he hoped that she was safe and healthy, wherever she was.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

"Here."

He looked up as Claudia shoved a box through the door meant for his meals.

"You must be bored in here. And you draw when you're upset, right?"

Inside the box was his sketchbook and charcoal pencils. He fixed her with a look of suspicion.

"Prison is boring. And I have no intention of releasing you, so…" She smiled sheepishly. "No thank you's are necessary. Your drawings will be thanks enough."

Callum waited until she'd gone, then he grabbed the sketchbook. Furiously he began to draw, first Rayla and then his daughter as he last remembered them before all this happened—a mother and child holding hands as they returned home from the market. God, he wanted those days back, but it had been a month since he was imprisoned. His chances of seeing Sarai or even Rayla again were slim.

He snapped it shut and buried his face in his hands. The water still dripped, the staccato sound ringing through his cell in a consistent rhythm.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

**********

All things considered, Sarai was a different kind of five-year-old.

Despite her young age, she'd crossed the border alone, traveling through hostile territory for a month (based on the fact she'd said it had been a new moon when they were attacked) by herself and made it to Katolis. Soren was impressed with her and even more impressed that Callum had managed to make such an amazing daughter. Though, he supposed most of it was Rayla's influence over the step-prince's. Even now Sarai sat on Ezran's horse, excitedly telling her uncle stories about her life in Xadia. Eventually, she got tired and Corvus ended up having her ride in the supply cart they'd brought along.

"Is it bad that I love her so much already?" Ezran asked Soren jokingly.

"Nope. She's family."

"Well, the good news is that we're making better time than I did on my first journey into Xadia."

"To be fair, on your first journey, you were on foot. Carrying a heavy dragon egg. Hiding from me and Claudia and pretty much everyone else. And you were ten." Ezran bit his lip.

"I also had Callum and Rayla. And Bait. Sarai did it alone and she's half the age I was. She must've been so scared."

"Don't forget that the last time she saw her dad he was being captured by Claudia. That probably didn't help."

"Soren, you're not helping."

"Sorry."

By nightfall, they stopped to make camp. Sarai insisted on sleeping near Ezran, a request her uncle was more than happy to comply with. Keeping up with a five-year-old, however, was more difficult than Soren had anticipated. Corvus had gone to scout and left Sarai to be cared for by Soren while he was gone and Ezran was trying to get a sense of the situation at hand from some local wildlife. Their party was small—just the three men and little Sarai—since Ezran had already had word sent to Amaya and Janai to meet them at the Storm Spire with warriors. Aanya would be joining them shortly, across the border.

"Sarai, can you slow down for a second?" Soren panted.

"But I've never been to Katolis before! I wanna see how different it is from Xadia!"

"Didn't you pass all this on your way?"

"Yeah, but I was by myself and it was scary." She pouted and Soren melted at her expression. Dammit, if he was having this much trouble saying no to her, then Callum must've been completely wrapped around his daughter's finger.

"Fine. We need some fish for dinner, anyway."

"When Papa catches fish at the pond, he uses Sky magic. Mama always yells at him not to but he does it anyway. He said he'll teach me one day when I'm bigger."

"And we'll make sure that happens. For now, let me show you the way I catch fish." He grabbed the net and pole out of his supplies and took Sarai's hand as he led her down to the riverbank. There, he dug into the dirt until he found what he was looking for—bait for the fish. Sarai squeaked as he placed the bug on his hook and cast the line into the water. Her eyes traced the crystal-clear liquid, trying to see where the fish were so she could help Soren the way she helped her mother when it was Rayla's turn to catch their dinner.

"How long does this take?" she asked.

"It can take a while. Thankfully, we don't need a lot for four people. You don't eat much, I bet."

"Nope. Mama says that's good and bad. Good because it will make traveling easier and bad because I have a lot of growing to do."

"That sounds like her." She was quiet, watching the water with emerald-green eyes.

Then the line went taut and Soren began to pull in his catch. Sarai grabbed the net, allowing him to deposit the trout into it. They caught two more before Soren decided it was time to head back.

"Soren?"

"Yes?"

"…you knew Mama and Papa, right?"

"Oh, yeah, I did. Your mom almost killed me a couple times and your dad… well, the only thing he really has over me is magic."

"Papa said Mama tried to kill him when they first met and that she was the worst assassin he'd ever met. Then Mama threw a pillow at him and said he had to sleep downstairs instead of in their room."

"Why'd he say that?"

"Because he was joking. He told me when he was tucking me in that Mama was a better thief than an assassin 'cause she stole his heart. Then he brought her a bunch of moon lilies the next day and she forgave him."

Smooth, step-prince. Seriously smooth.

"Your dad was right. I met Rayla when I was trying to find him and Ezran to bring them home."

"Did you become friends?!" Sarai looked excited and Soren sighed.

"Not at first. At first… I tried to kill her because I thought she'd kidnapped your dad and your uncle. But we became friends after we helped save Zym from… from a dark mage."

"Viren." He raised his eyebrows. "Mama told me."

"And what exactly did she tell you?"

"That he was a bad bad person and he tried to hurt her and Zym. And Papa said he almost lost her because of him."

"Yeah. He's a bad person. I know that better than anyone."

"How?"

"Um… he was around when I was growing up."

(Not a total lie. Lying to children was cowardly.)

"Oh. Did you know that Claudia lady, too?'

"Would you look at that? We're back and so's your uncle! Go say hi while I clean these fish!"

Ezran looked up in confusion but shrugged as Sarai ran over and started babbling away to him about how fishing had gone. Soren was grateful to Ezran's far more patient nature, which would undoubtedly help them quite a bit in the long journey to come. Corvus returned from his scouting to report that all was well and they should reach the Moon Nexus within another day or so of travel. After dinner and telling a few stories of his journey to return Zym to his mother, Ezran found himself tucking his niece into her sleeping bag.

"You ever think about how weird it is that Callum and Rayla had a kid?" Soren asked as the king came back out and sat by the fire.

"It's a little bit of a bizarre feeling, but it was bound to happen eventually."

"Well, I don't think anybody's going to let things go back to normal after this is over. Especially not you."

"Right." Ezran nodded. "We can worry about that later. For now, we have to find Callum and Rayla. Sarai needs them."

"Actually, this feels… familiar. Like we've been here before."

Ezran rolled his eyes and laughed.

**********

"Whatcha drawing, Papa?"

Callum smiled as his daughter peeked over his shoulder. She looked down to see a sketch of her mother wielding her blades, clearly in the middle of a battle. Sarai's eyes shone with pride and excitement.

"You draw Mama a lot."

"Well, I love her a lot." Sarai clambered into his lap and he set the sketchbook aside.

"Did you miss us when we were at the market?"

"Of course I did, Moonbug. I miss you whenever you're gone. And now that you're back…" He smirked in a way that told Sarai one thing.

"Papa, no!" Callum didn't listen and started to tickle her sides. Sarai shrieked with laughter and he swept her into a hug.

"Where's your mother, anyway?"

"She said she's 'checking the pe-ri-meter', whatever that is."

"Let's go find her then, shall we?"

Callum set Sarai down and they headed out of the house. Rayla was standing in a clearing not far away, her eyes scanning the trees nearby for something.

"Rayla?"

"Hush," she hissed. "Someone's here. Get back to the house."

On instinct, Callum picked up Sarai and turned to run home, but his exit was blocked by elves—elves of varying race who were furiously glaring. From behind the family came more elves… and a human woman Rayla and Callum recognized all too well.

"Callum, take Sarai and go !" the former assassin begged as she took a swing at one of their foes. The elves concentrated on Rayla as Callum ran, carrying his precious daughter.

"What about Mama?!" she wailed.

"Mama wants us to be safe!" he choked out. "And that means we need to go!"

Callum tripped over a tree root, flipping himself as he fell so he didn't crush Sarai. He got to his feet, only to find that he and Sarai were bound together with some kind of spell. Claudia came out of the shadows.

But that was where things became different.

Suddenly, he couldn't use his magic. Sarai was struggling to get free and crying and he wanted to hold her, to comfort her like he always did. He was knocked sideways by something that turned out to be one of Claudia's gang of elves.

"Aw, how precious," Claudia sneered. "The halfling can be useful to us."

The bonds loosened around Sarai and the elf grabbed her. She let out a terrified scream that sent Callum into a panic. Before he could get up, Claudia firmly placed her boot on his chest as Rayla was dragged into the area. His beloved wife was bruised and bloody and beaten, but he could see her chest rising and falling as she struggled to breath through the pain.

"I need more magic to get back. You wouldn't mind if I took care of the brat, would you?" Claudia asked one of the elves.

"She's an abhorrent creation. Rid us of her."

"NO!"

Callum sat upright, panting heavily as he tried to slow his heartbeat.

It was just a nightmare.

He needed to see his daughter. Even if it was just a picture of her, it would be something. In her five (almost six, as she was fond of reminding him) years of life, the longest he'd been apart from her was two days when he got stuck in a snowstorm and the fact that it had been a month (he could see the moon through the grate on his cell) was tearing his heart apart. His hands finally landed on his sketchbook and he opened it.

Immediately, his eyes landed on an image, the first done in this particular sketchbook.

He'd done it the day his daughter was born, shortly after Rayla had recovered from giving birth. His beautiful wife was holding their baby girl and smiling at him through the page.

We'll get through this.

Rayla's words on that day, when he'd shown genuine worry over being a father, echoed in his head.

But I can't if you're not here…

**********

"Had enough yet, traitor?"

Rayla spat blood at the feet of the elf who'd asked her, glaring at him with murder in her eyes. She might not have been an assassin anymore, but she could still kill if it came down to it. And this one had been trying her patience since the day she was imprisoned.

"I'm not tellin' ya daft bastards anything!" she growled.

"Then we'll just continue with what we're doing tomorrow. Give you another night to think it over."

Rayla sighed as she was finally allowed into her looser shackles—the ones that chained her to the wall but still let her move around and use her hands. The elves left her alone.

She wondered how Callum was doing.

Her husband had always had a big heart, a heart that had plenty of room for her and their daughter, and that was both his strength and his weakness. It was a weakness the elves were exploiting with the help of a rogue Moon mage who used illusions—ones almost as convincing up close as Lujanne's—to create a near-perfect copy of Rayla. This one they tortured viciously and violently to make her scream. Rayla had been confused until Claudia showed up to kindly inform her that Callum was disturbed and panicked by the screams.

They beat me because they want information.

They torture the illusion to hurt Callum.

Only once had the screams of pain come from her in their time down here, and that had been early in her imprisonment. An illusion of Sarai had been beaten to death in front of her and she'd screamed for them to stop, to let her innocent daughter go, to get away from Sarai. That had been before she found out that Callum—her wonderful, loving husband—had freed their daughter from Claudia's grasp and sent her to get help. Her heart ached to know where Sarai was, what help was coming, but she didn't dare think for a moment that the help she'd once relied on was coming.

"Rayla."

Her head snapped up at the voice. She looked up at the small grate that allowed her a bit of light and saw a face there. It was a face she knew, a face she trusted. Someone who could help her and Callum escape.

Runaan.

#published on ao3 #dragon prince #dragon prince rayllum #rayllum child #fanfic

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