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genericpuff · 4 months

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

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

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

Your bestest friends:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2.) What canvas size should I use?

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

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

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

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

Sinix Design - How to Learn Digital Painting (Beginners)

Marc Brunet - The Beginner's Guide to Digital Art

Skynix Art - 50 Digital Art Tips in 5 Minutes

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

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

Good luck!! And congrats again! 🥰

#ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #ama #digital art #digital art advice #art advice

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vtuberconfessions · 3 months

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i am so tired of being nice i just want to go apeshit PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VTUBER ARTISTS WHO HAVE NEVER RIGGED BEFORE: ASK A RIGGER FOR ADVICE ABOUT SEPARATION AND LISTEN TO IT!!!! as a rigger and artist i am so fucking tired of having to spend 8+ hours re-separating and fixing all of the bullshit with your artwork that makes rigging a nightmare. AS A BASIC RULE PLEASE...

1: NEVER USE A SPACE IN LAYER NAMES!!! if you use a space in the name of any layers ( i.e. "leg l" "part 1") the name will be switched in live2D to "artmesh" and your rigger will have to RENAME EVERYTHING. if you do this for every layer THIS IS A NIGHTMARE. it's not easy to fix PLEASE use underscores instead of spaces.

2: have ANY KIND of naming system. it literally doesnt matter, as long as it exists and is consistent the rigger will figure it out. don't name one thing "left_arm_1" and another thing "Bang>SidePart" and expect me to be able to easily work with your file.

3: KEEP. LAYERS. ORGANIZED. please please PLEASE understand basic rigging hierarchy and stick to it. If the left eye folder is ten thousand layers below the right eye folder this will be extremely confusing. also make sure the limbs are ordered properly. if the shoulder is in the layer for the jacket and the hand is somewhere floating in the ether i now have to spend time to reorganize the psd.

4: LIVE 2D DOES NOT WORK LIKE A DRAWING PROGRAM. it only allows for multiply, add, and normal layers. no overlay, no screen light, just add and multiply. if I have to clip a layer to more than five other layers the program WILL lag for both you and the person who ends up using the model. Do not just leave a massive multiply layer over the entire model it doesn't work that way. 5: oh my fucking god PLEASE draw EVERYTHING even if it isnt in view. if you have a separate layer for the bang's shading, for example, in normal illustration you just draw what's visible and call it a day. I'M TURNING THE HEAD, MEANING IT WILL JUST CUT OFF. if i have to fix this for every single instance of shading i am taking time away from my work, my whole process takes longer. as a rule of thumb, always draw more than what you think you need.

6: separate more than you need, but not everything. sometimes I work with models that have not enough things separated, and its a pain to work with. sometimes i work with models that feel like the artist just sent me their work file with every tiny brushstroke on a different layer and then I have to spend a day merging and checking everything. use your head while you are drawing, think to yourself "is the thing I'm drawing something that will need to move independently?" try to imagine the model in 3D space as your working, and if you can't do that perhaps study an object in real life and see how turning it in space interacts with the lighting or whatever idk. also: if there are too many separations the model will come out looking blurrier. live2D doesn't just read the photoshop file, it creates a new texture file. imagine the model like a paper doll, it takes every piece of paper and spreads each piece down flat. this takes up much more space and many more pixels then the photoshop document, and the bigger i have to make the texture file, the laggier things become. if i don't want it to lag, everything has to be shrinked down to fit, and thus everything becomes blurry. if I don't want it all blurry, I basically have to spend hours upon hours manually placing every "piece of paper" on another piece of paper essentially playing the worlds most annoying jigsaw puzzle.

I feel like I'm working on a group project and doing half of your work. please, stop making my job much harder than it needs to be.

#vtuber #vtubers #vtuber confessions #rigging #l2d #live2d

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monstersdownthepath · 1 year

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Other critters I need to mention more on this blog at some point:

--The King of Glass: Outer God that’s a living planet. The world has fallen in love with its sun and showers it with ‘gifts’ taken from all over the cosmos. It primarily gathers these gifts by trading with mortals and immortals, sending out elaborate, eldritch artwork made from the rainbow-shaded glass it can create from the sand that makes up most of its body in exchange for gifts for its beloved. While these works tend to be mundane (if unsettling), more than a few of them have some unusual, otherworldly, or even dangerous function.

--Oa-Imago, the Deepwoods Mirage: Chaotic Good Great Old One that lives in the border between dream and reality and can cause the two to overlay with its presence. Enjoys dancing among mortal dreams and visiting its favorite ‘friends’ in the waking world to transform them into whatever they desire, though its efforts to contain its destructive and disorienting presence are... lacking, in some areas. It has little concept of pain, fear, or death; these things mean little to a dream, after all, though it’s come to understand that it must undo what it does to its ‘friends’ more often than not.

--The Gravesong: A mysterious melody that haunts the First World like a specter; some remnant of a fallen Eldest, or a haunting song too beautiful to ever stop playing, or perhaps the shards of whatever Death could be found in the First World before it was moved closer to the Positive Energy Plane. Anyone who hears it becomes obsessed with the idea of recreating it, but normal musical instruments won’t do. No, the only equipment that could properly capture the Gravesong have to be crafted from more robust materials. Flesh, blood, bone, and things still stranger, so long as they relate to death and decay.

--The Indomitable Radiance: A creature referenced a few times in other articles already; the Radiance is an Outer God of beauty so pristine, flawless, and true that no creature that looks upon it can bear to look away. With the loss of its home dimension, the Radiance is concerned with preparing a cabal of trusted individuals from all over the Great Beyond to maintain and impose its alien ideals of order and beauty on whatever unwitting world it longs to conquer, with the long-term hope of establishing a society so perfect and cleanly that it can march upon the universe and eradicate Chaos (in all its forms) altogether... because the background radiation of entropy itself causes frays and faults across its body, and that won’t do.

--Aquila-Rediannadier, the Inverse Orchestra: Perhaps it’s a song, or an idea, or a form of life so bizarre it could never survive in our cosmos in any other form. It is perhaps a child of Azathoth, because it seems to dance to the orchestra that surrounds the Sultan, but more importantly is that its amorphous body reflects alien melodies into its surroundings, much to the detriment of whatever creatures may be nearby. Some find madness, some find destruction, but some find twisted inspiration in watching it sing and dance.

--The Loathsome, Shaggy Beast: An abomination, a glitch in reality made manifest when the Eldest Fey Imbrex dared to dream a little too far beyond reality. It’s purposely nameless as to avoid being defined, rejecting any attempt by the world to tell it what it should be as it shifts from grotesque form to abhorrent shape; the title that it bears was imposed upon it by the Eldest in an attempt to cage its concept in a body that could be killed, but as a living recurring nightmare it cannot be permanently slain, rising time and time again from dream and memory.

--The Mother of Filth and her children: A disgusting and corrupt Outer God from a past cycle, the Mother of Filth is bound by obsession in all its forms, but is primarily obsessed with reclaiming all the power it once had by consuming and replacing entire civilizations with its Filthbreed simulacra. There’s also its children, the siblings of the Bloodletter and Clorpt, each claimed by a different obsession: The Wretched, obsessed with microbial life; and the Fragrance Architect, obsessed with scents and decay.

--A bunch of demigods: Like Caerbannog, Nascent Demon Lord of Aggressive Mimicry and Camouflage; an unnamed Vesltrac Demagogue of isolation and meditation, who locks victims away in featureless demiplanes until their sanities have snapped; Saint Caligine, velstrac founder of “Gastromasochism,” who encourages his followers to consume horrifying (and especially spicy) foods to experience new forms of pain; and a handful of disgusting qlippoth lords.

#original concepts #this doesn't even cover the stuff that's not original to me that im converting nonetheless

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delimeful · 3 years

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you cant go back (1)

BTHB: Locked Up and Left Behind

first in a new alien series! this one is completely unrelated to WIBAR :)

warnings: abandonment, violence, injury, mentions of death and starvation, mild cliffhanger

Virgil was screwed.

This was quite a familiar phrase for him. He most frequently utilized it while trying to haul Jan away from whatever batshit scheme he was joint-deep in before it blew up in their faces. Normally, however, even he could admit that his panic, fury, and/or despair was sometimes exaggerated for emphasis.

“I’m absolutely, massively, unbelievably screwed,” Virgil tried out in a low hissing whisper, and grimaced when it came out sounding like an understatement.

In the corner of his eye, his helmet’s display screen blinked an eye-numbing red, informing him that there was a breach in his suit, and the atmospheric pressure inside had been completely disrupted. There would normally be beeping, too, the shrieking ‘you’re about to die’ kind that made his shelling turn pitch with terror in simulations, but— well.

He’d been able to endure about two clicks of the racket before giving in and tearing through the audio speakers with his teeth, ruining them entirely. It meant he wouldn’t hear any of the vital organ failure notifications, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to experience a sickening play-by-play of his death on another planet anyhow.

The others had left him in some kind of dilapidated shack, hand-painted a faded red on the outside. It looked unstable, but it was apparently built sturdier than any of them expected, enough to not even creak as he thrashed around with all his free limbs. He’d been cuffed around one of the support pillars, which meant that even if he could break it, it would probably just immediately collapse and crush him to bits.

Considering there was an enormous crack in the glass of his helmet, he hadn’t really thought he’d get the privilege of worrying about how he was going to die. Aisleen— the one who had bashed his helmet against her elbow plate— had certainly agreed. She’d waited until after the others had left, granting him a quicker death the way her culture called honorable.

Janus would have disagreed loudly. Not just because Virgil was pretty sure his only friend didn’t actually want to see him choke to death on the probably-somehow-toxic atmosphere of a Deathworld, but also because that guy could go on about interplanetary ethics for rotations if you let him.

Virgil wrenched at his restraints for the hundredth time, ignoring the hot pulse of pain that came with the movement. His chitin had to be cracking by now, but the rawness of that was easier to focus on than thoughts like, ‘I’ll never get to watch him argue someone in circles again.’

The worst part wasn’t wondering if they’d fess up to abandoning him or not. No, the worst part was he wasn’t actually sure which option he preferred.

He could imagine Janus looking for him, searching for leads that didn’t exist, stubborn the way a starving shilsho would stay locked onto flesh. Never knowing what actually happened. Jan hated not knowing things, the way Virgil hated sitting with his back to an open entryway.

But if he knew… If Janus managed to wrest the truth from them— or if they bragged about it— he would blame himself. They’d left Virgil because he was just a weaker version of Janus when it came down to it, and because he backed Janus up no matter what, and because it was funny, leaving the twitchiest guy on the crew to die on a world where anything and everything could kill you.

At least Janus wouldn’t be tempted to come down and retrieve his corpse. The other Chelcera was all about self-serving scheming, and there was no way the benefits outweighed the costs. He had to believe that much for his own sanity.

Virgil closed his eyes, trying to push away the what-ifs and the mental flash-images of Janus stuck in his position. He had more than enough to worry about already.

Since the atmosphere didn’t seem toxic enough to kill him outright (for now), there was a surplus of possible ways he was going to bite it. Weather, wildlife, or withering into a lifeless husk due to lack of sustenance.

Alliteration, nice. He was funny when he was on the brink of deathbed hysterics.

For now, he was only in conceptual danger. The shack was sheltering him from any outside elements, being terrified had killed his appetite, and there didn’t seem to be any heat signatures nearby, though his vision was limited by the sides of the helmet.

It made his skin itch, not being able to see behind him, but his auxiliary arms were spread out and taut, waiting for even a wisp of movement. If anyone tried to attack him from behind, they’d strike quick and true.

Of course, then he’d probably be immediately immolated by a pissed-off Deathworlder, but at least he could go down fighting.

If he was vicious enough, they’d have to kill him, and he wouldn’t have to worry about being taken alive. Bitter venom welled up in his mouth at the thought, and he tried to breathe deeply.

He was thinking too far ahead. For now, he’d struggle and swear and watch his atmo tank dwindle down to nothing, see if it changed anything. Maybe he was going to asphyxiate, after all.

He made it through the night.

The sun was close to this planet, enough that he was warm even in the stripped-down version of his bodysuit and in the enclosed shade of the barn. He thought he might even get overheated if he tried to sunbathe here, which hadn’t ever been a concern back home.

Thankfully, the meager sun that spilled through the half-open window didn’t reach him, so he didn’t have to add boiling alive to his list of potential deaths.

Unthankfully, more and more heat signatures popped up as the dawn arrived, all small but still potentially life-ending. He’d heard more than enough horror stories about palm-sized Deathworlder creatures that could kill you with one bite. He wasn’t letting his guard down.

The noise that accompanied the day was welcome— he was exhausted, and every unfamiliar chattering call or whistle made his aux limbs lift back up defensively, keeping him from dropping off into sleep.

He was not falling asleep on a Deathworld. That was just asking for trouble.

The energy crash hit hard, though, and by the time the sun was overhead, he was warm and sleepy enough that he almost missed the slow creak of the door.

He definitely didn’t miss the bright splotch of heat that trotted in, though. He quickly flicked his sensor eyes closed, getting rid of the heat-sense overlay, and felt his hair stand on end as he met the slitted eyes of a small, furry quadruped.

“Mrow?” the creature chirped at him, tail winding back and forth in the air. Its fur was colored in abstract patches, and he could see the tiny fangs in its mouth as it yawned threateningly.

Virgil resisted the urge to hiss, wriggling his wrists desperately. There was no point in antagonizing a Deathworlder creature preemptively while bound and helpless, a voice in his head reminded him. It sounded kind of like Janus.

The creature stalked a little closer, predatory grace in every one of its movements, and paused to watch him again. It’s pupils seemed rounder now, ears flicked up attentively. Virgil resisted the urge to twitch his backlegs, keeping still like a terrified prey animal as it approached at a leisurely pace.

He’d had all of his bulky outer suit stripped from him by the others-- no point in leaving the soon-to-be-corpse with a pricy surface suit. They’d even taken the shoes, which had felt a bit like insult to injury.

Now, with the local fauna drawing close to his feet, it felt more like just plain injury.

As bad as the odds were, he was fervently hoping that he could make himself seem tougher than he was. Maybe having to work for its meal would scare it off? He grit his fangs and drew himself up in preparation to lash out as much as he could in retaliation for whatever damage the creature was about to inflict on him.

It trod directly over his feet and brushed its little head up against his legs, a low rumble beginning to emanate from it.

He stared blankly down at it.

“What?” he clicked quietly, and the creature chirped back at him, taking a tight turn to loop right back around and brush against him in the opposite direction. Still, not a hint of pain.

Did… Did it have contact poisons, maybe? There was a residue of shed fur building up on the ankles of his undersuit, but it seemed surprisingly harmless.

With another, louder rumble, the creature settled into a crouched position-- directly on top of his feet. Its eyes drifted slowly closed, the vibrations it was making rolling through him.

Oh, Seryl and all her stars. It was sleeping on him.

It seemed docile for now, but what would it do if he woke it? Even he threatened to bite people who interrupted his naps, and he wasn’t a tiny wild creature governed only by survival (no matter what Janus told people). His flimsy inner suit wouldn’t stop an Ampen’s claws, let alone Deathworlder teeth or claws.

The creature continued to be a warm purring weight on his feet.

He resigned himself to a very tense next few hours.

Patch, as he’d taken to mentally calling the creature, didn’t end up attacking him. When it woke, it stretched languidly, chirped up at him a few more times, and then departed shortly before the sunlight began to fade.

And then, the next morning, it returned. Despite Virgil’s many fears, it continued to show no interest in harming him. At some point in the day, he even accidentally fell asleep with it, and still, no surprise ambush.

Despite Patch’s yawns and rumbles and claw-flexing stretches that could all technically be threat displays, it seemed bizarrely… almost... fond of him.

There was the slightest hitch, on the second day, when he realized Patch could come in the other windows and approach from behind while he slept. Surprisingly enough, the thought of the creature sneaking up on him was less distressing than the idea of accidentally striking out at it while asleep.

The presence of a non-hostile creature keeping him company had been... surprisingly nice when he wasn’t busy freaking out about it.

Once he’d imagined that awful scenario, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility, and so he spent an inordinate amount of time using his aux limbs to fiddle with the sealing latch on his helmet until he could tug it free. The slick surface and broken glass of the visor meant that he fumbled it basically as soon as he got it off, letting it drop to the floor behind him, but the reserve power had already long died anyhow.

And then, when Patch returned a bit after the sun’s rising, they hissed viciously at him the moment he turned his head. They proceeded to refuse to come anywhere near him for a good long portion of the day, at first bristling and pacing back and forth, and then eyeing him oddly while pretending not to, and then finally approaching slowly-- in what Virgil struggled not to view as a predator’s stalk-- and deeming his feet a suitable resting perch once more.

He’d like to say he never had a friendship so exhausting, but his best friend was Janus, so this was basically different ditchport, same junkyard.

“You two’d probably get along,” he said to Patch after he’d been forgiven for the horrific crime of exposing his face. “How do you feel about schemes?”

Patch had imitated one of his double-click noises perfectly, which was somehow mostly-adorable instead of mostly-terrifying. He tried to make one of their little round chirp sounds and mangled it horribly, but thankfully the resulting look they gave him was more alarm than offense.

By the fourth day, he’d begun to keenly feel the effects of being completely without nutrients. It was really only thanks to his nature that he’d gotten this far. Chelcerae were sporadic eaters-- big meals sustained them over longer periods of time compared to other aliens. The downside of that, of course, meant that when his body finally realized that there was no food coming, the hunger pains were going to be all-consuming.

Working at Janus’s side, he’d gotten used to having food when he needed it, or even wanted it. It just figured that he was probably going to die the same way Janus had first found him: starving.

He fell into sleep more and more frequently. It passed the time, and being asleep made it much easier to ignore his impending doom.

Of course, if he’d been aware of the rude awakening he was in for, he wouldn’t have been so eager.

In fact, if he’d known what exactly was going to find him sleeping on that fourth day, he probably wouldn’t have dared to shut his eyes at all.

#sanders sides #ts virgil #alien au #you cant go back #ycgb #humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #my writing #writing #bthb #BTHB: Locked Up and Left Behind #cats #new alien au dropped

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ren-c-leyn · 3 years

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Ren, random question about your awesome art - how do you draw those digital drawings and what does the process of learning drawing entail? I have never learned or tried so it's a mystery and I'm quite amazed of what people can do with digital drawings these days. @writingonesdreams

Perfect timing with the question XD I just popped in while taking a break from Silver's intro art.

So, it's important to note that I started art back when I was a little kid, because a lot of my relatives were really into art too. I started out with horses, and kinda branched out from there. Then I quit for like a decade, forgot a large chunk of what child me scribbled her heart out learning, and have only just recently started back into it. All to say, I don't remember where I learned everything I learned and use in my art or how, but I distinctly remember the change from traditionally art (I mostly used charcoal and pencils before this) to digital art, because it was painful and hands became 900 times harder for me than they were before XD

My lovely writing partner is the one that encouraged me to give digital art a try, after I complained about my printer not scanning anything properly and wanting to do art for The Dragon's Crown, and my first piece was a guinea pig I doodled on paint. Not a good guinea pig, mind you. He looked more like an alien, so I painted him teal and gave him an antenna. I don't remember if we named him or not, but that was it. That mutant, alien guinea pig was the beginning of my digital art journey. It was absolutely not at all what I wanted, but it was fun and I don't think I'm going to forget it anytime soon.

On Soren's recommendation, I downloaded medibang paint, it's a free to use program with a decent selection of tools and settings. It also gets updates every so often, too. I'm still learning it myself, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.

How I go about my digital drawing is first try to settle on a pose that 1 fits the character and 2 is reasonably within my skill range. I will pick ones that feel a bit out of my depth just to push myself. Then, I start with the head before working my way down. What comes next depends on the pose. Sometimes it's easier to do the torso and hips. Sometimes you need to do the legs first. Sometimes it's the arms.

When the body outline is done, I make several new layers. I then do the facial lines on the next one up, the hair lines above that, and then move onto the clothing lines. I'll erase any lines that are now hidden, merge them into one layer, and then move onto a clipping layer, using a bright, annoying color that I know will not be used in the rest of the piece. My personal fav colors for this are neon green, burn your eyes out yellow, or neon pink. But, really, anything you can clearly see when it isn't fully covered will work. A clipping layer is like a sturdy fence. Colors cannot show up outside of a clipping layer no matter how badly you mess up, and it is glorious. I do have to go back and adjust the clipping layer from time to time, but it's a lot easier to do that than go back and adjust all of the other color layers 500 times while working on it XD

Then, I move onto flat colors. Just the base tone of every part. I keep these on separate layers to make coloring easier. Like if I have a cloak, it's easiest to go back of cloak layer, skintone layer over it, normal clothes layer, then belts and front of cloak layer. You do still have to watch the upper layers covering more of the lower layers than you want, but it's overall a lot easier than when I was putting it all on the same layer and having them blend together. From there, I move onto shading and highlighting. Both have their own layer, and I turn down the opacity to roughly 60% and make them overlays so they blend with the colors below them. Some people use the multiply layer setting instead. It didn't work for me, but there's lots of options you can play with depending on your style. I play with the colors until I'm happy with them and then it's ready to go.

As for how I learned, it's pretty much how I learned to write, really. I kept practicing and mimicking styles until I started to build my own. It was rough in the beginning, but I as started to figure out how to do the things I wanted, it started to get a bit easier. For every piece I post here on tumblr, there's several practice pieces that will never see the light of day. A lot of my practice art pieces are actually @sorenfarwalker's OCs that she was kind enough to let me play with for the sake of learning, since I rarely have a solid idea of what my characters look like and hers always have good references and fun personalities. It's been a big help having that pressure free environment to draw characters, and then I could give them to her for feedback.

There are things to help make it go smoother, though. There's many pose references, art tutorials, and the like you can find on the internet. Not all of them will work for you, I know I had a heck of a time trying to find a method that worked for drawing braids for me, but they'll at least give you an idea of where to start.

A few tricks that worked for me -

Visual references - It can be helpful to have a visual representation of what you're trying to do to look at. Like, if you're trying to draw a horse, looking at different photos or other drawings of horses will give you a good idea of what shape goes where and can help you troubleshoot if something doesn't look right in your lines, but you aren't sure what or where.

The 's' curve - This is a trick I learned back when I was working with traditional mediums that works well in visual art too. If you draw a sort of shallow s shape to represent your humanoid character's spine, it'll help a lot with torso and hip alignment, particularly if you're trying to draw them at an odd angle.

Coloring - Generally you don't want to shade with the same color you're working with. For example, reds pop more when you shade them with purple than if you shade them with a darker red. I shaded Kitan's blonde hair with a shade of lavender purple. Reuven's scale bracers were shaded with a dark purple and highlighted with bright oranges and pinks. It just gives the color a richer tone. There are exceptions, though. You're lighting may be an odd color, you may want a flatter color, sometimes shading with a different color changes the color too much. So, it's a general rule, but break it as you please.

Brush correction - A lot of art programs, including medibang, have a correction setting. This will help reduce wobbles in your lines, which is particularly helpful for me since I'm using a mouse. The trade off is, drawing lines goes slower since it's processing your lines, and sometimes you need to fight with it to get the wobbles you want, like the fur trim in Silver's cloak. So, find a setting of it that works for you. I run with correction 40, but do change it around depending on what I'm doing.

The sharp pen - I don't know if this tool is in every art program or if it has the same name in them all, but it is my most used tool, hands down. I use the sharp pen tool for a lot of my lines, and even some of my shading. It thins out and comes to a point at both ends of your line, which is particularly useful for things like the hair and the embroidered roses I did on Kitan's shirt.

Label your layers - You'll want to keep different parts of your art on different layers for your own sanity's sake, and when you do, label them. Name them. Name them all. You will not remember which one is which and it has caused me so much grief in the past XD

And I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them right off the top of my head.

So, yeah, that's it. There's my process. It may look different for you if you decide to give it a try, and that's normal. Every artist has their own way of doing things and their own style.

Thank you, as always, for dropping by with the ask. It was fun to kind of think back on my art journey and try to figure out how I got here. If you have more random questions, feel free to drop in anytime <3

#my art #art discussion

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damienthepious · 4 years

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hello loves. I knew this was going to be my last Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday offering until december, so I wanted to make sure it counted. My goals for this month? Finish that little one-two punch fic from earlier, publish a 100th fic, and...

well...

finish this. So. Here we go...

Scattered On My Shore (Chapter 19 - End)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [Ch 8] [Ch 9] [Ch 10] [Ch 11] [Ch 12] [Ch 13] [Ch 14] [Ch 15] [Ch 16] [Ch 17] [Ch 18] [ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla, Lord Arum & The Keep

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Pre-Relationship, (for the three of them. it’s established r/d), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, (this will also be), Enemies to Lovers, (for damien and arum eventually lol), Mutual Pining, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings

Fic Summary: Strange things wash up out of the lake near Rilla’s hut, on occasion. But this monster… this monster is certainly the strangest.

Chapter Summary: Stay 'till you can breathe like normal people do / I've got room in my house for you

Chapter Notes: End of the road, huh? Never dreamed this fic would get this long, never dreamed it would mean this much to me. This is the longest piece of fiction I've ever written, and the longest work I've ever completed by a country mile. Thank you for hanging in there with me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for every kudos and comment and bookmark. Thank you. Chapter summary from the song Midland, by The Mountain Goats. Have I ever shared my playlist for this fic? See the end of the chapter notes, I'll stick a link there.

The first night on the road home is probably the most difficult.

It's-

It's the first time that Rilla has gone to bed without Arum in literal shouting distance in… in months.

She doesn't say anything about it. She doesn't know what to say about it. Arum is safe, and she and Damien are going home, and they're going to see him again. They are. It's stupid to get all emotional about the fact that they- they're just going to need to deal with a little separation, for a few weeks or so.

Damien douses the fire as Rilla steels herself, flattening her face, arranging their bedroll. Damien comes to lay down beside her, and when he slips his arms around her, she tries to sigh, and- her breath catches.

Damien does not flinch. He presses his lips just above her brow, and she can feel the sympathetic tension in his arms as they settle in the bedroll, curling against each other, as close as they can manage despite the heat.

"I know," he whispers, and Rilla grits her teeth. "I know, my love. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she manages. "Nothing to be sorry about."

"Of course it will be a challenge, this journey," Damien murmurs into her hair. "Especially this night. He is still so close, speaking relatively. So close we can still see that subtle, mellow glow from his swamp on the horizon. So close, and yet… riding away from him aches in my heart like a betrayal. We must, of course. Our duties, our lives… and I miss the Citadel as well. Miss the safety and warmth of your hut, miss… ah," she feels his lip curl into a small smile against her temple. "Ah, but there is the other side of the dilemma, yes? It is so difficult to think of your home, now, without…"

Without Arum there, too.

Rilla sniffs lightly, readjusting her grip on Damien beneath the heavy cloth, and then she pokes him in the side, making him exhale a gust of laughter.

"Faster we fall asleep, faster we'll be on the road again," she mutters. "Faster we're home, faster we'll find out exactly what the hell that plant he gave us actually does."

"Ah- right. I suppose you're right, my love."

"Just-" she clocks her head off his cheek, pursing her lips when that makes him laugh again. "Shush. Sleep now, mope later."

He hums an agreement, soft and soothing, and settles beside her. "Goodnight, my flower. I love you."

Rilla manages the ghost of a smile, feeling one of Damien's hands gently caressing up and down her back. "I love you too. Now go to sleep already."

He nods, light laughter still on his lips, and then he kisses her cheek one more time before he closes his eyes, and Rilla sighs and closes her eyes as well.

She doesn't exactly take her own advice, though.

The discomfort, the worry, the knowledge that she can't just call out and make sure that Arum's still okay- her mind won't slow down enough for sleep to take her, not for what feels like a long time.

It's okay, though. It's okay.

Damien is here with her. His hand keeps up that steady rhythm, his palm soft as his fingers trace up and down her back, gentle as rain, and clearly he's not exactly drifting off either.

They don't say anything else. Rilla thinks they both know it won't do any good, won't make them feel any better. They don't speak, but they can still hold each other, silent and longing despite themselves, and eventually, eventually, they will sleep.

And tomorrow they'll be another step closer to home.

The temperature in the Keep is the same as it always has been, but Arum finds himself cold, more often than not. The remainder of his injuries itch . Amaryllis left him with a number of salves to apply, to reduce the scarring, to speed the already-sped healing process, but it is… strange, to apply it himself. It felt different, before, smoothed across the ragged scabs by her soft, attentive, confident fingers. His own scales are cool. His own fingers do not hold the same softness. It feels perfunctory, now. Awkward and stiff. And-

When she finished tending to him, rewrapping bandages or checking his temperature or applying salve, Amaryllis would always… touch him, then. A gentle tap, on his shoulder, on his elbow. A silent signal, accompanied with a smile, to let him know she was done, before she would stand straighter and turn to attend to other tasks.

Once, when he is done smoothing his fingers across his fading wounds, he reaches across his body and taps his own elbow, hesitant, and then he feels so utterly foolish, so strangely empty, that he-

He does nothing. He simply hurts, for a long moment, before he sighs and sets the salve aside.

The Keep tries, in its way, to soothe this pain as it is soothing his actual injuries, but it is… not precisely the same. He is grateful for the Keep's attempts at physicality, grateful for the touch of vines, grateful to sleep cocooned in soft, oversized petals, even if it makes him feel like a coddled hatchling again.

("You're healing," Amaryllis says, stern and gentle. "Being rough on yourself is only going to make it take even longer. Just- let me take care of you, you big stubborn idiot.")

He misses her. He misses them both. He knew he would, before they left, but-

He spent so, so long missing the Keep. He is quite tired of missing.

During the day, they ride.

They can travel much more quickly, without needing to worry over the wounds of an injured monster. It will make the return trip substantially faster, but-

Neither of them feel as if it is truly going faster.

It reminds Rilla of paradoxes. It reminds Damien of a chiasmus, the reversal with new perspectives. Neither of them discuss it, though they both urge the horse faster, both eye the horizon with skeptical intent, as if it is widening from them deliberately.

It is a relief, not to worry over Arum's safety while they ride, not to have to duck their heads and avoid the eyes of other travelers, not to need to lie. They don't need to slow down to check him over and make sure none of his injuries have started bleeding, they don't need to break from travel to find a safe place hidden far away from the road to rest in each night. It's another odd overlay- the hurt of leaving him behind shaded by the relief of knowing that he's safe, and home, and healing. Rilla can't stop herself from mentioning where she thinks he'll be in his recovery day by day, based on her estimates considering how the Keep seemed to be accelerating the healing process.

Last of the bandages off, today, I'd bet, she says, absent as they ride, her eyes distant, and Damien nudges the horse a little faster.

Replacement wrap for the crack in his horn, today, I think, she says, and Damien remembers the elegant curves that grace Arum's head, his throat aching.

He should be shifting to the next set of exercises for his wrist around now, she mumbles as they sit beside the fire. He'd better've remembered, she adds with a frown, and Damien pulls her even closer.

Rilla does not say that she misses him. Not in so many words. Damien follows her example, though he often finds himself glancing back the way they came, watching as the distance between the pair of them and Lord Arum grows, clutching his heart to stifle the bittersweet pang at his center.

In the small stolen bits of time when they are not riding, eating, or sleeping, Rilla likes to examine Arum's gift. She gently lifts the wrapped plant out from the saddlebag that has become its temporary home, settling it in her lap and squinting at it, observing the structure of the leaves, the colors, carefully easing her fingers into the dirt to determine the root structure.

She hasn't seen anything exactly like it before, she explains to Damien, and the intensity of her focus makes his heart thrum with fondness and familiarity. She narrows her eyes at the small stalk, the waxy purple and green leaves on the trio of branches at the top (Damien remembers Arum's glossy green scales, his violet eyes, and he aches again with longing), and she purses her lips. Native to the swamp, she decides. It must be. It doesn't… seem magical, so she isn't sure what Arum could have meant when he gave it to them, but- well, it's not like Rilla has any of her more delicate instruments here on the road with her. She can't exactly test it, or put some cells under a microscope. She just does her best to water it enough to keep the soil wrapped at its base at a consistent moisture level, and she turns it over in her mind while she's prevented by pesky lack of resources from turning it over in reality.

Neither of them mention their fondness for the plant, either. It reminds them both of Arum, of the Keep, of the swamp, and even while Rilla frowns at her lack of knowledge, that reminds her of Arum too. It makes her scowl, and smile, and she wishes he was here to smack him for leaving her with a mystery deliberately, the sly monster that he is. She wishes he was here for a number of other reasons, too, but that's beside the point.

Damien, for his part, cannot say if he has ever had so many new verses dancing in his head at once. The plant is such a beautiful little metonymy, such a hopeful tether, and though he cannot help but yearn, his yearning still feels safe, like a source.

The nights…

The nights remain difficult. The midpoint of their journey is especially so- as distant from Rilla's home as they are from Arum himself, the night particularly dark this deep in the wilderness, comforted by each others arms and little else besides.

They wake bleary, but relieved to have put another night behind them. The help each other to their feet, and they ride.

The representative is halfway between the border of the swamp and the Keep when Arum finally allows the denizens of his swamp to do as they wish, to descend upon this unfortunate creature and chase him back out the way he came.

Arum steps from the portal just at the edge of his territory, just as the faun stumbles the final few steps backwards over the loose remnants of the border wall Arum and the Keep have been slowly dismantling, and the monster falls halfway into mud with a yelp and his hooves in the air.

Arum lifts a hand, and his denizens abandon their pursuit, birds and amphibians and mammals retreating back into the swamp and returning to their lives, and Arum looks down at the creature. He folds his arms primly behind himself, glaring hard over his snout until the faun notices him in his scrabbling.

He yelps again, losing his grip on a vine beside him and planting his face in the mud, and Arum tilts his head.

"No, no," he says, his voice low and murmuring and magnanimous. "By all means, take your time."

The creature pants, staring up at him, and then he scrambles backwards and rolls up on his hooves, his frame hunched in obvious terror.

"… Well?" Arum drawls after the panting silence draws long. "I don't expect you would have come this far for nothing, hm?"

The faun blinks, blank, and then he shakes his head quickly and his furry fingers fumble at the satchel at his side. "I- yes I- I have been tasked to deliver a m-message and-"

Arum takes a step closer, and the creature's words fly from his tongue, the muscles in his legs bunching as if to bolt. "A message…" he repeats slowly. "How… interesting."

The faun opens his mouth again, trembling, but the words seem to catch in his mouth as Arum looms.

"You, little creature," Arum says, very slowly, "look as if you have seen a ghost. Why, may I ask, would that be the case?"

"I-" the monster bites his tongue, glances aside as if hoping for some sort of help, and then he looks to Arum again. "I was told- I was- you were supposed to be-"

"Dead?"

The faun flinches, and Arum does not let himself feel guilty, considering that this poor little fool is only adjacent to the situation. The point needs be made, and since Arum cannot safely make it to the Senate in person this will have to do. He does soften the glare in his eyes, though, coiling his tail as he waits for the creature to respond.

"I am- I am to seek the current ruler of- of-"

"I am Lord Arum, ruler of the Swamp of Titan's Blooms," Arum says, flat and mild. "Will that suffice for you, then?"

The faun stumbles back another step, his shoulders hitting a tree. "I-I-I represent the Senate a-and they have- have sent me to-"

"The last creature who spoke to me on behalf of your Senate tried to plant a blade in my spine." Arum tilts his head in the other direction, leaning down and close so he may hiss his next words eye-to-eye with this creature. "She missed. Do you believe that your aim will be more true?"

The faun swallows, visibly, his eyes wide and his hands trembling, though he seems too frightened, now, to try to move at all. "I… I am not- not an assassin, I am simply-"

"Delivering a message, as you said." Arum straightens, raising an eyebrow as he stares down his snout at the monster. "To the current ruler of the swamp." Arum grins, a conspicuous display of fangs. "I am he. What missive did the Senate intend for me, then?"

With shaking hands, the faun pulls a scroll from the satchel at his side, and holds it out.

Arum takes the parchment gently, though the faun still flinches, and he reads the letter with careful attention, his brows climbing. He snorts, eventually, folding the paper between his claws and giving the courier an amused sort of look. "The previous ruler of this swamp was killed in the effort to eradicate the human infection," he parrots with half a laugh, and then he shakes his head. "I suppose that is one way in which to spin the truth. Was killed. A delightfully overt lack of active perpetrator in that claim, hm?"

The faun opens his mouth as if to reply, but then he simply gives a sharp nod, fear still obvious in his stance, in his eye, and Arum sighs.

"Well. You may tell the Senate that if they wish to broker an alliance with the Lord of the Swamp, they may come to entreat him personally . As things stand, The Swamp of Titan's Blooms and its residents are no longer a part of the effort to eradicate humanity, nor do they acknowledge the leadership of the Senate. If the Senate wishes to plead its case they may do so here, where their deceit shall not find purchase. Otherwise," Arum growls low, "my lands may simply find other allies. We may still, regardless of whatever overtures the Senate decides to make."

"Y-you- you want me t-to- to tell them-" the faun's eyes widen to saucers, his heartbeat approaching hummingbird speeds, and Arum decides to take pity.

"Hm. Yes, well. I suppose that there is no reason to give them excuse to blame the messenger. Wait a moment, then. Keep, parchment and ink, if you would."

The Keep does as asked, and the faun's eyes flick to the vines that appear from apparent nowhere to hand him his tools. The monster's body is prey-still, leaving aside the trembling.

Arum writes out his letter rather quickly. He has been thinking this through for long enough that he does not need more than a single draft. He rolls the parchment and slides it back into the case he had pulled the Senate's own letter from, and then he holds it out.

"Perhaps," Arum says, his voice low, "you should endeavor to leave the room before they read that particular note, hm?"

After a long moment faun lifts his hands, nods, and gingerly tucks the letter back into his satchel.

Once he is safely back within his Keep, Arum laughs until tears prick at the corners of his eyes, laughs until his ribs hurt, and it doesn't even matter how the Senate responds. Arum cannot find the place within himself to care. He will find a way to survive, to thrive, regardless of whatever those miserable fools decide to do about him.

Arum laughs, the last lingering ghosts of his injuries twinging at him, and he feels foolish, and wild, and free.

The hut sits just as they left it.

The windows are dark, the herb garden has grown a little scruffy around the edges, the flowers across the trellises drift slightly in the wind, and Rilla squeezes her arms around Damien before she swings down from the saddle. She lifts Arum's plant from the saddlebag as Damien dismounts as well, and he gives her a soft, tired smile before he leads his horse off towards her tiny one-horse stable by the edge of the trees.

There's a small, childish, illogical part of Rilla that expects Arum to be there when she creaks open the door. It's stupid, obviously, which is why she doesn't let herself feel disappointed when she finds the hut exactly as empty as it should be. She sets the plant aside first, dumps the rest of her bags in a corner, and goes to light the hearth.

When Damien finishes settling his horse and comes inside with the rest of their bags, Rilla has nearly finished moving the pile of notes in the corner of the kitchen to a new spot on one of her bookshelves, and she grins a little manically at him as he sets his bags down.

"I think I've got a pot big enough to replant this thing. Help me bring it inside?"

He smiles, and they're both exhausted but this is too important to wait. For both of them.

She scoops up some turned earth from the garden to mix with the wrapped soil around the roots of Arum's plant (no more than half again, she remembers, and she's very very careful about that particular measurement), and she and Damien maneuver a large, oval shaped pot into the space Rilla has cleared, at the corner of her kitchen and out of sight of the windows.

It looks so strange and incongruous there, purple and green and wild, and the scent of fresh earth mingles with the reassuring scent of the flames in the hearth, another unfamiliar addition. Damien rests a hand on Rilla's arm, his other hand pressing over his heart, and when he sighs Rilla feels her heart stumble as well.

"Well," she says quietly. "He said it would bloom quickly, but obviously it's not going to bloom right now." She lifts a hand, gripping Damien's hand and squeezing. "C'mon. Not gonna waste time watching for the pot to boil. Let's unpack, and put something together for dinner, yeah?"

Damien squeezes her hand in return, gives the plant one last lingering look, and then turns away to help her put their home to rights again.

Arum feels the Keep buzz through with excitement, hears it pull the portal open at his back, and he barely manages to set his tools down rather than simply dropping them to clatter on his workbench before he spins to see-

"-miss him," Amaryllis says softly, and through the portal Arum sees her sat at their table in the warmth of the kitchen, sees Damien beside her, sees their foreheads ducked close together, Damien's arm wrapped around her shoulder, Amaryllis' hands cupping his face, their eyes gently closed. "Just- it's so quiet and-"

"I know," Damien says, and Arum's heart feels as if it fluoresces within his chest at the poet's voice, finally- finally. "I miss him as well. But- patience, love. Surely, surely we can be patient." Damien nudges their foreheads together, smiling wryly, and the arm around Amaryllis' shoulders tightens as the doctor sighs. "We will see him again. We will."

"Sooner than you think, perhaps," Arum manages, mildly smug that his voice only shakes a little, and the humans both gasp, whipping their faces towards him, all shock and wonder and- delight. His throat goes tight, then, but he still manages to speak. Barely. "Amaryllis," he murmurs, too much feeling in his voice. "Honeysuckle."

They spring to their feet, and Arum cannot help himself. He rushes forward as well.

They collide just in the threshold of the portal, Amaryllis' barreling into his chest and knocking the air from his lungs, Damien's arms flinging around him with a joyous laugh, and-

And perhaps it does not matter, that Arum feels tears at the corners of their eyes. Not if the humans' eyes are bright with tears as well.

"You," Amaryllis growls, her arms tight and fierce around him, and then she leans back enough to swipe a hand over her eyes and scowl before she starts poking at him. "Don't think you can waltz in all dramatic and get around me checking in on you- have you been applying-"

"Every single salve you left me with, like clockwork. Following the doctor's orders to the letter," Arum says, his voice an indulgent purr as Amaryllis' hands skate over his midsection, as she presses a palm over the scar on his back, examining him with critical, warm attention. He would attempt to hold up some degree of indignation about this, if he were not so undeniably, breathlessly happy to hear her complaints again at last. "As if I could possibly ignore you, as if I could not feel the threat of your ire from miles and miles distant-"

Damien breathes something like a sob, his forehead pressed to Arum's shoulder, and Arum make a small, sympathetic noise, curling two arms around him and holding him tighter.

"Oh, little songbird-"

"Missed- missed even your arguments, my lily, I-"

"I missed you as well," Arum admits in a hiss, nuzzling into Damien's hair. "Missed you both, so much more than I knew I could."

The Keep sings behind him, a melody of teasing exasperation and fondness and delight, and Amaryllis leans back to grin, lifting a hand to touch the curling vines of the portal.

"Keep," she says, and she sounds so equally fond that Arum cannot help the little stab of adoration. "So, has he been taking care of himself, then?"

The Keep warbles, affirming and warm, and Amaryllis turns her skeptical, playful gaze back towards Arum, her smile tilting in such a way that he thinks that perhaps she is content with his Keep's answer.

"So that's what the plant does, then? It lets you make a portal- nevermind the distance, weeks and weeks of travel away?"

"That is not it's function, precisely," Arum says. "It has no function, it is simply… a piece of life, from my swamp. If I merely wished to grant myself a doorway to you- the plant itself… it was not necessary. The soil would have sufficed, in truth, for a short time at least, but-"

"But?" Amaryllis asks, looking up at him with more joy on her face than Arum knows what to do with.

"But this seemed… better. More… decisive. A scattering of dirt may be swept aside. I care far more for the both of you than such a simple gesture. This-"

The plant in the wide oval pot by Amaryllis' fireplace is vibrant, glossy, a stab of floral familiarity, shocking and incongruous in this place that Arum grew to know so well.

"You shared your home with me," he says, slow and certain. "It seemed only fitting to give you a piece of mine." He inhales, and he smiles as he continues. "Its roots are taking hold here now, just as mine have, alongside your own."

Damien makes another choking noise, and then his arms tighten around Arum even further, and he presses his lips to Arum's neck. "Let us grow together," he breathes against Arum's scales in a shaking voice, and Arum knows that cadence in his voice, knows the ringing of a poem in Damien's voice. "Twined roots, fruits shared- bite by bite." Damien smiles, lifts his head, cups Arum's cheek in a hand as he continues, his voice so warm and musical that Arum can hardly focus on anything besides. "We tend to that which heals us," he murmurs, "each vine another trellis, braiding lines, lifting- towards the light-"

Arum is too stunned by the words, hit too closely by them, and Amaryllis recovers more quickly, reaching up to brush the tears away from Damien's cheeks, pressing a kiss there as if to replace them.

"I think that's my favorite of the new ones," she whispers. "Thank you."

"Honeysuckle," Arum manages, after another moment, and then he leans down to echo Amaryllis' kiss on the poet's other cheek. "How you craft such beauty… it is quite beyond me."

"With such inspiration before me," Damien says in a quavering voice, "the words practically weave themselves."

"Will that stay?" Amaryllis asks suddenly, gesturing towards the portal.

"I could dismiss it, summon it back when it is needed," he says.

"Cool," she says, and Arum barks a shocked laugh as she tugs at his hands, pulling himself and Damien back towards the table, maneuvering them to sit and folding herself against his side with a hand on his chest, her fingers tapping in a rhythm that it takes him a few moments to realize-

She's tapping along to the beat of his heart. Her fingers drum a little faster, after that.

Arum swallows roughly, and then he nudges the Keep with his mind, and as it closes the portal, leaving the little plant behind in the corner (she placed it precisely where he suggested- he will need to prod her later, discover where she fit that ream of notes and theories instead), Arum is grateful to still feel just the barest hint of the Keep's presence at the edges of his mind. The magic will settle here, yes, just as he did. If they want it to.

He exhales slowly, holding the both of them in silence for a long moment.

"I…" he murmurs eventually, uncertain. "I admit that I… worried, after you left, that perhaps this would be… a step too far. Too presumptuous, to grant myself a door directly into your home, but-"

"No-" Amaryllis shakes her head, lifting away enough to meet his eye. "Arum this is incredible- can you just summon a portal anywhere?"

"Not anywhere," he corrects, mild. "Only within the Swamp of Titan's Blooms. Which…"

Amaryllis looks to the plant, more vivid purple now than it was when he gave it to her.

"You… you literally gave us a piece of… you literally gave us a bloom from your swamp."

"Oh Arum," Damien keens, pressing another kiss to his throat. "Oh-"

"I… yes. It seemed the only thing to do," he says, ducking his head, flustered with his frill fluttering. "I… I knew…" he stops, furrows his brow, tries again. "The Keep is my home, my family. And I… I know, now, that I… I've grown to think of this place… I want this place to be my home as well. I want to be close by your sides. I want- you. I want to be a part of your lives."

"Good," Amaryllis says, but even in her nonchalance her voice is- trembling. Her hand presses hard over his heart, and the she presses her mouth to his in a lingering kiss. "Saints- Arum, we want you too."

"Want you always," Damien adds, tearful. "Oh, to be a home for you- to tend our garden together- oh Arum, oh lily we will hold you if you want us- we will keep you safe, warm-"

Damien interrupts himself, clearly shocking himself with a yawn, and Arum and Amaryllis both laugh at the look of mortification on his face.

"You are…" Arum presses his snout against Damien's temple when he can't find the words to voice what, precisely, Damien is. "Ridiculous," he settles on. "And clearly exhausted. The plant bloomed much more quickly than I was expecting, I think," he mutters, glaring in its direction without any heat. "I can still smell the road on the both of you. Have you gotten any rest whatsoever since you've been home?"

Amaryllis rolls her eyes while Damien purses his lips in obvious guilt, and Arum stifles another laugh.

"Well. It seems it is my turn to act responsibly for once. To bed with you. You certainly won't be rid of me so easily that you shall miss out on a single sleepless night of my presence. To bed," he repeats, "and I shall find mine as well."

Damien blinks, surprised again, and he and Amaryllis meet each other's eyes for a moment, something passing between them.

"What?" Arum grumbles. "What is it? I do not intend to let you wear yourselves out further for my sake. Certainly you would not allow the opposite, were the tables turned."

"You- you want to sleep in the exam room again?" Amaryllis asks, her tone careful, and Arum-

Arum did not realize that there was another option open to him. Would she like for him to- return to the Keep?

He presses his expression flat, unbothered, and then he says, "Where… else?"

Damien and Amaryllis lock eyes again, and this time he can read a note of fondness before Amaryllis turns her attention back to him.

"Well…" Amaryillis trails off. "If you want to sleep in there, you can. I haven't touched it since we got home, so it's still set up the same as when you left it, but-"

"But?"

Amaryllis ducks her head, then looks up at him through the fall of her hair, her smile soft and easy. "You… aren't my patient, Arum," she says, and he blinks. "Not anymore. If you want that to still be your bed here- I understand. You spent ages there, I get it if that's where you're comfortable. But… we love you. We love you, and there's room in our bed for you, too. If you want it."

"If…" Arum trails off, his mind still catching on the belated realization that he- he may exist here, uninjured. A guest, not a patient, as he once imagined. "You… want me to…"

"We love you, Arum," Damien repeats, his tone unspeakably tender. "We want you. Every inch, every moment we may share is a treasure, a gift."

"Did it bother you to have us share your bed?" Amaryllis asks, and Arum wrinkles his snout.

"Ridiculous-"

"Exactly. So…" she bites her lip, and then she leans up, and kisses Arum on the cheek, her lips soft and warm against his scales. "Come to bed with us?"

That feeling again, as if his heart is glowing and warm, as if the light should be pouring out in shafts between his ribs. He presses his mouth against her own, an invitation, a request, and when she hums another kiss against his scales the light within him pulses hot.

"Please," he whispers, and with these two creatures in his arms, with the Keep a gentle presence at the edge of his mind, Arum knows that this is where he belongs.

The monster is barely conscious before he starts trying to pull the both of them closer.

Rilla can hardly blame him. If she wasn't worried about waking him too early, she would have tugged him into her arms ages ago. He's too tired to do much more than give a mumbled breath, though, his greedy limbs stretching out to tug weakly at Rilla and Damien's sides. Damien hums himself awake at Arum's touch, and he smiles so, so wide before his eyes blink muzzily open, and then he looks down at the monster in his arms, and then up at Rilla with a watery smile. She grins right back, and then she obliges Arum's sleep-slack, greedy hands, and she folds herself against his chest, angling her chin up so she can press a kiss to his neck, and Damien embraces him from the other side, strong arms looped around Arum's chest, fingers tracing the ridges of his scales.

Arum murmurs something incomprehensible through his teeth, his eyelids fluttering, and as Rilla kisses him again he hisses a contented sigh, his violet eyes slitting open to meet her gaze in the gentle light of morning.

Rilla is so shockingly in love that her heartbeat stumbles, and Arum and Damien are safe within her arms.

(He’s so pleased, radiating such obvious contentment, and he is so entirely stunned to wake with them holding him. His cheek rests on her hand and he presses his face into it as he rouses, his scales already warm from their radiant heat and his breathing going sharper through his smile, and she feels a fierce sort of satisfaction at that, at the idea of soothing him awake like this again, and again, and again)

He growls lightly, nipping at her fingers and tugging the both of them closer against his chest, rumbling with a deep, inhuman purr.

She almost can't believe there was a time when she thought of him only as a monster.

In their arms, in their bed, in their home. He is their monster. Safe, and healed, and loved.

End notes: Thank you. I love you. Thank you. For further feelings, my playlist for this fic lives here.

also? this note has been sitting at the end of this document since it was only three lines of goofy plot ideas.

[……… profit????]

#hold breath hit post cry into your pillow day fam #elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #sir damien #amaryllis of exile #the keep #scattered on my shore #it's done. it's done.#it's 90k and it's DONE

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forgetmenotaftg · 5 years

Text

It Gets Better

Dan wasn’t one to scream. It took a lot to faze her, to surprise her.

Still, she felt that she wouldn’t be completely alone if she screamed at this.

This being a kid standing in her kitchen, wielding a kitchen knife.

“Who are you? Where am I?” The boy asked.

Dan shook her head, confused, but she caught on. She responded, “I’m Dan. We’re at Palmetto State University.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Liar.”

She shook her head, but the boy’s eyes only squinted further. When Dan looked closer, she could see a purple shadow on the kid’s cheekbone. She held up her hands like she was trying to calm a wild animal, which this kid might as well have been.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

The boy paused, took a long, drawn out breath, and spoke. “My name is Andreas.”

Dan was surprised for a moment. She hadn’t expected the kid to respond. Dan studied the boy while he gave her a scrutinizing look. He had blue eyes, light enough to be blue, but dark enough that it was hard to see in the dim lighting.

His hair was a dark brown, but what troubled Dan the most were the bruises all over the child in varying colors.

Violet, yellow, green, red, each mark was of a different spectrum.

Like a rainbow made of pain, Dan thought.

It was hard to see in the dim, but as Dan’s sight adjusted, she could see that the bruises were everywhere. Up the boy’s collar, his arms, his legs, his face, they were covered in sickening shades.

But what troubled Dan the most was his hands.

There were fresh, dark marks, and tiny slices overlaying them.

It looked painful. It must have stung to even make a grip, but the injured hands holding the knife didn’t waver from their target. She didn’t even know what sorts of marks decorated the boy under his clothes.

And that was when Dan spotted a stain on his pant leg. It looked red.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m fine,” He said.

It struck Dan then, how similar that sounded to Neil. The boy said in the same way as Neil did, too, when he first came to Palmetto.

The boy’s tone said, I’m used to this, and I need to be fine.

It was then that the boy collapsed onto the cheap plastic and wood floor, knife clattered to the side, mouth open in a silent gasp of pain.

His eyes shuttered once, twice before closing.

Oh no.

“What the hell are you talking about.”

“I don’t know! I just- there’s a kid in my dorm, he’s like twelve-ish, and his leg is stabbed. I do not know what to do. Just- just get here quick.”

The line clicked off.

Dan took a shaky breath, then clutched at her phone harder.

Down the hallway and through the first door on the left, lay a boy with bruises on every inch of skin, and a stab wound in his left leg.

On highway 62, Andrew Minyard was driving twenty miles over the speed limit to get to the Fox Tower.

In Fox Tower, Danielle Wilds was attempting to barricade the room where the boy lay with a dresser without making a sound.

In the first room in the left dwelled Nathaniel Wesninski. He was dreaming.

(It was a nightmare)

“You stupid child, I have explained this to you seven times.”

Mary brought the ruler down on Andreas’ hand. He didn’t wince, though. He just erased the incorrect word and scribbled down the correct letters. But still, his mother wasn’t pleased.

“How are you going to fit into the sixth grade when you cannot even spell? If you do not learn quickly, your father will come. You know what happens then.”

Andreas ducked his head down and nodded. His hands ached with every movement of the pen, but he ignored it and jotted more words and pronunciations.

Eventually, through enough swats and cuts, Andreas stopped seeing his hands as his.

Instead, he imagined that his hands were petals. Delicate, soft, but still unwilling to tear. Marks upon marks appeared, but still, Andreas saw lined blossoms instead of injured hands.

Andreas startled awake on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. He counted to ten in english, then in german in his head.

That was how long it took for Andreas to steady his breathing and compartmentalize his injuries.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room with Andreas, so he opened his eyes and sat up as quietly as he could.

His leg felt strange.

It seemed as though someone had bandaged it. Maybe his mother had done it. Probably not.

The wound wasn’t important enough to waste supplies on.

Andreas wasn’t important enough to waste supplies on.

The door was unlocked.

It was unlocked, but it wouldn’t open.

The door was unlocked, but Andreas couldn’t get out.

Trapped. That was what Andreas was.

He’d tried pushing the door open, but something blocked the entire doorway. Somebody had heard him, too. Softened footsteps had sounded right after the groan and creak of his attempts.

Eventually, he’d given up on escaping. There was a window, but it was too high up and steep to climb down from.

But through the glass pane, Andreas could see cherry blossoms whirling around in the wind.

Dan decided that the kid was Neil. It was too unlikely to be anyone else.

Neil had been in her dorm to avoid Andrew and Kevin’s argument, and Dan had gone out to buy some food. That was when she discovered the boy. He did look suspiciously like Neil, too.

But all of that reasoning didn’t explain why Neil was suddenly a child. There was no plausible reason for that, besides magic.

And magic didn’t exist, did it?

Andreas woke up to the door opening.

It was almost silent, but he’d learned to wake up at any sound while sleeping. At the doorway, a blond man stood. He didn’t look surprised that Andreas had woken up.

He watched the man carefully, when he spoke two words that froze

Andreas’s very blood.

“Nathaniel Wesninski.”

The man continued, unfazed by Andreas’s shock.

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” The man said.

Andreas let himself breathe shakily for a moment, then spoke in the calmest voice he could muster.

“That’s not my name, sir. I think you are confused.”

At that, the man seemed amused, as his brow twitched up and he looked disbelieving.

“Liar. You are Nathaniel Wesninski, and are pretending to be someone else.”

Andreas’s eyes darted back and forth, trying to find a way to escape this man, who clearly knew who he was.

He opened his mouth, and got ready to lie, lie, lie.

Dan almost screamed when Andrew walked out of the room with the kid in tow.

“Hello.”

The boy’s voice was surprisingly smooth. It was high, too, still containing just a little trace of childhood in it.

“H-hi!”

“You’re Dan, right?”

Dan eagerly nodded, and the kid’s mouth tightened at the sight.

“And you’re Andreas?” She asked.

He nodded.

“Do you want some lunch?”

Another nod. Fake brown eyes angled at the ground.

“Then let’s go eat.”

Andrew watched Neil- no, Andreas sit in the backseat of the maserati. Andreas didn’t sit like a normal twelve year old would. He didn’t swing his legs, or look out the window, or fidget.

He just stayed perfectly still. Like a statue. Andrew didn’t know why, but it bothered him. Maybe it was because the kid was what Neil had once been.

Andrew knew that at this point, Neil had already escaped Nathan with his mother. But there was still a minor stab wound in Andreas’s leg, and bruises all over. Andrew knew that Mary had been abusive to Neil, but he’d never pushed it, seeing as Neil still believed it was for the best.

Andrew had learned to accept that, but the new marks on Andreas’s hands and body brought up the old hatred he’d kept inside when Neil had first told him about Mary.

But Andreas wouldn’t want to hear about his dead mother, so Andrew ignored just how silent the boy was.

Andreas was picking at his fries at McDonalds, when he looked up with his fake brown eyes, and asked, “Is my mother dead?”

Next to Andreas, Dan sucked in a panicked breath, and Andrew watched the kid with a calculating gaze. A normal person would probably say something about she was somewhere else, but there was no reason to lie.

“Yes.” Andrew said.

Dan’s hissed “Andrew!” was lost in Andreas’s quiet voice.

“How’d she die? Did my father die before her, or after?” He asked.

Andrew answered both questions unflinchingly, while Dan looked more and more panicked, probably scared that Andreas would cry or run. He did neither of those things, but Andrew saw him clench his fists under the table, and his mouth tremble.

The kid was good at hiding things, Andrew could give him that. A sob story that the rest of the foxes would probably fuss over. He knew that they would find out eventually, so when Andreas said he was done with the Happy Meal, despite not having eaten a bite of his burger, Andrew sped to the Fox Tower with Dan watching nervously in the backseat.

The reactions of the Foxes was just what Andrew had expected. Nicky had been shocked at first, then started to coo over Andreas. Renee had watched from a distance, with Allison. Aaron hadn’t cared, and Kevin had almost immediately asked about the upcoming exy game, while Andreas looked extremely shocked at the sight of Kevin.

Matt had attempted to strike a conversation with Andreas, to no avail. And all throughout the whole ordeal, Andreas had looked very uncomfortable. When he’d requested to go the bathroom, he hadn’t come out, even after twenty minutes had passed.

Surprisingly, Renee was the one to knock on the door first. Her normally sweet voice was rougher, more real.

“Andreas? Are you still in there? It’s Renee. I know it’s a bit overwhelming, meeting us, but I promise, we won’t make you go out if you don’t want to,” she said. “I won’t lie. We all know what happened with your father, and I know it must be a shock, finding out that both your parents are dead in a day, but we all understand. The Foxes are a family of messed-up people, and you might find that some of us have more in common with you than you think.”

A moment passed, then Andrew could hear shuffling behind the locked door.

“I want to speak to Renee. Alone.” Andreas said, muffled.

Turning away, Andrew said, “Everybody get out.”

For once, the Foxes all listened, shuffling outside, undoubtedly to try to listen through the door.

At Renee’s meaningful glance, Andrew stepped outside as well.

Renee knocked again, and said softly, “Andreas? Everybody’s out. I swear.”

A pause, and then the door came open.

Andreas came out, and Renee’s heart broke at how his shoulders curved in, how his battered hands clenched as he walked over the threshold.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Renee asked.

She watched Andreas breathe for a minute, before he spoke.

“I don’t know what to think. I woke up in a stranger’s bed, and apparently, my mom is dead, my father’s dead, there a bunch of people who apparently know my whole life’s events, and the craziest thing is- I’m supposed to be twenty.”

Renee was silent.

“Can you tell me what happened to your hands?” she asked.

Andreas immediately looked suspicious, and put his hands behind his back.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Renee said.

And for a tense moment, he didn’t. Then Renee watched as he crumbled.

“I mess up sometimes. In German. Mom doesn’t like it when I do.”

Renee clenched her fists, but didn’t say anything, until Andreas looked up, and his scowl lessened.

“I’m glad he-I have all these friends. They seem okay. This life seems okay.” he murmured.

And Renee, dropping her nice-christian-girl face for a moment, answered back, “Trust me. It gets a lot better.”

Neil Josten woke up in the dorm room of the Fox Tower, surrounded by his friends, his family, the reason it got so much better, and took the day off to watch the cherry blossoms fall, while Andrew sat with him.

Written by @alvarez-sara and posted here with permission.

#writing #alvarez-sara #forgetmenotaftg #neil josten #dan wilds #andrew minyard #renee walker

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willofcausality-a · 4 years

Text

Reconnect

@mediioxumate sent: Trick or Treat! 🎃 :3

I told you I’d do it. Eventually. Let’s just pretend it’s still Halloween. Anyway this got way longer than I meant it to and I made myself sad with it, but I hope you like it!! And as always I hope I did your boy justice!!

Hajime only notices him at first because the hot pink of his hair is bright in the dimly lit, late night cafe. He only pays closer attention because of the bruises on his face. And he approaches because, finally, recognition strikes home.

‘Kazuichi?’

Kazuichi gives him only a cursory glance before returning to staring into the bottom of his cup. ‘I’m really not in the mood to be made fun of right now, so don’t even bother,’ he mumbles.

Kazuichi doesn’t recognise him. Hajime supposes this isn’t surprising. He’s changed a lot since they were children. So has Kazuichi, judging by the hair and coloured contacts. But, despite Hajime’s often hazy memory, he’s good with people. He often thinks it may be because of his bad memory, rather than in spite of it, so used to having to search through some kind of distortion to get to the real thing. And he can see it in Kazuichi. The way he worries at his lower lip with his teeth. The way one leg bounces anxiously. The way his eyes flit around the room and his shoulders hunch, anticipating some kind of threat.

Hajime sits down opposite him.

‘I said—’ Kazuichi begins, finally looking Hajime in the eye, and then he pauses.

Hajime can see Kazuichi’s mind working. It’s his eyes, he knows. Even if everything else about him is different, he still has very distinctive eyes, and they’re stirring something in Kazuichi’s memory even if he can’t quite place it.

‘It’s Hajime,’ Hajime says. ‘Hajime Hinata. We... We were friends when we were kids.’

‘Wait... Hajime?’ Kazuichi almost stammers in his disbelief as realisation finally dawns. His gaze sweeps over Hajime again, and Hajime fights the urge to wrap his arms around himself. To shield himself. Kazuichi is just in disbelief, trying to reconcile memories of his childhood friend with this stranger sitting opposite him.

Instead, Hajime flashes a small smile and gives a small wave. ‘Hello.’

‘Hey!’ All trace of anxiety or distress has temporarily left Kazuichi, and his face lights up in a smile. If Hajime had seen that smile before anything else, he would have recongised him instantly. ‘God, Hajime, you’re so—I can’t believe you—’

He doesn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, for which Hajime is grateful. Even if Kazuichi is reaching for a compliment, he knows it’s not something he’s going to be comfortable hearing. So he intervenes before Kazuichi can finally pull out a complete sentence.

‘I like your hair.’

Kazuichi’s hand goes to his hair, twisting a lock of it around his finger. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. It suits you.’

Kazuichi smiles for a moment, and then his expression drops again and he sighs. ‘My dad didn’t think so.’

Hajime hesitates, eyes lingering on the purple bruise ringing Kazuichi’s eye, on his swollen lip and the dried blood crusted in the corner of his mouth. He’d always feared Kazuichi’s father would go too far one day and lash out at his son with his fists instead of his words. It looks like that day finally came.

‘That’s... sorta why I’m here.’ Kazuichi looks down into his cup again. ‘Mom’s kickin’ him out finally and she said I should probably... y’know. Stay outta the way until he’s gone.’

Hajime wonders if the advice was to protect Kazuichi from getting hurt again, or to protect him from seeing her getting hurt.

Possibly both.

His heart breaks for both of them. Kazuichi’s mother was always good to him, better to him even than his own. He remembers wishing she was his real mother and then feeling an almost crippling guilt for daring to think something so ungrateful.

And Kazuichi... Well. He’s never had a friend like Kazuichi since they drifted apart after starting different highschools. Someone he could tell anything to. Someone who did not look at him like he was some delicate flower that had to be preserved under glass, or throw him leering, lecherous glances when he looked at him at all.

He thought about Kazuichi less as he grew up, his childhood friend slowly being buried along with everything else from those more innocent times, but it wouldn’t be true to say he forgot him altogether. He still thought about him fondly, almost wistfully, from time to time as was normal with distant friendships. Especially when he found himself in situations where he felt he had no one to turn to for help or comfort.

‘Are you planning on just staying here until it’s safe to go home?’ Hajime asks.

Kazuichi shrugs. ‘Guess so. Ain’t got anywhere else to go.’

‘Come home with me.’ Hajime makes the offer almost before he’s aware he’s going to, but he persists with it anyway. ‘You might as well wait somewhere more—somewhere warmer.’

He was about to say somewhere more comfortable, but his home is anything but comfortable. If Kazuichi remembers anything about him from their youth, he’d know that too.

After a moment, Kazuichi nods. ‘Yeah, okay. Thanks.’ He downs the rest of the contents of his cup and makes a face; it’s probably cold by now.

Hajime gets to his feet, automatically straightening out the creases in his skirt. He catches Kazuichi giving him an amused look, and blushes. He remembers all the fights he had with his parents as a child, insisting he was not going to wear a skirt or a dress, he was not. All the times he purposely put ladders in his tights to spite them, or played around in the mud in his best clothes with Kazuichi. And now here he is, clothes smart and immaculate, hair teased into loose, elegant curls and pulled into a neat ponytail.

He feels a sensation of doubling, like stepping outside of his body and looking back at himself. A wave of dizziness washes over him as his surroundings seem to blur, and he closes his eyes, holding onto the table to keep himself upright.

‘Hey, you okay, dude?’ Concern in Kazuichi’s voice.

Hajime takes a deep, slow breath, and opens his eyes again. There’s a distorted shimmer over everything, like heat, but the dizziness is gone.

He forces a smile. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Come on.’

He leaves the cafe without waiting for a response, and Kazuichi falls into step beside him. He tries to focus on the sound of Kazuichi’s boots as he walks, rather than the clicking of his own sensible low heels.

****

The house is dark and the driveway is empty, as Hajime knew it would be. His parents won’t be back for another few hours yet. He lets himself and Kazuichi into the large entryway, closing the door behind them with a dull thud. It’s a claustrophobic sound to Hajime.

‘Never thought I’d be here again,’ Kazuichi says. He looks uncomfortable as he glances around the room. He looks very out of place here, and Hajime envies him that. Kazuichi’s father may not have reacted well, but Kazuichi is still grasping at his own individuality, becoming the kind of person he wants everyone to see him as, while Hajime has just retreated further and further and into his parents’ ideal image of a daughter, sacrificing everything that makes him feel like him.

He leads Kazuichi through the house and to his room, feeling at least a small sliver of relief when he closes the door behind him. While he’ll never be completely comfortable anywhere inside his parents’ house, his bedroom is the closest he’ll get. It’s his sanctuary.

Kazuichi stares around, no doubt pulling up what he remembers of this room from childhood and overlaying it with what he’s seeing now. Hajime leaves him to it, kicking off his shoes and going into the en suite bathroom. He changes out of his stifling skirt and blouse and into a plain t-shirt three sizes too big and pyjama shorts. Pulls out the ponytail and reties his hair into a loose, messy bun. Scrubs the makeup off his face.

When he reemerges, Kazuichi has sat down on the edge of the bed, and he grins when he sees him. ‘Now you look a lot more like you.’

'Shut up,’ Hajime says, making a face. But Kazuichi’s words cause a spark of warmth inside him.

He sits on the bed beside Kazuichi. He brought a dish of warm water and a washcloth from the bathroom with him, and he hesitates for a moment before reaching out to gently touch Kazuichi’s cheek, tilting his head a little to get a better look at his injuries. Kazuichi does not meet his eye as he does it, choosing to look down and fidget instead.

Hajime soaks the washcloth in water and then gently dabs it over the corner of Kazuichi’s mouth, removing the blood. Kazuichi gives a small hiss of pain despite the lightness of Hajime’s touch, but allows Hajime to clean him up.

When he’s finished, Hajime returns to the en suite, dumps out the water, now tinged a faint pink with blood. He refills the dish with cold water and grabs a clean washcloth, bringing both back to Kazuichi to put over his bruised eye.

‘You can stay here tonight if you don’t wanna go home yet,’ Hajime says. ‘My parents won’t know you’re here, but you’ll have to go out the window in the morning.’

The matter of fact way he says this causes Kazuichi to quirk an eyebrow at him. ‘You sound like you’ve done this before.’

‘Yeah, I like to bring injured boys home with me and soothe them back to health,’ Hajime jokes, artfully dodging an actual answer.

‘Awww, and here I thought I was special.’

Hajime snorts. ‘You’re the only one who’s been here before, if that helps.’ The words stir up a memory in him, and he gets to his feet.

He stands before his dresser for a moment, before gripping one end of it and shoving. It scrapes across the polished wood floor, but doesn’t go far. He tries again, arms straining.

‘What are you doing?’ Kazuichi asks. He approaches nevertheless and Hajime moves aside as Kazuichi shoves the dresser aside with much less effort. Then he turns to Hajime, expression questioning, and Hajime simply smiles and inclines his head towards the now exposed wall.

It’s the same spotless shade of cream as the rest of the room, except for one small patch at the very bottom. This is a faded pink colour, old paint that was skirted around instead of being painted over in the intervening years of redecorating between then and now.

On this small patch of old paintwork is a clumsy drawing of a car, done in marker pen. Beside it are two stick figures. One with black hair, one with brown. One wears glasses, and one has two different coloured eyes. Neither of them are wearing a dress.

Kazuichi lets out a snort of surprised mirth. ‘I remember that! Man, you freaked out so much when you realised how pissed your mom was gonna be.’ He turns shining eyes on Hajime. ‘Why is it still here?’

Hajime shrugs. He doesn’t really know why he refused to paint over the childish drawings put there by himself and Kazuichi when they were no older than ten. His mother never saw it, because he made sure to always keep it covered. After a while, it sort of became his own little secret. Something that was all his and that she knew nothing about. He didn’t want her to take it away from him, to impose her will on this tiny section of wall the same way she did on every other aspect of his life.

This was his.

Kazuichi keeps looking at the drawing for a while, smiling. At last, he returns to sit on the bed, soaks the washcloth in the cold water and places it back over his eye.

Hajime sits beside him. His eyes are on the drawing, but his mind is in the past.

He would never say his childhood was happy, but it was certainly freer. Back when there were less expectations on him. When he was allowed to run around climb trees and play in garages and only received scoldings for causing a mess and not for being unladylike or causing embarrassment. Back when no one cared that the child of a wealthy and powerful family was best friends with the child of a simple mechanic with a habit of drinking too much and raising his voice.

The Hajime of his childhood was a much truer version of the Hajime that exists now, and he can trace all of his growing unhappiness right down to the moment his parents enrolled him in private school while Kazuichi went to a public school, and it was no longer viewed as acceptable for them to be friends.

‘I missed you,’ Hajime says at last.

‘Yeah.’ Kazuichi’s voice is almost a whisper, the sound of tears lurking beneath it. ‘I missed you too.’

Hajime turns to face him, concerned. There are tears swimming in Kazuichi’s eyes and he’s wringing the washcloth out in his lap, not seeming to care that drops of cold water are running down his arms and splattering onto his legs.

‘Kaz? What’s wrong?’

‘I have this—’ He stops. Swallows. Continues. ‘Had. I had this friend. In school. He was my best friend. Only he didn’t... He didn’t really care about me. He was just using me. He was the only real friend I had and he did that to me and now I’ve got no one.’

Fury rises up in Hajime’s chest. He’s had his fair share of mistreatment in school, but how anyone could take advantage of someone like Kazuichi, someone so kind and sweet, so willing to sacrifice anything for someone he cares about. He can’t understand it.

Hajime shakes his head. ‘That’s not true.’ He reaches between them to wipe tears from Kazuichi’s cheek with his thumb, and then pulls Kazuichi into a hug. He wraps his arms tight around him, feels the way Kazuichi’s chest hitches with his sobs, muffled now against Hajime’s shoulder.

Hajime rubs Kazuichi’s back. His eyes are on the drawing, one moment of friendship preserved in time, unable to let go of it. He’s not letting go of Kazuichi this time, no matter what. ‘ You’ve got me. You’ll always have me.’

#context for anyone who might be confused: Hajime is dfab and his parents Suck #{ ultimate hope 2.0 | ic }#{ ultimate mechanic }#{ modern AU | verse: Youtube AU }#Hajime and Kaz tbt #writing tag tba #mediioxumate #abuse tw #child abuse tw #gender dysphoria tw #mental illness tw

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i-guess-i-make-edits · 6 years

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A sprite editing tutorial? You bet!

Tumblr decided to update midway through this so I have to rewrite this all. Rip all my witty jokes.

Aaaaanyways! You guys want to learn how to make sprites...? You want to learn from someone who isn't even that good? Alright. This is gonna be LONG.

Step 1: So here's the most painfully obvious and easiest step, pick the sprite. (Well, it's the easiest, unless you're like me and spend a good 5 minutes picking the perfect sprite). Here, we're using Togs, for my Swordsman Togami edit!

And then, you lower the opacity. This is important, if you're doing any kind of edit that changes something in the appearence that isn't the color! It'll be so much easier to be able to work. I'd reccomend 50% at first, and lower it for later rennovations.

Step 2: Sketchy! Sketch sketch. This is where you spend forever finding out what you're gonna do to the sprite, and sketch it over the sprite. If you're changing the eyes, I'd reccomend sketching it too! Even if it's a small edit, like making the eyelashes longer. Also, don't worry too much about making it super clean! As long as you're able to line it cleanly later, make it as messy as you want!

Step 3: Linework! Aka, the most hellish part of this, in my own opinion! It's a pain in the ass to get the linework done, especially since danganronpa has a lot of folds in it's style, and folds. suck.

If you wanna try and do the sprite's body freehanded, without the original sprite underneath, I'd highly reccomend doing this vv

It makes it a lot easier to be able to sketch it freehand. Without it... you're essentially sketching without a sketch. Of course, it does require you to sketch what the body below the clothes would look. And of course, if you're keeping the sprite visible (still at lower opacity) underneath, than this is unecessary.

Step 4: begin coloring. This one is a sort of a relaxing point after the linework, and yet it's still painful. Colorpicking is probably the easiest way to get accurate colors for hair and skin, if you want that.

Once you complete coloring, I'd reccomend some overlays! It helps replicate the look of a sprite a little more, and it makes the sprite look a little more appealing (at least in my opinion). Plus, I usually use the eyes from the original sprite in the coloring. It's the only thing I keep from the original sprite anymore.

Step 5: this is where more suffering begins. But first, we do something extremely simple! Set your light source: though it is simple, it is important! It'll make shading way easier. Usually I'll draw a little sun, with the rays pointing in the direction of the source.

And then you shade! Sadly, I couldn't get any process pieces, but then again, it would clutter this up even more, and it's lont enough as is. Anyways! Basically, you just need to follow the lightsource. Remember that anything blocking the source will also make a shadow! Obvious art tips are obvious.

I'd also like to point out that normally, shading on the face is done with an airbrush-like tool, with the only parts that are done with a normal pen tool are with shadows created by a normal pen tool, as well as any other shading.

Step 6: Realize you forgot some details and cry! This is where you can add on any extra details you forgot (I had forgotten his sword when I first made the sprite).

You also add the texture! A good texture was made by @/photoshopronpa ! Make sure to play with overlays and possibly turn the saturation all the way down when you're adding the texture, to get it back to the original color of the sprite (since the texture will make it brighter and warmer in color).

This is where I ran out of room for images, buut! This is also the end of the tutorial! Once you add the texture, you're done, other than little bits of cleaning.

And don't feel bad if you don't think it turned out perfect on your first or second try! Remember that all editors started somewhere, and not everyone is extremely good on their first few tries!

Love y'all, mwah.

#sprite edit tutorial #danganronpa sprite edit #this took way too long to write #but i do hope you enjoy!#and i hope it helps!

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inktho · 6 years

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god i love your art! and you’re really livin the dream out here professionally drawing and selling merch of Your Boi! you are truly an Icon. Anyways, the question I had was: how do you usually blend colors or just color in general? I know you use Photoshop and not sai, like I do, but I’m still kinda lost on the whole coloring process. Also, do you usually clean up sketches or do you do lineart over your sketches?

Haha thank you! Um there are a few questions here so I’ll try to answer them in an order that makes sense.

my process for finished art usually goes like this: (SEE UNDER THE CUT)

1) sketch composition/pose, get the proportions out. it can be messy as long as you have the gesture down!

btw I like to have a gradient map layer for my lines, just bc the colors are nice

2) I lower the opacity of the rough sketch to about 10% and then I do a detailed sketch. These aren’t my final lines but they correct anatomy, refine the facial expression, clothing folds, etc. I try to include as many details as I need for my lineart, otherwise it’s not a very useful sketch.

3) Then I lower the opacity of THAT sketch and start the lineart. (For really complicated pieces I might even do a secondary rough-sketch). You want to keep the sketch layer on an opacity as low as possible or else you might rely too much on the sketch layer and things will look Funky when you turn it off. The brushes I use for lines vary but the Smoothing option in photoshop is a godsend!! Any type of stabilizer is great for long smooth lines.

4) I do the flats! for this part I just magic wand the white area, inverse and fill in the figure. (So you have to make sure the lineart doesn’t have holes. Unless you’re using clip, which has a smart-fill bucket but I dont use that LOL) Sometimes it’s a pain to close off every hole but it’s rly not that hard LOL. It’s a lot easier in the longrun, I believe.

Also note, since my lineart is under the gradient map, I actually put the flats on a multiply layer ABOVE them, otherwise they’ll be influenced by the gradient map.

And then all the colors are in a clipping layer to the main flat.

So it looks like this.

5) Simple multiply layer for basic shading. Usually I go ham with shading but FEH portraits tend to be less dramatically lit.

6) Overlay layer for some lights

7) extra multiply layer focusing on the face

8) ok now we go above all those clipping layers and make a new layer

AND JUST PAINT ALL OVER EVERYTHING. I’m using a roundbrush here, it’s really nothing special LOL, just refining all the established shadow/lights I have already.

Here’s the difference it makes. It’s more satisfying to turn it off and on in photoshop but i’m too lazy to make a gif out of it LOL

Just the difference of one layer!

9) and now some extra multiply / normal layers for some extra effects!

this one was p simple but I hope it helped!

Digital painting is really fun and easy once you learn how to control your brushes! Different settings will get you different outcomes so figure out which ones suit each step for you!

#LONG ASS POST #tips #asks

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tornhumanityarchive · 7 years

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Betrayed. That’s all she feels right now. And unbelievably livid.

She’s not sure what pissed her off the most, Wesker keeping both of them prisoners... or the fact her mother neglected to tell her about her involvement with Umbrella Corporation.

But the more she listened to her mother’s words, genuine words that she always felt she could trust -- the more it all made sense, in a morbid way. Wesker, and Dr. Marcus, all of them... they were keeping Alicia a prisoner. Her blood was a part of how the T-Virus was founded. Apparently, Alicia and her daughter’s blood were one of the major ingredients they needed. For humanity?

No. For power, and wealth. For their own sake.

She’s losing control slowly, but surely. The T-Virus within her DNA was taunting her incessantly, provoking her to end Wesker and Dr. Isaacs right then. But how? Without getting Alicia in danger? Or without getting herself in danger of mutating from within?

It’s already bad enough a part of her was wishing she didn’t have a heart right now, just to tear them a new one.

Everything else was being blurred out, by sound and sight. Her rage was honing her focus on the source of her agony. He angered her, but also terrified her at the same time. How could she not be terrified? He was literally her trigger.

Not that it could stop her at this point -- she saw her opportunity once Isaacs revealed the vial of the anti-virus, and when Claire finally emerged from the shadows by another entrance they failed to secure, gunning down the traitor who had delivered Alice. The Doc.

Wesker was gone in a flash, making his way to Claire. Obviously he had other intentions than killing her, and Claire knew. She risked her own life, to give Alice an opening and she wasn’t going to let it slip by. Otherwise, Claire would’ve fought for nothing, too.

It gave Alice a wide opening, but also for the T-Virus to kick in with her final decision. Her eyes appeared to become lighter, nearing an arctic shade and her jaw clenched, teeth grinding. The buzzing sound intensified, overlaying a second sound. One she despised. The heartbeats of a monster finally beginning to surface.

A destructive wave of psionic power was released, tearing across the floor and collided with Isaacs. The vial of the anti-virus went flying from his hand, and Alice suddenly was able to hone easily on her target. She moved in a speed that she had never experienced before, and it was a sign that she was in danger of entering the initial stage of mutation. Alice didn’t care about that anymore.

The vial was inches away from her fingers, but before she knew it -- Isaacs had regained composure, and within a blink of the eye, he was in front of her and his hand wrapped around her wrist. Her eyes widened in shock briefly, before anger etched itself across her features. She caught the vial either way, even with Isaac’s grip preventing her from moving away.

Her muscles burned, and stretched -- inflicting excruciating pain through-out her entire body and especially within her skull. But they were beginning to numb, due to the rage she had harbored for years. Her free hand darted to his throat, fingers immediately curling with the intention to tear his throat out. With the strength she had now, it was possible. Unfortunately, Isaacs was just as powerful and quick. His blood had chosen to bond with the T-Virus, too.

The Isaacs she dealt with in the Nevada base? Just a broken clone. A defective.

Her hand was torn away from his throat effortlessly, before his foot came in contact with her chest in a harsh kick. She never let go of the anti-virus, it was clutched tightly in her hand the whole way -- when she flew across the room and her skull rattled painfully upon crashing into the wall.

A low, menacing growl rumbled in Alice’s chest, and she tasted blood in her mouth. Bitten the inside of her cheek from the impact.

“SELF DESTRUCT WILL BEGIN IN TEN MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE THROUGH YOUR NEAREST EXIT.”

Alarms were going off, and the same droning voice they used for the warnings rang in her ears and all Alice could think of was her mother and Claire.

“Alice! He took her!” Claire had cried out, and her head turned, eyes frantically searching for her mother. Only to find an empty wheelchair, and Wesker was gone. Wesker had betrayed Isaacs and decided to take matters into his hand, just as Alice had predicated. Isaacs surely was a fool to trust him.

“Take this and go!!” Without waiting for another moment, she hurled the anti-virus vial towards Claire. The redhead caught the vial and turned on her heel, before running out. She knew there was no point in arguing with Alice to come with her, or to stay and help her. She had faith in Alice, always has.

Isaacs’s intention was clearly to go after the vial, but Alice stopped him by stepping in his way when he dashed -- and closed her fingers around his throat again. She could feel her own muscles rippling unnaturally, but that was the anger doing all the work. She finally had the perfect chance to release all of it, for a good reason. She picked him up by the throat and slammed him down on his back, before taking his kick to the abdomen in response -- stumbling back. It doesn’t take her long to regain control.

She had him cornered for the time being, he knew that now. He was genuinely shocked to see the change in her eyes, brighter. An arctic shade, something that had haunted Claire, evident by the fear she saw in the redhead’s eyes just moments ago. She was breathing heavily, and she was growling, lowly.

“You created a monster, thinking you would be safe behind it’s power.” A dark chuckle. “You should’ve made sure the host doesn’t have it’s own free will to begin with.”

Another psionic blast, without flinching this time -- it effectively threw Isaacs across the room to the opposite wall. Repaying the favor. The pain was beginning to lessen, and her hunger for more power was devouring her. She isn’t completely lost... just yet. There was a chance to keep fighting, even though it was looking pretty slim.

But god, it felt so good. She felt invincible.

Shutting her eyes, Alice drew in a deep breath and exhaled, raggedly. Enough of this fooling around, she needed to get her mother back. She slowly rolled her head from side to side, before she catches the sight of Isaacs charging in her direction. He dashed, yet she could see him as if he were running normally. Her senses were clearer, giving her the advantage to be quicker too.

So, this is how Wesker feels? No wonder he’s an asshole.

Fists clashed, and connected with one other’s weak spots. But neither could subdue. Alice’s strength matched Isaacs, and with the danger she was in -- it was gradually exceeding his. Her defenses were replaced with extreme aggression, pushing her past her limits --- recklessly pummeling at her arch-nemesis. It left her vulnerable in a way, and that was her mistake. It left an opening for him, and his counterattack effectively threw her through a wall made out of concrete. Pain washed over again, breaking through the numbness and reminded her of who she was for a moment.

Especially with what she saw in the next room she was thrown in.

James Shade -- and her team. They died here.

She was shaking -- from the combination of anger and grief upon the gruesome memory replaying like a broken record in her head.

“Ahhh...” Isaacs chuckled, dusting off his jacket once he’d stepped through the hole Alice made in the wall and stood over her, like she was some peasant. “What’s the matter? Having a stroll down memory lane? That’s a shame, I was hoping this fight would be worth it.”

Slowly, Alice’s head tilted, arctic eyes shining with a murderous glint turning attention on the pathetic monster. Does he really think he’s going to turn into God? Not on her fucking watch.

“You talk far too much, asshole.”

Letting her weight shift back down, prompting Alice to lay on her back again -- she then bent her legs and threw forth all of her strength at his chest, shoving him back into the intact section of the wall -- shattering the dirty and rusted mirrors from the force of his impact.

Alice moved forward to gain footing easily, moving in one fluid movement and her right hand was balled into a tight fist, and she propelled up with all of her strength -- effectively landing a staggering uppercut against his jaw. Enough to dislocate it.

He staggered back and then down to the floor, landing on his knees with a grunt. No doubt in so much pain right now, something he hasn’t felt in so long. Unfortunately, Alice knew it won’t take him long to heal and regenerate muscles. So she kept moving, again -- heading straight for the control panel of the hallway. This was her only opening, for now.

Isaacs eventually regained composure and chased after Alice, hands grabbing fistfuls of her shirt and pulled her back in the hallway, but when he pulled -- it was more like throwing her down the hall. Again. She landed ungracefully, but it didn’t seem to faze her one bit. She was back up in no time, and gave a crooked smile to the man -- satisfied with the hum of the machine coming to life in the hallway.

She had started it up before he could stop her.

And he forgot one thing. The lasers starts at where the control panel was, exactly where Isaacs had his back turned to. He was quick to move forward, moving ahead of the lasers. He fails to realize though, it was exactly what Alice’s expecting.

He thinks she would move out of the way and he’d follow, exactly what he read from her mind. But again, exactly what Alice is expecting. She put that in her head, just for him. Alice does move, through the hole in the wall from when he had thrown her in here -- but then she turns, and grips on the edge above the hole, easily pulling herself up. When he came in view, intending to escape through the hole, he was greeted by Alice’s boot-clad feet slamming into his face and effectively knocking him back inside, directly into the passing wall of lasers.

His face right then, it was the most glorious thing she’s seen for a long time. The look of disbelief, and horror -- along with pain. The putrid smell of his blood hit her nose, and her face creased into temporary disgust. Isaacs didn’t have anything else to say, thankfully. All he could do was drop down to his knees, before she heard the squelching sound of a body’s limbs coming off. When in reality, Isaacs was split in two.

Alice stood over his body, and gave a scoff, chest faintly rising and falling into quiet pants.

“Not so much of a ‘God’ now, are you?”

Without any remorse, she then turns and makes haste in the path Claire had taken off in. The redhead was most likely hunting Wesker down, and trying to get Alicia back, alive.

To be continued in part two...

#part one of a drabble #this is basically what I would think be a better alternate version of the FInal Chapter's ending.#because honestly. they insulted Wesker Claire and ALice so much. like what the fuck was that.#;drabbles

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doubledrivel-blog · 6 years

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07. NBA Opening Night - Cleveland Cavaliers vs Boston Celtics - Gordon Hayward’s Gruesome Ankle Injury

Greg: Hello and welcome to a special opening night episode of Double Drivel. We are normally a weekly podcast offering a fan's perspective on the news and issues surrounding the NBA, but tonight we are here for an opening night special. Thank you for joining us. My name is Greg and I am joined as always by my co-host JT. You can find us on Twitter @doubledrivelers or email us at [email protected]. JT

it is opening night. what is up my friend?

JT: I am so excited my friend. I cannot believe it is finally opening night and the big game has actually already finished. The Celtics verse the Cavs. I can't wait to talk about it with you.

Greg: Do you believe that they actually played basketball on a court today with people watching, teams, and a score? They played actual basketball! We're not talking about trades. We're not talking about beefs. We're not talking about all the trash that you can't stand. We have actual games to talk about. Well, game. The other one is in progress right now. They have that disgusting ring ceremony going on, but we'll get to that later.

JT: Boots on the ground Greg. It's over. The Cavs have defeated the Celtics by a score of 102 to 99. This game was chock full of hot action, and I would love to tell you about something that happened during this game. may I?

Greg: There was a ton of news, huge news, but please go on

JT: One player in particular had a performance that I don't think any owners prepared for tonight Greg. Do you know who I'm talking about?

Greg: Was it Jalen Brown?

JT: Pretty good. He looked pretty solid tonight, but no.

Greg: Was it Derrick Rose?

JT: Derrick Rose took the second most shots on the Cavs. Did you see that guy took 14 shots tonight? Who the hell is Derrick Rose to think he can take 14 shots? Derrick Rose showed up a little bit more than I think anyone was ready for tonight Gregg. Derrick Rose looked phenomenal. Did you see him? He did not show any signs of injury. He was shucking and jiving.

Greg: He looked pretty good, but every time he did leave the ground I was worried what would happen. It still worries me every time I see the guy play.

JT: You know the player I'm talking about Gregg, is LeBron James.

Greg: Whoa, LeBron James playing better than you expected?

JT: Better than I expected. in fact, he looked like Peake LeBron. Like play off LeBron. My man looks so good. Not missing the beat, looking strong, looking just incredible.

Greg: That's how he tends to look though. That's just his thing. That guy comes to play every single day. It's unbelievable, just amazing. LeBron James, definitely the big news story out of that Cavs Celtics game. There is really nothing else to talk about, nothing else major happened.

We're burying the lead here, let's get to the real action. It was pretty gruesome. I don't think there's a better word, you got a better word than gruesome?

JT: Gordon Hayward had one of the worst ankle injuries I've ever seen in real life. It's not in real life, but like on TV right in front of me. That's real life to me.

Greg: That counts. That is probably one of the most gruesome ankle injuries I've ever seen. It wasn't pointing in the correct direction. It didn't look like an ankle looks. There were so many things that were wrong. I'm not good at looking at injuries or anything. I can't stand it. It makes me sick to my stomach. I feel it on me. Whatever it is I feel it, and it makes me feel bad. What about you? I know he was on the Utah Jazz for a long time. I know there was some sour grapes with him leaving, but yeah nobody wishes for that to happen to anybody.

JT: Let it let it be known Greg, I hate this motherfucker. I hate Gordon Hayward. I hate how he chose to play his exit from Utah. It was not the way you want to do it, but not how you want to see anyone go down. This looks like a nasty injury. They're calling it a fracture, but if this is a fracture man, I don't know what a break is. This shit was bent so far backwards-

Greg: I thought a fracture was a break? What's a fracture? A contusion is a break a fracture?

JT: It is my understanding from what I've read on Twitter that a fracture-

Greg: Oh my god, Twitter! Holy shit, my Twitter medical degree tells me that he's got a break. Just cut it clean off and hope the next one that grows back is better.

JT: If you're a sports fan I think you want it to be a fracture more so than a break.

Greg: If you're a sports fan you don't want that happening to your guy. I don't think you'd give a shit what it is. My god it was disgusting. It was a botched alley-oop. It was just not good. You're going to Gordon

Hayward five minutes into the first the first game fucking. He does an alley-oop from like the three-point range, are you fucking kidding me? Did they do this in practice? Is that why? I just I don't understand why your high-flying Gordon Hayward into the fucking paint up against LeBron and Tristan Thompson are you fucking kidding me? I can't believe that happened, but that's the risk all along. You make these teams, you assemble all these people, and in a flash somebody's injured. They're gone, and then you don't have them all season. The best laid plans of mice and men and yada yada you know?

JT: We got some hot info off of the Google machine from our friend Mitch in the back. A fracture and a broken bone are the same thing Dr. Greg. That's one point for doctor .

Greg: What is a contusion? Can I connect to mitch again? Can I throw a contusion to Mitch?

JT: Mitch can you check out what the Google machine says about the contusion? What is contusion? Meanwhile Greg, not good for Boston and their high hopes of fucking run in the mill on the

east this season. This is your boy, you paid a 138 million dollars for this guy. That's a problem. When I looked at the roster tonight, and the people that were playing, those guys are playing hard. They like playing for that coach. This is not a shitty team. Do you think that they can get by without him?

Greg: They don’t know shit. They don't know exactly. They don't have anything. They're not used to having him so they can just go on without him. I don't think that he's that special of a player that they can't adapt or find somebody to fill his role. What does he do best? You watched him for how many years? What is his skill? What are they gonna miss the most with Gordon Hayward twisted up like a pretzel in the ankle?

JT: Nothing at the moment. In Utah the offense was built around him and that's not the case in Boston. They have Kyrie, who can create a double for himself at any point, and Hayward was like a best case

second option. Brilliant game plan by Brad Stevens, but I don't know at this point when you have this 35 million dollar-a-year players sitting on the bench with a broken ankle for god knows how long –

Greg: Oh my god I wish we could overlay a huge picture of that disgusting ankle any time we're talking about it. You got to be able to see it. It's just awful. None of them could look at it. The guys on the court, the guys off the court, they all walked immediately. They must have turned and looked real quick, because that shit wasn't pointing in the right direction. He's sitting there screaming in pain, and they look down for a second, saw that that's why, and they all walked away.

JT: Greg, Mitch says contusion is a bruise. That's when there is bleeding under the skin that may or may not be due to trauma. It's like a black and blue okay? That's what a contusion is. Way less severe than a

fracture or break. A fracture is a break and that's a problem.

Greg: You don't want that when you're playing basketball. You need nickels and neat knees and legs and fibbies and tibias and all that fun stuff. you don't want to break those.

JT: These guys are always thinking big picture, and you don't want to ruin your shit in the attempt to get back in the game sooner. You have more worth if you play longer.

Greg: Did you see that a Skip Bayless was a getting a little loud about all this? He was running his mouth. He had some comments that people are just not happy with. He took the opportunity as soon as the injury happened to jump on Twitter and talk about how this opened up a chance for LeBron to lose a sixth title much easier this time. Everybody always goes to their own selfish nature when things happen, but that just seemed dirty. It was minutes after the injury happened, and the only thing that he could think of was that this was gonna make it easier for LeBron to lose another championship.

JT: As the kids say, he is throwing a lot of shade. What's up with Skip? LeBron often takes the high road, and to take the opportunity for an injury? You can say a lot of things about these NBA players, but when someone gets injured you rarely if ever see anyone talking shit about someone who has had the ill fortune of taking a bad hit. Fuck you Skip Bayless, that's like the lowest hanging fruit. Kudos to LeBron for you taking a moment to embrace a word while he was down. He seemed to say a word or two to him give him a couple pats in the back. All these NBA players who have taken a moment to say something on Twitter take the high road. It's not even the high road, It's just the fucking road of being human. You all are just playing basketball. I hate the shit out of Gordon Hayward, but not in this aspect.

Greg: Paul George put out a message out on-

JT: If anybody knows how to go down with a horrific injury in your leg, it's Paul George.

Greg: He immediately put a message out on Twitter. Brian Winthorse said that LeBron went to the Cavs locker room where they had Gordon Hayward, He checked them out at halftime just to see how everything was. Classy guy. Plays basketball like a bastard. You could say a lot of stuff about LeBron, but you cannot tell me he's not a good guy.

JT: The average recovery time for that particular injury is six to eight weeks. That's about two months. We're in October now Greg. Hayward could be returning sometime in the new year.

Greg: The obvious question would be, is that six to eight weeks for a world-class athlete, or is that six to eight weeks for some guy that goes and sits at a desk all day and doesn't actually use his ankle?

JT: Greg unfortunately we didn't pay the retainer on our on our office position, so information is limited to whatever Mitch can get for us.

Greg: I understand.

JT: He's is not a Karl Malone type. Reckless abandonment, throw caution to the wind. What we remember of Gordon Hayward-

Greg: No, I can't imagine that being his MO. I'm always amazed how many players have gone through Utah I was saw the thing about Richard Jefferson the other day and I forgot that he was on Utah for a while.

JT: He's a Jazz man Greg. There's so many people who cycle through that team. It's actually incredible when you look back but people don't stay everybody cycles through. I think that's a problem.

Greg: We've gone off on a tangent here. Anything else you noticed in the game? I had one thing that made me laugh. At the end of the Celtics game Kyrie went to his spot behind the three-point line that he likes to go. The spot where he hit his famous shot over Steph Curry. He had LeBron guarding him and he took that shot. The shot was short. They lost immediately. He embraced LeBron, and LeBron embraced him, and then all the other Cavs lined up to do the same thing, but they all still had their custom handshakes that they did with him when he was there. It made me think of all the wasted custom handshakes they had. They all had these different elaborate things that they did with him, and now they won't do them anymore. It's amazing all the little things they have. They don't seem to harbor any ill will about him leaving. It kind of cuts down on the drama just a bit from the NBA

JT: The handshakes were looking pretty good to me. Are you are you saying they were all the same ones from last season?

Greg: I don't know if they're the same from last season. I don't know how often they change it. I know that the Kevin Love Kyrie Irving handshake is different than the Kevin Love LaVon shake.

JT: It was a fun game. The Hayward shit was weird as fuck. It started off with that, and then the the Cavs totally took over for two quarters. Celtics came back at halftime, and it was competitive for sure.

Greg: Brad Stevens is a good coach.

JT: They had some good still shots of him after the Heyward injury. He looked panicked. He looks scared.

Greg: He planned so much. All they ever say is he's like a lunatic with how much he plans. It's like sitting on a chair and somebody rips a leg off.

JT: Contingency plans are something I think a lot of people don't plan for. Especially with these young coaches, it's interesting to see how they respond when shit hits the fan. I wouldn't say he immediately responded, but these are some of the subplots that make the NBA the greatest fucking thing in the world.

Greg: They were playing hard. I didn't expect them to be playing right to the buzzer like that. That was a good game. They was some quality basketball. It's great to start off like that.

I'd like to talk about the ring ceremony. What's your feeling on the ring ceremonies? Do you think they should even have it?

JT: I feel like this is a loaded question Greg. You know how I'm gonna feel about this.

Greg: If the Jazz won, and the next season on the first game they had the ring ceremony, would you say to yourself this sucks, or would you be like yeah, this is so good?

JT: It never makes any sense to do any type of ceremony outside of two weeks of the event. For them to be attempting to do anything related to last season, that's too far. That's disconnected. No one gives a shit yeah.

Greg: I don't think looking backwards is good in this instance.

JT: No one knows what you're talking about. It's so dumb. They should do it two weeks after like they do an awards parade.

Greg: It's not even about the Rings, the people can’t see the rings. They're gonna do a big opening thing anyway for the team that won the championship. Having the actual physical ring ceremony is a bit unnecessary. You're right. That's a good point. You have an event within two weeks of something happening. After that you-

JT: Say it again, say it again.

Greg That you're right?

JT: Yeah

Greg: Yeah yeah, you never hear that....

JT: I'm watching the Hayward break. Oh my god Greg. Oh fuck me.

Greg: It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible.

JT: As the night goes on you get better and better clips. This one's pretty goddamn good.

Greg: There's one awful still where he's just laying there. He's looking down at his feet.

JT: Who tossed that pass? Let's see who tossed that pass.

Greg: That's what I'm saying. Look how far away it was. It was like from three-point range. What are you doing? It's Gordon fucking Hayward.

JT: Its Kyrie Greg:

Greg: Reckless motherfucker. Selfish, reckless motherfucker, that's what I call him. That flat earth bastard fucking throwing passes because he doesn’t understand gravity and the fucking rotation of the earth its gonna bring the ball down. He’s trying to get his man killed. Look who's defending. Is it Tristan Thompson and LeBron?

JT: This is a play the Jazz ran all last season. You know who would love this? You know who is running the point in lieu of Kyrie Irving?

Greg: George Hill?

JT: No, you’re fucking man Joe Ingles. If you google “Joe Ingles lob Gordon Hayward” you will see this play done at least six to ten times last season. Hayward starts a little further out during the Jazz plays. I think this is just a case of getting to know the spacing a little bit better and understanding how your new teammates respond to certain situations. The Jazz ran this play so many times last season, and Hayward finishes I'm gonna say 80 to 90% of the time. All of his big-time dunks that were highlighted, it's all an Ingles lob, just like this play.

Greg: Did he do it into LeBron and Tristan Thompson though? Was that a Joe Ingles lob? Was he trying to get Hayward killed?

JT: I don't think Ingles would lead him into these fucking killers like that, but I can't be sure. D

Greg: Does that paint look open to alley-oops? Is that a lob lane to you? What the hell is going on?

JT: This seems to me like something they talked about, and this is complete speculation, but they look at tape like “yo I hit this place so many times last season. Check the tapes. Look at it,” but in the times last season Hayward had a lot more open floor. This is way too crowded.

Greg: You're going into a couple pillars in there, and you ain't winning that battle, as we saw.

JT: So soon Greg. As basketball plays go that's fairly high risk. Why do that so soon the season?

Greg: Doesn't make any sense to me.

JT: The hot clips are coming. We have so much evidence to back this up.

Greg: He's just throwing the lob in there without any regard. He practiced against those guys. He knows LeBron and Tristan Thompson. If they're in the lane and some guys coming in for an alley-oop do you think they're letting that happen? Do you think that's the kind of thing even in practice they were letting happen? No. It’s just reckless.

He's looking for a clip. He's looking for that SportsCenter highlight. This is a bad play.

Greg: Do you have anything else you would like to go over in our special opening night edition?

JT: We'll see how the Warriors game plays out. If we need to we'll be here tomorrow night.

Greg: We certainly will. Great episode. We'll be back next week. In the mean time you can follow us on twitter @doubledrivelers or you can email us at [email protected]. Subscribe to the show on iTunes, podbean, or Google Play. Until next week see you on the Internet.

#opening night #gordan hayward #kyrie irving #ring ceremony #double drivel podcast #see you on the internet

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lifebooksloves · 7 years

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FIGHTING ATTRACTION by Sarah Castille

Life, Books, & Loves: FIGHTING ATTRACTION by Sarah Castille

FIGHTING ATTRACTION Coming April 4, 2017!

Five sexy MMA fighters who will fight hard to win their girl. Fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, Mine, and Worth the Fight will love this standalone addition to the Redemption series by New York Times Bestselling author, Sarah Castille.

Pre-order FIGHTING ATTRACTION and add it to your TBR pile on Goodreads! Then keep reading to get a sneak peek at FIGHTING ATTRACTION and to enter the giveaway for the first three books in the Redemption series!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

My sweet, sexy Penny has a dark side. Just like me. I will have her. And then I will lose her, and suffer a lifetime of regret.

Rampage. Everyone loves him. He is Redemption’s top heavyweight fighter and the biggest gossip in the gym. But he isn’t the teddy bear everyone thinks he is. He’s hiding a dark secret-and he hates himself for it.

Twice a week, Rampage transforms into Master Jack, a notorious dom only the most hard-core submissives will play with. How can he-a Southern gentleman, bred to respect and protect women-want to dominate them?

But Penny Worthington wants him. Beneath her pearls, kitten heels, and prim British exterior beats a tortured heart…Master Jack is the only one who can set her free.

PRE-ORDER LINKS:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2jvBTuD Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2kOcmOB  B&N: http://bit.ly/2j5qgYa iTunes: http://apple.co/2iKwXkv  Google Books: http://bit.ly/2jsS5NG  BAM: http://bit.ly/2j5oB4J

Redemption Series: Against the Ropes (On sale for $1.99!) In Your Corner Full Contact Fighting Attraction Strong Hold (Coming soon!)

Spread the news about FIGHTING ATTRACTION with a GIVEAWAY!

Grand Prize: One (1) lucky winner will receive paperback copies of the first three books in the Redemption series (AGAINST THE ROPES, IN YOUR CORNER, AND FULL CONTACT).

Enter at: http://ift.tt/2kVpu4t?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Exclusive sneak peek at FIGHTING ATTRACTION!

Jack “Rampage” Caldwell is the first MMA fighter I created for the Redemption series, and even when I first brought this Southern gentleman to life, I knew he had a secret. But Penny has a dark secret, too. After Jack discovers what she hides from the world, he makes her promise to come to him if she needs him. But trust doesn’t come easily for Penny. She breaks her promise, never expecting that Jack will find out. But, of course, he does…and crossing a sadist is never a good idea!

“I’ll call you back. Jack is here.”

Cora sucks in a sharp breath. “I’ll see you at class tonight. I can hardly wait to hear all about it.”

I end the call and swallow past the lump in my throat. It’s only been three days, and yet it feels like I haven’t seen Jack in forever. He’s wearing a white T-shirt that clings to his taut, muscle-ridged abdomen, and worn jeans that ride low on his narrow hips.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep my gaze above his belt.

He pins me with a direct stare, his eyes fierce and hard. I feel like he’s trying to see into my soul, but my heart is pounding so hard I’m not sure enough oxygen is getting to my brain to make any sense of what’s going on.

“Jack?”

His gaze rakes over my body, lingering on my thighs as if he can see beneath my skirt. He tenses, and his eyes narrow. If I didn’t know X-ray vision was impossible, I would swear he knows I broke my promise.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.” My pulse kicks up a notch. “Everyone’s out for the rest of the afternoon.”

He takes a step toward me, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

“Lock the door.”

A thrill of fear shoots through me, and sweat beads on my forehead. What if he knows? Or suspects? What will he do?

“Now.” His deep, commanding Dom voice ripples through me, fanning the flames of my desire. Do I trust Jack enough to lock myself in the office with him, especially when I know what is coming? Do I trust myself?

I brush past him and lock the front door.

“Your office,” he snaps after I return.

I jump at his sharp tone and scramble out of his way as he brushes past me and through my office door, a lithe and powerful animal herding its prey.

“What’s going on?”

“Stand in front of the desk.” He gestures to the big oak desk Amanda and I refinished when we first moved into the building.

Puzzled, I do as he asks, my breath catching in my throat when he closes and locks the door behind him.

“Jack?”

He gives me his back as he draws the curtains at the side of my office. “Don’t move.”

A sting of disappointment hits me in the chest. Has he come to reject me all over again? Does he want to make sure I understand there is nothing between us? It shouldn’t bother me because I got the message the other night. I’m nothing. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Not worth his time, especially since he’s on the cusp of fame. I’m just his pal. Plain old quirky Pen. But he doesn’t have to be so cold.

Worthless, no-good piece of shit.

No. No. No. My fingers tighten on the lip of the desk. I haven’t even started to heal from last night. I don’t need the past intruding on the present.

Jack leans against the door across from me, thick arms folded over his massive chest. “Lift your skirt.”

Shock steals my breath away, and all I can do is stare.

“What?”

“You heard me. Lift your skirt. Now.”

Bang. Bang. Bang. My heart thuds frantically against my ribs. Adrenaline pounds through my veins, and I feel a rush of heat between my legs. He knows. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice…

“Why?” I whisper, stalling. And why is this turning me on?

“You know why,” he snaps. “You didn’t keep your promise.”

I smooth my hands over my cream skirt, silky underneath with a cotton macramé overlay, pressing it tight against my thighs. “It doesn’t matter if I kept it or not. We’re not in the club. There’s nothing between us. You made that clear the other night.”

“I fucked up the other night.” He shifts his stance. “I’m not good for you, Pen. You need to be with someone normal. A nice guy who’s going to treat you right and doesn’t want to hurt you.”

My hand fists on my thigh. “I don’t like nice guys. They don’t understand me. They’re too gentle. My life is about pain. Emotional and physical pain. It’s what I know, what I understand, what I need.”

“So you hurt yourself?”

“I didn’t—”

He cuts me off with a scowl. “Don’t lie to me.” He pauses, and his voice takes on a deeper, cutting edge. “Show me.”

My mouth goes dry at his abrupt command, and I fiddle with the edge of my skirt, at once indignant that he would try to boss me around and aroused that he did.

“What if I did?” I say defiantly. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

His corded throat tightens when he swallows, and he fixes me with a level stare. “I’ll give you what you need.”

All the air leaves my lungs in a rush, and I feel a disconcerting wetness between my thighs. “You wouldn’t dare. I’m at work.”

“Try me.”

Electricity sparks in the air between us, and a curious mix of fear and arousal courses through my veins. Stiffening my spine, I curl my fingers under the edge of my skirt and draw it slowly, painfully slowly up my thighs. Jack stills. His eyes flick down and then back up again. He licks his lips, and his eyes darken.

I have awakened the beast.

PRAISE for Sarah Castille’s Redemption series:

“Powerful. Gritty. And sexy beyond belief. Sarah is a true master!”– Opal Carew, New York Times bestselling author of HIS TO CLAIM

“Hilarious, hot and occasionally heartbreaking. I loved it! “– Maryse’s Book Blog on AGAINST THE ROPES

“Castille’s follow-up to the excellent Against the Ropes doesn’t pull its punches.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review for IN YOUR CORNER

“Emotionally charged, amazingly sexy, and flat out fantastic.”– Fresh Fiction on FULL CONTACT

Other Books in the Redempton Series

AGAINST THE ROPES (Redemption #1)

Download the series starter for $1.99!

Order Paperback: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Books-A-Million | IndieBound | Indigo

IN YOUR CORNER (Redemption #2)

Order Paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Book Depository | Books-A-Million | IndieBound

FULL CONTACT (Redemption #3)

Order Paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Chapters Indigo | Book Depository | Books-A-Million | IndieBound

Order Ebook: Kindle | Nook | iTunes | Kobo | Google Play

ABOUT Sarah Castille:

Sarah Castille is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Redemption Series, Ruin & Revenge Series, Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club series, Legal Heat series and the Club Excelsior series. A recovering lawyer with a fondness for dirty-talking alpha males, she now is a full-time writer, who lives on Vancouver Island.

Sarah loves to connect with readers. Visit her website and sign up for her newsletter to hear about new releases: http://bit.ly/LgFZlb

Connect with her at: TWITTER: https://twitter.com/sarah_castille FACEBOOK: http://ift.tt/1OmaySi INSTAGRAM: http://ift.tt/2kkWeAV AMAZON AUTHOR:http://ift.tt/1mySsAh GOODREADS: http://ift.tt/1mySsA9 PINTEREST: http://ift.tt/1mLcNCp YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnP8FQqxprb7iggEDKfA1mw BOOKBUB: http://ift.tt/2kkZIDM

Disclosure: This information was provided by Barclay Promotions and Sarah Castille. This is NOT a compensated post.

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