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fearfully-fiction · 3 years

Text

St. Albans Pt.4- Dakota Laden x Reader

word count:3625

warnings: Fluff/comfort. PaRaNoRmAl aCtiViTy *insert spongebob meme*

Summary: Based on season 1 episode 4 of DF so all credit to the crew, the show, and the channel! Coming back together after separation reader and Dakota have a comforting conversation before deciding where to sleep alone.

part1! part2! part3!

(not my gif!)

The doors opened and you took a deep breath of fresh air. Dakota went to film with Alex and you went to talk to Tanner.

“Hey Tanner.” you greeted your friend. “Hey (y/n)? You ok?” he asked you. “Yeah, I’m ok. I just wanted to say sorry for overreacting earlier. It was really silly of me, and I hope you know I would never actually mean that.” You apologized. He looked down at you with a smile. “I know (y/n), it’s ok. I know you just want to protect him and I do too. C’mere.” He said and opened his arms to you. You wrapped your arms around him and held him tightly. “I want you safe too Tanner, I want all of you safe I hope you know that,” you said to your friend. “I know that, and I want you safe too we all do. We’ll keep each other safe.” he said and let go. You nodded your head in agreement. "Of course.”

Dakota walked over to you both and you could see his eyes looked a bit glassy. Your heart sunk he walked straight to you and wrapped his arms around you. Tanner walked away letting you both have a moment.

“What happened my love?” you asked softly as his head rested in the crook of your neck.

“I swear it doesn’t want us down there. I’m so nervous about this. I really don’t want anyone going back down there. I don’t want to go back down there.” he admitted to you.

You held him tighter and kissed his head. “I’m so sorry babe, I don’t want you down there either. I can’t stand the thought of you down there by yourself,” you said and he pulled away. You placed your hands on his cheeks. He looked at you with those beautiful eyes that you loved so much. You could see the fear glimmer in his eyes, and it caused a frown to form on your face.

“If you get the basement/bowling alley, I don’t want you to go alone. I’ll go with you ok,” you reassured him. “No, I don’t want to bend the rules because I’m scared. You’ll have your walkie close?” He asked you. “Of course I will, but are you sure you don’t want me with you?” you asked him just to make sure.

“I’m sure,” he answered you. You nodded and let your hands slip from his face and down to his shoulders. Rubbing his shoulders gently trying to calm him down a bit. He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours letting his hands grip your waist, your hands moved from his shoulders and to the back of his neck to play with his hair. He sighed into the kiss held you tighter. Your lips moved together slowly as if trying to memorize the feeling.

“Hey! If you guys would stop making out I’d like to get this night over with!” Alex called over to you. You broke away and took a breath before letting a smile fall on your lips and dropping your head onto his shoulder. He let out a chuckle, something you haven’t heard all night and it made your smile brighter. “I guess we should appease the crowd huh?” you asked with a raised brow.

“I think it would be best,” he said. You let go of him and were about to grab his hand and walk back to the group but he pulled you back to him and pressed one more short kiss on your lips just to annoy the group. You heard aggravate groaning and it made you giggle against his lips. You pulled away once more and dragged him toward your friends. “Alright, alright, we’re here. Sorry.” You jokingly apologized. Chelsea shook her head and bit back a smile.

“Alright. So, right now, we are going to sleep separately. This is gonna raise our fear levels, and hopefully, ramp up the activity in the sanatorium.” Your boyfriend informed the audience.

You rolled your eyes. “I totally hope that happens.” you retort sarcastically. “I know right.” Dakota shot back. You glared at him playfully.

“So, we should agree on the five scariest locations. We already kinda have,” he said and looked at you all. “Yeah. we know it is definitely the bowling alley.” Tanner said.

“Bowling alley for sure is the worst one,” Dakota said.

“The electroshock therapy room.” Chelsea put it out there as well.

“Absolutely the electroshock therapy room, so many people were tortured there,” you said.

“And then the suicide bathroom for sure.” Tanner threw that on the table as well.

“Suicide bathroom it’s on the third floor you’re so far away from everyone else. So yeah the three that we have are on this building.” Dakota said. “Someone should be in the east building in that creepy winding corridor.” Tanner also suggested. “Yeah, the basement.” you piped up.

“So, we did a walk-through of the east building earlier, and nothing happened, but when we were down in the basement that’s when it felt like we were not alone,” Dakota explained to everyone.

“We also have the boiler room, which really fucking creeped me out,” you said and a shiver ran up your spine at the thought of having to sleep alone down there.

“Right yeah,” Chelsea confirmed.

“So Tanner’s gonna now write these five locations out on paper and then we’re gonna draw out of a hat and decide where we sleep for the night.” Tanner placed all of the locations in the hat, and you clenched and unclenched your fists nervously.

“Okay, you got it?” Dakota asked him.

Tanner held out the hat toward Chelsea first and you could tell she was nervous.

She quickly grabbed one and showed the small crumpled ball of paper to the camera with a nervous smile.

“Alright Chelsea, where are you sleeping?” her brother asked her. She looked right at him.

“I don’t even want to tell you,” she said and you chuckled.

You looked at her paper over her shoulder and cringed.

“Ooh. Electroshock.” All of you cringed at the location. “That’s the second-worst one, you said.” She relays.

Dakota moved the camera forward to get a good look at her paper. “Chelsea got the electroshock therapy room. I think Alex should draw next.” He suggested with a grin.

“Alex.” he held the hat out for him, he reached his hand in and pulled out a paper to unravel his location.

“Suicide bathroom,” he said with disappointment dripping from his words as he showed the camera.

“Not to scare you anymore Alex but you are three whole floors above anyone else,” Dakota said, and you placed your hand on your best friend’s arm in a comforting manner. “You’ll be ok Al.” you smiled at him reassuringly.

“Ok babe, you’re up. It’s between the east basement, bowling alley, and the boiler room,” he said and gave you a grin.

“I better not get the boiler room or I’ll be pissed I swear.” you shook your head as you reached in to grab a paper. “Hey, at least you won’t be three floors away from anyone else,” Alex said. You gave him a sarcastic grin. “Yeah, that makes me feel great Al.” he chuckled at you.

“Alright, let’s see what you got,” Chelsea said while looking over your shoulder as you unraveled the paper.

The minute your eyes scanned the paper you immediately dropped your arms to your sides in exasperation. “No way. No way in hell!” you exclaimed.

“She got the boiler room,” Chelsea explained to everyone. “I got the damn boiler room.” you sighed before holding up the paper to the camera.

Alex threw an arm over your shoulder and pulled you into a side hug. You leaned into it and sighed.

You grabbed Dakota’s camera and began filming for him while he and Tanner chose.

“I hope it’s not the bowling alley because I feel like I’ve been picked on this whole night.” he ran his hands through his hair out of anxiety. “Ok, whatever. I’m just gonna do it. I’m just gonna do it” he tried to muster the courage and reached into the hat when Tanner did. When both of them had their paper.

“Open at the same time. Don’t look.” Alex said.

They both unraveled their paper at the same time. “Bowling alley.” your boyfriend read off and your stomach lurched. “No!” he exclaimed loudly while Tanner jumped in excitement and relief that he didn’t have to sleep down there. While you were happy for him you were extremely worried for your boyfriend seeing as he most definitely was being messed with down there. Dakota had a smile on his face but you knew just how scared he was of that place and it broke your heart.

“Dude, I got touched down there. A handprint showed up on my back,” he said. You looked away because tears were collecting in your eyes. “I’m scared for all three of us,” Chelsea said and looked at her brother.

“Honestly, the bowling…” he cut himself off. “Can we redraw?” he asked.

You sighed and turned away from everyone else preparing to go get your things for the sleeping arrangements. Your boyfriend noticed that you had gone completely silent and looked over at you. Your back was turned to him, and he could practically see you trying to not breathe too hard.

He could tell that you were about to cry and made his way over to you.

The others were already grabbing their things.

“Hey,” he said trying to get your attention. You didn’t turn around and so he tried again this time walking around to face you. “Hey, babe look at me,” he said and you released a shaky breath before looking up at him. He could see the shine in your eyes from unshed tears and sighed.

He pulled you into a hug and you held him tightly.

“We can trade places. I know the boiler room still sucks and it’s super close, but it would be better than the bowling alley,” you suggested though it was a bit muffled by his chest seeing as you buried your head there.

Though your voice was muffled he heard you and pulled away from you. “There is no way, I would ever let you sleep in that bowling alley. Not after what happened tonight and to Chelsea last time. I’ll be ok, we’re close together ok. If you scream for me I’ll be right there, and I know you’d do the same for me. We’ll be ok babe, I promise you.” he said and kissed away the tears that fell down your cheeks. He nudged your nose with his gently and placed a kiss on it. It brought a small smile to your lips, and he smiled as well. “We’ll be ok,” he reassured you both one more time before grabbing your hand so you could both gather your things and head to your locations.

You all walked Alex up to the third floor and helped him set up. You made sure to give him a big supportive hug before leaving. “Love you Al!” you called while walking away. “Love you (y/n)!” he called back.

You made your way down to electroshock to drop off Chels and help her set up before giving her a hug as well. All of you said your I love you’s, getting the same response back. The next stop was Dakota, you and Tanner help him set up and Tanner wished him luck. You walked over and kissed him. “I love you, Kota. Just walkie me ok, or scream whatever you think will work better.” you joked a bit. He gave you a soft chuckle before kissing your cheek. You began to walk away with Tanner and sighed when you reached the boiler room.

You set your stuff down and Tanner helped you set the camera up before giving you a hug and wishing you luck. “Hey, wait,” you called after him. He turned back around with his flashlight in hand. “You ok?” he asked. “Yeah, I just wanted to know if you wanted me to walk with you so you aren’t alone,” you said to him. He gave you a warm smile and shook his head. “No, no I’ll be ok. Plus if I ever said yes to that here I’m pretty sure Dakota would kick my ass.” he joked which made you laugh. “I guess you’re not wrong. Well if you need anything just walkie me alright,” you said and he nodded. “Night, Tanner, love you!” you called and he responded the same.

You sat yourself on the ground and sighed heavily knowing you were not even going to be able to shut your eyes that night. “This is gonna be a night from hell…” you spoke to yourself.

“So, I am in the boiler room which is right next to the bowling alley actually so me and Dakota are very close to each other. Which is really strange because none of us have been this close in a location before but hey, I am not complaining about it,” you spoke to the camera. “At least I’ll be close to my boyfriend if I die here,” you said with a sigh.

As soon as the words left your mouth you hear what sounded like faint laughter. Your heart dropped as you shone your flashlight throughout the room. “That was a laugh, I just heard a laugh.” you began to panic. “Shit, I hope the camera caught that,” you mumbled to yourself.

The night had just started and you already felt more unsafe than before.

You picked up your walkie to get a hold of Dakota to ask if he had heard it too. Seeing as you were practically right next to him he had to have heard it.

“Kota,” you called.

“(y/n), what’s up?” he asked with a concerned tone.

“Did you just hear laughter? Or did you maybe laugh at all?” you asked him anxiously.

“What? No, I didn’t laugh. You heard laughter?” he asked in a panic.

At that moment you could just tell you were screwed.

“Yeah, it was very faint but I heard it. I’m not sure where it came from but I swear on my life I heard it,” you explain to him. “We’re not even 20 minutes in, and this is already frickin sick,” you said in a frustrated huff.

“We’ve got this, only a few hours left ok.” his voice crackled through the walkie.

“Alright Kota, you know what to do if you need me,” you told him.

“Got it see you soon.” he ended.

You went back to just sitting in the dark just waiting for something to come out at you. You knew for a fact that you were not alone in the room. It made your skin crawl at the feeling of someone or something watching you.

You sat there in the dark making sure to listen for Dakota if he yelled for you or if something happened. As you sat there you still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Seeing as you were so focused on listening you suddenly heard something go by you. It wasn’t like walking more like the sound of shuffling as if someone were to crawl across the floor. It made you freeze in your place your breath got caught in your throat and you felt completely helpless. You wanted to walkie your boyfriend or even just yell for him because you were so scared but you didn’t want him to worry more than he already was. You knew that something wasn’t willing to let up and it scared you more than you had been at any other location.

You finally let out a shaky breath, “I just heard something literally crawl past me I swear on my life. I know I’ve been like a baby this entire night but damn…” your voice broke. You hated feeling weak but tonight you just couldn’t help it. You were extremely emotional and it most definitely wasn’t helping your situation. You needed to pull yourself together for your sake and everyone else’s. “Ok, I’m pulling myself together. I’m gonna be ok, Dakota is gonna be ok, we’re all gonna be ok. We’re stronger than this thing.” you spoke to yourself as calmly and confidently as you could. After saying this you once again heard faint laughter and it made you jump and turn your flashlight on to scan around the room. Still, you saw nothing but knew you would always feel something watching you. You took a breath and kept the light on for a few more seconds before turning it off and trying to push the events to the side. You just tried to focus on everyone else and it seemed to help slightly so that’s what you kept in your mind.

It was about an hour later when you began hearing noises again. You heard what sounded like tapping, “what the hell?” you whispered.

Then you heard your boyfriend from the other room.

“What the fuck? Ok. No. No.” your head snapped in his direction.

“Dakota! Hey, are you ok?!” you yelled. You heard him gasp. “Shit” he mumbled.

“Did you not hear that?!” he called to you. “The tapping?!” you asked. “No, the loud scratching noise!” he shot back. Your eyes widened, and all of a sudden things felt really heavy.

“No, I didn’t! Are you ok?!” you yelled hoping to get a good answer back.

“Fuck that was loud.” you heard him say. “Red if you’re down here, please leave me alone.” he pleaded. Your heart wrenched at the tone of his voice.

You got up from your spot as quickly as you could and grabbed your camera and flashlight. You made your way out of the room and into the bowling alley where your boyfriend sat with his head in his hands.

“Kota, hey. I’m here are you ok?” you asked softly trying not to startle him. He looked up at you and his eyes flooded with relief.

“(y/n), crap you should’ve heard it. It was frickin terrifying, and it was so loud,” he said as you sat down next to him letting one hand rest on his back while you set the light on the floor next to you.

His tense muscles relaxed at your touch and he sighed.

“I’m so sorry. Is there any way that Chelsea may have made the noise? I know she’s above us but maybe she did it.” you suggested. “I’ll check right now,” he said and picked up his walkie.

“Hey, Chelsea,” he said into the walkie.

“What?” she asked sounding exhausted.

“You’re not moving at all upstairs?” he questioned his big sister.

“Not moving at all,” she answered. You could tell that she was ready to be done with this place just as much as you were.

“You have to hear this. What I just heard.” Dakota said to her.

“Thanks for sharing your fear. Now I’m fricking wide awake,” she responds.

He sighs heavily. “Fuck.” you said in exhaustion.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I believe you. We know you’re down here.” he talked.

“I’ve heard you. You’ve talked to me, she heard you laughing earlier. I get it. We get it. Please leave us alone.” Dakota spoke into the dark. You both knew he was there, and it was even scarier that he didn’t respond, and knowing the things that had happened earlier in the night to you. You decided not to mention it in fear of making his fear worsen and his panic rise even more.

You turned to face him. “Do you need me to stay with you Dakota?” you asked him with sincerity floating around your words, quietly hoping he would ask you to stay, as you didn’t think you could handle that room alone.

He let out a heavy sigh before looking at you with disappointed and fear-filled eyes.

“Honestly, please. I really don’t want to be, I can’t be here alone anymore,” he responded and you set down your camera to wrap your arm around him and sit close to his side. “Then, I’ll stay. Just like I said. I’ll stay.” you told him and rested your head on his shoulder. Letting out an internal sigh of relief. He placed his head atop yours and let your presence be a grounding force for him.

“I’m sorry I made us do this.” you heard his voice, it was small and sounded so apologetic.

“Hey, it’s ok. Look at us, hell yeah we’re scared, and rightfully so but we’re together and we’re close to the finish line and then we can leave and never have to come back.” you tried to relieve his fears.

“I never should have brought us back here,” he said and put his head in his hands once again. You switched your positions so you were sitting in front of him. You took his wrists in your smaller hands and pulled his hands away so you could properly look at him. You could see guilt forming in him and you understood why, but you also understood why he had done it. He wanted to conquer this building because they didn’t before.

“Listen to me, Dakota. You came back here, to conquer the challenge that you quit last time. Now here you are hours and hours in. You’re here, we are all here and we won’t let it win. We can beat this. So let’s do it together huh.” you said and tried to smile though it was barely visible in the darkness.

“Together,” he said. “Together,” you reaffirmed.

Taglist: @jaziona92

@beautybyfire

@thefandomthings

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purity-town · 3 years

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Little late getting to these -- that's fully the fault of a class project I spent all of Monday/Tuesday and most of Wednesday working on -- but I finished my project and wrote up some long replies to these!

(Apologies for any funny formatting -- I'm trying out the beta for the new post editor!)

Absolutely not.

Nope! There are a few people who do know (other guides Andrew's met before, the Dryad, and I'd imagine the Witch Doctor knows something's up even if he doesn't know why), but none of them live in Purity Town proper, and the Dryad and Witch Doctor aren't the kind to participate in rumors or spread what isn't theirs to share. The old man is also aware just because he and Andrew have talked about their curses, but he's 1) not currently in town and 2) not going to share even if he were.

Most folks don't know much about Andrew in general; Becca probably knows the most out of the townsfolk, knowing a little bit about his family and where he's from (he has some pretty specific skills as a hunter that betray this, but he doesn't talk about his exact town of birth), but no specifics and certainly not time periods.

Andrew is good at keeping things quiet; he has to be.

I would actually appreciate if you didn't post to Pinterest -- usually I'm fine with people reposting with credit (several of the things I've posted to my DeviantArt have found their way to Instagram, for example) but Pinterest has something of a reputation for stolen art (things being reposted from another Pinterest post without credit this time, or credit being hard to view for users not logged in or just viewing through Google). So reposting elsewhere is fine (though if you repost to Reddit or Instagram, tag me at u/Ariibees or @Ariibees)! I'd just prefer my works stay off of Pinterest.

The terminology related to The Guide/Andrew/The Guardian/The World’s Core/The WoF is all confusing because on some level, they’re all the same being. Kind of like trying to talk about Jekyll and Hyde -- same guy, different looks/actions, haha.

For all intents and purposes, references to the WoF being the barrier/core/whatever behind or within which the spirits of light and dark are contained is equivalent to saying “these spirits are held trapped by the magic of the Guardian, who when summoned appears as the WoF.” I do break slightly from the official lore in how the WoF/Guardian/thing holding back these spirits works (mostly because I don’t really like the idea that the Hallow is a “temporary guardian” or whatever), but the basic concept of “these are trapped by [thing that makes up the WoF]” remains unchanged.

If “loony cultist” is a reference to something, I’m so sorry, but I’m lost on it. If you’re just talking about the lunatic cultist in a funny way, then yes, they’re in here as a very plot-significant character!

I had to google what meme you were talking about, but it did make me laugh.

Andrew’s most annoyed by the nickname because people do like to call him Guide, and for someone who’s dedicated his whole life to his role, it can get tiring. He doesn’t really *mind* being called Guide -- it’s fine, that’s what he is and as long as people are respectful of his job he’ll take what he can get -- but at the same time, he’d like for people to stop thinking “Aah! Monster!” or “Weird academic know-it-all” and just...treat him like a normal person sometimes. So he fights to be called Andrew. And...Malik comes along and gives him a nickname that he doesn’t like and doesn’t allow others to use, save for maybe a small group of people of which Malik is not a part. So, not cool, man!

People love to overcomplicate explaining shading/lighting, and if you wanted to you could certainly go on and on about reflections of light off the ground and shading colors and all sorts of things, but as I’m writing this at 1 AM I don’t really care to.

If you really want to get into shading, I see nice ones on DeviantArt or Tumblr from time to time, or you can always watch a YouTube video on it. Really, though, just keep at it, think about how the shadows should look and work, and you'll get better at it eventually and pick up new ideas on how it all works. (And this is coming from someone who is new to making comics and actually started as a painter.)

Purity Town’s shading comes down to this: simplicity. As much as I’d love to spend hours and hours redrawing the panels I don’t like and carefully shading every fold of fabric and painting detailed backgrounds, I’m a full-time college student and will be working full-time over the summer -- I don’t have the time. So, I cut corners: I reuse backgrounds or use brushes (see: bricks, trees, clouds) that make certain details easier, and I try not to obsess too much over panels I’m not fully happy with. Shadows go where they feel right, and light on the opposite side.

For shading, this comes down to making things quick and easy. For these last few pages, character shading/lighting has only been five layers. One hard light layer for the bluer soft shadows, one overlay layer for darker soft shadows, one linear burn layer for hard shadows, one soft light layer for soft lighting, and one overlay layer for hard lighting. I’ll often also make use of glow dodge layers for lighting, or change the color balance or add more hard/soft light layers if there’s a very heavy color filter on the scene (such as a celestial event, blood moon, or outdoors at night).

Using all the different layer types is essentially a cheat code to fancier lighting -- don’t want to use flat black? Boom, hard light or overlay or burn will give you colored shadows. Want to make your light brighter? Glow dodge will make it burn your retinas.

Sorry that this isn’t a very comprehensive guide, but in my mind, shading and lighting is really something that you pick up over time and it’s hard to sit down and write a guide for it without making it into a massive essay on art theory that I don't even know proper terminology for because I'm not an art student. Of course with some googling you’ll find *proper* guides for this sort of thing from art majors and the likes, and those can be super helpful and technical! But for Purity Town, I just sort of go with what feels right and what's easy to replicate.

Firstly, I’m happy to hear you’re liking the comic!

Secondly, those buttons are actually there due to the theme! (For those on mobile who can’t see it, I have the theme set to only display on desktop as I prefer the current mobile layout on phone.) I’m using the simple webcomic theme (a quick Google should tell you how to install it for yourself) -- except I’m not actually using it for the webcomic features; rather, it’s a case of “this is the most simple, nice-looking non-default theme I could find.”

The previous/next buttons are added by the theme with the intent that the blog is being used as a typical webcomic website, with nothing but comic pages being posted. However, I post asks and other art here too, and I do so with the intent that people looking at #Terraria or their dashboards in general will see it. So...I use html formatting to make the first/previous/next/last links, along with an index and chapter-by-chapter viewing (using /tagged/chapter##/chrono) so that no matter where you’re coming from, you can still navigate just the pages!

If you want to add just the previous/next buttons, I can’t really help you -- web development is not my area of study in the slightest. But you can check out the theme that they come from and if you want to install only them, you can surely find a tutorial on it somewhere!

(As a side note, the comments section is not from the theme, it’s from a site called Disqus. I don’t expect many people, if anyone, to leave comments, but since I link back to this site a lot and many folks don’t have Tumblr accounts, it’s an option I like to make available.)

Hiya! My hike was pretty nice; it was a short and easy one, but that was quite appreciated as the trail is unmaintained from November to April, and the trail was covered in fallen trees and quite rocky. Still had fun, though!

And for backgrounds, it depends! For indoors scenes (or outdoors scenes with buildings) I don’t tend to use references, outside of looking up things like “which side of a door is the handle on.” I will, however, integrate real-life textures (see: the quilt and rug in Guide’s house, the wood walls on the building in the background of this week’s page), and paint over paintings from the Terraria wiki.

For outdoors scenes, for simple backgrounds (such as foliage-heavy) ones, I typically don’t need references. I like the difference between detailed, lined indoor/man-made object scenes vs. painted, messy outdoor scenes. But for things like mountains, I do sometimes look up references to help with color choices and the likes.

The town’s layout is a bit strange in that depending on the scene, the background could be drastically different. One side of town faces more mountainside, one side faces the orchards/open hillside, and the other two sides face various degrees of open space and more mountainside/forest. References taken on top of mountains are helpful to get an idea of what degree of foliage I should include between the characters and the sky.

Though this is very specific to the town of Purity -- other towns/villages will have significantly different-looking backgrounds, even the foliage-heavy ones.

That said, what's even more helpful than looking at photos is looking at paintings. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is really good for getting an idea of how to draw grasslands and distant mountains, plus Studio Ghibli movies in general!

#purity town #pt asks #terraria #not an update

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