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#I was definitely experimenting with shading and eye design for this one lol
estellardreams · 13 days
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Antagonistic :)
[Fibula and Chimera Sonic both belong to @son1c]
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qhoaaaa · 4 months
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Milo with piercings and other features I imagine he has (and some hcs with Sweetheart hebehebeeheb)
Piercings!!/jewelry
He has them Dahlia piercings (lol) look them up they’re so cool
Has piercings on his ears, a few studs as well as a nose ring
Definitely buys different kinds of earrings and stuff to decorate his ears depending on the event
Brow piercing, especially on the right brow UGHH
They’re all gold colored, he also has some regular silver and black, has a few green colored studs as well
He’s gotta own a few gold chains (as a gold chain haver myself lmao), he keeps them in good condition
Sweetheart got him one as a gift and he teared up, kept asking them how much it was and they only said for him to not worry about it(it was expensive) - he wears it everyday and night and even in the shower
His neck sometimes gets nipped by the metal and when Sweetheart sees him bring a hand to rub at it, they ask, "Why don't you take it off?" And he says, "Eh, I don't wanna... it's from you, sure as hell I'm not gonna take it off."
Features:
Symmetrical beauty marks under his eyes (Sweetheart absolutely LOVESSS them, kisses his eyes a lot because of them), and on his cheeks too (genetics are INSANEEE)
Sharp canines,,, yesssss
Few patterned beauty marks on his shoulders
Most of his skin is just bare and smooth but Sweetheart loves when they see his beauty marks on his shoulders or his face when he’s taking a shirt off or resting
His back has a few long scars from sparring with the other wolves when he was younger, he didn’t want them healed fully, let them scar as a learning experience, Milo lets Sweetheart massage them or put a balm on them so the tissue doesn’t get weird, he feels all mushy (in a good way) when Sweetheart unexpectedly kisses down his scars (he makes sure to tell him it feels good too AWGWGW)
Really REALLY soft hands
Light chest hair (HSBSHS WORK WITH ME OKAY LET ME COOK)
Chest tattoo, it’s a singular design he made up himself (drew it and everything), it’s probably a symbol that’s important to him/his mother and his way to honor her, he has accompanying designs on his fingers
Tattoo of Sweetheart’s name on his nape (tell me that this wouldn’t look nice,, I’ll wait)
(Off topic but I saw a post where Marie and Colm have tattoos of Milo’s first paw prints of when he shifted for the first time and he would def do the same if he and Sweetheart have kids)
He and Sweetheart get ring tattoos on their ring fingers when discussing getting rings (I love that audio), they wear the actual rings on their thumbs
My personal opinion but he would not have grills ❌❌ (never liked those but to each their own !)
He has golden eyes (all wolves do and it’s just a variety of shades but his are golden golden and they’re so pretty, he wears brown contacts/Unempowereds see brown to cover the color)
Sweetheart has smile lines, they popped up after meeting and getting with Milo, Milo ADORES them
They used to hide their smile before meeting Milo, needless to say, they smile widely now, teeth and all and its the cutest to him, seeing that smile is how Milo knows that they're comfortable and relaxed and having fun
Theyre at least 6'3 , buff and curves THEY GOT IT ALL
Sweetheart works out at the gym semi regularly and Milo practically drools when he sees them and their muscles , they have long legs(LEG MUSCLES TOO) and he's all over them
Sweetheart loves his arms, no reason, they just do
They like to feel up and down his upper arms and his shoulders, he likes the touch
He has super curly black hair, got it from his mom (we love you Mama Greer) while most of his sisters have straight/wavy hair like their dad, no facial hair
He’s just reaaaaaalllllyyyty hot in general ouughhhhh 🫣🫣🫣
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fahrenheit-aqua · 7 months
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Ratings + Insights on the Kaiju Paradise gootraxian redesigns
So the 3.1R update came out and gave me a bunch of furries to brainrot about. And as an enjoyer of Furry Character Design myself, I felt like reviewing most if not all of them.
Know that these are all personal opinions and art is, as always, subjective and disagreeing is okay!
anyways....
KAIJU
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Originally a pretty good design. Average "gozilla-esque" look, the redesign is essentially a polishing so it fits more with the newer gootraxians. Looks cute, looks cool, still looks iconic. 10/10
CATTE
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Once again, just a polishing of the original design, I like the whiskers, they're cute! Though I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of the washed out colors, and the bucket standing straight on their head. The one ear sticking out was cute. 8/10
FED
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A design polish. Which is the treatment that the whole Wolf Quartet as I like to call them got. Well at least now I know that they're wolves. Still a pretty plain design, though the eyes look cool. 5/10
FIG
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Can't get more "just a polish" than that. Fig is a pretty anecdotal gootraxian in itself... The texturing of the fur is a nice addition. 10/10
GHOSTFOX
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At first I thought it didn't really need the polishing treatment. Until I got another look at its render and yeah, lol. Their face looks weirdly elongated, and the tails have become wispy, likely to emphasize the 'ghostly' look. Though I very much preferred the old fuzzy tails that emphasized the death by electrocution. But I guess it's one or the other.... 6/10
GLUBBY
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Formerly known as Feizao, as it's more of a replacement than a redesign (because I'm including them too. Why not?)
Aside from the obvious design having to derive completely from the original, I feel like Glubby is cute and interesting! But it is dragged back completely by how poorly it translates to the 3D roblox models, making it look.... ugly. Unfortunately. 5/10
HAZZY
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A really good redesign, holy shit!! I used to really dislike Hazzy because of how plain it looked and it was a pain to unlock it. But the buff not only made it grow on me a bit, the redesign made it actually top tier to me haha...
The hazmat suit patterns, stitches, fucked up and evil attitude are all incredible additions. 11/10
TOXIC RABBIT
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A gootraxian that was in dire, dire need of a redesign holy shit lmao. Well it certainly looks more like a rabbit now, but once again, why the desaturated colors...? There's also not much of the evil gremlin energy is used to have. 5/10
SPRINKLEKIT
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I started playing Kaiju Paradise, honestly, kind of late... So I didn't exactly experience Conekat firsthand. What I can say from what I see.... Sprinklekit is so much more superior, sorry Conekat fans.
Though I've heard Conekat could merge and have 3 heads so... points goes to them. I do like the sprinklekit variants though, strawberry is my favorite. 10/10
SLIMEPUP
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Ah yes, the slimepup. Simple but effective and cute design, the lime color is actually my favorite! The floppy ears definitely makes it look more like a pup. Its artwork is reeally cute! buuuuuut, the design really doesn't translate well to roblox models, unfortunately.... 6/10
SLIMEHOUND
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The slimehound looked super cool in artwork.
3D model had me disgusted.
2/10
SHORK
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A very plain design that desperately needed an upgrade. And that is a good upgrade indeed! It's still shork, but at least it's not... boring. 10/10
SHADE
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Another one of the wolf quartet. Shade is a little cooler than Fed to me. Its redesign is pretty good, it has its own color coding now! Congrats on losing your achromatic palette, Shade! 10/10
PLANTIX
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Just a polish, and a very straightforward one too. The new tail looks really cute, I could play as plantix just to look at the flowers on it. 10/10
MOCHA
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Mochi is. Very forgettable to my eyes, sorry Mochi fans...
The redesign makes it look more goat-like, I like goats. Oh, and the fur pattern resembling latte art is a really neat touch. Now I know it's a coffee dragon! Mochi/Mocha is boring to me, but it's undeniably a good design. 10/10
LEMONSHORK
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Congrats on her transition!
More seriously, I think all the shorks have had the best redesigns haha. I always liked lemonshork design-wise, but the redesign actually looks like it smells and tastes like lemon. True advertising! 11/10
MANIC
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Carneline was... my favorite gootraxian among them all. Its design was cute, effective and unique, its color palette was really good and balanced. I understood it being cut from the game so I wanted to welcome Manic with open arms.
But the design just... didn't translate well. It's also so... Monochromatic, so much redder. And the eyes have a busy design. The cyan sclera with fuschia irises is a simplistic yet perfect design. The purple fur contrasting with the red crystals was real neat too.
Manic doesn't look bad, it's just... not as good as Carneline.
....At least Manic's hot in its concept artwork... 2/10
DAGODA
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Just like with Glubby, gotta push the drama aside. I really like raptors so there's bias there... People think Dagoda's ugly, I personally really like it! It's no Fashui (one of my old favorites), but it's no big downgrade either.
Although I wish it at least had a few glowing features, given it's a power outage/blackout gootraxian, and that's what made them special. The little lightbulb tail on Fashui is what made it cute...
7/10
MELONSHORK
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Okay, I said all the shorks had the best redesigns... BUT.
Melon shork has... the opposite problem of toxic rabbit!
Why are the colors so saturated??? It looks closer to an actual watermelon, but it just looks... not that great. The pastel colors were much nicer. Maybe some thicker, more abundant stripes would make it more melon-y? I don't know...
4/10
PSEUDOSHORK
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Now THAT is a redesign I fell in love with instant-fucking-ly. This might actually be the best redesign, if not just my favorite!
From a plain pink shork to this absolute murder gremlin, who bleeds gatorade and laughs at death. The asymmetrical fangs are a really cool touch too.
Top tier/10 Would make this my fursona.
HEBI
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Okay, I respect Carneline and Panther's creator to have stepped down and dissociated from the whole concept but daaaamn why were those designs so good...
Panther was peak, unfiltered edginess that was still somehow cool.
And just like with Manic, my issue is the eyes... Hebi doesn't look like a shadow-lurking predator, but more like... a goth clown. Don't get me wrong, it's a really good design on its own! But compare it to Panther?... Man, I miss being edgy.
5/10
BUCK
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Why is it red?
Why did they make it red?
It's a blackout gootraxian, not power outage. Why is it fucking red?
??/10
JAMMER
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Ooooh the blackout wolves... They have been done dirty. The new patterns and fur colors look nice but Jammer looks too... silly. Too cute... I miss the cool attitude it had! And the outline glow really doesn't look nice either. It feels out of place, it doesn't feel like the Jammer is actually glowing!
no VIP variant can salvage this.
0/10
NIGHTSHADE
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I don't have much to say about this. It's just like Jammer. The blackout wolves were done dirty. At least Nightshade kept its original vibe. 2/10
NUCLEAR RABBIT
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Absolutely nasty. And I mean it as a compliment. That rabbit will give me every disease and call me a slur. 10/10
SINOX
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I didn't have a big opinion on Sinox until I actually saw it in a blackout ingame. And thought "omg it's fucking gorgeous!"
The back is super sparkly, on top of the particles it sheds. Sinox has been given so much more personality, and really went all the way with its concept! That being... a glowstick in a rave. 11/10
WISP
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Same creator as Carneline and Panther, and somehow the original design is so.... bland and uninspired. How? That shork doesn't feel very "lantern" to me. On top of looking quite plain.
Wisp brings justice to that idea. This shork is indeed lantern!! Also I really dig the bones. Is it see-through flesh? Is it just not there? Who knows! This design bangs
10/10
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tiikerikani · 2 years
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The Best Medicine
14.08.2022 CoolHead Brew, Helsinki
Sick leave is no ordinary vacation do-over, when it's a vacation do-over WITH MORE SENPAIIIIIIII than the original. (Coincidence. I bought these tickets ages ago.)
There was some uncertainty over today's schedule; the ticket said that the gate opens at 5 but according to the venue it was actually at 6, so since I got there just before 3, I was definitely there a whole hour too early. I got a drink from the bar and spent my time reading a book and looking around a bit (it's a brewery inside a greenhouse so there are windows to peep inside from).
A little after 4, a couple of groupies showed up and invited me to their table (the same people who waved me over in Tampere). Next, band members started appearing. This meant I hadn't somehow missed the sound check (and I danced to it but it's not like anybody cares) :DD
When they let us in I ran so hard to get to the centre front I almost knocked the railing over lol
The place was kind of interesting, they had set up like a full size stage in the yard but the yard itself was pretty small. Much smaller than at Allas. It's nice for the performers so they're not just watching a massive sea of heads, I suppose. It was a hot day but the sun set behind the stage so we were in the shade and caught some breeze too. Being right in front of the subwoofers made this a bit more... intense an experience than I'm used to ;)
I got hit by the line again. Finger guns were exchanged (again).
Somebody ACTUALLY bought one of the noisemaker horns. (It was the other weird merch besides the 🔍)
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(pictures can only capture a fraction of their energy, ok)
-----
I think I found (a) Number 1 Finnish fan (I'm sure there's more than 1). Before the show she talked her way into the back room to get everyone in the band to draw a flower and sign their name on a piece of paper.[1] If I understood correctly, she's getting them tattooed. She also carried a journal/scrapbook with pictures and ticket stubs and so forth. I mean that isn't so different from what I'm writing digitally here. Heini received a portrait from her, so I'm also not the only one giving them fan art, although hers was more lighthearted than my sort of thing.
Number 1 Finnish fan also drew a tattoo design for one of the aforementioned groupies (yeah groupies are a tight-knit, well, group); it's got the notation for the rhythm of a specific song. Now THAT is subtle.
If I were to get a fan tattoo it would probably be of some lyric, because words are my specialty and (if chosen wisely,) the text can still be meaningful even if you later move on from the fandom.[2][3]
-----
I've been eyeing the silver cape ever since I first saw it, and keep talking myself out of buying it but it doesn't make me stop wanting it. I decided that I'll buy it if I got to chat with Senpai. I don't think it really counted last time but today fulfilled that criteria. (It's actually a slightly-yellowish silver. Pearl, I guess?)
"I have nothing for you today." (I gave merch guy Pate a note with some niceties and a couple of merch ideas, though. Nothing sentimental. I didn't want him to feel like just being a messenger all the time.)
"Well, I haven't replied to [the other] yet." (Next Christmas?)
I also told Jepa that I would really like the remainder of the band to sign my banner but I wasn't sure how I could go about that because it's taped to my wall and I can't just bring it everywhere and hope I have the opportunity to get a hold of them. She suggested I could get in touch with them on Instagram and make arrangements.[1] Earlier she (I think it was her) came out from the back room with a sheet of normal people paper with everybody's autographs on it, dated and all, so I guess that's a thing. (I've had ticket stubs signed but most tickets are digital these days.)
-----
Oh, before I forget: same songs as the last.
And superfan couple wasn't there?? Surely they would have hung back as I did if they were there.
__________
[1] But I mean, the band is very approachable. It's just the potentially Very Serious security staff you gotta get past.
[2] I drew an (abstract) tattoo design for myself some 16 years ago and I'm committed to it—it's on a few other personal items—but I don't think I'll ever afford the luxury of getting it done. I wish henna paste was easier to find here, as I drew it on with henna for some special occasions back in the day (it's the correct color too).
[3] It seems like bangles with mottos/affirmations engraved on them are kind of A Thing with the middle-aged crowd? I'm not old enough to be in that demographic yet but it's an alternative to getting inked.
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velvet-games · 2 years
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hi I designed an arcane oc at 3am one day so here are my delirious sketches
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initial brainstorming stuff~
I had a veeeeery rough idea of what I wanted to do at this point. I set some goals since I’d designed an arcane oc before, but that design got too caught up with what made sense and it ended up being really boring and restrictive (hence, the “fun to draw” goal for this new one) 
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random outfit stuff~
this was just me playing around with what looked nice for the most part. I tried to keep the eyes motif constant though, as well as the idea that she’d be going from a closed dress to a more open and floofy one (it’s meant to look like a flower opening up but I don’t think I succeeded at that lol). there’s also some really mild snake imagery since she’s supposed to represent envy. 
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when I actually start doing design lol~
this is when I started fleshing backstory stuff out a lot more, as well as making changes to the design(s) after actually knowing what her character was about. the bottom left was supposed to be the final concept piece, but I made the upper right to adapt her character to new lore stuff I came up with. 
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digital render~ (no I don’t know how to shade gold I’m sorry ;__;)
okay so what’s invidia’s actual bio?
the main idea of her character is that she starts as someone whose motivations are almost completely derived from envy. she’s born to a high house, always told she’s better than everyone else and deserves more than other people. she hasn’t had to lift a finger to get anything she started with; not her home, not her money, not her clothes, and definitely not her council seat. when she sees someone better than her, she only feels resentment, immediately going into an “if I can’t have it, no one can” mindset. she couldn’t even look at a sunset without envying its beauty. 
while cunning, she usually spends her intelligence only on elaborate ways to sabotage people even slightly better than her, insisting she’s doing it for the sake of equality. she has a fierce sense of justice, but it’s focused on punishment and revenge more than actual deterrence. it’s no noble cause, but she’s inherited her father’s charisma, and the other councilors don’t bat an eye when she wraps up her ideas in a pretty rhetorical bow. 
(quick design note~) she wears opulent and intricate gold jewelry as often as possible to show off her wealth and superiority. the barred corset and dark greens in her usual dress is meant to remind the viewer of a snake, both as a symbol of her house and to associate her with envy (the eye motif does this as well). her clothes are tight-fitting and stiff, sleek in a dignified way but also suffocating. there’s barely a peek of a frill at the bottom of her skirt though; a clue that maybe there’s more to her than her uptight disposition. 
(co. ~) the reason she has multiple designs is that I wanted her to change the way she dresses as her arc progresses. as she grows, she manages to loosen up a little, both literally and figuratively. 
eventually, invidia meets mel medarda. invidia thinks mel is similar to her at first: a cunning woman partial to gold and glory, but finds something else when she looks deeper. one day, during a progress day celebration, invidia begrudgingly speaks to mel after reaching what must’ve been the apex of a human’s capacity to experience boredom. despite her charisma, invidia envies mel, never quite able to automatically get the other councilors on her side the way mel could with ease, but she’s also the only other intelligent person in the room, so to hell with it. 
the conversation actually manages to be engaging despite how distant mel acts. in a rare moment of vulnerability however, mel manages to admit that she’s actually envious of invidia’s natural charm. caught by surprise, invidia tries to ask mel to elaborate, but the moment is gone. mel’s returned to the spotless, indestructible picture of dignity she’s always been. 
invidia’s envy manages to melt just enough for her to actually want to get to know mel more, and the pair begin to talk even when they’re not forced in the same space. mel, recognizing the effect she’s having on her fellow councilor, weaponizes more moments of her own vulnerability to keep invidia invested. it might mean a few future favors, after all. invidia recognizes the manipulation, but carefully indulges in it anyway, not having anyone else to be infatuated with. it’s the first time she’s been able to genuinely feel something close to happiness from interacting with another human being instead of being envious of everything they had that she didn’t. it was addicting. 
something changes after a while though. mel starts being vulnerable just because she wants to share herself with invidia, and invidia starts to see the world in a way she’s never considered before. mel seems to actually want to protect people, not to gain the favor of her constituents, not to keep up a facade of kindness, but out of real, genuine empathy. 
time passes. invidia sells the fancy gold jewelry that she was never really fond of in the first place, pushes the hair from her eyes, and feels love for the first time. starting to see more clearly, she realizes she’s never even bothered to use an ounce of her privilege to help anyone; she hardly even knows half the city. 
one day, cloak around her shoulders and mask over her mouth, invidia steps foot in the undercity for the first time. what she sees is horrifying; who she thought were freeloaders and low-borns were victims, ravaged by shimmer, sick from pollution, dying with no hope to hold on to. she trades what little she brought with her to feed a starving child.
invidia starts visiting zaun more and more, each time more desperate than the last. by the time the next zaunite comes to trial, she can’t bring herself to say “guilty.” it was her own decision a year before to make the crime worthy of a life sentence. 
it’s slow, but invidia’s envy starts to morph into love. the visits to zaun were difficult, but never completely devoid of joy. a child’s eyes lighting up at a toy, a young girl’s neon portrait of invidia, a new invention from a sharp young mind. the love is so sudden and sure that sometimes she feels like she’s drowning in it. invidia looks at her superiors and realizes at times that they might be people too. people who’ve mourned, who’ve cried, who’ve laughed. people that she loved. 
before she knows it, invidia’s become a completely different person. jayce talis, golden boy that he is, shows up, and she doesn’t even want to beat him to death with one of his family’s hammers. in fact, she might even feel happy for him. her lengthy speeches on justice and “equality” soon stumble and falter. she sheds the intricate stitching so emblematic of her past self, and with the help of mel and the citizens of the undercity, starts to make change. the undercity brought sadness and joy to invidia, but it also brought anger. a white-hot fury both at herself and piltover’s complacency. she couldn’t stand to send a thief to prison knowing their family would’ve died without the stolen food. she was disgusted that it’d ever crossed her mind. with a burning passion, talk of punishment and revenge turned into actual solutions. rehabilitation, social spending, even the proposal of independence for zaun. she brought the undercity’s citizens to the council, brought the council to the undercity, forced them to see what inaction had done. while she couldn’t fix everything herself, as her community of supporters and allies grew, she didn’t need to. they were improving things together.
so invidia sits now, years of hatred and envy peeled away and fallen at her feet, listening to a story from a white-haired firelight. she smiles fondly, eyes closing as night settles in, head finding rest in mel’s shoulder. 
she’s glad the sunset’s beautiful. 
---
okay anyway sorry that got way longer than I wanted lol
tl;dr: envious council lady learns how to love through the power of sapphic yearning
okay thanks for reading <3 if you got this far you’re a real one lol
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nohoney · 3 years
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Eyes lit
notes: Artist Keigo is something I did not know I needed until I made my own dumb paintings lol. Title credit from Crimewave by Crystal Castles 
characters: Hawks/Keigo Takami
warnings: 18+, artist!Hawks, drug use, minor choking
summary:
You see swirls of purples and greens forming spirals that you’ve never thought of before, dancing like glitter being blown in the wind and then suddenly you see white. You’re thinking in tones of purples and pinks, they pulse and shine against a wall of white and now you’re thinking of Valentine’s day.
The blanket is pulled from over your head and you look up into golden honey eyes, they look even brighter and you swear that they glow as you look up into them. “You having fun under there babe?”
I’m not an artist, I don’t know how to paint. You told him, intimidated initially when you walked into his apartment and saw a box of paints along with two small easels. The only painting you’ve done was just with your fingers back in elementary school when you were a child, how were you supposed to paint alongside someone who’s a fucking art major who’s got a whole portfolio to backup his experience? But Keigo eased your worries, told you that there’s no need to be intimidated at all.
“You don’t have to worry at all about being good or anything like that dove. The trip will tell you what to paint.”
“It’s gonna look like shit when the trip is over Keigo.”
“Don’t say that dove, art is subjective. Trust me, when you’re on you won’t care as much.” He touches the small of your back and leads you towards the dinner table, “And besides, you might really like what you make in the end.”
“I don’t know what I want to paint.”
“The trip will tell you what to paint, you’ll see.”
Keigo has you sit down to eat first, just takeout pizza from a nearby restaurant along with some breadsticks. Barbecue chicken with a side of ranch, he doesn’t like pepperoni pizza at all. His first choice was fried chicken or wings but that’s damn near what you eat with him almost all the time so this is his compromise. He’s got a little basket of snacks and candy on his kitchen countertop, prepared ahead of time for tonight along with a plastic container of red and green grapes already washed.
“I don’t like grapes Keigo.”
“Trust me, you’ll be grateful to those grapes when you’re on dove.”
He brought out a plastic baggie from his fridge and set out the contents of it onto a wooden chopping board, watching as he broke up the small pieces carefully with a knife. You heard that acid comes in forms of little blotter paper or that people put a drop of it into sugar cubes and dissolve it in water to micro dose someone. Keigo cuts two pieces of what look like little window panes, very small fragments and when you inspect them closer, it almost looks as if there’s little gold flakes inside the gelatin.
“When will I know it’s kicking in?” you ask him, looking down at the tiny piece that sits in the palm of your hand. Such a small little thing that’s apparently a strong hallucinogenic, Keigo’s told you before that he’s felt his sensations cross over like hearing colors or seeing sounds. You had no idea what he spoke of but the best way to find out is to give it a try. “How long will it take?”
Keigo’s fixing up the easels in front of the couch, has blankets ready and is putting a video playlist up on his television. “Depends on the person but most of the time it tends to kick in after half an hour or so. You’ll know when you’re on, you’ll see it.” he explains.
You look around Keigo’s apartment, paintings he made himself hung up on the walls of his home. Most of his paintings were done sober but he’s got a few framed up that he’s particularly proud of that he made when he went on acid trips. He’s already such an amazing artist, certain pictures on his walls capturing your attention and invoking particular emotions from you. You’ve seen Keigo color match your sweater in just a mere manner of seconds, sampling little bits of paints and combining them until the hues matched exactly what you were wearing. And there’s you, just a mere amateur when it came to the arts. But Keigo assures you again that it’s not about making something ‘good’, it’s just there for you to have fun with it. He’s got canvases of all shapes and sizes for you to work with and that even though he’ll be on too, he’s definitely going to take care of you for your first trip.
You trust Keigo, it’s just the canvases and the paints that make you nervous.
He stands in front of you, smiling gently before leaning down to kiss you. His lips are soft, just a hint of vanilla you taste off his mouth because you let him borrow your chapstick earlier, and it’s so tender the way he holds your cheek in his hand that your heart flutters in your chest and butterflies tickle the inside of your tummy. You feel a little flustered when he pulls back, blonde hair swept back stylishly and a lazy grin on his face as he holds his own tab in between his fingertips.
“Cheers!”
The little tab goes underneath your tongue and you’re just supposed to wait for it to dissolve.
So Keigo puts on the playlist and the two of you talk for a little bit before moving to the art stations. “Choose whatever colors you want dove, choose the colors that you think will speak to you.”
You squeeze certain colors you think you want to work with into your little plastic palette, making sure to shake the bottles first and filling all the little spaces that’s meant to hold the paint. Keigo easily chooses the paints he knows he’s going to work with to start himself off and sets himself in front of his easel. He wears a simple red hoodie and gray sweats, comfortable loungewear for the next few hours and you’d be lying if you said that you didn’t notice the print of his cock sometimes when he swiveled his hips a certain way. You wear pajamas pants and one of your soft sweaters, a gentle shade of lilac, perfect for keeping you warm on this rainy night.
You know you’ll be exhausted by the end of it, deciding to take acid for the first time overnight but at least you’ll have the next two days to recover.
And you’ll have Keigo as well.
He makes easy conversation with you, talking about how his week was and in turn asking how yours was. You look down at the paints in your palette as you talk back and forth with him, forcing yourself to not wonder how much time has passed. Your phone is by the kitchen table, placed face down so that you don’t obsess over the time so you try to measure the amount of time has passed based on the time of the videos playing on the television. Yet you start to care less about the time as you actually start to get caught up in the paints in front of you, experimenting and pleasantly surprised with how you came up with such a pretty violet color. You point it out to Keigo, stupidly excited over it but he smiles and agrees with you. “Such a pretty color dove, but not as pretty as you.”
His words make the butterflies flutter in your stomach again but you say nothing, turning back to your canvas and picking up a brush. For a few minutes you just stare back and forth between the paint and the white canvas, wondering how you should start off. Keigo obviously sees you concentrating too hard and reminds you, “Don’t think about it too hard, just paint and see what happens.”
Okay... so in other words, just do it.
So you take a deep breath, dip your brush in the paint, and make a single stripe at the very top edge of the canvas.
“See? Not so scary.”
“Y-Yeah, it’s not!” You squeak out, still embarrassed but a little less intimidated now that you actually started it. You’re not exactly sure what you’ll do with it but there’s no harm in just winging it.
Hm... wings...
You glance over to Keigo, one of his sleeves rolled up and his tattoo visible on his forearm. It’s a detailed wing on his forearm inked in only black, the very tip of it extended towards his elbow and he’s got a matching one on his other forearm as well. You remember the first time you saw them and how Keigo let you run your fingers over his tattoo, watching in amusement over how fascinated you were.
Back to your canvas, you see the sheen of the fresh paint on the white canvas and decide to add more to it. Maybe you’ll get inspired the more you add to it, thinking what colors compliment violet and what exactly you could create. Over the next few minutes you just continue painting the violet further onto the surface of the canvas, looking down briefly at the black paint that’s also in your palette and wonder if you could try painting a mountain. You recall plenty of times looking up at the sky when you were done hiking and just in awe of the colors of the sunset, hues of purples and reds and orange that invoked a certain feeling in your chest.
A sunset... a sunset!
Easy enough yeah?
You just have to add red, orange, yellow, probably a touch of blue... some clouds would be nice too.
So you spread more of the purple across the canvas, concentrating hard at first before realizing something. “Keigo?”
“Yes dove?”
“I think my painting is breathing.”
Keigo laughs from his side and you feel his hand ruffle your hair affectionately.
You look hard at your canvas and swear that you can see the paint inhale and exhale, the veins of the paint pulse in the painting. Wait... veins? You don’t remember painting anything like that, all you did was just cover part of the canvas to get you started. The longer you stare at the canvas, you swear that you can see the paint drip down slightly, the canvas inflating and deflating, and hidden designs on the untouched parts of the white canvas.
The acid had finally hit.
“Keigo... I think I’m on.” you say as you dip your brush into the water cup to wash off the violet, this time into the yellow paint and haphazardly brushing it onto the canvas before switching over to the bright red without washing off the yellow. You think how powerful the color red is, how strong and overpowering it is on the canvas and you tell Keigo, “I think you’d look gorgeous with red wings Keigo.”
Keigo is concentrated on his own canvas but he does glance over to you and smiles how you’re suddenly so into painting when you were so reluctant at first when you walked into his studio. He watches you blend the red into the yellow, wondering what exactly is inspiring you and what your finished product will be. “Ah how interesting dove, you comparing me to an angel?”
“Angel wings are white, I said your wings would be red.”
“Why red?”
You shrug your shoulders as you brush some blue onto the violet on the top of the canvas, blending the blue and violet together. “I don’t know, just suits you a lot... I wore wings last year, I was an angel last year for Halloween.”
“You dressed like an angel last year for Halloween, you certainly didn’t act like one.”
Suddenly the memory of last year’s Halloween comes rushing to the front of your memory and you begin to giggle, needing to set your brush down and have your little giggle fit; he was very right, drunk shenanigans in your angelic costume while holding White Russians with your friends surfacing to your mind. You don’t know why you’re so amused but you are, leaning back against the couch and curling yourself into a ball. You pull the blanket over your shoulders, pulling the bottom corners into your lap and you look down in awe. You swear that even though you’re sitting still, the blanket looks like it’s pulsing as well and you can see the small fibers of it sticking out from the surface. You can’t help but pick at one and hold it in between your fingertips, staring for a few seconds before releasing it.
Moving to lie on your side, you press your cheek into the couch cushion and stare at the painting you just started. It looks weird right now, purple on top with yellow and red in the middle but you’re determined that you’re going to paint that sunset!
You look over towards Keigo, seeing that he started off his canvas a golden yellow at first and is brushing a crimson red on top of it as well. It sort of reminds you of fire and you wonder what he’s seeing. You pull the blanket over your head, sheltering you from the bright lights of the room and you stare at your own hands right in front of your face. Every line and wrinkle is moving, like they’re switching places on you and you ‘ooh’ quietly. When you shut your eyes, it’s not a straight darkness you see like when you close your eyes and go to bed. You see swirls of purples and greens forming spirals that you’ve never thought of before, dancing like glitter being blown in the wind and then suddenly you see white. You’re thinking in tones of purples and pinks, they pulse and shine against a wall of white and now you’re thinking of Valentine’s day.
The blanket is pulled from over your head and you look up into golden honey eyes, they look even brighter and you swear that they glow as you look up into them. “You having fun under there babe?” Keigo asks you, clearly amused to have looked back and saw you as just a lump under his blanket. “Yeah, looks like you’re having fun.”
“Hehehe... yeah.” you smile up at him, pushing some of your hair back from your face. You look as he presents a single red grape to you, drops of water still on it to let you know that it had just been washed and while grapes weren’t your favorite fruit to eat, somehow they looked so appetizing in that moment. You open your mouth and Keigo places the fruit into your mouth, chomping down and it’s so juicy and firm and crunches so loud in your head that you moan as you chew.
Delicious, it’s delicious!
Keigo feeds you grapes every so often, whether you’re sitting in front of your canvas to continue painting, looking at the television and the visuals presented along with the music, get up to look at his other paintings that you think are whispering or waving to you, or when you decide to just stare at the tapestry he hung up in front of his balcony. You understand why tie dye is so appealing to look at now, you know for sure it’s not the wind making the tapestry move, the colors waving at you and you try to reach into the tapestry, your fingertips just barely grasping the colors in front of you.
“How long has it been Keigo?” you ask as you continue to look at the tapestry.
“It’s almost eleven, so it’s been three hours since we took it.”
Wow, three hours...
You’re not sure how the passage of time is feeling for you, everything is looking warped and you suppose that your sense of time is included in that as well.
You feel hands under your armpits and your lifted up to your feet, leaning back and touching the arms that hold you securely. The tattooed wings on Keigo’s forearm, the feathers look as if they’re rustled, they look like they need to be preened. It’s important for birds to preen their feathers so that their wings look presentable. “Okay dove, time for a bathroom break. Think you’ll need my help?”
No, you’re a big girl, of course you can go to the bathroom yourself.
Though you do have to ask Keigo to hold your hand, looking down at the floor and not trusting your own feet. It’s like you’re looking through a fish eye lens, like the floor seems so much wider and closer to you. Keigo says something to you when he drops you off at the bathroom but you don’t hear him, humming absently and you close the door. You do your business and wash your hands, using the nearby hand towel to dry off your hands and then you look up at the mirror.
You lean forward and inspect your pupils, they’re blown up and you think you can see shifting colors in your iris. You really are on, pulling back and inspecting your reflection. Now you feel like you’re caught, not sure if you recognize the person who’s looking back at you and... and... is the shower curtain moving towards you? Is that really you in the mirror? Your hair is never this mussed up and the color of your shirt you always liked before but why did it look so weird on you now?
“Dove, I’m coming in.” Keigo announces and slowly pushes open the door so that he doesn’t catch you in any indecent state. But he sees you just staring intently at your reflection and just comes up behind you, pressing his front to your back and tilting your head back to look at him. “Ah got caught looking at yourself in the mirror huh? S’alright, the first time I did acid apparently I spent a half hour just looking at my own reflection too.”
His eyes are the color of honey and you think you can suddenly taste it in your mouth, you imagine it. “Your eyes are pretty.”
“You’re pretty.”
But you shake your head at the compliment and ask, “Did I always look so weird Keigo?” you ask him, reaching one hand up and brushing the tips of your fingers along his stubble.
“No you never look weird, you’re always so cute.” he reassures you, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose. “Go back to the living room, lemme have my bathroom break and I’ll join you in a hot minute.”
“Don’t fall in the mirror.” you say absently as you walk out the bathroom and shut the door. You hold onto anything you can to help balance you, the floorboards beneath your feet look as if they’re trying to trip you up but you manage on your own to make your way back to your spot on the couch, staring at your unfinished painting.
What... what was I making again?
Violet, blue, red, yellow... oh yeah, the sunset.
Keigo really was right when he said that trip would decide what you would paint.
You don’t hear the bathroom door open but you look up as Keigo comes into your vision and ask, “How do I make clouds?”
“How do you mean? Like how clouds are made in the sky? Well you see clouds are made of water droplets that are so small that they’re able to stay in the air. You see the water vapor-” Keigo starts on what you know is a very educational lecture on clouds but you stop him with a whine, pointing to your canvas. “Oh... oh! You want to know how to paint clouds. Haha, sorry dove!”
Keigo makes himself comfortable right behind you, your bodies once again pressed to one another as he hands you the palette of paint and picks up a different paint brush has you hold it in your own hand but he covers it with his own; you’ll hold the brush while he controls your movements. So he dips the paint brush in the white paint, also adding in a touch of red that almost makes it pink and you gasp. It’s not gonna go together! you think but Keigo hushes you, tells you to just trust him. And although you’re watching how he dabs the paintbrush onto your canvas, you’re not really perceiving the process. One minute it’s a messy slate of purple, yellow and red and then boom suddenly there are clouds that actually create a picture. “Ah you were trying to make a sunset, I can see why you wanted to paint clouds. Very creative, I’m proud of you!”
“I did that?”
“You did!”
He praises you as if you were a child doing it for the first time... though you actually are painting for the first time and honestly it actually is coming out pretty nice, though it’s only thanks to the help of Keigo. So you look back at him, pressing your lips against briefly and whisper out, “Thank you.”
Returning back to his canvas, you decide that you can continue painting on your own. You close your eyes and try to remember any memory that contains a sunset, whether it was through your own eyes or perhaps looking at images on the internet. You try your hardest, your mind producing more interesting shapes and patterns of colors that almost distract you but you’re going to pain that sunset damn it! So you blend the colors on the canvas, adding in more tones of violet and purple towards the bottom to cover up the blank spots. You thought about adding in a mountain or some trees but you feel that’s much too advanced for you to attempt, though you know that you can ask Keigo again but he already helped you once. Now you were determined to do another by yourself.
You ask if you can have another canvas and Keigo gets up to the little pile of untouched ones. When he hands you one and ask if it’s a good size, it’s a question you can really answer because the way he holds it out to you makes it seem to long. And realizing that your perception is altering the way you look at the canvas, he holds it upright for you and you ask for something a little bigger.
Carefully setting aside the sunset painting... whoa it’s like the clouds are really moving!
Focus.
You set up the new blank canvas in front of you, wondering what to make next.
“Ah I almost forgot, I got this for you too while I was at the craft store.” Keigo tells you as he brings up the box paints, holding out a tube of-
“Ooooh... glitter.” you awe at the opalescent colors, holding it against the light to see sheens of white and pink and purple. You’re not sure if it’s the acid or not but it looks extra pretty and you shake the little tube in your hand.
“Have fun with it just uh... make sure to not get too messy.”
You could imagine such pretty colors like the stars and them falling into your eyes... oh, you could make a starry night for your next painting. So you enthusiastically brush more violet and blue onto the new canvas along with a touch of black to make a dark sky. The canvas breathes at you and you think that the more color you add to it, you think you can hear it sigh in relief. You blend it all together and wonder what else you could add to it. You drift to the palette and zero in on the white paint, exchanging your current paint brush for a smaller one, dipping it into the white paint and just making little dots here and there to represent the stars. Then you open the tube of fine glitter and you’re particularly giddy; your painting is going to be amazing, it’s going to look exactly like the night sky... no even better! It’ll be like the cosmos!
You must have been a little overzealous with the glitter on your painting because Keigo nudges a towel just right underneath your easel and you feel him pat down your feet.
Careful with the edges of the painting since it’s still wet, you gently shake off any of the excess glitter and then lean back to really inspect it. In the moment it really looks like a beautiful starry sky and you think that you can literally see shooting stars in it, so sparkly and pretty in the moment. You pull the blanket back over your body and crawl your way to Keigo’s side of the couch, sitting behind him and perching your chin atop his shoulder. Weird, you could have sworn that when he first started painting he started off with yellow and red, he’s painting over it with blue and green now. “Keigo, what are you painting?”
“I don’t know. I started off thinking about fire at first and then all of a sudden I just started putting green and blue together... I think I might have been either thinking about the ocean or the forest... I forget.” Keigo explains, still not stopping his paint brush over the surface. You guess that even artists start off sometimes nonsensical too and that they don’t always have a clear idea how their end product might come out. But you still admire it anyway, reaching your hand out and loosely holding onto his wrist. His arms look even longer from where you’re looking and yet he’s sitting so close to his painting at the same time.
Perception sure is a strange thing when you’re on.
He smells nice, pressing your nose into his neck and breathing in his cologne, humming in delight and pressing yourself even closer to him.
Now you’re not exactly the bold type, every once in a while you’ve decided to make the first move but most of the time you let others give you the signal first before you flirt back. Already you and Keigo have been seeing each other for a few weeks, a few dates here and there but you’ve yet to progress anything spicier than a few make outs and maybe some teasing touches. So it comes as a surprise to him when you drag a hand down from his chest and let it rest in between his spread legs, groaning when you lick the shell of his ear and nibble on it. “B-Babe... we’re supposed to be... to be...”
“Painting? That canvas isn’t the only thing you can paint Keigo.” you whisper in his ear, feeling for his cock in his gray sweats and pleased that you can feel that he’s getting hard. You form your hand over his cock and stroke it through the sweats while your other hand drags over his arm, still stretched out towards the painting but now his arm is tense. “For example... you can paint me with your cum. Inside or out, I’ll let the artist decide.”
Keigo sets down his paint brush and his palette before tugging you to his bed.
It’s dark in his room when he shuts the door but you’re quickly put on the surface of his bed. You can hear him fiddling around somewhere in the corner of the room and then red light fills the room, it’s pretty basic of him to own those strip lights seeing as you’ve had more than a few friends decorate their room with it too but now isn’t the time to critique the mood lighting. You do have to wonder why the color red, why not just put on the regular ceiling lights?
He’s on you once the lights are on, pulling off your pajama bottoms and setting them to the side for the time being. Spreading your legs open, Keigo starts off with kissing the inside of your thighs and slowly goes up higher. Your panties are still on but you moan softly when he kisses your pussy through the cotton, then it’s up to your belly button, pushing your sweater up along with the soft bra you decided to wear tonight as stops to pay attention to your breasts, nipples perked up to the cold air along with the way Keigo flicks his tongue over them. While he sucks hickies onto your breasts, you run your hand through his hair and look up at the ceiling, you think you can hear the flap of a bird’s wings and think something flutters from the corner of your eye. “K-Keigo... is it okay for us to do this while we’re on?”
“You’re safe babe, I’m here.” he assures you as he helps tug off your sweater over your head. “Just focus on me, I’ve done this before.”
Oh great, he didn’t just allude that he’s fucked other people on acid before did he?
Keigo seems to catch his choice of words and grinds his clothed cock against your panties and gives you an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just mean that sometimes sex on acid can be a precarious thing to engage in, I just wanna let you know that I got you.” he presses the pad of his thumb where he guesses your clit is. “You trust me yeah?”
Yeah, I do.
“How about a little art lesson for ya? That’ll help get you in the mood and you’ll learn something interesting.” Keigo takes off his sweats and his underwear, leaving you the only one who’s almost naked in the room. The music still plays from the living room, smooth guitar and easy beats still reach your ears. “You wanna know why I made the lights red? Red provokes the strongest emotion and is considered the warmest and most contradictory of the colors. Can you tell me some things you think of when you think of the color red?”
Apples, firetrucks, blood.
“Red is one of the most visible colors in the spectrum, its the kind of color that’s an attention grabber which is why it’s used to warn people of danger. Red can convey a sense of danger,” Keigo explains this while he pets you through your panties, it’s almost leisurely the way he does it but he can see how you quiver underneath his touch. “but it’s also associated with excitement, that even sometimes just being exposed to the color can cause elevated blood pressure and heart rate.”
Your heart rate is certainly up right now and it’s not just because of the acid.
You feel Keigo pull your panties to the side and easily glide a finger in but he wants something in return as well, “Spit in your hand and stroke my cock.”
As you stroke Keigo and he gently fingers you, he continues on about his lesson on the color red. “So along with danger, excitement, there’s also aggression and dominance. There’s not exactly a clear reason why red is associated with dominance, maybe it just goes hand in hand with feeling aggressive, perhaps also representing power as well.”
“K-Kei... please get to the point!” you whine, sitting up with one hand braced on the bed while the other continues to stroke him. He’s added another finger and you notice that he’s put a little bit more vigor in his actions. “Please won’t you just-”
“Most of all though, my little bird,” Keigo continues over you but you can take a guess where this ‘art lesson’ is going by the way his lips quirk up and how is voice drops. “red is also linked to passion, love, and desire, that it’s apparently a very attractive color. You remember what color you wore the first time we met?”
“You... you saying that you only liked me ‘cause I was wearing red?” you ask, a breathy laugh leaving your lips but then whine as Keigo strokes your g-spot and you almost dropped back onto the bed but he’s quick to catch you. He quickly pulls his fingers out of you and winds it around your waist to pull you flush against him and settles you in his lap, your hand trapped between your bodies but you continue to jerk his cock despite the limited space.
Keigo chuckles along with you, leaning down to press a kiss to your neck and give you a gentle bite. “Aha I’m just teasing you dove, it was your cute face I saw first and besides, you weren’t wearing a red shirt when we first met... You were wearing red panties, I remember seeing them when you bent over in that short little black dress.”
“You’re embarrassing.” you mumble, adjusting yourself so that you hover over his cock, slapping the head of it against your clit. “And that wasn’t an art lesson, that was more like color psychology.”
“You still learned something, did you not?”
You cup Keigo’s cheeks in your hands, kissing him briefly and pull back to tell him, “I’m not looking to learn anything except how your cock feels inside me.”
So you brace your arms around Keigo’s shoulders, sighing as he eases himself into you slowly. His hands hold your ass, gently lifting you off his cock and then easing you down again to take him further, repeating the process until his girth was sheathed all the way inside you. You gasp together, you at his size and him at your tightness, hands all over each other and you’re wondering where his body begins and yours ends. Whatever other cocks you had inside you before, they’ve never felt like this when they first entered you.
And then the two of you are moving in sync with one another, holding each other’s gaze, just barely able to see the reflection of each other in your blown out pupils. You can’t really see the honey gold of his eyes thanks to the lights but you you think you can taste it still, every time you just taste that sweet nectar when you look into Keigo’s eyes. It must mean how sweet he is, that must be why his eyes are colored like that.
He’s sweet like honey.
Again, you hear the flap of a bird’s wings even though you know the bedroom window isn’t open.
It’s slow and sensual at first, sex on acid is something more heightened, something indescribable behind the sensations as you lean back slightly to roll your hips while you meet Keigo’s thrusts. Your hands locked behind his neck and your head lolling back, a sensual sigh from you when you feel a hand go to your throat. A breathy ‘yes’ spills from your lips as the pads of the fingers carefully press at the sides of your neck; feels good, feels so good...
Suddenly you’re pushed onto your back, gasping in surprise at first and then uninhibited moans as he viciously fucks you. And what can you do but take it, take all of it, peering at him through the haze of pleasure and the peak of your high when you see it.
Bright red wings spreading from Keigo’s back, brighter than the lights, the feathers ruffle and seem to groan alongside him, he’s losing himself in this carnal moment, bracing himself over you and the wings coming forward as well. You feel floaty, almost as if the wings are carrying you themselves, you think you can feel feathers tickle your skin while Keigo’s hands have your hands pinned above your head, your ankles locking just right above his buttocks.
It feels like the sex is lasting forever, that as fast and hard Keigo pumps into you it feels never ending. In truth you don’t know how much time has actually passed, just that the passage of time seems longer. But it feels good, you feel one with Keigo and even just the slightest clench of your fingers intertwined with his feels even more intimate. His panting, your whimpers, the music, the lights, the flapping of the wings, and you crying out his name.
Even as you clench your eyes shut, swirling patterns of hues of red dance behind your eyelids. They seem to move in time with Keigo’s tempo, every slap of his hips connecting with your body, they respond accordingly. You feel one of his hands drawn down from your neck, past your breasts, giggling when he goes over your belly button, and groan when he plays with your clit.
He praises you, tells you how good you’re doing even though you’re just lying there and taking it, you try to participate by rolling your hips up to meet his but his power is just too overwhelming. “Kei... Kei... go, it feels so good...!”
You wriggle your other hand free from his and pull him down, practically hugging him and bringing him even closer, eyes shut hard as he goes into double time. His face is pushed into your neck, breathing hard into it and you think you can hear his wings flapping even harder. His hands hold your waist, just lifting you up slightly so that your back slightly arches.
Soft skin against rough hands.
“Where you going to paint your cum Keigo?” you ask, your lips just barely brushing against the shell of his ear. “All over my face? My tits? Maybe... even turn me around and blow it all over my back?”
“Fuck! Keep talking like that! ’M gonna cum dove... I’m gon’a cum!”
You push him back just enough and once again cup his face in your hands, “Look at me when you cum.”
Jittery nods of his head, he’ll absolutely obey anything you want as long as you don’t let him leave inside of you. All over your face would be so nice, your tits even nicer, he hasn’t pulled out to cum on someone’s back in months but fuck when you mention it, it’s so fucking enticing. But nothing beats when it’s oozing out, like ice cream melting on a hot day as it drips so he has to ask you if it’s okay. “Babe... can I paint you inside babe?”
Does an artist even have to ask permission to paint their canvas?
“Yeah... paint me white inside.���
And that’s all permission he needs, a few harsh thrusts and he cums with you, his cum shooting inside you while you gush around him, almost like it’s trying to push him out. But he stays inside you, his visit isn’t over quite yet, he doesn’t want to leave, not when he feels so connected with you.
You catch your breath, blinking your bleary eyes and see all of those red feathers slowly leave Keigo’s back. You don’t know how many there are, maybe two hundred or something like that, but you watch them leave one by one, almost as if they’re each being controlled individually. You think Keigo is the one that’s dismissing the feathers and you reach out towards them; you never got the chance to touch them.
Hands sliding down his back, you express a mild disgust over how sweaty Keigo is, “Ew... take a shower.”
“Only if you come with me.” Keigo chuckles pushing himself off you but wiping at your forehead as well. Geez, you hadn’t even realized you sweated too.
So the two of you stand under the warm shower spray, he lathers his shampoo and conditioner into your hair first, washing it out for you before you return the favor for him. You note how even more intimate this is compared to the sex before, looking up into his eyes and you give each other an endearing smile. The peak has been passed and now the acid will ease off, already things look a little less distorted and the intense distortions don’t feel like they used to when you first started.
“How are my eyes dove? Getting lost in them?” Keigo chuckles but he doesn’t give you a chance to answer, choosing to kiss you instead. “Did you mind that our first time was on acid?”
“No, it was good.” you tell him as you draw a single line on his collarbone with the tip of your finger. “I can’t wait to have regular, sober sex with you.”
“Hehe, I hope it compares well to my first performance.”
“I don’t know,” you singsong to him, “maybe you set the bar too high having first time on acid.”
“Well don’t say that now.”
The two of you laugh together, he playfully pushes your head but pulls you back in for another kiss. The water runs down both of your bodies and you pull back, looking down at the ground. Keigo thinks that you’re looking down at his cock and that you might be up for another round but you look back up at him and ask, “My feet are like a million miles away... have I always been this tall?”
You dry up together and change into clean clothes, returning to the easels and you’re surprised that the television still is playing music from the playlist. After so long without having your phone, you check the time to see that it’s well into two in the morning and it’s no wonder that you feel tired, not just from the sex but how late it was as well.
You curl up onto the couch while Keigo still works on his painting, the last thing you see were your sunset painting alongside the starry night one, the clouds shifting on one and the other still sparkles with shooting stars.
━━━━✧
“Ugh, I told you that they’d look like shit when the trip is over.”
“Don’t say that, they look fantastic.”
You hold up both of their canvases and each hand, looking deadpan at him with tired eyes. “This one looks like I just puked glitter on it and the only part of this one that is good are the clouds that you helped me paint!” you sigh out and look down at each of the paintings. You knew it, you weren’t an artist after all and you had thought that you did such a good job last night.
Keigo takes your starry night painting and brings it over to the sink, banging the edge of it gently a few times to shake off any glitter that didn’t dry on the paint before handing it back to you. “See, now it looks a little less like glitter puke and I have to tell you this dove, but you painted those clouds yourself.”
Huffing at him, you set down the starry night painting and look down at your sunset painting. “Keigo, I know I was on last night but you for sure helped me paint the clouds. I remember that part pretty clearly, don’t try to treat me like I’m a kid and say some bullshit to make me feel better.”
“I helped you get started but I saw that you picked it up on your own and you painted the rest of it yourself, I swear.”
“Keigo-”
He stops you with a soft call of your name and even though the two of you are tired as hell and feel disassociated from your own bodies and personalities, something tugs in your heart that way he says your name. “I’m serious, I helped you start making the clouds but you actually got the hang of it and watched you do it yourself. I told you the trip would tell you what to paint and you did it!”
You still look disbelieving at him, swearing that you thought you felt his hand help you paint last night. But then again, you also thought you saw one of his paintings of a balloon flying away too so maybe he might be telling the truth. It’s a little hard to discern what were your actions that actually happened versus what was in your mind. Much like the wings you thought he sprouted when the two of you had sex.
“Can you just show me yours? I fell asleep before I could see what you made.” He hands you his own canvas and you stare hard at it, looking back and forth between him and the painting in your hands. “Did you make another one last night?”
“Nope, I used that one canvas the entire night.”
“Didn’t you start off painting it with yellow and red? How did you end up with,” you turn the painting around to show him, “painting this?”
Delicate pinks and purples dotted just right to look like wisteria flowers and a big tree trunk in the very center of it. It just wasn’t fair that he was so good at conceptualizing these kinds of things. You have to wonder if he just had a natural talent for it or if it was something he honed over time. Either way, you know he didn’t get that art degree for nothing.
Keigo chuckles and sets aside his painting. “I looked at your sweater last night and thought I saw wisteria flowers sprouting out, I got my inspiration from you. Also you seemed really into the color purple last night so that helped too. Although you did also give me an idea last night too.” he takes your hand in his, pulling you close to him and reaches one hand underneath your shirt, his palm resting on the small of your back. “That whole ‘paint me thing’ you said yesterday... I was wondering if one day you’d let me paint on you?”
You tilt your head to the side, “What do you mean?”
“Like... just let me paint on your body one day. I can get those body friendly paints and just make a picture on you.” Keigo explains with a sheepish smile coming onto his face despite how tired he looks. “It kinda turned on me on last night when you said you wanted me to paint you inside and I just thought ‘well what if I actually did?’ But not with my cum I mean, though I wouldn’t mind that either.“
The thought of laying down for Keigo while he does such a thing, it sounds quite intimate. You look into his eyes, his pupils still a little wide but it’s only a few more hours for the acid to exit your bodies. It was intense last night but you were glad to have done it with Keigo and even though you think the art you did last night is sort of crap now, you can’t deny that it was sort of fun to do it still. 
Your paintings lay to the side, his own stupidly good wisteria painting sitting alongside your glittered starry night and sunset painting. Strange how your eyes perceived everything last night from elongated lengths, the dynamically changing colors you saw when you shut your eyes, you felt everything alive around rather than thinking of the furniture as mere static objects, the red wings and feather you swore you felt against your skin when Keigo fucked his cock into you, everything was beautiful and you couldn’t have asked for a better first time.
You’d like to do it again.
“Can I dove? Can I paint on you one day?”
“... Yeah, I’d like that.”
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fresh-bag-of-ham · 3 years
Text
ok let’s talk SUNSCREEN
SO the UV filters available in the US can at this point be considered truly terrible. One of the main reasons you’re supposed to reapply sunscreen every two hours is that many of the filters we use are destroyed by the very UV radiation they are designed to block. Killed in the line of duty, thank you for your sacrifice, etc. Counterpoint: sunscreen is gross and reapplying it every two hours is the worst. I am not doing that. Fortunately, Europe and Japan/Korea have been much quicker to approve newly developed more stable UV filters for use and at this point they have some really good ones. They also have much better UVA protection, both because of the better filters available and better labeling regulations.
A quick simplified summary: UVB causes sunburns, is directly absorbed by DNA strands which causes the mutations that lead to skin cancer, SPF measures protection against this only. UVA does more generic damage, creates free radicals associated with aging, wrinkles, collagen loss, pigmentation, etc. etc., but can also contribute to immunosuppression and therefore skin cancer. It’s more complex than this obviously but that’s not really the point of this post.
My sunscreen criteria: I hate wearing sunscreen. However, Accutane + sun = an extremely bad time. My ideal sunscreen is something that doesn’t feel disgusting to wear so I will wear it regularly in the first place (i.e. dry-touch), something I ideally don’t have to reapply super often under normal daily use (i.e. photostable UV filters, water-resistant when necessary), and has maximum protection. As long as I’m wearing it, I also want as much UVA protection as I can find, without compromising the former criteria.
Note: The sunscreens I tried are almost all chemical UV filters and several are loaded with alcohol, so if that upsets your skin then proceed with caution/ask me for a specific rec!
Note 2: All of these are SPF50+ (the highest rating allowed in the EU (meaning they tested at at least SPF60) unless otherwise specified *cough*Supergoop*cough*)
Best Face: Kao Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (x)
Best feel, best protection, best price point. This gets recommended everywhere for a reason. Bit of a silicone feel on the face. No white cast. Smells like alcohol at first. Really, really quality daily face sunscreen. Water resistant. Caveat that because of the alcohol I would make sure to throw a layer of moisturizer on beforehand to make sure I’m not totally drying myself out.
Also make sure you get the name exactly right, there’s a blah blah Watery Gel that’s totally different consistency, totally different filters, etc. etc. It has to be Watery Essence.
Best Body: Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Dry Touch Sun Gel-Cream (x)
This was a sleeper hit, so shout-out to Eucerin for the greatest body sunscreen I’ve ever tried. This stuff is SO protective and dries SO. DAMN. DRY. Zero grease somehow, feels like nothing. It’s even water resistant. I tried a couple LRP body sunscreens but they honestly aren’t worth mentioning. Eucerin or bust babey!
More Face Sunscreens:
I’ve also tried all top five sunscreens from this Stylevana listicle of Asian face SPF (x). The thing about face sunscreens that they’ve started doing is loading them up with silicones and acrylate polymers, which leaves a silicone-y feel on your skin like a makeup primer. As far as I can tell from poking through various patents, these polymers are doing a few things in the formula: a) emulsifying/stabilizing the newer/bigger UV filter molecules, and creating an occlusive layer over the UV filter molecules on the skin to a) improve water resistance and b) reduce eye stingy-ness. At first I thought I wanted to avoid these seemingly unnecessary additives but considering their function, these are all features I want/need in a face sunscreen so we’re living with them.
1. Shiseido - Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skincare Milk: really good, sliiight white cast but absolutely no streaks, more like a foundation just a hair too light for my skin tone. However I can’t imagine buying this because #2 on the list is better and 1/3 the price. Medium silicone feel. Something I’d probably only break out for when I went to an outdoor summer wedding.
2. Kao - Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence: I have already sung its praises.
3. MISSHA - All Around Safe Block Essence Sun Milk: closest to a US milky/greasy sunscreen experience here, though very fluid and still absorbs nicely. No silicone feel. Not a bad choice but nothing special.
4. Canmake - Mermaid Skin Gel UV: probably second favorite after Biore. Similar, bit less of a silicone feel. I’ve gotten red a couple times using this though, possibly because less silicone feel = no layer of protection against sweat/physically rubbing off? I bet this would be perfect under makeup though, it’s super light.
5. COSRX - Aloe Soothing Sun Cream: SO moisturizing, almost a dewy feel that sits on your skin and never dries. I wanted to love her, but unfortunately she is so loaded with the aforementioned polymers that when you reapply/put the appropriate amount on to begin with, it completely gums up and pills and you lose all protection. Also definitely not water resistant. Probably my top pick for a winter daily face sunscreen that I wouldn’t ever be worrying about reapplying though.
Other Contenders:
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Invisible Fluid (x) and Bioderma Photoderm Max Milk (x)
These two bad boys have the highest rated UVA protection currently on the market, 46 PPD for La Roche-Posay and 42 PPD for Bioderma. The LRP is extremely watery (technically alcohol-y) and comes in a teeny bottle(though same size as a lot of these I guess) but it is The Best UVA protection money can buy. The texture is really nice too, and feels super water resistant. If I’m outside sweating or on the water in the summer, this is going on my face. I've also seen it on sale multiple times since I’ve started researching sunscreens (because it’s extremely popular) so you can definitely find it in the $0.30/mL-or-less tier if you keep an eye out.
This Bioderma is cheaper and also extremely protective (thanks Helena @bronyraurmp3 for the rec!) but unfortunately it stung both my and Mr T’s eyes like a BITCH. Extremely unpleasant experiences for both of us. TBH if I’m out in midday sun, swimming or kayaking or something, I’m gonna be wearing a long-sleeved UPF rashguard to protect my arms and upper body and not worrying too much about whatever cheap greasy sunscreen I put on my legs. This Bioderma stuff would be going on my neck, ears, and hands though bc it’s super water resistant.
Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Mattifying Fluid : bit of a white cast, really slippy texture going on and nice dry touch texture when it dried down, but drying down took foreeever. Probably really nice if you’re sensitive and pale.
Eucerin Sun Oil Control Gel-Cream Dry Touch : VERY matte and dry-touch, would have loved it if I hadn’t gotten burned using it (doesn’t have all the newest most stable UV filters). Approaching the expensive end of things too, but would be a lovely option if you really prioritize non-greasiness and don’t need the premium protection? Mr T really liked using it on his bald head lol.
Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen SPF40 (US): This is recommended many places but it has to be a joke that people are actually paying Shiseido Anessa prices for old American UV filter selection, only SPF 40, and no UVA rating to speak of, right??? (ok they do have a PA+++ rating meaning a PPD of 8-16, so. this is acceptable.) I did not test this one but damn wtf. The texture is probably nice though and it looks perfectly sheer in the photos on their website, so maybe as a last resort for darker skintones that show a white cast with everything else? At that price tho... you do you but damn.
Jigott Snail UV Sun Block : This had good reviews on Yesstyle but it sucked. White streaks, bad.
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra-Light Tinted Mineral Sunscreen SPF60 (US): Another in the outdoor-wedding only price range. There’s a tinted and a non-tinted mineral version and I ended up mixing them together to get a shade that looked pretty good on me, but needing two bottles for that puts it in the extremely ridiculous price category. Really slippy nice texture that takes a bit to dry but dries down perfectly matte. I guess the person who wants to shell out for a high end all-mineral tinted sunscreen exists somewhere out there but I would bet there are many nice cheaper mineral options out there that I haven’t tried.
And that’s it! For EU sunscreens, I was able to order them on caretobeauty.com, and Japanese/Korean ones from yesstyle.com or stylevana.com, though I had to go to eBay for the Biore and Anessa. I ordered some Biore from a seller on Amazon but they shipped from Japan and I think they got taken by customs because the last known location on the tracking info is Chicago, so finding a seller in the US that has already imported them seems like a good idea (vendor lullabellabeauty on eBay worked great for me, fwiw, I will definitely order my Biore from there in the future).
If you have specific questions about any of these, or if you have any recs you think I should try, hmu! You will be shocked I’m sure to hear I have a whole sunscreen database at this point.
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emilyoftheshadows · 3 years
Text
Barista and person who has a ridiculous coffee order
Hello! I'm back again with another fluffy drabble! Enjoy some light flirting between my fav couple and some less than stellar writing lol....
As the sun shone around her and she felt the wind blow a breeze across her face, Aelin couldn't have been more happy. She was taking her morning jog before her lunch with Lysandra and Aedion later that day. The two most beloved people in her world were finally getting married. After waiting years for the endless  pining and ridiculous drama to stop, Aelin was absolutely ecstatic. As the couples best friend, she had already designated herself as their informal wedding planner, perfect for the job with her Type A personality and fabulous managing skills. 
Aelin guided Fleetfloot between people passing by on the street, muling over the agenda she had planned for all three of them today. First, Aelin had to pry out of the couple what season wedding they wanted, as well as an idea of where they would hold it. Nothing but the basics, but from there the beautiful ceremony Lysandra and Aedion deserved would be created. Then in the evening, Aelin would help Lysandra start browsing for wedding and bridesmaids dresses. 
But before she took on the rest of her day, Aelin had to stop at her favorite family owned coffee shop to grab her special order. Through years of trial and tribulations, Aelin had constructed her perfect coffee drink with the help of the wonderful barista Nesryn. Her friend was a little rough around the edges, but she could make absolute magic in a cup.
Wrangling Fleetfoot through the door of the shop, Aelin welcomed the smell of freshly brewed coffee. This place was like a second home to her. She spent hours here studying for her exams, brought her friends for coffee dates, and sometimes just came to gossip with Nesryn about the clientele that had stopped by that day. As she walked towards the counter though, the tiny black haired barista was nowhere to be seen. So, Aelin did the only thing she knew to do. 
"NESRYYNNNN!!! You're favorite customer is WAITING EAGERLY at your counter for her special order!" Aelin knew she was being obnoxious, but messing with her friend was one of her favorite activities in life.
As the back door opened, Aelin was shocked to see a man who was definitely not Nesryn hurry to the register. He wore a black short sleeved shirt that allowed his muscles to be on display. Adorned with an apron around his outfit, the barista only lacked a name tag. As the man looked up at her to take her order, she saw that his eyes were a unique shade of green that took her breath away. His stunning eyes, combined with the tousled silver hair atop his head and angular face structure, made up a man who looked like he belonged on a runway.
The two just stood there, looking at each other for what seemed like hours. Minutes? Seconds? Finally,  Aelin broke the silence, voicing the first thought in her head.
"You are not Nesryn." 
The man scoffed at her comment, choosing to respond in a similar tone. "No, sadly I am not. I'm Rowan and you must be Aelin, if I'm correct." Aelin's brow furrowed at the comment,  confused to how Rowan already knew her. He continued to explain himself.
"I'm the new hire. Nesryn went out for a short break and told me to take over in the meantime. But before she left, she warned me about you and told me to expect a "special order" like you so previously yelled." A glimmer of mischief shone in his eyes at the dig to her self introduction. Well, if he was going to play this game, Aelin was going to play it even better.
“Okay, Rowan. I need to get going soon, so I would really appreciate it if you sped up your pace here a bit. It's quite a complicated order as you're aware, so I would be more than happy to assist you as you make it.” With that said, Aelin mustered the most innocent looking smile onto her face. The look of worry he now held was immediately worth it. She almost felt bad for the man, but she would enjoy his suffering much more.
----
Rowan was flabbergasted. The minute he heard the yelling from the front of the store, he had scurried from the back where he was taking inventory, ready for his first customer on the job. Nesryn knew he had previous experience as a barista and therefore trusted him with a lot more responsibilities on his first day than he expected. Like watching the store by himself. 
As he had entered the front area though, Rowan hadn't expected to see the stunning woman waiting on him.  She wore what seemed to be a dark blue workout set, her light blonde hair tied up into a neat ponytail with a happy dog at her side. For a minute, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think beyond the sight in front of him. How had he never encountered this woman before him? But that perfect image was ruined the minute he had connected the dots, and realized this woman was Aelin. The Aelin with the “special order”. The Aelin that Nesryn had warned him about an hour ago when she had left him alone, in her cafe. Short break his ass.
Now, after writing down the many many ingredients Aelin needed in her drink, Rowan wondered if he ever should’ve taken this job. The blonde was outright bossy, guiding how he made her drink when he was the barista behind the counter. Rowan hadn’t had time yet to learn where all the extra flavors were kept, causing him to open up every goddamns cabinet in the search. Who needed 3 extra pumps of sugar free toffee flavoring anyways?
 At this point, Rowan was more worried about the girl's health than anything. Any drink with this  much caffeine and sugar would make him combust. But there Aelin was, practically flinging herself over the counter each time he made a move. To be honest, she was completely obnoxious and all he wanted was to walk away and leave the blonde to her own devices. But, after a brutal 15 minutes of back-seat coffee making, the drink was ready to go. 
“Here you go, Aelin. Does it meet all your ridiculous coffee requirements?” Rowan knew the comment was a bit snarky, even for him. But, Aelin had been dishing veiled comments back at him just as hard.
“Actually, you didn’t froth the milk enough. It's a little flat for my tasting, but I really have to go. I guess I will just have to deal with it.” Aelin shrugged as she made the comment, the ever so displeased customer. Rowan was barely able to contain a snide comment.
Instead, he practically dismissed Aelin from the shop with a curt nod and got to cleaning up the mess he had just made. Without a glance back, Aelin sauntered out of the door pleased, yelling a quick “See you tomorrow!” as she left.
 Rowan thought he would feel dread about having to see Aelin tomorrow. But as he continued cleaning, he smiled at the thought of getting to see the girl with a bit of fire in her heart. Rowan felt truly insane for feeling whatever he felt at this moment. Maybe he was ready for a little light in his life despite the tragedies he had faced so early in his youth. And as that light walked down the street with her dog at her side, Rowan felt like his life was finally taking a turn for the good.
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Text
Walking Space Heater
Word Count: 2700+ (oneshot) 
[AO3]
Genre: Fluff/Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Cinder Fall, Neopolitan, Emerald Sustrai, Mercury Black
Pairing: Cinder Fall/Neopolitan
Summary: Written (late) for Day 4 of @spice-cream-week 2021, “There Was Only One Bed.”
With the heat of both her Semblance and the Maiden powers, Cinder's body is much warmer than the average person's. So long as she's still by her side, Neo intends to take full advantage of that.
~0~
This is definitely a step down from the Haven dorms. Neo’s thumbs moved lightning-fast over the keyboard of her Scroll. Don’t they have ANY concept of personal space here? 
She could say something about Roman’s excessive use of emojis. But looking at his messages, she could hear his laughter clearly in her head, and she had no problem with that.
wtm? you got stuck with a shitty roommate? I’ll come and get her for you idgaf
That elicited the breathy noises that were the closest Neo got to laughter. Truthfully, she probably wouldn’t have minded sharing a room much in and of itself. It might even have been fun to mess with Emerald and Mercury in their own space. 
But no, she’d ended up with the only one that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Cinder Fall was calm, collected, and incredibly competent. Neo didn’t necessarily dislike her. She thought that they got along fairly well, in fact. But that didn’t mean that she trusted her.
Roman was content to stay in the dark about what exactly her ultimate design was beyond Beacon’s destruction, having already accepted the fact that they would be overwhelmed by it. It still gnawed at Neo, though. Thus far her only clues had been the couple private calls that Cinder had taken, and the way Haven’s headmaster cringed like a kicked puppy whenever he caught sight of her. 
Sure, the man was jumpy enough in general, but Cinder — or, more accurately, whatever force had moved Cinder to the Academies — made him cower. Even Neo’s most devilish smile couldn’t do that.
She’s...not bad. She definitely likes me more than she likes you.
Now, did that really require five laughing emojis after I can live with that lol?
And
Neo’s thumb hovered over the screen. For the first time in several minutes, she glanced up from where she was curled up tightly on the covers of her bed. 
Cinder was perfectly at ease on her own bed, leaning back against a stack of pillows with her Scroll open in front of her face. Still rifling through the records of all the Academy students, no doubt. Casting her great and bloody show, for which every little thing had to be perfect. It wasn’t enough that she was sending Emerald and Mercury out to run recon and collect as many relevant details about their players as possible. No, she had to study up herself for hours on end.
Neo was willing to play her own part, but it all seemed very boring to her. Certainly her interim leader could use a break. She returned her attention for one moment more to her Scroll:
I think she would be fun to play with.
Ignoring the several question marks sent in reply, Neo pocketed her Scroll and slipped off her bed. Moving soundlessly was one of the first skills she had ever had to master, and she still considered it her most important. 
Cinder was still too engrossed in her research to notice as she crept across the carpet and climbed onto the other bed. Or maybe she just didn’t care enough to acknowledge her. She certainly didn’t look surprised when Neo’s head poked through the hole between her arms and her Scroll.
“Oh,” she said, smirking, in a tone that she might use with a stray cat that had come up to her in the street. “Hello there. Looking for some entertainment?”
Neo gave her her best strawberry-ice-cream smile, and scooted closer. From the meager rations of physical contact she meted out to Emerald, she wasn’t sure how much Cinder liked being touched, so she proceeded with care, little by little. It seemed to be acceptable: she stayed very still, but allowed Neo to settle down on her chest, resting her head against her shoulder.
“Or are you just lonely?”
Neo hummed thoughtfully, letting herself relax: not all the way, but just enough. This was nicer than she had expected, she had to admit. Cinder was dressed like she had been in the first round of the Vytal Festival: sleeveless jacket, long pants, and sarashi. Neo’s cheek rested mostly on bare skin, and though of course she had seen Cinder’s Semblance before (as well as the flames that didn’t quite seem to fit with it), it was much warmer than she had thought it would feel. Softer, too, with the scents of wood smoke and spicy perfume clinging to it.
“Well?”
Neo rolled lazily over onto her back, looking up at Cinder’s Scroll to see what she had been so busy scrutinizing. Hm. Several pictures of that Mistrali girl from the cereal commercials, accompanied by a passage about her Semblance which had been highlighted in a few places. There was one more tab open with an acronym on it, but that was it. 
Nothing that could tell Neo anything about their situation that she hadn’t already guessed at. And what was more, absolutely nothing that could be more interesting to her temporary partner than her.
Clearly, Cinder could use a lesson on how to properly spend an evening. Dastardly planning, which seemed to be her only form of recreation, just wasn’t going to cut it. 
So Neo helpfully reached up, laid her hands over Cinder’s, and pushed the Scroll shut for her. She put her pointer finger to the outside of her nose; her new teammates might not be picking up Valerian Sign Language particularly well, but she hoped the long, exaggerated twist away from her face coupled with a dramatic sigh got the message across equally well: Cinder, I am bored to tears.
Cinder tilted her head, puzzled but smiling. She slipped her Scroll into her pocket and wrapped an arm around Neo’s waist. 
“Well, in that case, I’d be happy to give you some attention.”
Neo made as pleased a sound as she could muster up, and snuggled up to Cinder, as close as she could get. It might have been dark and cool outside, but she felt as if she were napping on a sunbeam. Rolling over to lay her head on Cinder’s chest, she could imagine that there was a powerfully burning fire inside it in place of a beating heart, whose heat was palpable, just beneath the skin. 
She tried to look more sweetly smug than actually impressed, but gods, she had never felt anything like this. 
Cinder held her tightly in both arms now, fingertips scratching lightly between her shoulder blades, and Neo nearly purred. Years of pulling back bowstrings had turned those arms wiry and oh so strong. All at once, she completely understood why Emerald was always trying to earn one of these rare hugs.
And speaking of which...
Neo wasn’t sure how long she spent in the lap of luxury, only that she felt like she might actually fall asleep in it, as toasty warm as it was. Cinder had switched from rubbing her back to stroking and playing with her hair, which, in her experience with other people, was a welcome first. But she was jolted back to full awareness when their dorm room door slammed angrily open.
Blinking, Neo lifted her head. She caught the lingering scents of jungle juice and sweat incoming, before she saw Emerald stalking inside, barely hanging onto her last scrap of patience. Mercury stumbled in after her, wearing a huge grin and mirrored shades that Neo was fairly certain did not belong to him.
Cinder smirked. “I was wondering when you two would be back. How did it go?”
Emerald forced a halfway convincing smile for her leader. “It was...interesting. Though not quite as informative as I was h—”
The smile froze on her face when she turned to look directly at Cinder, and saw Neo lounging in her lap like a spoiled cat. 
Neo smirked, and signed, Party fun? With the reputation Vytal Festival house parties had, hopefully Emerald had gotten some attention as well.
“Oh, it was great!” Mercury shrugged off his jacket and pitched it into his and Emerald’s room, littering their carpet with brownie crumbs. “We saw a lot of everybody, didn’t we, Emmy?”
While Emerald tried to take a cue from Cinder and set him on fire with her eyes, Cinder herself just closed her Scroll with a soft laugh. 
“Well, you can tell us all about it in the morning. We should all get some rest now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You got it, boss...”
Neo watched them slink into their room, where muffled bickering started up as soon as the door closed, but did not move until she felt a gentle pat on her thigh. 
“You too, dear. Go on.”
Though she made a show of huffing about it, Neo got up off Cinder’s bed and went back across the room. 
Her own bed felt cold and uninviting now. Catching up on the several missed texts from Roman (including but not limited to what do you mean by that lmao, hey Neo dont leave me out of the loop :), Neo tf are you doing to her O_o, NEO) did make her smile, but as she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help but wish that she didn’t have to return to being alone just yet.
~0~
This was not at all the solution to that problem that she had envisioned, but Neo knew very well how to deal with whatever life threw at her.
She had never been to Atlas, and while she had to roll her eyes at its decadence, she couldn’t say she hated the place. Cinder, on the other hand, never answered outright when Neo tried to ask if she had ever been here before, but every bitter hiss from her about Atlas elites that had not been asked for gave her a general idea. It had taken them a while to find a vacant apartment to squat in, especially considering that there was an entire chunk of the city that Cinder refused to even go near. 
But now here they were, and it was empty around them and quiet outside. The blackout curtains shielded them from the city lights. In pitch darkness the two of them were curled up together in the place’s one bed.
Cinder had initially balked at the idea of sharing it, insisting that Neo take an extra blanket and find somewhere else to curl up. So barky with her orders these days, and so on edge, too. Neo was beginning to wonder how she had ever thought of this woman as calm and collected.
In any case, she didn’t see what her once-again partner’s problem was. She had invited Neo into her bed with her before, hadn’t she? Maybe not to sleep, but still. And she was far from squeamish; she wouldn’t make a fuss about the scarring and empty eye socket on full display. As such, she ignored the demand, and simply undressed, got under the covers, and gestured for Cinder to join her. 
After some indignant spluttering, Cinder threw up her hands and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She didn’t come out until Neo had turned the lights off and laid there long enough that she might reasonably have fallen asleep. Even then, she slipped in quietly, gingerly, and stuck close to the edge of the bed. 
Now, that just would not do. Atlas was much too cold for that kind of nonsense. 
Neo rolled over under the blankets, feeling just as bold as last time, but exercising even more care, Cinder being so volatile lately. She went out of her way to be heard, so it wouldn’t startle Cinder to be touched. She knew her bedmate was awake: though she lay very still, her breathing was nowhere near relaxed enough for her to be asleep. 
Cinder didn’t jump when she felt Neo wrap her arms around her waist, but she did go still as a statue.
“Neo,” she growled, low in her throat, “what are you doing? I’m not in the mood for—”
Neo nuzzled her bare shoulder in a way she hoped was reassuring, as she pressed up against her back. Fortunately for her, Cinder’s new arm was tightly bandaged up for the night, so she didn’t have to risk touching the awful thing. Only human skin, just as fiery warm as before. Even the wood smoke smell remained. 
As had happened so often since the Fall of Beacon, Neo caught herself writing a text to Roman in her head, wryly telling him that he was right, she shouldn’t have thought so hard about where Cinder’s flames came from, because she would never in a million years have hit on the right answer.
She gave her head a shake, and resisted the urge to glance back at the bowler hat perched neatly on a bedpost. If she started thinking too hard about that, she would never get to sleep either. There would be time, when the sun came up, to consider some more whether the woman in her arms was the key to her revenge, or its target all along. 
Right now, the darkness was peaceful and the blankets thick and soft around them, and the heat of their bodies grew more soporific every moment. Comfort was a rarity in both of their lives. They ought to savor it whenever it came their way. 
Cinder let out a long, exasperated huff, clearly not sharing the opinion. 
“Couldn’t you just hug a pillow?” she grumbled. But there was no bite in her voice. 
Neo smiled against her skin, entwining her legs with Cinder’s. Now, she would have said, were her hands not occupied, where would be the fun in that?
“...Fine. Just don’t think you’re going to make this a regular thing.”
Oh, she absolutely was, so long as they were staying in the coldest part of the world and she was in the company of a walking space heater. 
As such, Neo ignored the question and snuggled closer. She was trying her best to communicate “calm down and go to sleep” through body language alone, so to feel Cinder slowly but surely relaxing in her arms, eventually going limp, was deeply gratifying. Almost fascinating.
From nights spent in the Beacon dorm room and Mistrali inns, Neo already knew that Cinder talked in her sleep. Most of what she said was sluggish and toneless as well as nonsensical, but sometimes it was a series of fierce snaps or pained moans. It came as no surprise to Neo that when, just as she was starting to doze off herself, she was woken back up by her partner’s twitching and yelping. 
“No...don’t take...I’m...!”
Neo sighed drowsily, and tightened her embrace, humming as soothingly as she could. Her inability to speak never really bothered her, but there were times like this when it didn’t exactly help her, either. At least she could keep Cinder from thrashing around and hurting one of them: if that arm decided to act up while its host was in distress, she had zero faith in the bandages to hold those claws back.
It’s okay, she thought, hoping that somehow it would get across, just relax, you’re all right...
Nightmares never lasted forever. Neo had woken with her stomach still in free fall from enough dreams of plummeting wildly through a Grimm-infested sky to know that. Still, she hoped that her attempts at calming had helped this one pass quickly. Cinder’s mumbling devolved into moans, then to frantic whimpers, then finally to something close to the restful breathing that Neo had almost fallen asleep to before.
Neo took a deep breath of her own. She was too tired to smile, but leaned in to press a kiss to the back of Cinder’s neck, the ends of her short hair tickling her nose. To her surprise, she felt a burn scar here, too: thin and faded, but winding around her neck like garrote wire. Somehow she didn't think that Ruby had done this. But she certainly wasn't going to ask who had. They weren't going to discuss any part of this in the morning.
So she kissed her neck once more, soft and just a bit more sincere, before closing her eyes again.
Good night.
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seeminglyseph · 3 years
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little bit of a redraw/redesign thing. I wanna shade it but also I spent multiple hours zoned out drawing her hair. I like feel super cringe showing the original but like it’s clear I used no reference, was more interested in silhouette than pose dynamics (I’m even being generous and cropping it, my ability to know what’s important to a picture is non existent) and also learned exactly how bad it looks to shade with grey. I did not use a reference and did not have the time or discipline to do the details I’m managing now...
I have this group of OCs I keep meaning to write... something about. I’ve been playing around with designs for a while (and not been very great at it, honestly looking at the old designs. They’re either really really bland or my concept of design and anatomy... can we just say I’m improving? That was meant to be lipstick but it was a bad choice and I definitely see it. I’ve also experimented with makeup in drawings. I don’t know how to mix it with the cel shading. I tend to make solid blocks of eye shadow, but it doesn’t work good for the really blush heavy looks. I’m trying to give her that like e girl style heavy blush and highlighter. My idea is that she’s like an anime and games youtuber/streamer? Her name is Tamara and she has two love interests and originally it was a werewolves are a found family story but idk if I have anything remotely werewolfy for them to do. also I don’t wanna draw wolves. I was gonna say ‘I just want werewolf dynamics without having to draw wolves’ but that’s just abo fic. which I am not above, I do love some mate bonding and like packs. it’s about a bunch of queer kids coming together and like doing stuff. when I was designing them I was super into Wet Moon by Sophie Campbell? So I was like thinking of just some just like intense character based journeys. Really original, “hello I would like to write queer found family personal drama?” groundbreaking. I wanna though...
Tamara’s kind of a sheltered baby of her family, she’s trans and her parents got a little hover-parent over it. She started her transition in her childhood so she was on puberty blockers and the whole thing, she was kind of a shut in because she’s shy and a nerd and didn’t get out much until she went to art school and the story starts. So she’s a shy lover of anime and cute things and she wants to be a manga artist and art school is going to be very hard because like why write a story about a thoroughly uneventful time? like I said I have no idea where the werewolf shit would fit in. I gotta admit this started focused entirely on the other main character Jon who has been through many incarnations but when they started being werewolves was like an uwu omega special werewolf mage.. so like there’s a confused disconnect between what was clearly self indulgent spank bait and what was supposed to be a lot of character drama.
which I suppose isn’t to say intense character drama can’t be spank bait but I think probably not with abo dynamics lol. though it would be interesting to play it straight and see if I’m a good enough writer to pull it off (I’m not) I do hears that there’s a market for it in the world of self publishing lol I just wanna write like batshit insane drama like a soap opera. I think part of me still misses the high of being into Teen Wolf, I just want extreme relationship drama and love triangles and found family and one night stands and shit combined with like monster of the week supernatural garbage. “Hi we’re a bunch of queer college age werewolves we solve ghost crimes” I want that. if teen wolf could get away with some prosthetics and eye effects, I can too. please don’t still be reading this I put it under the cut because I knew I was going to end up talking too much. I have to either say nothing about a drawing or explain my whole thought process, there is no in between.
Cutesy e-girl weeb goes to art school and maybe does supernatural adventures but definitely ends up the focal point in a love teetertotter between her best friend since childhood who went to college one year earlier and got like suuuuper attractive and it’s a little weird but she honestly couldn’t love anyone more, and the hot nonbinary fellow art student with like... depths. I know it doesn’t sound like it should be much of a fight but like just because a relationship is new it doesn’t make it less good. and theoretically the hot nonbinary artist is very hot so don’t give up on him yet. Though childhood friend is also theoretically hot. Everyone is theoretically hot because I wanna make them hot.
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luminois · 4 years
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Omg can I just say I love all your ships ❤️ literally the cutest things idk how you’re so creative with it ahhhh 🥰 and congratulations on 100 followers!!!
Hi I’m Natalie, it’s nice to meet ya! I’m the mom friend (sometimes the grandma friend lol). I like to go on walks wearing stompy boots and dancing to angsty rap, but then come home and waltz around the kitchen and cook to Frank sinatra. My favorite season is fall, when it gets cold at night and the stars look sharper. I like reading in the shade until I lose track of time, closing my eyes to feel the wind on my face, curling up in an oversized flannel, multicolored string lights, and vanilla candles that crackle when they burn. I’m a morning person because that’s the quietest time of day, and I love watching the sun rise and set ☀️ sunsets are my favorite to paint, though
thank you, i’m glad you like them 🥺 i don’t really know how i come up with it, i just go with what my heart tells me hehe but anyways, i think you’d go very well with seungminnie
he definitely shares your love for quiet and warm things
you both would go all out when fall approaches
your house would look like those perfect pictures you see on home design magazines
candles lit in every room, curling up in front of the fireplace, warm drinks at all times of day
but even without all those things the atmosphere would still be cozy and full of love
he truly just needs to be with you to feel fuzzy and at ease
jazz would constantly play when you’re cooking in the kitchen or spending time together on the couch
he would definitely start singing when the right songs come up and you pull him by his hands to dance with you
he can’t say he likes it as much when you take full control of the aux and hard rap starts to play but he still goes along with it because you enjoy it so much
you both go on walks together as often as you can, holding hands despite the cold while you’re covered up to your nose by coats and scarves
you don’t have to talk, just enjoy the scenery and sit under a tree or a cute bench to read
the colors of the fallen leaves on the ground would create such a magical atmosphere, and that’s all he really needs to be content with you
he would enjoy watching the sunrise with you so so much
minnie would make both of you tea or coffee and just sit with you on your house’s front porch
snuggled together with a blanket covering both of your shoulders
it feels like a magical experience everytime despite the impressive amount of early morning he has already spent with you
one of his wishes is to spend every morning just like this for as long as time will allow
sunsets are a different story
you’re usually more focused on capturing the right colors and shades on your canvas than just watching the sun disappear on the horizon with him
he doesn’t mind through, because he loves sitting back and admiring both the sunset and you standing next to it
his favorite thing to do is bringing out his guitar and humming out soft tunes to make the moment even more special
when you turn around to show him your finished painting he smiles and compliments you to no end everytime
to him, it doesn’t matter that every painting is a little similar to each other
there isn’t that many different ways to paint the same thing, and yet you always manage to make it memorable
he would surely keep every painting you make like it’s the most precious thing, because to him it truly is
this makes me want to live in a fall themed hollywood movie where i meet my soulmate at a coffee shop or something, so romantic 😭
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cyoza · 4 years
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shrike
I was not going to post on here and I tried like 5 times but for some reason the ao3 link isn’t showing up in the tags sand I’m feeling very frustrated so I’m just going to upload the first chapter on here and then the rest of the chapters will be on ao3 because it took me forever last time to get all the chapters together here 
I’m going to post the link to my ao3 at the end and see if it works this time but its literally giving me a headache lol 
In his 3 years as a protective agent of the CIA, Dick Grayson had never once slept past his alarm. However, he’d never felt the urge stronger than he did that morning. Even with the blaring siren of his alarm sounding, he’d lay staring at the ceiling for the few minutes he could spare wishing he could hit the snooze button. 
For the next 6 months. 
Dick had been very lucky in his 5 year career, shadowing various important but interesting diplomats and thus learning a lot more than the average person about the world and often top secret information. But it seemed like his luck had run out. For he was to spend the next 6 months babysitting some spoiled, pampered princess. 
Kory Anders had definitely built up a reputation for herself - and not necessarily a good one. From his research, he had found multiple articles that described her short temper, recklessness and honestly almost careless attitude towards dating; a new man or woman on her arm every month. It didn’t help that she was an actual princess which meant that guarding her was going to be a bigger pain in the ass than usual. When it came to Royals, they would feel more comfortable with their own services as well as CIA protection which made it all the more difficult to get the job done. Safe to say there was no real part of him looking forward to the task. 
But Dick got up anyway, clicking off both his phone alarm and battery back up along the way. He got ready in a daze, cruising on autopilot until he stood in front of the mirror adjacent to his front door. White shirt crisp and immaculate as usual, dark navy tie placed perfectly at the centre, all pulled together with a sharp angled black blazer. 
A picture of a model agent. 
Bruce Wayne would be proud. 
Dick watched as his eyes narrowed automatically at the thought but he forced himself to relax; he didn’t need anymore tension in his body today and thinking about his adoptive father wasn’t going to help.  
So he grabbed his keys and made his way to work, again not really present for the journey but the dread that settled in him as he pulled into the parking lot forcibly ejected him out of his reverie and back to reality. 
He tried to ignore it, doing the best he could to seem like his charismatic but professional self as he made it through security. Saying hello to Joe as he x-rayed his bag and commenting on Max’s new hair do as she scanned through his fingerprints and ID before making his way through the halls to the DS’s office. 
He paused facing the heavy mahogany door, bracing himself before knocking. 
‘Come in,’ was the gruff reply. 
Dick let out a sigh before entering, shutting the door softly behind him and making his way to stand by the double burgundy leather arm chairs opposite the mahogany desk. 
Directorate of Support Officer Charles ‘Chip’ Wenthem looked every bit the stereotypical middle-aged officer was to be expected to look. Thick grey caterpillar moustache with a matching buzzcut and permanently stress induced protruding coronary in the neck. 
‘Ah Grayson, good you’re here. The Royal Family will be here any minute. I know this isn’t the best assignment but I want you to put your best foot forward, alright? We really need this to go well.’ 
‘Of course, sir. Looking forward to doing the best I can for my country as always.’ He lied, giving him a tense but polite smile that neither reassured nor reinforced his statement. Yet neither of them mentioned anything, knowing the job would get done either way to an exemplary standard anyway. 
‘Glad to hear it, son. Now, as explained in the dossier, you’ll be guarding the Princess Kory Anders of Tamaran along with her personal protection services named Faddei Adeliyi. You’ve done this enough times that I don’t need to hold your hand, Grayson, but proceed with caution. The Tamaranians keep to themselves so we don’t know much about them for a background on customs. Follow their lead and watch yourself. You’re one of my best agents and I don’t want you to get kicked off this case for something stupid, alright?’ 
Dick suddenly felt the tension he’d tried very hard to suppress return to his body at full force. Chip was a good DS but it was times like this that he felt his patience with him was paper thin. 10 years of experience in law enforcement with 5 of them in covert operations just to have him speak to him like he was a teenager fresh out the force on his first mission. Dick bit back his frustration and gave him another tight smile but before he could speak again, there was a knock at the door prior to Chip’s mousy assistant poking his head through. 
‘Um, sir, we have the Tamaranean Royal family through security and here to see you.’ Arthur spoke quietly, shifting his eyes rapidly between Chip and the floor. Even after 2 years working here, Arthur was still terrified of every single thing; it was a wonder how he even got the job. 
‘Send them in.’ Chip waved his hand in confirmation sending Arthur’s head back around the door before he came back to swing it wide open again. 
Dick had seen beautiful people in his life as he seemed to always fall into their orbit unintentionally. But they all paled in comparison to the people who walked in the room in those next 5 minutes. The man who walked in after Arthur could only be described as ethereal. Towering taller than any other person Dick had come into contact with, it wasn’t his height that commanded the attention in the room nor was it his transfixing good looks. His shoulder length dark locs framed his face and corresponded with his gruff beard, which were both laced through with grey and emphasised the high slant of his cheekbones. It was his eyes, however, that drew the attention to the face, a gleaming brilliant gold that seemed luminescent even in the poorly lit office. But it was neither of these things that person would be enthralled by. Rather the aura around him was so authoritative and regal that it demanded an attention that you never wanted to withdraw. He seemed to glide as he walked into the room, his mulberry chiffon-like robe swishing around him as if there was a breeze that existed only for him. Dick could only assume he was the King, especially with the thin intricately woven golden crown he wore, pinning back some of his locs. 
Even the guards that trailed behind him were some of the most stunning guards he’d ever seen, despite them dimming in comparison to the King. A man and a woman, again taller than the average person and again dressed in a similar shade of mauve to the King but more combat appropriate. Dick felt his knowledge of gender binary being challenged as he observed them both, the woman’s head shaved with a complex design tattooed across the expanse and the man with equally elaborate braids running across his scalp and trailing down his back. He had never felt more inferior in his life, even with Bruce Wayne as a father. 
Dick’s attention was brought back to Chip as he made his way around the desk to greet them. 
‘Your Majesty King Myand’r, welcome to the US. It is our utmost pleasure to be able to host you on your stay here.’ Chip had never sounded or looked more nervous in his life, this interaction clearly having the same effect on him as it was having on Dick. 
‘Thank you..Charles, is it?’ He questioned, moving forward to extend a hand which ‘Charles’ anxiously but gratefully accepted. ‘And you must be Dick.’ He turned to Dick and stretched out a hand toward him too. 
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ Dick hoped his voice sounded strong and stable but he made sure that his handshake was, uncharacteristically wanting to exert himself, as futile as he felt it was. 
‘So you’re the one protecting my daughter. Then let me introduce, my eldest daughter - Princess Koriand’r.’
King Myand’r stepped aside and it felt like all the breath had been punched out of Dick’s lungs. He had seen pictures, of course, but as beautiful as she was in them, they all felt like insults compared to the real thing. Dick didn’t know where to look first, completely overwhelmed by her presence. She seemed to be a head shorter than her father so she still dwarfed everyone in the room and it didn’t help that the vivid scarlet curls that sat atop her head gave her added inches that she really didn’t need. The crimson coils seemed to halo her face in a heart shape, her cheekbones high and sharp like her father’s and just like her father, her eyes were transfixing. Bright and shimmering, they mimicked his luminosity but hers were an emerald green that paralleled the jewels themselves. They were only emphasised by the glittery gold eyeshadow she wore, her pouty full lips also painted with a dark maroon. 
Dick knew he was being rude but he couldn’t help but look at her. It was difficult to look away, especially when she also wasn’t wearing very much. As relatively warm as it was in Virginia in September, it definitely didn’t warrant the outfit she wore, or lack thereof. Again she wore a varying shade of purple to her counterparts, but this time it covered way less. Clothed in a light cotton skirt he could barely call a skirt, it reached the floor but the two high slits travelling up her legs all the way to her hips left very little to the imagination so her legs seemed to go on forever which were only highlighted by the 5 inch gold gladiator sandals she was wearing. Her midriff was also bare, the top she was wearing covering her breasts and not very much else, wrapping around them with two tiny trivial spaghetti straps holding the fabric up. 
Dick felt like he had been staring at her for a lifetime but it was probably only 10 seconds, so he cleared his throat and stepped forward to greet her. 
‘Princess Koriand’r, hello. My name is Dick Grayson, I’ll be forming part of your protective team while you are here in the US. It is very nice to meet you and it’s an honour to be guarding you.’ Dick stepped forward to extend a hand to her but was taken aback when she merely rolled her eyes to the side and ignored his outreached hand to fold her arms. 
Dick looked frantically between the King and Chip dropping his hand and worried that he’d made a faux pas and offended her within a minute of meeting her. But he had merely taken the cue from her father with a handshake. Maybe it was different for different genders? Perhaps he was supposed to curtsey or bow? 
‘You must excuse my daughter, Mr Grayson, she is proving difficult to convince that she does in fact need your services. She is quite headstrong which is a trait we admire in our country as it shows strength. But in times like this, we could possibly do without it.’ He explained before gesturing to his daughter.
‘You don’t need to talk about me like I’m not here, Father.’
Dick reeled hearing her voice; it was rich and melodic and suited her perfectly. 
‘Well, Koriand’r, start acting like you are here and maybe I won’t have to,’ the King retorted. 
‘I don’t see why we have to be here at all. I am a trained warrior, there is no way that I could benefit from having these feeble h-’ 
‘Koriand’r, that’s enough!’ He cut her off sharply, eyes suddenly blazing. ‘It is time to stop acting like a child and act like you are next in line for the throne, for X’hal’s sake. The CIA were kind enough to extend their services to us while we are here and we were grateful to accept. You shall greet Mr Grayson here appropriately and behave yourself whilst you are under his care.’ 
Dick could see the fury building under her guise as her father admonished her, obviously wanting to argue when her body abruptly relaxed. She swung her head to face Dick, a wide, sultry smile on her face before making her way to stop a few inches in front of him, hips swaying enticingly as she strolled over. He only hoped his swirling mind wasn’t evident and his professional facade was still in place as he inhaled her sweet rosy scent. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he tried to keep control of himself and not let himself be party to whatever game she was trying to play.
‘Hello, Mr Grayson, it’s a pleasure. I can only thank you for your service and I look forward to being under your care.’ She purred, lifting her hand towards him. 
Oh, these 6 months were going to be longer than expected. 
Further chapters: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21785914
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dragracereviews · 4 years
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My Ultimate Top 10 Favorite Drag Race Queens
#10 - Kameron Michaels: NGL, Kameron is partially on this list because I would fuck her in a heartbeat. I actually plan on making a list later of queens I would sleep with in and/or out of drag and you will definitely find Miss Michaels high on there. I’ve seen her live on the Werq the World tour and I 100% regret not getting Meet and Greet though I probably would’ve just drooled on her and made a fool of myself so maybe it’s better that I didn’t. It’s a known fact that Kameron is an incredible lip syncer (if you haven’t watched season 10, please do so just to see her in action because honestly, she’s one of the few good things about that season) and she did NOT disappoint. Her dancing was only beat out by Vanjie who you may or may not see later on this list. Kameron if you’re out there reading this (LOL, we all know she isn’t) and you ever feel like experimenting with an actual biological woman, hit me up!
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#9 - Sharon Needles: And here we have another attractive man out of drag! Sharon was the OG underdog and while I’m not going to sit here and bash Phi Phi O’Hara because she’s actually talented AF (checkout her Harry Potter cosplay, it’s soooo good), Sharon definitely didn’t deserve all the shade thrown at her on season 4. Her drag aesthetic has always been equals parts spooky and equal parts fabulous, but she’s actually improved over the years and it’s made me love her even more. My favorite Sharon moment ever is during a “Queens Reading Mean Comments” video on WOWPresents’ Youtube channel where someone said they liked her old teeth better and she just goes, “Well my old teeth just looked ridiculous with my new lips!” Get ‘em, girl.
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#8 - Jinkx Monsoon: I want Jinkx to be my mom. There, I said it. Also, if you don’t get that reference, get your shit together and subscribe to WOW Presents on Youtube you fucking bumpkin. Jinkx was the loveable weirdo on her season and received a lot of hate from her fellow queens but I loved her from the start. I have since forgiven Roxxxy Andrews for her cattiness because of her rudemption on All Stars 2 (insert her Read U Wrote U verse here) but nothing was more satisfying than watching Jinkx go from the underdog to America’s Next Drag Superstar. I don’t know what’s more iconic; her tendency to fall asleep at inopportune times, her laugh, or all the jokes about her being a full blown swamp witch. Either way, it will always be Monsoon season in my eyes.
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#7 - Nina West: Hands down, the DEFINITION of Miss Congeniality! This choice was so obvious, I don’t even know why they took a vote. I think that even if they left it up to the fans, it would’ve been her. I fucking LOVE Nina. I’ve actually met her IRL and my first thoughts were 1: she’s HUGE (hello, she’s a six foot tall man in like 6 inch heels and I’m barely over five feet) and 2. she just radiates happiness! She is the only queen I’ve met that asked me my name (though shout out to Plastique Tiara for calling me gorgeous as if she’s not the most beautiful creature on the planet) and she didn’t make me feel like an idiot when I just stared at her adoringly and just word vomited “you’remyfavoriteiloveyousomuch”. Class act people!
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#6 - Bianca del Rio: Do I even need an explanation for this one? Hands down, the undisputed winner of season 6, and that’s coming from a die-hard ***** fan (see entry #2). Did she wear the same silhouette 10+ times? Yes. Can she kind of be a bitch sometimes? Definitely. But is she the funniest fucking person alive? Probably! My love for Bianca is infinite but I still wouldn’t want her to read me, at least not in person. Actually, scratch that, I’ve seen her Twitter feed and getting read online is almost worse. I fucking love Hurricane Bianca and the sequel even though it’s one of those so-bad-it’s-good type of film series. I sadly missed her last tour because it was the same night as Sasha Velour’s Smoke & Mirrors show and as amazing as Sasha was, my heart was broken that I couldn’t go to both. But you better believe the next time she’s in town, I’m forking out lots of $$ for VIP and I may or may not faint at Bianca’s feet #noregrets
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#5 - Vanessa Vanjie Matteo: Mother. Fucking. Vanjie. OKAY, I’ve met this bitch IRL and let me tell you, she is the cutest fucking thing. Like Nina, it shocked me how apparent it is that she’s a man (square jaw, hello?) but she can still paint for filth and look fishy AF even with her boyish features. Also, AMAZING performer! I waited 3 hours after the M&G for her to actually come on stage and perform only two songs (that’s a story for another day) but let me tell you, it was worth the fucking wait. I showered that bitch with Canadian monopoly money and I would’ve given her more if I wasn’t such a broke millennial. And to top the whole night off, I got woken up at 5 am to my friend screaming because Vanjie had reposted my photo in her story so I was essentially Instagram famous for all of like, a day. Thanks girl xo
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#4 - Bendelacreme: I love me some Dela. This queen proved in both her regular season and All Stars that she is a force to be reckoned with. Season 6 wouldn’t have been the same without her and did I want to yell at Darienne Lake for being a bitch to her? Absolutely! (Gia Gunn pun intended) And I honestly think that if she hadn’t eliminated herself, she would’ve won AS3 (though if you read my #1 entry, I am 100% satisfied with who did win). She completely deserved her Miss Congeniality title, and while I see where the others AS3 queens were coming from when they suspected she was trying a little too hard to keep up that image, I did appreciate her trying to play the game with some class, because we don’t see that often on Drag Race. I also love her friendship with Jinkx and it’s definitely on my bucket list to see one of their shows one day. You know what they say, the Creme always rises to the top!
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#3 - Brooke Lynn Hytes: Full disclosure, I’m Canadian but that’s not the only reason why I love Brooke (she is the Queen in the North though, and I’ll fight you if you say otherwise). This queen is fucking TALENTED! Season 11 would have failed without her, IMHO. She can design and sow a complete outfit, read people to filth, sort of sing (I still listen to Queens Everywhere daily, especially her verse), dance circles around ANYBODY, and lip sync like her mother fucking life depends on it. Did she, by the end of the season, forget that’s there’s more to a lip sync than being on pointe? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t change the fact that she is literal perfection and I think that’s why Ru gave Yvie the crown instead of her (though I love Yvie so don’t come for me). Brooke’s biggest downfall was the fact that she wasn’t relatable and I am 100% okay with that. Sometimes you just have to worship the unattainable. The only issue I have with Brooke is her and Vanjie not being officially together anymore because yes, I am one of those fans that ship queens together, especially queens that have actually dated. I will never get over #Branjie, just saying.
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#2 - Adore Delano: "I'm a fucking Libra!" As soon as these words left her mouth, I knew I was in love with Adore Delano. Season 6 is by far my favorite season (spoiler alert if I decide to make a Top 10 Best Seasons list) and if it weren't for my #1 pick, she would 100% have the top spot. Hell, before I discovered WOW Presents, she WAS my #1 pick (read my next entry to understand what I mean). Adore is simultaneously adorable (pun intended) and fierce AF. She's beautiful, hilarious, and did I mention beautiful?! She is the reason I say "party" at inappropriate times. She is the reason I wish I was a Libra instead of a fucking Scorpio. She is the reason I insist everybody start their first Drag Race binge with season 6 because I know they’ll fall in love with her as much as I have. Adore, if you’re reading this, I fucking adore you.
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#1 - Trixie Mattel & Katya Zamolodchikova: Of course these two are tied as my number one spot. Individually, these queens are fucking fierce and extremely talented (go download Trixie's country albums if you don't believe me), but together they are pure gold. If you've only ever watched their run on season 7, you probably don't understand why I love them so much, so do yourself a favor and go watch All Stars 2 & 3, as well as their web shows "UnHhhh", "The Trixie & Katya Show", and “Queens Who Like To Watch”. I can even give you a list of other stand alone videos of them to watch (ex. "Besties for Cash", "Fashion Photo Review", compilation videos of the pair in Palm Springs... I think you get the gist). Truth be told, I'm absolutely obsessed with these two, so much so that I may or may not have indulged in some online fan fiction about them from time to time...don’t judge me, okay?! I love a friends-turned-lovers love story, and I know I’m not the only one wishing #Trixya would happen IRL. I've also shelled out so much money to Trixie alone on her merch and makeup, and I'm waiting very impatiently for them to go on tour together so I can go full Futurama and just scream "take my money" as I buy the most VIP package they have. Trixie and Katya are the ultimate definition of All Stars and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
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illegiblewords · 4 years
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Explanation of design approach and some personality info under the cut.
Essentially, the way I’ve been approaching this I wanted to make each world feel like a self-contained and cohesive team. Nivienne is actually from Lamia and so isn’t designed to mesh with the others, but I use her a lot and have a design strategy for her so she’s included. For team Famfrit as a whole, I wanted to make sure that each personality and design would feel distinct and that the main color for each character would stand out. Most are also pretty obvious lol--black mage is black, red made is red, white mage is white. Areas I went different are gold dragoon (or aurum dragoon if we’re being fancy), purple scholar, green bard, orange ninja, blue warrior.
CENRIC ASHER
My main and a hyur midlander black mage. With him I wanted to push against the concept that hyurs are inherently vanilla or “boring”. Imo there is nothing wrong with designs that look like they could occur in nature, but with him I wanted to do an edgy personal spin in the classic Final Fantasy black mage look where the character is a dark silhouette with glowing eyes, a high collar, and a broad hat. Sometimes he wears other things too but the overall concept ties to that particular look. In personality Cenric is a pretty angsty guy due to having been a con artist who got a lot of people killed with medical fraud. He lies a lot out of fear of the reaction he’d get if his background was known. Possibly a little nuts, thinks he is the son of Nald’Thal and bound to spread death and destruction wherever he goes--striking enemies and allies alike, regardless of his own wishes. Probably actually just has Duskwight heritage. Has pretty hardcore imposter syndrome about being Warrior of Light, but in partial response to having been destitute and outcast for a long time he tries to play into the persona of a powerful, luxurious, mysterious black mage brimming with forbidden knowledge. In reality he is intimidated by most children, can’t whistle, and is a bit of a smartass when he’s not panicking his way through conversations.
J’MOR TIA
My red mage alt, I wanted to do a few experiments with him! One was that Red Mages usually read very sophisticated and swashbuckle-y to me, and I wanted to play more into the rapier as an almost roguish weapon. Very physical. He’s somebody who you initially would not assume is a magic user but who is just as versed and capable on that front as the ivory tower casters haha. I also wanted to make him a combination of ethnically black (contrasting Cenric who is ethnically Arab but weird) and a male miqo’te because I have never seen that combination before. I wanted him to feel very charming and like he has kind of rugged good looks. Just a bit too scruffy for pretty boy. Personality he is probably the most shonen hero of my alts lol. He has stuff he struggles with (he and his sister both wanted to be adventurers but she opted out after taking things way too far in a fight and getting scared of her own power) but doesn’t get stuck in his head nearly as much as some other characters do.
CESAIRE DELAROUX
I futzed with this guy for a while—main inspiration comes from a particular kind of horse called the Akhal-teke.
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Also because I have seen some really cool and pretty elezen that specifically worked to play up gold as a color scheme, and in this case I wanted to evoke a kind of warm, soft golden light. Originally I was going to make him a contrast to Cenric and make him much paler, but I wound up going that route more with Asklona instead with drawing loose inspiration from certain forms of albinism. I went more gold to make sure Cesaire would stand out visually from Asklona. Another reason for this route is because I want to make a character who looks very light and pure, but in practice has hardcore bloodlust. XD Wanted one case for playing into that possible WoL element haha. I also thought it might be neat to make a character who could serve as a kind of foil to Zenos in many ways and might credibly say yes when invited to be besties. Cesaire is still a mostly heroic guy but I figure he’s a bit like Dexter if that makes sense.
KIYO SHIROGANE
An auri white mage from Hingashi! To me it felt a little odd that the Ruby Princess of Sui-no-Sato has more of a magenta color scheme than red. I wanted to tie Kiyo to Kugane specifically in part because I think the parallels between geomancy and white magic (land, sea, sky) are super cool imo, there are a fair number or Raen au ra in Kugane with less lore exploration, and I wanted to make a character whose past trailed behind her in a clear and interesting way while she travels. So for Kiyo I kind of took inspiration from the idea of a red pearl (pearls often being white as per the horns and scales but then she has vivid red hair) and from the idea of blood tied to injury and medicine. Plus ya know, white magic. I also took light inspiration from candles conceptually. I totally forgot that Shirogane is the housing district also lol so now she has backstory lore that her family had been heavily involved in establishing the area. Kiyo comes from a large and noble family with a ton of political and economic influence, being herself somewhat sheltered and naïve. She is very sincere, playful, outgoing, and does her best to be kind. Very animated!
OSK YASKARET
For Osk, I was essentially going (ʘ_ʘ;;) because I knew that I hadn’t used ANY brown hair so far and it was making so uncomfortable lol. So I thought about what combination would be appropriate, distinct, and striking enough to fit within the cast while also being distinct. Gray and brown feel like chinchilla colors to me and I think are nice in a way that wouldn’t be out of place with rabbits/viera. I wanted dark eyes since again, I hadn’t yet for this group... so dark purple wound up being her main color. Since I was going scholar, I also wanted to keep the sense of intellect and feeling like a healer without being mistakable for astrologian or white mage. I still want to build into her look, but another aspect I wanted to incorporate--saw a lot of people arguing about the inherent sensuality of Viera, so I figured for her I wanted to make her look elegant and sophisticated but more conservative in glamours. I didn’t want her to instantly read like she hopped out of the woods either. Figure she’d have had time to adapt since.
I’m still very much debating backstory and personality or her but am leaning toward her being the offspring of a viera who left the woods while pregnant. I like the idea of Osk wanting to connect with her heritage but feeling somewhat adrift. I also want to incorporate Nym lore because omg I want more Nym in-general. Personality I do think Osk is probably a little bit of a smug bunny but things remain super tenuous.
ASKLONA WANNEYNWYN
Asklona I literally wanted to make a super soft feeling, hyper feminine lady roegadyn because most interpretations I’ve seen have been either harder feminine or tomboyish. Still fun imo, but given the grief some fans heap on femroes I really wanted to show that this kind of look is doable. I usually try to incorporate the black noses on Hellsguard designs (tiger roooooes) while with Seawolves I tend to push either fully into something natural or fully into something unnatural. So ex. the most desaturated option or else just run with blues and greens. Asklona is specifically a bard because it is pretty and fancy imo and I haven’t seen a lot of roegadyn bards in-general. Asklona I mentioned before is modeled off of certain kinds of albinism, but by that I want to make the disclaimer that pink eyes don’t generally occur in people (pale blue or violet is more likely) and that normally there are some eyesight problems that come with the condition as well as ease of getting sunburn. I don’t necessary play into that with Asklona/am going artistic license because I mean final fantasy we can lift swords bigger than we are. I know these things get overlooked a lot though so it seemed worth specifying. My choice to go this route was because I wanted to make myself use more pastels lol and I figured this would be a fun spot to contrast Cenric. I think in backstory Asklona’s father lost his mind to a siren, and Asklona pursuing adventuring as a bard is partly to take revenge and partly in the hopes that she can call her father back with song. Her involvement becomes more complicated over time but I think that’s the general direction. I picked green for her color scheme because it’s a color that feels like it evokes both the woods of Gridania and the sea itself... and because pink is a shade of red and with green being complementary, I figured it would make the pinks stand out a lot. Asklona is tied to Limsa Lominsa and besides looking for outfits that will flatter her body type I am trying to evoke the ocean in her designs. Pirates, sailors, the works. Personality I am still figuring out a bit but I think Asklona is definitely a shameless flirt, can read as insensitive and self-centered at times as she indulges in what makes her happy. She plays herself off as much more shallow than she is and in-general focuses on pursuing pleasure as a way of avoiding heavier issues.
KOKONO KONO
The scrappy daughter of a Doman fox auspice and a Thavnairian lalafell, Kokono saw her mother waste away with homesickness after fleeing the Garlean occupation. She has two brothers, one who returned to Doma while the other remains in Thavnair witht her father. Kokono hates the idea of loving a place so much you would die over it and decided to travel Hydaelyn, causing mischief while indulging a deep-rooted curiosity and love for discovering new places. Has severe commitment issues. Can be prone to swearing and being insensitive because the shocked reactions amuse her a lot, but her heart is ultimately in the right place. I designed her literally to make a lalafell fox because with the dark nose option + werewolf ears it is SO EASY to make tiny canines and I don’t understand why more people don’t do this. Like I could make an elegant white fox lalafell or a yorkshire terrier lalafell or any number of things. We can have itty bitty dogs! And like Kiyo I wanted some background to be evident in her clothes too. I designed her before I picked her backstory and mainly went for rule-of-cute/what would most evoke the red coat of a fox.
SVATOMIR AZORYA
Last of team Famfrit, he’s a Warrior Hrothgar. Very conceptually rough, I’m interested in playing him much more reserved and traditionally masculine in a lot of ways. I think a character in that vein will help balance out against the other Warriors of Light I made for that world. Design goal here was to make him look as wolf-like as possible haha. I think we have plenty of cat people already with Miqo’te.
NIVIENNE LECLAIR
From Lamia, I’ve talked a bit about her before so copypasting that in.
Basically, when I decided to try doing the whole WoL/Emet-Selch fic writing misadventure it was just a personal challenge for funsies. I’d seen other people do some really interesting and impressive stuff using unnamed lady WoLs. Hadn’t really tried something like that myself so I decided to go full improv with it.
Except my instincts tend toward specificity lol, so I scattered details according to what would make for fun scenarios or cute details. I wanted the lady to be a certain level of tall so I went with elezen. I needed to describe a readily portable weapon that would mesh with that sweet, sweet Amaurotine lore, so I made her a summoner. So on and so forth. Very seat-of-the-pants.
Particularly since the fic I have coming up is gonna be bigger, I’m thinking name is okay now lol.
Cenric as my black mage main is a dark, broody guy who doesn’t quite realize he’s nicer and sillier that he gives himself credit. So I decided Nivienne should be much more socially adept (read: not a lameass poser), very mischievous, confident… but lowkey has some heavy shit going on. Girl can be ruthlessly manipulative. Other WoLs of mine have different personalities.
As I was going through fic stuff, I decided I wanted to visually tie to and contrast with Emet-Selch since shipping. He’s got gold eyes and accents on his regalia? She’ll go silver, but her skin will have a more golden tone. He’s got dark hair with a white streak? She’ll have light gray hair, tie into the ruff of his coat. So on and so forth.
Name-wise, I actually fucked up initially by going too on-the-nose. Nivienne is another (more elezen-French) name for Nimue. Given how that story goes I figured it would be fitting here.
As a couple of other notes--color scheme being gray was experimenting to try for a different-but-distinct summoner aesthetic. I wanted to play up horns/third eye concepts (not strictly in the Garlean sense) and create a vibe that wouldn’t feel like white mage, or red mage, or black mage, etc. I also saw people arguing that female casters all end up looking like magical girls, so I wanted to really make sure that she had a different look from that while still being very feminine.
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resbang-bookclub · 5 years
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AMA Transcript: Unrequited
Next up, @infantbluee, @kallie-flower, @nori-wings and @thiefofblood (Souly on Discord) came to answer questions and spread the love for their Resbang, Unrequited! Here’s some of what went down:
Q: How did you guys come up with this idea? I remember you threw a ton of ideas around and settled on this one. Can you take us through the process? >:)
kallieflower: Oh god. We went through SO many different ideas. We wrote like what? 40k for our first idea before we scrapped that?
b l u e: Then like 30k for the next one that we also scrapped.
kallieflower: WE KEPT TRYING TO WRITE SHORT THINGS BUT IT DIDN’T WORK. Soma just does not work as shortfic.
b l u e: Even our final bang ended up being a 40k two-shot lmao.
Q: So what was it about this final idea that made u guys decide, YES, this is it???
kallieflower: The first idea was a Madoka Magica AU that exploded into a mess because magical girl worlds take a loooooottttt of work. The second fic also exploded into something big.
b l u e: We were going to stick with it though. We were. We had it all ready for check-in and everything. But then like two days before, kallie went, "okay so I love our fic idea and all but what about this." Me, on three hours of sleep: "I effing hate you." Then we stumbled through our first 3k and sent it to the mods like the gremlins we are.
kallieflower: We didn’t expect it to get so big either but c’est la vie. Chloe almost killed me like 48293783 times during the process but I think we managed alright.
b l u e: You're lucky I love you so much.
Q: Did you guys start writing straight from the beginning of the fic or did you write a specific scene first?
kallieflower: Actually we didn’t start from the beginning haha! Or well, our idea didn’t start from a plot. We just wanted to write Maka cursed. We wanted to write her with no inhibitions in love, like she might’ve been had she not been so hurt by her parents’ separation. And since there are witches in the SE universe, we had fun with that instead of making it an AU.
Q: Do you write linearly at all or did you jump around a lot?
b l u e: Surprisingly yes. Aside from my dream sequences.
kallieflower: Your dream sequences were our pit stops. We just had to actually do the writing to get there.
b l u e: Hahaha our writing process was.... Unique.
kallieflower: That’s one way to put it lmao.
nori-wings: It was a mess, but we love it.
b l u e: WE are a mess so it's just us in fic form.
kallieflower: God yeah. For one thing, this fic was like 90% chloe with me just making her do crazy things I wanted to happen.
nori-wings: And 5% of what the artists wanted to happen.
b l u e: YEAH hahaha that was kallie too tbh. She was like, "me as a witch would not understand anything about my magic at all and would curse people for kicks, so let's do that."
kallieflower: We would have a general plot of how we wanted to go and what points we wanted to hit. Chloe would start to write it, but then I would be like “WAIT WHAT ABOUT THIS.” And then she would pretend she thought I was a total nuisance but we all know she’s too soft and sweet to ever say no to anything. Also our artists were such a LOVELY help too.
b l u e: We wanted as much of their input as possible and we wanted to make this as much of a collab as we could. The train scene at the beginning of the third chapter was all nori because she was mad at us for only torturing Soul and wanted Maka to cry too.
Q: Nori/Souly did you have a favorite piece of art to make?
the monkey chain (soul): The skating scene was my fave. I also accidentally changed the part in the fic with the skating since I didn't ask what kind of skates they were supposed to be kfljgdf.
b l u e: LMAO it's our fault though!!!! We were Too Slow.
nori-wings: Black*Star dragging Soul and Maka is my favorite, it was super fun to draw.
b l u e: When you sent the first wip of that, I think I cried for days. It was better than my dreams. You were both so fast GOD, it takes me seventeen years just to sketch a pic.
kallieflower: For real tho. We don’t deserve artists.
nori-wings: They are exaggerating, it was a quick sketch that I made on a post it lol. It took me a week to draw it in digital.
the monkey chain (soul): I had free time since we moved and were without internet for a night so I had a ton of time to finish my pic.
Q: Did you have trouble meeting the deadline?
kallieflower: Trouble is putting it lightly lmao. We died. Many times.
b l u e: I don't trust fast writers. Clearly they are superhuman. It wouldn't have been hard if we didn't spend so much time drowning in memes and shitposts that we neglected to write.
kallieflower: I blame the internet.
Q: Were there any scenes that you guys really struggled with writing?
b l u e: The beginning, definitely. Everything else flowed out pretty quickly, but the beginning made us want to cry into our pillows and smash our keyboards.
kallieflower: I think there was a period of time where Chloe was like, “I will physically pay you money to write this scene so I don’t have to.” But yeah, the beginning scenes were definitely hardest to write. I think we rewrote them like a million times.
Q: Nori and Souly, was there a part of your art that was trickier to do?
nori-wings: I think painting Soul and Maka's kiss, because I wanted to use as few colors as possible and I played a lot with shading, or at least I tried haha.
the monkey chain (soul): Uhhhh not really for me? My pieces were relatively simple and probably the most issue I had was drawing Maka's skates and figuring out what Soul would be wearing.
b l u e: I cried when we got paired with souly.
kallieflower: Chloe literally fangirled to hell over getting souly as our second artist. And we were very lucky to get nori as our artist too because we already became really close friends through the zine and talked all the time. Our resbang just gave us an excuse to move all our blabber to a personal server lmao.
nori-wings: Yeah, they asked me to be something like a beta but I ended up being their artist.
kallieflower: We joked about it beforehand too and were SO happy it happened. We were so blessed with support and love this year. We never would’ve finished without the help of our artists and betas.
nori-wings: They are making it sound nice, but we wouldn't let them drop out.
kallieflower: LMFAOOOOOO. Nori likes to be sassy but she’s one of the softest of us all
b l u e: We legitimately would've dropped out if not for our artists.
kallieflower: “Do it for our artists” was our mantra through the whole process when we wanted to quit. Peer pressure makes diamonds, maybe.
b l u e: I mean, it didn't feel like that when we were bullshitting our way through our next 5k before each deadline, but it be like that sometimes.
Q: What was your favourite scene to write?
b l u e: My favorite to write was definitely the nightmare demon scene.
kallieflower: Because she’s a sadist and likes angst. Chloe likes to make people feel pain so her favorite scenes were definitely the angsty ones.
b l u e: FDSJFKDSF
Q: For errbody: what do you feel like you improved/grew in this resbang, writing and arting-wise??
kallieflower: For me, I definitely grew in writing skills even though I didn’t end up writing much of this bang (chloe, bless your soul for carrying me this year lmao) because chloe is SO GOOD at writing that it made me want to be better, learn better, do better.
b l u e: Kallie made me work harder than I ever have my entire life and it paid off SO MUCH. I very much only ever write ventfics.
the monkey chain (soul): I feel like I Peaked with Maka's outfit in the skating picture, like I don't pride myself in outfit design much these days but Maka's outfit came out so good. I didn't expect it.
Q: Were there any parts of Unrequited that really pushed you out of your comfort zone?
b l u e: Writing with someone else was such an experience.
kallieflower: We definitely had to compromise a lot in terms of writing. Like I wanted Soul to walk in on Kid touching Maka’s scar and Chloe immediately said “fine, but only if we make Kid a gardener” and if that isn’t a super fair trade off, idk what is. Chloe and I work so well together so that was easy. And we like a lot of the same things.
b l u e: There was a little adjustment [with adapting to different writing styles] but not much, because despite what kallie says, she's actually so freaking smart and talented it actually makes my eyes water.
Q: If you had the time to do something differently, what would you do and why?
b l u e: Everything. Jk no but really. There's just a lot I wish we could've elaborated on. And more suffering to be had of course. I just wish we had more time to elaborate on Spirit and Maka's mom.
kallieflower: Oh god yeah. Maka did not get enough of a backstory in the manga or anime and that makes me sad always.
Q: What made you both decide on the outcome of the curse? Did the witch know how it was going to affect Kid?
b l u e: We actually knew the outcome from the very beginning when we decided what kind of curse it was.
Q: Okay SO one last question for the crew. What is next!!!! >:)
nori-wings: Next collab is me writing and Chloe as my artist. (She just doesn't know it.)
b l u e: FDHDJFKSDDSF
kallieflower: OMG PLS HAHAHA. I’d be all over that collab. Chloe is working on a soma longfic she won’t let me beta because she’s Secretive. And I am trying to work up the energy to use my keyboard again after the hell that was finishing Resbang.
Thanks to the crew for stopping by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!
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spacedimentio · 5 years
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Live Impressions of “Change Your Mind”
Neat, a bit of the credits music on the title card is fun and totally not ominous
Oh, this a dream. I was legit worried about Connie for a second there
That thing looks like one of those rainbow caterpillars that really little kids have that you can pull behind you with a string
!!?! I- That’s not worrisome at all, nope, no identity crisis here, oooh boy
Does that mean that Rose knew what the corruption light was? Or just that it was an attack of some kind. Cause if she knew exactly what it was then she should have probably seen it coming.
Déjà Blue is right, they’re using the exact recording/drawing I think
“No.” Damn right you’re not sorry!
Oh Blue, you really did love her, didn’t you… She looks nice with messy hair, it reflects how she feels on the inside.
That easy huh? Haha, look at her face she doesn’t know what eating is and is totally mystified and disgusted xD
Yellow time. Oh, are those…those are fusion experiments. A nice reminder of an awful thing that Yellow is responsible for.
Oh, oh shit! Blue looks absolutely mortified holy fuck
Hey, there’s the scene from the promo. “You’d hurt your fellow diamond?” “Didn’t we hurt Pink? She was suffering in silence for ages, just like our gems, just like me!” Oh man, she does know that they’re responsible for a lot of bad shit, was their behavior all just…fear?
That face Yellow just made stabbed me in the heart jesus No don’t you dumb banana what are you doing holy shit! Oh my god no she’s gonna cry and then I’m gonna cry and she really just doesn’t wanna do this
Did he really just Did he really just hit her with “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs” I can’t
Haha fuck yes! Yellow crying was my one wish for this ep :’D Let it all out Yellow, I’m sure Steven will give you hugs at some point Also kudos to the person that made the comic where the dialogue was almost exactly like this in regards to Yellow telling Blue to stop using her powers when she wasn’t doing anything
Oh! They’re calling him Steven now! They probably don’t get what he is still but that’s a good step
I’ve heard “You’re not going anywhere” in the commercial like 5 million times but it’s still creepy af
Oh hell no the ship did not need eyes no thank you
Ok I just thought he was trying to pull a “hey, what’s that” and run away while White looked to see what he was pointing at, but no it’s actually the two arm ships how the fuck did Bismuth fix them so fast (how long were the kids in prison jeeeeez). I like how it looks like there’s bandaids and duct tape on them lol But this might actually be a bad thing because why did you bring the arms, you’re going to make the mech stronger!
Dream: achieved! Ayyy, new designs! Nice glasses Peri, but they too big, so I like Lapis’s outfit more. I do love how you just have the lid to a garbage can, you could have found cooler things to surf on, but nope. Garbage can lid.
No don’t attach the arms that’s going to come back to bite you I just know it!
Man, the diamonds hopped on Team Steven quick, but I can’t be too upset with that because it is also what I wanted XD I guess they’ve been suffering a lot more than I thought.
That’s a nice sentiment Connie, and I’m surprised that the diamonds actually listened to what you said and considered it. Doubt it’ll work though.
Oh, they’ve still got control of their ships. I wonder how that particular bit of bullshit space magic works.
You got this Yellow! Don’t hold it in anymore! Oof, they don’t like the pressure they’re under, and they’re under a lot. The diamonds are responsible for a lot of awful things, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t conditioned and expected to fulfill their roles just as much as any other gem.
Aww, look at how Yellow is smiling, and I love how they’re holding hands! Bellow forever!
Oh that’s… Zero hesitation. Stone cold. I don’t like the way their heads flopped backwards, that’s really unsettling OK IT GOT WORSE STOP SMILING LIKE THAT D:
Steven I know you want them to reform but you should probably bubble them before…you…drop them, just like that.
I demand the BGM for this episode and will inevitably be sad when we don’t get it
Oh what, you can just do that? Fuse with a gem that’s not even formed?
o0o Rainbow 2.0! I had a guess that their weapon would be a parasol and it was even neater than I thought it would be Wow, they’re really, really British. That’s a British accent right, I’m not dumb? They’re just Mary Poppins, holy shit I love them! Jet umbrella leaves rainbow trail, ok yes thank you
Fire lady??? We fusing with everyone up in here today! Steven, in episode fucking 11: So, what’s today’s mission? I hope it’s fighting a giant foot! Today, in episode 157-160: a giant foot almost shatters everyone Well you sure got your wish buddy, are you happy?
Alright we got sunglasses mcgoo over here. Sunstone looks like a cereal box mascot I swear to god. So we’re going full “PSA mascot from the 90s”, are we. Man you are just…continually breaking the fourth wall aren’t you. Of course, Sardonyx also has the power to break the fourth wall so I guess it’s just a Future Vision+ thing. I like you Sunglasses McGoo, but I hope your weapon isn’t just suction cups or you’re never going to show up again in a fight xD
Fuckin rip Nice shades Garnet, I like what you did with your…idk what that piece of clothing is called but it’s the bit in the thin section of her body, I like the way the color goes onto her hips a little.
Oh OH SHIT IS IT REALLY TIME FOR THE LONG-THEORIZED TEMPLE FUSION That’s a lot of arms dude! Oh my god they are so cool I love them already!
Peri I love you, never don’t be ridiculous Oh geez I thought she wasn’t going to be able to catch her for a second because bismuth is a diamagnetic metal and *flashbacks of A Gem is Shattered being on the bingo card*
What’s this…staff thing? Ok that was extremely cool, your face is full of lava and you just made a sword from it. Goodbye hands I’m hearing Alexandrite’s percussion instrument in the music, that’s neat. Obsidian is also just roaring a lot, like Alexandrite.
Oh through the eyes, sure. Idk why she didn’t just close the eyelids to keep them out
With all the commotion and fusions, I totally forgot they got brainwashed, oof. It’s definitely not extremely unsettling to see them all talking at once with one voice, nope, not at all. Please stop talking, please stop talking, christ please stop talking
“But you’re a part of me” I-… Does that mean that the color theory where the other diamonds used to be part of White has more merit than I thought? Is that where they came from?
Nononono leave them alone! Oh god why
NONONONONONO STOP THAT DON’T DO THAT PLEASE DON’T DO THAT OH GOD I AM LEGIT CRYING RIGHT NOW THIS IS AWFUL
I don’t think that’s true, I’m pretty sure Pink was just a naturally social person who’s status forced her into loneliness. She just wanted some got dang friends
I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER BEEN SO CREEPED OUT IN MY LIFE. Why is this animation and these over-exaggerated faces reminding me of Cuphead. I’ve never played Cuphead but that’s what I’m thinking of.
DON’T YOU DARE GIVE THE CHILD AN EVEN WORSE IDENTITY CRISIS I AM VERY, VERY WORRIED SHE’S RIGHT
Wait, what are you doing WAIT A MINUTE NO DON’T YOU DARE DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE OH JESUS OH CHRIST THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING NONONO STOP
THEY DID IT THEY ACTUALLY FUCKING DID IT Is…is she…
(Edit from the future: Probably most of you didn’t have a commercial break after this moment, but I sure did, and I spent the entirety of those minutes with my hand covering my mouth in pure shock, tears trickling down my face. I was left to wonder…is Rose coming back? Is Steven dead? I was left with this image:
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I was so astounded that I had to pause for a moment and just breathe. And christ, having to wait just a few minutes in utter shock and terror was An Experience. I feel bad for those who didn’t have a break there.)
*quickly realizes that having half the screen still black means that we’re gonna have double perspective* Oh No Oh Shit Oh No is it really gonna be her?!
Oh thank goodness. Congratulations, you now have two Steves, whatever that means
Ok Steven’s still alive, but it looks like it’s excruciating to be without his gem. I’m glad he didn’t just fall apart without the light holding his cells together. How long can he last without his…soul?  Shit what do we call this, what even is this.
This is definitely not what she expected to happen. Oh jesus christ holy shit chill out dude, even White Diamond shook
It’s just…such a relief to finally know. I never believed that the show would abandon its themes of loss by having a miraculous return, but I still wanted to see her anyway. She’s gone.
So what is this guy, exactly? Does he have any conscious thought? Or is he just pure gem energy with the desire to return to his other half
“I only want you to be yourself!” Uh, White honey, you are literally doing the exact opposite thing. “I’ll do it for you!” That’s not how people work White, you are just not having a good time with this turn of events are you
That’s an…interesting shield. Who did Steven say that to, btw? Was he telling White to stop hurting them, or his other self to stop reflecting the attack? Cause White was also in the middle of being hurt, I think
Aww, they’re so happy! It’ll never not be creepy to see White’s voice coming out of Steven’s glass-eyed friends though.
Normally I don’t notice when something in a 2D cartoon is 3D animated, but that shot of White’s head was kind of jarring? I didn’t like it
Oh thank christ he’s alright! I wonder if the gemstone is gonna be turned the other way now? Wait no, it was still turned inside when we went through past reformations.
Oh wow, she’s actually just a 60 foot baby. Look at Steven and Connie laughing cause they’re getting bounced up into the air. Zing! Haha, she’s blushing so everyone’s blushing. …Ok did the ship really need to blush too, come on guys
Ok so whitewashing everyone is something you have to put some effort into controlling. She was literally putting parts of her mind into them.
Haha, good timing guys, you missed everything. Bismuth’s face tho, perfecto At least only Connie has to live with the trauma of seeing Steven get his gem ripped out.
Her face is still cracked? What…what are the cracks from if not from being mind-controlled mercilessly
Yes, congratulations, you are having an emotion. Oh, she’s actually a shade of pink now, what. There’s that color theory again. Guess whose turn it is to have an existential crisis? It’s you!
“I’m supposed to know better! I’m supposed to be better! I’m supposed to make everything better!” Wait, according to who? Theory that someone made her confirmed?
Oh hey, Beach City. It took me a good second to realize that Sadie was doing a remix of a Greg song. Cue a big-ass robot hitting the beach in three…two…one! BAM! A+ timing guys
Oh, White isn’t actually that much taller than the other two when they’re standing together like that. I could have sworn she was at least 100 feet tall, that’s a bit disappointing. Then again, it would be really hard to get her to fit in frame with everyone else. Does this mean that Pink actually might be undercooked after all? Cause when I thought White was 100 feet tall, Blue and Yellow were as proportionately small next to her as Pink was next to the two of them, but now I’m wondering again.
Me too, Ronaldo. Me too.
Uh, wow. Nice timing Lars. Those poor off-colors, it took them a million years to get to Earth and the first thing they see is all three diamonds staring at them. That sure is a mood, Rhodonite. Big mood.
Aww, Lion and Lars are gonna be bros. ‘You’re like me!’
Fucking hug each other you dumbs! God, you’re frustrating.
I demand to know how all three of them fit on the warp pad/inside Steven’s house! Tell me at once!
Oh, we’re doing this right now? I know there’s going to be a season 6, but what are we going to do in season 6? Sneeple? (Re)adjusting to earth shenanigans? Diamond family time?
Nephrites! Look at em all, I love ‘em! And Watermelon Tourmaline too! Ayy, it’s Biggs! I’ve always wondered what she looked like. Haha, if I wasn’t shipping Biggs/Bismuth before I sure am now.
Jasper! Wow that only took like two years for her to show up again. Also I just realized that everyone looks weird because they still have traces of corruption on them and not because they were Like That in the first place.
Oh boy Jasper, you’ve…you’ve missed a lot. I wanna know what Amethyst just told her that made her hide in the water in shame.
Boy that one in the middle with all the different colors is scaring me a little
It’s kind of funny how White Diamond went from Massively Threatening, Narcissistic Perfectionist to Completely Lost Almost Cute Child in a snap. I actually feel bad for killing her off in my fic now, whoops. Ah well, it’s an AU anyway so I’m not gonna retcon anything.
Alright who taught Yellow to make a peace sign
Alright who parked the legs on the cliff like that
All the songs in this arc have been named after the episode title they appear in, nice. I’m kind of disappointed that we didn’t get another diamond song but maybe that’s for later (a song about how everything is confusing now? or maybe about how they let Pink down and suffered themselves)
Welp, that’s a wrap. It is now once again time for hiatus. Yellow continues to be my favorite diamond after Pink; I really hope they all come visit Steven and learn stuff. I’m actually very surprised that they jumped ship so easily; it seems that they might understand that what they do is wrong but they do it anyway cause that’s what’s expected of them. Seems they were suffering a lot more than I thought, and I already thought they were hurting quite a bit.
And that brings me to the biggest question I have. Much like Blue and Yellow, White was acting as if someone told her to do this; it’s like she’s a rogue AI who’s original creators are long gone. I don’t know if I wanna see what White’s afraid of, cause up until the last 10 minutes or so of this ep she was the scariest thing I’d ever seen.
Who made White Diamond?
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