#I’ve decided to add a white border to the things I draw the don’t have a background

[aluhnim]

Hello!! When you start a comic, how do you go about deciding your panelling layouts?? If this is too big of an ask for covid brain, how about your favorite song of the moment / a song that really inspires you?? I hope you feel better soon!

I was searching around for an old write up I did for some Original Character Tournament folks who were interested in my thoughts on panels and layouts. To try and answer your question, I go off of vibe now that I’ve made a LOT of comics. However, as much as it doesn’t seem like it at times, I do typically stay as “conventional” as possible to make sure my readers are still following the plot. I make a lot of adjustments along the way. Smarter layouts allow me to draw less, and drawing less is better for me in the long run! It’ll allow me to put more time in other places of the comic.

Anyway, here’s my write up back in the day that’ll hopefully answer some comic drafting questions!

More conventional paneling is a necessary stepping stone because you know your reader won’t get lost and the structure will have you more focused on flow and pacing. It seems remarkably easy to do comics with more “static” or traditional panel layouts but they work for a reason. There’s no real need to break out of something that works, unless you want to! Breaking out of the structure can really add some OOMPH to your important pages.

Some tips, note that these have been my preferences and some definitions don’t quite match their descriptors.

Bleed

I consider open panels or panels that stretch out beyond the edge of the page to be considered bleeds. They’re simple ways to make you feel like your not just sticking within your margins and making your page feel less static without much extra effort. Manga does this quite often, and Western American comics, especially during action packed moments or large splashes.

Some examples of things bleeds can do:

- They can also be used as transitions between pages (first panel bleeding in, last panel bleeding out).

- They can be used to interrupt or add a beat to a moment. Although the example below is mostly bleeds, you can see the one full panel at the bottom stands out because it’s not like the others. A subtle beat.

- They can also just be used to extend a panel to make it bigger. That seems obvious, but larger panels do make people spend a bit more time on them, regardless if there is text or not. Though, “more time” means probably several milliseconds or even a few seconds more than usual.

- Collaging with a bleed is a really great way to think beyond panels and open the space. You will be spending more time thinking of how much you can cram in along with the flow of how your text is going to lead through a series of images.

- Removing panel borders can really open a space and allow for more room without having to go above and beyond the ideas of comics and panels. (sorry, gale galligan is just good)

Gutters

The space between panels is almost just as important as the panel itself. That’s where readers and inferring actions and time. You can only control so much of what the reader is doing between their eye shifting between panels, which is why composition within panels and clarity are so important.

Gutters can also be played with! A simple example is changing your gutters from white to all black. It can be a subtle shift in time, a transition to a new space.

Even the amount of space between panels leaves an idea of time! I think webtoons/manhwa really work well with the gutter space, leaving you to physically scroll and feel the effects of time passing with the amount of empty space you encounter.

It’s important to understand that the gutter has a lot more to do with reader imagination, and your goal is to have them understand that the next panel is somehow plausible.

THIS SCENE EMFIELDS DID IS VERY FUCKING GOOD. TIME, SPACE, GO OOOOOOFFFF KING

Panels themselves can be a part story!

This one is a difficult thing to write for, since I feel like there isn’t many examples out there. There are very structural examples of panels out there, like Watchman. While the 9 panel grid was intentional, it also was likely the only way to deal with Alan Moore’s script effectively without missing details. The panels themselves don’t ENHANCE the story, but a means to an end.

But it’s also an incredibly good example of how conventional comics paneling can still be effective, especially when you start breaking that mold just a little bit.

But then you have comics like M. Dean’s “Baby fat”. Where the comic paneling itself never strays from its original structure, but is indicative of the story itself, representing tiles, mirrors, patterns.

Or Robert Hunter’s “The New Ghost” which he uses circular motifs and has circular panels representing the telescopes sight line.

Predicting Reader Navigation

These are my rules of thumb when doing general sight reading panel by panel.

1. Text is what people gravitate to first. It’s the context needed to approach the next panel.

2. Faces are next, this provides context to what the subject is feeling.

3. Familiar people/animals/objects and SFX.

4. Everything else!

This is an example of sight reading notes I gave to my friend Holocene when we were collaborating.

#long post #asks #blogging

[gr-ogu]

Requested by @tennant​!

For this tutorial you will need:

Some basic gif-making knowledge (see my last tutorial!)

I’ll be using CC 2017 to do this, but as long as you have the timeline option, this will work for you! 🥰

So, in a sort of part two to my other gif tutorial, (https://luke-patterson.tumblr.com/post/636980573506813952/) this is a slightly more advanced part of gif-making. But I promise it’s easy when you know how!

Assuming you followed the last one, you’ll already know how to make your gifs into a smart object, so we’ll start there!

PART ONE: BLENDING

Drag both of your gifs into the same file. For this to work, your gifs have to be the same number of frames, or at least cropped to the same length in the timeline window, otherwise one will loop before the other, and it will mess up the loop of the gif. (For when we get to the multiple gif part, I recommend having between 60-80 frames, so it stays under tumblr’s 10 MB limit.) As this tutorial uses smart layers, they can both be sharpened as well.

(I made this gif 540 px by 268 px, because I’m going to add more to it later. But we’ll cover that further down in part two!)

Honestly, I find it so much easier to put my colouring on top of both/all the gifs, and then clip individual layers down onto a specific gif, if that one needs more of its own colouring. That way, the extra layers don’t interfere with the other gif(s). It’s so much less confusing visually for me than having lots of groups with their own colourings, and it makes moving the gifs around simpler.

Position them side by side, one on top of the other. Obviously, you can play around with the positioning: this may be easier to do once they are blended, especially as some gifs may be smaller and you need to try them in different places. For example, this is a screenshot of a Lyra/Will set I made in the past, with three blended gifs of different sizes:

Add a layer mask to both of your gifs. You might not need to edit both, but I usually do, as I like to balance how much one gif blends into another! Using the brush tool (set to black, when you’ve clicked on the layer mask), we want the brush to be very big, and very soft.

The bigger the brush, the more seamless the blending will be! By painting parts of the top gif away, the other gif will start to appear underneath. It’s not always necessary, but I usually like to set my top gif to ‘screen’ as well. This helps the gifs merge into one another even more, especially if you have one gif which is darker than the other!

As you can see, by setting it to screen, the top gif has already started to look blended. Then, you can start to paint. As the brush is so big, you might end up painting away too much of the gifs, like so:

I usually go back and forth, switching between black to remove parts of the gif, and white to add it back (always painting on the layer masks). Sometimes, you might need to make the brush slightly smaller, just to fill in tiny gaps.

Another thing you can do is to add a solid black colour underneath all your gifs, just to fill in any spaces. (Sometimes, I do this on top of gifs too, to create spaces where I want blended gifs to go, like in my current header!):

Anyway, back to the original gif. My blended gif is now pretty much how I want it to be, except Lyra is quite far to the left, and Will is taking up a lot of the screen:

So I’m going to see how they look at the start of the gif, to determine how far right I need to move them both to get them mostly in the middle:

And that’s it! Now you can export them [file > export > save for web (legacy)] and you’ll have to change the timing back to 0.05, or use the action I introduced to do this in my last tutorial.

PART TWO: MULTIPLE GIFS

To put more gifs underneath this one I’ve made, I expanded my canvas. Go to image > canvas size. Make sure you click the little ball to the top in the anchor section, so the canvas expands underneath your gif. If you leave it in the centre, it will simply expand from the middle, or the left, right, etc.

Next, we need to remove the black line at the bottom of the gif.

You want to select the space for cropping using the rectangular marquee tool, so in this case, 540 px by 268 px. The tumblr spacing is 4px between each gif in a set, so however many gifs you want, you have to account for 4px less pixels inside your one gif, to give the illusion there are multiple (unless you want them to touch).

For example, (there’s a little maths here: forgive me!) two gifs of equal size, placed side by side, must be 268px in width or length, because (268 x 2) + 4 = 540. (There is one 4px gap in between). For four gifs, it would be (132 x 4) + 12 = 540. (For the three, 4px gaps). For three gifs of equal size, it’s a bit different. These must be 177px, 178px, and 177px, to ensure there is 8px of space left over (two gaps).

Then, make sure the colour white is the primary colour selected on the paint pad (this is vital) and (in this case), the layer mask from before when we blended, is selected. Press ctrl (command on mac), shift, and i to invert your highlighted area (or select > inverse) and then simply delete the excess line, (either using the delete button on windows, or fn + delete on mac, I think!) Then, do this again for the other gif.

And voilà! It’s gone. You can also paint it out (using the black colour as the primary colour to erase), but I would still recommend highlighting the outline of the area you want to erase, using the marquee tool, so that you can paint it out in a straight line, and don’t paint into your gif and erase parts of that by accident.

Now to add in the other gifs! To do this, I use guides, but you can also use lines at a size of 4px, to map out the spaces in between gifs. If you go with lines, just make sure you delete the shapes after. With guides, they are not actually ‘in’ your gif, so you don’t have to remove them before you save. However, guides only work for straight lines, so gifs with other shapes will need to be made using lines, (but I will touch on that at the end!)

I actually have a few psds saved with guides already on, so that I don’t have to draw them out every time. If I was making a set with three gifs in a row, this would be different, but I usually stick to two or four (or three with one big square/rectangle, and two little squares), so this is my most used psd. The guides are set at: 132 px & 136 px, 268 px & 272 px, and 404 px & 408 px, both horizontally and vertically!

I have a red colour underneath just because I find it easier to see the lines between gifs this way - if you do the same, just remember to turn it off before you save your gif, otherwise it will have the colour red instead of mimicking the transparency between gifs.

Now, make a second gif! I decided to have a square in the middle as you can see in the title, and then two rectangles either side.

Then you want to resize it, in this case to 268 px by 268 px, and drag it across into your main file, or go to layer > duplicate layer, and move it that way. Don’t worry, when you move it, it will show the whole gif as if you haven’t cropped it. The reason I crop and resize it beforehand, is so that I can ensure it will be the correct size when I remove the excess parts of the gifs I don’t want, (rather than making it 268px including the black line for example, which would be wrong.)

Then, as before, position the gif where you want it to go, and highlight the area you want to be in the gif. Whilst this is selected, (again ensure white is the primary colour on your paint pad), click the layer mask:

Then the excess around the gif should be gone! (Making a gif of a gif tutorial... meta, lmao.) This way, if you decide you want to change the shape of the gif, or move it slightly, you can just paint parts in and out, or delete the layer mask, move the gif, and reapply it!

You can then sharpen and adjust your colouring to the gif as needed! Next, go ahead and repeat this process for your other gifs. Selecting the area, adding a mask, and sharpening. By the end, you should have something that looks like this:

PART THREE: OTHER SHAPES

If you want to use other shapes (which I haven’t tried myself until now, but I can talk you through some thoughts!) You can use the line tool. So, for example you could make a layer with the lines at 4px, merge it, and then at the end delete it from your gif to leave the gaps transparent:

To make a gif any shape you want, choose a shape (either use the shape tool, or get a png of it), and using a clipping mask. Make sure your gif is above the shape layer, then right-click the gif layer, and select create clipping mask to clip it down:

OR you could use a circle, and then delete the circle to make it look transparent:

The best way to select items which are not rectangular, (so you can’t use the marquee tool), is to use the pen tool. Click around your gif so that it’s got a border of what you want selected. Once you have outlined your gif, right-click and choose make selection:

Then set the feather radius to 0, and then the area you want should be highlighted in the same way as with the marquee tool above, so you can add a layer mask, etc. However, as the pen tool is not always that accurate, there is a little white gap here where it’s not a perfect circle.

A way to overcome this could be to make all the gifs you want, and then simply add one on top with a white 4px border, so it gives the illusion of being transparent! (As I have done above, but save it as white rather than red!)

If I find a better way to do this in the future, I will update this tutorial. I hope this is helpful, and thank you for reading 🥰💖

#gif tutorial #tutorial* #completeresources #yeahps #chaoticresources #allresources #mikesmom #usertom #usersmile #heavensentnetwork #if there's any mistakes pls let me know #i am so tired rn fjghfjhgfjgh

[iamtaekooked]

↳PART 2 | PART 1

➾ AU: Enemies to Lovers! + football player!Jeongguk and Journalist!Reader

➾Pairing: Jeongguk x female reader

➾Genre: Fluff, some angst, some soft smut 

➾Rating: 18+

➾Word count Part 2: 17.0k (bringing out combined total to a whopping 34.3k)

➾Warnings {part 2}: drinking, soft smut (making out, nothing detailed or explicit), swearing.

↳Summary:

Jeon Jeongguk is your nemesis whom you carry a strong dislike for. A dislike that borders on hate. He’s cocky, arrogant, narcissistic and loves to think everything revolves around him. When he gets elected as the captain of the football team, you are forced to write a profile on him for the college magazine as is the tradition every time a new captain is selected. But as you follow him around, you come to realize he might not be as bad as you think. Maybe he’s even a little tolerable– and cute. How will you deal with several realizations that dawn on you during the course of your interviews?

A special thank you to @kuzimuzibts @meandyou0901 @ughkive for supporting me through this fic. Without your support and words of encouragement, I couldn’t have done this ❤️ So thank you from the bottom of my heart and I love you guys!

M.List

Jimin being the good friend he is, decided to host a small get together at his house. Of course, you are invited and so are 15 other people. Jimin has always been a caring soul, someone who can’t see the people he loves in distress. So when he gets wind that Jeongguk is stressed out he decides to invite everyone Jeongguk is friends with to throw a surprise “party”.

The responsibility of bringing Jeongguk over to his house falls to you because you are apparently his “girlfriend”. Or at least that is how everyone starts referring to you once the picture of you and Jeongguk outside the bus stop with his arms wrapped around your waist circulates on social media. You are sure it was one of the girls who squealed when they saw him walking by.

At first you try your hardest to diffuse the rumors because you are not his girlfriend, but when the whole world around you seems to be pressing it on you, insisting that you are-- you give up and let them have it. It’s not hurting you in any way so who cares?

But Jeongguk on the other hand loves it. He loves it more than football itself, which is a miracle. Everytime someone calls you his girlfriend in front of him, a wide grin appears on his face— the one where his eyes disappear into moon shaped crescents and his pearly whites are on full display— it also happens to be the one that always brings a smile to your face too. If it were up to him he would change your name to ‘girlfriend’, that way he would get to call you that all the time.

So naturally when you go to find him in the gym, all his teammates offer you polite smiles, and nods. Even Jaehyun offers a soft ‘hi’ in greeting.

“Captain!” one of them yells. “Your girlfriend is here” his voice echoes through the almost empty place.

You open your mouth to tell him to stop calling you that but it wouldn’t accomplish anything. They won’t stop.Up until now, no matter how many times you have corrected people, they have just ignored you and continued to refer to you as “Jeongguk’s girlfriend”.

“Cap!” Jaehyun yells this time craning his neck to where Jeongguk is in a corner of the gym lifting weights. “Your girl is here!”

Jeongguk upon hearing that stops bench pressing and jogs over to you with a sweaty figure and heavy breaths.As soon as his eyes find you his lips curve into a smile. “Hey girlfriend” he greets you and lays a soft kiss on your cheeks before wrapping his arms around you.

“I told you not to call me that” you mumble against his shoulder softly— very gently pulling yourself away from his embrace. Somehow you’ve gotten close enough to allow him to hug you and to allow yourself to not go into a state of utter panic. Ever since he told you he likes you there has been a slight shift in your dynamic-- he’s more touchy and you don’t mind it. Sometimes you even let yourself enjoy it because the feeling of his arms around you makes you feel secure-- like there is nothing in the world that could touch you when he’s with you.

Jeon Jeongguk is the kind of man who just by his mere presence has the ability to make someone next to him look-- but most importantly feel like a billion bucks. That is exactly how you feel when he’s with you because like a magnet he ends up drawing all attention on himself and by default on you.

Sometimes you catch yourself smiling when you’re with him and people are pointing at you both and whispering their envy to each other. It makes you feel a surge of emotions which you can’t define but at the bottom of it all it just feels good.

“What else would I call you?” he pouts.

“Oh, I don’t know? My name maybe? The one I’ve had since birth?” you shake your head. “Anyway, I just came because we need some stuff for the interview. I have a few questions”

He quirks an eyebrow and rubs his hands together. “Oooh. But ‘girlfriend’ sounds a million times better. I am just going to call you that”

You rub your forehead in exasperation. “Should we go somewhere more… suitable. I need to ask you a few questions” you ask straight-faced.

He nods. You notice all his teammates sharing a look and roll your eyes because you know what they are thinking-- sex. That’s all they can ever think of. You ignore them as they pat Jeongguk on the shoulder, or give him words of encouragement like “get it” or high five him. You exit the gym first, not in the mood for their stupidity.

Jeongguk catches up to you and falls into step next to you. “Why do you always leave me behind?”

“Because I don’t like your teammates” you deadpan.

“But you like me?” he asks with a hopeful tone before busting out that stupid smile of his.

“Jeongguk” you say warningly.

“Ok sorry. I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me how much you love me” he winks with a cheeky grin.

“Oh my god” you facepalm.

You hear him snicker and shoot him a dirty look. “Anyway” you try to direct the conversation to serious matters as you take out your recorder one more time as per usual.

“So, you’re back to working on my profile?”

“Unfortunately for me, yes” you say with a small chuckle. “I am not going to let my best friend get dragged into shit by the sports department because of you Jeon”

“Ouch!” he feigns hurt by placing a hand on his chest. “I thought you cared for me” he matches your pace despite being several inches taller than you— which is kind of sweet. But that’s not the point.

“Oh I am sorry” you draw out each word to make sure he didn’t miss the sarcasm in your voice. “Did I make it seem like I did?”

“You’re definitely going to die sad and alone” he muses with a teasing smile.

“I don’t mind that. Now if you’re done, can I continue?”

Go ahead” he offers a soft, gentle smile which makes a pang nervousness rise in your chest.

“So, what does football mean to you?”

“Everything” he doesn’t even hesitate for a single second before answering.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I told you how football is literally the only thing that provides my life with meaning-- exception being you” he glances at you with a small teasing smirk before throwing his hands in the air when he notices you opening your mouth. “I digress. But yes. Playing football is the one thing that gives direction and focus to my life. Without it I would be lost”

You nod deep in thought. “So then, what would you do if you didn’t make it into the football team?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I’d probably still be in the Eastside struggling with trying to find something that allowed me to focus my energy in productive ways”

“So would you say that football is the reason you wake up every morning?” you look up at him, noticing the glint in his eye and the tiny smile spread across his lips.

He nods. “And you” he adds quickly before looking away with a playful grin he thinks you can’t see.

You slap him gently on the arm. “Jeongguk!”

“I’ll stop” he holds hands up in surrender as he turns to look at you.

You both continue walking, turning left here, turning right there.

“Describe in word one word then how you feel when you play football”

“Euphoria” again it doesn’t take him even a second to answer. It’s like he’s been waiting for someone to ask him-- that’s how quickly he answered.

You look at him in question at which point he begins to elaborate without you having to prompt him.

“It’s like a rush. Whenever I am out in the field I am zoomed in, super focused. It’s like tunnel vision. All I see is the ball, and that touchdown line at the end of the field. That’s all I think about when I play. All the hits, all the pushing and shoving kind of pumps me up because it feels like these are the obstacles I have to overcome to get that ball to the endline and score the point. It’s like a metaphor for life, if you know what I mean”

You nod slowly as you comprehend his words. “Wow”

He shakes his head with a soft chuckle. “Always with the look of surprise”

“I am trying to adjust” you snap.

“Anything else you want to know?”

“I think this is good for now” you stop the recording and pocket the tiny thing. “Also, be ready by 5 tonight. We’re going somewhere”

“Wow, so specific” the sarcasm in his voice doesn’t go amiss.

“Yeah Yeah” you wave him off. “Just be ready by 5pm” you turn but he clasps a hand around your wrist and spins you around to make you face him.

“No. You be ready by 5. You’re crazy if you think I won’t come to pick you up”

“You don’t have to” you feel slightly guilty because one you know he has to drive a long way out to come to your place and second it’s a surprise for him so you should be the one picking him up.

“I want to” he slightly squeezes your wrist.

You regard him noticing how he looks so determined. “Fine”

“Where are we going? Is it a date?!” his eyes widen with a grin.

“No!” your nose scrunches. “It’s not a date Jeon”

“Oh” his lower lip juts out slightly, voice completely deflated.

You are so not whipped for him— that you can’t even see him pouting without feeling bad for him. For a moment you can’t react because his face loses its brightness. But then a sense of urgency builds. You bite your lip in an effort to stop yourself from speaking. But then the more he sulks, the worse it gets.

“Fine! It’s a date” you sigh and lower your gaze to avoid looking at him. But you are sure he’s beaming.

“Yes!” you hear him.

Then you turn around and run from there because you aren’t sure your heart can take it.

> > > > > >

The evening arrives with a flurry of text messages from Jeongguk.

Jeon Jerkguk- I just left the house. I’ll be there in 40-ish minutes depending on traffic. - 4:30 pm Jeon Jerkguk- You know how to get there right? - 4:31 pm Jeon Jerkguk- Of course you do. You’re the smartest person I know 😊- 4:32 pm Jeon Jerkguk- Dress warmly, it's kind of cold out- 4:34 pm Jeon Jerkguk- Don't forget your jacket please Jeon Jerkguk- See you soon girlfriend 😍

You bang your head against the vanity. “No” you groan.

When he acts like this, it makes you speechless. Your chest feels fluttery, waves of chills pass through your skin, your stomach twists in knots, your breath hitches in your throat and warmth envelopes you. Like a normal person, instead of feeling happy you end up feeling stressed because you don’t know how to deal with it. He makes you nervous in a way no one does. There are times when you can’t even look at him because your nerves get the best of you.

It’s mostly because of the way he looks at you with a soft, loving look in his eyes. He doesn’t look at anyone else like that, but when he’s with you-- when he thinks you’re not looking-- you see it in the way the corners of his eyes crinkle very subtly as his lips curve up into a tiny little smile that vanishes when you do look at him. You’ve never seen him act like that before and the fact that it’s because of you makes it hard to deal with.

It’s because he does things for you that he doesn’t do for anyone else--

Like the one time he saw you sitting with a frown on your face in the middle of the lecture and he leaned in towards you.

“What’s wrong?” he had asked

“Nothing” you shook your head at him

“Liar” he whispered as he reached across and placed an index finger on the middle of your forehead. “Then what’s this?” he referred to the frown you were wearing.

You sighed and he pulled his hand away.. “Hoseok has been pestering me to give him the first draft for the profile but I haven’t written anything yet” you mumbled dropping your head between your arms on the table.

“Do you want me to kick his ass?” he had whispered with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“What?” your head shot up as you looked at him. “No”

“Fine. But you’ll tell me if someone really bothers you?” sincerity reflected in his eyes.

“Jeon. Shut up” you had shaken your head at him and he had snickered in response.

Or when he had saved you from getting hurt  

You had been so immersed in giving him a mini lecture about what normal people do when they bump into someone when a cart full of boxes had rolled into your path.

“Y/n!” he yelled and pulled you to the side towards him. “Are you okay?” he had asked in a soft voice which made you lose your train of thoughts.

You simply nodded at him and continued walking.

Or the one time he lent you his umbrella

You were leaving the campus because your classes were over for the day. You cut through the football field because it was the shortest way. But what you didn’t know was that the football team was practicing at the time.

Your mind was so preoccupied with the stress of all the assignments that you didn’t realize Jeongguk was calling out your name. So you continued walking. When you were almost out of the bounds of college, rain started to fall. It pulled you out of your trance and you groaned upon realizing you did not have your umbrella.

You pulled up the hoodie over your head which was starting to get soaked as you felt rain droplets falling on your head. Then suddenly you felt a shadow loom over you and looking back you had found Jeongguk was holding an umbrella over your head.

“You’ll get sick” he said.

“Where did you come from?” you gaped at him.

“Practice” he motioned towards the field and then you saw all the players you had previously missed.

“Why are you here? Go practice. You’ll get in shit” you started walking again when he tugged your wrist to make you stop.

“One, I am the captain so I won’t get in shit. Two, take this or you’ll get wet and then you’ll get sick”

“You care why?” you narrowed your eyes in question.

“Because I just do. Now stop being a stubborn little idiot and take it” he thrusted the umbrella into your hand and jogged away towards the field covering his head with his hands.

A knock sounds on your bedroom door which goes by unnoticed because you are still thinking about Jeongguk.

“Thinking about me?”

Your heart leaps, as you hear a voice behind you but upon turning back you are met with Jeongguk who is offering you his usual grin.

“Holy shit Jeon, you scared me” you exhale loudly as finally the breath that had gotten stuck in your throat passes through.

“I see you’re not ready” he’s leaning against the doorframe, wearing a black denim jacket, his timberlands and a white shirt with black jeans with his hair— that damn long hair or his tied back in a bun at the top of his head. He looks—- nope. You shake your head and turn towards the vanity. He looks whatever— not even a little bit good.

“Wait” your brows furrow in realization as you turn to face him. “How did you get in?”

“Next time don’t leave the front door open” he steps inside the room and flops onto your bed. He lies on his side, propping an elbow up and resting his cheek in the palm of his hand “It could have been a thief, or a serial killer in my stead”

You roll your eyes. “Somehow you’re worse than both of those”

You hear him chuckle and shoot him an unimpressed look. “Why are you in my room?”

“Geez, way to thank me”

“Thank you for what?”

“You know that one time I saved you from that drunk asshole at the restaurant, and now for picking you up” his lips purse into a thin line.

Oh yes. You still haven’t thanked him for it.

“Thanks” you mumble.

“Not good enough” he shakes his head as he straightens up.

“What do you want?” you sigh.

“I want to make up for that one time when you kissed me and I ran out like an asshole” he scoots to the edge of the bed and pulls the chair you are sitting on closer to himself.

“What?” you gawk as you are being dragged towards him.

“Well, you see, I got scared. I didn’t know how to react so I ran off. Not my best moment, but can you blame me?” he leans towards you as he places his hands on the armrests of the chair on either side of you.

You cannot believe he’s bringing it up. That moment is easily one of the worst moments of your life. Maybe it’s even at the top of your list because of how embarrassing it was. Before that moment, you cannot recall another one as mortifying. It’s a memory you want to forget because it still brings about deep feelings of humiliation.

You gulp and look away as your eyes dart across the floor, matching the state of your mind which runs rampant with hundreds of thoughts. You play with your fingers, avoiding his gaze as it rests on you.

Then he leans in, until his lips are close to yours. Your eyes flutter close of their own accord and your breathing picks up pace. “Jeon-”

“Shh” he says, placing a finger on your lips.

You wait for it-- that familiar feeling of euphoria which results from his lips pressing onto yours. You wait for your heartbeat to quicken more than it already is because of his touch.  You wait for your skin to feel like it’s on fire and for your cheeks to feel like they’ll melt from the heat.

But it doesn’t come. Instead what you do feel is his lips pressing softly against your nose. “I won’t kiss you without your permission. Ever”

Your eyes open and you see Jeongguk has resumed his relaxed position as he’s leaning on his elbows once again and offering you a gentle smile. You blink profusely trying to comprehend what happened because this is highly uncharacteristic of Jeongguk. You dwell on it for a few seconds as you keep your focus on him.

On second thought, it’s not uncharacteristic of him. It’s just that you always assumed he wouldn’t ever say something like that.

Maybe you don’t need to teach him how to love you, maybe you need to teach yourself how to love him.

>>>>>>>>

Arriving at Jimin’s house, you find yourself on the receiving end of a puzzled look from Jeongguk. “Isn’t this Jimin’s house?”

You nod. “Put this on” you hand him a blindfold.

“I didn’t know you were kinky like that” he takes the black silk cloth from your hand.

“Remember how I told you, you only have one redeeming quality? You’re losing points here buddy” you remind him.

“Never thought I was gaining any in the first place” he shrugs.

“That’s what you think” you say his own line to him which makes him chuckle.

“So, I did gain points? When? For what?” he eyes you with anticipation.

“You think I’ll tell you? I don’t want to make things worse for myself” you offer a small smile, which you try to suppress.

“Oh come on!” he pouts.

“Again with the pouting” you shake your head at him, biting down on your lip to stop yourself from smiling too much.

“Because I know it works on you” he sticks his tongue out cheekily with a grin.

“What!?”

“I’ve seen it in your eyes. Everytime I pout. You always give in”

“You suck” your lower lip juts out in a pout this time.

“That’s why you like me don’t you?” the already present grin on his face spreads even wider.

You quirk your head to the side to look out of the window. “I don’t like you”

“Then why can't you look at me and say it?” his voice drops a touch, making your cheeks warm up.

“Shut up” you bite back as you glare at him-- although not with the usual contempt.

He starts chuckling and shaking his head. “Oh y/n” he breathes.

“What?”

“You’re cute” he turns to you with a smile.

“You’re crazy” you open the door from your side and get out of the car.

> > > > > > >

For a football player Jeongguk sure does have shitty balance. But then again you have to give him benefit of the doubt because he is blindfolded. As you help him up the steps you can’t help but admire how he looks-- hair up in a bun once again, as tiny strands fall on either side of his face. Everything about him is unlike a football player except for the bomber jacket he is wearing. It’s like the trademark of college football and it screams “captain”.

“Y/n, will you catch me if I fall?” he muses, following you quietly as you hold his hand and lead him. You hadn’t wanted to, but then he took it upon himself to hold your hand because-

“It’s good practice. I am going to be doing this a lot. So why not get some practice in?” he jokes earning himself a hard slap on the arm. “Ow!” he whines. “What the fuck girlfriend?”

“I swear Jeon, you call me that one more time I will kill you” you say in a firm even voice.

“Anyway” he waves you off quickly. “Will you catch me if I fall?” he muses

“Do I look like I can catch you? You are two times taller than I am” you shake your head at his idiocy.

“Shh” he places a finger on his lips. “Don’t let the feminists hear you” he chuckles, making you snort.

“Did you just laugh at my joke?’ he asks, stepping over the final step of the stairs with your help.

“You’re hallucinating” you deadpan.

You walk towards the front door hand in hand, Jeongguk’s eyes still blindfolded. knock on the door and don’t even have to wait before Jimin is opening the door while flashing his positively bright smile at you. “You came!” he wraps you in a hug and notices yours and Jeongguk’s hands laced together tightly. “Did you finally agree to be his girlfriend?” he whispers

“No you dumbass. He’s blindfolded so I was helping him. Do you want the captain of the football team to break his leg or something?” you frown at him in disbelief. He could be super naive sometimes— or maybe you can be super blind.

“Too bad” he shrugs. “You guys are cute together” he whispers before ushering you and Jeongguk in.

The moment you enter inside, you separate yourself from Jeongguk for much needed space. You find yourself heading towards the tiny bar counter near the kitchen, upon which are laid various types of alcohol-- just what you need, because if you are to survive this party with Jeongguk you need to be slightly buzzed.

Behind you, commotion begins which draws your attention as you turn around.Jeongguk greets his teammates with a wide grin on his face, and then his eyes catch yours and you almost gasp because of the surprise and quickly avert your gaze.

For some reason which you cannot fathom, you look up again to find him hugging one of his teammates but his gaze is directed at you, as he smiles. He lets go of his teammate and for a brief second interacts with him before his eyes flicker back to you.

You need to look away, you should look away but you don’t. Instead, you make eye contact and it lasts for a good four seconds before you realize you really should not be doing that.

Once it gets too overwhelming— the feelings and sensations— you turn towards the alcohol and pour yourself a glass. You chug it before pouring another and then turning around to face the living room where Jeongguk is. He is high fiving and hugging and greeting people and you wonder if it gets exhausting as you sip your drink. You notice the smile on his face for one brief moment, which makes your mouth split into a grin. But then you realize what you’re doing and zip your mouth into a line, schooling your expression into one of boredom.

You look to the other side of the living room and find a young couple busy amongst themselves, detached from the rest of their surroundings. They’re playing with each other’s fingers and they’re talking and laughing, oblivious to everything. You observe them and somehow the image of them translates into one of you and Jeongguk for a brief second. You almost drop the glass in your hand, eyes widening in horror.

Jeongguk quietly slides next to you. “What’s got you that way?”

“Jesus!” you jump. “Can you stop creeping up on me like that?”

“Sorry, love”. The nickname he has for you flows past his lips so naturally and effortlessly. Surprisingly enough you never cared much for it but somehow at this moment, you realize how easily he addresses you like that. It’s a term of endearment not everyone uses. Yet he does, and when it happens you manage to block it out. But right now you hear it loud and clear. You glance at the cup in your hand and attribute your sudden attention to detail to the alcohol. “What were you thinking?” he gazes at you.

“Nothing” you shake your head, eyes flickering to the couple.

Jeongguk glances between you and them breaking out into a grin. “Do you want that?” he questions with a quiet gentleness to his voice which once again manages to catch you off guard.

On the one hand, his softer side makes you want to hug him, while on the other his usual self makes you want to hit him for acting like an idiot. There is no middle ground between the two.

“I am drinking and you’re the one acting drunk” you state with a scoff

“Oh, love” he sighs, and there it is again— that awareness of how easily he calls you ‘love’.

“Why do you call me that?” you question, supplying a sincere look that you hope conveys your curiosity.

“Because you remind me of love and how it’s supposed to be warm, selfless, giving, radiant and innocent” his lips form into that soft, fond smile that always succeeds in making your heart race, just like it is now.

“I remind you of love?” your curiosity piques the more you look at him.

He nods.

“Are you high?” you face scrunches in confusion as you stare at him.

He snickers but somehow his voice comes out laced with disappointment. “Too stubborn to see as always” he turns his head to observe at the couple

You blink, trying your best to understand what he means but all he offers you is a smile, the meaning of which you can’t decipher. Because although he’s smiling, there is something in his eyes-- in the way they are too solemn, the way his smile isn’t reaching his eyes which makes your chest fill with a heavy feeling.

You elect to ignore his comment because you don’t want to engage in whatever this is between you. It’s too overwhelming, this fine line you walk between being frenemies one moment and something more the next. It never helps that Jeongguk always says something that is neither here nor there and is something smack dab in the middle of the spectrum which leaves you feeling even more confused.

“How did you like the surprise?” you put the cup of beer down behind you on the counter and jump up to sit on in.

“It’s nice” he muses as his eyes still rest on the couple. He’s got a faint smile on his face as he leans against the counter, elbows resting on the top.

For a moment it confuses you because you don’t know whether he means the get-together or the two lovebirds immersed in their own world. His eyes are filled with a kind of longing you have never seen in them before. They are solemn yet they twinkle with a hope-- for what you don’t know. But when he’s like this, lost in his own thoughts, disengaged from the world-- that's when you truly see him.

“Just nice?” you question, which catches his attention for a brief second as he glances at you and then goes back to observing the couple.  

“Yeah. Nice” he supplies, still looking like he’s too lost in his thoughts. You follow his gaze and find yourself also looking at the unknown couple.

“Don’t tell me this surprise has got you all sappy”

“Why?” he turns his head towards you. “You don’t like me when I am like this?”

“I don’t like you anyway” you roll your eyes-- but it’s playful.

“Liar” he whispers pulling his lower lip between his teeth, lips curving into a tiny flirty smile.

You clear your throat as it suddenly feels dry. “You seem like you’ve got a lot on your mind”

“Perceptive as always” he chuckles.

“Well, it’s not hard when you’re only like this five percent of the time and the other ninety-five-you fuck around” a corner of your lip tugs into a teasing smile, which he catches.

“I take it back. You wouldn’t be able to see it if it was staring you right in the face” he says with a shake of his head as his head hangs low.

“See what?” a frown decorates your forehead as confusion registers in your mind at his words.

“Everything” he glances at you. “All of it. How do you not see it?”

“See what?” you gesture wildly with your hands because you hate how he’s being so not specific about whatever it is he’s going on about. “Can you be any more vague” you sigh.

He mutters something under his breath, his fist clenched by his side.

“What is going on with you?” you actually feel confused and slightly frustrated. “Can’t you be direct?”

“Can you be more of a fool y/n. How is it that you have a high IQ but a low EQ?” he imitates your sigh-- looking utterly defeated. The fact that he’s talking in circles is beginning to make your head spin.

“Excuse me?” you nudge him hard feeling defensive, letting your feelings escape through your tone.

���Are you really going to make me say it again? Right now?” he dismisses in a soft tone with a shake of his head.

“Yes!” you look at him with wide eyes. “Please say it and spare me this pain of trying to figure out what’s gotten into you”

“Why do you care?” he folds his arms across his chest, giving you that slightly narrow-eyed curious look.

“Because--” you stare at him open-mouthed. “I can’t believe I am saying this but you are much more bearable when you are your usual annoying talkative self. Whatever this is” you wag your finger up and down at him. “I don’t like it”  For whatever reason, it’s true. You don’t like it when he acts all stressed out and withdraws into himself. It irks you because you like him when he’s smiling, and laughing-- way more than you would care to admit.

Then you pick up your beer cup and resume mindless drinking as Jeongguk watches you quietly with a tiny hint of a smile on his mouth. He doesn’t stop you, he doesn’t even blink. All he does is observe you quietly which is worse because it unsettles you. You notice him and suddenly the small sips turn into hugs gulps as you chug the drink and slam the glass on the counter.

He folds his arms across his chest with a faint smile on his lips which doesn’t quite reach his eyes, yet the corners crinkle-- it’s when someone in love silently admires the subject of their affections.

“Stop looking at me like that”

“How much do you hate me?” his voice is quiet, yet that muted smile remains on his lips

“Hate. Pffft” you press your lips in a thin line. “That’s a strong word” a hiccup escapes your chest.

The tiny sound draws Jeongguk’s attention and quickly he turns and pours you a glass of water. It hovers in front of you as you look between him and his outstretched hand. He motions with his head to glass as he looks at you. You drink it and find the cool water soothing the burning sensation in your throat.

“My, my Jeon” you put the glass down. “Aren’t you thoughtful?” an imperceptible smile crosses your lips.

“It’s part of my charm” he shrugs with that snarky quality making its way back into his voice.

You snap and point a finger at him. “That’s what I am talking about. This is much better. Please don’t become all sappy on me. It’s not a good look on you”

He chuckles. “And worrying for me is not a good look on you” he gently taps the tip of your nose with a playful wink.

You snort. “Who said I was worried for you?”

“If this wasn’t your failed attempt at getting me to cheer up then what was it?” he wiggles his eyebrows at you.

“Delusional as always” you pass a shy, flirty smile which he reciprocates as you both quietly look at each other-- and to a third party you would look like two people too blind to see how deep they are in their feelings for one another.

“Right. I am totally delusional are you’re totally not worried about me “he mumbles under his breath.

“Stop saying I am worried about you. Why would I be worried about you?” you fold your arms defensively over your chest shooting him an unimpressed look.

> > > > > >

If there is one thing in the world that can unite you and Jeongguk, it’s UNO. As you sit in a circle— swearing under your breath because you and Jeongguk are losing against Hoseok and Jimin— you can’t help but want to kick whosoever idea this was. That is because you hate losing, and Jeongguk definitely hates losing. But then you got placed into one team because apparently a boyfriend and girlfriend should be together in one team.

And now you’re in a losing situation and both of you are feeling too competitive. From the periphery of your vision you glance at Jeongguk to find his brows knitted in concentration, lower lip pulled between his teeth.

“What do you think?” Jeongguk leans in to whisper against your ear as he turns the cards slightly towards you so you can see them.

“Play the blue one” you eye the discard pile and notice a blue card which serves your turn well.

Jeongguk plays the blue one and you end up with two cards. The game continues on and Jimin and Hoseok also have two cards left. The atmosphere around you is silent as the other teams who had already had their turn watch in anticipation.

“UNO” you yell startling Jeongguk who is right next to you. His eyes widen and a grin teeters to the edges of his lips.

“UNO!” he yells as he realizes he’s only holding one card.

Jimin and Hoseok have vexed looks on their faces as they eye you and Jeongguk. “Damn” Jimin mumbles under his breath as he slams the last two cards on the floor while you and Jeongguk celebrate.

“We won!” he shoots up and you follow as both of you jump up and down holding hands and then he pulls you in for a bear hug.

“Good job y/n” he sways you side to side.

“You too Jeon!” you give a gentle squeeze.

You embrace each other in the middle of the living room— Meanwhile everyone else watches you with wide eyes and raised brows.

“I told you she likes him” Jimin whispers to Hoseok.

“Does she know she likes him?” Hoseok asks a legit question because god knows you can be blind and knowingly stubborn when it comes to admitting your feelings for a certain Jeon Jeongguk.

>>>>>>>>>>

After that very intense game of UNO ends, Jimin and Hoseok decide it’s a great idea to go out for drinks. It’s actually a very bad idea because you’re already sort of buzzed and so is everyone else because there was more than enough booze at Jimin’s place. But somehow it’s not as fun drinking in the house as it is outside the house-- a logic you cannot understand.

You tried to get out of it-- really tried but then Hoseok threatened to tell Jeongguk about that one time you got drunk in high school and serenaded him thinking he was Zac Efron. It’s the one truly terrifying experience of your life that you like to keep under wraps. Of course it sucks that Hoseok knows all this about you and can use it against you. So when you hear that Jeongguk might become privy to this deepest darkest secret of yours-- of course you don’t want him to know.

At first your immediate response is a very hyperenthusaistic ‘no’ when Hoseok says he’ll tell Jeongguk. You don’t even hesitate for a second before the word slips out of your mouth--albeit very loudly. Then once you have had time to digest your reaction, you can’t help but wonder why you were desperate enough to say no without even a slight hesitation. You dwell on it, and then some more and as you’re all walking towards the nearest pub, you reach this conclusion: it’s because if Jeongguk knows he’ll use it against you, which you simply won't stand for.

You say it like it's a mantra in your head-- quietly walking next to Jeongguk who is too busy talking about football with Hoseok and Jimin to pay attention to how silent you’ve fallen. You repeat it again and again because a small part of you tries to refute that weak reasoning-- almost as if you’re trying to make yourself believe that you don’t want any embarrassing detail of your life made known to Jeongguk because he’ll use it against and not because you’ll simply be too embarrassed if he of all people finds out.

It’s the exact same thing Jimin had said when that desperate no had crossed your lips.

“See? You like him so much you don’t even want him to know about this because you’ll be embarrassed and you don’t want him to think you’re weird. Why can’t you just accept it?” he had said, at which point you had opted to slap him upside the head and settle for a small shut up. After all, there are only finite ways in which one can say ‘no’.

You shake your head as if that will make all these thoughts go away. Then the unthinkable happens as you’re walking to your destination. Jeongguk while still conversing with Hoseok and Jimin, slowly slides his hand into yours, interlocking your fingers and pulls you close to his side. He’s so subtle about it he doesn’t even stop to look at you. He just does it naturally without drawing attention, without uttering a single word and without interrupting his conversation with your best friends.

Your breath gets caught in your throat, and you feel your heart skipping a beat and then a second later it starts hammering-- reminding you that you can’t run away. Sure you can alter your thoughts and your words, but physically you can’t control these reactions Jeongguk incites in you.

You glance up at the man walking next to you. All you can focus on is the warm feeling of his hand against yours and how he’s acting so naturally as if he’s done this--holding your hand thing-- every single day of his life. Small tingles escape from the palm of your hands and travel up your arm and then it spreads to the rest of your body as a chill runs down your spine. As if that’s not enough your lips begin to curve up in a smile, and as you try to bite down on your lip to stop yourself, you feel the tightness stretching your cheeks and you end up giving in despite yourself-- smiling like a fool living in the sweet denial of love.

You gulp hard and then out of nowhere the realization hits you that you haven’t even once tried to wrest your hand from his. You’ve just let it be and walked hand in hand with him like it’s natural for you too. He keeps you close to his side, his grip snug against your hand so that if you wanted to you could slip your hand out easily. You should, you definitely should but you don’t which itself brings about an onslaught of a hundred different thoughts.  

While you are busy having a mental breakdown, you arrive at the pub, to find a long line outside stretching for about half a block.

“I told you we should have made reservations” Hoseok whines.

“Reservations for drinks? Are you crazy bro?” Jimin replies with a shake of his head.

Jeongguk chuckles watching the exchange between your friends all the while holding onto your hand, and you stand quietly next to him hoping they don’t see it.

“It’s chilly” Hoseok suddenly mumbles and then you feel it.

Now that he’s said it, of course you’re feeling it.

Then another unthinkable thing happens. Jeongguk very subtly places your already interlocked hands in his jacket pocket. Once again he doesn’t say a word, doesn’t look at you, or interrupt the conversation. He just does it like he’s done this a million times too. You glance up at him and he’s just looking at Hoseok and Jimin as they bicker with a smile. It’s not the fact that your hand is currently locked in his. It’s not the awareness of the emotions and sensations you’re feeling. What makes your knees go weak and your chest swell with emotion is how quietly he’s doing it. There is something about the way that he’s so natural about it that makes your heart race faster. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels just right-- and that’s what makes you so nervous.

You feel the warmth rise to your cheeks, softly melting into your skin and morphing into heat as it emanates. Even the slight chill in the night air isn’t enough to dull it down. Your breathing becomes faster, your lungs feel like they are being stretched as you try your best to take in air, but none it ever gets down there because you just can't remember how to breathe. You can feel the adrenaline in your veins, your mouth slowly but surely drying as each second passes with your hand shoved enveloped by the warmth of Jeongguk’s hand wrapped around yours.

Jimin’s eyes accidentally fall onto your disappeared hands. He nudges Hoseok who follows his line of sight to find your and Jeongguks’ hands safely tucked in his pocket. Wide smiles plaster themselves onto their lips as they look on, while both of you remain unaware of the two pairs of eyes closely observing you.

“We’ll be here all night long” Jeongguk speaks at which point both Jimin and Hoseok wipe the smiles on their faces and pretend not to have seen anything while nodding along.

“Should we just leave?” Jimin questions.

You’re the first one to nod in agreement-- too enthusiastically in fact which makes Jeongguk utter a soft chuckle as he looks down at you.

“Yeah” he mumbles quietly, as his gaze rests on you taking in how small you look next to him and how much he’ll give anything to keep you by his side-- safe and sound.

>>>>>>>>>

It’s been two weeks since you were given the task of writing Jeongguk’s profile and for the thousandth time as you sit to write, your mind draws a blank. How do you begin and where do you begin? The biggest issue for you though is maintaining objectivity because somehow the time you have spent with Jeongguk has made you realize several different things.

1. He’s not as bad as you thought he was, and therefore you can’t really hate him anymore 2. Since you can't hate him anymore, you don’t know what you are supposed to do 3. You feel things around him that you haven’t felt around other people and you are terrified as to what it means.

The library thankfully is empty save for you so you can whine and complain aloud without attracting attention which is what you are busy doing when Jimin walks in. He looks like death-- hair dishevelled and sticking out in different directions, face smeared slightly with dirt along with his shirt, and a shuffling gait as he approaches you.

He falls down limply onto the chair, leaning against the back and his arms fall loosely to the sides. You arch a brow in curiosity as you observe the young boy in front of you who suddenly looks like he’s gained years.

“Wow” you comment, shutting down your laptop, lowkey thankful for the distraction. “You look like shit”

“Blame your damn boyfriend” he mumbles, eyelids half droopy.

“For the last time, he’s not my boyfriend” a muscle in your jaw twitches as you glare at Jimin.

“Whatever it is” he waves you off. “Can’t you just accept it? He’s taking it out on us” Jimin lifts himself off the chair and offers you an impassive, blank look.

“What do you mean?” your face contorts in confusion.

“He’s frustrated. All of us can see it. Hell, the whole fucking college knows except you” he looks at you with the same lifeless gaze.

“Knows what?”

“Jeongguk likes you!” Jimin throws his hands in the air, finally the listless look replaced by some kind of emotion-- mostly frustration.

“No” you shake your head vigorously. “He doesn’t”. Despite him basically having confessed to you that day by the bus stop, you still refuse to believe it.

“Oh for fuck's sake” he groans, hiding his face in his palms.

“We’ve been practicing for four hours straight. All because he’s annoyed you can’t see his feelings and he’s trying to make that frustration go away by distracting himself with football. Or way worse because you refuse to acknowledge his feelings and your own”

“I am dead inside Jimin” you try to lighten the mood but Jimin only supplies a blank look, definitely not impressed. “Sorry” you look away sheepishly.

“Please y/n” please Jimin falls off his chair and onto his knees as he looks at you--pleading with despair.

“Jimin what the hell?” you jump from your seat in surprise as you force him to get up. “Stop”

“You stop. You like him right?” Jimin falls back on his seat with a long sigh.

“I don’t” you avoid his eyes, as yours dart around.

“Fine then. I guess we'll just set him up with Jaehyun’s sister” Jimin pouts with a shrug.

At this your head whips in his direction so fast you end up feeling dizzy. “What?”

“Yeah. Jaehyun has been pestering Jeongguk for months to date his sister because he thinks they’ll make a good couple. Honestly, I think so too because I have met his sister and she is very sweet and has a warm personality. Jeongguk will like her too once he meets her.”

You blink, feeling your energy being drained away and a sense of dread settling into your stomach. The thought of Jeongguk with someone else obviously doesn’t sit well with you because of the sense of urgency that starts to build. You don’t know what for, but it rises out of your stomach and slowly spreads to the rest of your body turning you restless. You look at Jimin, hoping he can see what you’re feeling in your eyes, the way Jeongguk sees it. But all Jimin does is stare at you in a blank fashion, as if he is incapable of expressing himself in any other way.

An image of Jeongguk with another girl passes through your mind and you shut your eyes tight to make it go away because it leaves its mark in your chest in the form of panic. All you feel is panic. Panic because Jeongguk might end up liking Jaehyun’s sister. Because if he likes her then somehow you’ll feel bad and if you feel bad then that means…

“What are you two doing here?”

Jimin turns his head towards the owner of the voice and you look past his shoulder to see the devil walking towards you, with his bag slung over one shoulder, black shirt hanging loosely off his frame, black sweatpants fitting perfectly along the curves of his thighs and to complete the look black boots along with a black baseball cap on his head, with his long hair sticking out of the bottom around his neck.

Damn him and his stupid fucking outfits. He never even tries and yet he has the ability to make your heart flutter.

“Jeon?”

“Must you always greet me like this y/n?” his lips stretch into a playful smile as he takes off his backpack and sits on the empty chair next to you.

“Must you sit next to me?” you glance at him and quickly open your laptop again to distract yourself.

“ I want to” his smile only widens.

You groan internally because you’re feeling it all over again— the butterflies, the heat seeping into your cheeks, the way your heart starts to beat faster and your breaths hitch in your throat.

“What are you writing?” he leans in towards you his shoulder touching yours. Your eyes widen momentarily at the contact.

“Umm” you clear your throat. “About you”

“I knew you liked me!” He whispers excitedly in your ear

“What!?” you shriek, unable to control the thrumming of your chest.

“Why can’t you just accept it?” he leans in further, nose gently touches the side of your face and your eyes automatically close as he makes you feel so many emotions. Overwhelmed, you push your chair away and run out.

“Y/n!” Jeongguk calls out after you with a grin stuck to his face.

“Why do you always do this?” Jimin shakes his head at him once you are gone.

“It’s fun. Plus it's cute how y/n blushes every time” he says with a playful grin.

“Fucking whipped man” Jimin sighs

Jeongguk leans into the palm of his hand squishing his cheek as he sulks. “I’ve always been whipped. Your best friend just refuses to see it”

“Whatever will happen to you two” Jimin purses his lips and shakes his head like he’s disappointed.

>>>>>>>>>>>

After running out like a damn coward from the library, and leaving all your stuff there like the intelligent person you are-- you end up bumping into Kinsey who is one of your group mates for a project you’re doing in your horrendous Microbiology class. You thought it would be a fun class with getting to wear that white lab coat and conducting experiments but you instead find the class to be so boring it makes you fall asleep.

“Hey Kinsey” you greet with a smile.

“Hey y/n. You remember we’re meeting today for the end of term project right?”

Do you remember that? No. Will you tell her? No.

“Yes I do” you lie with ease.

“We’ll see you in the library then at 6 as decided?”

Holy shit at 6 pm? How the hell are you supposed to get home?. You have half a mind to say no but you realize that your whole grade rides on this project and you end up getting a bad grade, you won’t just screw yourself, you’ll screw everyone else too which isn’t fair. So you agree to meet in the library at six and you are sure that you’ll be late getting home because when in this world ever have group meetings finished on time?

Kinsey leaves you with a lot to think about. However most important at this time though is getting your stuff from the library but you’re too scared to go back. But you have no choice because one you can’t just leave your stuff at the mercy of Park Jimin and Jeon Jeongguk, and two you still have a couple of hours to spare until you meet your group. So you need your stuff. Otherwise without your laptop, and your cell phone which you also left on the table-- you have nothing to do. At the very least you need these two things.

So begrudgingly, hating how the logic makes sense, you trudge back the way you came, and quietly sneak to the second floor, keeping your eyes and ears open in case Jeon Jeongguk appears. He has this bad habit of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

When you reach the second floor, to your right are the bookshelves and you quickly hide behind one and peek from behind at the tables on the opposite side to you. You catch the sight of the table you were sitting on but it’s empty and none of your stuff is there. One of them took it and you desperately hope it was Jimin and not--

“Looking for this?” you turn around to find Jeongguk holding your bag by the grab handle mid-air, raising a brow at you.

Holy shit.

You reach for your bag but he retreats his arm. “Are you trying to avoid me?”

“No” you shake your head, reaching for the bag again but he steps back.

“Stop doing that and give me my backpack. I have a lot of work to do, unlike you”

“You are avoiding me” he says with a straight face.

“I really need my things Jeon. I am supposed to meet my group at 6 for a project so I need my stuff. Please”

“You’re staying here until after 6?” he stretches his arm and holds your bag out to you.

“Yeah” you nod, taking the bag and putting the straps over your shoulder.

“How will you get home?The bus stops running early today because of the parade”

“I’ll figure something out” you shrug and pivot on your heels, beginning your walk to somewhere you can be alone because lord knows being around Jeongguk is overwhelming and leaves you feeling like you don’t know what to do with yourself.

>>>>>>>

You had gotten so busy with working on his profile that you kind of put everything else on the back burner— including the one group assignment you had to do as an end of term project.

You and your group mates head out towards the parking lot after finishing because for one all of them drove and second you could take a shortcut through the parking lot to get to the bus stop two blocks down. Had it not been for the stupid spring parade the road wouldn’t be blocked and you wouldn’t have to walk two damn blocks just to catch the other bus.

Your group members even offer to give you a ride home but you refuse because you don’t want to be a burden.

“Bye” you said to Kinsey, and just as you turn around to leave your eyes fall upon none other than Jeongguk who is leaning against the hood of his car— eyes glued to his phone.

“Oh. I get it. Your boyfriend was coming to pick you up” Kinsey says with a suggestive smile on her face.

“No” you shake your head vigorously. “I didn’t even know he was here”

“It’s alright. I get it” she winks as she opens the door. “Have fun”

You open your mouth to protest but she is already settled in the car and starting the engine. Then she drives off into the night leaving you a little shocked.

Once she disappears from your sight you walk over to Jeongguk who doesn’t see you coming.

“What are you doing here at this time of the night?” you stop in front of him catching his attention.

“Oh hey!” he puts his phone away and greets you with that cheeky smile. “I am here to pick you up”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s..” he glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s 10:05 at night and you should not be taking transit. It’s not safe”

“But-”

“What kind of a guy would I be if I let a girl— a catch like you— take the transit in the middle of the night. My mom didn’t raise me that way” he shakes his head. “Besides, I can’t have some random handsome stranger on the bus steal you away from me” he breaks out into his signature tooth grin, eyes disappearing into moon shaped crescents.

“I don’t know what kinds of movies you have been watching all your life to get that stupid idea in your head. But It’s okay. I am a big girl. I can handle myself” you offer a smile before pivoting with the intention of walking away. However, you forget you are talking to Jeongguk— he doesn’t give up easily.

He tugs you back by the grab handle on top of your backpack.“Y/n wait” You turn around to look at him.

“Please just come. I’ll feel better about it. I really don’t want you taking transit at this time. It’s not safe. I don’t want anything happening to you”

You regard him— how he’s silently pleading with those sparkly eyes of his, how he sounds so concerned and genuine.

“I live forty minutes away. What if you get hungry?”

“I ate. Plus I came prepared with snacks” he looks proud of himself as he cheekily grins at you.

“What if your parents get mad at you?” you fold your arms

“I am a big boy y/n. Besides, I live alone”

“What if the car runs out of gas?” you quirk a brow at him

“The tank is full. I made sure of that when I came here”

“Umm then, what if….” you stumble for another excuse.

“Nope. No more excuses” he wags his finger side to side.

“Okay. But it’ll take you like two hours to get back home because you live on the opposite side of the city and you have practice tomorrow morning. So you’ll need to wake up early which means if you drop me off you will get home late and won’t have enough time to sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep then how will you go into practice tomorrow morning” you ramble out of concern for him.

He waves you off. “My love, I’ll be fine”

“What if you are so tired, you can’t concentrate and then you injure yourself?”

“I won’t injure myself. I’ll get enough sleep. Stop worrying about me”

“I am not worried about you” you scoff, looking away as your pupils shake.

“Okay fine. You’re totally not worried about me. I concede. Will you please just get in so I can drive you home, then get back to my precious bed and get that proper sleep you’re so not worried about?”

You bite your lip in indecision. Then you figured the more you stand here wasting time the later he would get home— not that you care. But you also know refusing wouldn’t be an option for two reasons: one Jeongguk would rather die than let you take the bus and two it might sort of, kind of break his heart if you refused. But you settle on the former being the reason for saying yes, and definitely not the latter.

“Fine. Thank you” your lips stretch into a grateful making him smile as well.

“Anytime my love” and like the gentleman, he is he opens the door for you and you sit in and he drives you home.

Once you’ve reached home, he leans in and pecks you on the cheek. “Good night y/n” his eyes sparkle as the moonlight through the window hits his irises.

“Drive safe Jeon. Good night” you whisper

>>>>>>>>

The next day, you’re in the elevator heading to your class when it stops at one the floors and a bunch of girls get in squishing you. You shuffle as far back as you can and find yourself pinned to a corner.

“Did you hear Jeongguk asked Jihyun out?” one of them says with a dirty scowl on her face.

Your eyes widen as the words register in your head and your heart starts pounding against your chest.

“Jihyun?” one of the girls in the group asks

“Yeah. Jaehyun’s sister” the first girl replies with yet another scowl.

“Wow. I thought he would never date anyone” the second girl.

“A guy like him can’t be single for too long” the other shrugs.

So when Jimin told you that they would set Jeongguk up with Jaehyun’s sister he wasn’t joking. You had taken it too lightly and now Jeongguk is with another girl.

A lump forms in your throat and you try your best to choke it back. But then the tightness builds and you feel the back of your throat constricting and a tiny sob escapes. You slap a hand to your mouth as the two girls look at you. You duck your head low so they can’t see the tears pricking the edge of your eyes.

You press the button for the next floor since the board is right next to you. The elevator bell dings and you push past them, earning glares in response.

The tears you had been trying to hold back fall onto your cheeks one after another and your nose starts to feel stuffy. You keep your head low and avoid eye contact with people around you.

As if your luck couldn’t get any worse you end up bumping your head into someone’s chest—

“Sorry” a familiar voice cuts through the air and you wish that a hole open up in the ground to swallow you whole. “Y/n?”

Jeon frickin Jeongguk makes an appearance at the worst moment.

You try to sidestep him but he tugs your arm to make you stop. “Are you crying?”

“Let me go” you croak, trying to wrest your wrist from his grasp. But he only pulls you towards him. You keep your head low to avoid looking at him.

“Why are you crying?” his soft voice only makes the urge to sob worse.

“It’s none of your business” a muscle in your jaw twitches as you bite through clenched teeth. “Let me go!” you yank your wrist out of his grasp and walk past him to continue on your unknown destination.

“Wait” he pulls at your wrist again. “Did someone say something to you? Do I need to kick someone’s ass because I’ll gladly do it” he’s looking into your eyes with that stupid fucking look-- slight crinkle on his forehead, eyes full of concern that makes you want to melt into a puddle of goo. You look at him, tears falling down your cheeks as you try to decipher exactly what is going through his head. He’s no one. He’s not your boyfriend, he’s not even a friend. To top it all off he’s asked someone else out. So why does he care so much?

You roll your eyes. “Can't you mind your own business?. Besides your girlfriend won’t appreciate seeing you holding onto me like this” you lift the wrist he’s holding and glance at it and then back at him.

“Oh” a look of realization crosses his face, and very subtly a corner of his lips tugs up, but then he’s quick to revert to his usual neutral expression. He lets go of your wrist, and without a word, you pivot on your heels and leave him standing there.

Had you looked back you would have noticed him shaking his head with an affectionate smile that reached his eyes, as he watched your retreating figure.

>>>>>>>>>>

The last thing-- the very last thing you want is to leave the house. You just want to wallow in your misery which you don’t fully comprehend, or rather refuse to acknowledge the reason for. That’s all you want. But having Jimin and Hoseok and best friend’s makes things difficult. You wish that there was a refund policy for friendships because you would definitely cash in on it when both of them barge into your room and rip the covers off you.

You shoot both of them a glare and lift yourself to pull the covers back and fall back onto the bed again. You clutch onto the covers tightly so they can't take them off you. But two of them are stronger than one of you and you feel the cold draft hitting you when they manage to get the duvet off you again.

“What!” you yell at them.

“Get up!” they say in unison.

“Fuck off!” you yell back

“Stop being a child and get up. The world hasn’t ended. You say you don’t even like him! So why are you acting all butt hurt about it” Hoseok’s firm voice cuts through the silence.

“I am not butthurt” you fold your arms defensively as you frown at him.

“Seriously y/n, if you don’t get up I am going to the very last thing you want” Jimin threatens as he folds his arms across his chest too and pouts at you-- daring you to disobey.

“You are all words” you scowl at him.

“Fine” he pulls his phone out of his pocket. You watch as he dials and then puts the phone next to his ear. “Jeongguk, come over right now”

“Jimin!” you yell and shoot up from the bed and jump on Jimin as he catches you by wrapping one arm around your waist. He extends his arm away from your reach and puts the phone on speaker. “Hang up!” you slap him repeatedly on his back. “Hang the fuck up!”

“What’s going on?” you hear Jeongguk’s voice.

“Hang up Jimin!!” you yell at the top of your lungs.

“Alright. I am coming over” you hear Jeongguk’s voice before the dial tone rings.

You look from the phone to Jimin, who is smiling at you. “Don’t challenge me next time y/n”

Jimin lets go of you and you flop on the bed with a thud. “I hate you” you glance at them both before hiding your face behind your hands.

“We love you too. So, now he’s coming over. Here’s what is going to happen” Hoseok crouches down in front of you and pulls your hands away from your face, holding them tight to your sides as he looks at you. “You’re going to tell him how you feel about him. Don’t dare deny it y/n” he warns.

“But he asked Jihyun-”

“No” Jimin says sternly and shakes his head. “No more excuses”

You look at Jimin and then down at Hoseok. “You guys suck”

“You know you like him. You do” he pauses as he studies you carefully. “Just tell him because he likes you too. A lot. He’s even told you like a million times. Stop breaking his heart”

“What?” your eyes widen as you feel betrayed. “Breaking his heart? When did I-” and then you realize how many times he said he liked you-- directly and indirectly-- and how everytime you brushed him off.

“You know y/n, there is only so much time he will wait for you. If you don’t, he’ll move on and then you’ll regret not saying anything” Jimin speaks as he peers into your eyes.

“Exactly” Hoseok nods.

You groan and fall back onto the bed. “I hate all of this”

Jimin grabs one of your arms and Hoseok grabs the other as they pull you up. “Stop” both of them say in unison again.

“Tell him” Hoseok says a final time before both of them retreat out of your room, giving you plenty to think about.

> > > > > > >

As not promised, Jeongguk shows up. He actually shows up at your place. He always does things he’s not supposed to do like showing up at your place and never does things he’s supposed to do like answer your interview questions. When you hear the front the door open, you quickly run to the door of your room and stand with your back against it, pushing as much as you can because you know Hoseok and Jimin are going to come at any moment to get you.

As expected you hear the sounds of footsteps and whispers outside your door. “She better not have locked it” you hear Hoseok mumble.

You feel the handle digging into the small of your back as Hoseok tries to open the door from the other side. You press your lips together, as the pain gets to you slowly. You try to hold it in but then the door bursts open. You lose your balance since you are pushed away due to the sheer force that is Jimin and fall to the floor on your knees.

“I knew it” Hoseok looks at you accusingly from behind Jimin as he holds open the door. “He’s here”

“Go downstairs and talk to him” Jimin helps you up.

“Do I have to?” you look at him pleadingly.

“Yes. What do you think is going to happen if you tell him?” he says in a firm voice

“I don’t know” you reply. But you imagine Jeongguk could just change his mind and tell you he never liked you, in which case you would be hurt. He could tell you he likes Jihyun now and that he’s forgotten all about you. He could tell you he’s already moved on and then things are awkward between you for the rest of your college life. But more than all of this is just the fact that he’s Jeongguk and you are y/n and your relationship was never supposed to come to this.

You were always supposed to walk that thin line between friends and enemies and nothing more. But then you got to know Jeongguk and how kind he is. You got to know his ambitions and how hard he will work for them. You understood that he’s a human too and he breaks down like everyone else. That understanding changed something — in fact it changed everything.

So is it not natural for you to hesitate? Why can’t everyone understand that?

At being met nothing but silence Jimin shoves you out of your room, his hand resting on the small of your back, until you are downstairs in the living room just to make sure you don’t run away.

They know you too well.

“Go!” Jimin pushes you and you end up stumbling towards Jeongguk who is standing with his back to you, his eyes glued to the football game. When you hit him because you lose your balance he is quick to turn around and steady you.

“Clearly God never blessed you with balance” he chuckles.”How are you always stumbling and falling over?” he steadies you by placing his hands on your arms and holding you in place.

“T-t-th-thanks” you mutter under your breath as he lets go of your arms. You allow your gaze to settle on the floor as you fidget with your hands. You look over your shoulder at Jimin and Hoseok both of whom give an imperceptible shake of their heads as you silently plead. You guess there is no choice.

“Why did you call me over?” Jeongguk turns to Jimin who abandons his defensive stance.

“Y/n has something to tell you” the corners of his mouth upturn in an encouraging smile as he looks from Jeongguk to you.

“You do?” Jeongguk looks at you with crinkled brows.

You stand silent, unable to look at him, unable to think-- powerless to even move a muscle much less your mouth. You can feel all three men looking at you. Jimin gently squeezes your shoulder.

“Well-” you clear your throat as you look at Hoseok who gives you a thumbs up. “Well the thing is” you clear your throat again, swallowing hard because your mouth is dry. “The- the- the thing is that… I--ummm.. I--uhhh. I-- well I ” you glance at Jeongguk who is watching you with nothing but patience.

“She likes you” Hoseok speaks out nowhere. No one asked him--literally no one. This isn’t how you were going to say it.

Your head whips in his direction as you look at him wide-eyed, and a panicked frown decorating your forehead.

“She does huh” Jeongguk muses with a slow understanding nod. You turn to face him. He’s grinning from ear to ear like a child. He steps towards you, to erase the already minimal distance. “I know you do” he says with a low voice, and a tiny smile that reaches his eyes.

“How?” you blink at him in confusion.

“I told you, your eyes always give you away y/n” he speaks in a gentle, calming tone which helps calm your nerves down. “In the hallway that day when you bumped into me, you were crying and when I asked why you told me to mind my own business. But then when I held your wrist you told me my girlfriend wouldn’t like it. The way you looked at me-- heartbroken, hurt, with so much anger and pain in your eyes -- I knew right then and there, my love” he reaches for both of your hands and holds them in his.

“Didn’t you ask Jihyun out?”

“That…” he tilts his head as he turns to look at Hoseok and Jimin pointing at them with his thumb. “It’s not true. It was their plan to get some kind of reaction out of you”

You turn to your best friends with a look of betrayal on your face. “What?”

“Would you have admitted your feelings otherwise?” Hoseok says defensively.

“Our work is done so we will leave,” Jimin says hurriedly already on the move and you open your mouth to chastise them but before you can they run-- as in sprint the fastest you have ever seen them before. Jeongguk chuckles watching them and you just stare at their retreating figures in disbelief.

“Well,” Jeongguk turns to you. “They aren’t wrong”

You bite your lip as you look at him. “I guess I like you”

He chuckles softly. “A guess is better than you denying it”

Silence befalls as both of you avoid each other’s gazes. Jeongguk awkwardly scratches the nape of his neck while you keep your gaze cast on the floor.

“You still like me? Despite me always brushing off your feelings?”

“Love” he nods, his voice an octave lower. “I’ll always love you. I’ll love you even when I hate you. You can break my heart, do whatever you want with it and I’ll still love you” he looks in your eyes, never once blinking.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

He blinks and his lips curve in a faint smile. “ It’s hard not to y/n. You’re amazing. My favourite thing about you is that you don’t even know how perfectly beautiful you are. You don’t see what I see and that’s your charm” he says in a low gentle voice.

“What don’t I see?”

“How loving you has made me calmer, wiser, kinder, easier, and... better” he steps towards you erasing the small amount of distance between you

“What else?” you whisper, feeling your stomach tightening in knots, and a soft quiver settling in between your thighs.

“You don’t see that you have the ability to make a man crazy with desire yet still be naive enough to not know that. It’s absolutely maddening”

“You always make it so--so hard for me, Jeon” you breathe heavily, feeling that quiet resolve to not acknowledge him deep within you break as each second passes. Because the truth is he does make it hard for you to hate him— and maybe the sun is finally coming up and reality is settling in.

“I think I am going to kiss you” his voice cuts through the silence.

You make a non-committal sound catching yourself off guard and to cover it up you clear your throat. You just look at him and hope he can understand that you are okay with it.

He leans in slowly, and wraps your hands around his waist as he pulls you in. “Stop me at anytime” he tilts his head to the side as his nose brushes past yours and then he presses his lips against yours very gently. Your lips tingle at the contact and intuitively your arms tighten around his waist as you pull him in. The gentle movements of his mouth grow stronger once your lips part and you start kissing him back.

He pulls you in further as his hand rests on the back of your head. Your toes curl from the adrenaline and you moan against his mouth. He pulls back as you take a quick breather in which he also manages to chuckle at your reaction.

“Shut up” you mumble against his mouth as you press your lips against his. You feel the heat building in every part of your body. Your face in particular feels very warm and so do your hands. Jeongguk’s lips move against yours and his hands slowly slide down to rest against the small of your back. He slightly pushes you and in you lose all your breath.

Then you’re tugging him by his shirt and jumping up to wrap your legs around his waist. He supports your weight as he starts walking up the stairs like you weigh nothing for him. Somehow this simple action makes you more impatient, makes you want more because it’s just hot?

Jeongguk kicks open your ajar door with his foot and lays you down on the bed without breaking the kiss. He pulls away first as both of you pant against each other’s mouths. “I told you I am a great kisser” he heaves with a soft chuckle.

You bite his lower lip gently. “Is that all you can do?” you tease.

“Are you sure?” he smooths your hair away from your face and then cups your cheeks as he lays a soft peck on your lips.

You nod your affirmation and pull him down again in a kiss. His hands grip your sides, gently stroking up and down which makes heat pool within your stomach. His touch sends shivers down your spine. You feel his fingers under your skin as your shirt rides up.

“Stop teasing” you breathe out.

“Patience babygirl” he grins wolfishly, a tiny mischievous glint in his eyes.

He captures your lips in his once again and then moves down to the crook of your neck as he pulls the sensitive skin between his teeth softly. A laugh escapes your lips as his breath tickles. “That’s going to leave a mark” you giggle.

“That’s the point” he kisses the same spot softly. “I fucking love you”

“Show me then” you whisper.

Jeongguk doesn’t hesitate after you give him consent. His hands never rest in one place as they explore every part of your body. He whispers sweet nothings in your ear as he slides in and out of you, tells how beautiful he thinks you are. He doesn’t for one second let you feel uncomfortable and goes at your pace. He listens to you when you tell him what feels good and does exactly that.

“Jeon” you pant heavily as you pull him down towards you.

“You feel so damn good y/n” he pecks you on the lips as he bucks his hips in and out of you. You claw your fingers against his back giving into the rush he makes you feel. He utters a guttural sound at the contact. He continues his movements as he pushes your hair out of your face, cupping your cheek staring you directly in your eyes. “God you have no idea how beautiful you look right now” he whispers between breaths.

“Fuck” you moan as he bends down to capture your lips in his once more-- drinking in all the ecstasy running through your veins.

He’s gentle, even still as he holds you. His caresses, and touches are so soft they leave goosebumps in their wake. The moans and groans that escape past his lips only help you climax harder because you know he’s feeling good. That in itself is enough to make you come undone. When you do, Jeongguk is right there hovering above you, praising you, gently and softly kissing you as you convulse around him. Then he’s chasing his own high and your name softly passes through his lips and he falls limply on top you, kissing the crook of your neck.

He gathers you up in his arms as he rolls on his back. You cuddle against him, wrapping your arm around his torso, resting your face in the crook of his neck, leaving small feather light pecks. He’s so warm against your skin that it starts to make you feel sleepy.

“Goodnight, baby” he whispers against your forehead as he lays a gentle kiss.

Then you drift off to sleep in his arms-- safe, sound, protected, and loved.

> > > > > > >

The next morning the stupid chiming sound of your phone wakes you up. You crack an eye open and reach for it. Jeongguk’s name appears on the screen and your heart immediately starts beating faster. Last night comes to mind and you remember how he touched you, how your name had passed his lips as he had reached his high. You remember how he showed you he loved you. You remember the sweet smell of cinnamon from his skin, and the soft gentle caresses of his fingers against your skin.

You open the text with a smile.

Jeon Jerguk: breakfast is ready 💕

Breakfast?

Curious, you slide to the edge of the bed legs dangling to the floor with the intention of getting up but then you pick your phone and change Jeongguk’s name in your phone to Kookie with a heart beside it. He’s not so much of a jerk anymore.

Then you get up and upon feeling something under your feet, you look to find Jeongguk’s shirt. Your brows furrow. If his shirt is here then what is he wearing?

It turns out he isn't wearing a shirt at all. You gawk stupidly at his back which faces you while he’s making breakfast. You can see the curves of his biceps, the muscles straining in his back as he holds the pan in his hand. The deep line in the middle of his back which stops just above the hem of his jeans. You gulp hard, your fist clenching tighter on the shirt in your hand.

You clear your throat and he turns around. It was a bad idea- a really bad idea because now you can’t stop staring at him even more. It’s funny how abs have been glorified and sexualized so much that they are actually a part of a man’s sexual appeal. Unfortunately you have also fallen into that trap because you just can’t stop staring at that six pack he is sporting

“Y/n” Jeongguk grins noticing where your eyes are lurking.

“Huh?” you blink at him and then throw his shirt at him which hits his face. “Your shirt” you mumble quickly looking away.

“I was kind of hoping you would wear it” a wolffish, playful grin spreads on his mouth. But he takes the shirt and pulls it over his head and then down his torso.

“Uhh… well” you stumble for words avoiding his eyes.

“I am kidding” he starts walking towards you. He cups your cheeks before he’s placing a kiss on your forehead. “Breakfast?” he pulls away with a soft smile.

“You made breakfast?” you stare at him wide eyed, unable to hide your surprise.

“Always with the look of surprise” he says for the thousandth time.

“I just didn’t think…”

“I was hungry” he shrugs, and walks back to the stove.

You’re not surprised. He’s always hungry. There is never a moment when Jeongguk wouldn’t say he’s not hungry.

You take a seat at the island and he comes back with a plate in his hand and he places it in front of you. He leans on the counter on his elbows as he looks at you, making your stomach tighten.

You swallow hard. “French toast?” you again look at him in surprise and yet again he shakes his head.

“You really have to stop being so surprised at everything I do. It’s kind of offensive” he pouts.

“I’ll try my best not to” you take a bite. It’s actually good.

“How is it?” he looks upon you in anticipation.

“Really good” you mumble through a mouthful.

“Yes!” he punches the air

“How many girls have you done this for?” you chuckle.

“I’ll give you an actual reason to be surprised” he purses his lips. “You’re the first”

“You’re telling me-- you-- the captain of the football team, Jeon Jeongguk, have never done this before?” you point to your plate.

“Not just breakfast. Even last night. You’re the first”

“I am what!?” you gawk at him.

“You are the first girl I’ve slept with. Happy?”

He then turns around and gets his own plate, sitting down next to you. You don’t prompt him again regarding the same topic but you do feel special. Then this urge overcomes you and lean towards him and kiss him on the cheek. “You can be cute sometimes Jeon Jeongguk”

His lips spread in a wide grin and he leans in and pecks you on the corner of your mouth. “Happy to return the favor” he turns towards his plate, grabbing his fork and knife.

“So, serious question” you say just as he’s about to take a bite but stops mid-air.

“Anything” his lips tug upwards in a smile.

“What do we do now?”

“We do whatever you want, how ever you want”  he says in a gentle voice

“Okay. I would love to beat around the bush but I think you should know what happened last night, although I don’t regret it-- I just want you to know that I don’t do that. I mean at least not how quickly it happened. I am not like-“

“We’ll jump the base whenever you want to, my love. We’ll do it at your pace. You just tell me what you’re comfortable with and what is a ‘no’ for you. If you ever think I am rushing you just tell me. I don’t want to do this wrong. Especially not with you” the sincerity in his eyes is as clear as day. He’s not looking away, he’s not even blinking. He’s looking straight in your eyes and saying that which forces you to think he’s being honest. If he weren’t his body would have given him away. But he’s firm with his voice and his words.

“Thank you… Kookie” you quickly look away, slightly angling your body away from him out of sheer embarrassment. After all those sweet words, he deserves a sweet name like that doesn’t he?

He’s about to begin eating when a look of realization crosses his face and his hand stops midway to his mouth, toast dropping on the plate. “Wait what did you just call me?” he grabs your arm and spins you so you face him.

“I am just trying it out” you quickly glance at him and then rest your gaze on your lap.

“Wait, say it again” you can hear the smile in his voice. You don’t have to look up to know that he is in fact grinning.

“Kookie” you mumble.

“If I was a girl I would say my heart is going to burst and shit sprinkles all over”

“What?” you chuckle, the laughter bellowing from deep within your chest as it develops into a full bellyache.

“In other words, I love it! Please never call me anything else”

“You’re crazy” you shake your head

“Yeah. But only for you” his smile is so wide his eyes crinkle at the corners.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

You haven’t seen Jeongguk all day long because he’s been busy practicing for the friendly game against the rival college team. Even though it’s supposed to be a pre-season game things tend to get intense when the Douglas Royals visit your college.

One would think it was the final game of the season with all the banners decorating the hall, people dressed in the white and red colours of the football team with face paint on. There was barely anything happening in classes because even the professors understood that people wouldn’t be paying attention.

Your phone buzzes and you open it.

Kookie💙: if you go to my locker you’ll find a present there. I’ll see you this evening. ILY❤️

You make a U-turn from the front of the library and head to the locker room because can you say no to Jeongguk- never. Ever since you’ve been with Jeongguk the sports department has been extra nice about you going to the locker room even if it’s empty.

You skip happily to Jeongguk’s spot and find a black box waiting for you. Your heart starts beating fast in anticipation. As you close in, you realize it’s actually bigger than you thought it would be which makes you even more eager.

Unable to contain your curiosity you open the box and find something you had not been expecting with a small note attached to it.

You know you’re my lucky charm right? Wear this to the game this evening and I promise I’ll win it for you.

Yours, Kookie

>>>>>>>>>

The whole football field and the bleachers surrounding the field fill up thirty minutes before the kickoff. The team hasn’t arrived on the field and it’s only the cheerleaders doing their thing.

The moment you enter the field all eyes fall on you and whispers reach your ear.

“Isn’t that JK’s girlfriend?”

“Never thought they would get together”

“I am so jealous of her” someone whines and it automatically makes your heart swell with pride— everyone wants him but you got him.

There’s more but you tune it out because you find Hoseok waving at you. You skip down the steps and sit down next to him.

“Did the school spirit vomit all over you?” his nose scrunches when he takes in your appearance— wearing the football jersey with Jeongguk’s name and his number ‘9’ decorating your back and the number ‘9’ painted in white on your cheeks.

You clear your throat. “He left it as a present for me”

“He’s fucking whipped” Hoseok shakes his head as takes a sip of his beer.

“You made it happen so blame yourself” you nudge him teasingly.

The game begins and the whole time your eyes only follow Jeongguk. He almost gets knocked over by one of the players on the other team. But thank the heavens that Jimin is on the team because he manages to tackle the guy before Jeongguk gets thrown down. Your heart after that moment doesn’t stop thumping like it’s lost its ability to calm down.

Jeongguk is a great quarterback. He’s so good at it that you feel your chest swelling with pride on the inside every time he’s shown on the jumbotron on the opposite side of the field from you. So this is what it’s like to be his girlfriend.

The game comes to an end without anyone getting injured and your boyfriend makes it back to you in one piece.

“Yay!” he runs towards you after the game ends and you’re waiting for him outside the locker room. “You wore it”

You roll your eyes. “Of course I wore it”

“It looks good on you. Actually on second thought-- you look hot. Can we go home?”

You slap him on the shoulder. “Shut up. Let’s go eat. I’ll buy since you won and since you played so so so well. I am so proud of you”

“I don’t want food. I want you-- the best dessert ever” he winks.

“You’re disgusting Jeon Jeongguk” you shake your head and slap him on the shoulder.

“Fine” he grins as he drapes an arm over your shoulder. “Only because you’re buying, girlfriend” he kisses the side of your head as you both begin walking.

>>>>>>>>

{2 weeks later}

Jeon Jeongguk is a lot of things, but a patient man is not of those things. Eager to announce your exclusive relationship he ended up instead setting more obstacles in your way because now people were doubting your ability to write his profile. You are supposed to release it in 24 hours and still, you have nothing but a blank page staring back at you.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the updated relationship status Jeongguk tagged you in keeps getting more comments. Your phone keeps buzzing again and again and again which only strengthens your resolve to throw it against a wall. You sigh for the millionth time as you bang your head gently against your closed laptop which is sitting in your lap.

Jeongguk turns to look at you, a look of worry crossing his face. The next time you lower your head you end up hitting his hand as it floats mid air between your face and your poor laptop.

You look at him and groan. “Kookie, I am so stressed out”

He abandons his lax posture against the couch and turns to you, folding one leg under the other and then holding both your hands in his. “Remember that time when I was whining about not wanting to be the captain”

You nod.

“What did you tell me?” he asks with a soft smile

“I told you that things that are worth it take effort and time”

“Exactly. You’ve worked so hard on this. I’ve seen you. I was there every time” he opens his arms and you quickly snuggle against him wrapping your arms around his back. He rests his cheek against the top of your head as he tightens his arms around you. “You can do it”

“How do you always know the right thing to say?” you mumble as you play with the fabric of his shirt.

“Because I love you dumdum” he kisses the top of your head.

“Fine” you pull away and reach for your laptop, dragging it towards yourself while Jeongguk’s arm rests behind you on the sofa and he goes back to watching the game.

You take one look at him-- the way the lights cast shadows on his face, the way his brows are knitted together in concentration as he chews his nails. That is when you know exactly what to say.

> > > > > > >

“Y/N!” you hear Hoseok yelling as he runs into the office. “Holy shit, did you see it?” he looks at you with wide eyes-- enough to make it seem like they’ll pop out any second.

“See what?” your brows crinkle in confusion.

“Oh my god, you have to” he quickly opens up your laptop, turns it towards himself and enters the college website. He navigates to the media page where your profile about Jeongguk is posted titled: Jeon Jeongguk: The Story Untold.

“What is it?” you are very concerned because it is either very good or very bad. You hope its the former not because you care about yourself but because it's Jeongguk. You don’t want his story to receive negative comments and that too because of you-- because of someone he loves.

“It’s doing better than Josh’s profile” Hoseok turns the laptop towards you.

Your mouth opens in surprise and Hoseok watches your reaction with anticipation.There are more than thirty-thousand comments which is crazy because there aren’t even that many students in the college.

“It’s spread beyond the college”

“It's what?” you ogle at him stupidly, unable to control your surprise.

“Yeah! People have shared it on social media. The college is making rounds everywhere. Jeon Jeongguk is the talk of the town right now. Because of you!” he laughs excitedly

You blink profusely unable to comprehend what he’s saying because how can that be when twenty four hours ago you were whining to your boyfriend about it? “I- I- I don’t know what to say”

“Honey!” Hoseok yells out of excitement. “You just wrote the best profile the college has seen in a long while. You have outdone yourself. This isn’t the time for talking, this is a time for celebrating!” Hoseok is smiling so bright and wide that you can’t help but smile as well.

“Holy shit” you giggle as you get up from your chair and hug Hoseok.

He spins you around in his arms further making you giggle.

The door flings open with a thud making you and Hoseok break the hug and turn towards the sound.

“Y/n” Jeongguk stands by the door with the widest grin on his face.

With quick long strides, he walks towards you and captures your lips in a kiss, without saying a single word. All he does is kiss you, and kiss you more, and then some more. You both pull away and you find Jeongguk is positively beaming. Your heart swells with happiness upon seeing him happy.

He cups your cheeks, grin still plastered to his face. “Thank you, my baby doll” he pecks you again.

“What’s going on?”

“Look” he takes out his phone and shows it to you.

It’s an email from a scouting agent which states that one of the teams at the state level is interested in meeting with Jeongguk.

“Oh my god Kookie” your mouth remains agape in surprise. “Holy shit”

“It’s all because of your profile. They saw it, called me and said they are interested”

“That’s amazing!”

You laugh as he wraps his arms around you, lifts you and spins you around in his arms. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so freaking much y/n” he mumbles against your shoulder as he spins you round and round until you both start to feel a little dizzy. He gently sets you down and without unlocking his arms around you.

“I am happy for you” you smile.

“I could kiss you all day long. That’s how happy I am and it’s ten times better because you made it happen” his bright expression softens as he looks into your eyes. “Thank you again”

“It’s all you Kookie. You worked hard. I just told people your story” you stand on your toes and lay a gentle kiss on his nose which makes him scrunch it as he softly chuckles.

“You’re the best thing that has happened to me in a very very very long time” he kisses your forehead in return and wraps you in a bear hug.

“And you are the best decision I have ever made” you wrap your arms around him, feeling everything all at once-- just like every time he is around you. You don’t think these fuzzy feelings will ever fade in Jeongguk’s presence even fifty years down the road when you’re both too old to jump in each others arms. You don’t think you’ll love anyone else like you love him.

And he wouldn’t give his heart away the same way to anyone the way he’s given it to you-- absolutely, completely, utterly and hopelessly.

Just as you are busy hugging the life out of each other, Hoseok clears his throat to draw your attention to him.

“Forgetting about me already?” he pouts.

You and Jeongguk pull away and chuckle. You run up to Hoseok and tackle him in a hug because if it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t be with Jeongguk. If he hadn’t pushed you to do the profile you would have missed out on the best thing in your life.

“Alright” Jeongguk interjects and he pulls you and Hoseok away. “That’s enough”

You shake your head at your crazy boyfriend.

As soon as you are out of Hoseok’s embrace, Jeongguk pulls you in a hug by tugging at your arm and wrapping it around his back. You rest your head against the crook of his neck and he rests his cheek against the top of your head and gently sways back and forth.

“Thanks for loving me” he mumbles in that soft gentle voice that always gets to you. Your heart sinks to your stomach.

“Thanks for teaching me how to love you” you tighten your hold around his waist and give a squeeze. Because had it not been for his kindness, his will to work hard, his gentle presence you would never have known the real Jeon Jeongguk. You would have missed out on the best thing in your life. “I love you”

“I love you more” he lays a gentle kiss on the top of your head as he sways you back and forth in his arms.

End

________________

A/N: Many thank you’s to you if you go to the end. It’s the longest thing I have ever written in my life and it took a lot of hardwork. So please show this fic love by either clicking that heart or reblogging. Thank you so much for reading it! I would love to know your thoughts as always so please do not hesitate to reach out ❤️

#bts #bts smut #jungkook x reader #bts scenarios #bts reactions #magicshopnet #bangtanhq #bts enemies to lovers #football player!jungkook #bts fluff #bts angst

[mordoriscalling]

Stay or Sail Away (5/6)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4  (@geraskier-trashh​ @negativenuggetz​)

A/N: oh lord this wasn’t supposed to be 3k words long XD Hope you like it tho!

***

It was a bad idea to tell Geralt not to wear all black. Well, the scarf is grey and the coat and the shoes are black, but they don’t matter. Geralt’s just taken them off to reveal a three-piece suit and a shirt with two top buttons undone, the clothing in a deep, navy blue colour. His eyes stand out beautifully against it. Geralt in navy blue makes Jaskier want to weep and it’s only half-past noon. To add to Jaskier’s tragic swoon, Geralt’s hair is braided away from his face into a lovely plait at the back of his head (which Jaskier suspects is Ciri’s doing). It just shouldn’t look as good as it does. Geralt is so stunning today that words other than what the fuck do not begin to cover it.

Not to blurt out that in lieu of a greeting, Jaskier spreads his arms wide and exclaims, “Ahoy, captain!”

Geralt snorts with disgust. “Never say that again.”

Jaskier laughs out loud. “Come in, come in,” he says as he ushers Geralt into the living room, “make yourself at home. Are you hungry? It’s last chance for a snack before I put on some eyeliner and we’re off!”

“Eyeliner?” Geralt repeats with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, to finish off this look!” he replies as he gestures at the floral Gucci suit he’s wearing. The outfit’s actually demure considering his usual fashion choices. Bright colours and ridiculous patterns are his go-to but today is the first day of his life when he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. Much. “Help yourself with something from the kitchen if you want,” he says over his shoulder, already leaving for the bathroom.

The makeup takes just a minute or two – eyeliner application has become much less of dark magic with practice. He decides to put on some pretty pink lip gloss as well because, although he’s going to spare his family today and won’t flaunt his queerness at them, he still has to do something. It’s not at all because he hopes his fiancé might like it.

(Geralt’s suit)

(Jaskier’s suit)

When he strides into the living room, he poses like a model and asks, “How do I look?”

Geralt, who sits on the couch, stares him up and down. His gaze almost makes Jaskier blush, so does his smirk. Both border on appreciative. “Really good,” he says.

Since Jaskier expected some mean comment, he almost topples over in shock at the compliment. He sputters, definitely flushing a bit, but quickly re-establishes a working link between his mouth and his brain. “Of course I do, darling,” he replies with a wink. Geralt smirks in that sexy way again. Jaskier has to give himself a good mental shake to stop staring. Clearing his throat, he starts thinking out loud, “So! Have I got everything for the party? I’ve got Geralt, and then the present, and then... Ah! The rings!”

Jaskier sits down next to Geralt and pulls the box out of the pocket of his jacket. Raising the lid, he reveals two rings seated within, one silver and one gold. “Should I kneel?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Geralt growls.

Jaskier laughs with delight, then takes out the silver ring and passes it to Geralt. It’a simple but chunky band with tiny engravings. Jaskier figured Geralt wouldn’t appreciate anything too showy. Geralt takes it and inspects what’s engraved on it. “What kind of flowers are those?” he asks.

“Buttercups,” Jaskier explains, “That’s what my name means. My grandma always told me I’m a jaskier.”

Pretty but poisonous. It’s extremely fitting.                                    

Geralt only hmms and slides the ring on his finger. It’s a perfect fit but it’s no thanks to Jaskier’s genius deduction or anything; he simply knew Geralt’s ring size because Geralt told him. After their phone conversation regarding ring preferences, family drama and other things, they kept talking. Geralt even began starting conversations by himself – he’d send some texts about Ciri like “Ciri says hi” or “Ciri’s playing that song again”. It made Jaskier melt every time.

“Look what you bought me in return, darling,” he says, smiling excitedly, and puts on the gold ring. It’s much more flashy than Geralt’s – a signet with a three-dimensional head of a wolf. “White Wolf” is apparently Geralt’s nickname and a pseudonym of sorts. Wolves are his favourite animals, too.

Jaskier holds out his hand, putting it next to Geralt’s on the couch, and admires the rings on their fingers. “They suit us,” he says quietly

Geralt hmms. “They do.”

The drive is two hours long. Geralt insisted on driving even though it’s Jaskier’s car. Jaskier has a suspicion that driving is an excuse not to listen to him as he’s going over the essential family drama, but it’s mostly for his own sake anyway. He just wants to delude himself that Geralt will be well-prepared for everything and all will go smoothly. They will be fine. They must.

When they pull up in front of Jaskier family’s mansion, panic and second thoughts wash over him alternately in cold and hot waves. As they walk out of the car and Geralt hands him the keys, Jaskier hides within himself and observes the reality unravel a sense of detachment. He doesn’t want to be a part of the upcoming disaster.

“Ready?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier only looks at him helplessly. Geralt offers him his arm and Jaskier takes it like a lifeline. He clutches on it, the touch grounding him, as they walk towards the front door silently.

“Should’ve guessed you were rich,” Geralt remarks as he takes in the mansion looming before them.

“My success in music is all my own,” Jaskier replies feistily, “it took me ten years.”

Geralt wisely doesn’t say anything else and Jaskier settles down, letting out a shaky breath. He always gets very defensive of his achievements. Sis parents paid for nothing; he never asked them to. He hates that people assume differently.

The entrance hall is empty when they invite themselves in, but not for long. Just as they manage to take off their coats, they hear someone coming down the stairs. Jaskier looks up to see Rozalia, his older sister. She’s only one year older than him but doesn’t look a day over thirty. In appearance, she’s all mum: luxuriant dark locks, cat-green eyes, tan skin, and regal features.

“Julek!” she exclaims with a smile and rushes down the stairs into Jaskier’s open arms. They laugh when their bodies collide.

“Hey, horror sister!” Jaskier says, the words their special greeting.

“Hey, wild brother!” Rozalia replies, as tradition commands.

When Jaskier releases her from his embrace, he goes on to introduce Rozalia and Geralt to each other.

“So this is your fiancé,” Rozalia drawls after she and Geralt shake hands, clearly amused, and looks Geralt up and down. “Holy shit. I can see why you kept him a secret.”

Jaskier purses his lips, putting a possessive arm around Geralt’s waist. “Roza, you’re married.”

Rozalia only smirks, then turns on her heel and starts walking down the corridor towards the living room. “Everyone! Julek’s here!” she announces loudly.

“Julek?” Geralt mutters to Jaskier as they start following Rozalia.

“Diminutive of Julian,” Jaskier explains quietly.  

“Sweet.”

“Shut up.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

Jaskier snorts under his breath but doesn’t reply. The sensation of detachment from the reality is there again and Jaskier doesn’t fight it – the distance between him and everything else wards off the impending panic attack.

Like in a dream, he sees his other sister Amelia, who’s five years younger than him, marching towards them, her mop of short golden curls bouncing up and down as she walks. With her sweet face and wide blue eyes (just like Jaskier’s, which they both got from their dad), she looks like an angel. (Spoiler alert: she’s not. She can be the worst. That’s kind of the youngest’s privilege, though).

When Amelia hugs him and Jaskier introduces her and Geralt to each other, he’s still in a daze. Amelia walks on his side as they all enter the living room, chatting about something to him, but he doesn’t really hear it due to the ringing sound in his ears.

“Jaskier?” Geralt’s voice rumbles.

Jaskier looks into the sun-like, concerned eyes. The warmth calms him down. 

He takes in everyone in the room: his parents, Alfred and Wanda. Amelia, Rozalia and her husband Silvio. Dad’s brother, uncle Konrad, with his wife and son Ferrant. Mum’s sisters, aunts Maria, Hanna and Anna with their husbands. All watching Jaskier and Geralt expectantly.  

Jaskier puts on his best smile and lays a hand on the small of Geralt’s back. “Everyone, this is Geralt Rivia. A Royal Navy commander,” he says and observes, delighting in the array of shocked reactions his family display. “My fiancé,” he adds with pride that he doesn’t even have fake.

A round of introductions follows. Geralt shakes everyone’s hands and says nice things like “honoured to meet you finally”, “Jaskier told me so much about you” and “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier”. It’s actually pretty convincing, Jaskier has to give him that. Still, it doesn’t stop one of the questions Jaskier dreads the most.

“But why didn’t you tell us anything, darling?” his mum asks as everyone sits down at the table in the dining room.

This is it, Jaskier thinks mournfully, this is when it all goes to hell. At least Geralt sits next to him. It would be a quick departure – Jaskier will just grab his fiancé and run out of the house.

“Exactly,” Amelia seconds, her slender arms crossed before her chest, “it isn’t like you. You would tell the whole world about your engagement in some wild Twitter thread.”

Shit. She got him there. “W-well, I...”

“I asked him not to,” Geralt comes to the rescue. At the confused looks from everyone around, he goes on, “Not until I go on at least one more deployment and Jaskier’s absolutely sure he wants this. He should have it easier in case he changes his mind. Fewer people know about it, less painful it is to announce.”

Jaskier’s dad frowns. “But why do you assume he’d do that?” he inquires, regarding Geralt with suspicion.

“Being in a relationship with a marine officer is hard,” Geralt replies with a heavy sigh and makes a dramatic pause. Jaskier’s family looks at him with almost bated breath but he takes his time, the bastard. He already has them hanging off his every word. “My deployments are rarely shorter than nine months long,” he confesses ruefully.

A stunned silence falls over the room. Jaskier’s family stare at him with disbelief – they all know Jaskier wouldn’t be able to survive a relationship like that, not with how needy he can be.

Of bloody course Geralt would take it too far at the very start.

“But I’m stubborn!” Jaskier exclaims as cheerfully as he can, “Won’t have anyone else but Geralt.”

“Well, that’s all you,” Amelia says, and Jaskier heaves a sigh of relief.

It’s not that Jaskier doesn’t appreciate Amelia’s inquisitive mind. She’s always had the tendency to analyze and look into everything until every fact and detail adds up. Her character makes her the perfect heir to the family business, which she’s agreed to gladly. Ever since she made that decision, Jaskier choosing music is much less of a painful topic for their family. And so, Jaskier certainly values his younger sister’s nature of constant question-asking, but not in moments like this.

Amelia appears to already know what is going on here and Jaskier only prays she’ll be nice enough not to delve into it too much. Maybe some warning glances from Rozalia and begging ones from Jaskier will stop her. Maybe.

Food is served, alcohol starts flowing. Jaskier’s family begin asking Geralt about himself but Jaskier always tries to twist the conversation so that questions about their relationship don’t come. Until they do.

After they sang dad happy birthday, told him their wishes and gave him the gifts, it’s time to eat the birthday cake. Just when Jaskier puts half of his slice on Geralt’s plate (he doesn’t even like cake), Silvio asks, “When did you two meet?”

Geralt and Jaskier share a look. Jaskier opens his mouth to answer but it’s Geralt who says, “It was two years ago. I walked into a bar where Jaskier was playing. He asked me for a review of his songs after his performance.”

Geralt has the audacity to smirk at him so Jaskier, just to be a little shit, adds, “In three words or less!”

Geralt doesn’t appreciate this contribution judging by how he narrows his eyes at him. Jaskier knows they’re treading a dangerous ground – in their stupidity, they didn’t discuss the details of their “first meeting”. Geralt started it, though.

“And what did you say?” Silvio questions.

“That they don’t exist,” Geralt replies without a beat, still staring Jaskier in the eye.

“Whaaat don’t exist?” Jaskier’s father says what Jaskier himself almost blurts out.

“The creatures in his songs,” Geralt explains.

The affronted noise that leaves Jaskier's mouth is beyond his control. “It’s folk! The genre allows for fantastical elements like that!” He huffs. “But you know, Geralt with his commander mind always wants the facts and only facts.”

“So you don’t like Julek’s singing?” Rozalia asks Geralt.

Geralt denies this with a shake of his head. “Jaskier sings beautifully,” he replies, “Like a siren.” He lays his hand on Jaskier’s and looks into Jaskier’s eyes. “My siren,” he adds quietly.

Jaskier has to gape a little. He barely restrains himself from mouthing are fucking serious? because, really, Geralt can’t just say things like that. When he regains his composure, he decides to be mean. “I told you not to call me that, dear heart,” he says, “Not exactly flattering. Sirens lured sailors to their demise.”

Geralt does that lethally adorable head tilt and answers, “Still would go for you.”

He can hear aunt Maria cooing in the background, bless her heart, but Jaskier almost doesn’t register it. His attention is fully on Geralt – there’s something new in his gaze, beneath the teasing glint. Something guarded, tentative and true. Jaskier cocks his head to the side just a little bit. Geralt notices the question in the gesture (they’re really getting good at reading each other, aren’t they?) and answers by raising an eyebrow, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Jaskier experiences the feeling of a thousand butterflies fluttering their wings in his stomach when he understands – it’s an invitation. He accepts.

Geralt’s lips stretch into a small smile and he squeezes Jaskier’s hand on the table, intertwining their fingers together. Jaskier’s heart almost gives out and he grins, giddy like a teenager who’s just found out their crush is reciprocated. It’s not that far off from the truth anyway.

Uncle Konrad asks Geralt about the Navy. The two of them start discussing working in the army but Jaskier only half-listens, too focused on cherishing the feel of Geralt’s palm engulfing his. Until Geralt takes his hand away, that is.

With a displeased grunt, Geralt takes his phone out of the inner pocket of his jacket. The screen displays an incoming call. “I should take this,” he says apologetically and quickly walks out of the dining room.   

The moment Geralt leaves, the assault is unleashed upon Jaskier. His family bombard him with so many questions and remarks at once that he only hears what Rozalia sitting next to him says. “Didn’t know you were into older men,” she comments, swirling the wine in her glass innocently.

“He’s forty!”

She frowns. “Then what’s the deal with the hair?”

Jaskier freezes in panic. Fucking hell, what is the deal with the hair? He has no idea. Geralt refused to answer his questions. “W-well,” he stutters out, “it’s really... uhh...” He clears his throat. “Not my story to tell. Geralt doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Rozalia hums, an amused twinkle in her eyes. “How mysterious.”

“He sure does seem mysterious,” uncle Konrad chimes in, “And...”

“Quiet?” Ferrant suggests.

“Taciturn?” Silvio supplies.

“Closed off?” aunt Hanna adds.

“Why are you saying it like it’s a bad thing?” Jaskier cuts in, interrupting this merry-go-round offering of adjectives before it spirals into everyone calling Geralt a brute.

“It’s not,” aunt Anna reassures, “It’s just that... I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how on earth the relationship is even working with him being like this and you being, well...” she trails off and gestures at Jaskier with her fork. “You.”

“Frist off, I’ll take this as a compliment –”

“Of course, dear.”

“ – and secondly, even though we’re different, our differences only keep things... interesting, if you get my meaning.” Jaskier throws in a telling wink, and his uncles chuckle.

“Julian!” both his parents cry out, scandalised.

“Honestly,” Jaskeir goes on, unmoved, “deep down, he and I are quite the same.”

“Indeed?” Amelia asks, “Is he also a bastard at heart?”

“Yesss!” he hisses out, wildly pleased. Sometimes he loves Amelia’s analytic mind.

“He actually seems like a sweetheart,” his mum says, warming Jaskier to his very heart. He loves his mum so much – she always sees the best in people.  

“He’s both, really,” he replies, “He’s certainly a sweetheart to his daughter.” Jaskier delights in shocking his family once again. Then, an idea pops up in his mind, “If you ask him about her, he’ll open right up.”

Before anyone can ask anything else, Geralt returns. After taking one look at him, Jaskier knows something is wrong. There’s tension about him but his face is a blank mask. 

“Something wrong, love?” Jaskier whispers, barely realising that he even said the endearment.

“Work,” Geralt grunts.  

“Geralt,” Jaskier’s father says, “Julian tells us you have a daughter?”

Geralt face lights up immediately. It’s such a charming sight. Jaskier’s chest constricts with how everything in him screams and begs don’t ever go. 

“Yes,” he answers and launches into talking about Cirilla – how old she is, where she goes to school, what she likes doing. How she loved to paint her little hands on the walls when she was six. Soon after that, everyone shares funny stories about children, either their own or themselves as kids.

Jaskier zones out a bit, too busy wondering why Geralt took his hand away when he reach for it.

Later, Jaskier’s parents invite Geralt to stay for the night, which makes the fake-fiance scheme a success; they wouldn’t allow someone who they thought to be a stranger to sleep in their house.

Geralt doesn’t take them up on their offer.

TBC

Part 6

***

A/N: Rozalia is the Horror while Jaskier is the Wild 💕 (Amelia is the nasty angel baby. They adore her for it. Must protecc).

(Also, I love making up OCs, can you tell? XD)

#myfic #geraskier #the Sailor and the Singer AU #the witcher fanfiction #modern au #fake dating #geralt x jaskier

[radramblog]

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commanders

Due to circumstances I won’t get into at time of writing (don’t worry it’s mostly good) I’ve been forced, dragged over, and required to actually fucking read all the new Commanders from Magic’s newest set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I’ve only recently gotten deeper into D&D, I don’t know who like any of these clowns are (except Tiamat, obviously).

Also due to circmstances beyond my control (that are less good but understandable) my Commander night has been called off and I don’t get to play with my shiny new Cabal Coffers. It’s a bit sad, and it means I want to get my fix elsewhere.

What better way than to combine these two and just write about every AFR ‘mander? That’ll pass the time. There’s like, what, 30? I can manage that if I’m quick. Let’s get into it.

(No I’m not doing the precon cards I haven’t been staring at those all week)

Acererak the Archlich

The way I see this guy going is one of two things. You either do infinite Venture by making him free (not too hard in Black, what with Heartless Summoning, Carnival of Souls, etc.) and have a probably fine combo commander. For the record, infinite Venture does kill your opponents flat-out, BUT only because of Lost Mine of Phandelver’s Dark Pool room, and only if their life totals are lower than your deck count because you’re going to be drawing it in the process. That shouldn’t be an issue, but you never know.

The other option is just playing him fairly, which requires completing Tomb of Annihilation, and you just have a kinda mid Stax commander I guess? Eh.

Asmodeus the Archfiend

This Devil is clearly trying to echo prior Demons like Griselbrand and Vilis, but I’m not sure it’s going to be successful- if only because the mana investment means it’s a lot slower. And if he gets killed when you don’t have B up? Blown the fuck out. Add in no evasion and this is a God I’m happy to pass on.

 Barrowin of Clan Undurr

Okay so this is kind of like Alesha, in less colours and more mana, if you manage to complete a dungeon. And there aren’t that many dungeon cards, so you’re probably playing some bad ones to make up for it. This is definitely a 99’er in that Esper Dungeon precon, and certainly not a commander.

 Bruenor Battlehammer

In an attempt to solve one of Boros’s problems, Bruenor saves you a bunch of mana on equips and makes shit like Argentum Armor substantially more playable. He also gets kinda fuckin beefy with even just a few on him, hitting that 7 no matter what the first one is and 11 not long after. As far as Boros Boys go, you can do a lot worse!

 Delina, Wild Mage

Didn’t we just get this card? Like, in C21? This is harder to make busted than Rionya, but it is cheaper and works with legends, so fair call. There’s not enough “advantage” dice mechanics in Red, certainly, so you can’t go probability-mad with this, but it’s pretty decent value. It also happens to be a Shaman, so it works with that new MH2 card, and that’s fun.

 Drizzt Do’Urden

This guy has a lot of potential, and for added bonus, he has a cat! A lot of the cards that are good in this are the ones that are good in, say, Varolz, but honestly if you just want to play Selesnya Beatsticks then Drizzt might be the way to go. Can’t play him in Cats, though, unless you want to lose Kaheera, so.

 Ebondeath, Dracolich

Yeah I don’t think this one was for this format? I mean it’s super recursive, and probably a really good candidate for a Homicidal Seclusion/Deadly Wanderings deck. I think we need one or two more of that effect to make it actually playable, but I still like the idea.

Wait why isn’t this fucker a skeleton? WoTC Pls.

 Farideh, Devil’s Chosen

Look, I tried. I really tried, but there really just isn’t enough to make Farideh work yet. At least in black-border, as I think she’s probably one of the best silver-bordered commanders printed in a minute. A shame, because I sure do enjoy Tieflings, and the effect is legitimately solid if you can trigger it consistently.

 Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar

While I imagine it’s a perfectly solid commander in their own right, basically Mono-Blue Edric but not group-huggy, where this is going to really shine is in Ninja decks. Holy shit, this is so nutty for those. Honestly, ETB decks in general are going to like them, because the choice of either taking damage and letting them draw or letting them reuse a powerful ETB is pretty tough. I like everything about this, except the art, because I’m not into tentacles no thank you.

 Gretchen Titchwillow

When Strixhaven came out, I thought Zimone was going to be the most boring Simic commander we’d ever see. But here comes Gretchen to outdo them.

Look, Simic can do good designs. Even at uncommon- Imoti, Moritte, and Eutropia are all super interesting in my opinion. But Simic being just draw and lands has become a meme, and I’m sick of it. Extremely so, for three main reasons- one, it’s boring, two, it’s been all over the place since WoTC decided +1/+1 counters being their only theme was bad (and, fair,) and three, it’s good.

Gretchen is the most boring card in the entire set, in my opinion, and I sure hope she isn’t a cool character in the lore because that’d be such a waste.

 Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker

There are 21 venture cards in Azorius, and some of them are even good. Most of the Room effects are pretty minor, however, save for some of the endgame ones (and copying Cradle of the Death God is pointless, Atropal is legendary), so copying them isn’t actually a huge amount of value. I’d still play this in Esper Venture, but I don’t think I’d build around it.

 Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant

While this clearly isn’t built for this format, equipping this dragon with it’s own tongue is kind of a hilarious idea. You could do worse for Voltron decks, I guess, and in the 99 it’s both a thing to slap equipment on and an equipment itself- like a flying (and weaker) Halvar. Eh? I just wish the token wasn’t legendary- like yeah Flavour but this effect gets a lot worse when you can’t recur it. It’s rare that someone goes out of their way to kill an equipment that isn’t super busted, so Frost Tongue is probably hanging around for a while anyway.

Man, it feels awful if they bolt this one, huh?

 Inferno of the Star Mounts

Okay this is fucking cool. It’s a Shivan Dragon with haste, and that ability is probably pretty feasible to activate- keep in mind Braid of Fire and Neheb and the like are in the format- and combined with a swing will just kill someone. In fact, when I saw this, my brain immediately started looking for ways to shrink it, just so you can get multiple 20-damage wallops in a turn.

…there aren’t very many. But still! Even if you can’t get to 20 multiple times in a turn, getting to 21 once or twice is pretty good!

 Iymrith, Desert Doom

The fourth of our dragon cycle, because hey, it is Dungeons and Dragons. Iymrith reads basically identical to Dragonlord Ojutai, but without White- and for that kinda control deck, White is pretty nice to have. Iymrith can draw you more cards than Ojutai, but only if you’re low, in a blue deck, in Commander, so. With that said, a deck that just loads this with cheap auras/equipment might actually be pretty good, since they can load you back up on cards and keep the Voltron flowing, so, maybe? I’d honestly consider it if I didn’t already have Mono-blue Voltron as a deck.

 Kalain, Reclusive Painter

Okay this is super interesting. He is, unfortunately kinda fighting with the RB precon face, Prosper, for the new RB treasure deck, but for an uncommon there’s a fair bit going on here.

Actually, wait, is there? I thought about this for another couple seconds, and I don’t think this card actually does that much. It’s one treasure, and it benefits you a little bit for doing something you frankly don’t really want to be burning treasures on? Like it probably plays a mean Marionette Master, but everyone does that.

There really aren’t any other RB Artifact commanders, though, aside from Prosper or a partner deck. So ehhhh? Why are more people playing this than, like, Bruenor?

 Krydle of Baldur’s Gate

That’s a lot of words that don’t actually do a whole lot. I like the second ability, but Commander and especially Dimir aren’t hurting for evasion options. This is probably pretty good in Rogues, but that deck has a de facto best commander now, so. If this came out like, five years ago, it’d be kinda hype, but not anymore.

As an aside, I do kinda hate it when they just print a Tribal commander (or anything like this) that’s just miles and miles better than every other commander for that archetype, like with Anowon 2 or Edgar Markov or Anje Falkenrath. Wait….those are all vampires…….

 Minsc, Beloved Ranger

Shivam Bhatt did a fucking excellent breakdown of this character’s lore on twitter, which I recommend reading- the history of D&D’s lore is fucking wild. As it is, this seems like a pretty fun Naya commander- there’s plenty of creatures that get way better if you make them large, even if targeting Boo seems kinda pointless.

Also, I need someone to explain to me why the “Top Cards” on EDHREC for this guy right now are, like, all combo cards.

WAIT NO FIGURED IT OUT, unlike Marath he doesn’t say X can’t be 0 so you can use him as a sac outlet, for fucks sake people.

 Nadaar, Selfless Paladin

Hey remember all the things I said about the WB and WU dungeon cards? I mean, at least this guy could theoretically complete the dungeon on his own, but Mono-White is even more restrictive for what you could get, so. At least he draws a card every so often. And that anthem isn’t even remotely worth it, at all.

 Old Gnawbone

Green eating up more of the colour pie, I see. Now to be fair, I’ve pondered Mono-Green artifacts for a while, and this is probably a better leader for that list than Oviya Pashiri (but…I like her….), but beyond that I’m not sure what you’re doing with this. I guess people playing Sakiko because they think she’s actually good and not because they like her have a new commander.

This is fuckbusted in the 99 of like a million decks though. So there’s that.

 Orcus, Prince of Undeath

That…is so much mana. In a colour combo not especially great at garnering lots of it. The second ability scales fairly well, and it is a decent body on its own, but I don’t think this is going to be a particularly popular commander. Like, you have to pump 6 mana into this just to get a 2-drop back or to Infest the board? And that’s just the first time you cast it? Nahhhhh.

 Oswald Fiddlebender

Artifact Pod? Yeah, okay, sure, that seems reasonable at two mana. Keeping this mono-white was a good idea, I can’t imagine how insane this’d be in blue. I’m no artifacts expert, I’m no pod expert, but this has to be busted, right? Like surely there’s an easy way to infinite this? Someone with more brains figure it out for me, but either way it’s still a bunch of value and also a tutor in the zone.

(convert two random 2-mana rocks or wellsprings into Basalt Monolith/Rings of Brighthearth, okay that’s a good start)

 Shessra, Death’s Whisper

…ehhhhhhh. Okay, so, it’s a significantly worse Deathreap ritual in the command zone, and also a terrible Lure effect. Along with the flavour words on this taking up much more space than necessary, making the effects look much bigger and better than they are. Would it have hurt to give this deathtouch? Make it trigger on every end step? Lure more than once? I dunno, this just seems painfully weak to me. We’ve had an overabundance of Golgari commanders recently, to be fair- MH2 had 3, and before that was the enemy focused Strixhaven/C21, but that’s no excuse for this to be such trash- just look at Bruenor.

 Targ Nar, Demon-Fang Gnoll

I hope you like Gnolls, because that’s gotta be the only reason you’re playing this. Hello Tuya Bearclaw/Syr Faren/im sure a bunch of other boring commanders, this is another one of you. This looks so bad next to the Gruul precon (which is apparently somehow the first Gruul precon) and, well, every other RG general from the past couple years (save, again, Tuya Bearclaw). Even the fuckin Walking Dead guy is cooler than this.

 The Tarrasque

Disappointment part one over here is at time of writing the only commander from this set with a fat zero decks. Considering there were like 10 commanders at that number when I last checked, people are clearly trying out the set, so The Tarrasque being abandoned is particularly sad. It just…doesn’t do anything? It’s the fucking Tarrasque, and it doesn’t have trample, or a fear ability, or anything? Ward 10 is cute, basically being hexproof unless they have infinite mana (or an uncounterable spell), but really? I want more than this idiot for my 9 fucking mana commander. Ugh.

 Tiamat

I believe I’ve talked about Tiamat before, when she got spoiled, but I can’t be arsed finding that and dredging it up. I’m still disappointed, basically, especially since I’ve now read her statblock and know what she actually does. They could’ve given her a cool ability per head like Cromat, or had her recur like she does in the lore, or something. I genuinely would have preferred if she was an Emrakul-style massive game-ender (with a no-reanimation no bullshit clause) than this. How utterly meh.

 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

This is literally just Ajani’s Pridemate but Selesnya and in the zone. Also you scry. Sure? It does also have two relevant creature types I guess, and they’d probably be good in a Soul Sisters deck. But it’s not like Selesnya was hurting for Lifegain commanders- this is basically just Lathiel but much leaner and voltron-ier.

 Varis, Silverymoon Ranger

Wait you can’t even play this in Esper Venture, fuck. With Flash effects, you can start clearing dungeons well quick enough, but like, for what, a Wolf? And these defensive keywords aren’t getting you anywhere either. Blegh.

Side note- I’m a big fan of tokens, and collecting various token arts, and I was extremely disappointed when I found out that the Wolf token from this set is just…the Zendikar one again? They didn’t reuse the 3/3 Angel or the Goblin or even the Zombie, why just that one? Something must have happened behind the scenes here.

Also….Silverymoon? That sounds like shit.

 Volo, Guide to Monsters

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. As much as Anti-Tribal sounds fun, I’m pretty sure this just turns into generic Simic value. Copying things is fun, I suppose, though not working with Legends hurts. I also appreciate that this supports playing a bunch of weirdo cards or ones that have fallen out of favor because they have more unique creature types- Anphin Mutineer, Acidic Slime, and Diluvian Primordial all seem like a lot of power here.

That said, is anyone ever letting this fucker stick around for a turn?

 Xanathar, Guild Kingpin

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. This card is completely awful to play in webcam-commander, so it’s a good thing we’re all getting vaccinated, right?

So this is UB Gonti, I guess? And also unironically not the worst combo commander, since it stops people from playing spells on your turn in a very White-like effect. Add in some Lantern-style effects and you can get a real stew going with this guy. He looks like a lot of fun- and I’m sure he’ll end up popular as a result. Well, that and being on the cover of an expansion book gets you a lot of notoriety.

 Zalto, Fire Giant Duke

 Our final card, our final Venture card, and the only red one. So, uh, there are literally 4 other Venture cards in mono-red, and at least one of them is complete dogshit, so I can’t imagine this being very good. Also, it’s an Enrage trigger on a 3 toughness 5-drop? Far from ideal. I guess it’s a 7 power trampler for 5, but that’s kind of faint praise to damn with. Maybe if someone makes 5C Venture, or if Giant/Barbarian tribal feel lacking, then this guy can find a home.

Shoutout to the exactly one person who built this deck, by the way. I see you, Elder Demon Highlander, and your 100ish views on your deck tech.

 And that’s the lot of them. Honestly, a lot more misses than hits, but that’s perfectly okay by me. 30 legends in a set is a lot, not to mention the 12 from the precons, and we’ve had so many actively playable legends recently that I’m fine with, like, half of these being trash. Trash is more fun anyway! Get yourself a fuckin Varis, why not.

Okay but seriously though who’s biting the bullet and building Tarrasque first? It’s not going to be me.

#ramble #mtg #commander #edh #mtgafr #adventures in the forgotten realms

[mooberg]

Among the Statues

Chapter 6: Hammer on Stone

I’m gonna try and not make updating this story a yearly thing, I swear.

The lvc belongs to @voiceoflarka​

Word count: 2291

Warnings: None

Enjoy!

Purple light splashed across Horns’ face as he gazed steadily out the window. His senses were on high alert for anything flying through the sky as he counted raindrops falling past the bright neon. Gamma and Psi were still out, but no one could be sure Dragon couldn’t find this place. The team slept about the safehouse, exhausted from worry while he stayed wide awake from the same.

“How powerful you must be, my little psychic…”

Dragon’s words echoed in his mind, cloudy in their intent. Clearly there was some darker interest there, and he doubted it was present before she froze the world. But what did she want, truly? He felt certain in the assumption her wishes had shifted upon their introduction, and her intensity toward him was worrisome; more than he wanted to let on. The team was worried enough, this was just part of it all. Having to consider additional motivations of a person who’s actions were already irredeemable was just going to add more stress. Was he being stupid? Probably. But they were aware enough of the situation and so he chose not to complicate things with his emotions. Well, more than normal anyway.

He took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as his eyes shifted briefly out of focus, his mind doing the same. Worry was tiresome on a mind already stretched thin from recent events. His body was alert, but his focus wavered. The sound of the rain lulled him deeper and deeper into trance…

Flashes. Bursts of light. A mansion. Then a forest. A courtyard covered in shards stained each colour of the rainbow. Eight viruses stood at the entrance in shock. A field of picnickers. A broken tree branch just barely pulled out of the way. Flashes of white. A feeling of doing good. Flashes. Helping. Flashes. “Stop her”. More flashes. A convention hall. Solaris Amphitheatre. “Go…” echoing in his mind as everything slowly faded to black…

Horns pulled out of his trance with a jolt and a gasp, shaking his head as his vision returned. He glanced around quickly, panic abating as he took stock of his team around him, safe and sound. He whipped out his phone, typing a quick text.

“Need you back ASAP

We have a lead.”

 ~~*~~

 “The amphitheatre’s packed, guys. The Colors of the Wind Art Festival was this weekend and it attracted hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. Viruses from all over Dashland, maybe even beyond. Honestly, it’s kind of a miracle she didn’t hit here first, I can’t see another cluster of people quite this big anywhere in the Capitol.” Callow’s voice deep in their ear informed. The earpiece struggled to be heard over the whipping wind and thundering motors.

Horns thanked every being he could think of that Glitch was a good driver as they sped down the centre of the road. Cars whooshed past on either side of them at a solid 120 kilometers, and he just held on for dear life behind her.

“With her powers, she could wipe them out in seconds.” Glitch said, swerving around a car frozen in a lane change. “We… can’t have that again.”

“She’s going to come after me when she sees us.” Horns added. “This stopped being about frozen viruses the minute someone resisted her spell. Let me draw her out.”

“You better be careful.” Gamma’s response came quickly, and not without trepidation.

A conflicted silence hung on the line as the tall buildings of Lower Dashland Proper fell away to low, manicured trees and green fields. The Dashland convention grounds sprawled out before them. Bordered on three of four sides with downtown roads, the grounds were located a few kilometers off from the city centre and hosted most major events held in the region each year. The amphitheatre was an architectural feat, the large glass and wood dome towering over the stage and most of the ringed seating. Its façade was designed to match the three other convention buildings dotted throughout the parkland. Dozens of vendor stalls and food trucks had been gathered on the northern field, where the team had arrived. Glitch brought their motorcycle to a stop next to Callow and Jolly’s just as Gamma landed next to them with the rest of the team.

“Let me scout real quick. Find us a clear place.” They said. “We’re not losing any more lives today.”

“We are more prepared this time than before.” Psi began as Gamma took off. “We know what we’re up against now and we’re here first. Be on your guard and keep communications open. We can do this.”

“I’m gonna try to get her talking.” Horns added. “Figure out what it is she wants out of all this.”

“I mean… you said it yourself.” Jolly said. “She wants you.”

Horns sighed, looking out around the convention grounds lit up in shades of gold with the late afternoon sun. “There’s more to it than that. I know it.”

“Maybe before, but now-”

“The field to the east is the clearest we’re going to get.” Gamma’s voice in their ears cut them all off. “Everyone spread out around the grounds and keep your eyes peeled.”

“Where are you going to go?” Psi asked Horns.

The Satyr hadn’t torn his eyes from the fields through Gamma’s report, falling back on his intuition to guide him, as it had done when it brought him here. “The amphitheatre.” He pointed to the east as he gave Psi a wry smile. “Seems Dragon wants to put on a show.”

His mentor gave him a nod and headed off directly south. Horns took a breath and stepped on to the paved concrete path. Banners hanging from the merchant stalls along the path flapped in the gentle afternoon breeze. Vendors hung out of almost every stall, enticing customers in to buy. Or at least their statues did. Horns stepped around their potential customers dotting the path. He took his time. There was no point in hiding.

He sighed. “Would’ve been a cool festival…”

The grounds opened up to him eventually as he left the stalls behind, as manicured as an open public field could get. Short grass dotted with trees to allow convention-goers to hide from the sun. The amphitheatre lay in the southeast corner, and he stepped onto the grass to beeline straight there. Even from this distance halfway across the field, Horns could see all the souls sheltered within. There they remained, locked in a moment of excitement and celebration now stained with freezing ice. A rainbow of innocents who did not sign up for this chaos.

“Poor guys…” He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Nice to see you again,” he reached up and discretely tapped his earpiece on as he turned, knowing without looking what he faced. “Dragon.”

Across the convention grounds, his whole team froze.

“My dear, I’m afraid I cannot return your greeting as you have not given me your name.” She replied.

Horns gave her a quick once over. Her dress had changed to a simple red velvet with fine black lace over top, but the black cloak remained. Her dark brown hair still fell freely about her shoulders, now unburdened from the weight of the rain under which they had first met. And she smiled at him, her glowing dark red eyes regarding him with a complex mix of emotions. Horns decided to take a chance.

“Horns.” He offered.

“Any last name?” She asked.

“Maybe another time.” He gave her a cocky smile.

“Very well.” She sighed not quite out of disappointment. “I assume the others are close by?”

“Close enough.” Horns confirmed. “But it’s just you and me in this field now so let’s talk. What did you mean?”

“In which case, dear?”

“What am I wrong about?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you know that I don’t?”

She gave a haughty laugh. “Oh, my little psychic I wouldn’t say you’re ignorant on the matter, just… prone to forgiveness.”

Horns cocked his head in question.

“I can tell by those horns and those ears that you know as well as I differences are not always tolerated.” She began. “Sure, those in power preach equality and change, but they never seem to follow through, do they? Someone always ends up under someone else’s boot.”

“Keep her talking, Horns. We need to know more.” Gamma came through in his ear.

“It’s more common than people think, that’s for sure.” Horns agreed.

“Not so naive after all, are you?” Dragon grinned, leaning towards him a little. “So tell me child, have you been under someone’s boot?”

“You said you know these horns; you know the answer.” Horns hesitated to continue.

“It’s okay. I know they’re listening.”

He looked around briefly, unable to see any of his team. Then with a sigh, he turned off his earpiece. There were still people close to him in the dark about his true nature, and he’d rather it stayed that way for now. “All my life. There’s never been a moment I felt safe. From ridicule, from harm caused by those who didn’t care, or didn’t even want to know. I was born a Satyr. It’s who I am; I can’t change that. I can’t hide it, and I have tried. So why does that give people the right to push me around?”

“It doesn’t.” Dragon countered. “You do.”

She looked out across the fields and Horns took that moment to quickly turn his earpiece back on.

“You let them walk on you, you place yourself under their boot. You give them permission.”

“So that’s what this is.” Horns connected the dots. “You’re taking back permission.”

“You catch on quick, my little psychic.”

“But not everyone is like that.” Horns countered. “I’ve met good people. People who care about me, about everyone. People out here working themselves to stardust to try and stop you from taking more innocent lives-”

“Innocent?” Dragon scoffed, forcing Horns to step back as she stepped forward. “My dear there are no innocents here. There are the guilty parties, and the ones that do nothing. Well, if they’re going to do nothing, they might as well make me a lovely little statue garden.”

“I… I’ll stop you.” Horns insisted. “Even if I have to wake everyone up all by myself. I won’t let you stomp them down to dust.”

Dragon smiled at him. “I know.”

With a pound of her foot on the paved concrete, pillars of ice erupted from the ground, angled at him. Horns had no time to react before the blow caught his chest full force, sending him flying back and into the air. He shut his eyes against the spiderwebbing pain, curling in on himself to protect his damaged chest for when he hit the ground.

“I’ve got you.” Gamma’s voice cut through the pain as their arms carefully wrapped around him. He opened his eyes to his team starting to attack below him. Psi’s plants snaked their way into the fight and turned the field to chaos as the trainees moved in.

Gamma lowered him to the ground out of the way of the fight. “Stay here.”

They took off before he even got a chance to argue, wings open wide at the top of their flight to fire on Dragon. Psi's vines swooped in as Horns watched and curled around him to shield him from the fight. But he could watch on with mounting worry.

Like last time, the team struggled to land any hits on their opponent. They lined up a modified version of their well practiced barrage attack, using the distracting attack of one person to bring the next closer to their target. The very one that had gotten Horns in close to Psi once. Even if they missed, even if she blocked them, bit by bit they could close in. Dragon was faring well, but the cracks in her defences were beginning to show. Between Gamma's unrelenting laser attacks, Psi's distracting and deadly plants, and the team refusing to let up, Horns could very well see this fight turning in their favour.

But of course, so did Dragon.

Just like last time, Horns watched her preparing to strike. She allowed the team to land some blows and chose to dodge Gamma's attacks instead of blocking them with ice. The small reprieve was just enough to save her enough energy to send them all flying back with a burst of wind and throw up a jagged dome of ice.

Gamma bared down with their lasers, intent on melting through, but Horns knew it would still take too long. He thrashed against the vines' hold on him, panic gripping his chest tighter and blocking out the pain from the movement. He couldn't see them frozen again. He couldn't look down the line of his family and force himself to think strategically about who he could afford to leave frozen, should he not be successful in waking them all. He couldn't do it all again. Not again.

The scream he unleashed in his fear and fury was nothing compared to the mind blast that simultaneously ripped through Dragon's skull. It exhausted him almost immediately. He was barely aware of Gamma breaking through the ice barrier and the sounds of frustration when their adversary was not found inside. He hardly felt the vines slowly lowering him to the ground and releasing their grip, though he did fight his last few inches to freedom. And he didn't pay mind to three familiar statues now present in the open.

He just stayed on his knees where Psi had dropped him and tried to force some energy back into his soul.

#lvc #larka's virus community #moo writes #among the statues #the team #team gamma-psi #those last 6 paragraphs or so have been in my phone notes for like 2 years #god i hope i stick with writing this #please tag generously #also any similarities to /that/ online series we've been screaming about lately are entirely unintentional

[swanqueeneverafter]

Sins of the Past Pt.10

Camelot. Past. Hall of Ceremonies. (A great feast is being held in the name of unity and forgiveness. Uther stands to give a speech.) Uther: “Standing here, seeing so many happy faces, seems almost like a dream. I can tell you, I have not felt like this in a long time.” Morgana: “What, drunk?” Uther: (Swats her playfully with his napkin:) “Drunk with happiness. I would give the entire world, the seas, the skies, the stars, for that smile. Morgana, there are no words. You mean more to me that you will ever know. (Raising his goblet:) To Lady Morgana.” All: “To Lady Morgana.” (Uther and Morgana embrace, Morgana’s forced smile faltering.) Uther: (Unbalanced momentarily:) “Oops. I need some air.” (Morgana watches him leave the room, a malevolent smirk upon her face.) Castle Courtyard. (Uther staggers outside on wobbly legs.) Uther: (Hearing something:) “Who’s that?” (Uther walks to the well and looks inside. Suddenly a vision of Ygraine, Uther’s long dead wife and Morgana’s mother, grabs his arm and screams.) Ygraine: “Please. Please!” Uther: “AHHHH!” (Uther continues screaming, curls up in the fetal position and rocks back and forth as guards run to check on him.)

Uther’s Chambers. (Arthur and two other guards set Uther down on the bed.) Morgana: “Careful. Is he going to be alright?” Guinevere: “He should sleep ’til morning.” (Guinevere motions for the others to leave. She watches Morgana dote over her father before she too leaves the room. Now alone with Uther, Morgana drops her father’s hand and smiles. The mandrake beneath Uther’s bed is having the desired effect.) Morgause’s Cave. Morgana: “Already the rumours are spreading.” Morgause: “The mandrake’s poison does its work well.” Morgana: “Soon all of Camelot will believe that their king is going mad.” Morgause: “And a kingdom without a king is ripe for the picking.” Morgana: “When do you go to Cenred?” Morgause: “Tomorrow.” Morgana: “And he will do as we wish?” Morgause: “Cenred wishes only to please me.” Morgana: "Then your time with him has been well spent.” (Morgause adds another mandrake to the cauldron much to Morgana’s delight.)

Storybrooke. Present. Regina's Vault. (A large group has gathered inside the vault as Lancelot speaks.) Lancelot: "My men and I covered the entire forest, the tracks lead back to Dun Broch." David: "And? Did you find Mulan?" Lancelot: (Glancing at Guinevere before answering:) "Camelot has a treaty with Dun Broch, no soldier can cross into their lands without prior consent. It would be akin to starting a war." Xena: "You fool! Macintosh started the war the moment he poisoned Dun Broch's recognised leader. In the event of a coup d'état all treaties are invalidated. We have to get Mulan out of there!" Zelena: "Hey! Everyone calm down. Now thanks to Ruby, I have something of Mulan's bubbling in this cauldron that will allow me to make a potion which will show us Mulan's exact location. As soon as my sisters finish their potion to revive Merida, she'll be able to tell us where Mulan is being held. Now those of you who aren't doing anything useful, please give us some space to work." Antechamber. (Sitting with Belle and Snow, Ruby continues to worry about Mulan.) Belle: "Hey, listen. You and I both know just how tough Mulan is, right? I mean Merida can kick all those men’s arses and Mulan trained her so really, there's nothing to worry about?" Ruby: (Smiles, through her tears:) "Right." Snow White: "Ruby, you're my best friend. I know you and I can see how worried you are, but we will find her." Ruby: (Nods:) "You're right. It's just... I've never been so scared about anything before."

The Vault. (Regina is mixing ingredients with the crushed up Mortaeus flower.) Emma: "Will it work?" Regina: (Shrugs:) "One thing I know for sure is this poison was created using magic." Emma: "So that means Macintosh wasn't acting alone?" Regina: "Unless he has magic, he can't have been. (Adding the last ingredient, Regina motions for Emma to step back. The potion sizzles and foams for a moment. Ladling the potion into a small cup, Regina walks over to Merida:) Hold her nose." (Emma pinches Merida's nose while Regina pours the potion into her mouth.) Regina: "Swallow, Merida. Swallow it." Emma: "She’s stopped breathing. What’s happening? Regina?" Regina: (Putting her head on Merida's chest:) "Her heart has stopped." Ruby: (Entering:) "She's dead? She can't be! It’s my fault. If I’d have got here sooner. If I’d have ran faster...” (Ruby turns and cries in Snow’s arms.) Snow White: “No, no. This wasn’t your fault.” Merida: (Her voice croaky:) “Careful, Snow. You don’t want to make Mulan jealous.” (Everyone looks down at Merida who slowly opens her eyes.) Ruby: “Merida! You’re alive.” Merida: “No. I’m a ghost come back to haunt you. (Moves to sit up:) What happened? The last thing I remember is drinking from the goblet.” (Everyone gathered looks to each other before Ruby begins bringing Merida up to speed.) Camelot. Past. Council Chamber. (Uther and Morgana are seated side by side while Arthur gives his report.) Arthur: “We’ve had reports that mercenaries are streaming into Cenred’s kingdom.” Uther: “Do we know why?” Arthur: “There is rumour that Cenred is amassing an army. I think we should send a patrol out to assess the situation. (Uther stares past Arthur:) My Lord? (Arthur turns to see what the king is staring at. The court looks back at Uther. Uther sees a small drowned boy standing in the council room, dripping water all over the floor. Uther stands up and points at the boy.) Uther: “Leave me alone. Get out of here.” Arthur: “My Lord, will you…” Uther: “I said get out! Get out! I’ll have you hanged!” (Arthur and another knight restrain Uther and drag him from the room.) Uther: “You hanged! You…! You…!” (While the court members are aghast, Morgana lets a smile cross her face.) Storybrooke. Present. Regina's Vault. (Merida sits beside the cauldron.) Zelena: "Ready?" Merida: "Aye." (Zelena adds the final ingredient and the potion bubbles up. Images begin to form inside the billowing smoke.) Zelena: "Do you know where that is?" Merida: "I do. The Southern Moor. Macintosh, the bastard."

Guinevere: "Merida, my army is at your disposal. Do you give us permission to enter your lands?" Merida: "Ordinarily, your Majesty, if I allowed Camelot soldiers entry into Dun Broch I'd face a rebellion. But seeing as one of my own has already betrayed me, I say desperate times call for desperate measures." Cenred’s Castle. Past. Throne Room. (Morgause rides alone towards Cenred’s castle. Surrounded by Cenred’s men, she enters the throne room where the regent of the land is waiting for her.) Cenred: “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Morgause: “If you will not leave your castle, then I must come to you.” Cenred: “I see that you’ve lost none of your audacity.” Morgause: “I wish I could say the same. But I find the great King Cenred cowering in his chambers when he should’ve met me at the border. Perhaps he has lost his nerve. Perhaps he is a coward.” (One of Cenred’s men draws his sword. Morgause magically throws him backwards with a look. Cenred’s other men draw their swords. Cenred holds up a hand to stop them.) Cenred: “You are very beautiful when you’re angry.” Morgause: “Is that why you continue to defy me?” Cenred: “Well, you wouldn’t like it if I made it easy for you.” (Morgause laughs.) A Short Time Later. (Now alone, Cenred pours Morgause a drink and sits across from her.) Cenred: "I’m certain you’ve not come all this way just to drink, Morgause.” Morgause: “You know me well.” Cenred: “Extremely well. And yet, somehow, we’re still close.” Morgause: “I’ve come to talk to you about our old friend, Uther Pendragon.” Cenred: “Yes. I have heard the sad news. He’s finally lost his mind.” Morgause: “Camelot is weak, weaker than it’s been for years. the kingdom is vulnerable, just as I promised.” Cenred: “Yet it doesn’t change the fact the citadel is still impregnable.” Morgause: “So, even without his wits, Uther is too strong for you.” Cenred: “You’re a woman of great courage, Morgause, but I don’t think with my sword. An assault on Camelot cannot be undertaken lightly.” Morgause: “You forget. We have an ally in the court.” Cenred: “That is no guarantee. Traitors blow like the wind.” Morgause: “Not this one. She can be relied upon until the end. You can be certain of that.” Camelot. Night. (Morgana enters the King's chambers to check on a comatose Uther. Waving a hand in front of his face, Morgana smiles when his expression does not change. Holding up a fresh mandrake, Morgana wraps a string around the mandrake root and strangles it several times. Uther becomes more terrified with each scream the root makes.) Corridor. (When Morgana leaves her father's chambers and walks along the corridor, Guinevere steps out from the darkness and decides to follow.) Lower Town. (Guinevere ducks behind walls, carts and whatever else she can in an effort to continue following Morgana through the town and into the woods.) Woods. (Sensing that she will be discovered if she moves any closer, Guinevere watches from a safe distance as Morgana meets with Morgause.) Morgause: “Sorry you had to wait. There was much to discuss.” Morgana: “But your visit was successful?” Morgause: “Cenred’s army ride for Camelot on my command.” Morgana: “There is nothing you cannot do.” Morgause: “It is you that gives me strength, sister. How goes the battle for Uther’s mind?” Morgana: “When Cenred marches on Camelot, he will find a kingdom without a leader. Finally we are ready.” Morgause: “Not quite. I have had to agree to an additional guarantee to Cenred to quell his fears. Do you trust me, Morgana?” Morgana: “Completely.” (Although unable to hear their conversation from her position behind the trees, Guinevere does witness Morgause’s eyes glow and Morgana pass out in Morgause’s arms. Forcing herself not to move, Guinevere watches as Morgause lays Morgana on the ground and begins to draw a circle around Morgana with a stick.) Morgause: “Acene slæp swilce … Acene slæp swilce … Acene slæp swilce …” (Before Guinevere’s very eyes, Morgana begins to glow.)

Storybrooke. Present. The Vault. (Guinevere relays memories of her past to Lancelot.) Guinevere: "This is just like before you came to Camelot. Morgause used her magic on Morgana to turn her against Uther. Now I suspect the same has happened to Lord Macintosh." Lancelot: "You think Morgause is back?" Guinevere: "She has to be. She's gathering an army to take back what she believes has been stolen from her. Morgana." Lancelot: "We won't let that happen." Xena: "You've already let it happen. The time you've wasted trying to avoid a war may just have given Macintosh and this Morgause person the chance they need to strike first!" Lancelot: "If Macintosh and his men attempt to attack Camelot, my soldiers will crush them." Xena: "If you plan on winning a war from a defensive position you've already lost." Gabrielle: "Xena's right, we have to take the fight to them and rescue Mulan before it's too late." Lancelot: "I will not lead my men into a trap against an army that for all we know is imbued with Morgause's magic." Xena: "Then you're a coward. Ruby and Mulan were right to come and find us the last time you and your army failed to arrive for battle." (At this exchange of words, Xena and Lancelot attempt to lunge at each other. Both held back by Gabrielle and Guinevere respectively.) Emma: "Alright that's enough! We don't have time for any of this. Now here's what's going to happen. Zelena, you will take Merida, Ruby, Guinevere, Lancelot, Xena and Gabrielle out of here to Camelot.” Belle: “Hey, I want to go too. (As everyone looks to her:) What? I haven’t had a proper adventure in ages.” Emma: (Nods then continues to Zelena:) “You will collect the Camelot army and then you'll transport everyone to The Southern Moor and rescue Mulan." Merida: (Liking this idea:) "Arriving in a cloud of smoke with Camelot's army behind me will wipe that smirk off Macintosh's face." Zelena: (Excited:) "And it's about time I got to flex my magical muscles against a worthy adversary again." Emma: "Good, now that's all agreed, the one thing none of you are going to do is disturb my daughter. So, Zelena, when you're ready." (Zelena nods and with a wave of her hand, magics everyone out of the vault. Seeing no reason to stay, Snow takes her leave as well. Finally alone, Emma walks over to Regina who is watching over Maria.) Emma: "Is she...?" Regina: (Nods:) "A few moments ago." Emma: "You know it's pretty late, there's no point trying to move her tonight." Regina: "She always wakes up even when we use magic to move her anyway." Emma: "Yeah. So I'll just go get the room down the hall ready, okay?" Regina: "Okay, thanks. (Emma turns to leave:) Oh, Emma? The necklace really does suit you." (Emma rolls her eyes and smiles, watching her wife dote on their daughter before heading down the hallway to prepare their bedroom for the night.)

Kingdom of Valencia. (Returning home from the festival, King Richard and Queen Roberta attempt to enter the castle but are prevented by guards.) King Richard: (A little tipsy:) "Ho there, I am King of this castle and I demand entry." Queen Roberta: "Shh, they know who you are, Richard." Guard: "Well I don't." Queen Roberta: "Excuse me?" Guard: "I don't know who he is, never seen him before." King Richard: "What do you mean, you've never seen me before? I'm the bloody King!" Queen Roberta: (Eying the guard:) "Actually, Richard I think he's new. (Looking at the other guards:) I think they're all new." King Richard: "Oh great. Well who ordered a shift change on the one night of the week when we actually leave the castle. Of course they're not going to know who we are. (To the guards:) It's all right, lads, it's our fault. We'll just wait here until the guards who know our faces take over." Neo: (Stepping out from behind the guards:) "Actually, Sire, that won't be possible." Queen Roberta: "Neo, what's going on?" Neo: "Sir Gareth ordered all castle guards to be reassigned to the infantry and so..." Queen Roberta: "None of the guards will know who we are." King Richard: "Now hang on. I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but even I know that's a pretty stupid thing to do. What was Gareth thinking?" Neo: "I'm not sure, Sire, but these men are under orders not to let anyone into the castle until further notice." King Richard: (Taking a step forward:) "That's absurd! (The guards draw their swords and Richard and Roberta take two steps back:) There must be some mistake!" Queen Roberta: "Neo, be a dear and fetch Sir Gareth so we can sort all this out." Neo: "Regretfully, Milady, I am merely the messenger. (Backing away:) If you would like an appointment to see Sir Gareth, I'm sure the happy couple would be only too happy to receive your correspondence. Good night!" (Neo turns and re-enters the castle.) King Richard: "The happy couple?" Queen Roberta: (Knowingly:) "Catrina." Gareth’s Chambers. (Gareth and Catrina ready for bed.) Catrina: “It’s been such a beautiful day.” Gareth: “The first of many, I hope.” (He kisses her cheek.) Catrina: “Oh, Gareth, just think how fine it would be to have all of this at your command.” Gareth: “Trust me, I tried it once. It was more of a burden than anything.” Catrina: “Well, let me share your burden, My Lord. (Producing Richard’s crown from behind her back and presenting it to Gareth:) Together we could achieve so much.”  Gareth: (The enchanted medallion around his neck glows:) “You know there’s nothing I’d love more.” Catrina: “Oh, and My Lord…” Gareth: “Hmm?” Catrina: “Would it not be a good idea send a message to those who doubt us? To show all of Valencia the strength of our love, our commitment?” Gareth: “Yes. What did you have in mind?” Catrina: (Moving behind Gareth to massage his shoulders as Gareth contemplates the crown:) “Well, I was thinking of something traditional. (Moving around to face him, Catrina kisses a dumbstruck Gareth:) Something permanent.”

Storybrooke. Regina's Vault. (Having made sure Maria is tucked in and sleeping soundly, Regina retreats toward the rear of the vault. Pressing the secret stone in the wall, she pushes open the door and enters.) Antechamber Bedroom. (Upon entering the room, Regina's breath is stolen at the sight that greets her. Kneeling on the floor and draped over a high-backed armchair, Emma waits for her clad only in red bra and matching thong underwear.) Emma: (Glancing over her shoulder, pleased by her wife's reaction:) "Seeing as you were such a fan of the necklace, I wanted your opinion on this lingerie I bought recently. (Trying do keep a straight face as Regina strides towards her:) What do you think, does it suit me?" (Receiving a sharp slap to her backside in answer, Emma chuckles and allows herself to be drawn upwards onto her knees to accept a spectacular kiss from Regina.) Storybrooke. Back Alleyway. (Locking up for the night, a surly looking Maleficent exits through the back door. Walking only a few paces before hearing a noise, Maleficent stops and waits. Hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she continues on. Just as she's about to turn the corner onto Main Street however, Maleficent is grabbed from behind by a dark bearded man. Whispering something in her ear, the man catches the tall blonde as she stumbles. Putting her arm around his neck, the man turns and walks with Maleficent in another direction, leading her into the darkness and out of sight.)

#sq #swan queen #swanqueen

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 2

BRIGHT: Nepeta wants to know what’s going on. Aradia finally stops dodging the question and tells Nepeta she’s dead, but doesn’t elaborate on how it happened. She asks Nepeta to keep it a secret, which Nepeta agrees to. Aradia’s also picked up some froglike traits from being merged with the sprite -- namely a tendency to ribbit.

In retrospect, it’s kind of funny that an active player can merge with a sprite. The role of a sprite seems to involve having detailed knowledge of how the Game works and what the player should do next, but only dispensing vague advice to the player. Prototyping a player would give them full access to that knowledge with no sprite vagueness to get in the way. The Game doesn’t seem too concerned about that, though.

CHEL: Now it’s time to get to know AG better. A doodle of her declaring her to be a HUGE BITCH fades into her standing in her room. Rather gothic, and also filthy-looking; it’s dark, with a red sky outside, and cobwebs and broken Magic 8 Balls lie around everywhere. There’s a FLARP poster and numerous pages of notes on the wall.

Your name is VRISKA SERKET.

You are a master of EXTREME ROLE PLAYING. You can't get enough of it, or really any game of high stakes and chance. You have persisted with the habit even in spite of your ACCIDENT. But then again, you don't have much choice.

Your lusus is VERY HUNGRY, ALL THE TIME. She can only be appeased by the FLESH OF YOUNG TROLLS. You cloud campaigns for teams of Flarpers, utilizing your abilities for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE IMPRESSSSSSSSIONA8LE. Your victories supply you with treasure, experience points, and SPIDER FOOD.

You are something of an APOCALYPSE BUFF, which is something you can be on Alternia. You are fascinated by end of the world scenarios, and enjoy constructing DOOMSDAY DEVICES for the hell of it. You are drawn to means of DARK PROGNOSTICATION and the advantages they offer, particularly in gaming scenarios. Your abilities in this department were hobbled with the loss of your VISION EIGHTFOLD, and you have since sought alternatives through various BLACK ORACLES. You consult with these ominous globes, but routinely destroy them in frustration over the PUZZLING GUARANTEED INACCURACY of their predictions. Breaking them has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC, and with each you destroy, you add to an insurmountable stockpile of TERRIBLE LUCK. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

FAILURE ARTIST: FINALLY we get a name for her and we don’t have to keep saying AG. I imagine the non-Homestucks are feeling like I did when I played Danganronpa 2 finally and saw the “fingers-in-his-ass” guy.

CHEL: She examines a drawing on the wall, of her FLARP character MARQUISE SPINNERET MINDFANG, who is just Vriska in a different coat and seaboots, with a hook instead of her robot hand. She is the scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike, and worst nightmare to silly BOY-SKYLARKS everywhere. She has accumulated more treasure and gained more levels than any member of the PETTICOAT SEAGRIFT class ever. She gained all the levels. All of them.

En route to her computer, Vriska steps on a D4, and complains about how she’s had terrible luck since her mysterious accident. I’d just like it noted that this is a small but noticeable occurrence of Vriska’s tendency to blame others for her problems; if she cleaned her room some time, that wouldn’t happen. Still, she doesn’t worry about it too long, as she’s busy.

So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors.

BRIGHT: Vriska equips her weapon of choice, a set of enchanted D8 dice called the FLUORITE OCTET.

...okay, I’m getting used to characters having semi-absurd weapons, but seriously, what? Let’s review everyone else’s chosen weapons: Hammer, knitting needles, sword, gun, sickles, lance, clawed gloves, walking cane. Sollux had some throwing stars but didn’t assign them to his specibus owing to his telekinesis being enough; we haven’t seen Aradia’s strifekind yet, but she also has telekinetic abilities, and hers are apparently enhanced by her being dead. So that’s a lot of genuine weapons, and some things which aren’t weapons but can readily be used that way in a pinch...and then Vriska has a set of enchanted dice.

It’s a good fit both for Homestuck’s absurdity and for Vriska’s obsession with luck. But it does stand out rather.

Anyway, rolling the dice will execute a wide range of highly unpredictable attacks. Very high rolls can be devastating to even the most powerful opponents. Apparently these work everywhere, not just in FLARP games. Also, while we see ghosts, psychic powers, and superpowered coding, I think this is the only reference to plain magic we have on Alternia.

Vriska steps away from the computer to avoid talking to GA, who she refers to as an unwelcome solicitor, but returns to it when someone else starts messaging her. Vriska calls him this guy; he has no icon -- and, oddly, no username -- and types in white, which means the reader (and Vriska) ends up highlighting the conversation a lot. 

Hello.

AG: Oh my god, why are you talking to me????????

This is the last time we'll ever talk.

AG: Still sticking with the white text I see. So smooth and stylish!

AG: I forgot how much I loved highlighting it to read all the 8oring things you have to say.

AG: It's like a fun game for super extra handicapped retarded people. Like opening a present! Find out what o8noxious thing the mystery tool typed.

AG: What is it!

A parting courtesy, I suppose.

All the ways I've exploited you were meant to bring about the events that will take place this evening.

Knowing this will provide context for the events in your near future, and will affect how you behave in response.

These events will be just as important as those preceding it.

I've gone to great lengths, you see. 

Well, this guy sounds ominous.

Also, using ‘handicapped’ and ‘retarded’ as insults is entirely in character for Vriska, who has no time for people who can’t operate on her level. Currently Vriska’s also being shown as an unlikeable character. We’ll see how that develops.

CHEL: Still, a lot of people really don’t like those words being used casually, and the fact that we need to show you how things develop should imply that they won’t develop in a way you’ll like. So…

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 39

White Text Guy, as the characters refer to him for a while to come yet, continues gloating about how successfully he’s exploited Vriska, who tells him she’ll log off and orders him not to use that nasty trick where you log me 8ack on out of petty douchey spite! WTG says he’ll be brief, though he’s not particularly brief in fact, tells her he no longer hold[s] her accountable for any wrongdoing, and says that if she accepts this, she may get her luck back. Vriska doesn’t believe him and continues to rant, and he points out that her unpleasant, simplistic temperament is what made her so easy to mess with.

If you turn a swarm of wasps on a crowd, the outcome is certain.

He leaves with these even more ominous words:

Though the magnitude of the ensuing destruction resulting directly from your actions will be neither possible or necessary for you to fathom, there nevertheless ought to be a silver lining.

The only question is whether you will live long enough to see it.

Vriska, enraged, lifts a Magic 8 Ball with the intention to smash it, but decides she can’t be bothered, and answers GA, hoping some camaraderie will cheer her up, even if it’s from a meddler. However, GA’s first question is “Is Your Lusus Dead Yet”. Not particularly cheering, is it?

Vriska, for the first time, expresses concern and sympathy for another person when GA says her own lusus is dead, though it may be undermined slightly by her own personal disappointment in never having got to meet said lusus. GA doesn’t seem very concerned, and says “Maybe You Still Can”. According to her, though, all their lusii are dying, as a “Preemptive Consequence” (if that’s a meaningful concept) of the upcoming Game. Karkat blames himself for activating the cursed code, but GA thinks it was inevitable. However, Karkat’s idea of a curse Is Inseparable From His Perception Of Events As Intrinsically Negative And As Tailored To His Personal Dissatisfaction, and so is Vriska’s poor luck. GA points out that if Vriska cleaned her floor she wouldn’t step on so many things. THANK YOU, GA, you made my point for me! Vriska is angry at GA “meddling” so, and demands to know why she does.

GA: Because Youre Dangerous

[...]

GA: Its Ok To Be Dangerous

GA: Lots Of People Are

GA: And Dangerous People Can Be Really Important

GA: Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes

GA: But It Just Means Theres Got To Be Someone Around To Keep An Eye On Them

As Vriska gets angrier, it’s noted that she puts 8s in her typing in places where they don’t work as Bs or as “eight” sounds, and they become more numerous.

AG: Or you know, if you're so h8gh 8nd might8 an8 th8nk you're so gr8at, m8y88 you c8uld oh I d8n't kn8w........

AG: TRY AND ST8P ME FROM DO8NG B8D THINGS????????

GA: That Wouldnt Work

GA: If I Tried To Stop You You Would Regard Me As An Enemy

GA: Instead Of Merely As A Nuisance

BRIGHT: GA’s strategy appears to be trying to talk Vriska into being a better person, either by persuading her that it’s the right thing to do or by being so annoying that Vriska does the right thing to avoid being meddled with. She’s making an effort, I’ll give her that. And given that she doesn’t live anywhere near Vriska, there isn’t all that much she can do to rein her in.

CHEL: Vriska signs off, ranting about her “Lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive friend!” and heads down the enormous staircase to check on her lusus.

You wonder if any other kid on the planet has such a high maintenance lusus? You DOUBT it.

As a matter of fact, one does and Vriska knows that, but we’ll see them later. Not a continuity error, it’s just Vriska self-pitying.

From a window, we see a doomsday device hanging over a chasm by chains attached to the surrounding cliffs. Vriska built it for an especially powerful and influential member of the nautical aristocracy, with help from an as-yet-unnamed nearby friend. Vriska reaches the bottom of the stairwell, and we meet her lusus, which is…

… a spider about the size of a cathedral. For the sake of our arachnophobic readers, we’ll refrain from posting a picture. Suffice it to say she’s as terrifying as she sounds. Pan out to show the entire valley is filled with cobwebs, and Vriska’s hive is matched by a similar one on the other side of the valley.

Before we move on, I’d just like to chat a little about the astrological symbolisms used here. Vriska’s the Scorpio troll, and it puzzles a lot of people that she’s spider-themed instead of scorpion-themed. Both arachnids, but not the same thing. However, Scorpio does have multiple symbols, depending on the source of the interpretation of the constellation, including the spider and the phoenix. Observe! (I enjoy astrology. Sue me.) Also, a scorpion would be a lot harder to get the story symbolism out of; Vriska is at least attempting to be a master manipulator pulling on strings, i.e. webs. The astrological symbolism and alleged personality traits aren’t used for all of the trolls in general, either. The troll with the sign of Aquarius the Water-Bearer is seadwelling nobility and probably wouldn’t be happy to be represented astrologically by a servant, and Gamzee is basically the opposite of the ambitious and hardworking traits of the allegedly typical Capricorn. Basically the signs are mostly aesthetic and if Huss can work in some connected symbolism that’s a bonus. I don’t consider this a negative thing in particular, though it might annoy some astrology buffs.

Actually, I don’t know how intentional this was, but one fan actually analysed how the social expectations on Alternia are in fact the exact opposite of what would actually suit their astrological sign. It didn’t get finished but there’s some interesting information - read the posts in question here, beware spoilers!

BRIGHT: One amusing consequence of this can be turned into a game: Go to Tumblr, find an astrology post, and see how long it takes to figure out if it’s a Homestuck riff. Some of them even just say ‘Vriska’ for Scorpio.

It’s probably just because I mostly follow fandom-related blogs, but I’ve yet to see a Tumblr astrology post that wasn’t a more-or-less-subtle Homestuck joke.

CHEL: And the ones which aren’t make for great fanfic prompts!

BRIGHT: Vriska’s lusus is fine, as it happens. Vriska pretends to be happy about this, but she’s rather less convincing than Dave is about his own guardianship issues. 

FAILURE ARTIST: And we turn from Vriska to look in her neighbor and it’s….that creepy guy! Hurray!

Your name is EQUIUS ZAHHAK.

You love being STRONG.

You are so strong, you would surely be the class of the elite legion of RUFFIANNIHILATORS. And while such a calling would be quite honorable, you would prefer to join the ranks of the ARCHERADICATORS, perhaps the most noble echelon the imperial forces have to offer. Unfortunately, you SUCK AT ARCHERY. You have not successfully fired a SINGLE ARROW. Every time you try, you BREAK THE BOW. You are simply too strong. You have broken so many bows, it has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

You have a great appreciation for THE FINE ARTS. You use your aristocratic connections to acquire PRICELESS MASTERPIECES, painted in the oldest and most respected Alternian tradition of NUDE MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. These striking depictions of the EXQUISITE FAUNA native to Alternia remind you of the PUREST PHYSICAL IDEAL that must be sought by anyone who professes a LOVE OF STRENGTH. When those of lesser bloodlines turn up their uncultured noses at such stunning material, it MAKES YOU FURIOUS.

Practically everything MAKES YOU FURIOUS. You have so much rage, it can only be expressed through STAGGERING QUANTITIES OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. You build strong and sturdy robots, set them to kill mode, and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM in caged brawls. Sometimes you LOSE TEETH. But they usually grow back.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius Zahhak’s first name is obviously a take on the Latin word for horses, but his last name is from a Persian demon who is also known as “he who has 10,000 horses”. 

So yes, that furry porn on his walls is high art to trolls. Though the prequel Hiveswap Friendsim, which has artist characters, doesn’t have MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. Maybe Equius is actually weird.

CHEL: Actually, the Friendsim does have musclebeast art; if you squint at the beginning of Nikhee’s route, you can see depictions of white muscular chests flanking the arena, which don’t look like troll chests. Hiveswap proper is rated PG, so we’ll be spared it there, too.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius is more even-tempered than his introduction suggests. He’s not completely violence-free (as we will see)  but he’s not in a constant ‘roid-rage. Heck, from what we’ve seen before of him he just gets peeved and snotty. 

Equius calls for his lusus Aurthour, who I guess could be called another self-insert. Aurthour is a centaur-type creature with cow udders and a mustache and looks like something out of Hussie’s early comics. Aurthour carries a glass of lusus milk on a platter, presumably from its own udders. Ummm. 

You cannot hope to beat Aurthour in a butler-off. He is simply the best there is.

Sweet, I guess.

CHEL: I wonder how Aurthour contorts around to reach his udder. Centaurs aren’t really known for flexibility.

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out why Aurthour has a shiner. It’s not because of domestic abuse but because when Equius “gently” pats Aurthour, Aurthour bruises. Yet this creature is the only lusus STRONG enough to raise Equius. 

Equius tries to drink the glass, but it shatters in his hand. Which begs the question of why Aurthour doesn’t use an alternative to glass. Well, I guess Equius going straight to the source would be too disturbing even for Hussie. A bigger problem is how Equius can do the fine detail work of building robots when he can’t hold a glass. 

Equius goes into a rage, which just means he stands around in Hero Mode while the lusus milk quickly evaporates. Wait, quickly evaporates? What is it made of?

CHEL: I assumed the heat of his rage boiled it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius tries to equiup equip a bow but fails due to his strength. Like the glass smashing, this is a normal occurrence. You’d think he’d give up but apparently breaking bows is like popping bubble wrap to him. Expensive bubble wrap. So he has the useless 1/2bowkind, a bowkind for when he’s ever that lucky, and the fistkind which he actually utilizes. Yes, in Homestuck, you can register your fists as lethal weapons. 

Equius talks with Nepeta and the narration summarizes like thus:

CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no

Equius is still worried about his good friend Nepeta, so he decides to relieve his stress by talking with another friend. And here comes a line fans take as meaning trolls don’t have friendship. 

It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy.

Though that line contradicts Equius considering Nepeta his friend only a few lines back. This worldbuilding sucks. 

CHEL: Well, he doesn’t treat her the way a human should treat a friend at this point.

FAILURE ARTIST: So Equius trolls this frienemy who turns out to be Gamzee.

centaursTesticle [CT] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

CT: D --> Have I ever told you what a reprehensible disgrace you are

TC: hAhA, fUcK yEaH, oNlY eVeRy MoThErFuCkIn DaY bRo!  

Yeah, Equius, pretty much everyone tells Gamzee that every day. 

Equius says he wants get some things off his chest, which giving what we later learn about troll relationships might be adulterous. Gamzee tells him not to let his feelings be bottled up lIkE a FuCkIn AlL sHaKeD uP bOtTlE oF fAyGo and this metaphor makes Gamzee thristy. Equius berates Gamzee for drinking soda, which seems harsh but we later find out soda is booze for trolls. He’s also angry at Gamzee for doing sopor slime. Now, fans think Karkat didn’t like Gamzee doing sopor slime but we never actually see it. It’s just Equius who cares. This leads to an exchange I find interesting.

CT: D --> You will stop

TC: WhOaAaA, i WiLl?

TC: hOw Do YoU kNoW tHaT?

CT: D --> No, you don't understand

CT: D --> It's not a predi%ion, it's an order

CT: D --> I command you to stop

Gamzee is so passive he finds it hard to imagine making decisions that will change his future. Sad. And when Gamzee does get what Equius means:

TC: Oh, AlRiGhT bRoThEr.

TC: yOu MoThErFuCkIn GoT iT.

CT: D --> What

CT: D --> Are you serious

TC: yEaH.

TC: I mEaN, yOu GoT tO sHoW sOmE fAiTh In YoUr FrIeNdS, cAuSe ThEy'Re AlL tHe OnEs WhO'rE bEiNg To LoOk OuT fOr YoU.

TC: sO fUcK iF yOu SaY i'M nOt DoInG tHe ShIt RiGhT, tHeN wHaT tHe MoThErFuCk Do I kNoW!

CT: D --> No

CT: D --> This is una%eptable

CT: D --> Ok, let's start over

CT: D --> I apologize

CT: D --> I was completely out of of line, and I'm sorry

CT: D --> I have no right to talk to you like that, or tell you what you can't do

TC: aWw, No WoRrIeS!

Gamzee was ready to kick sopor slime except Equius backed down. Wondering about the timeline where Equius didn’t back down. 

Still, Equius begs Gamzee to behave like a superior. Gamzee asks what that means and Equius gives a very creepy answer.

CT: D --> 100k, it isn't that difficult

CT: D --> Try to be cognizant of your desires and needs

CT: D --> And attempt to regard those around you as simple vehicles meant to bring about your gratification

At least Equius is a hypocrite...most of the time.

Equius asks what Gamzee is doing and Gamzee relates his adventures in Sgrub. He bonked an imp on the head and scared another with a horn and eventually ended up sharing pie with them. Equius likes the tales of valor but is disappointed with the peaceful end. 

Equius asks Gamzee to roleplay and Gamzee says yes; there’s an uncomfortable sequence where Equius tries to get Gamzee to virtually dom him. Gamzee is terrible at being assertive, but Equius is still whipped into a state of contrition. Basically, Equius is getting off on this. 

CHEL: It should be noted that tricking a child into sexual behaviour is a form of abuse even when it’s done by a child of the same age. Not cool, Eq, and not funny, Hussie.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 11

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 40

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 4

Though, while that is clearly the reading we’re meant to get from that, I have to say Equius never reads to me like he’s actually enjoying being ordered around. With Gamzee he’s just frustrated that he’s not behaving in a correct manner, and in later exchanges he seems knocked off-balance by the normal social order being upended. I know I’m just projecting, but it reads more like he has some issues with anxiety or OCD and is desperate for someone else to take control and tell him what they want him to do so he doesn’t have to worry. He sweats constantly during these exchanges, which is supposed to imply he’s aroused, but people sweat when they’re worried or afraid too.

FAILURE ARTIST: On a lighter front, Equius says he doesn’t live near the ocean, which considering his neighbor regularly goes on a pirate ship is an odd thing to say.

CHEL: How near is “near”? He might just mean not within walking distance so he can’t casually wander out to the sea like Gamzee does.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius ends by wondering about the social order that puts someone like Gamzee above him but someone as graceful and poised as a certain mysterious she is of the lowest caste. Gamzee (and the readers) ask who she is and Equius brusquely says D -->I shouldn’t be talking about this D → You’re the enemy before signing off. 

CHEL: If one’s been paying attention, one can guess.

Next, Equius and Vriska are in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Vriska declares her intention to meddle, and they have a brief exchange about sarcasm. It’s horribly inconsistent whether trolls have sarcasm or not, as I’ve pointed out before. Already gave a point for it, though.

Anyway, Vriska asks if Aradia’s present is finished. It is.

CT: D --> But I don't understand why you're intent on gratifying that worthless peasant

AG: 8ecause I promised I would and it's none of your damn 8usiness! Man.

Their plan is to let Aradia usurp Sollux as leader with her cute little ploy (recall her sending him to sleep and letting him swallow mind honey earlier), then both snatch power from her and become joint leaders. Each asks the other if they’re planning something sneaky and each insists they’re not. Equius can sense that Vriska is trying to read his mind, and when she won’t stop, he takes control of her cybernetic arm, which he built, and makes her slap herself in the face.

FAILURE ARTIST: So given that Vriska tried to read Equius’ mind, despite the dangers (both physically and mentally), it is unbelievable she refrained from reading Karkat’s due to delicacy. 

I think Hussie has said in his commentary that Vriska had a crush on Equius. The fandom prefers lesbian Vriska at this point and so has ignored that. YMMV on if there is evidence of a crush in the text but I find the idea amusing. 

CHEL: Equius goes to fetch the present for Aradia which he was supposed to give to Vriska.

You naturally will doublecross your accomplice, just as you assume she has plans to doublecross you. You assume she is assuming the same of you. Business as usual for blue bloods.

How the hell does this society get anything done?

You will deliver it to Aradia yourself to gain her favor, and then doublecross her and take your rightful position as team leader. How ironic that someone of your blood purity must work to win the favor of the lowest sort of peasant. Humiliating. Strangely titillating, even. But in the end, class order will be restored.

He takes the tarp off the present, and it is…

Why, Aradia. It appears the red glass of your eye has caught the pink and green glint of the moons in their perigees. The sweet poetry almost makes a man forget how the grime that once filled your veins made his stomach turn. It is a good omen for illicit lovers. Could you imagine the scandal if anyone found out?? No one must ever know.

But worry not. Your heart will pump no more of that despicable red sludge. You have been given a new heart. You can be taught the ways of the class you were always meant for. No one is beyond redemption.

Be grateful, dear Aradia. For the first time in your meaningless life you have met a man with true compassion.

Jesus fucking Christ. See what I meant when I said his interactions with girls were worse than his posters? No points because it’s supposed to be creepy, and with the teachings of his society it’s not entirely his fault, but wow.

FAILURE ARTIST: Well, his interaction with a girl is creepy. His relationship with Nepeta is more problematic than fans remember but that’s two-sided and not infatuation. As for Vriska, he’s cold and business-like with her. He collaborates with GA but that’s off-screen and was probably also business-like. Meanwhile, he has lustful interactions with most every male character. We’ve seen how he acts with Gamzee and we’ll see more later. Equius’ interactions with guys are another example of Hussie using male attraction to other males as a punchline.

CHEL: But yes, he’s built her a robot body. Unfortunately for everyone involved, while making out with it, he feels judged by one of his battlebots, gets angry, and punches it. It goes flying out the window and robosplodes above the valley, and its remains hit Vriska’s doomsday device, setting it off. It breaks before it can actually destroy the planet, but the chains holding it up snap, sending it swinging into the cliffside, causing another explosion. The cliff collapses, taking part of Equius’ hive with it, sending Aurthour plummeting into the chasm and crushing Vriska’s spider lusus under tons of rubble.

Cutting back to before that, we see Terezi battling imps on her treehouse’s rooftop, when Vriska messages her, declaring that playing the game together means breaking their truce. Terezi says that’s not what the truce was about; it was about STOPP1NG TH3 3NDL3SS CYCL3 OF R3V3NG3 and Vriska not using her powers maliciously anymore. Terezi’s next couple of comments are just calling Vriska a liar so I’ll just take Vriska’s, to further illustrate her behaviour.

AG: Man, you like to give me such a hard time a8out all that. I can't catch a 8reak! AG: Can't you see I'm trying to put all that 8ehind me and make amends with every8ody? AG: No, of course you can't see that. What am I saying! [...] AG: I'll prove it to you. I'm giving Aradia a present that will make her feel all 8etter finally. AG: Then I'll 8e in the clear. Phew! Totally redeemed. You'll see. I mean smell.

Vriska appears under the impression that large flashy gestures are the important part of an apology, not actual sincerity. Terezi points out Aradia doesn’t care about anything anymore and probably won’t care about this.

AG: Man, why can't you cut me some slack for once???????? AG: It's not like I even did anything that 8ad to you. AG: I lost seven eyes 8ut you only lost two! I would say you came out ahead in the 8argain. GC: 1 KNOW GC: 4ND 4CTU4LLY GC: 1 N3V3R R34LLY GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO TH4NK YOU >:D

Vriska’s disbelief aside, Terezi really is serious here. Not surprising to the reader, her blindness is basically a superpower.

AG: Remem8er Team Scourge? How convenient all that must 8e to have forgotten! You were so nasty. AG: Oh man, if you crossed Terezi Pyrope you were fucked!!!!!!!! GC: Y34H 1F YOU W3R3 4 B4D GUY GC: W3 W3R3 SUPPOS3D TO B3 L1K3 4 V1G1L4NT3 DUO D1SP3NS1NG JUST1C3 GC: 4ND YOU COULD T4K3 TH3 B4D GUYS HOM3 4ND F33D TH3M TO YOUR STUP1D SP1D3R GC: BUT 1NST34D YOU JUST F3D H3R 3V3RYBODY! GC: 4ND L13D 4ND L13D 4ND L13D

Okay, this little exchange needs some more dissection. Terezi is supposed to be the “good cop” of Team Scourge, the by-the-book one on the side of the law. But we saw what Alternian law is like, and later on we’ll see demonstrations that things such as having a birth defect or, according to Hiveswap, owning fiction which so much as mentions the possibility of rebellion, are punishable by death. Not only is this not making Terezi look any better, if she’s as obsessed with the law as we saw, who would she deem not a “bad guy”, and why would Vriska have such a shortage of “bad guys” that she’d need to take anyone else? Hussie appears to have forgotten that the Alternian concept of justice is different from the Earth one.

FAILURE ARTIST: And what we would consider a “bad guy” wouldn’t be the same on Alternia. There’s tons of trolls murdering other trolls on Hiveswap Friendsim without any hint that’s illegal. It’s probably completely lawful for a highblood to kill a lowblood just because the lowblood annoyed them.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 29

BRIGHT: Maybe. I’d say what this shows us, and is intended to show us, is that Terezi’s sense of justice isn’t just based on Alternian law, but on her own moral code. The law made it perfectly acceptable for Vriska to feed lowbloods to her lusus regardless of whether they’d done anything, but Terezi didn’t think it was right, and for her that superseded the law. She’s the ‘good cop’ not because she always follows the book, but because she’s willing to ignore it.

We also know she thought Vriska was on the same page as her. Note that Terezi makes two accusations here — the first is that Vriska killed people who don’t deserve it, and the second is that Vriska lied to Terezi about doing so.

CHEL: That may be what it’s intended to show us, but what we’ve already seen is that she worships the law; she draws and gleefully licks pictures of the head of the troll court, His Honorable Tyranny, and she shows no concern in her roleplay with hypothetically executing people for relatively trivial crimes. That makes this a bit… shaky, IMO.

BRIGHT: True. Terezi may have stopped killing since her FLARP days (or, at least, we get no indication that she’s still doing so), but it doesn’t seem to have shaken her belief in the Alternian legal system. Just her belief in Vriska, who even brings up a similar point.

AG: Well if you want to know what I think, you should start changing your tune. AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

Vriska’s making this all about her own feelings about Terezi abandoning her, but she’s not wrong.

Vriska hears the doomsday device exploding and the subsequent rockslide, and goes to  find out what it is. Terezi tells her not to get crushed.

The next page jumps back in time again -- this time, quite far back. Terezi’s eyes are normal, and she’s talking to Aradia about Tavros’s recovery. Aradia says he’s probably paralysed for life. Terezi brings up the possibility of getting him robo-prosthetics, but after the Vriska debacle Aradia is firmly against having anything to do with bluebloods.

CHEL: Terezi warns Aradia that revenge attempts will end badly and she wants to handle it. Aradia says Vriska isn’t able to control her, but Terezi says Vriska will find a way to harm her anyway. They lament how they were both distracted by the same person.

AA: wh0 was he anyway GC: PR3TTY SUR3 1T WAS VR1SKAS FR13ND AA: what was he d0ing there AA: watching us GC: WHO KNOWS GC: H3S NOT R34LLY H3R FR13ND THOUGH GC: YOU SHOULD S33 HOW H3 T4LKS 4BOUT H3R B3H1ND H3R B4CK GC: SH3 H4S NO 1D34 HOW B4D H3S PL4Y1NG H3R GC: BUT TH3N 1 DONT TH1NK H3 KNOWS HOW B4D SH3S PL4Y1NG H1M 31TH3R

This sounds like they mean Equius, but we’ll see. Aradia feels she’s letting Vriska win by doing nothing, but Terezi has a plan. She confirms that her friendship with Vriska is over.

Cut to Aradia’s house, and here I need to go into a bit more detail. This is her house:

Aradia’s a maroonblood, the lowest of the low on the hemospectrum, peasantry and cannon fodder and supposedly extremely numerous. Yet her house looks to be about the size of the entire block of flats I live in, and she lives in it alone, with no other buildings at all in sight. In the next page, we see inside her house, which looks exactly the same as all the others; she has piles of roleplaying books and posters and a computer, and nothing looks to be in disrepair.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 30

BRIGHT: Her house also looks a lot like Tavros’s, what with the windmill feature on top and the brown hangings rather than maroon, which threw me off at first.

CHEL: We’ll talk about this more later. For now, let’s stick with the most noticeable thing; Aradia is alive! Her skirt is untattered and her eyes have colour and pupils. Her lusus is alive too, napping beside her. It’s not quite clear what it is exactly; it has a sheep-like head, but its body is long and slim with much bigger hind legs than forelegs. Could be supposed to be dragon-like? I’ve also seen it interpreted as kangaroo-like. I don’t think we ever get a better view of it.

Anyway, Aradia knows Terezi’s advice is sound, but she can’t bear not to do something to Make her pay. She puts her hands up to her temples, and the image fades back and forth with one of wrapped troll corpses in Spidermom’s web…

It's a shame it had to come to this. You don't like summoning the spirits of the dead to settle scores.

But if she had to face her victims again, maybe she'd finally learn to feel remorse.

OOOOOOOOOO

This begs the question, how the fuck can the highbloods oppress people who not only hugely outnumber them but can shoot lasers from their eyes, control animals, and summon the dead at will? Well, there’s actually some explanation for that. The player trolls all appear to have unusual levels of power, for whatever their given powers are; most maroonbloods can’t do this. In Hiveswap a main character is a more typical maroonblood, who can just about bend spoons with his telekinesis and not much else (though we haven’t seen him speak with dead yet, and it’s possible he’s better at that). Not all trolls even have their caste’s powers, as far as I can tell, as we do see a yellow in Hiveswap Friendsim who’s not a psionic and some ceruleans who don’t seem to have mind-control powers as well. Head or eye injuries, which aren’t exactly rare in Alternia, can cause the loss of said powers. Also, the highest blood castes have powers of their own and other things to hold over the lowbloods’ heads. It’ll be a while till we get to that, but I’ll say now it is convincing, we do not have an Oppressed Mages scenario.

Anyway, Aradia does her thing…

As Vriska cowers on her floor, White Text Guy messages her again. Vriska replies angrily, ghosts looming over her shoulders.

Aren't you going to kill her?

AG: Who????????

Your friend.

The one who summoned the spirits.

AG: Will that make them go away?

Does it matter?

She brought them here to torment you. This obviously warrants revenge.

Vriska asks why WTG doesn’t kill Aradia instead, since he helped kill Tavros; he replies “All I did was stand somewhere for a few minutes. I just gave you an opportunity to do something you wanted to do anyway.” So, seems it wasn’t Equius they meant earlier. Vriska protests she never intended to kill her gaming companions, and blames him.

Again, I didn't talk you into anything, nor am I doing so now.

You were, and are, going to do this regardless.

I only ever place myself into positions of tangential involvement with events that will bring about my employer's entry into this universe.

I oversee the events as they take place, and ever so slightly nudge them into motion when necessary.

BRIGHT: Looks like Aradia and Terezi haven’t told her Tavros survived, which is eminently sensible. This conversation also highlights another Vriska trait: That she’s a very active person, but will try to shift responsibility as soon as she doesn’t like the consequences. That could be a result of her upbringing -- Vriska had to actively go and kill people for Spidermom, but she wasn’t responsible for the overall situation. (Although -- how much did she do to ameliorate it? By the time SGRUB starts, Spidermom’s far too big to fit into Vriska’s home. Vriska might have been able to get away with not feeding her at that point; there’s not much Spidermom can do if she can’t get to her.)

CHEL: The later addition to the canon, Pesterquest, claims that the lusii can psychically nag their charges and she could bother Vriska that way, but that directly contradicts Act 5, in which the trolls want to prototype their lusii so that they’ll be able to communicate properly with them for the first time, and also couldn’t Vriska just move further away?

BRIGHT: Inertia is very much a thing, and people do often just settle into a rut of ‘this is the way things are’ even when something could be changed, so it’s not improbable that it wouldn’t occur to Vriska to move — come to that, I don’t believe it occurs to anyone else either — but the fact that it doesn’t occur to her does say something about her character. 

CHEL: Also, why didn’t Vriska feed the spider on animals? The possibility is never so much as considered by her or anyone else, though it seems the most obvious thing to do. Sure, the spider might be picky, but as we said, it can’t leave the valley due to its size, or it’d be hunting for itself. If it’s left with the choice to eat cows or die, it’d presumably pick the former, especially since the lusii aren’t supposed to be sapient and thus wouldn’t have the capacity for spite. For assuming that Vriska did what she had to when such a screamingly obvious better option is never addressed, here we go with a new count, which will rise whenever Vriska’s horrible actions are excused.

ALL THE LUCK: 1

 Back to the scene, Scratch claims omniscience, which Vriska mocks.

AG: Sure you know a lot, 8ut I know for a FACT there's stuff you don't know.

That's true.

But the gaps in my knowledge exist by design.

They are the pillars of shadow on which my comprehensive vision is built.

Necessary pockets of void meant to effectuate outcomes I've foreseen and which will require my influence.

Each dark pocket, in time, will be filled.

[...]

I don't lie.

Deception is only necessary for those like you to achieve their objectives.

I play with my cards face up.

Isn't it funny how during our various matches, I can tell you what my moves will be in advance, and still win?

Vriska, angered by this, does in fact plan to kill Aradia; Not much point in living with all these moaning spooks just to spite some guy you don't give a shit about. She can’t control Aradia because Aradia’s own powers get in the way, but there are other people she can use.

How about this guy? Unfortunately, you can only control him about half the time.

Then again, that should be all the time you need.

Cut back to Aradia’s place, and she receives a message from Vriska, telling her her boyfriend is outside. 

BRIGHT: Vriska also lightheartedly tells Aradia she’s sorry, and that she’ll make it up to ‘him’ someday. Presumably ‘he’ is meant to be Tavros, except that Vriska seemed to think Tavros was dead in literally the last conversation she had. This is probably just a slip-up on Hussie’s part, but it’s possible to read this as Vriska referring to a different ‘he’ entirely, considering what’s about to happen.

CHEL: Aradia looks, and sees a figure hovering telekinetically over the fields....

Note what’s in his hand. You do not under any circumstances eat the mind honey… His eyes start flashing and Aradia looks afraid, but we suddenly cut to a view of Alternia, and then to a closeup of its green moon. The prompt instructs us to Be the white text guy, and we meet him in a very familiar-looking green mansion.

You try to be the white text guy, but fail to be the white text guy. No one can be the white text guy except for the white text guy.

The white text guy is known as Doc Scratch.

He is an officer of an indestructible demon known as Lord English. His job is to pave the way for the arrival of his master, who will be summoned upon the termination of the universe. He has worked at this task for many centuries, and will continue to do so until THE GREAT UNDOING.

Scratch is Alternia's FIRST GUARDIAN. Every planet destined for intelligent life has such an entity meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose. A first guardian is typically almost as old as the planet itself, and each has a unique, circuitous origin through the knots of paradox space. They can be born into a great diversity of forms, though they all share a common, especially potent genetic sequence. 

Remember Rose’s MEOW book, and how DD used it to create Becquerel? Yep.

The code grants them near omnipotence, and when merged with a host of great intelligence, near omniscience as well.

BRIGHT: Only near-omniscence, however. Scratch is surprised to find Terezi contacting him, but he’s able to work out that she got Sollux to help pretty fast:

Occasionally I discover there are things I have not always known.

It gives me the opportunity to make deductions, which are practically always flawless.

It's gratifying.

He also suggests she call him ‘Mr. Vanilla Milkshake’, and then hints that Aradia might not be straightforwardly dead by stating that Sollux and Terezi believe she is dead, and will soon believe she is not, both of which are true statements about their beliefs rather than reality.

Props to Hussie on this: I’m pretty sure every Homestuck fan wants to punch Scratch in the face. He’s just so obnoxious. 

Terezi, however, refuses to let Scratch keep derailing her for long. She wants Scratch to get involved in their feud again, and she has a good reason for him: She knows how Vriska’s been able to come so close to beating Scratch in their games lately. Before she can tell him, though, she needs to talk to Vriska again.

She starts by asking how Vriska feels about killing Aradia, after she promised not to. Vriska responds with dramatic insincerity about how she feels awful, and then says Terezi should be happy that Team Charge is out of the picture. 

AG: Uuuuuuuugh, what do you want from me????????

GC: 1M NOT SUR3

GC: 1 GU3SS 1M LOOK1NG FOR SOM3 R34SON TO CH4NG3 MY M1ND

GC: 1 DONT KNOW WH4T YOU C4N S4Y TH4TLL DO 1T

GC: 1 SORT4 HOP3 TH3R3S SOM3TH1NG THOUGH

In the end, there isn’t. Terezi tells Vriska she’ll be dead in a couple of minutes, and to ‘CONSULT W1TH YOUR L1TTL3 4DV4NT4G3’ if she doesn’t believe it, then leaves the conversation.

Vriska’s little advantage turns out to be a MAGIC CUE BALL, which is similar to a magic 8 ball except that it’s predictions are specific and accurate, and it lacks a portal through which the user can read said predictions. Fortunately that’s not an obstacle for Vriska: Her VISION EIGHTFOLD allows her to see through the opaque casing.

CHEL: Vision Eightfold is the vision from the one of Vriska’s eyes which has seven pupils, which she covered with an eyepatch with seven rubies on it when she was FLARPing. Also remember that Jade had a Magic Cue Ball but couldn’t read it? Yeah, it’s another one.

BRIGHT: One other thing: According to rumour, it used to belong to the man on the moon.

As Vriska asks the cueball whether she should be worried about Terezi’s threat (answer: YES), Terezi lets Scratch know where his missing property has gone. Vriska asks the cueball how it’s going to happen…

I WILL EXPLODE IN YOUR FACE.

Boom.

This section is one of my favourite Terezi moments. It really shows off Terezi’s ability to outthink and manoeuvre people. She’s never spoken to Scratch before, but she still plays him against Vriska easily.

CHEL: This is why Vriska has a plain eyepatch and a robot arm in her future appearances, but she’s otherwise fine. Bluebloods are tough, apparently.

BRIGHT: Back in the future, Spidermom has survived the rubble falling on her, but just barely. Vriska puts her out of her misery with her magic dice, which summon up a massive guillotine and decapitate the lusus, drenching Vriska in spider blood.

GORE GALORE: 11

The decapitation sets off another landslide, sending Equius’s house straight down on Vriska’s head, but before it can land, a portal opens underneath it and transports it into the Medium.

Vriska promptly jumps on Trollian to freak out about this, because her plan depended on her getting Aradia’s surprise present from Equius to pass along and then Aradia and Vriska entering the Medium together, and never mind that a house was about to fall on her -- in fact, when Aradia points out that Vriska was about to die, Vriska accuses her of planning this. Aradia placidly agrees.

CHEL: This is part of my evidence for thinking Vriska might not be neurotypical. Not the priorities most people would have. Also, meanwhile, note that the lusii have the same blood colour as their charges, while the non-lusus animals Nepeta killed were black and had red blood. I’m not sure whether that’s a species trait, or a side effect of the weird bond between them (doesn’t make a lot of biological sense, but then this is basically fantasy with a sci-fi coat of paint).

Vriska is enraged by things not going the way she planned; her grand gesture of apology, the robot body, will now be handed over by Equius and not her, ruining her chance to be friends again with Aradia. Again, she doesn’t seem to understand how apologies work.

AA: were we ever really friends

AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!

AG: I don't know. I felt like we were even if you didn't think so.

AG: I guess I'm not very good at acting like a friend. Or saying stuff like, hey friend! You're my friend! It doesn't really occur to me.

For some strange reason related to her prototyping with the frog statue, Aradia types out “ribbit” into the chatbox, and informs Vriska she’s not on the Blue team as she expected, enraging Vriska further. Vriska accuses her of taking revenge, which Aradia denies, saying Vriska was always going to be on the Red team, and that she doesn’t care about her death.

AG: You're so infuri8ing! Why c8n't you just h8 me? It would 8e a lot easier th8t way.

AG: Or at least feel 8othered or annoyed or S8METHING! God!!!!!!!!

AG: May8e I sh8uld just rip my he8rt out of my chest and pound it to a 8loody pulp here on my desk with my sup8r strong ro8ot arm.

AG: Pound pound pound pound pound pound pound pound!

AG: Look at that, more nasty 8lue 8lood all over me. Why not! Might as well op8n the floodg8s and p8nt my whole hive with this oh so envia8le cerulean SWILL.

AG: 8ecause clearly it's up to me to feel em8tions for the 8oth of us, you misera8le soulless witch!

AA: 0_0

AG: I h88888888 you!

AG: H8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 haaaaaaaate!

AG: I only regret killing you cause it m8de you so 8ORING!!!!!!!!

AA: s0rry

Aradia assures her that the teams are meaningless, but being on the Red team will put Vriska in the position they need her in. Vriska’s confused and angry, and leaves the chat.

In Equius’ LAND OF CAVES AND SILENCE, he trolls Aradia again, telling her he will be the sole leader, which she doesn’t care about. He’s surprised she isn’t objecting, and says he needs a towel.

CT: D --> Never mind

CT: D --> I'm trying to stay professional about this

AA: ab0ut what

AA: what are y0u talking ab0ut

CT: D --> Forget it

CT: D --> It's just pleasant to consort with one of lesser breeding who clearly understands her place

He’s been established to suffer from hyperhydrosis, but he’s clearly also supposed to be getting off on this, which, since he’s thirteen, is icky to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 12

It only gets worse.

CT: D --> I 100k forward to seeing how well you serve me, server player

AA: uh

AA: thats n0t quite the meaning 0f the w0rd server

CT: D --> What do you mean

AA: as y0ur server i manipulate y0ur envir0nment t0 help y0u advance

CT: D --> I don't understand

CT: D --> Are you

CT: D --> Are you saying

CT: D --> That

CT: D --> You are in a position of control over me

AA: i supp0se s0

CT: D --> Oh

AA: what

CT: D --> Oh my God

He babbles about how he needs fresh air or another towel, getting so agitated he actually drops an F-bomb, which he immediately covers up with “Fiddlesticks”. He says he wants to break something, and Aradia offers to break something for him, as she’s developed an interest in breaking things recently. Next page, she flings an “abluti0n trap” through his wall. 

FAILURE ARTIST: The running gag of girls fucking up boy’s homes with bathroom appliances continues!

CHEL: He’s very happy, except about her commoner slang.

CT: D --> In fact, this is an order from your leader

CT: D --> Call things by their proper names

AA: what

AA: y0u want me t0 call it a bath tub

AA: that s0unds ridicul0us

As FA noted, this bit of worldbuilding ends up retconned out with all trolls calling things by strange rewordings later on.

Whatever it’s called, Equius asks her to throw it through the wall again. She asks if that’s an order, and he can’t decide.

CT: D --> You could cause quite a bother for me, with the power you wield

CT: D --> I can do nothing to stop you, peasant girl

CT: D --> It's so magnificently depraved

CALL CPA PLEASE: 13

Aradia ribbits again and he takes it for roleplaying, but commands her to continue to do as she pleases. He tells her he’s bringing the robot body, and muses on whether she should actually be co-leader again; in fact, he decides, she should be the actual leader, in secret, through him. She points out that’s what they’re doing anyway.

CT: D --> You take to authority well for one of your b100d

AA: i d0nt have bl00d

CT: D --> Not yet

CT: D --> But soon your heart will beat anew, and through it, fresh b100d and fresh passion

AA: 0_0

CALL CPA PLEASE: 14

Equius proceeds to STRONGJUMP right up to his first Gate, punching off an ogre’s head as he goes, and to STRONGFALL out into LOQAM, where Aradia waits. Equius hands over the robot and Aradia enters it; she seems happy, but Equius cautiously asks if she feels anything else.

EQUIUS: D --> Can you detect anything within you might describe as

EQUIUS: D --> Smoldering passion

[...]

ARADIABOT: 0h g0d

ARADIABOT: 0H MY G0D WHAT DID Y0U D0!

ARADIABOT: did y0u pr0gram this r0b0t t0 have feelings f0r y0u?

ARADIABOT: R0MANTIC FEELINGS???

EQUIUS: D --> Hrrrk

ARADIABOT: ANSWER ME BLUE BL00D SCUM

EQUIUS: D --> I

EQUIUS: D --> Yes

EQUIUS: D --> Uh

EQUIUS: D --> It's a chip in your heart

EQUIUS: D --> Is that not ok

Understandably, it is emphatically not.

GORE GALORE: 12

Now, this is undeniably a really, really, really creepy thing to do. I’m not sure how much blame can be applied to Equius here, though; he’s been raised in a society which would presumably tell him she would have to accept his advances no matter what, considering their caste difference. In a horrifying way, the chip might have been, in his mind, the nicer option. Still, as I said, creepy.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 15

BRIGHT: I think it’s telling that he asks if it’s not okay after Aradia freaks out, as though he honestly hadn’t considered that Aradia might have a problem with it. Specifically, up until that point, Equius seems to be interacting with Aradia more like she’s a prop than a person — it doesn’t seem to occur to him that she might not want what he wants, unless their wants conflict in a way that he finds titillating. Then she freaks out and he’s surprised. And that in turn speaks volumes about how lowbloods are viewed by highbloods in wider society.

Contrast Vriska, who absolutely realises that people down spectrum can have their own agendas and emotional reactions; she just does her own thing anyway. Vriska is actively malicious; Equius is, at least in this case, accidentally malicious. Note that he doesn’t make any effort to prevent her from removing the chip once he realises she’s distressed. (Not that he really gets a chance.)

Equius in particular also seems to have a problem about slotting people into roles in general -- he does it with Gamzee, too, although since Gamzee is higher-blooded than him, he has to at least face the fact that Gamzee doesn’t fit into his role. He comes across as very sheltered.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius considers it such a good thing to be a highblood that he thinks he’s doing her the greatest favor by turning her into one. 

CHEL: This also brings up the question of where he got all that blue blood. I hope it’s synthetic. If not, he’s already said he doesn’t kill animals, so I’m not sure whether it’s creepier if he killed another troll for it or if he slowly drained it off from his own.

Aradia’s not contemplating that, too busy crushing the artificial heart and slapping the shit out of Equius for multiple pages, before, er…

Yes, she’s apparently making out with him as a reward for violating her mind, even after the chip was removed. 

BRIGHT: The first time I read Homestuck, I thought that was meant to imply that not all of the programming was gone.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie did confirm the programming was gone. He compared it to a failed roofying.

CHEL: This is a bit of a shock, but it makes somewhat more sense when we see more of troll culture, not long in the future. Still, right now it’s probably upsetting for a number of readers because that part of troll culture hasn’t been established, so…

CALL CPA PLEASE: 16

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 41

#Homespork #homestuck #review #reread #Let's read #homestuck meta #vriskourse

[japanne]

Making Comics Process 2020

Someone mentioned in a comment on some page that the brief thumbnails I was posting would be interesting to see as a comics making compilation, so I decided to make a current one (the last one I did was from 2015 or something??  I was still doing my pencils and inks on real paper).

So let’s commence using chapter 47, Page 12 as the example.  

I usually do something a little differently every time I do a chapter, but one thing that has never changed over the almost 20 years I’ve been doing this, is my affinity for using Microsoft Excel to organize my chapter writing.

This details the page in question.  I’ve got a basic description of the events in the first column, the year in the second, the chapter in the third, and details in the fourth.  (I pulled out the rest of the scene so as not to spoil it).

After the writing for a scene, it’s time for thumbnails!  I still enjoy doing these in a notebook.

I use a dedicated spiral notebook, split my page into quarters, write in the dialogue, and maybe adjust it at this time if I need to.  I changed Collamair’s dialogue to: “Oh.  Whoops.  Sorry.  This is my room.  I forgot to give you one, didn’t I?” (you can also see I misnumbered my pages somewhere earlier so 11 here is really the comic’s 12th).

I use the frixion erasable pens for this, so if there’s small changes to make I’ll just erase and fix.  For major changes I’ll just move onto the next open page space.  You must not remember to set hot things on your pages or the ink will fade.  Put it in the freezer to try and return it!

 Following the success of paper thumbnails it’s time to move to Clip Studio Paint.  At this early stage I do a couple of chapter wide passes.  

1. Create all the page files with the grey and red bordered template page I have.

2. Put a ruler on that file rough in the sizes of the panels.  Think about panels that might go for full bleed and delete the template border as a note for myself.

3. Put in the text.

4. Translate thumbnails digitally which brings us here:

I shifted Collamair’s dialogue a little more, and I flipped the last Collamair from my thumbnail.  For some reason he was facing the opposite direction, even though it’s a general rule to keep your characters facing the same way if possible in a conversation.

After the first pass of real rough sketches are laid in, I do a second slightly more detailed pencil pass

I’ll get all the expressions in, and the outlines of the clothes on the characters.  I’ll adjust the size of the people and the position of the text bubbles.  And this is as detailed as I get for my pencils.

I will also mention here, I’m not sure if I forgot to include this or actively decided not to, but “Colly and Struan laughing and having a good time” got dropped at some point???  Who knows when or why now???

Once I’m done with these sketch layers, I merge them together and start inking.  This is done in a scene by scene basis.  First I’ll open all the files for a given scene, flip all the canvases and draw the faces of the characters.

Then I’ll flip them back to look for weird parts and ink the rest of their bodies.

After inks are done, I’ll make another very rough sketch pass on the old sketch layer for the backgrounds.

Then, again, scene by scene, I’ll go through and ink them.  These backgrounds were blissfully easy.

I started something new this chapter.  I saw a video on twitter randomly talking about how to make panels with Clip Studio, and it’s SO EASY.  So I started doing those in this program as well.  That was one of the last 2 things I used to do in Photoshop.  

After all the inking and the panels are done, it’s time to color.  I have a shitty swatch file that you can see below where I keep track of colors for outfits and backgrounds in every chapter.  

The second new thing I started to do was flats in Clip Studio.  I’m excited about it so I broke it down a little bit in detail.  Below is a Struan that I have used the fill bucket tool on a new layer with the inks marked as a reference.  I do this for backgrounds and foregrounds.  You can see just plain old fill bucket leaves some stray pixels that are hard to get, especially in Struan’s sleeves here.

Well, worry not, for there is something else I saw on twitter, the Filter>Correct Line>Adjust Line Width

When you do that you can see the color overflows the lines a little bit.  But all the internal white pixels are gone.

NEXT!  you take you fill bucket with the color marked “clear” and some area scaling, and you just click a bunch of times in your panels outside of the characters.

Ta-daaaaahh.  There’s a few places where a little bit of manual cleanup is needed, around his elbows, but this method appears to be much faster than the old B-Pelt method I was using in PS, and I am happy with it!!

Here’s the fully flatted page with this method used on the bgs and fgs. Eyes are also added in, but on their own layer so they don’t get desaturated at all. And Colly’s shirt has his pattern to add at some point.

When flats are done, it’s time to move, scene by scene, through the shading process.  I’ve started using “Hard Light” blending for the shading since the last chapter, so this is also pretty new!

The bg and fg again get their own shading layer.  I’ll cover the bg in the shade color and then paint or gradient fill the highlights in over that.  I might add on some other extra mode for fancier lighting or if I want to shift all the colors, but I always add on an adjustment layer for desaturation at the end. 

Brushes that I use are almost all from Frenden.  The pencils are blue and red “real” and  “layouts.”  Faux-rel Painter Scratchboard is my inking pen.  Most of the shading is Concept Craig normal and Wet.  Hair highlights are Painterly (Wet), and I also use the default soft airbrush on a variety of things.  The plaid is “real pencil.”

And here’s a final view of the total layers I’ve used for this page, and also the ridiculous palette file if you’re interested in that!  

#comics #making comics #all roses have thorns #vampires #clip studio paint

[silverarmedassassin]

To Save Me From Tears

Pairing: Bucky x Reader  Word Count: 2853 Warnings: Jealousy. Clueless Bucky™️ A/N: This was one of the first ones I wrote! It actually helped give me the idea to write all 25 days! I’m not sure how I like the ending (I struggled a lot with finishing this for some reason), but here it is. Day four!

Summary: Another year, another Stark Christmas Party. But this year, karaoke is involved and, even though you didn’t plan on getting up there, sometimes a song is the only way to express your feelings.  

2019 Christmas Masterlist 

“You’ll save me a dance, right Sergeant?” you ask coyly as you finish tying Bucky’s tie. It was light blue, the exact color of his eyes. He smiles down at you as you flatten the collar of his black-on-black suit, those eyes crinkling edges.

“‘Course. Wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity to dance with the prettiest girl in the room.” He adjusts his sleeves as he examines his reflection in the metal of the elevator door.

You turn around to look at yourself as well, admire the way your cranberry-colored dress sways as you do so. You couldn’t help but notice Bucky did the same, his eyes traveling up the long skirt, up to the lacey bodice. When his gaze finally lands on your face, you can see, even in the distorted reflection, that his cheeks are now bright pink.

“Come on,” he grumbles shyly, grabbing your lace-covered arm as the doors opened. “Stark won’t like it if we’re late.”

You and Bucky weren’t together. Yes, he sent you the coveted “good morning” and “good night” texts every day, and invited you as his plus one to more than your fair share of game nights with the Avengers, but it was because he was a genuinely nice guy. A nice superhero guy.

There was nothing special or super about you. You worked in the public relations department for crying out loud, slaving around the clock to fix any screw-up the team made and making sure the public absolutely adored them. Bucky would never be interested in you, not when he was surrounded by agents and literal super-humans.

Everyone else disagreed, however. Even Tony made a point to tell both of you that if a move wasn’t made soon he would be forced to interfere. And that was the last thing you needed.

That’s why you decided tonight would be the night you were finally going to say something to Bucky. It was a perfect time - after all, there’s nothing more romantic than confessing your love for someone amid the overly-crowded Annual Stark Christmas Party.

Avengers, agents, and employees like yourself were spread out across the Compound. It turns out the room Tony had built specifically for press conferences doubled as a great dance floor.

You were out on the terrace with a group of your coworkers, watching as liquored-up bodies crammed together like sardines. Outside was just as beautiful as the inside - strands of white, twinkling Christmas lights bordered the open doors, and the standing tables were adorned with crystal votives. Stark hadn’t left a single pebble unturned when it came to this party, so the state-of-the-art heaters littering the space fought off the mid-December chill. It was just warm enough to be comfortable, but still several degrees cooler than inside. Perfect for a breather.

You were only half-listening to the conversation you had found yourself in, your focus more on the happenings around you. You could hear Thor singing off-key to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” How they convinced the God of freaking Thunder of all people to participate in Christmas karaoke was beyond you, but you were thrilled it was happening.

You smiled as you took a sip of your spiced cider, relishing in the way you could feel the warmth travel from your tongue to your belly as you drink. Maybe after another couple of these, you would finally get the courage to go talk to Bucky.

A hand flapping in front of your face draws you from your thoughts.

“Hello, earth to Y/N,” David, one of the IT guys said.

You feel heat spread across your face and you know it’s not from the cider. “I’m sorry, what?”

David huffs and your little group snickers to themselves. “We were asking about your plans for the holidays. Since Stark gave us the next two weeks off…”

“She was busy looking for Loverboy,” Carley says. You roll your eyes at your officemate’s snark.

“I was not looking for Bucky.”

“I didn’t even mention a name! Ha! I think I know what her plans are for Christmas.” She wiggles her eyebrows at you suggestively and everyone burst into laughter.

“It’s not like that,” you whisper, turning your attention back to the crowd inside.

“The man brings you lunch more days than not, walks you to your car when you stay late, and invites you to family game night. Almost every week, may I add.” Carley points an accusatory finger at you. “I’ve been here for seven years and I haven’t even been invited. It’s been six months for you! He’s got it bad.”

You could feel the embarrassment creeping back to your cheeks. Finishing off your cider in one massive gulp, you turn to the group. “I’m going to get another drink. Anyone need a refill?”

“Classic deflection,” David mutters as they all wave you off. You knew this conversation wasn’t over, but you were happy to dodge it for the time being.

You shove your way through the crowd that was now cheering for Thor. He bows dramatically before passing the mic off to Natasha, who is deeply focused on finding a song. The familiar, sultry notes of “Santa Baby” start to chime through the hall. You’d expect nothing less from Nat.

Finally, you make it to the bar, where you find Steve and Sam in the middle of a heated debate about which era produced the best Christmas music. Steve, of course, is partial to the early 1900s, while Sam insists Michael Bublé is the best Christmas singer to ever grace this earth. You chuckle as you slide your empty flute to the bartender and wait for a new drink.

“Ah, there she is!” Sam finally acknowledges your appearance, effectively ending the frivolous debate. He pulls you in for a quick side hug before Steve does the same. “Where have you been hiding? Been lookin’ for you all night!”

“I’ve been...around. Mostly trying to dodge getting drafted for karaoke. I’m not drunk enough for that yet.” You laugh as you watch Natasha shaking her hips on stage. “I don’t think I’ll ever be drunk enough for that.”

The boys follow your gaze. “Nonsense. You’d have all the men eating out of your hand if you got up there,” Sam sasses as your drink is slid towards you.

You hum in response, ignoring the comment as best as you could. “Have you guys seen Bucky? I uh, need to talk to him.”

Sam and Steve share a knowing look. “Are you finally going to say something to the pathetic sap?” Steve laughs as he peers at you over his whiskey tumbler.

Before you can reply, a familiar, gruff laugh drifts over to where the three of you are standing. Your heart leaps a little as you turn and spot the top of Bucky’s head, hair starting to fall loosely out of the bun at the nape of his neck.

Taking another drag of your cider and straightening your poster, you get ready to make your way over to him. Before you can get more than a step away from Steve and Sam, you’re frozen on the spot. Standing across from Bucky, using one of the tall tables as a rest, is a tall blonde. Her eyes crinkle as she touches Bucky’s left arm as she laughs at something he’s said. He never let anyone touch his metal limb. A slight pang of red-hot jealousy washes over you.

This was it. This is exactly what you meant when you said Bucky would never fall for someone like you. Not when there were women like her floating around the Compound, all fit and beautiful. This woman, who you come to recognize as one of the newest agents Natasha had recruited, exudes so much confidence that you can literally feel it from where you’re standing several feet away. She’s a literal vision in icy blue, the exact color of Bucky’s eyes. And that damn tie.

Steve clears his throat from behind you, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder obviously trying to pull your attention away from the scene in front of you. You harshly shrug him off. You didn’t want his pity, nor did you want to hear the trademark Captain speech you knew always followed tense emotional situations. You watch as the woman leans closer to Bucky as he says something into her ear. She smiles again, a flash of something in her eyes and she takes a sip of her drink. You’d seen enough.

“Excuse me,” you say, downing your almost-full flute of cider and ditching it on the bartop. Before either of the men can stop you, you’re shoving through the crowd. You’re on a mission and nothing was going to stop you.

You make it to the front of the room in record time, stopping right in front of the make-shift stage where Natasha is finishing her performance. You catch her eye and she gives you a devilish smirk. “Y/N!” she yells into the mic. “Your turn!”

The crowd, despite more than half of them not knowing you, goes crazy. Good. They gave you the little needed confidence you need to pull this off. You knew exactly what song you’d be singing, exactly who you’d be singing to. You climb up the few steps of the platform and graciously take the microphone. It only takes you a few moments to find the song, and you let all nerves and self-conscious thoughts melt away as the retro beat of “Last Christmas” fills the room.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart But the very next day you gave it away This year, to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special

You let your gaze linger further out than just the group of people bobbing along in front of the platform. You spot Natasha by the bar, talking animatedly at Sam, who is shrinking in on himself like a wounded dog. Was she scolding him?

Once bitten and twice shy I keep my distance But you still catch my eye Tell me, baby Do you recognize me? Well, it’s been a year It doesn’t surprise me

Thank god he’s tall because there’s no way you would have been able to see Steve’s blonde head making its way through the crowd if he was as short as he was once upon a time. He’s headed straight towards Bucky, who has abandoned the blonde he was flirting with earlier to watch you.

You’re surprised when, instead of feeling triumphant in your ability to get Bucky’s attention, you’re filled with anger. Maybe a little tinge of regret for not telling him how you felt sooner. Definitely a surge of self-loathing and despair. Damn alcohol. You make eye-contact as best as you can with Bucky as you start belting the next verses.

A crowded room, friends with tired eyes I’m hiding from you, and your soul of ice My god, I thought you were someone to rely on Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on

You watch as Steve begins, what you can only assume, scolding Bucky. He’s yanking his hands this way and that, occasionally pulling them through his hair. Bucky breaks eye contact, briefly looking at his best friend in front of him before looking back to you.

The blonde agent is long forgotten now.

When the last line is belted out, storm off the stage and make towards the main hall. You were no longer in the Christmas spirit, and you definitely didn’t want to talk to Bucky off all people right now. You just wanted to sit on your couch with a bottle of cheap wine and wallow in self-pity. Unfortunately, it seems your Christmas wish isn’t coming true tonight.

“Y/N!” Bucky huffs as he runs up behind you, gently grabbing your arm to stop you. “I’ve been looking for you all night!”

You contemplate trying to pull away, but you know it’s no use with his strength. You take a deep breath in an attempt to bury the emotions you’re feeling before turning to face him. The look of pure excitement and happiness on his face cued you in on the fact he didn’t know you were upset.

“I’m sure you were,” you mumbled as you looked down at his hand still holding onto your arm.

“I can’t believe you got up there and sang,” he laughs, dropping his hand and using his metal one to rub the back of his neck. “I was just telling Yelena that…” Bucky trailed off when he noticed you stiffen at the mention of, who you could assume, the blonde agent you had seen him with not 20 minutes ago.

“Uh, yea well...” You shrug not knowing what to say to that. “I’m not really in the party mood anymore, so I’m going to head out. Better go find Yelena again” You know you’re being petty, but it’s more out of anger at yourself for getting your hopes up than anything. 

“What? No, I can walk you out if you’d like?” 

Before you can respond, a heavily accented voice breaks through the crowd you’d edged your way out of. 

“James! There you are!” Yelena says as she shoves her way out into the hall. “You ran off so quickly I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“Yea, everything’s fine. I found Y/N and didn’t want to lose her again,” Bucky turned back to you then a beaming smile on his face. “Y/N, this is Yelena. I uh, knew her back when Soldier was in control...”

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Yelena interjects, holding her hand out for you to shake. “I’ve heard so much about you tonight. I was about ready to come to find you myself so this sap would shut it.”

She nudges Bucky in the ribs and he grumbles in response. 

“You know, I was just about to say how happy I am that Nat brought you here, but I take even the thought back.”

Yelena snorts and rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I’m going to leave you two to it. Sam challenged Natalia and me to a drinking game. I have some ass to kick.” And just like that, the blonde disappeared back into the crowd. 

As you and Bucky watch Yelena walk away, you couldn’t help but laugh. Watching the way they interacted made you realize that you may have slightly overreacted. Thanks, insecurity. 

“What?” Bucky asks, turning to look at you. 

“I’m just realizing how stupid I am.”

You look to Bucky and are met with a look of confusion. “What do you...Oh, you though...Yelena and...” He lets out a genuine belly laugh then, one that would normally warm your entire body but now makes you want to punch him. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” you pout, crossing your arms across your chest in defense.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky gasps between laughs. “It’s just, I’ve known Yelena since she was younger. Watched her grow up, even if it was from afar. Her attitude reminds me so much of Becca that I practically see her as my little sister!”

Bucky grabbed your hand as the karaoke faded away into the live-music portion of the night. I instrumental version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” started to float through the room. 

"I meant it when I said you were the prettiest girl in the room. I spent the entire night fighting with myself on trying to find you. Yelena was trying her hardest to get me to you but, I guess I was just nervous. The truth is,” he says as he brings his other hand to rest on your lace-covered waist, “I really like you.

“And I know everyone is always making comments about how we, ya know...I just didn’t wanna ruin anything. But,” he starts gently swaying you both the music then. The grin on his face reminds you of pictures of old footage of him back during the war, back when he wouldn’t have given a second thought about coming right up and asking you to dance. “When I saw you up there singin’, it reminded me just how beautiful you are. And how sweet, and gentle you are with me even though hell knows I don’t deserve it.

“So, I guess this is just my roundabout way of askin’ you to be my girl. Because I’d be stupid to let someone like you get away from me.”

“Buck,” you whisper as you step closer into his embrace. You blink rapidly trying to fight back the tears that are threatening to fall down your face. “I never realized how big of a sap you really are.”

This helps break the tension, and Bucky lets out a soft chuckle. “Is that a yes then, pretty girl?”

You smile as you lean in and rest your head against his shoulder. You let yourself get enveloped by the smell of the cologne you gave him as an early Christmas present specifically for tonight’s party. “Of course, Bucky. I’ll be your girl.”

#bucky x reader #Bucky Barnes x reader #bucky fan fiction #Bucky Barnes fan fiction #marvel fan fiction #captain america #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #christmas #marvel x reader #bucky x you #Bucky Barnes x you #marvel x you #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #bucky fanfic #Bucky Barnes fanfic #captain American fanfic #captain american fan fiction #christmas one shot #marvel christmas #marvel holiday #holiday fanfic #holiday fanfiction #holiday one shot #christmas fanfic #christmas fan fiction #25 days of buckmas #james buchanan barnes

[aboleth-eye]

Hello! Would you have any advice for new DMs/things you wish you had been told when you started DMing? I'd like to try it myself, but I've only ever been a player, and just figuring out where to start is a bit overwhelming! Thank you in advance!

Great Question!  Here are my Lessons Learned from when I ran a game for the first time!  

There are Four Lessons I wish I’d known when I got started:  Have Your Resources Handy, Start Small (3 Parts), Things Go Awry, and Have Fun Together!   ((This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cap it a little less than halfway down))

1.)  Have Your Resources Handy!

If this is your first time running a Tabletop RPG system, even if you’ve been playing for years, HAVE THE BOOK(S), WEBSITE(S) AND/OR PDF(S) NEARBY!  I’m serious about this, guys!  Playing a game or watching someone else play is a totally different monster to running it!  

When you first declare to the group that you’d like to host a game, I recommend you read the rules over at least two or three times before hand–start with a deep read first to get it all in your head, and then you can choose to speed read once you’ve had some time to digest the rules.  

But even if reading ttrpgs is your thing, have the resources within easy reach.  Either have your laptop available with open tabs to any pdfs/scans of the game source material and any relevant websites (like standard reference document pages), and/or have a physical copy of the game book with you.  If you are running certain monsters or encounters, I also recommend you copy down any stats and information to a separate text document (on laptop or printed) so you won’t have to page through stuff during the game.

2A.) Start Small: The Setting

If this is your first time or fiftieth time running a tabletop roleplaying game, and you are running a new system for the first time, limit the scope of project to start.  Writing campaign and world settings can be very intense, and it is very easy to write something too specific and railroad people into your lore and world.

For instance, don’t create a massive world with a continent of named cities and landmarks!  Don’t plan out every inch of your world, or else it’ll turn into a “fill-in-the-blank exploration” story instead of an organic world you can change as your group learns and grows!

My first campaign started in a very specifically written city on the edge of a vast magical desert.  I planned out a timetable of events that would catapult the players into the “open-world”.  The players noticed this and didn’t appreciate it. 

Also, do not bog your players down with Lore!  I’ve gone into campaigns where you need to know information “for backstory”!  This is your first campaign, it’s good to know what to introduce and when!  A group of starting adventurers typically doesn’t need to know your world’s entire array of deities, pages and pages of history, and legends “that shaped the world”!  You can introduce these things at character creation IF THE PLAYERS ASK, and then slowly dish things out as the characters live in your world.

It’s also good to not ties yourself down to specific placement of towns, countries, cities, landmarks, etc.  Leave the map blank save for the starting area, and any broadly defined areas such as forests and mountains.  Once characters finish their first missions and adventures, they’ll explore!  With all the “white space” of your world, you can insert places and things as you journey with the group!  

One of my favorite encounters when I was very new to D&D was when we accidentally burned down a forest.  We were fighting a massive tiger with a pixie NPC in a forest, and the pixie just trapped everyone (tiger included) in entangling vines.  Our pyromancer in the party tried to set the beast on fire, and they rolled a critical failure.  

The beast was set on fire and died!  And so did the pixie!  And now there’s a raging forest fire we have to run from!  We get an oxcart running and we take shifts to outrun the magical fire–FOR THREE DAYS!  It was an incredibly tense situation, and it was fun to add “an entire forest” to the pyromancer player’s list of things they set on fire.

You know what would have made all that suck?  If the DM had decided: “Okay, you pass through this location which is a lich’s hideout and have to face that; then the next day you’ll have to ford a river with the tired oxes.  Finally, you’ll be passing through this county’s border…”  

We just burned down a placeholder  forest, and all the consequences that came with it came AFTER we were finally safe!  The DM didn’t bog us down with heavy lore and their maps during a tense situation; they kept the focus on the action at hand.

Prioritize the players’ story before your own!  That’s the lesson I want to make absolutely clear.  You aren’t telling your story with friends as the characters; the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller is the worldbuilder who tells the character groups’ story as they interact with the world.

2B) Start Small: The First Encounters

Another item I want to bring up is Do Not Start Your Campaign with a “Unique Encounter”!  Start your campaign setting with a simple task for the players to face.  Here are the kinds of challenges I mean: defeat a bunch of zombies in a graveyard for a reward, go into a mine full of bats to retrieve a homing beacon, follow a simple mystery to find a girl’s lost dog, etc.  The Players’ should be introduced to your world with something simple to follow–that way they can make their marks and introduce how they roleplay to the story.  

Do Not try something you’ve “never seen before”!  Don’t have the characters whisked off to another plane or world while they slept!  Don’t have the players face fifteen or so mooks at once during an ambush!  Don’t have your characters struggle to tread water or leap floating platforms while fighting a monster!  These kinds of encounters instantly put players on guard and feel railroaded!  Give them the chance to decide how they integrate themselves into the adventure.

My first campaign violated this rule.  When the players left the city to enter the desert, they were suddenly beset by 12 monstrous scorpions!  And me, in my ambitious tunnel-vision, thought it’d be interesting to have each scorpion have its own turn.  I rolled twelve Initiatives for the scorpions and it was a LONG combat when it clearly didn’t have to be.  

It all looked so good in my head, but when you get players involved you can tell how grueling and boring something like that could be.  I learned a lot that session.

That combat ended the campaign for me.  I decided to go back to the drawing board because that kind of thinking was not going to fly for me and my friends.

Instead, give your players a task that could easily be solved in one or two sessions!  Do not give your players “only one way” to solve this!  For instance, if your first challenge is to get past some guards, let the players come up with the solution themselves.  They might decide to fight the guards, use magic/science to teleport past them, go off on a side quest to become guards so they can infiltrate them, or even walk up and attempt to socialize with them.  You as the storyteller/DM merely narrate the results of whatever the characters do; just bridge the gaps and think of consequences from the players’ actions.

ALSO!  Have a time limit for your first session, or plan breaks for food/drink/stretching.  This activity of DMing can be very stressful, and you might need a break to take stock of what problems and choices occurred during play.  

2C.) Start Small: The Players

Have your players build starting or low-level characters (I typically start with 3rd level for D&D).  The low levels will mean most powergaming and gamebreaking attempts by certain types of players will be nipped in the bud right from the start.  It will also typically limit the powers and abilities of your group (so you won’t have to memorize or look up high-level stuff until much later).  

Another thing I highly recommend is that you are present during character creation!  Do not let people determine/roll character abilities and stats without you.  Either be physically present when dice get rolled and abilities get determined, or be present digitally in a chatroom, discord or roll20 when electronic character sheets get filled in!  

My first campaign I allowed one of the players to bring a character from a friend’s campaign into it.  The original DM ended the campaign; and even though I had played in that campaign alongside this character I had no clue what they could do.  This made things challenging because this character “suddenly” remembered they could fly–so I had to add aerial combat onto my plate during the first fight of the campaign.

It made the situation tense, especially with my bad early encounters (see the 12 Scorpions combat above).

3.) Things Go Awry

If you’ve come this far, there’s one last piece of advice I want to give you.  Your first campaign is gonna suck in one way or another.

I don’t mean that to be disheartening; I want you to think of it as a learning experience.  Whenever a person learns a new skill or engages in a new activity for the first time, it’s always gonna suck.  (Even if someone has a “natural talent”).  You as the DM/Storyteller are going to notice problems crop up left and right; especially if you don’t take the advice I offered above.  For instance, if you start learning to paint with a new medium or start a sport you’ve never tried; you need to practice with the tools and techniques you’ve prepared to see what works for your style of learning.  

Running a roleplaying game is a very unique mashup of activities.  There’s typically a math element you need to consider behind every action the players take.  You need to workout your improvisation skills to bridge connections and gaps your players make.  You need to get in front of a group of people (sometimes more or less experienced than you) and tell a story that keeps their attention.  It’s a stressful mix of being an improv actor, a storyteller and the physical laws of your world.

Hopefully your players will understand when things get crazy and overwhelming.  Gametime might come to a halt because you need to look up a specific rule or wording that you aren’t familiar with.  It’s okay.  Until you get to know how your game world runs with your players in it, it is totally fine to take a breath and think things through.  Oftentimes you can ask your players for help in making a determination or house-ruling.

Last note on this topic: Get Feedback!  At the end of the session, be bold and ask your players if they enjoyed the session, what they liked and what they didn’t like.  Feedback is how DMs get insight on how the game is playing out.  While you’re DMing, your mind is on a million different topics; let the players tell you how they felt during gameplay, so you know what made them feel good or bad on the other side of the curtain.

4.) Have Fun Together!

This is something that needs to be said, if I’m honest.  Running a game can be a stressful activity that “ruins” some things about it now that you are “behind the curtain”.  This is your first session, in what you hope to be a series of games where you and your friends make all sorts of memories.

However, some DMs get incredibly discouraged and no-nonsense when they run a game for their first few times.  That is understandable, especially if being the “mastermind” is a challenge you haven’t prepared for.  A few sessions in and you might find the game isn’t fun for you and/or your players.  That might be a sign that you need to take a break from hosting–use that time to think how you can make the game fun for everyone, or if this campaign just needs to be scrapped!

The priority of the DM is to bring people together.  If a game system, campaign concept or player actions aren’t making the group (you included) happy; it’s better to stop things and take stock before things go too far.  It is never fun to admit your game isn’t viable or enjoyable, but hopefully you’ll have new experience you can take with you the next time you try your game.  

And heck, if you find you prefer playing at this time, that’s fine!  Even if this attempt didn’t have the results you expected, there is nothing to stop you from trying again later if you wanted.  But now that you know how it is behind the curtain, you are naturally more observant to how your own DM/GM runs their games and you can learn from it.

Remember how good the game system/lore/etc made you feel!  It’s why you wanted to DM in the first place; you recognized you had a story you wanted to tell, and this ttrpg had the tools to bring it to life!  No matter what problems arise when you’re behind the curtain, the game should still bring you enjoyment whether you play or manage the game.  Do not give up on the game just because of one bad session or two!  

When I decided to end my campaign, it really was a painful decision.  I loved the world as it was in my mind, but I was not executing it well so that my players enjoyed it.  I got feedback after that terrible 12 Scorpions combat, and decided to take some time to think about everything.  Our group went back to our original DM, with other members trying to DM in that time; and honestly I didn’t DM until I started a small separate group months later.  

During that gap in DMing I digested what I liked and didn’t like about my campaign, and had more time to reflect on the rules.  I decided to take a few steps back and learn from my mistakes.  I still made mistakes the second and third times I DMed, I make mistakes even to this day.  

But at the heart of it all, I love games so much that I want to constantly make my stories and worlds even better, even to this day.

I take the struggles of DMing as learning experiences, rather than let them define me as a writer, storyteller and game master.  I use them as stepping stones so I don’t fall through the gaps again.  I may have started out with a bad first campaign, but I would never take those mistakes away.  

I hope these lessons were helpful!  I love D&D and tabletop roleplaying games so much, and love giving out advice on how to make the experience your own.  I hope this helps a lot of new people bring their stories to life!  Also, I hope I helped everyone’s expectations into the right state of mind.  

Good luck and happy gaming everyone!!  Much love!

– Aboleth-Eye

#aboleth eye #d&d ask #d&d resources #dm resources #lessons learned #tabletop games #tabletop resources #dm inspiration #tabletop inspiration #game night #tabletop story

[zeldauniverse]

If you played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you know that one of the game’s vital features is cooking. The possibilities felt endless; you can cook many combinations of food and get a seemingly endless number of results.

Have you ever wanted to taste some of the cooked food you cooked in Breath of the Wild? The Legend’s Cookbook is the gateway to those fantasies. The Legend’s Cookbook is a Legend of Zelda inspired cookbook featuring recreations of the amazing dishes from games we enjoy so much.

We sat down with three of the team members behind The Legend’s Cookbook, and they shared their thoughts about the cookbook and what readers (and eaters!) can look forward to.

Zelda Universe: What made you decide to create a Legend of Zelda inspired cookbook?

Peter Abreu, Lead Chef: There were a lot of factors that went into us wanting to do this. People are spending more money eating out than cooking at home, and we can start to change that trend. We figure if we make cooking something fun, uncomplicated and interesting, we can really change people’s lives.

We love the Zelda series, we’re huge fans. We are in love with the stories, characters and art style. Do you know what is at the very core of that series? Being a hero and saving the world. All of us on the team want to do something like that. The absolute goal here is that one of the recipes in this book becomes a staple in someone’s diet, that it changes the way they go about their dietary lifestyle and their life improves from that change. If we manage to do that, then we’ve done it.

We want everyone to cook like a hero, what better place to draw inspiration from than a series that brought that concept so near and dear to our hearts?

Matt Mannheimer, Producer: It’s one of those things where you play something and you’re like “what if that was real?” That was some of our mindsets when wanting to make some of these inspired recipes from the games. From there we poured our heart into it. With our passion for gaming and the [Zelda] series in general, it made us do our research and figure out what will be the perfect fit for these recipes.

ZU: What types of recipes and foods from the Zelda series are you taking inspiration from?

Peter: The recipes in this cookbook are original, real world recipes inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We have baked goods, breakfast foods, dinner items, healthy snacks, sweet desserts and so much more! We’re starting with 50 recipes and we want to add even more as stretch goals. For those stretch goals, we are going to add things like cocktails, more creative dishes, and even recipes inspired by the other games in the Zelda series.

Matt: This whole cookbook is from the perspective of the hero. The hero recollecting his time from his adventure, writing down these recipes, fighting monsters, going through dungeons. You know the whole drill! That’s what makes it special; it’s a cookbook that has a story behind it. Not just in the gaming world, but also in real life. If you have enjoyed Mother’s Cookbook or Batter’s Almanac, you’re probably going to enjoy this one.

ZU: Will this cookbook be enjoyed by those who may not know the Zelda franchise?

Peter: Absolutely, we like to keep cooking simple and accessible. This is not going to be a cookbook only for Zelda fans. This cookbook is not going to bash people over the head with references and in-jokes but there will be several subtle allusions and (literal) Easter eggs. We want this to be a guide for everyone, newcomers and veterans to the kitchen and the Zelda series.

The ultimate compliment is for someone to fall in love with the recipes, art, and photos in our cookbook, first, and then realize it draws a lot of inspiration from their favorite series, second.

Matt: You don’t have to know everything about the [Zelda] series to get into this book. I feel its for everyone. I definitely don’t know everything about the [Zelda] series, but whenever I look at these recipes, and the pictures, I’m drawn into it. There are recipes that range from easy to difficult, but they’re so much fun to make. They’re fun to make and are all delicious.

Patrick Deasy, Photographer: I’m probably the biggest normie of the bunch, I’m not much of a gamer. I’ve been able to try out these recipes and I can tell you from an outsiders perspective that this is definitely a cookbook first and a piece of nerd memorabilia later.

ZU: If you had to recommend a recipe to somebody who may be new to cooking, what would it be?

Peter: The rock-hard candy. Our rock candy recipe is simple and delicious. You can do it at home, it’s super easy and very enjoyable. This is for all those with a sweet tooth. Here, I’ll share it with you:

Rock Hard Candy

Ingredients:

2 Cups of White Sugar

1 Cup of Water

3/4 Cup of Light Corn Syrup

1/4 Cup of Pomegranate Juice

Powdered Sugar for Dusting

Directions:

In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and corn syrup.

Heat up the pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the white sugar is dissolved completely with the water and corn syrup. It is important to stir gently after sugar has dissolved to prevent burning, Use a candy thermometer to watch the temperature of the mixture and let it hit to the hard crack stage of 300F (149C).

Once there, remove from it from heat and add in the pomegranate juice, slowly. Mix it in.

Then, pour the hot candy into a 9”x9” baking pan covered in parchment paper that’s been dusted with powdered sugar, so the candy doesn’t stick. Leave it out in the open air uncovered and let the candy harden and cool completely.

Then the fun part, break into chunks with a hammer and then enjoy.

Matt: The Legends Cookbook is here to give you a culinary adventure: just go for it. If there’s a recipe you really wanna make, just do it. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it the first time, just keep trying. With these recipes, we just want you to become a better chef.

ZU: Which recipe from this cookbook are you most excited about?

In The Legend’s Cookbook, the Dubious Food tastes really good; a lot more than you would expect. It’s even pixilated, like in Breath of the Wild!

Peter: The recipe I am most excited for is the one inspired by Dubious Food. It was the very first item I wanted to try and make in the kitchen. It was something just so disgusting yet edible, it was a fun idea and I wanted to make it. It was hard but I really enjoyed all different ways to make the food turn purple and look gross yet taste amazing. The final product just came out so great and it tasted delicious.

I pulled heavily from learning how to cook coq au vin from Anthony Bourdain and his show Parts Unknown. He was a was a huge inspiration for me as a chef. I really resonated with him because, like him, I spent a lot of my traveling the world, learning different cultures and food. I wanted to bring that same spirit of travel and exploration, a concept also very core to the Zelda series, to this cookbook as well as honor him with one of my favorite dishes he made. Hours upon hours in the kitchen later, I’ve created a questionable but inviting twist on coq au vin that you will all enjoy.

Matt: The meaty rice balls. I couldn’t stop eating them! They were so good! I don’t know how Peter does it, but that meat was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. It’s sweet, it’s GOOD.

Patrick: This is pretty basic, but I was pretty amazed when I got to see Peter make the fried rice for a couple of the dishes. I’ve never been able to do it right, so knowing that it’s in the cookbook is pretty exciting for me. Also the Rock Hard Food is pretty rad. It’s like a hard candy that’s flavored with pomegranate juice and it’s great. Meaty Rice balls are fantastic. It’s spicy and sweet and wonderful. I almost forgot about the Dubious Food, that one is awesome. That one is definitely my favorite.

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

ZU: How will this cookbook stand out from other video game inspired cookbooks?

Peter: Our cookbook stands out from other cookbooks because it has a unique style and page layout. Have you opened a modern cookbook recently? Go to your local Target and find your way to the book section and look for their book section. Find a cookbook on the shelf and pick it up, look at it. You see beautiful food and a recipe. That’s usually it.

Our cookbook stands out because from the very inception, we are designing it like a field guide. In the margins are little watercolor drawings of stunning vistas, charcoal studies of various herbs and plants, little notes tucked in here or there. Our cookbook is rough around the edges and that’s the point, we want it to feel like you’ve found something personal and real when you pick it up. We want you to bust out your own pen and inks and add to it, there’s space! This may be our cookbook but we want you to make it your cookbook.

Matt: This project consists of a group of best friends; we’re all working on this together; we’re on the same wavelength. But were also big fans of the [Zelda] series and gaming in general. Were putting time into each and every recipe. I know Peter has done countless hours of research on every single recipe.

Everyone on our team is professional; we have several animation students. We have someone who worked on the Archer (the TV show), we have someone who worked from SEGA, that’s me! This team has come from different sides of the gaming, animation and art community. I feel like our relationships show from this cookbook.

Patrick: The thing that really separates this cookbook, I know I’ve been saying this a lot, but most video game cookbook’s I’ve seen have been very novelty, and most of them are just decoration guides for baked goods. This is not just a novelty decoration guide, we are not internet celebrities, we are a bunch of people who just really care about cooking.

ZU: A Kickstarter for this cookbook is coming up (May 2019); why should people support and back this project?

Peter: We hope, we really do hope, that people support our project. This is going to be something you’ll want to show other people and it is going to inspire you to cook for them as well. If you like cooking, if you like games or you want to just have a real piece of art to hang out on your bookshelf, this is for you.

Matt: The Kickstarter were hoping to have that up in May. We’re working really hard on this, we’re trying to make recipes that everyone can enjoy; a culinary adventure. This is one of my favorite projects I got to work on my entire life. The food is SO good. I’m serious about those meaty rice balls! I feel like with the team, partnering with TheYetee and the recipes, this will make for an amazing product.

We’re also working with The Yetee on this project! They will help with distribution, fulfillment, back rewards. I think partnering with TheYetee was amazing, and you’re gonna see a lot of stuff in the future that we’re excited to show off.

Patrick: If you wanted to know what the foods tasted like in Breath of the Wild, this is pretty much the closest you’re gonna get.

ZU: Anything else you want to share about the Zelda cookbook project?

Peter: We have so much more to tell but we want to save a few secrets. I’ll tell you what is no secret, we’ve partnered with The Yetee to help fulfill backer rewards and also produce a few of them. They are an amazing company and we are so happy to work with them. They’re gonna be a big help.

Here’s something that is a secret, but I’ll share it with you. We have a discord server that people can join and hang out in. People are invited to join, cook with us, and go on a culinary adventure! Here’s the invite: discord.gg/wGznSn9. It’s a secret, tell everyone.

Matt: We’re opening our public discord right now! If you wanna chat with the team, look at behind the scenes content, talk about the cookbook, join up in our server! We’ll also have a Twitter and Instagram open to check out. We really wanna hear from everyone.

Patrick: We’re trustworthy dudes and definitely Not A Scam ™ :^) Our discord is neat :^)

Thanks to Peter, Matt, and Patrick for taking time out of their schedule for the interview. We hope you’re looking forward to their upcoming cookbook project. A Kickstarter for The Legend’s Cookbook is launching mid-May; we will continue to share new details as they are announced. We will update with a link to the Kickstarter campaign after it begins.

If you’d like to communicate with the people behind the cookbook project, you can follow them on Twitter or join their Discord server. The team is always looking to engage with patrons, food lovers and Zelda fans alike.

Cook like a Hero: An interview with the team behind The Legend’s Cookbook If you played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you know that one of the game’s vital features is cooking.

[bbbutterfingers]

would you ever do a tutorial for how you draw/color? i really like your style and i'd be super interested in seeing any tips you could offer!

thank you for this message! I’d be happy to share some progress pics. Most of what I learned is by trial and error so I don’t pretend to know the best way to do any of it, but it’s what works for me!

I start most drawings thinking about an expression. At this point I’m just scribbling, getting some bones down. I find starting with a thin brush size helps!  I’m not the best at eyeballing anatomy so I make a lot of changes from here on out. I usually have to resize heads (I always draw them big!!!). flip your canvas often to refresh your eye. 

same layer, getting more refined as I go. I’m thinking about the silhouette here. You can see I thought about putting Kyo and Yuki in the basket and then immediately chickened out on my next pass, haha. This is still the trial phase, so that’s OK! I was also thinking about what to put in the background here.

new layer. this is as close to lineart as I ever get! sometimes I do a couple of drafts before I get to this point. here I’ve settled on what I want the lines to look like and generally have decided what the silhouette is. most of the time I have a separate layer for facial features because I end up editing and moving those around the most. 

on the lineart layer I make another pass and make sure all the lines are closed and thicken the outline. then I do the ol’ select blank space > inverse > fill bucket trick to just have a base for coloring. from there you can lock the layer and color. this gives it a clean look. this is me at my most thorough, sometimes I skip closing the lines and leave it loosey goosey. 

I should have brought in a reference photo earlier but you can learn from my mistakes!! for every new color block, I add another layer and create a clipping mask to attach it to the base coloring layer. sometimes I just color all on one layer, but for this piece I wanted to make some gradients and I’ve found this is the easiest way. this way I can take a big blendy or fluffy brush on top, lock the layer, and then blend colors. 

for my final step I add things like stripes, highlights to eyes, and white borders to make an element pop. I will also add color to the lineart by locking the layer and going over it. often I will put the whole thing in a folder and add a clipping mask with another solid color on top– this creates cohesion with the colors (I am not that good at picking my colors so I lean on this a lot!).

here’s a gif! 

and that’s the general process I follow! I’m not sure what specific tips you were looking for, but if you had anything in mind you wanted me to cover, just ask! I hope this post was helpful. :^) 

#yo-girl-time-to-die #chitchat paddywhack #long post / #i don't really have any advice on 'style' because i'm not even really sure what style is! I have just absorbed a lot #from other artists I admire. make your own patchwork quilt!

[bytheangell]

This is the Coda that Never Ends... Part 9

(read on AO3) (read from the start) 

Ringing the small metal bell on the desk at the gallery where Clary’s exhibit was held the night before, Magnus waits patiently for someone to emerge from a back room after a slight clunking noise and a call of “sorry, I’ll be right there!”. He looks around, taking the time to glance at the flyers for future shows, events around the city, and art hanging up on the walls or placed strategically around the large, open space in the front reception area. There’s no shortage of talent in this world, he marvels. Even mundanes, taking the most average daily events, can create something truly breathtaking. He’s always tried not to allow his view of art - and artists - to be too heavily influenced by the legendary greats he had the fortune (and occasionally misfortune) of meeting throughout his years. After all, who is to say that the abstract cell phone re-imagining in the corner won’t be the next Van Gough? 

“Sir? Sorry for the wait, is there something I can help you with?” A slightly frazzled voice shakes him from his thoughts, drawing his attention away from the painting and back towards the desk. 

Magnus spins around to see a young lady with short black hair spiked up very similarly to his own, and they share a small smile. “Yes, I called earlier and spoke with someone over the phone about purchasing all of Clary Fairchild’s artwork from the exhibition last night.”

The young girl looks surprised. “Oh! Yes, that was me, I just--” she shakes her head a little. “Sorry, I kinda wrote you off as a prank call. Not that Clary’s work isn’t wonderful , but we almost never sell more than a piece or two from each person at those shows.” 

“It’s fine, no need to apologize Miss...” Magnus trails off, waiting expectantly. 

“Sullivan,” the girl provides. 

“Miss Sullivan. They are all for sale, correct?” 

The girl nods again. “Yep! Oh man, Clary’s going to be thrilled when I tell her later. She’s always going on about how they’re all so important to her, but she can’t explain why, and she never thought anyone else would connect with them. But it never stopped her, which I always really admired.” 

“She has a remarkable talent. And you can tell her that she’s wrong about that fear - there are plenty of people who connect with her work.” Magnus knows he shouldn’t be saying anything but he can’t help it. The idea of Clary feeling isolated in the memories fighting to come through, when there were so many people who love her and miss her and would do anything for her… 

“Would you like to leave her a message? We can leave the purchase anonymous, or she can know who you are - sometimes people want to meet up later, and discuss the work? It’s up to you.” The girl shuffles some papers around, turning to the computer as she speaks to pull up a few files, type a few things, and start to print something off while she talks to him. 

“Anonymous.” Magnus tells her, perhaps a bit too quickly because she looks up at him with a questioning glance. She doesn’t ask why, and whether that’s because she doesn’t want to or knows she isn’t allowed to, he’s thankful for it just the same. “I would like to leave a message, also anonymously, if that’s alright?” He adds. 

“Sure,” the girl agrees, grabbing the paper from the printer. “Alright, so here’s the total, I can do cash or card, but we’ve bounced enough checks that those aren’t accepted anymore.” 

Magnus reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a rectangular plastic card, handing it over without hesitation before even looking at the price on the sheet. The girl also pushes over a notepad before turning back to the computer system. “You can write your note while this processes. Will you be picking up the pieces yourself, or do you want them delivered?” 

“I can pick them up.” Magnus reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone, pulling up a number he’s affectionately saved as ‘Samson’ because he knows how much it annoys Simon. 

M: Are you and your van free? I’ve just acquired us some very valuable art S: ...I don’t think we really have time for redecorating right now, Magnus. Magnus shakes his head, rolling his eyes. 

M: It’s Clary’s, Simon. I just bought everything from her exhibition. I need help getting it back to the Institute, as I can’t exactly portal it out of here.  S: Oh. Yeah, sure, I’ll be there in 20. 

Mangus pockets the phone again and turns back to the paper on the desk in front of him. He considers it at great length, putting the pen down to the pad, starting to write a word or two, and then ripping that page off and starting again. He goes through three sheets before he’s satisfied, just as the young woman returns with his card. 

“Here’s the note for Clary. Again, I would appreciate it if she didn’t know who purchased any of this.” He knows he’s only drawing more attention to it by mentioning it again, but he’d rather the woman think he’s shady than have her go off telling Clary anyway, especially since it sounds like the two of them are friends. 

The girl takes the paper, reads the note, and smiles. 

It says, in beautifully looping script, “Clary - You possess remarkable talent. Never doubt your vision.” 

---

Simon arrives 20 minutes later, as promised, with his van which is currently spraypainted entirely black. This, somehow, looks even more questionable than when it held the name and images of his latest band. 

“In-between band names again?” Magnus questions, thinking that this is exactly the sort of van the police would pull over just to make sure the back isn’t full of puppies and candy to lure small children away. That, or surveillance tech. 

“Yeah, something like that.” Simon doesn’t have the heart to admit that he tried to hire another artist to do some work on it, but the end result felt so wrong to see there in place of Clary’s usual designs that he painted over it the next day. “Izzy said she doesn’t want them at the Institute, though. Too many prying eyes there. But if you can keep them at the Loft and just make sure the wards will let us in to look at them when you’re back in Alicante, she’d owe you one.” 

Magnus sighs. Adjusting the wards wouldn’t be an issue but he was hoping to keep himself a little more removed from all of this. Certainly more removed than keeping some of the biggest evidence of Clary’s memories returning within the walls of his own home. 

“Fine,” he agrees reluctantly. There is security at the Institute, and it’d be unlikely more than a trip or two to the room they’d stash these in wouldn’t set off a dozen red flags, especially if he  and Alec remain involved. They load up the van as carefully as they can, and Magnus opens a portal from the inside of the van to the Loft to save them the hassle of stairs. 

While Simon props up the paintings and sculptures around the living room Magnus goes about adjusting the wards, reaching his magic out to allow for certain energy signatures to come and go at will. Alexander’s, of course, was already there, as was Isabelle’s. He adds Simon and Jace before closing the connection again. 

“The wards are all set,” Magnus announces. “This is the last of the art,” Simon declares a moment later, propping a painting up against a wall. “Will you still be here later?” 

Magnus wants to be, but a part of him knows that he’s already too close to this as it is. Alexander wanted them to hold as much plausible deniability as possible, and here he was purchasing Clary’s artwork and hoarding it in his apartment like stolen goods, away from prying eyes. 

“Probably not, unless you need me for something. I have some work to tend to in Alicante.” At least he isn’t lying. There’s never a shortage of things for him to do there, in the world still adjusting to the acceptance of Warlocks and Downworlders within its borders. Dispelling centuries of misconceptions and prejudices isn’t an easy task, after all. 

“We’ll call if we do,” Simon promises before heading back out to his van. 

Magnus figures he has about 30 minutes to himself before he needs to be back and before he runs the risk of Simon getting back to the others and one of them deciding they want to come have a look immediately. He takes the time to go over each piece once, taking photos to show Alec as he does. 

He recognizes almost all of them - Edom, the Seelie Realm, objects that very closely resemble Shadowhunter weapons like steles and Clary’s old dual kindjals, figures along a lake that could only be Lake Lyn... there are only a handful of paintings he can’t place - one that has a lot of white, for instance, and one that seems to have a rowboat as a primary focus - but Magnus has the sinking suspicion that even those are related to her missing memories, just the ones he isn’t privy to. 

This is so much worse than he thought when it was just seeing through a single glamour and remembering Jace by sight. That much, at least, Magnus can chalk up to a shoddy glamour applied by the Shadowhunter. But how long had Clary been painting these? Just a few weeks? A few months? The whole year? What more did she remember? 

His phone buzzes and it’s Alec, asking when he’ll be back and if he learned anything new. 

M: On my way now. I have plenty of updates, but I’m not sure you’re going to like them.  

---

Underhill is left temporarily in charge while Isabelle and Jace ran off to look at art or something. Honestly, he’s doing his best to keep his name clear of the worst of whatever sneaking around they’re doing - it’s bad enough he knows about Clary remembering Jace, and that on top of his usual surveillance he’s supposed to be tapping into cameras to keep an eye on her. Not that he isn’t willing to help, and he’ll keep his mouth shut even though not telling Lorenzo is killing him inside, but he knows how badly this could all backfire, and he has his own job and integrity to think of when it comes to covering himself if it does. The more plausible deniability he has, the better. 

Except it doesn’t look like he’ll have to switch from Institute surveillance to Clary surveillance tonight, he realizes, dread welling like a pit in his stomach. Standing outside of the Institute, just beyond the glamour, is a very familiar redhead staring up at a building Underhill prays to the Angel she can’t truly see.

#magnus bane #simon lewis #andrew underhill #shadowhunters #AND WE'RE OFF! #elle writes a few deadbeat lines

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

I’ve decided to start a new writing chapter for a while. From now on I’m calling it a reviewing  Marilyn Monroe movies. Starting with one of the most famous ones of her collection: Gentlemen prefer blondes or as many tend to refer as that Marilyn Monroe movie.

It’s easy to tell from the content of my blog that I’m kind of fond of Marilyn. I’ve written several articles about her, becoming her or drawing her. Here is the list of articles I wrote

How to look like Marilyn Monroe

My Marilyn Monroe make up look

Story of my Marilyn Monroe

Gentlemen prefer blondes:

Gentlemen prefer blondes is a movie older than my grandma. Therefore my own expectations were not very high. I was expecting some old ass, boring, black and white movie starring my favorite blondie and I was bracing myself for bad and cringy filming. I was postponing watching Marilyn Monroes movies because I was afraid that the old production would not be kind to the image of Marilyn I idolized. Never in my wildest dreams were I expecting to laugh and enjoy this movie so much.

Spoilers alert.

Gentlemen prefer blondes is a 1953 movie directed by Howard Hawks starring already mentioned Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Those two names sound so promising and thankfully they did not disappoint.

It’s a simple story about two friends who sings at a cabaret and search for love. With a twist in a stoty, I don’t want to get too much into. Both of the girls have a very different character and I can’t decide who I liked the most.

Marilyn Monroe plays Lorelei Lee. Typical stereotypical blondie. I felt like Marilyn was not even acting as this character was just what general image of Marilyn was. Hot dumb gold digger. I was so pleased with the slow unrevealing of deeper features just like with Marilyn herself.

We get to see how smart and cunning she is. How well aware and ambitious she is. All of the witty comments and actions. Her important innocence that goes hand in hand with her manipulation techniques. Her love for diamonds and the material world as a means to provide for herself. My favorite Lorelei Lee quote I believe summarizes the character the best was this:

I can be smart when it’s important. But most men don’t like it.

-Lorelei Lee/Marilyn Monroe

There were many more quotes that took my breath away and I was not expecting that level of sarcasm in 1953 movie.

While Marilyn is portraying money-loving romantic soul, Jane Russell plays Dorothy Shaw, the quite opposite. Dorothy has different life views as Lorelei. She doesn’t give a damn about money and her loyalty is unshakable. Her friendship with Lorelei grows strong, in spite of the disapproval of Lorelei actions and the same goes the other way around. Dorothy’s cynicism and raw sarcasm are incredible. The chatting between those two girls is clearly not what I was expecting to hear from a ladies from that time.

I was so surprised how progressive and funny the dialogues were.

For a woman from the 50s, I must add.

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Songs were a surprise to be. I only ever heard the basics about the Gentlemen prefer blondes, but never once did I heard about it being referred to as a musical. Or a comedy. Finally, I get to know where are those famous songs from. Diamonds and girls best friend was my favorite performance and song. I honestly had to rewind it a few times. It was like I finally understand some cultural references.

The whole status those 2 ladies represented was empowering. Sure, it was all about getting the man. But how they did it was way ahead of their time. From the title, Gentlemen prefer blondes I was expecting some love triangle, two main characters fighting over a man and the dream guy choosing by the physical appearances in the end. Preferring the blonde. I’m pleased I was mistaken. Ladies are the ones in charge.

I can’t ignore the spectacular costumes.

Sure, I’m a sucker for all the things vintage. But oh my god the outfits. Hot. Classy. Sophisticated. Elegant. Daring. Just wow.

I’m sure the outfits themselves were worth noticing. But I believe that the ladies wearing them added extra glam not only to their characters but to the whole production.

My first Marilyn Monroe movie was watched with a very little soul and it changed my expectation for the rest diametrically. I treated this movie with many prejudices and I was terribly mistaken.

Gentlemen prefer blondes is a great movie and clearly, you don’t have to be a classic movies fan to enjoy it as I did.

    Gentlemen prefer blondes or that Marilyn Monroe movie I've decided to start a new writing chapter for a while. From now on I'm calling it a reviewing  Marilyn Monroe movies.

#50s #blonde #classic movie #gentlemen prefer blondes #jane russell #marilyn monroe #movie review #personal #retro #review #vintage #writing

[kyidyl]

Can we talk about art for a second?

I’m pretty sure none of you are following me for art content because that’s just not what I do normally, but I’ve been working on some stuff and I just wanted to share. Here’s my current WIP:

I’m using sketchbook on my iPad Pro, and...can we just talk about process for a second? I’m gonna put this behind a cut just in case it gets long and because this isn’t my normal content. 

So I’ve been drawing almost my entire life, but I didn’t really start teaching myself anything good until around 9th grade (which is like...14 years old.). I started by copying Disney characters and then I was introduced to comic books and I copied those. I was in college when digital art start making its way into the art world. People would color their pencil drawings (this was shortly before tablets, so...with a mouse.). I grew into an artist around the time people like Aimee Major and Stephanie Lostimolo were really starting to stand out. And I don’t know about other fandoms, but I was in the gargoyles fandom and from what I can tell...a LOT of modern digital art has its genesis in that fandom. Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that I started using photoshop with version 3.0 and I’ve had a Wacom tablet almost since the day they came out (gen one graphire tablet represent!).

I’ve never, in all that time, gotten the hang of digital painting. I have a hard time with tablets because you can’t tilt them like you can tilt a paper and it takes a weird sort of hand-eye-screen coordination that I just never mastered. But digital art is so beautiful that I’ve always WANTED to be able to do it. I can make graphics and edit photos but I have a hard time with painting. I have seen the million myriad ways of doing it, and most of them start with the same idea: lay down flats and then lighten or darken as necessary. And this never worked for me because a, the airbrush tool isn’t painterly enough for me and b, it takes for goddamned EVER. For. Ever. And I’m a fast artist! I can spit out a whole line drawing in like a half hour-45 mins with traditional media. But I have adhd, and so finishing long term large scale detailed projects is often not in the cards for me. So dumping like 48 hours of work time into a painting isn’t going to work for me.

But recently I’ve gotten back into art again and I’ve been watching the sky artist of the year and I decided I was curious about oil painting and, well, one hyperfixation later, here we are. I don’t have the money or space for actual oil painting, so I went to sketchbook to see if there was an alternative, and there is! So because I wanted to learn how to oil paint I finally figured out how to digitally paint and I’m gonna share that with you in case you, like me, struggle with the time input and focus required to do digital art.

First, I started practicing poses by drawing an outline over any image that caught my fancy. I have a good understanding of human anatomy because of my science background, but my poses aren’t creative and I especially struggle with perspective and multiple figures in an image. So I started to do line drawings over an image. Here’s the stock image I used for the WIP:

Look at all that fabric! Look at the movement! I love it. So I traced it:

Yes, TRACED, because tracing is a tool like anything else.

Then I choose colors. I pick 5: a midtone (the color you want the thing to be perceived as. In my case, you can see it in the WIP at the top.), a slight dark, a slight light, a blackened tone for deep shadow, and a very light tone for highlights. I always default to white light when choosing these colors, and I’ll get to my reasoning further down. The palette for the robe looks like this:

(Ignore the tan and blue, they’re for another project)

Then you start to lay down flats. Now, I do this with the synthetic oil brush in sketchbook because I like the texture (this image though I’d laid down the flats with the airbrush months ago and didn’t want to redo it, hence the lack of texture and the 100% opacity.), and as with oils, my approach to digital now is to layer rather than cover. Staying in the lines isn’t important. In fact, you should go outside of the lines because it will help you get shadows and highlights along the edges later. What IS important is putting everything on different layers. When in doubt, new layer. I work from back to front, which means that the base layer is the background. In front of that is the skin, in front of that is the robe, in front of that is the teal inside of the robe, in front of that is accessories. Hair varies depending on what’s going on with the image. Here I’ll probably put it between the skin and robe. Ask yourself: what is this covered by? And the use that to decide layer placement. Special effects are a whole other thing, as are highlights. I’ll get to that in a second tho.

The next step is to create an oversketch. This serves much the same function as an undersketch in oil painting, only in reverse because your reference photo is under - and covered - by your work. I started doing it because as I was painting I was flicking the layer on and off, making it transparent, whatever just to see where the shadows are on the reference image. It was a real pain in the rear. So I started making the blobs and borders of the highlights and shadows with an oversketch. You don’t need a method for telling which boundaries are for shadows and which are highlights because for that you can just turn the layer on and off. Just mark where the General shapes are. Here’s the oversketch for this drawing:

See? Blobs of General Area. When you’re painting, use them to lay down color and then turn them off when you’re blending because they’re not part of the final image and you don’t want to end up with gaps that were covered by the over sketch. To do this, I use the 9b pencil tool and black, but tbh just se whatever you like. That’s just my preference.

Now, for the shading. I started by trying a bunch of different natural media brushes but I eventually ended up sticking on a kind of weird choice: the fan brush. I keep the flow around 20%, which gives me these nice textured marks to lay down color, but then if I don’t lift the pencil up it stops laying down color and instead starts to blend. This means a, I can make it as smooth or painterly as I like with one tool and b, I can paint and blend with the same tool. No more muddying up my drawings by over-blending with the smudge. No losing the texture while blending because it blends with the texture. And the shape of the fan brush allows me to be smudgy with I like, but also will do hard edges. Plus the blending thins out the colors so I can get neat effects by laying down colors on top of each other because it stays a little transparent. You end up needing to lay down a lot of “paint” to get opacity but that’s ok because it allows you to make more complex colors. That’s good, because things like skin aren’t a color. They’re chemical: they’re melanin in cells over blood vessels and muscle and skin is transparent. Even very dark skinned people have undertones. So when you build up paint this way you can capture undertones without ruining your painting. Which, I’m pretty sure, is how it works in oils. But it translates well to digital.

So at this point, painting your image is basically a calming adult coloring book. You lay down color, blend, check your reference, repeat. But a few things to keep in mind:

- Take note of the darkest and lightest areas of the image. Nothing should be lighter or darker than these areas. Nothing in the drawing above will be darker than her back because that’s the darkest area of the painting.

- See the trees and the forest. Sometimes a detail doesn’t make any sense until you’ve seen it in context. Trust your guide and your photo reference. But also make sure that you don’t get so stuck in the details that you can’t relate one area to another. A fold that goes through two areas should be consistent across those two areas, even if you painted them separately. An area might seem dark in comparison to what’s next to it, but it isn’t as dark as the darkest area of the image so don’t go whole hog. Keep it in context.

- Folds in clothing aren’t nonsensical. They are a result of the movement and weight of the fabric. Ergo, the shadows and highlights that create them should also make sense.

- If you’re having a hard time figuring out where the highlights and shadows are, make a copy of the reference image layer and desaturate in, then turn off the colored reference layer.

Lastly, I’m finding it helpful to keep the highlights from colored light on its own layer. I didn’t used to do this, I used to use the colored light as one of my highlight colors. But the truth is that most objects are shaded by more than one light source, and so I’ve decided to do all the shading as white light and then the green (which will eventually be from some kind of green magic.) is on a different layer. My reasoning for this is that it helps keep the integrity of the shading and it prevents the colors from bending too much and getting muddy. So if I add a green highlight and I don’t like it then it’s easy to remove. I don’t have a highlight and shading that’s now ruined by green because I’ve been using light flow brushes. So colored light on its own layer. How much of a highlight you give it entirely depends on how strong your light sources is and whatnot. So far I’m satisfied with just hitting the high points, but I may change that later on.

When you’re done painting the area, go ahead and erase all of the excess paint around the edges of it and clean it up. I like to leave the black outline as part of the image, but if you don’t want to do that you should turn it on and off as necessary while painting so you can make sure to fill in gaps and get clean lines between the areas of color.

So if you made it all the way down here, thanks for reading my ramble. :)

#art #images #painting #digital art #digital painting #method #how to #reference image #sketchbook #ipad painting #ipad #hobbies #drawing #art help