#finally settling better into digital (pencil) sketching

[sasanka-27]

4/327 phantom traveler

#dean winchester #spn fanart #spn #my art #sasanka27 art #supernatural fanart #one sketch from every episode challenge #sketch #digital art #finally settling better into digital (pencil) sketching #this looks more like my on paper ones #yay maybe ill be pro when i reach last episode heh #dean winchester fanart #you can see ispend more time on this #deans first epsiode in suit! thats why i chose this heheh #spn 1x04

[beigehearts]

The Price of Self Respect

Please refer to my master list for the other chapters! There will be ten parts in total, so only four more after this

PART VI

CW:  alcohol consumption, mentions of drugs, murder

1,656 words

____________________________________________

You've gotten to drinking with Uvogin and Shalnark, they somehow provide you a sense of comfort in this weird world you're trapped in. It takes half a bottle of vodka and a few shots until you feel that incessant buzz that ravages your body. The three of you sit around the couch area- playing a game of doubt with just the three of you. Yours and Uvogin's laugh rings loudly through the inn- the owner and son not caring since you guys are the only customers at the moment. Your laughter covers up the cough that Chrollo sounds, trying to get your guy's attention.

When he stands next to the table with cards littered around it, you finally notice him. He examines all of the alcohol paraphernalia and clicks his tongue, "So have you been having fun y/n?" He asks loudly, as if you can't hear him over the sound of your inebriation.

You look at him out of the corner of your eye, having a newfound hatred for him, which is quite a change from before. "Yes."

Shalnark speaks up, "She's a lot of fun Chrollo, I'm glad you brought her here." He looks down at his cards, "And she's really good at cards." He sighs, realizing his chances of winning the game are low.

Chrollo seems to have enough of this conversation, eyeing Uvogin sitting way too close to you. So close that your thighs are touching. "Come on, let's go to bed, you must be tired."

"Actually." You say, "I'm not, so I think I'll finish my game." The alcohol seems to be speaking louder than your voice is.

Without even arguing or protesting, Chrollo grabs you by your bicep, pulling you out of your seat. "It's time for bed." He drags you from the common area with you slurring curses at him. You can hear Uvogin and Shalnark booing him from the other room. Once you reach your room, he slides the door open, and drops you on the tatami mat. You drunkenly groan at the short fall, and crawl towards the futon, pulling the blanket back and trying to maneuver yourself inside of the bed.

"You made friends pretty quickly- especially with the troupe that broke your leg." He taps his foot against the mat, watching you struggle to get under the blankets.

"Yes, they're quite nice, and very informative." Your words blend in with one another and Chrollo strains his ear to discern each word. "I even learned that you're more of a stalker than I thought." Finally you settle into the bed, turning on your side, getting ready to fall asleep.

"Excuse me?" He asks.

"I don't appreciate you trying to seduce me after having kept notes on me for almost two years." You sigh, closing your eyes to go to sleep.

You quickly notice the anger in his voice, he's not able to hide it. "I don't appreciate you hanging all over Uvogin either." He sits down cross legged next to you, "Honestly I don't appreciate you flirting with other men."

You take your chance to get under his skin, "It's easier to connect with people who don't know every detail about you."

"You're upset because I love you?"

You open one eye, looking up at him, "You have a twisted view on love."

You don't remember much of the end of the conversation, falling asleep during what you think was an argument. You rise with the sun, it blinding you in the early morning. Strong arms hold you close, too tightly to even move your hips in his grasp. A dull pain pulses through your head, with an endless sense of nausea to accompany it. The night before was fun- though you're not sure that the hangover is worth it. You tap your hand against Chrollo's and speak lightly, "Let me go, I need to shower." As if clockwork, he lets go and flips on his other side.

Before you go to the shared showers, you stand on the deck outside of your room, admiring the authentic rock garden, the water glistening and wind temporarily relieving your headache.

The shower's are nice, towels, robes, and indoor slippers are provided. You undress, dropping your clothes next to one of the stalls. Stepping into the warm water you let out a sigh of relief, thanking life for this sweet relief.

The door opens and you hear another person repeating the routine you've already performed. When you step out after finishing scrubbing your body, a woman steps out of her stall simultaneously. Her hair is in a short black bob, and has a towel wrapped around her bust, hanging just below her waist. You recognize her, you must have seen her last night. Ah that's right, she came into the common room late in the night, and Shalnark introduced her.

"Hi Shizuku." She nods at you, not bothering to speak.

The both of you stand in front of the lockers, putting on the complimentary robes and slippers.

Before you leave the room she clears her throat, "Would you like medicine for your hangover?" She asks.

You send a smile her way and nod.

---------------------

With a cup of hot tea in your hand, you watch the sunrise from the deck of your room, a slight drizzle misting and blurring your view. You can see the sun peeking through the clouds, providing little light. You don't flinch when Chrollo sits down next to you, grabbing the other cup and pouring himself a cup of tea.

"Good morning y/n." He says with a smile, and the plants a kiss on your cheek as if you didn't fight and he didn't threaten to kill his troupe members and blame it on you last night.

You hum in response and continue gazing out at the rock garden, admiring the koi fish and seeing the steam just past the garden, indicating where the hot springs are. Maybe you should sit in the springs, it might make you feel better.

"Last night, I'm sorry for getting so angry." Chrollo breaks the silence. "But don't ever be so friendly with another man. Ever." His jealousy is practically seeping through his every pore, and you know when he says not to be friendly he means it. You know he's not bluffing about hurting someone for being so kind to you.

"You're ridiculous." His eyebrows are enough to show his intrigue in your statement, "You watch me for so long, noting my every move, until you kidnap me. You seduce me and then get upset when I'm angry after finding out about this." You look his way, "You really expect me to return your affection?"

He doesn't respond to your question- knowing it is rhetorical. You're right. And you don't even know about half the things he's done for you- so imagine how you would react if you found out about that. Not well that's for sure. He takes time to process your words, swirling them around in his head so he can bend them to fit his reality he's made.

Dropping the subject completely he states, "We're leaving in twenty minutes, we have a van to fit all of us. We have a mission nearby, I'm going to need your help."

"Why should I help you?"

He frowns, "I can take your nen ability instead if you wish. "

That shuts you up, standing up and heading to grab something to eat from the continental breakfast before you go anywhere.

Fitting all of you into the van is difficult to say the least. Fitting Uvogin, Nobunaga, and Franklin in is practically a miracle. They are definitely going to have back pain once you get out of the van. Chrollo drives and you sit in the back with Machi and Shizuku. You aren't sure exactly of what you're needed for but you'll do whatever is asked of you in order to keep your nen to yourself.

Two hours of laughter and griping from the large men, you all finally stumble out of the van and onto the pavement. There's a large warehouse, and it reeks of marijuana. It must be a dispensary.

"Y/n you need to draw a key that can fit to any lock. I would have the door broken down but there's no physical way of doing that and it's loud. And it's not digital locking so Shalnark can't get us through it."

On command you conjure a pencil, sketching out a key with a malleable end. It begins materializing and everyone watches as it turns from pencil sketches in the air into a real gold key. Only you can use it since it's built from your nen, so Chrollo leads you to a heavy duty door. You put the key into one of the locks, forcing the key to bend and then harden into the shape of the lock. You repeat this three more times and watch as the troupe goes ahead. When you step into the building Chrollo stops you and points to the van.

"Make sure no one comes out, and if they do, eliminate them." You nod hesitantly, and head back to the van, hopping into the driver's seat. You hear gun shots, screaming, and pleas from inside but you have no choice but to listen to the genocide that's being put into play by the man who kidnapped you and claims to love you.

Thoughts of driving away, escaping, and running off enter your brain, but it's not like it would mean anything. They could find you in a matter of seconds if you did.

You come up with a plan on having Chrollo and the troupe trust you and maybe even willingly give you your freedom. You will just have to reciprocate his love until he thinks you love him. But the problem is that you already have feelings for him, maybe Stockholm syndrome will catch up with you first.

#hunterxhunter #hxh #chrollo #chrollo lucilfer #yandere chrollo #chrollo x reader #yandere

[alightbuthappypen]

#ShowYourProcess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I was tagged by @milkcrates​ for the ‘Yanli visits the Burial Mounds’ piece. Please have a look at her process post and basically all her gorgeous art if you haven’t already. 

I don’t follow all that many people and I think most have already done this, plus tumblr likes to hide people’s stuff from me, plus I’m really bad at remembering usernames and connecting them to creations, so I couldn’t come up with five (but I’m almost certainly going to have forgotten people so please don’t be offended, wow who knew tag games could be so anxiety-inducing) - but:

@heuheu-art for this piece

@sketchyscribbles for this piece

@shuang-hua for this piece

No obligation, of course! 

1. Planning

I don’t tend to do a lot of pre-sketches, though it’s probably a habit I should get into. Instead I mull over scenarios/composition a lot in my head before putting anything down ‘on paper’. In this case I’d seen a lot of Yanli content on my dash for the birthday event, realised I’d never drawn her, and decided I wanted to. Then I went through a number of different ‘scenes’ before deciding on the most bittersweet, because that’s just who I am. I think I’d seen more than one commentary on how she had never met Yuan (but would love him), and that’s what stuck. 

Originally I’d thought about something much more ambitious - more characters, I think I’d contemplated the Wen siblings and/or Lan Wangji being around at various points - but for the sake of my sanity I scaled it back, and I think it ultimately worked out better for it.

2. Creation

I do everything in Krita on a Cintiq 16, using the in-built brushes (a couple of pencil ones, and most often a pastel one for colour). I’ve only been drawing digitally for just over a year, after decades of using traditional media, so my methods are still very traditional with the additional perks of cleaner erasing, resizing, and having separate layers for line and colour. 

 The very first thing I think about before drawing a line is the colour palette. I try to keep this pretty limited, and always start with the background - sometimes I pick a colour to suit the scene location, sometimes the mood I’m going for, but mostly as in this case it’s a combination of the two. 

My preference is actually to block out figures with a single flat colour first and then sketch over the top of it - I find this works best to get a sense of space and proportion as quickly as possible - but in this case the foreshortening and position of the figures made that difficult (ie. the silhouette of Yanli and Yuan is basically just a blob) so I went straight into the sketch:

I think this contributed to the proportional...issues I had, later on, but oh well.

I tend to look for references on the go, or make do with ones I’ve collected for previous drawings, and can be pretty lazy about it - for this one I had several references to hand of Xiao Zhan/Wei Wuxian in profile, so that was easy enough, but hardly any of Yanli. This meant her face got redrawn a lot - a lot - before I settled on something I was happy with.

The above is the final linework layer minus the colour layer. This went through some painful corrections, mainly of Yanli’s position and clothing, even after colouring. I’m very shy about showing WIPs to other people but this was the first piece I’ve actually asked for feedback on at the WIP stage, and I do think it really helped. 

When the broad linework is done I put colour on a layer underneath: a fairly flat ‘wash’, followed by a second shade to mark out areas of shadow, then third for highlights. 

(You can see some of the things I changed later after applying colour in the image above, RIP me)

Then I go back to the line layer and work up the detailed shading on there:

Lastly are final, sharper highlights with a pencil brush.

I tend not to mess around with image effects or any of that clever post-production stuff: maybe one day I’ll learn how to make images look their best when viewed on a screen, but today is not that day.

3. Posting

My worst habit is chucking a piece onto the internet immediately after finishing it (or thinking I’ve finished it) and then panicking hours, sometimes days later when I notice something I want to change. With this piece I vowed not to do that, and did manage to let it sit for 24 hours, allowing me to come at it with fresh eyes to fix various things before presenting it to the world. 

Of course there are still things I think I could have done better when I look at it now, but I’m trying to see this as an ongoing learning experience so that the next piece will be better, rather than a reason for self-flagellation.

Anyway this is already way too long, so I’ll leave it there!

#showyourprocess #tag game #art process #my art

[alittlenarnian]

An Artist and her Person

Peter x Reader, Modern Au. Reader is an artist who doesn’t realise her best friend is flirting with her until she catches it on film during a project.

L/n = your last name

Happy reading!

Y/n L/n had always been an artist. Most of her best childhood memories involved sitting at her Grandma’s kitchen table, cutting, gluing, painting, moulding, drawing and making. In high school, she took all the art electives. Pencils, paints, pastels, digital art, photography, textiles, she loved it all. After graduating, Y/n had enrolled in an art school.

Y/n’s best friend Peter Pevensie was not an artist. He appreciated art, sure, but his own attempts never turned out quite right. So Peter stuck to his strengths, and enrolled in a social sciences course at University. As an added benefit, Y/n’s art school was just down the road, so he was always there to support her.

Peter was the most supportive best friend in the world. Any time she showed him a work in progress, he’d say something like, wow! That’s amazing Y/n! and she’d reply you always say that Peter. It’s not even done yet! but his encouragement meant the world to her.

Any time Y/n needed a model for a project, she’d call Peter. Reference photos for a character sketch, someone to sit for a painting, a model for a portraiture photography project, someone to point lights at to figure out where the light should fall in her latest piece. Whatever she needed, Peter would be there. He pretended to be annoyed, come on Y/n, you really gotta make more friends, but he was always glad to help.

Peter honestly actually enjoyed being Y/n’s subject. She was so passionate about her work, and when she was in the zone, she’d boss him around, shirt off Pevensie, hurry up, and compliment him, perfect. Just gorgeous, and she’d be oblivious when he flirted with her, thanks, L/n. You’re not so bad yourself, you know. – Great, just tilt your chin that way a bit more.

 Y/n’s latest project was an ambitious multimedia piece, involving a few different models, photography, as well as video footage and several other elements. Peter didn’t really understand it, but he was happy to help, as usual. He walked into the studio where Y/n was just finishing up with the previous model. She had several cameras on tripods set up, and another on a strap around her neck.

“Great work. Thanks. I think I’ve got everything I need from you, so feel free to head off when you’re ready. There’s makeup wipes on the table if you need them.”

“Afternoon, L/n,” Peter called.

“Ah! Peter, just in time. Come over and sit down. We’re going to do your face first and then we’ll get going.” Y/n was clearly in the zone.

Her hand was firm on his chin as she applied various things to his face, and the closeness was definitely not affecting her the same way it was affecting him. Peter’s heart was pounding. If he got this close to her outside the studio she’d be a blushing mess. This confident side of her only came out in the studio, and it was part of the reason he loved being her model.

“Lotta cameras today, L/n.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I want you to ignore most of them. Just pretend it’s a normal photoshoot, play to my camera. I’ll give you instructions as we go.”

Y/n finishes with his face, and soon they’re travelling on as usual. Y/n giving orders, complimenting Peter, Peter flirting back and Y/n being oblivious. Soon they were finished and Y/n was giving Peter the same brusque send off.

“Still up for lunch tomorrow, Y/n?”

“Lunch?” Y/n extracted herself from thoughts of her project for long enough to process what he’d said. “Oh, lunch, yeah. I’ll see you there.”

 Y/n finishes up in the studio late that afternoon, and takes the SD cards out of each of the cameras to take home and start reviewing the raw footage. She fixes herself some pasta for dinner, and starts watching the footage, taking notes of shots and time stamps. It’s almost 10:00pm when she gets up to the footage of Peter.

The pen in Y/n’s hand stops moving as she hears Peter’s flirting, really hears it, for the first time. The audio sounds weird and far away because she hadn’t hooked a microphone up, not needing the audio from the session for her project, but she can still hear the way he responds to her instructions and encouragement, and she can definitely see the way he looks at her.

She realises with a start that she hasn’t taken any notes for Peter’s session. She starts the footage again, and manages to get a few notes this time, before she’s distracted by the look on Peter’s face as she scrolls through the shots on her camera. She tries again and is distracted by Peter’s little smirk when she tells him, looking good Pevensie, and he replies, same to you L/n.

 Y/n woke up groggy the next morning.

Eventually she’d skipped Peter and come back to him when she’d finished with the rest of the footage. She’d left her notes unfinished sometime after 1am. Her heart had been pounding and her hands had been getting shaky, so she decided she’d better call it a night. She’d lain awake for what felt like hours before she finally dropped off to sleep.

Y/n dragged herself out of bed and headed to kitchen. She needed coffee. It was then that she remembered it was Tuesday, and she was meant to be grabbing lunch with Peter later, and the thought made her heart pound again.

Could she cancel? She could say she barely slept. It wouldn’t be a lie after all. Why did she even want to cancel? Peter was her best friend. She loved hanging out with him. But the thought of hanging out with him today was making her heart do weird things and she didn’t know what it meant or what to do about it.

So she texted Peter, saying I was up all night working on the project, and now I don’t feel well. Mostly true. Are you free for lunch tomorrow instead?

Peter replied a few minutes later. Not tomorrow, but I could do Thursday if you’re free?

Thursday it is. Thanks Peter. You’re the best.

No worries, Y/n. Look after yourself J

 Two days later and Y/n’s heart is still misbehaving, but she doesn’t want to cancel on Peter again. She finds herself standing in front of her open wardrobe, feeling her various tops and sweaters and trying to figure out what to wear.

What is going on with me? I’ve never had this problem before. It’s just Peter.

She finally settles on an outfit, finishes fiddling with her hair, and puts on a bit of mascara. Not too much make up. Don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard. Because I’m not.

 Peter is waiting outside their favourite lunch spot. Y/n sees him notice her as she walks up, and his face breaks into a smile, and she’s trying to smile back but her heart is leaping around and her stomach is fluttering and she’s not sure but she thinks her smile might have come out as a grimace.

“You look cute, Y/n,” says Peter as he hugs her, and she’s praying he can’t feel what her heart is doing through her sweater.

They sit down to lunch, and Peter can tell his best friend is nervous about something. He asks about her project in an effort to get her mind off whatever is bothering her, but she just blushes more, and mumbles something about footage.

“Okay, Y/n. Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

“Nothing’s-”

“We’ve been best friends for eight years. Don’t try to tell me there’s nothing bothering you, because I can see right through you.”

Y/n stares at him for a moment, unsure whether she should say what she’s about to say. Her heart protests, but she decides to say it anyway.

“I was watching the footage from your session.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You flirted with me a lot...”

“Yeah.”

“…and it kind of just sounds like mindless flirting…”

“Ouch.”

“…but then you also give me this look whenever I look away and I don’t know what to think or feel about it.”

Peter smiles. “You should think, ‘oh, my handsome best friend of eight years is totally in love with me.’ What you feel is up to you.”

Y/n stutters for a moment, and Peter figures now is as good a time as any to come clean.

He tells her how much he loves being a model for her, because he gets to see her doing what she’s passionate about. He tells her how good she looks when she’s frowning in concentration, and how gorgeous it is when she’s struck with inspiration and gets all excited. If I were an artist, he says, you’d be my muse.

Her heart is still skipping wildly in her chest, and she wonders, is this what love feels like?

Y/n L/n is a person who sees art and beauty everywhere. Peter Pevensie is not an artist, but now, through his eyes, Y/n is finally seeing the art in herself.

That night she watches the footage again, smiling giddily, know that Peter Pevensie means every word he says, and more.

#took me 10 minutes to come up with a title #i hate titles #ugh #peter pevensie #high king peter #peter pevensie x reader #peter x reader #narnia #The Chronicles of Narnia #narnia fanfic #narnia modern au

[sysig]

Requestober: Vargas Edition

Day 3. I really liked Edgar’s face, clearly. It’s too bad I couldn’t draw Scriabin right behind him for the final version since Edgar was sitting but at least I got to draw it here. They’re both a bit catlike!

Bonk ✨

My original idea(s) for Day 6′s “Fluff” theme kept turning out silly instead of fluffy so I had to scrap them, so have a concept version of Scriabin picking on Edgar by calling him a teratophile lol (He’s referring to himself of course)

So many notes lol, I do still want to redo this one, I can’t let go of how much I like the hand positioning, somehow using a prop made it more dynamic, who’d’ve thought haha

And then what I finally settled on for Fluff. I had to move Scriabin back a good bit for the digital sketch to better see Todd, always so center-frame ♥

My only sketch note for this one was two arrows pointing towards both of them and just “closer” - Walk closer! They are in the digital version so I’m happy. I had to consider how to include Shmee too, since Todd was there. I felt like Scriabin wouldn’t want to hold him directly haha

Day 23, cute costume time!! I grabbed details from a few different sources before settling on anything, and it was so fun to draw pirate stuff again ♪ I wasn’t expecting to get so emotionally invested in the ninja costume but drawing a gi top made me feel so nostalgic, ah. I also forgot which side laid over which until I mimed putting mine on and realized I’d drawn it wrong - my references lied to me! I still ended up getting it wrong in the final version lol, just chalk it up to a cheap costume. What belt would Edgar have, hmm...

Basically all my notes are just iterations of “cute” lol. I was planning on adding toy weapons to the final version and then I forgot lol. I liked the idea of him showing off, tiny happies ♪

The sketch that would become the final version! I wasn’t having the best drawing day so I knew I wanted to change Scriabin’s pose a good bit but getting anything down to paper to use as a base was the real goal here lol. The pumpkin originally had a little pressed-in jack-o-lantern face, I used to have one of those ♪

Even after I drew the final version I still wanted to draw them being cute hehe. Scriabin’s just like “More candy for me thx.” How many Oos and Aas do you suppose they got dressed so? The cutest kids

And then right into Diaryfic for Day 24! Yay. His arm did originally say “Scriabin” but I scratched it out a little too much and it just looks like messy crosshatching now lol. I was intending to go quite ambitious for this one and try to make a storyboard, and then I realized that if I wanted to post it anytime close to the date, I had to skip out this time :’D A lot changed between the sketch and the final version anyway, so even if I didn’t get to do that, I’m glad I spent my time polishing it. And I did get to do a little bit of animation!

Day 29. I haven’t drawn Johnny seriously since like, 2013 lol. I did forget that his shirt was fun to draw! Flap flap. I kinda just let my pencil loose to try and get some of the energy that these three in one room would generate lol. I quite liked how much motion ended up in their hair, stress floofs!

Ah yes, the Draw The Squad. I waffled on this one for-approximately-ever, not least of all trying to figure out which would be which in the main duo, who would give either of them a low five?? Each of them has a note-title, the first one being “Is literally anyone in the story happy about this??” and the second’s “Congrats for growing a pair lol” Honestly I even considered Shmee being the third wheel since at least he can see just how many concessions they’d have to make to get to that point, but it was too ridiculous lol

Day 31′s prompt was “Edgar and Scriabin holding each other and/or kissing” and like - you can’t encourage me like that, I have negative control when it comes to them being sweet to each other, as evidenced, to the point where I didn’t even use any of these, I made all of these based on the prompt and it still wasn’t enough! Lol. The first set was just my brain running away with the thought of if Edgar could comfortably initiate a kiss, he tends to channel his nervousness into aggression so what if he was feeling calm? A big ask lol. I didn’t mean to make the last one so sensual but I’m not mad about it so lol. The sleepy one was specifically inspired by the final scene from You Can’t Live Like This, I love that one ♥

Since you asked you didn’t here’s a doodle from my other notebook from when the tenderness just took over for a bit, completely unrelated, just yet more proof of not being able to stop myself lol

And that’s all the Vargas Requests! :D I had fun with them!

#Requestober #Vargas #Blood #Vargas had enough sketches to qualify for its own separate post lol #Of course #Even if there had been more non-Vargas requests I still sketched a lot more Vargas stuff lol #Anyhow yes do be aware of blood for the Diaryfic sketch :0 The rest are all quite tame tho #Also there's quite a lot of Edgar/Scriabin so look out for that lol #I almost certainly had the most fun with the costumes one uwu Love me some cute clothes!! #By volume of sketches tho I'd have to say it's tied with the tenderness roughs - a bit more for the latter actually #But that has an unfair advantage 'cause I have a backlog of unfinished doodles already - cheating! #They're tied for Actual Requestober Prompts #Anyway I did my usual blocks of text per image lol enjoy my rambles

[blackcomicsanubis]

San Diego to you: Can you make your very own comics.

Do you have what it takes to make your comics? You most likely can do it if you only understood just how. Based upon some of the jobs that obtain published, I'm pretty confident that anybody can make their publication. It's the procedure that avoids many people.

 You don't need to benefit from Wonder or DC to make your very own comic book. The days are over when the ranking amateur could not create as well as publish their job. There are a few points that you need. Initially, you require a tale to tell. Next, you require to recognize how to function a pencil. And finally, you need access to an As-needed Publisher. Demand Publishing is the great equalizer in the Net Period.

 With these essential components, anybody can make a comic book with their very own two hands and also bring it to the market for the masses. We will broaden on these points.

 Story:

Characters, as well as the story, go hand in hand. You require characters to drive your story and a story to give your personalities something to do. This "something to do" must be the motivation for your characters. Your suggestion needs to progress into a path that takes your personality from one story point to the following. I like to utilize a simple outline to organize my story ideas. After that, I expand on as well as detail the tale series. During this procedure, I am thinking of a discussion. Your tale (at this point) begins looking much like a manuscript. Once you have your "manuscript," you're ready to convert it into comics artwork.

 Drawing:

I jokingly stated earlier that anyone that can function a pencil could make black comics characters. The truth is that the capacity to draw is a property, yet not a need. There are numerous comic books available where the artwork is less than outstanding, yet the tales keep people checking out. There are additionally significant musicians that can not create a compelling tale.

 Expert comic books are made with the cooperation of many people. There is usually a person who creates, one more than pencils, one more than inks, an additional that letters and so on ... However, since you're doing this all yourself, you do not have that high-end. You're a one-person/woman program, and its success relaxes all on your shoulders.

 Numerous comics authors include in their scripts what is to enter each panel of a comics web page. That's a proper method if you have a page matter limit. I'm not particularly eager to do that. With On-Demand publishing, there is no limit, but I'll reach that in a bit. My approach is to quickly sketch the web pages complying with the script and let them develop naturally. I enable adjustments if I think of a far better concept while I'm drawing.

 After the mapping out procedure is completed, consisting of dialogue, reviewed it through to see just how it looks and make sure the tale can be complied with as you meant. If it is to your preference, you can begin the procedure of settling your pencils. Once that is done, you can ink your job.

 Inking ought to be performed with black inking pens that are available in several line weights. Technique inking on duplicates of your last penciled drawings. Once you have finished inking your work and have a completed Comic Book, you need to establish an account with an On-Demand Author.

 Posting:

On-Demand Publishing is reasonably brand-new as well as has ended up being the great equalizer. I advise an On-Demand Author like Createspace to establish your free account and make your book offered up for sale. As Needed Publishing is a procedure wherein you submit your book digitally to the As-needed Author. Your book goes on sale at Amazon.com and some other places. When someone buys it, the as-needed publisher prints it and ships it to them. You, consequently, get paid a nobility on each copy marketed. With these standard components and a little understanding of the process, anybody can make your very own comic book.

[belladonnaandulriched]

the artist | prologue

something that began life with my encounters with joey belladonna on instagram last fall and this past spring (before they turned into qvc 2.0 in late october, that is). i thought of him, as well as the time i wrote a letter to lars and the three years chris was in my periphery. thus, this is actually somewhat autobiographical as well as my watching the world unfurl right before my eyes in the year 2020. joey, lars, and i are alive in this terror-filled nightmare that chris never saw, and i cherish every second the two of them are continuing to walk the earth with me. consider it a testament of our survival that we have reached the final 30 days of this year unscathed.

i’m also looking ahead to after the pandemic, how the world might manifest in the virus’ wake after looking at history with the world-changing diseases like spanish flu, smallpox, and the black plague, as well as civil unrest and the existential threat that is climate change. i will admit that i have no idea where we all will be in 5 years time, but i can guarantee that no nation was the same following those events, especially since the united states was seemingly on the brink of destruction for a few years preceding the pandemic. it’s kind of like what sci-fi writers of the early 20th century did with the advent of the nuclear bomb as well as space travel.

at this point, with 20 chapters left to write, i hold the artist right up with now it’s dark, amped and wired, and black diamonds. it’s me living in a world that has collapsed and we’re all living in the unknown; it’s me wondering which step to take next with the three men i adore near me. it’s not on the same level of agony with my dead trilogy fics, the mirror never lies, or my original work black rain (which i wrote as a goodbye to chris), but it’s... it’s definitely there.

anyways, enjoy! xoxo

He was a tall lithe gentleman with those lush dark curls strewn over his shoulders as though they were the sides of a mane. The way he moved about on a stage with either that shiny mint green guitar cradled in his hands as though it were a naked woman, or the microphone as though it were about to get away from him was enough for me to pick up a pencil. I wanted to touch and caress his black curls, to put them down on paper. He was what I referred to as “draw-able” in that I always returned to him for inspiration.

I swore that it wasn't a phase—I tried to convince my dad that it wasn't a phase, even when I showed him my first drawing of Chris. I was proud of the drawing, too: it was rough and sketchy, and yet you could tell it was him with those long shoulder length curls behind his back and down over his collar bones. I had used a single pencil to draw him as well.

“Holly, you've gotta do something else with your art,” he said to me that first time. “You've got to do some more still life.”

I often heard that a few times thereafter, even as I did more studies of Chris singing and in different stances to understand his anatomy a little better. It always struck me as odd that my art wasn't more embraced at home growing up, even though my parents were more than happy to support me in my path to art school. My dad showed me the one school down in Portland. I wanted to stay there in Tacoma, even with Chris and his band based up in Seattle.

At some point, and by that, I mean a few months before I graduated, to work my way around that complaint, I began incorporating more plants into my drawings of him. More roses and more leaves jutting out from his shoulders and from the crown of his head. I kept those drawings to myself, granted I knew if I shared them with the household they wouldn't be seen as serious art.

One time when I strolled into an art shop for some colored pencils and I had my sketchbook tucked underneath my arm, I went in under the power of a secret. I had climbed off the bus before the one outside of my house. I protected my sketchbook from the soft spring misty rain of the Northwest. I had a few dollars in my pocket, money left over from the stimulus money I had scrounged up. Just enough for some new colored pencils for some more botanical type work for my drawings.

I'm the multiracial kid with the kinky coarse black hair inherited by a Native American mama and the pale skin from my half white daddy. It had been a long road to hoe the past few years in the wake of the pandemic, especially for my mom and me. She and I had been dealing with it with a bit more difficulty from my dad, since he was the one with the job, at least at first. Even though I was a few years younger by the time we got our check, I got one for myself and I made sure the money stretched enough to whenever we got another one.

Even with my drawing pad under my arm, and the introduction of my digital drawing tablet, I had days where it felt like I needed to do something a bit more useful.

It was from all of the times I heard my dad's criticisms about my art in the past. Add to this, the uncertainty from living through a global pandemic and social reset made me wonder where we all would go from the second the dust settled. I needed to rest my head so much following even the smallest projects. I had witnessed the older generation pushed to its brink and stragglers such as myself found themselves at square one for so long that it was difficult to know which way to go. I was always told that I needed something feasible, something to keep me safe. But the pandemic showed that nothing was safe.

Even in my spare time, or in the times I took a day off from drawing, I found myself seeking solace in reading about things like science and of course, listening to music. For years, I found myself leaning more towards the harder side of the rock n' roll world: Soundgarden was the first band I had found, but then there came along Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains. It helped that they hailed from the north of us, so it made sense to me to find them.

But then there was Metallica and Anthrax.

I would sit on the floor of the living room before my stereo with the radio tuned to the modern rock station nearby, and with my earphones in my ears; I would sit there with my drawing pad cradled in my lap and let the music be my master. I came for the scene to the north, but I found my way to the heavy stuff.

I had used a little bit of the stimulus money to buy myself a couple of albums, on part of the recommendation of the chick in the record store of course.

Those swirling powerful but simple drums riddled throughout the Black Album. So simple and yet so strong and with such prowess, perfect for the spine of the music. That strong and exotically beautiful voice from Spreading the Disease. I wanted to touch that voice, to put it and cement it down into something like paper. I was enthralled by the power and prowess of heavy metal.

I scoured the channels of Tumblr to see and study their faces, to see Lars and his long lush brown hair and fuzz about his face, to see Joey and his long beautiful black curls and handsome face, to see them all. And yet I still found my way back to Chris. I still found my way back to him and that unique voice. So deep and full in places and yet unafraid to howl.

And yet I felt so far behind them, a teenage girl from a lower end family and with mixed roots. A girl with parents working so hard that they almost ignore the very craft she was proud of.

I wanted to draw him with roses, complete with the lush red and orange petals. Thus I headed to the little store for some new colored pencils—those good ones that come in all manner of shades of color in a silvery tin. I brought my sketchbook along with me to try them out before I bought them for myself. I already had sketched a portrait of Chris himself but I left him as is so as to fill him out later on.

I stepped into the front of the shop and stripped off my hood. I ran my fingers through my coarse black hair and then unbuttoned my jacket: I looked down at the linoleum floor underneath me. My jeans were falling apart: the waist fitted me a little too well at that point and the hems were tattered. My mom vowed to fix them for me, but when the fabric stores were all closed during the pandemic, it was difficult to find anything that could help us.

I shuffled across the shiny linoleum to the aisle with the colored pencils and the nice paints. I stood before the display case and scanned the tins and boxes before me to find anything that would catch my eye.

I was still adjusting to the world following the pandemic: there was a part of me that wanted to stroke my chin in pensive thought but after hearing all of the talk on not touching your face, a part of me continued to resist that very tidbit. I spotted a box of Prismacolor pencils, seventeen of them to be exact.

Seventeen, and as smooth as butter and right within the budget of twenty dollars in my pocket.

I set my sketchbook down on the shelf so I could open the box and reveal those pencils, and I hoped to see them as sharp and new as I would ever see them. I'm usually easy going on all of my tools just out of the nature of the price range, but I wanted to make the roses on Chris as bold and fiery of red as possible. I took out the scarlet red one and opened the sketchbook for the inside cover and I paid no attention to the fact I held the box, open end sideways. Three pencils slid out from under me.

“For crying out loud,” I muttered to myself as I closed the cover and stooped down to fetch them.

“I hope those are nice ones,” a voice caught my ear behind me. I turned around to find him looming right there with me. The most stray tendrils of his inky black hair were tousled a bit even as he sprawled over his collar bones and the front of his black raincoat. I stood upright to meet up with his gaze: he towered over me, such that I could make out the sight of the first sprigs of hair sprouting upon the underside of his chin.

“Easy there,” he cautioned me, which he accompanied with a raising of his hands.

“It's alright,” I assured him, “social distancing hasn't been a thing in quite a while.”

“Nah, I don't mean that—I don't want you to drop any more pencils.”

“Oh!” I fetched up the pencils I had dropped on the floor and then closed up the box before I drop any more. He grinned at me, and I followed his gaze to the sketchbook perched atop the shelf.

“Is that yours, too?” he asked me.

“Why—yes.” I wasn't even flustered and yet I felt it even by his gestures and that gaze from those eyes. He stood so close to me, even with the pandemic behind us. I felt my face growing warm as I took the sketchbook off of the shelf. I forgot I still had it open to that sketched drawing of him; when I took it off of the shelf, I held the drawing of his face right before my chest.

He gasped right as I held it before me.

“Is—Is that me?” he inquiringly asked me in a soft voice.

“Huh?” I clutched at the sketchbook and held the drawing away from him.

“I don't wanna—be rude or intrusive or anything,” he swore to me. My face bloomed with warmth. It had been so long since I showed anyone one of my drawings from my sketchbook, much less anyone outside of my family. I whirled around to see the tender expression upon his face: his eyebrows raised a bit and his head bowed enough for me to wonder if he was flirting with me or not. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and sighed through his nose.

I swallowed and then, gingerly, I turned the sketchbook towards him.

He lowered his eyebrows and brought a hand to his mouth as if he was shocked.

“Oh,” he breathed, “oh, wow, that's wonderful. I love the roses.”

I shrugged.

“I just felt you could use roses,” I confessed to him.

“I love it,” he admitted as he lowered his hand from his mouth. “I'd love to see it when it's colored in.”

“I gotta get some pencils first, though.”

“Have at it, girlie.” He gestured his open palm towards me as if giving me his blessing. I decided on the Prismacolor pencils—I also didn't see anything else that caught my attention. Within time, I made my way up front to break those twenty dollars even. I kept my sketchbook out in the open and I assured the young peppy clerk that I had already opened it and long paid for it. He lingered near the cash register and eyed the ceramic supplies at the front there. I never thought I would've met him there in that art shop and at such a strange time. I wondered if I could make my rapport with him as I paid for the pencils and awaited the change from the clerk there before me.

He met up with me on the other side with a pensive look on his squarish face. I slipped the pencils and the sketchbook into the plastic bag in hand so as to protect both from the incoming rain. I felt myself blushing again at the sight of him: it didn't help matters that he continued to tower over me.

“What's your name?” he asked me, that pensive look still riddled upon his face.

“Holly. As in Hollywood.”

“Hollywood…” He grinned at me. He took out the little burner phone from his jacket pocket: such a sight to see, what with technology the way it had progressed to that point.

“Holly Sherman is my whole name...” My voice trailed off as I watched him open the address book up to a fresh page for a fresh number.

“You want my number, don't you,” I teased him.

“Well, yeah. When the drawing's colored in, I wanna see it.”

I could not resist that offer, and it was that very moment I knew I would have something on my hands. I would have something on my hands even in the wake of the pandemic.

#the artist #the artist fanfic #the artist chapters #prologue #at land's end #at land’s end series #fanfic #fanfiction #chris cornell #chris cornell fanfic #sci fi #sci fi writing #coronapocalypse #corona world order #fan writing #writing #text

[juleswolverton-hyde]

It’s November, but I still want you part 3

Genre: Drama, romance, smut (eventually), werewolf AU, art school AU

Pairing: Artist!Jimin / Werewolf!Jimin x Reader

Warning: Mention of mating and knotting, toxic relationships

Summary: A first love is always bittersweet, but this time it is perchance the hardest pill to swallow. Especially when the aftermath can still be felt years after.

In the month of November.

Author’s Note: I sincerely apologize for the long period of waiting for this fanfic to finally update or announce it is discontinued. However, as you can see, the latter does, fortunately, not apply. Henceforth, I would like to say this fic is still up and running with this chapter likely being the second-to-last one. It is time to wrap up some old projects.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 (yet to be written)

Masterlist

Two autumns without sketching the falling dying leaves together, three winters without sharing warm beverages in the usual spot in the same coffee shop every day, three springs eyes beheld the fall of cherry blossom without him and three summers passed with so much as a word.

Ever since the young artist left, nobody closely connected to him has seen the lad. Classes went by unattended, fingers nervously and softly ticking a pencil against the table surface in the exact spot that would have formed the workspace of the one who walked away for the safety of the heart it hurt. However, what was not given a thought at the time, was that the flight inflicted more harm than when everything had been as of old and the night we first laid down as lovers remained cloaked in silence.

Stayed our forbidden fruit.

Even during graduation, the raven-haired creator was not there to celebrate the end of endless study hours stained with paint, charcoal and cramped digits. Not even the six guys with whom a group of brothers was formed had the knowledge concerning the whereabouts of the wolf boy. Nevertheless, something had tainted sincerity for the older ones’ attitude stirred up a deep-rooted sense of suspicion within, but it could also have meant nothing at all. Regardless of the truth, they tried to remain in contact and lighten the mood as much as possible, elevating the gloom left behind by the dear friend turned lover turned... away.

Limits were pushed too much, the warnings and pleads should have been heeded but the mind was too naive to notice the danger lurking beneath the mask of a familiar face, skin flushed with the anticipation to have fingertips grab it tightly and possessively by the small hands that had held even smaller ones throughout many sleepless nights. The animalistic behaviour that needed to be repressed was foolishly underestimated, leading us to ruin.

Jimin has never had to carry the blame for the situation because the mistake is entirely that of the individual who thought to be able to handle what clearly could not be. The mirror shows the reminder of devastating stubbornness daily, still adorning the neck in the form of two pieces of jewellery. The gift that has become the last physical memory of a beautiful moment in life. One thin bronze chain with a crescent moon pendant made of the same metal hanging from it and one chain that is a tad longer and made of a mixture between silver and gold with a handcrafted wolf pendant crafted from tiger's eye matrix.

Only once have they been forgotten, when it was the youngest among the broken band of comrades - Jungkook - who held a soul devoid of love and craving it so badly it gripped the first source of simulacrum tightly to have a taste of it again. The morning brought the shame of having used the sweet guy’s hidden sentiments portrayed by gentle kisses and careful movements between the thighs wrapped around a slim waist after coming undone twice before even starting in earnest. The whined and panted ‘I love you’s were already a vague memory when the sun rose over haphazard sheets partially concealing a thoroughly dishevelled dark bedhead and back engraved with scratches that likely caused more pain than pleasure. Nevertheless, perchance it is because of the guilt of having played a sick game with genuine emotions that the decision to stay by the youth’s side was made.

Eventually, the self-loathing blame turned to a non-sustainable yet believable form of affection reserved for lovers. Almost akin to what was only temporarily had with Jimin.

Until he, too, walked away for the same reasons.

Funny.

History repeats itself.

But not today after finding a pamphlet for an art exhibition near the marketing office where a fortunate job as a graphic designer was picked up soon after graduation, the grand opening of which is tonight. Normally, similar events would have been evaded since too many bodies occupy a space which cannot possibly handle them all at once and the gallery visited at a later date when the hype has died down enough to allow for calmly enjoying the art. However, the default course of action does not form an option in this case due to the artist presenting his piece of art.

Because it is the work of an old friend who gave two beautiful necklaces as a gift a long time ago.

A refugee lover who bound a reckless girl to him with the jewellery.

An onyx wolf to whom an apology is in order and the guilt more than justified.

Park Jimin.

The low heels of ballerinas click on the marble linoleum floor of the bare brick space after finding a sign outside pointing towards the entrance of the grand creative event, eyes wavering to the sides to observe the sketches of faceless women while also frantically searching for the grand master himself. Shreds of murmured conversation compose a rumbling radiating flood when entering the edifice, making the discovery of the wanted man that much more difficult since a familiar voice could not possibly be recognized in this chaotic mess of speakers.

The quest is halted when the gaze wanders to the side entirely, the attention of the panicked thoughts about coming in vain and being rejected from the beginning of the conversation suddenly focusing on a grand featureless portrait. To any other person, it might signify the blank canvas an individual essentially forms, smithing yet another temporary identity to go by until it loses its beauty like its predecessors and repeating the process each time. Withal, the shape of the face is undeniable and cannot be unseen as its familiarity is unavoidable.

Self-hatred, unintended hurt, past mistakes and various trips of guilt are depicted in the simple though meaningful drawing.

It is mine.

My face.

‘It’s the biggest piece of the collection. I wanted to give this person an expression yet couldn’t because I didn’t know what it should look like. Hence, I settled for this.’ The casual tone betrays not knowing who the listener is or the artist is beating around the bush because he, too, cannot handle the strangeness of the circumstances caused by a mayhaps unwelcome visitor in the way it perhaps should be.

‘Your lines are still off.’ A slim index finger points to the traced shape of the jaw, indicating inherently nothing although the turn to bad humour somehow seems a logical direction to take in the situation. Just as it has always been since it functions as a shield against overwhelming emotions. An old habit rooted in days gone by which dies hard, as those kinds of things tend to do. ‘I thought you’d gotten better at drawing by now, Park Jimin.’

‘Y/N.’ The manner of speech indicates having recognized the admirer far before the conversation even started, relieved delight mixed with agonized graveness.

The scars still hurt.

The fumbling digits reaching out brush against those of the individual who remains focused on the image in front. Eventually, they entwine with those that had to be let go after fully committing to the steadfast faith of being a wolf, but after more hesitation upon noticing the awkward gesture than had ever been the case in the past. ‘Can you look at me?’

‘I’m sorry, Chim. For everything. I push- pushed you too far.’ The burning tears slowly begin to create small brooks over the cheeks, the unoccupied hand wiping them away as the other tries to free itself in order to make an escape. A plan that already comes too late. ‘I shou- shouldn’t even be here. I have to go.’

But the fingers of the once intimately loved beloved remain strongly wrapped around the others, their counterparts coming to rest where frantic digits endeavoured to stop the water, thumb gently continuing the attempts with affectionate sweeps. Gazes meet by means of forceful albeit kind-hearted compelling, the palm on the face of an unworthy mistress turning the head to do so and fulfil the earlier disregarded request. ‘That’s not how you apologize to someone, Y/N. You’re raised knowing better.’

Jimin has changed, not only on the inside - if there has been no help in the form of therapy to drive the insane beast out - but on the outside as well. Onyx has made place for pale sandstone which resembles limestone if the light falls on it in a specific angle, paint-stained shirts and jeans are replaced by a stylish nightly black outfit of which the shirt lights up in the purplish lilac shades of twilight whenever it is illuminated directly. Of course, this style has merely been chosen to conform to the formality of the event, though there is a suspicion former characteristic clothes and their sentiments have been abandoned aside from the casual ones that were often worn during a happening like this back in college.

The past has clearly been endeavoured to be erased.

Good.

I was not the only one trying.

Nonetheless, the most obvious physical change makes eyes widen in astonishment due to the uncharacteristic feature.

Purple flowing over in sickly yellow on cheekbones, a scar marring the left side of a sympathetic expression as full lips speak so kindly in spite of the immense wrongdoing three years ago, the bottom split in the middle by a healing scarlet wound.

Hurt.

Actual clear signs of pain.

Afraid of the impact that may or may not still be felt, two small hands - the left one slipping easily from the grip weakened by oddly loving renewed feelings - languidly rise to remove those framing a face the artist idiotically seems to adore still and trace the trail of inflicted harm with a slightly opened mouth. ‘What happened?’

A spark lights up the warm dark brown gaze of the lad who was thought never to even kill a fly, moved by the concern and showing this by the tiniest hasty smile. ‘It’s alright, Y/N. Just...’ Lashes flutter shut as the gesture is leaned into, briefly forgetting whatever coverup is created to not ignite any type of worry akin to the sort that has been tainting living in general since the first and last bittersweet night together. ‘Just business... nothing... serious.’

A warm teardrop slides down the wrist enveloped by the fingers which were good-naturedly removed, the narrow surface of skin snuggled against regardless of the barely audible pained whines the motions evoke. Teeth lightly grazing over the surface, just tangible enough to send shivers down the spine in a paradoxical mixture of pleasure and worry about the wolfish behaviour that essentially drove us apart. Furthermore, what circumstances could have asked for bodily harm, form the root for obvious pain? ‘Jimin, what’s going on? Talk to me.’

You never fought, bodily nor verbally. Did you get beat up? What happened to you? On the other hand, we both changed and know nothing anymore. Notwithstanding, just tell me. Tell me what caused this, what took place and of which the visible aftermath is so damn painful to witness without knowing the background.

The soft kiss on the pulse evokes a hitched breath, astonished by the blatant display of wishing for intimacy once more even though it brought nothing but misfortune in the past. ‘I still want you. I wish... I wish you could stay.’ The last word is a mere whisper, only audible to the ears of the listener and the speaker in the ocean of murmurs. ‘Stay with me, be mine again.’

More tears roll down the smooth skin of the forearm before watery solemn dark irises quickly turn from the former point of focus to two staring in wonder when the wrist manages to slip from the novel fairly firm hold, having made use of the temporary weak spot caused by sadness. Fast as lightning hands pull the artist into a tight embrace at seeing a quivering pillowy bottom lip, determined to keep the sobs dimmed as much as possible and to not lose face to any potential buyers or investors.

‘Don’t cry, Chim. You’re not at fault, never have been. You were right to walk away and I’m not even mad at you for doing it. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.’ Kindly, bleak sandy locks are affectionately stroked while nuzzling the old lover’s warm neck, growing drowsy, no, getting hypnotized by the heat radiating from the body still built like a dancer’s and the musky alluring scent containing hints of turpentine and summer flowers. ‘As I said, I pushed you too much and should’ve listened. But I didn’t. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

The hug tightens, star-crossed lovers holding on to one another as if the only way to stay afloat in the turbulent sea of life is by clinging to the buoy in the shape of the other beloved.

And just for a split second, all seems well. Exactly like the old days, filled with hope for a future together.

However, the girl who ruined everything might as well drown in spite of the lifeline because the blonde lad lets go too soon, arms untangling and keeping the adored soul at bay by creating a new distance with shaking hands, just enough not to touch directly. The voice has gained a ghastly tone, speaking as if this time the farewell is permanent. ‘Let’s agree to disagree.’

A foot sweeps uncertainly over the alabaster marbled linoleum, acting as if removing a stain on it as locked gazes are briefly broken up while a hand combs through the strands that were lovingly caressed a split second ago. Withal, like is the case with the entire body, they shortly find each other again afterwards. ‘I really wish we could have a second chance, Y/N.’

‘If- If you want, we can still-’

A solitary head shake cuts off the desperate argument that was about to be given, nullifying every spark of hope which had collected and started a grand bright foolish fire within. ‘We can’t. You’re better off without me. Vice versa it’s not the case, but even though I still long for you, I know that a part of loving you comes with sacrifice and the desire for you to be happy.’

‘I was with you! In fact, I was the most cheery whenever we went out to the park to draw the flowers in the flowerbed or to the coffee shop. The most restful nights were those when you were lying beside me. Now, all that remains of those beautiful moments are these.’ Fingers clearly display the thin bronze chain with a crescent moon pendant and one that is a tad longer and made of a mixture between silver and gold with a tiger's eye matrix wolf pendant. ‘A daily reminder of what we had. Of you.’

A melancholic grin carves itself onto full plush roseate lips, an almost invisible nod acknowledging the meaning behind the jewellery which clearly does not add any convincing nor credible reason to change a stubborn mind set on its own opinion. ‘You still have them. I’m glad because I thought you’d have thrown them away. Or, if not you... never mind, I don’t want to think about that.’

‘Think about what? Jimin, you’re not making any sense. The last time you spoke in riddles, there was clearly something going on.’ The old Self awakens, having pushed aside the pathetic contemporary ego out of the overwhelming determination to not let things remain unresolved upon being compelled to part ways like before. To leave behind loose ends. ‘At least honestly tell me if everything is alright this time. Or just the reason for why you look like you fought a war and lost. Anything. Don’t send me away without a proper goodbye, fill up the distance with making this fucking lingering concern about you I’ve been living with for the past three years a heavier burden than it already is. Yes, I understand you don’t want me by your side anymore. But, I beg of you, grant me this last favour.’

‘I never said that, that I don’t want you by my side anymore so don’t put words in my mouth. Besides, if I did I wouldn’t wish for you to be mine again, would I? I can’t tell you what happened when I was gone, merely that it has to do with what caused our goodbye in the first place. As for the wounds, it’s nothing to be worried about. I’m fine.’ Hands mould into trembling fists, the emitted heat turning to menacing rage.

The made point is justified because the used wording which is reacted to never had any valid worth, to begin with. Rashness can push one’s own opinion despite the nullifications which are or are not already present, making the individual solely focused on their hellbent desire to drive their own beliefs through.

The realization of this calms the raging storm within, knowing that more yelling and arguing will lead nowhere. Instead, a deep steadying breath is taken and a new attempt at making amends undertaken. ‘Chim...’

A careful step forward is rewarded with a petrifying glance, feet immediately stuck in the place of the last retraced track. Stare wavers for a moment to the spot which was nuzzled against and kissed longingly, imagining what could have happened had the gesture advanced. Memories of the first and last night as more than friends resurface.

Even the worst event is no longer regarded in a negative light, a hidden absurd persona craving for it to happen again.

Get knotted, feel him again.

He is not a senseless beast, but a caring young man. Why do I long for that side of him, thinking in such terms? Furthermore, how did I get so carried away by just hugging? That’s never happened.

Nevertheless, the contemplating train of thoughts inherently boils down to the same wanton wish.

To be his.

‘Go.’

Simply have him back.

Resume our tale.

‘Please-’

We can work this out. We can get you help. Therapy. You’re not an animal, Jimin. You don’t have to hold back because of it. Come back. Come back to me.

‘Go!’ The command is growled like a wolf grown sick with the obligation to wait for a dumb opposing party to leave and giving a warning shot that any further provocation has consequences. The sternness rapidly fades, softening into sweet stained nostalgia when realizing what the hurtful impact of the chosen attitude is. ‘Go, Y/N. Just go. It’s better for us. For you. I have nothing to offer, nothing to be better than the man you belong to.’

‘I belong to nobody. I’m my own person.’ It is weird to hear the statement of essentially being some individual’s property being said with so much certainty when the speaker initially was the one to say a person should never be subject to another. ‘That’s what we artists are, independent and stubbornly liberated.’

A weak bubbly chuckle, no extravagant motions that express amusement as per habit. Instead, composure portrays not wanting this outcome to the circumstances either and come closer to make resume making amends as intended by the graphic designer who was once a free-spirited artist like him, continue where the mutual story abruptly ended. Yet, behaviour obviously gives away that the alternate route is not possible if it ever has been. ‘Goodbye.’

End of the line.

Don’t. Don’t do this, you bastard!

But the tongue is rendered silent, paralyzed with grieving shock and the ability to speak abandons the mute girl with the leaving footsteps of a sandstone wolf clad in black like the starry night sky.

The same heaven above a lonely head wandering the street again after leaving the gallery, fighting to tune out the repeating material of the emotional conversation while low heels click against the concrete. Regardless, the words are resonating as if freshly spoken and fingers have the remnants of touches by other ones clearly engraved in muscle memory.

But they have to take a moment to remember the hand grabbing them now for, although more recent than Jimin’s, it seems a longer period of time has passed since it was held by this particular one. Even longer so for the voice accompanying it, containing a strange sort of confidence that would have been quite uncharacteristic up until last January. ‘He left you again, didn’t he?’

Raven locks partially shroud feverish yet trusted doe eyes above a cute nose, a paradoxical bunny-like smile playing on pale pink lips seemingly belonging to a predator. But the person in front after accidentally bumping into them after being pulled flush against a well-trained chest is known to be better than that, never having had the aura of cunning dominance. Henceforth, looking down is the kind gentle boy with the scratched back who disappeared because of the reasons another had already given three years prior.

But Time has the ability to evoke a transformation in every aspect of and being in existence and it forms the cause for this grown-up version of a shy comic artist whose creative persona is a pink muscly rabbit. Although all former anticipating illusions are forever erased by the reflection, it is still a grand comfort to see a familiar face which holds the credible promise of staying. Thus, there is a glad surrender to the intoxicating heat scented with a delicious potion of peppermint, blue ink, markers, lily and jasmine.

To the hands framing the face perfectly and body pressing against one drunk on the temporary happiness offered by the situation.

To Jungkook.

#BTS #BTS smut #BTS x Reader #BANGTANARMYNET #btsguild #BTS Werewolf AU #Werewolf AU #Jimin #Park Jimin #Werewolf!Jimin #Artist!Jimin

[assortedfruitsnacks212]

I miss you, Tumblr! + Life update on stuff and things

Heyyyyy everyone. I figured it was high time I made a proper post talking about, well, everything that’s happened since I stopped posting so much. I don’t like that I disappeared - this site was where I discovered Reylo and made some truly awesome friends. So I want to stick around, you know? And I do hope to come back more often from now on. It’s just hard juggling so many social media platforms...

But ANYWAY. I promised an update, so here we go.

1. I’m moving across the country!

That’s right ladies and gents, I’m fleeing the New Jersey coop for my old hometown of Huntsville, AL. 

Why, you ask? Well, Huntsville is very much a city of the future. As the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (where they built the Saturn V rockets!) Huntsville has earned the well-deserved moniker "Rocket City USA." It's also undergoing a huge economic boom, which has led to a thriving arts community.

New Jersey? Eh.

I'm tired of just treading water and not making headway toward my dreams. I’ll talk about those dreams a bit more in this post. Needless to say, they’re very, very important to me.

So I'm not settling anymore. In August/September, I'm packing up shop and heading down south. It's the start of something new, and I can’t wait.

2. I started a Patreon for my passion project, and it’s going well <3

My passion project, The Oracle Fragment, has been the one thing I’ve returned to over and over again for the past 10+ years. Late last year I decided to step up my commitment by starting a Patreon. I’ve only done a soft launch so far, and I’m already at 38 Patrons :) It’s been a rewarding month!

My official launch is scheduled for Wednesday, February 27. I’ll be celebrating with a Twitch stream with fun games, sketch requests, and maybe a little giveaway ;) The stream starts at 9pm EST. Let me know if you want to come - as you know, I take Reylo requests ;)

3. I’ve returned to my roots: pencil drawing!

A friend of mine convinced me to do some traditional drawing again, and I’m so glad he did. I’d forgotten how lovely it is to put pencil to paper. Also, I know I’m far better at it than I am at digital sketching. So I’m gonna let myself indulge a bit - and maybe even find a way to marry my pencil art TO my digital art. People do it all the time, I hear ;)

People who are waiting on commissions: if you want me to sketch your ideas traditionally, shoot me a message and let’s talk about it! If I do a pencil sketch for you, I can actually mail it to you OR to the friend of your choice. Shipping is free! (unless it’s international in which case we’ll discuss it) @reylorianlovechild @immortalpen @faithren @rebelrebelreylo @jesssssah

4. I’m putting my art in local stores

My favorite stores in Woodstown, Barney Loves Books and the Woodstown Coffee Shop and Bakery, have agreed to let me display my art on their premises. I’m REALLY excited and also a little overwhelmed :) I’m gonna start small, with just a basket of prints and originals... BUT who knows where it could go from here :) 

If you’re in the Woodstown area, come take a look sometime! Woodstown is about 40 minutes away from Philadelphia. As a bonus, we could even meet - just message me and we’ll go get coffee from the bakery!

5. I’m raising money for Star Wars Celebration

I bought Saturday passes for my husband and me some time ago. Now it’s time for me to either (A) raise the money for travel and lodging, or (B) sell the tickets to someone else. :p For a while I was leaning toward just selling them, but hell, it would be SO nice to go, if only for a day! So I’m going to give it a shot. Keep an eye out for commission openings (once my current ones are finished) and other cool stuff!

6. I’m doing more portrait work

Again, this is all because my friends and family convinced me to... BUT I’ve decided to make a whole-assed attempt at making my portrait work a thing. I’m printing up brochures to display with my art, and I’ve revamped my listings on Etsy.

Portraits are my strongest point, after all. There’s something about the human face that utterly enchants me, and people tell me I have the ability to capture the subject’s heart and soul on paper. I’ve decided to believe them. :)

If you’ve been thinking about commissioning a portrait of a friend, family member, or other loved one (including fictional loves *coughKylocough*), you can go to my Etsy here, or just message me here on Tumblr.

Speaking of Etsy...

7. I’m adding lots more stuff to my Etsy store

I haven’t done much with Etsy since last summer, and it’s time I fixed that. Over the weekend, I FINALLY added a print option for Elf lord Kylo Ren (!!), and I’m about to add merch for him, too. Oh, and I just ordered fine art prints of Elven Kylo and Hades and Persephone Reylo so I can put out hand-embellished versions of them!! That’s where I paint on the prints with gold or silver so they look extra shiny and pretty. You can see a pic of my embellished Art Nouveau Padme here.

Other plans I have for my Etsy: 

- add pillow inserts to my custom pillows - add MORE fanart - add MORE originals

If you have ideas for other things I can add to my Etsy, please let me know! Especially if it’s Reylo things ;) 

8. I’m starting a regular Twitch stream with an art/storytelling focus

I’ve wanted to be a Twitch streamer for a long time, but I could never figure out what to do, exactly. Just recently, inspiration hit me like a bolt of lightning:

I want my stream to be all about storytelling.

Life gets crazy, depressing, and devoid of magic sometimes. I want to bring a little of that magic back by creating an intentional space outside of daily life for imagination and exploration. Dreaming, brainstorming, chasing plot bunnies, painting, sketching, talking deep subjects, and playing games - these will all be welcome activities in my magic circle. So if that sounds good to you, come make magic with me <3

My inaugural stream will be Saturday, February 23 at noon EST. After that, I hope to stream at least 3 times a week in the afternoons.

---

As for Reylo stuff...

Believe me, though I’ve been absent from Tumblr, I’ve never, EVER stopped thinking about Reylo. And I haven’t forgotten about any of my ongoing Reylo fics and projects!

I’ll make a separate post about that, though. I’ve talked your ear off quite enough for one post ;)

I’ve missed you all. If the urge strikes you, PLEASE come and see hi. I’d love to hear from you!

@reylocalligraphy @reylo-convert @enjoyallneednothing-blog @raven-maiden @obsessivepropulsive @ever-so-reylo @monsterleadmehome @reylolujah @pacificwanderer @dreamsdescent @faequeentitania @thewayofthetrashcompactor @deafield @dvrkrey @reylotrashpiler @recklessdarkness @cosmo-gonika @aionimica @creationsvixen @collegefangirl3791 @inmyownidiom @midnightbluefox

#assortedfruitsnacks212 #reylo #reylo fam #reylo fandom

[mysticsparklewings]

I’m Not Dead‪

I'm not laughin', You're not jokin' I'm not dead I only dress that way Out nowhere take me out there Far away and save me from my Self-destruction, hopeless for you Sing a song for California --My Chemical Romance, "Boy Division" ____ Have you heard?? Have you heard the news?? Well if not, I'm gonna tell ya: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS BACK, BABY!!! :D On Halloween, we got the announcement that they will be playing a show in Los Angeles, California on December 20th. And just a few days ago we got the news that they're also going to New Zealand, Australia, and Japan which basically confirms to me they're doing so sort of tour, whether they actually call it that or not. There's still a lot we don't know for sure; whether this is just a one-time reunion tour or their official comeback tour, if we'll be getting new original music both at the shows and available for download/purchase or if they're just going to redo their existing music and covers, if it's only going to be the main four that were there at the end or if there will be some of the other members that were in and out over the years rejoining them...Where all they're going to go on this tour...the list goes on. But! The important thing, at least to me, is that they came back at all. Six years. Six years we've waited and hoped and prayed, been let down by false rumors and speculation...And now it's actually happening. I just... Hence why I had to make an art piece celebrating the occasion and as an excuse to talk about it. (I figure if I'm going to dump my opinions on the internet I might as well make some art to go with them. Sue me. ) Originally, I was planning on making something more along the lines of true fan art, as this is more pseudo fan art here, but I just couldn't settle on one good idea that I felt really comfortable pursuing. Although I am still considering doing an updated (or at least colored in) version of my Killjoys, Make Some Noise! (lineart) I did a couple of years ago...we'll see. Anyway. Since we did get the news on Halloween, it's worth noting that originally I'd been debating if I wanted to do any makeup this year at all or just slide on a mask since my only plans were going to Krispy Kreme, who was offering a free donut if you showed up in costume. But after the news broke, my decision was made for me. I had to. MCR isn't strictly associated with skeletons/skulls, as has become my preferred Halloween costume, but The Black Parade, their second album, does have a little skeleton as the leader of the marching band, and the band members did wear skeleton/skull inspired makeup during that time. Admittedly this year's makeup wasn't nearly as involved or elaborate as what I've done in years' past, but it beats last year's absolutely nothing. I ended up taking a few pictures to preserve the look, as I always do even though I rarely take photos of myself, and I would decide to draw one of them where I was trying to do this face that Gerard (the frontman and lead singer of the band) has made on a several occasions; this wide-eyed intense stare. Partly because this, I'm sure, is very close to my actual face when I heard the news that they're back, the makeup was inspired by them anyway, and also because it pairs very well with one of my favorite lines from my favorite song by them. Said line being, obviously, "I'm not dead I only dress that way," from Boy Division, as cited at the top of the description. If I'm being completely truthful, I can't even really put my finger on what it is about Boy Division specifically that makes it my favorite, as I've yet to hear an MCR song I truly do not like, but I think there's something in the lyrics of the full song that just sells it for me in combination with the high-energy music. But whatever the case, it is my favorite nonetheless. Beyond that though, it's really hard to place the rest of them in any coherent order because, at least to my ears, they're all really great. Anyway. So I went about drawing my face, erring slightly more on the realistic side than usually (but obviously not too much) in hopes of capturing the facial expression. Which, it's pretty good, but I do think it could've been a little better. I think my biggest problem was getting the eyebrows a mouth right, and I'm still not sure they're quite there since my real eyebrows are pretty translucent and the mouth was hard to balance between looking logical and more neutral than sad/angry. And I think maybe the proper expression was a little more apparent in the sketch, but it's pretty normal to lose some feeling between the sketch and the final product so that I won't discount too much. After that, I had to take a break from the drawing to think about how to color it in any style it and everything. I ended up transferring the sketch to Mixed Media paper after deciding I wanted to use alcohol markers as a base but not knowing if I'd need to adjust it with colored pencil and/or other mediums on top or not, and I did the lines with my Faber Castell Polychromos once I felt like just black lines would be too harsh and thinking colored lines would be better. Plus, the Polychromos are very non-reactive to water, so if I really wanted to I could add watercolor or something water-activated without having to worry about the lines getting messed up. I did not consider how the Polychromos would react to the alcohol markers, but other than one or two spots where the top layer of pencil kinda dissolved after some heavy layering (which was easily fixed by just going back over the lines in that area again really quickly), fortunately, it worked out okay. Although sweet sparkles I swear it took at least twice as long to actually do the lines as opposed to normal between having to apply enough pressure to get the right amount of color down and working on the differences inline weight.   Anyway. I was a little worried about some of the shading/effects I'd be doing with the markers, but I think I did alright with it. This mixed media paper (Strathmore 400 series for anyone who cares) is nice and thick, so I had plenty of room to layer up and blend as I needed to get the look I was going for. This came in especially handy around the eyes and on the nose when I told myself to at least try and get the colors like the photo before cheesing it and just using straight (or nearly) black. The only area that I think came out a little rough is really the skin, mainly the forehead. But that has more to do with 1. There isn't much contrast on the face in the photo so I didn't want to take it too far in the drawing and 2. I think I may have started slightly too dark for skin this pale. I realize that's a weird thing to say, but when you're pale as a ghost like I am, you'd be surprised how easy that is to do. And to be fair, I probably could've tried to adjust that with colored pencils, and my original plan was to add some white pencil on top in the areas of the face where a highlight would naturally hit (forehead, bridge of the nose, cheekbones, etc.)  But by the time I got done with the markers, I honestly felt like it was nice enough without any additional pencil that I thought it might be best to just leave it alone. Since I still have the original drawing, my thoughts may change on that and I could update this eventually, but for now, my decision stands. On the other hand, I was actually pretty pleased with how the hair turned out once it was colored. That is until I scanned it in. I don't know why, but the darkest shadows in the hair were too dark and too bluish on the scan, despite everything else looking fairly color-accurate. I fiddled with the scanner settings for a few minutes to try and fix it, but it became quickly apparent there wasn't much to be done about it at the level. Which meant I had to try making the adjustments in Photoshop. Now, I've done my fair share of scan-fixing, photo editing, and just color adjustments on digital art, but for the life of me I could not get things to work the way I wanted them to here. It became to the point I'm starting to suspect if the actual true-to-life shades of purple of the drawing are just really hard or even impossible for computers to capture and/or create accurately. Fluorescent colors fall in that category, surely they're not the only ones. In the end, after more time than I bothered to document messing around with settings and adjustments, and firmly decided I was not going to essentially manually re-color/shade the hair digitally, I tried the only other thing I could think to do. I took the hair, as I had been for all my adjustments since the rest of the colors were fine, on a separate layer and took all the saturation out so I was left with just the gray values. And I noted while I was at that point that it didn't seem to be an issue of the contrast between the shadows and the rest of the hair. The transition looked perfectly acceptable in grayscale. Then, I added a color layer on top of that one, clipped it to only show up on the hair, and changed it to an "overlay" layer so that I would get the values from the gray layer, but colored purple. It did take a couple of tries to get the right shade of purple for the color layer, and I'm sure it's still not 100% accurate to the IRL drawing, but it's a heck of a lot closer than it was. And this gets even weirder when you consider that just a few days before I made this drawing, I made a different one for a friend where I used the exact same marker colors for the hair, blended in almost exactly the same manner, on the same paper, and it didn't have this problem when I scanned that one in. I have never in my life. Anyway. The accessories actually didn't give me much trouble in drawing or coloring. Admittedly, I did tone down how many feathers and stuff are actually on the tiny hat for my own sanity's sake, and while I did my best with the lace on the choker, I don't have a ton of practice with drawing lace like this so I'm sure it could be improved. Although I did decide to color both of those areas (what I didn't draw/fill in with the pencils at the line stage) with a super dark blue-violet instead of a gray or straight black for the purpose of not totally hiding the linework I'd put in and to make it just slightly more dynamic. Which I think was a good call as it seems to tie in pretty nicely with the grayish tones on the face. Other than that though, I did try to stay fairly accurate with my color choices, and I think I did pretty well with that, all things considered. (Despite having a much larger selection than I did just a few months ago, I do still need a wider selection of alcohol markers in some areas just for the sake of color accuracy and smooth transitions.) Once my face was done, then came the text. I searched for a while, hoping to find an MCR appropriate font that I could hopefully add by hand, but my search came up empty. I did find one I really liked the look of though, called "Miserable." So I scanned the drawing in and after the aforementioned hair struggles, I got to play with the placement and structure of the words. I knew I kinda wanted something that just has that "I'm a logo/t-shirt emblem" kind of feel, and in the end, I think I got that. But I do think I could've planned out the drawing itself a little bit better in terms of the space left to fit the words into. I really didn't do myself a lot of favors on that one.   It has its problems, but I'm still really actually kind of proud of how this turned out...and that's really all I have to say about it. Eh, maybe I'm just really happy because I know why I made it in the first place. Now if MCR can just come within 1-2 hours of my location so I can actually go see them...please... ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#my chemical romance #mcr #boy division #dead #conventional weapons #return #the black parade #skullmakeup #art #fan art #self portrait #i’m not okay #killjoys make some noise

[hazellvesque]

Some Kind of Miracle - Chapter 8

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Rating: G

Pairing: Adrien/Marinette

Summary: If Marinette had her way, she would have had nothing to do with Alya’s latest celebrity crush. So how did she get roped into stalking him around Los Angeles? When fashion icon Adrien Agreste quite literally crashes into Marinette’s life, they have no choice but to put up with one another or risk ruining both of their potential careers forever.

An AU based on the iconic Disney Channel Original Movie, Starstruck.

Read on Ao3

Chapter 8 - Soul

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The remainder of Marinette’s evening passed in a swift, dreamlike blur.

After leaving Adrien - and making a pit stop to the nearest restroom to wash the ink from her hands, though not before making sure to try to commit his phone number to memory - she found her way back to Alya’s side in record time.

It took every ounce of her self-control to stop from fidgeting, lest she draw attention to her flushed face or the faint black smear she couldn’t quite seem to wash away.

Alya, being none-the-wiser, completely believed Marinette’s “oh silly me, I must have gotten lost” excuse and suspected nothing, to Marinette’s relief. The last thing she needed was Alya finding out about where she’d gone and who she was with.

It all felt a bit exhilarating - to be sneaking off and keeping secrets. It was so unlike Marinette to even think about behaving in this way; she and Alya didn’t keep secrets from each other, especially not something that the other would be so incredibly happy to know about.

Yet, the thought of having an entire side story of her life happening without anyone knowing excited her in ways she couldn’t quite understand.

The entire taxi ride back to the hotel was spent fidgeting anxiously in the backseat while Alya chatted up a storm with the driver. Pure adrenaline still coursed through Marinette’s entire body enough to make her fumble while opening the hotel room door, having to make multiple attempts with the key card before finally unlocking it.

Mme. Césaire glanced up from her newspaper, lowering her reading glasses and smiling widely. A small part of Marinette wondered if the woman even understood the articles she was reading. Perhaps she was just skimming the advertisements in an attempt to keep herself busy. Whether she’d admit it or not, she had the same concerns any rational parent would have while sending her teenage daughter off to explore an unfamiliar city. “How was the mall?” she asked, playing a little too casual.

“Expensive,” Alya dramatically flopped down into the large sofa in the middle of the room. Marinette followed suit, though she was itching to get back into the bedroom and at the very least write down the digits that were already fading from her mind and hide them in a safe place.

Mme. Césaire hummed low under her breath. “I suppose we should have expected that. You still had fun though, right?”

As Alya and her mom chatted, Marinette’s food bounced impatiently. She cursed herself for being so fidgety - it wasn’t that big of a deal. At least that’s what she tried to convince herself of. Still, nervous energy coursed through her at the mere thought of being found out.

Paranoia was all it was, really. There was no way she’d get figured out. It wasn’t like he was going to blow her cover. He couldn’t even call her first - her cellphone was useless for making calls due to the lack of service, and she hadn’t given him the hotel room’s number.

Of course, he could still call if he wanted to. He knew where she was staying since he’d dropped her off that night, plus he had a direct line to her through Mme. Césaire’s hiring.

But no. He wouldn’t do that. He wanted this to stay a secret just as much as Marinette did.

At least, that’s what Marinette told herself to calm down.

In retrospect, his decision to put the situation in her control had been smart. He had no way of knowing if his outgoing call might reach the wrong person, but Marinette already knew that his phone was always silenced, and her unknown number could easily be excused as a spam call and brushed off to anyone who would question him.

He’d probably been sneaking around and keeping secrets for years. Marinette didn’t blame him - it was the only way he could have the tiniest bit of privacy.

Still, the sinking feeling that this would all eventually blow up in her face wouldn’t quite escape from the back of her mind.

Alya finding out would probably be the worst. Sure, her parents would be ashamed of her sneaking off with a strange boy and disregarding their rules about safety, and she’d probably get grounded for weeks; but if Alya knew that her closest friend and confidant was keeping possibly the most major, exciting secret in the world from her? She’d be crushed, for sure.

Was destroying that trust really worth it? Marinette supposed that one way or another, she would have to tell Alya the truth. How she could do that, exactly, without hurting anyone’s feelings, would be a bridge she’d cross another day.

“What about you Marinette?”

“Huh?” Marinette jerked back to reality, nearly choking on air as she tried to speak.

Mme. Césaire’s eyes narrowed in concern, but Marinette played it off with a smile she hoped wasn’t too fake-looking.

“Did you have fun today?” she continued.

“Oh, uh, I’m fine. It was fine. I mean fun, I had fun!”

Alya buried her head further into the couch pillows, getting cozier each moment. If Marinette was lucky, Alya would fall asleep for a nap and leave her to her own devices for a bit.

“The rich people here are like a whole different brand of fancy,” Alya mumbled, her voice muffled. “At least they dress nice. You should have taken some pictures or something.”

For her sketchbook. Right. One of the main reasons she’d come all this way. One of the things that had sparked this insane situation she’d found herself in. How could she possibly forget?

(She had a pretty significant distraction. That’s probably how.)

“It’s all pretty fresh in my mind,” Marinette said. “I’ll be able to remember enough to get some ideas. I should probably jot some ideas down before I forget.”

As good of an excuse as it was, it hadn’t been necessary. Alya’s breathing was already slowing as she drifted off, her glasses pressing awkwardly into the side of her face as she sank further into the plush cushions.

Mme. Césaire tutted and pushed her own glasses further up the bridge of her nose, turning her attention back to the newspaper. “You girls can relax,” she assured Marinette, “I’ll call when dinner’s ready.”

“Merci,” Marinette nodded as she left the living area, careful to close the bedroom door quietly behind her.

Silence. Solitude. A single, gracious moment to breathe and pull herself together before her fingers started to itch at the temptation to pick up the hotel room’s landline. It’d be so easy to dial those numbers that had been dancing at the back of her mind all evening.

It’d also seem just a little desperate to call so soon. Even if it were just to confirm that the number was right, or to let him know that she was very much still wanting to keep up contact with him.

God, she was acting like a child with a schoolgirl crush.

In her mind, she fought hard to convince herself that she wasn’t heading down that path.

It wasn’t very convincing at all.

Her only option now was force her runaway train of thought to head down a different path. Ignore the boy and focus on something else. Rearrange her priorities. No more lies or sneaking around or excuses for today.

Besides, with the excitement she’d had over the past 48 hours, it’d be therapeutic to get all of her jumbled thoughts out of her head.

Marinette leaned comfortably back into the pillows she’d propped up on her bed. Taking out her favorite pencils and opening her sketchbook to a fresh page, she began to draw.

The soft graphite of her pencils wore down to dull points more than a dozen times during her session. Her right wrist ached but she couldn’t seem to stop. Every time her eyes drifted to the phone, she forced herself to fill another page.

In her flurry of fashion inspiration, she’d sketched out Adrien’s likeness only once. She hadn’t even meant for it to happen.

It was a simple portrait - he sat cross-legged on the floor of a bookstore, entirely too engrossed in a trashy teen magazine, the edge of his relaxed smile just visible. The drawing took nearly a whole page, the clothing aspect almost entirely ignored in favor of Marinette’s odd inclination to sketch in the surrounding scenery of bookshelves and vaulted windows behind him.

Adrien’s sketch stayed hidden, sandwiched between half a dozen mundane pages of black and white dresses and skirts and scarves on nondescript, dull mannequins. If she pretended hard enough that it wasn’t there, it was like she hadn’t even drawn it.

After all, drawing Adrien was what had gotten her into this mess. She still couldn’t decide if she regretted it or not.

The room fell dark as the sun set out beyond the palm trees. Marinette reached out and turned on the lamp at her bedside table. The bright light illuminated the room harshly, triggering a sharp pain at the back of Marinette’s head. Another souvenir from her recklessness, the worst one by far.

The headache hadn’t quite fully subsided at any point since it first arrived, when she’d first run into Adrien. Or rather, when he ran into her. Painkillers and rest dulled it enough to be ignored, but throughout the day it persisted as a painful reminder of their clumsiness. She’d been sensitive to any bright light or loud noise for two whole days now. Her only moments of complete relief were when she was able to sleep it off.

Even when Mme. Césaire prepared one of her signature dishes that evening, Marinette excused herself from dinner early, having only barely picked over her meal. The earlier she could get to bed and stop her head from swimming the better.

Not even the sound of Alya entering the room and settling in for the night roused her. She drifted off effortlessly and slept deeply, not a single thought or dream disturbing her peaceful hours of darkness and silence.

Once again, someone just had to come along and crush Adrien’s good mood. He was lucky to avoid a lecture from Nino on the ride home, and Chloe hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, so he thought he was home free. He’d even gotten a decent night’s sleep, ecstatic to know that he’d actually gotten away with it this time.

And then he received a phone call while he was mid-cereal pour. From Nathalie. Who was asking him to come to her office immediately.

Nathalie Sancoeur sat intimidatingly straight at her desk, not caring to look up when Adrien entered her office, looking completely out of place in his pajamas among the polished, pristine furniture and the woman clad in business formal.

“You called me?” he asked, suddenly very aware of the way his own voice echoed through the large room. “It something wrong?” he lowered his volume.

“What have we talked about Adrien?”

He gulped. “Am I in trouble?”

Nathalie turned in her chair to face him, her face in its usual disapproving scowl. She didn’t have to say it - that look was enough to tell all.

“Who were you with yesterday?” she asked.

“Nino and Chloe…” he trailed off hesitantly. She was testing him. He had told her that he was leaving with them that morning, and both she and Adrien’s bodyguards were all very aware of their outing. They hadn’t even missed curfew or anything.

Nathalie’s scowl deepened as her shoulders dropped. “I suppose that other girl was digitally inserted into the photos that are making their way around the internet right now, then?”

What?

No. There was no way someone had gotten a picture. They had been so careful. Admittedly, he had let his guard down slightly, but they’d been in such a secluded spot that he hadn’t even spotted so much as a security camera nearby.

“Who is she?” Nathalie continued.

“No one,” Adrien blurted out too quickly, his voice too high. “Just a fan,” he corrected, “she just wanted an autograph, and she was so nice about it I couldn’t say no.”

“And where were your friends while this was happening? Because I have report from your bodyguards that you were out of their sights for half an hour, nowhere to be found.”

Never mind that Nathalie had secretly sent out bodyguards to watch him without his permission, that was a whole other issue he’d have to discuss with her when she wasn’t so pissed.

No doubt some vicious rumors had already started to spread, if the photo was already making its rounds online. He could imagine the headlines already. He was busted. Goodbye modeling contract, goodbye money, goodbye father’s approval.

Goodbye freedom.

Rather than dishing out Adrien’s prison sentence, Nathalie said, “Pick out something nice to wear tonight. We need to let your father see that you can socialize responsibly. I’ll call the caterer and pull something together.”

“What?” he stammered stupidly. Nathalie turned in her swivel chair to face her computer’s desktop and began typing furiously.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that Nathalie was actually … covering for him?

Why, he would have never guessed in a million years, but she didn’t jump to punishing him right away so he wasn’t going to question her motive. She was giving him another chance. Relief flooded him.

“That is, only if you’re feeling up for a social gathering,” Nathalie drawled.

“Yes, of course,” he hesitated, “. . .thank you.”

“Just know that your father is watching your every move,” she warned. “There is only so much I can keep from him. I would be on your absolute best behavior from now on. He’s watching more closely than you may think.”

At that, Adrien held back a sardonic laugh. Gabriel had scheduled their next conference call for Friday, and it was only Monday. There was no way the man could fit anything else in his busy schedule. Unless keeping his eye on Adrien was such a high priority that he’d make an exception. Adrien didn’t doubt that, despite how preoccupied his father was, Gabriel Agreste was still keeping a vigilant watch on his every move. That, or at least he was paying someone else to do it and report back to him.

“There’s a lot at stake here, Adrien. I want to see you happy and successful. But we both know that what we want and what your father wants are two very different things.”

Not that he needed a reminder. If Gabriel Agreste knew what Adrien planned to do with the money from his new contract, he’d snatch the opportunity right from under his nose and the possibility of freedom would never see the light of day again. No way on earth Gabriel would be willing to let the revival of his fashion empire slip away so easily.

The man had spent years using Adrien to recover his reputation. Running back to Paris now would halt all of that progress in its tracks.

Besides, Adrien himself didn’t know for sure what he planned to do. He wouldn’t want to give up his job - despite his complaints, he did often enjoy the perks that came with his gigs. And he definitely didn’t want to leave Nino behind.

If he did go back to Paris, what exactly did he plan to do? Visit for a week or two? A month, a year? All he knew for sure is that he wanted a chance to see home again, to get a chance to say his proper goodbyes if he weren’t able to stay.

“Any requests for the evening?” Nathalie asked. “Food, music? Guests?”

His mind immediately jumped to the thought of Marinette. Having her company would be that much more beneficial to his mood. If only it were possible. On the contrary, inviting her along would be one the most irresponsible and idiotic ideas he’d had in a long time.

And yet his fingers still anxiously tapped at his jean pockets waiting for his phone to ring.

“Whatever the caterer wants to whip up will be fine,” Adrien attempted to push his intrusive thoughts away. “I’ll let Nino and Chloe know. They’ll be able to pull together a group of decent people, I’m sure.”

“This goes without saying, but dress nicely,” Nathalie continued. “I’ll phone the photographers and have them set up their equipment in a few hours.”

The evening was going to be a spectacle for the press more than anything else. Adrien had grown used to pretending to have fun under the watchful eye of half a dozen cameras, but asking his friends to do the same? Not only did it feel incredibly pretentious, but he was also forced to drag regular people like Nino into his ridiculousness. None of the photos of anyone else would be published - if anything, it’d be like they were hired to be background actors in the spectacle that was Adrien’s life, which was exploitative at the least and downright wrong at most.

This mess wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own, and now his friends and family would have to clean up after him. It wasn’t fair to anyone.

Though there was one small thing he could do for someone, if only so that he could feel a little better about this whole situation.

“Nathalie? That caterer you hired, she has a daughter. Could you put her on the guest list?”

Marinette awoke to the sound of Alya screaming, which did absolutely nothing to help her sensitive state. All she wanted at that very moment was to shove her head as far as possible into her pillow and sit in complete silence and darkness for the rest of the day, but evidently the universe had other plans.

At first, Alya’s shrieks could have easily been mistaken for pure terror, but upon further listening, it was clear she was giddily exclaiming whatever news had made her this ecstatic at 7am.

“Marinette, you’ll never believe it, you-” Alya burst into the room and promptly froze in her tracks, “-look like hell, what happened?”

Marinette lazily lifted her head from her pillow and looked Alya in the eye. Her mouth was dry and her eyes were likely bloodshot from her restless night. “My head hurts,” was all she could muster before lying back down and pulling the blankets over her face.

“Mom got called in for an extra event tonight,” Alya continued, noticeably deflated.

“That’s great,” Marinette tried to sound enthusiastic, hoping not to ruin Alya’s good mood.

Alya crossed the room and sat at the foot of Marinette’s bed. “And you’ll never guess where it is!”

“Where is-”

“It’s at Gabriel Agreste’s house!” Alya was practically vibrating with delight. Marinette, on the other hand, was glad she still had her blankets partially covering her face so she could muffle her violent coughs from the air she’d just choked on.

“I mean, can you believe it?” Alya continued, babbling at a million miles an hour. “Mom says she got permission to let us come along and help serve appetisers. Maybe we’ll get to look around at the house, I bet it’s huge! And there’ll probably be so many A-listers and-”

Marinette managed an odd affirmative whimper from the back of her throat.

“Do you think Adrien will be there? I mean, obviously, it’s his house, but there’s no telling whether he’ll be out somewhere else or if he’s staying home for the night. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Marinette blurted out much too quickly, her voice cracking slightly. “Why would I know anything?”

Alya shrugged. “You’re just as clueless as me, girl. But isn’t this exciting?” She grinned super wide for extra measure.

For Marinette, it was anything but exciting. Nerve wracking and inconvenient was more like it. She pushed herself further down into her blankets, trying to exaggerate her point.

“I’m not sure, Alya, I’m really not feeling too well today.”

“Oh, come on! This is a once in a lifetime chance! You can’t leave me to do this all alone!”

Sure, once in a lifetime for Alya, but it would be the second time in as many days that Marinette had been inside the Agreste manor. That prospect wasn’t quite as exciting. For all she knew, she might get shoved into a closet again.

“You won’t be alone,” Marinette offered. “Your mom will be there. Besides, it’s a job. You’re not going there to party with all the models and designers.”

Alya frowned playfully. “You’re no fun. I guess if I meet Adrien I’ll have to just tell you later how beautiful he is in person. . .”

Just then, a startling image of his shining green eyes and gentle smile flashed in Marinette’s mind. There was no denying that even the most professional photography did no justice to how warm, welcoming, and downright charming he was in real life.

But this was no time to be thinking about that.

“I’m sorry I’ll have to miss it,” Marinette tried her utter best to sound disappointed. “Maybe you can manage to take a selfie with him. Post it on your blog.”

Marinette’s snark flew over Alya’s head; she was far too busy utterly losing her mind trying to decide what to wear.

Through the bedroom door, she could hear that Mme. Césaire was just as frantic as her daughter, if not moreso, as she rifled through her various recipe books she brought with her to prepare for this very last-minute event.

“You should go with the cupcakes again,” Marinette called out, hiding the knowing smile that tugged at the corner of her lips. “They’re a crowd favorite.”

What seemed like an eternity later, but was really only an hour or two, the two women were ready to leave and get a head start on their preparations. Alya stopped by Marinette’s bedside before they went.

“I’ll take thousands of pictures for you,” she promised. “Millions, if you want. And I’ll make sure maman leaves extra desserts aside for you. And if I meet any cute models I promise I’ll put in a good word and only show them you most flattering pictures. And-”

“Alya,” Marinette groaned, though couldn’t help but smile. “Go have fun. It’s okay, don’t worry about me.”

Alya reached over and squeezed Marinette’s hand. “You’re the best, girl.” She rose to leave, her excitement evident on her face as she practically bounced out into the hallway.

The front door closed with a resounding thud.

Marinette was alone.

As if it had a mind of its own, her hand was on the phone, dialing the numbers before she could stop and think about what she was doing.

It rang only once before a simple “Hello?” sent her heart fluttering.

She’d really need to work hard on that whole not crushing on him thing.

“Hi, Adrien,” she took a deep breath. “Uh, it’s me. Marinette.”

“I had my fingers crossed that you wouldn’t be a telemarketer trying to sell me something,” he joked. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to call. What’s kept you so busy?”

Her honest answer - lying in bed all day doing absolutely nothing - was probably the most boring thing she could possibly say.

“I’ve been working on my sketches,” she said. At least it wasn’t a lie.

“I’m sure word has gotten around town that I’m hosting a get-together tonight,” he hinted playfully. “It’s a shame you probably can’t make it.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Marinette didn’t hesitate to answer. “I can’t sneak around anymore. I’m already scared Alya is going to catch on any minute now. And we both know that would be a major mistake. Plus, I’ve already made a good excuse to her why I won’t be coming.”

He chuckled lightly, his breath making the phone’s speaker pop in a way that made him feel like he was right there next to her.

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “It might just be worth it though, her finding out - maybe once the novelty wears off, she and I can conspire to get you to actually have some fun.”

Marinette rolled over onto her back, pressing the phone closer to her ear. “She blogs about you, you know. An entire website she made herself. Full of nothing but your face.”

“That’s nothing, you should see my dad’s office. At least there are no embarrassing childhood photos out there on the internet.”

“Oh, sure, not yet,” Marinette laughed. “But once you let her in your house I’m sure they’d find their way out.”

“Like I said, it might be worth it.”

“You’re not giving up on this, are you?”

“Nope,” Adrien said matter-of-factly.

“In that case, why don’t you just tell Alya personally? It’ll probably go over better than me confessing myself.”

“As tempting as that may sound, you know I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Did she know that, though? Hell, she barely knew him. Yet, she trusted him all the same.

Sure, his reputation needed to be protected, but Marinette was nobody. Exposing her secrets wouldn’t have as big of an impact compared to what he’d go through if the public knew any juicy details about his personal life. But he still knew, however mundane it may be, that choice to reveal her secret was hers and hers alone to make.

“She and her mom will probably be here any minute, along with the rest of the guests,” Adrien sighed. “I should probably get going.”

“Right,” Marinette tried her best not to sound dejected.

“Before I go, I do have a question for you though.”

Instantly, as if she’d just downed a cup of coffee, her entire brain perked up.

“How much longer will you be here?” Adrien asked carefully. She prayed her imagination wasn’t running wild, that she truly did hear a hint of hope in his voice. That one simple question implied a million more possibilities.

She counted down in her head. “Eleven more days,” she said after a moment, not quite believing it herself. Had it really only been three days since they arrived? And if she and Alya had already gotten into this much trouble so soon, she could only imagine what havoc they wreak with more than a week remaining in their trip.

“Well, if you’re ever in need of a tour guide, or if you want recommendations for the best beaches-”

“Or if I want to go on a surprise midnight joy ride through a stranger’s big fancy neighborhood. . .”

Adrien laughed, “Yeah, that too. You know where to reach me.”

“And you know that I could never get away with talking to you while Alya and I are staying in the same room. And this is the only working phone we have right now.”

“You don’t need cell phone service to use an app,” he offered. “You can text me on your phone using the internet. That way you won’t have to always wait to call.”

She hadn’t even considered that. Then again, Adrien probably knew lots of sneaky ways to get any tiny bit of privacy from his everyday life. It came with the territory of the career, she supposed.

“I’ll do that then,” she smiled.

“Great,” Just from the sound of his voice, she could tell he was smiling too.

They both stayed on the line for a half a dozen fleeting moments, Marinette not quite sure whether or not she wanted to be the one to hang up first. And in those few moments, a thought came to her.

Really, the thought had been pressing in the back of her mind for ages, but she supposed it was a good time to set it free.

“Okay, you got to ask your question, now it’s my turn,” she told him. “And I want a real, honest answer.”

“Of course,” Adrien replied.

“You’re being so nice to me. Spending all this time talking to me when you could be busy with your friends or family or. . . anyone, really. I don’t get it. Why me?”

“I like making new friends,” Adrien said. “And you seemed like a good candidate.”

“But you barely know me.”

“I’d like to get to know you better. If that’s okay with you.”

Her breath caught in her throat, the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears through the silence.

After another moment, he asked, “Does that answer your question?”

“Yes,” she forced herself to answer, forcing down the violent butterflies threatening to burst from her chest.

“Good,” Adrien answered casually, as if he hadn’t just sent her mind on a whirlwind of emotions. “In that case. . . I’ll see you soon?”

Would he though?

“Maybe,” was the most honest answer she could give, and she hoped her response came out as more playful than downright rejecting. “Have fun at your party, Adrien.”

“Goodbye, Marinette.”

Adrien hung up first, leaving the sudden silence of the empty hotel room as Marinette’s only companion.

In the end, Marinette Dupain-Cheng could honestly say she really, truly tried not to fall for Adrien Agreste. But try as she might, there was no denying that, more than anything else, she was looking forward to - maybe, possibly, hopefully - seeing him again.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #adrienette #ml fic #adrinette #some kind of miracle #my writing #am I reposting this because the original didn't get any attention????......maybe

[moodybluthcomic]

Character Design for Moody Bluth

Welcome to the first behind-the-scenes post! (Like I talked about last week, one post a month will be a post about sketches and process- starting now.)

Below is a compilation of sketches that I did while developing character models for Moody. Most of this work I did before I started officially drawing the comic, buuuut it's a poorly-kept secret that I did not start using a proper character model until like... ten pages in? 

I settled on the basics pretty early- long pointy face shape, shaved/buzz cut on the left with a big hair swoop on the right- but I tried basically infinite variations on this. The REAL truth of it was I just couldn't fully decide what I wanted Moody to look like, but I also didn't have unlimited time to futz around with development not so I pushed myself to make decisions fast. The Moody circled in green was actually one of my first sketches of Moody, and at the beginning was pretty much my official character design.  Notice though that it's literally only a side-view, (????!) AKA the one view of Moody I almost never draw, lol. I hoped I would settle into a permanent design naturally as I went but of course I ended up just drawing them a different way every panel, and liking each new weird way better than the last. Finally I got fed up- partly just with the innefficiency of various parts of my process (it was around this time that I also changed the way I did screentones for efficiency as well), but also with my drawings looking so inconsistent. So I ended up compiling a lot of my favorite drawings of Moody in Photoshop, tracing them, and then putting them on a grid so I could move the individual features around until I got something that at the very least had roughly the same proportions from every angle. That resulted in the heads that you see in the bottom right. Which are still the models for Moody's head that I use to this day. You will notice: this post doesn't  show models for their body, or for their head from... Pretty much any angle that I actually end up drawing them from? Any ideas why? Oh what's that, in hearing "because I'm extremely too lazy to make/use such models"? Bing bing we have a winner. Ironically, Moody Bluth, the character who I committed to drawing in almost every panel of every page, is the character I find hardest to draw. I think I figured out how Loisel would look in one single afternoon and I've drawn her- or at least her face- more or less the same way ever since. 

{Image Description: A number of images stitched together, including scanned pencil, ink, and digital sketches of Moody Bluth mostly from the neck up. They look different in pretty much every instance. Prominent in centre is my first more-or-less official character design: a full-body sketch of Moody circled in green, where they are seen from the left side, wearing a blazer and in a sneaky pose. Down in the bottom left are several iterations of my current character models: a series of rows of heads each seen from front, left, and 3/4 right views, with the row that I now use as models circled in blue.}

#comics #process #artprocess #character designs #comics process #webcomic

[bacejelerenvorthos]

Magic Artist Interview: Matt Stewart

Once again we have a very special feature...an interview with wonderful Magic and fantasy artist Matt Stewart and a behind-the-scenes look at one of his recent cards!

Daniel: Hi Matt! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your artistic process with us fans. Your work is wonderful! How long have you been doing art for Magic: the Gathering?

Matt Stewart: I’ve been doing Magic art for over ten years. My first cards were Ramosian Revivalist and Narcomoeba, from back in the Futuresight set.

D: For those of us who love your work, where can we find more of your artwork (outside of your Magic pieces)?

MS: My art can be seen at my website, matthew-stewart.com, as well as my facebook fan pages and my instagram, @matthewstewartillustration.

D: Is there one Magic world or character that if given the chance you’d love to paint?

MS: That’s a difficult question. There are a lot of characters I’d like to depict, and worlds I’d love to visit (and revisit). I regret missing out on Lorwyn. As for a character, I’d love to take a crack at Ajani.

D: Let’s talk about one of your current pieces for Guilds of Ravnica - Sunhome Stalwart. Tell us about your process for painting this piece.

MS: I was asked to paint a male Boros officer, one who is a dependable leader and a fierce warrior. He had to be seen in an active pose, wielding a huge great-sword . The armor for the Boros legion was well established, so there wasn’t a whole lot to character design to resolve there. It was mainly a question of the pose, lighting, and viewpoint or composition. So I worked up a number of thumbnails sketches showing different poses and views. Though I think many of them would work, I settled on one that showed the character facing the viewer, raising his sword in an aggressive pose.

From there I gather reference, which includes shooting photo reference shots (I posed for this one, which is often the case), and other bits of reference for armor, background architecture, skies- anything that I might need for the piece.

When I feel like I have enough information, and a good photo, I work up a comprehensive sketch to show the art directors for approval. In the past this was done in pencils, but I’ve been doing them digitally in the past couple years. I like being able to work in full lights and darks immediately. The digital medium also allows me to try out a lot of ideas without having to erase and re-draw things. And in many cases, including this one, I’ll add color to my sketches.

When the sketch is submitted and approved, I proceed to the final, which for me, is always done in oils, usually on a gesso primed panel. The sketch is traced onto the board using carbon transfer paper. I like to work out details in the drawing in this stage, so that I have a pretty tight drawing to paint on. When the drawing is finished, it’s sealed with clear acrylic matte medium. Now I’m ready to paint.

I usually start with more acrylic, toning the board to establish the basic color palette of the piece. This gives me context to make better color choice in the following layers of oils. When the acylic layer is totally dry after about a half hour or so, I proceed to oils. I usually start on a focal point of the piece, usually a face if it’s a creature. Sometimes I’ll work on the sky first though, to establish lighting. It depends on the particular image. When every area has been addressed, I’ll give extra attention to areas that need it, or glaze color to make minor adjustments. When I feel the piece is finished, I’ll snap a quick picture of it and send it in the art directors. When it’s approved, the painting is scanned and file color corrected and sent in.

Thanks Matt! We love your work! Thanks for sharing your process with us!

#mtg #vorthos #magic the gathering #magic art #mtggrn #ravnica #guilds of ravnica #fantasy art #art #fantasy #boros #boros legion #flavor #lore

[sunshinetrappedinourhearts]

Nathmarc month day 29: Fantasy AU

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491026/chapters/39420499 Or, in my case, a vampire AU LMAO- hey, it’s fantasy right...? Oh man, this was nice to write. I had to stop it at some point though, because it was getting ridiculously long (again... stop giving me AU’s lol) PLUS, I wasn’t sure if it would be appreciated, as in I chose to not write out... certain things. You’ll get what I mean. Anyways. Here ya go. c: @nathmarcnovember BY THE WAY! I’m in Paris right now (I’m from the Netherlands myself) for Y/CON and I’ll be cosplaying Marc with my girlfriend as Nathaniel! c: Which is super nice of course, but yeah, this is why day 30 will be delayed, probably. I’ll try to write it tomorrow (one day late), but we’ll see! 

The day Nathaniel arrived, it was grey and rainy. The sun was nowhere to be found, and it made the whole town look ominous and a little shady. It made him shiver. Although that could also have been caused by the cold of the early autumn that year.

Absently, he wondered why on earth he had chosen to attend college here again, instead of a normal big city where all his former classmates had gone to. But then he remembered that it was one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, and that it would definitely help him grow.

He probably just had bad timing; in the coming days the sky would surely clear up a bit. He should just stop being so prejudged and give the small town a chance.

***

It didn’t clear up the next few days, and his first day of college it was even cloudier than the day he arrived, yet there was no rain. He was carrying an umbrella, staring at the trees already losing their leaves, they looked sad and lonely, and Nathaniel felt like capturing them in a drawing. He was imagining the way he could do that, maybe using charcoal pencils, or ink… when suddenly, he hit something hard with his shoulder and he quickly looked up into a pair of the brightest green eyes he had ever seen.

‘Ah, sorry!’ he said, grabbing the umbrella he had just dropped. ‘I was lost in thought…’

The boy in front of him seemed to be about the same age as him. He was just a little taller, and he had black hair tied in a messy ponytail. Nathaniel noticed he was wearing fingerless gloves and black nail polish. It contrasted strongly against his very pale skin. But it were the eyes that captured Nathaniel’s attention. They were so intensely radiant that he found it hard to look away. As if they were enchanting him. Never before in his life had he seen such dazzling eyes.

‘N-no, my bad,’ the boy said, pulling Nathaniel out of his daze, he then noticed the other was awkwardly scratching his head, taking some papers he had apparently dropped on the ground.

Nathaniel quickly leaned down to help him. They were lined pages, scribbled full of words, and it was tempting to read, but Nathaniel quickly gave them back to him before he could.

‘Thank you…’ He smiled a bit, putting the papers back in the map he was carrying.

‘Are you attending the art school here?’ Nathaniel blurted out.

‘Oh, I am, yes, I’m starting today. I’m in creative writing. What about you?’

‘2D and digital art,’ Nathaniel said, smiling softly. ‘Starting today as well. I specialize in comic and cartoon style, actually, but I also do traditional art.’

‘That’s amazing,’ Marc answered. ‘Maybe I’ll see you in the joined lessons some time, then.’

‘Joined lessons?’

‘Yeah, they have those, making people in different art divisions cooperate with each other to make big projects.’

Nathaniel felt a wave of excitement run through his body as he heard those words. Especially since there were a lot of things he wasn’t too good at, like script writing.

‘That’s amazing…’

He looked at the other boy, then quickly reached out his hand to introduce himself. ‘I’m Nathaniel,’ he smiled.

‘Ah, I’m Marc…’ Marc took his hand, shaking it shortly before letting go, a hint of pink on his cheeks. ‘It’s nice to meet you…’

***

Marc’s prediction happened sooner than Nathaniel expected, already during the first week he spotted him during a joined course.

Their eyes met for a second, and Nathaniel got lost within them, quickly pulling away when their teacher spoke.

Apparently, they were going to do a cooperation between creative writers and artists , and they’d be allowed to choose their own end product, for example a picture book, a visual novel, or...

A comic book.

It had been Nathaniel’s dream for ages to create a comic book, and he desperately hoped that this would finally become reality.

Marc appeared beside him only a  second after their teacher told them to find a partner, and Nathaniel almost tripped as he was still getting up.

The other boy grabbed his shoulder, and grinned a little sheepishly, a light blush on his cheeks. ‘Do you… erm… want to work together?’

***

That day, when Nathaniel walked towards his apartment, he didn’t notice the dozens of lit up eyes watching him from a distance.

He didn’t see it the next day either.

Or the next.

Or the following.

***

‘Nathaniel…?’ Marc asked a few weeks later. They were in the final stage of the comic book they were working on. It was about a superhero named Ladybug, one that always inspired Nathaniel during his middle and high school years, when he still lived in Paris.

He’d always wanted to create a comic about her, to honour her, and of course, to finally bundle all the story ideas he had about her.

Marc had happily agreed, and ever since, they had worked together perfectly, their skills complementing each other.

‘Yes…?’ he answered, looking up from the sketch of the final few pages he was working on. Marc was currently coloring the pages and filling in the speech bubbles.

‘I’m just wondering, where in town do you live…?’

‘Oh, in the outskirts, near the forest,’ he answered. ‘Why do you ask? Wanna work at my place sometime?’

‘Ah, that, too… i-if you want to, that is!’ Marc’s cheeks reddened a bit and Nathaniel found it cute. ‘But that’s not why I asked… It’s because, well… I just want to tell you… to be careful walking home… and… don’t go too late…’

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Why’s that?’

Marc averted his gaze, and an uncomfortable sense of foreboding settled itself in Nathaniel’s stomach. The other boy was acting a bit strangely and it didn’t suit him.

‘…strange things have been happening in town, lately… Have always been, actually, but… it’s back, kind of…’

That confused him even more. ‘I can’t follow you…’

Marc looked up, locking their gazes carefully. Nathaniel hold his breath, because Marc’s eyes were mesmerizing… so deep… so…

‘J-just, be careful, okay?’

Nathaniel nodded, but he still didn’t understand what the writer boy was talking about.

***

Two weeks later, he found out what Marc meant.

He was on his way home from a late lecture, walking through the quiet part of town, almost reaching his apartment, when a hooded figure jumped in front of him, his face hidden.

Nathaniel’s heart stopped for a moment, and he took a step back, uneasiness tingling through his limbs.

The figure walked closer, slowly, and alarmed, he turned around, only to find an identical person on the other side, closing him in.

Another appeared.

And another.

And Nathaniel dropped his bag, his hands shaking.

What… what was happening…?

What were they doing…?

He had no money, no belongings, nothing!

What was it they wanted…?

Absently, he thought of Marc’s words a few weeks ago, and wondered if this is what his writer friend had been warning him for.

Chewing on his lip, he let his eyes flash from the one person to the other, searching for a way to get out, but there was none.

He was a goner.

Done for.

He didn’t know what was happening but-

He was trapped-

His heart was pounding painfully loud against his chest, and he thought for a moment that maybe, he’d die of that first before these strange hooded people could get to him.

Maybe that would be better.

Then, as one of them took another step closer, only a few feet away from him, he noticed their unnatural glowing purple eyes, and they made him think of Marc’s-

Before he could think anything more of it, the person moved too fast for Nathaniel’s eyes to follow, and he breathed-

He was dead-

No doubt-

He was gonna-

Gonna die-

Lost and forgotten-

Forever-

But then, as he opened the eyes he didn’t even remember closing, there was another figure in front of him suddenly, hissing at the other guys.

‘Get away, this one’s mine.’

Nathaniel blinked.

That voice-

‘Oh yeah? Do you have proof?’ the purple-eyed one called. It was a male voice, and the owner of it had stepped away a bit.

‘We’re four against one, kid,’ one of the others said.

Nathaniel moved a little closer to the figure that was apparently, for God knows whatever reason, protecting him.

Maybe it was a bad idea-

Maybe he’d be slaughtered by this one soon instead-

But-

There was no other option-

‘One, yes, one you cannot beat, you lowlifers. Do you have any idea what family I’m from?’

‘Rhy, that one’s from the Anciel family, we gotta be careful!’

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows, he had no idea what it meant, but the purple-eyed guy, who seemed to be the leader, took another step back and cursed under his breath.

‘Well, you’re lucky today, asshole,’ he growled. ‘But don’t think you can fool me. That one is not marked. So if you want to keep him, you better do that.’

The figure in front of Nathaniel didn’t seem impressed. ‘Get away. Before you start to regret it.’

And they went.

Nathaniel breathed, falling to the ground, only now realizing how stressed he had been from the whole situation. Grabbing his bag, he just inhaled and exhaled, gathering his thoughts.

What-

What on earth-

‘Are you… alright… Did they hurt you…?’ the voice belonging to the figure in front of them spoke. It was too familiar, too…

He turned around, and Nathaniel’s eyes widened.

‘Marc…’

The boy’s eyes seemed to sadden for a moment as he took off the hoodie of his shirt, revealing his face. He reached out his hand and Nathaniel took it, without hesitating, getting up.

His hand was warm and his touch gentle yet firm, and somehow, Nathaniel wanted to cry a little bit, because he felt like he was safe.

Marc however, still looked saddened, and he didn’t understand why.

‘Y-you saved me, thanks…’

Marc shrugged. ‘A little, but…’

‘But?’

His eyes flashed from left to right, and then he looked back at Nathaniel. ‘…I’ll walk you home, okay? I-if you want to, I… can come in and… explain…’

Nathaniel nodded, and they walked to his home in silence. He stayed close by Marc’s side, their shoulders almost touching.

***

Not much later, they were in his apartment, the both of them a warm cup of coffee in their hands. Nathaniel had finally been able to relax, but his mind was spinning with questions.

‘So… what did you want to explain to me…?’ he asked.

Marc took a sip of coffee, and then looked at him, his eyes very sad once again. Nathaniel preferred them happy, and shining with excitement.

‘Those figures that cornered you… they were… vampires…’

Nathaniel frowned. ‘They what?’

Marc looked him in the eye, dead-serious.

‘Vampires.’

He moved back a bit, because, really…?

Was he really joking in a moment like this?

When he had been so afraid, so scared?

He was just… mocking him?

‘…if this is your idea of a joke, I seriously misjudged you. It’s not funny.’

Marc’s eyes widened. ‘I’m n-not joking. I just… This is why I didn’t tell you everything when I warned you… You wouldn’t believe me..’

For a moment, Nathaniel thought to himself. If, but only if vampires really existed, then the whole situation suddenly wouldn’t be so strange anymore, right?

Because no money… no wealth… no things…

There was literally no reason for the four figures to have attacked him.

Unless… they had wanted his blood.

Literally.

But yeah, vampires didn’t exist so it was all total bullshit.

‘That one’s from the Anciel family, we gotta be careful!’

The sentence one of the figures had said about Marc suddenly flashed through his mind, and he looked at Marc carefully, squinting his eyes.

‘If that’s true… does that… mean… you’re a vampire as well…?’

Marc averted his eyes. And then slowly, very slowly, he nodded.

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows at first because-

It couldn’t be true-

It was ridiculous.

Totally ridiculous.

But then he looked back at Marc, carefully, observing his expression.

It didn’t change. He was trembling slightly, and his eyebrows were cast downwards, in a sad frown. He didn’t meet his gaze.

No freaking way-

Nathaniel chewed on his lip.

‘You… You are… serious.’ It sounded half like a question, half like an observation.

And Nathaniel stood up, taking a step back.

Because he had never seen Marc eating-

Or drinking-

Except his coffee just now-

And his skin was so pale.

His eyes so ridiculously bright.

Could it seriously be…

He took another step back.

And Marc finally looked at him, standing up.

‘I’m not lying. I swear…’

Nathaniel stared.

His head spinning.

‘Show me.’

‘W-what?’

‘Y-your fangs.’

Nathaniel felt his cheeks heat up and he quickly averted his eyes, but then decided it was best to keep looking at him.

Marc was blinking.

For a while, he was silent, then he walked up to him.

Nathaniel wanted to get away, but at the same time, his mind was convincing him that Marc was probably joking because vampires were all one big legend, but he was also a little scared, but also he trusted Marc and-

He was a mess.

Marc, in turn, stopped walking when they were only inches away from each other, and he opened his mouth, a little awkwardly.

And Nathaniel saw.

He wasn’t kidding.

‘T-then… I never saw you eating because…’

Marc closed his mouth. ‘Because I don’t need it. I don’t need drinks as well.’

He nodded at the empty cup of coffee. ‘I can drink, or eat, but, I just don’t taste anything. And it’s not… really enjoyable, but, well, I can…’

‘S-so… those… other…’ Nathaniel frowned. ‘…other… vampires… they got away, because…?’

Marc sighed. ‘Because I belong to a pretty powerful family… I’m a bit of an outsider there, but, well, I still carry their name, and they turned me, so… I can use it in situations like this.’

He scratched his head.

‘The problem is that it won’t help forever… In your case…’

‘Why is that…?’ Nathaniel sat back down on his couch, and Marc carefully followed his example, and Nathaniel noticed he put a considerable amount of distance between them.

Was he… uncomfortable…?

Nathaniel found that he himself, wasn’t… so much. Because if all this was true, Marc was still Marc, and he was still his partner, still a great writer, and well… He saved his life… Especially if those other… people were vampires.

‘Because they probably noticed I was lying.’

‘About… saying… I w-was… yours…?’ Nathaniel felt a little hot suddenly, and he started fumbling with his hair to focus on something else.

‘Y-yeah…’ Marc said, his cheeks pink as well.

Maybe his room was just pretty warm, yeah, that was probably it.

‘Vampires… they can… well… kind of… Mark their… partners… As in… they can pretty much claim a human… or other vampires… as their own… It’s a special process. When you undergo it, other vampires can’t touch that particular person anymore. The only person who can drink that person’s blood is the vampire who marked them. I kind of… implied you were like that to me, but vampires can usually tell whether a person is marked or not. And you’re not, so… they’ll come back for you at some point.’

‘Why me?’

Marc looked at him, fumbling with his gloves a bit. ‘…your blood smells… special…’

Nathaniel breathed.

‘To you, as well?’

‘Y-yeah. But don’t worry, I’m completely under control. I don’t drink much blood. Only blood we have stored at home.’

But you still think my blood smells special…

‘I’m not scared,’ Nathaniel said. ‘You’re Marc. No matter if you’re vampire or human.’

His eyes lighted up for a bit, and a small smile played around his lips. ‘T-thank you… That… means a lot…’

Nathaniel smiled.

Marc then got up. ‘I’ll get going… Just… I’ll walk you home from now on, okay…? I… It’s not that I think you’re weak or something, just…’

‘No, it’s okay. Thank you. I understand. That’s… kind of you. I’d appreciate that.’

Nathaniel couldn’t imagine walking that dark road alone anymore, not when thirsty vampires could appear from every corner. Now that he knew… He shivered.

***

Starting the next day, Marc walked him home every day. Usually, he’d stay for a while, drinking a cup of coffee, because according to him, it was the one thing that could actually close to make him taste something.

Weeks passed, and Nathaniel started feeling guilty to make the other boy walk him home all the time, and something was gnawing his mind… stealing his thoughts.

One day, he finally found the courage to ask.

‘Marc…?’

‘Hm?’ The other boy looked up from his notebook, he had been working on an assignment for class.

‘I uh… you… erm… You are walking me home every day now, and… I appreciate it a whole lot, and I like your company, but… isn’t it… a lot more convenient…’ he paused, taking a deep breath, and then shot out all the remaining words at once. ‘…ifyoujustmarkme.’

Marc dropped his pen. ‘W-what?’

Nathaniel breathed, his head was burning, and he wondered vaguely if it was now as red as his hair. He looked at Marc carefully, but his eyes were so widened, so shocked, and his cheeks so red that Nathaniel felt even more embarrassed and he averted his gaze, chewing on his lip.

‘Well… If you… mark… me… like you t-told me… then… you d-don’t need to worry so much anymore… right?’

Marc inhaled deeply. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re asking?’

‘Yes? I mean? I guess? Probably?’ Nathaniel blinked.

Marc picked up his pen again.

‘Nathaniel… If I… give you my mark, then… it won’t just mean you can’t be preyed upon by other vampires anymore… It also means that… I will be unable to drink any other blood than yours… Meaning I… have to continue drinking your blood… because it will be the only one that will satisfy me… Until the mark disappears… Meaning… until you die…’

Nathaniel’s head was spinning. ‘O-oh…’

‘See? I can’t do that. I can’t hurt you like that,’ Marc said softly, and he smiled a bit as he continued writing.

Nathaniel didn’t answer, thinking hard.

But he didn’t find an answer that day.

***

A week later, he did.

‘Marc. Drink my blood.’

The poor writer boy choked on his coffee, almost spitting half of it out. Then, he looked at Nathaniel, his eyes big and shocked. ‘W-what?’

Nathaniel didn’t know what words were anymore. He searched hard for them, opening his mouth, closing it again, and Marc waited until finally, he managed to blurt them out.

‘Then I know what it feels like. So I can decide for myself if I’d find it a bother if you… mark… me…’

Marc inhaled.

‘I-I n-never d-drank… s-someone’s… blood… directly…’

‘Well, then it’ll be a first time for you as well…?’ Nathaniel smiled a bit, embarrassed, his cheeks burning.

‘N-no. I can’t. I can’t do it,’ Marc said, getting up, grabbing his notebook and pen, but they fell on the ground as he awkwardly tried to gather them together.

Nathaniel tried reaching for it, to help him, but he clumsily scratched his hand across the table.

Cursing, he grabbed his trembling hand.

It was bleeding.

Carefully, he looked up to Marc.

His eyes were… glowing.

And as soon as their gazes met, he took multiple steps back.

Nathaniel chewed his lip.

Was he…

Was it…

His blood…?

‘…Marc…?’

‘I should leave.’

He was about to walk away, but Nathaniel realized that this would probably be the only time he’d get a chance like this.

Why though…

Why on Earth…

Did he want Marc to…

To…

So desperately…?

He didn’t know.

Or maybe he did.

But he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

It didn’t matter-

He quickly moved towards the writer boy, standing between him and the door, locking their gazes.

‘Nathaniel…’

Marc’s eyes were trembling, and so were his hands.

Nathaniel hold out his hand. It was bleeding, a little bit, but there were still small drops of blood trailing down his arm.

He took a deep breath.

‘J-just try. Alright? I trust you.’

Marc groaned, grabbing his head. ‘Don’t ask this of me… please…!’

‘But you want to, don’t you?’

‘You have no idea-’

‘Yes! Because I don’t know! If you just- Then I’ll know.’

Marc grabbed his hand, and Nathaniel breathed.

Slowly, very slowly, Marc pulled his hand closer, and he didn’t look him in the eye as he licked the trail of blood from his arm.

Nathaniel shivered.

And he saw Marc’s eyes widening.

‘…it’s… good?’ he breathed, barely a whisper.

Marc let go of his arm, and locked their gazes.

‘It… it is… Which is why… I won’t do that again…’

He left. Before Nathaniel had moved from his frozen state, unable to stop him.

***

Some months passed, and they never spoke of the incident again. Until one evening, Marc walked him home like always, and suddenly, the group of four vampires reappeared.

Nathaniel’s heart sank, and he froze in his steps. Vaguely, he registered Marc moving in front of him protectively.

The purple-eyed vampire spoke first.

‘So, what’s the deal, Anciel? This human, he’s not yours, is he?’

‘Then why can’t we have it?’ another of them asked.

‘Yeah, it’s blood smells pretty good, and he lives alone, a perfect victim.’

‘Get away,’ Marc said.

‘Not until you give me a clear answer.’ The purple-eyed vampire took some steps closer to Marc, facing him. He was a little bit taller than him, and Nathaniel’s heart was pounding loudly against his chest.

‘I haven’t marked him yet,’ Marc answered.

A loud chuckle sounded, and unconsciously, Nathaniel moved a little closer to Marc, who in turn moved even more in front of him.

‘If you haven’t marked him yet,’ the purple-eyed vampire said. ‘He is as much yours as he is ours. So you get away. We’re four, you’re one. An Anciel or not, you can’t win.’

‘Get. Away,’ Marc growled. And Nathaniel couldn’t see his face, but the sound in his voice was enough. He waited, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, trying to concentrate on something else instead of the vampires surrounding them.

For a second, the leader of the vampires backed away. Just one step. And then he snorted.

‘Then mark him. Right here.’

‘You know perfectly well that I’m not going to do that in public,’ Marc said. And Nathaniel absently wondered what the hell he meant by that. Was it that intimate…? His heart started to pound a little faster, and he wasn’t so sure anymore what exactly the cause of it was.

Marc took one step forward, in the direction of the purple-eyed vampire. Who took one back.

‘If you want to fight me, be my guest. But you know about the Anciel’s fighting techniques, do you not?’

Silence.

‘Then you know you don’t stand a chance. And you know four against one is not something you can be proud of.’

The purple-eyed vampire made a tch-sound, and then turned around.

‘You better make truth of your words, Anciel. You can’t simply claim a human smelling that good without marking him. I’ll hunt him down and find him when you’re not around.’

They walked away.

And Nathaniel breathed.

***

When they arrived at home, Marc turned around, and looked him in the eye, shy at first, but then serious. And he took a step closer.

Nathaniel held his breath.

‘Nathaniel… I… I want t-to… make you… mine…’

He released his breath. And his face was on fire.

‘Wow, that sounded…’

‘You c-can take it in two different ways. I mean it in both,’ Marc said, he was blushing.

‘W-what…?’

‘I’m… I… want to protect you… And… I promise to never hurt you… I’ll only drink your blood… when it’s absolutely necessary… In that way. But… this is also a confession…’

‘C-confession…?’

‘I’m in love with you,’ Marc blurted out, and Nathaniel’s heart soared.

His mind was spinning with what?! and but- and how- and since when- and that can’t be true- and a whole lot more that he couldn’t identify at all but-

Something within his chest felt like a fluttering ball of fluff, and it was soft and warm, and Nathaniel didn’t dislike it.

Only his cheeks were uncomfortably warm and he probably looked like a freaking tomato-

How did talking work again?

‘Nathaniel…?’

Marc looked worried, and small, and his posture was insecure and his hands were trembling.

He was nervous-

He should give him an answer-

But how did he feel?

Nathaniel only knew that his heart felt a little lighter whenever Marc was around. That he was kind and talented, and a little shy, but that was more cute than annoying. That his eyes were mesmerizing and his hands were soft. That he didn’t remember anymore what it felt like to be without him. That they were the perfect team they had ever dreamed of. And that he wouldn’t mind Marc drinking his blood… at all. He didn’t mind him being a vampire. Because he was Marc. And Marc was the only thing he needed.

‘I-I…’

‘You don’t need to answer me immediately,’ Marc said quickly. ‘I can still protect you the way I’m doing it right now. I’ll fight when it’s necessary. I’ll win.’

‘N-no it’s… I’m feeling a bit… overwhelmed… But not in a bad way…’ he carefully looked at him, and smiled. ‘I… I need some time to sort out my feelings, but… I like you a lot, Marc… I… think I might be in love with you… as well…’

Marc smiled, and his eyes softened. Better.

‘Once you have an answer… please tell me…’

***

About two weeks later, Nathaniel told him he loved him.

He had never seen Marc’s face so red before. It was cute.

They were silent for a while, just sitting together, as Marc squeezed his hand. Eventually, Nathaniel had to be the one to point it out.

‘You should mark me, then.’

He felt Marc jump slightly next to him, and the writer boy turned to look at him.

‘I guess I said that, huh…’ he scratched his head, smiling awkwardly.

‘How does it work…?’

Suddenly, Marc’s hand was moving over his neck, his fingers soft and gentle.

Nathaniel found it hard to remember how to breathe.

‘Apparently…’ Marc said, his voice low. ‘I should bite you… right here… Suck your blood and… there should be some kind of bond between us… If there is… it should happen automatically… You probably won’t be able to tell, but I will…’

Nathaniel nodded, breathing slowly.

‘B-but first…’ Marc said, he was avoiding his gaze, flashing his eyes from left to right nervously. ‘Erm… c-can I… k-kiss you…?’

‘Yes,’ the small word was gone before Nathaniel realized, and Marc leaned in, slowly. He closed his eyes, and their lips touched. A little awkwardly, then again, gentle, soft, Nathaniel’s head was spinning-

It was then that he knew he wanted to be with Marc forever. Everything fell into place.

And from that moment, their eternity started.

#nathmarc november #nathmarc #rainbow tomato #nathaniel kurtzberg #marc anciel #miraculous ladybug #vampire au #marcnath #marcthaniel #marc x nathaniel #nathaniel x marc #fanfiction #my stuff

[wannawrite]

The Royals - PWJ

who?: Wanna One’s Park Woojin genre:  🌺 type: bullet point TW: gang au

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The Royals PJH | PJH2 | KD | KD2

part one / two

mafia! AU 

what secrets does Woojin hide up in the clouds?

kind of a soft mafia! AU for a change of scenery. Thanks for requesting anon!! Hope you guys anticipate more.

disclaimer: pictures used do not belong to me and credit goes to their original owners everything that is written here is purely fictional DO NOT READ IF TRIGGERING

~

Park Woojin

code name: 6 

nickname: Sparrow

by his friends and enemies alike 

he’s deadly quiet, demure even 

Woojin is the pilot in charge of The Royals fleet of private jets 

no one has a clear headshot of Woojin as he always has on a dramatic fighter jet pilot’s mask 

rumour has it that he’s only a boy of 20 years of age, has taupe coloured skin kissed by sun rays and a key identification factor 

his snaggletooth 

but that’s the only word on the street 

Woojin was the most low-key member of The Royals, keeping his profile low and head hidden 

no wonder he was called Sparrow 

always flying off before anyone’s hand could clasp around him 

fast 

nimble 

brown haired 

speckled 

another gossip column mentioned he was a good friend of Lee Daehwi, another member of The Royals 

and that was how he became a key figure of the secret society realm 

Woojin had always dreamt of being a pilot 

when he was young, he had wanted to be an airforce pilot

lol how things have changed 

his mother was a head officer in Incheon’s flight control tower 

that was where the influence came from 

his father had been a pilot

a little love story bloomed from there 

obviously, they married and had two children 

it was a happy family of four, all enthralled by the idea of jetting through the clouds 

one day, a tragic accident had claimed his life 

Woojin was a bit too young to remember specific details but he had a calling to fulfil his late father’s legacy 

he wanted to succeed his father’s wish for him to continue flying planes

a national airforce fighter jet pilot would have been ideal 

but he was happy to settle for the position of head pilot of Seoul’s notorious mafia 

Woojin was sent to pilot school when he was a middle school student

only when he was a high schooler did he start practicing and honing his skills with real planes 

small delivery planes that is 

cute 

Woojin was the kind of guy who took photos with every plane he had piloted

every single one of them were kept in an album in his mother’s house 

yes, his cute snaggletooth was featured in ALL of them 

his sister would scrapbook some candids and send them over to The Royals HQ in Seoul 

sparrow’s scrapbooks were the talk of the town 

Woojin was in charge of a lot of things 

excessive things 

almost too much 

but he loved his job and lived for the thrill of flying 

whether it was a goods plane, passenger plane, he just adored piloting planes 

oh and it wasn’t exactly hard to renew his license when he had contacts in the business 

occasionally, Woojin traveled back to his flying school to assist teachers 

or take more classes since he is 20

still gaining knowledge 

well, that’s how you got to know him 

when you were young, your grandfather would tell you stories of the days when he was a fighter pilot 

a pilot 

he met your grandmother during his flying days as well 

fascinated by his stories and tales, you too were determined to pilot plane 

it was difficult 

your parents did not favour this idea and your grandparents were your only supporters 

in secret, they coached you on whatever knowledge they had 

wings, propellor...fly! 

you spent hours and hours poring over ancient plane encyclopedias, enriching your mind and spurring on your motivation 

and then one day, your grandparents came home with an enrolment letter 

into pilot school :D 

you screamed and cried with joy

then worried about how your parents would react but your grandparents gave 0 f*cks 

they the realest 

‘just go, we know people there who will treat and teach you with the best of their abilities.’ 

and so you started to attend classes in secret

hehe hehe 

it was all good 

your coach loved you 

your love for the planes and even theory classes was unexplainable 

not one of your parents knew what you did almost every day after school

until you nearly crashed a plane and were severely hurt

that’s when your parents found out and damn...it wasn’t exactly a pretty scene 

the amount of yelling and screaming was enough to shake the whole hospital 

you had cried so much that the IV drip had to be replaced TWICE

idk if its a thing but it now is 

though it took some time, they finally opened up to the idea of piloting 

they managed to see things from a different perspective and wrap their head around it 

and now they fund your studies :D

okay, so now the fun starts  

you knew Woojin as Park Woojin, the guy from pilot school 

your classmate 

who is kind of too advanced for your class 

Idk what game he playing

if someone asked you about him, you would say y’all talked 

but not a lot 

considering his attendance had been quite hectic and intermittent

and you did hear some fishy theories about him from the gossipers 

Jenna claimed that he worked with the local gang, operating planes so he could import drugs from overseas 

sounds a bit dumb but believable ?? 

you don’t trust Jenna anyway 

but her words linger in your mind, unable to dissipate 

just simple, harmless gossip 

another source stated Woojin was a spy for the FBI, making sure not a single soul could leave the country so easily with their own plane 

crazy 

how much time do these people have?

you noticed that Woojin was close to many of the staff and instructors 

definitely not trying to start your own theory here 

he was a person to be curious about, intriguing 

just your luck, Woojin ended up being your flying buddy for a term 

idk hOw thIS WORKS SO IT GONNA WORK THIS WAY

quite an awkward pairing if you must say

but your instructor liked how you trusted your theory work and equipment, eyeing every reading carefully

he thought it would be a good match for Woojin, who trusted his own instinct but was a firm and steady pilot 

day one: silence filled the space between the two of you 

the instructor gave y’all an hour to read the manual, study, bond whatnot

yet, half of that was spent buried in books and theory videos 

safety books 

going over basics 

reading about gear care 

even though you knew Woojin was an expert in those aspects

there was just no talking 

shhhh 

quieter than your school’s library 

that was most people’s impression of the quiet and cunning little sparrow, tricking people into thinking he’s demure and secretive

see, that’s how all those ludicrous rumours are born 

finally, you just HAD to engage in conversation 

THE SILENCE WAS JUST TOO STRANGLING 

but he was hard to talk to 

woojin barely said three words before the conversation lapsed 

you pressed your lips together, unsure of what to do 

you started to scribble, drawing cartoonish planes and clouds 

that was when Woojin commented that your plane looked more like a bird

‘pfp...see if you can draw any better,’ you challenged 

Woojin took another pencil from your case

‘Try me.’

And so that’s how you spent your ‘study session’ 

Since you do have quite a competitive spirit 

You brought a whole ass portfolio of drawings the next day 

Just so Woojin could get a taste of his competition 

Banter, banter 

After leafing through yours, he pulled out his own digital file of sketches 

And his own little scrapbook 

+2 for artistic talent 

soon, the piles of non-work related books were growing in your locker

there were a couple more pencil scribbles on the picnic table

other students found rough paper with sketches almost everywhere 

even on mock test papers 

eventually, your instructor realised something was terribly off when both of you failed the month’s test 

as punishment, you guys had to do clean up duty 

and more homework 

taking away your hands-on flying class for a month 

but it was fun 

partners in crime play together 

partners in crime die together 

so slogging after class was much more enjoyable in the company of each other 

plus, the ice cream feast after was always rewarding

you guys would purposely take a long route to the bus stop to pick up convenience store ice cream 

woojin would try to convince you that his flavour choice was much better 

time was killed with the playful banter at the bus stop 

many times you found yourself wanting to ask about all the rumours circulated about him 

but you realised that Woojin was that kind of guy who would make a joke out of it 

and take words like those lightly 

bonus!

he had a great sense of humour 

variety king 

days resembling those wore on 

but you were never tired of them 

and it seemed like he wasn’t either 

every occasion was constantly different from the previous one 

another flavour of ice cream to sample

more areas to ‘clean-up’ 

messing around with the coaches 

days at the academy were always divergent 

so it was weird when Woojin didn’t show up one day 

that time you managed to shrug off the anxieties and assumptions 

then, he disappeared for two following days 

that you definitely couldn’t ignore 

you didn’t attend the same school as him and no one else at the academy knew him very well 

when coaches were questioned, they seemed uninterested but assured of his safety 

‘Don’t worry,’ said your instructor. ‘Woojin knows his way around things. Perhaps he just hasn’t been feeling very well.’ 

mhm 

you watched how his irises flickered from yours to the surroundings 

and back 

any trace of uncertainty was erased when you took a second glance 

‘Anyway, I have his assignment folder. Could you pass it to him for the summer? Thanks.’

‘Make sure it gets to him safely. Don’t pass it to a third party.’ 

his footsteps quickened as they grew more and more out of earshot 

you scoffed in disbelief, feeling the effects of being alone while everyone else was buddied up 

how were you ever going to find Woojin? 

His mobile phone was turned off too

or he just wasn’t responding to your texts 

you: hi woojin 

you: I have your work file  

you: can we meet so I can pass it to you? 

you: you okay? haven’t seen you in a while 

woojin hadn’t read those messages 

Sighing, you closed the application and continued with your classes 

forcing yourself to pay attention to content was harder when Woojin wasn’t around

every moment you swore that your phone buzzed in your pocket

unfortunately, it was just your imagination 

there were no texts from him even at the end of the day 

you fell asleep that night with an uneasy heart full of worries 

woojin: yeah of course 

woojin: Thanks btw 

woojin: sorry about it 

woojin: aha you won’t see this asap since its 2am 

woojin: but tell me where to find you tomorrow 

~

what a debonair comment from him 

is that even an adjective to describe a phrase? 

your face feels a bit warm 

stop making a big deal out of nothing!!! 

you: how about 11am at the Starbucks near my place

you text him the address 

shockingly, Woojin’s response is immediate 

Woojin: see you :) 

a smiley face 

what does this mean? 

he’s happy to get his work, that’s what it means 

calm down 

the red alarm clock reads 8.30am 

there’s time to freshen up 

there’s also time for you to imagine every possible outcome of this meeting 

which is taking place outside of class time

would it be awkward? 

strange? 

don’t overthink this

after much deliberation, you make it to Starbucks 15 minutes before the agreed time 

all is calm at your seat near the window, drink on your table 

and clutching Woojin’s file so closely as if it would grow legs and run away 

then, two young men approach your table 

‘Hi,’ one of the voices said. ‘You’re here for Woojin, aren’t you?’ 

you’re hesitant to answer, wondering what sort of relationship Woojin would have with them 

your reply is cut off by the other guy speaking 

he chuckles 

‘I’m Jeno and he’s Jaemin. We’re Woojin’s friends and he sent us to collect his work,’ he says. 

you observe how he hides his hands behind his back, how he presses his lips together too often 

liar

Don’t give it to a third party 

pass it to him personally

Jaemin’s hands reach for the file. ‘Now if you just-‘

‘I don’t think so.’ Your words slice through the tension. ‘Woojin is supposed to collect it from me himself.’ 

The message sent is clear

Don’t f*cking touch this file 

Jaemin’s jaw seems to clench while Jeno begins to crack his knuckles 

‘Well,’ Jaemin begins, his arms retreating. ‘Woojin has something to attend to so he called us to get it. It was a last minute arrangement.’ 

Jeno scrolls through his phone, pulling up ‘Woojin’s’ texts 

The messages are indeed are from a contact called Woojin, he lacks an avatar though 

‘I’ll message him right now.’ 

however, messages from him rain in

Woojin: hey if anyone with the names Jaemin and Jeno talk to you, get away 

Woojin: i didn’t send them, we don’t get along 

Woojin: even if you don’t encounter them, I need you to go home this instant 

Woojin: I’m so sorry, I can’t meet you today 

his texts confirm your suspicions but now you’re curious about his relationship with them 

How long could teenage boys hold grudges for anyway?

you: i’m talking to them rn

you: ...what should I do 

you: jaemin’s pretty adamant about getting your stuff 

Woojin: shit 

Woojin: one of my friends is nearby, his name is Jaehwan 

Woojin: go with him 

Woojin: now, go to the barista and tell them you want a cupful of whipped cream with chocolate sauce 

you look up from your phone, a bit taken aback by the information 

your guard is well up now 

‘Well?’ Jaemin almost hisses before he catches himself

‘Hmm, I’m waiting for his reply. He wants me to order him a coffee.’ 

your heart wants to thump out of your chest

even your lips begin to dry

something just isn’t right 

your brain and body aren’t reacting positively 

As the last word leaves your lips, the barista whispers into a well-concealed in-ear 

out of the corner of your eye, you catch one of the employees ripping her apron off and tossing it into the bushes 

she was outside of the store, clearing dishes from the outdoor seating area 

when she draws close, she makes a noise about not seeing you in a long time 

but her eyes watch Jaemin and Jeno in the back 

It’s to throw them off 

Good plan 

who came up with it? 

the two mysterious boys grow increasingly irritated

it shows clearly in their actions 

furious whispers

side glares 

constant drumming of fingers 

the girl’s eyes flicker over your shoulder for barely a second 

an unnoticeable look 

‘Jaehwan’s here,’ she says just as the bell chimes

‘You’re in good hands now.’ 

her smile is genuine and so is her embrace 

you and Jaehwan don’t even exchange a slither of a greeting 

in fact, you can’t catch your breath as the same lady ushers you out through the kitchen door 

it’s only a matter of seconds before Jaemin and Jeno are alerted of your disappearance 

that’s when their rage would be on the loose

Jaehwan frantically bundles you into a nearby car 

honestly, you aren’t convinced he’s the best company 

perhaps better than the previous Js 

‘Where’s Woojin?’ you heave out. ‘I need to talk to him.’ 

Jaehwan begins to exit the parking lot, sunglasses on. 

‘Sorry, reaching him will take a while. And, sorry for the suddenness of everything. You must be...surprised.’ 

‘That’s an understatement,’ you blurt out. ‘I’m utterly confused and terrified!’ 

‘I don’t even know where I’m going and who’s taking me!’ 

all your emotions are in a jumbled mess 

being with Jaehwan feels like sitting in a lion’s den but with a metal cage surrounding you

safer but not wholly 

staying with Jeno and Jaemin would mean the lions would have devoured you before your feet even reached the bottom of the pit

Woojin didn’t answer any of your calls

Jaehwan notices your hopeless attempts at contacting your friend

‘I’m sorry, he isn’t available at this moment.’ 

‘And why the hell not! He told me to meet him! He doesn’t have any plans! He could’ve come to meet me! I just want to give him his work file!’ 

The outburst makes you feel a ton better 

Like the bag of bricks, you carried had been carrying was thrown at someone you hated 

Suddenly, the road sign reading ‘Incheon Airport’ catches your attention 

especially when Jaehwan seems to be en route

‘Why are we headed to the airport?’ You question, unsure if you want an answer 

‘We’re going to see Woojin,’ Jaehwan replies casually. 

‘W-w-we’re going out of the country?’ The stutter is inevitable 

Jaehwan appears to furrow his brow as if puzzled 

‘Um...yeah. Jihoon and Sejeong will deal with your accommodation,’ he informs, not that it is very helpful 

Who and who? 

‘Does Woojin even tell you anything?’ Jaehwan asks as he drives to the airport carpark 

He shakes his head in disapproval when you answer with a ‘no’

‘I don’t have my passport,’ you say

your words don’t even affect Jaehwan, he simply says that a Kang Daniel has got you covered 

again, who, what and how? 

‘C’mon. Let’s go. I’m sure Woojin has all the answers to your questions.’

~

Jaehwan pushes your back, urging you to move quicker 

‘What the hell,’ he curses under his breath. ‘Hurry up, I see...uh, J and J allies.’ 

there isn’t time 

Plus, you don’t have the courage to turn around and glare them in the eye 

Contrary to your assumption, Jaehwan skirts around the ‘Private Jet’ counter and settles for a commercial flight queue 

he says something about it being too risky to dispatch one of his company’s private jets 

the jets come as no shock 

After all, Woojin does needs his planes

it’s likely his close friends are all like-minded and share the same interests 

Jaehwan speedily dashes for the ‘First Class’ row 

he speaks to the counter staff in such a quiet tone even you can’t decipher his words 

‘Don’t worry about your passport, I have connections.’ 

don’t actually do this!!!

that makes your stomach clench and twist with nerves in the most horrid manner 

somehow 

your passport appears 

it isn’t a replica, it isn’t a faux document

it’s in the flesh 

...did someone break into your house?

‘Yeah,’ Jaehwan answers your unspoken question. ‘Of course someone stole this from your tabletop. You need to get better security.’ 

you face blushes red in embarrassment 

'I’m a pilot,’ you manage a counter attack

your new friend only chuckles 

jumping snaking immigration queues is something you could accustom yourself to

ahhh, the luxuries 

soon, you’ll be able to join the ‘CREW ONLY’ line 

Before you know it, you’re seated in the first class section of a reputable airline 

woah 

this is new 

you don’t want to know where Jaehwan or Woojin or whoever has the money to pay for all this 

then again, these people own a fleet of private jets 

Jaehwan advises you to chill and enjoy the flight 

but the bundle of nerves only tightens in your stomach 

You’re on your way to Hong Kong 

with a small bag of essentials and the clothes on your back

Jaehwan’s in the same situation

yet he seems so used to it, there’s no point being anxious 

tbh you’d rather pilot the plane than ride in it 

why would Woojin be in Hong Kong? 

did he fly there on impulse? 

does he even know the route? 

he did just receive his pilot licence......

no, he couldn’t possibly 

it sounded like a hasty getaway 

A sudden change of plans

as if he was in trouble.....

Who are these people Jaehwan mentioned?

Is Woojin hiding anything from me? 

Of course he is! Jaehwan knows but he feels that only Woojin has the right to tell me 

besides, he’s asleep 

how can he be sleeping at a time like this? 

it’s barely 2pm 

the day is going just fine 

hopefully, things start looking up from here 

Hong Kong...

Woojin...

I’m coming for ya

#Admin L #wanna one #wanna one scenarios #Produce 101 #produce 101 scenarios #park woojin

[chinxino5-blog]

It’s A Package Deal - Seventeen

Bryce felt hollow. No matter how many slices of stale bread he stuffed himself with (four and a half) he couldn’t fill the emptiness within him. The food was sickly going down his throat, the air was sickly filtering into his lungs, everything he touched felt sickly. He was too afraid to ask if he could wind down the window.

After ten minutes of letting his food sit and pretending to not be hyper-aware of Ohm breathing beside him, he huffed a small exhale. His fingers shyly opened the door beside him, eyes on his hands.

Ohm looked up from his phone. Bryce didn’t make the mistake of looking him in the eye. “What are you doing?” His voice was blank, devoid of emotion or energy. He didn’t let his curiosity shine through and Bryce wouldn’t have seen it even if he did.

“I just need some fresh air,” he murmured. I just need to get out of this damn car. “I’m feeling ill.” I want to go home.

The silence that circled him, lifted his chin and his blue eyes timidly met Ohm’s. He showed no emotion, whatever thoughts he dwelled on completely shielded from public view. After a long minute of Bryce glancing up and back and up and back, unsure whether to just close his door and deal with it or wait any longer for a response, Ohm finally dipped his head in a nod. His gaze reluctantly returned to his device.

There wasn’t any real harm that could come from the blonde stepping out of the car, he could watch exactly what the blonde did from where he sat. Plus, he could understand how stuffy the small car was becoming. As the door shut behind the other man, he thoughtlessly wound down his own window and breathed the fresh evening air in deeply. He couldn’t decide whether he loved the taste of that more, or the taste of the cigarette he placed between his lips.

His lungs filled with and emptied of the hazy substance and his eyes followed Bryce as he hopped up onto the hood of the car and rested back against the windshield. He stayed to his side as far as he could away from the hitman and Ohm turned his head to release the smoke outside the car.

The glass was cold against Bryce’s back and he closed his eyes to block out the setting sun. The fresh air washed over him like water. He breathed in deeply, feeling his lungs fill with the purity of open space and environment. His second lungful of air tasted of cigarette smoke and he let it linger in his throat. He didn’t know whether the taste made him feel comfortable and calm, or anxious and exhausted.

All it reminded him of was the way his companion’s sweater smelt twenty-four hours prior – cigarette smoke and salt.

A part of him told him it was stupid to hold the taste of second-hand smoke on his tongue for a few seconds longer than he normally would and he couldn’t find the energy to try and think why he did so. He couldn’t find the energy to care much about it at all.

The next day he’d be handcuffed and left in the hands of faceless criminals who would likely find humour in the way he’d plead for his life. In his eyes, there was no reason left to care about anything. There never had been.

For the umpteenth time he grit his jaw and glared at the insides of his eyelids, not wanting to wonder why he ever thought there was because he feared what his answer would be. He let his thoughts settle as he hung onto the smell of smoke-polluted air, and his head rest back against the glass. Whatever warmth the sun had bathed him in no longer touched his skin as the coolness of dusk caressed his cheeks.

He didn’t let himself cry again. He couldn’t. He’d cried too much and it meant absolutely nothing. Crying now only made him angry. Everything made him distressed, and his distress made him angry, and his anger made him hateful. He found himself gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, and couldn’t decide whether he hated himself more than Ralph or Ohm.

Said hitman realised his thoughtful staring had become glaring as his internal anger at himself channelled onto Bryce. No matter what he tried to think about, it always came back to how much he hated his job, how much he hated his actions, how much he hated everything about himself. He never knew anything but hatred, manipulation and how to correctly kill someone. He liked to think he never needed to know anything else. That was the easiest way.

He blinked himself back to the present, unbeknownst to how much time had passed away with his thoughts. It had been long enough clearly as Bryce had had enough of the fresh air and had dragged himself around to the passenger seat door. Ohm watched him carelessly as he quietly seated himself and pulled the door shut beside him. His eyes stayed to his hands and he didn’t even sit in the centre of the chair.

Ohm put all of his mental energy into refraining from expressing his anger outwardly. The blonde aggravated him whether he said too much, or nothing at all. No matter what he was doing, how he was acting, what he was thinking – Bryce just pissed Ohm off and he couldn’t understand it. Presently, the hitman directed his glare away from the man and instead towards the darkening sky because why won’t he fucking look at me.

He almost wanted Bryce to get angry. Wanted him to hit him, to shout at him, to scream in his face about how much he fucking hated him. He wanted Bryce to tell him everything he told himself.

When he put his seat back, dropped his fag outside and wound up the window, he faced away and went to sleep to the memory of how the blonde’s hair smelt as he sobbed into Ohm’s shoulder. In his last few conscious moments, he struggled to decide whether he actually hated the smell, or whether he just told himself to hate it.

When Bryce curled up on his seat, he didn’t want to go to sleep. He feared what his unconscious mind would conjure up for him behind his eyelids. He no longer had an anchor. No family, no Ohm, no Ralph; not even himself.

Unfortunately, he could do nothing to stop his exhaustion and just sighed as he fell back into the void.

 -

 His void was shallow and he dropped in and out of his body in the car on the side of the road in Nevada all throughout the night. When the vehicle began rumbling below him, darkness still breathed heavily. The soft shuddering of the car roused his drowsy mind and he almost groaned aloud as his chance at limited sleep jumped from his reach and vanished altogether.

Ohm let the frozen engine run for a few moments, waking and warming up slowly. His fingers danced up and down the steering wheel in thought - he was wide awake and had had a simple empty sleep. No dreams. No paradise. No stress.

From beside him, Bryce shifted slightly. He’d woken up still plastered to the car door and upon his mind drifting back into the real world, it strived to find some sort of comfortable seating position. Ohm spared him a glance as he wriggled against the seat but snapped his gaze away in correction. He did not care.

His fingers found his phone and he glanced at the time. Thumbs tapped at the keys and he typed out a short message to an unnamed number.

I won’t be later than 0900, expect me.

As he replaced his phone in the console, the blonde beside him shifted again, rolling onto his back. His head fell to the side and he peered through long eyelashes at the hitman who clamped his teeth around his, “Go back to sleep,” choosing to avoid all interaction with the man from the start.

His hand shifted the gearstick and he pulled their small rental car back onto the road as the numbers on the digital clock flicked to 1:00am exactly. Bryce lay still, awake but dazed and obviously sleep deprived. Ohm tried so hard to focus on not thinking about him he ended up only thinking about him and had to refrain from digging his nails into his palm.

The radio screen glowed soft blue and he pressed a few buttons before settling back as soft music began to waft through the car. His seat held him comfortably and his eyes wandered over the uneven land. He strived for calmness despite his coiled posture and ignored any stress that tried desperately to drown him.  

After Bryce eased his chair upright and fixed himself an apple for breakfast, he kept his eyes on the passing mountains. He ignored his thoughts, he ignored the driving, he ignored the hitman. It was just him passing through the mountains. His impending death sobbed in the back of his mind. He ignored the music. Ohm gave up waiting, giving up with irritating disappointment when the blonde didn’t hum along to the first song, or the second, or the third.

He gave up questioning his own disappointment, he gave up trying to decipher his own thoughts. He focused on the road, not the boring radio tunes and lack of Bryce’s voice.

 -

 Bryce’s finger tips navigated through the sketchbook slowly. They danced over old sketches and rubbed against the edges of thick paper. His eyes followed them, voicelessly falling in love with ink and lead over and over with each page turn.

It gave him something else to think about other than their next destination. Other than the hitman in the seat beside him. Other than his zero percent survival chance. Other than the crumbling remnants of what once was a perfect life.

He didn’t pick up his pencil, despite his fascination, and merely appreciated each sketch as it showed beneath the light of the early morning moon. It was a better alternative to thinking.

That he knew for sure.

The soft music shrouded him in a calmness his sketches also provided. The two worked with one another to remove the hitman from Bryce’s existence and to place him in a world of simplicity and contentment. They removed the blood. They removed the death. They removed the ex-boyfriend, the money, the business deal.

They removed all but himself.

As the darkness ebbed away, and the sun crawled up the east, it painted unmatchable colours across the sky and Bryce’s eyes lit up at the sight of them. He’d always loved sunrises. He never knew that they could look so beautiful away from New York and the polluted city. Away from home. Appreciate it, it’ll be the last time you’ll ever see the sun rise.

Once at the end of his sketchbook, he didn’t care much for it, slipping it back into his bag. It won’t ever be opened again. He fought away the thoughts and zipped up the backpack a bit harsher than he meant to. He didn’t look back up at the sky until all the colours had faded back to blue.

His thoughts nagged at him but he refused to let them wander, he knew where they would end up and he couldn’t be bothered, couldn’t find the energy to care. He busied himself with rummaging for a bag of food behind his chair, turning and pressing himself as tightly to the side of the passenger seat as he could. He didn’t wish to be close to Ohm. He knew Ohm wished to be nowhere near him. If it was the last he could do (likely), he didn’t want to irritate the man any further.

Retrieving a packet of biscuits, he twisted back and settled, ignoring the way his body instantly melted against the door. He didn’t pay mind to the glance Ohm shot him and whatever the hitman had been thinking was cut off as his phone vibrated.

Bryce glimpsed an unknown number before the device was picked up and the screen was hidden from his view. He felt sickness swell in his stomach. He clenched his jaw and turned away. He didn’t let himself think, didn’t let himself ponder - he ate his biscuits and watched the mountains roll past. By the time he’d counted seven big mountains, he passed out from pure exhaustion and fell slack and silent in his seat.

Ohm averted his gaze away from the closed blue eyes and forced his thoughts to follow. His phone screen glowed mockingly and he reluctantly flicked the message to the side and cleared it.

Five hours. Don’t be late.

He didn’t freak out - he wasn’t supposed to. He was cool, calm and collected. He had nothing to worry about. There was no reason to panic. It was just another business deal, it was just another pay check. He’d been to hundreds of finalising meetings, and spoken to hundreds of rich assholes.

There was nothing wrong. Nothing would go wrong.

He spared another glance at Bryce’s slack expression. His soft lips were parted slightly as he breathed in and out. His eyes fluttered back and forth, twitching with dreams. His skin was flushed slightly.

Ohm was rocked with an overwhelming feeling of: Fuck, I can’t do this.

He ducked his head instantly, forcefully slamming the thought out of a head with a nasty: I have to! He clenched and unclenched his fingers around the steering wheel, trying desperately to stay grounded in their car on the rural road, on their way to 25k.

On his way to 25k and on Bryce’s way to agony and death.

He uttered a small, “Fuck,” under his breath, feeling completely overwhelmed with confusion. He didn’t know what to do. He knew what he was supposed to do. He knew what was right. He knew what he’d always known when it came to business, and that was to never go back on a deal.

But this was no normal deal, this was Bryce. He wasn’t just a package like Ohm had told him so. He wasn’t just some murder case. He wasn’t just some freak accident on the news - a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ohm wasn’t supposed to not know what he was doing. Ohm wasn’t supposed to care.

But for some dumbass reason, he did and it terrified him.

First: Prologue

Previous: Sixteen

Next: Eighteen

k but how the fuck does queuing work because what i dont get it gkdjgbvdv

also i got it edited so why not post it now <3 

I’ll probs post one more today before I leave becasue I don’t trust queuing stuff, and then the rest will come through next week or so <3 I’m probably not gonna give them out like once a week because that’s a wait and i cant be fucked when i can just post them all once a day and be done with it :)

hmu with feedback or questions or literally anything!

gi

#brohm #bbs #brohm fic #bbs fic #brohm fanfic #bbs fanfic #fic #fanfic #hitman!ohmwrecker #stockholm syndrome #seventeen #shits gonna get intense baby #ooooo #it's a package deal #its a package deal