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hotdamnhunnam · 3 years

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Nefarious Shit

Charlie Hunnam: Lockdown Lovin’

A/N: Here’s a fluffy smutty little fic with Charlie being all cuddly and domestic! 🥰 Based on the below request, in which you are Mrs. Hunnam, spending quarantine with him. He’s recording this video for his fans, but your presence in the room is a distraction—and gets him in the mood for some action...

Pairing: Charlie Hunnam x F!Reader Warnings: smut, swearing, dirty talk, stupidly fluffy fluff, you & him behaving like silly little idiots in love Request: Request 1 (@rochyu) + Request 2 (anon)

Word Count: ~2.2k

Note: I definitely recommend watching the actual video for context! (It’s less than 3 minutes.) This fic quotes some of Charlie’s lines from it, plus some gifs! ✨

“Hey.”

It’s a very simple word for anyone to say. One of the simplest. But somehow the way Charlie Hunnam says ‘hey’ turns you on like nobody’s business. As he starts to record, he says it with a playful smirk like it’s some kind of dirty word, and makes it sound so hot it hurts, ‘cause he’s a cheeky little bastard.

The word wasn’t even addressed to your ass in this instance. Your loving husband—yes, your husband, be that as it may, you still pinch yourself damn every day—is recording a short video for his fans. Felt the need to condemn some nefarious hooligans, using his good name in vain, for their personal gain. Ordering them to never do shit like that ever again. And warning his fans not to interact with frauds on social media who falsely represent themselves as him.

Watching him from the other end of the room, you’ve never been happier to be Mrs. Hunnam.

Charlie acknowledges to his audience that he doesn’t do stuff like this very often. “So, I don’t usually, um—make videos like this, but...”

While he records you keep distant and quiet; your marriage is thankfully private. No one else in the world needs to know that a humble civilian girl is the love of his life, and his wife, and his full-time cock-worshiping slut.

Speaking of being such a slut... you’re currently wearing nothing but Jax Teller’s legendary kutte. It’s one of your husband’s most prized possessions, hung in pride of place in his closet—he never lets anyone touch it. It’s sacred, and strictly off-limits. But on certain occasions, he tells you to strip your ass naked... and then put his kutte on so that he can fuck you in it.

So right before this little video, no more than five minutes ago, that’s what he just did. You reminisce about it, while Charlie carries on scolding the scum of the internet. “You know—far be it from me to dictate what anyone is doing, other than: if you’re using my name to do some nefarious shit...”

Meanwhile you figure you should change into a somewhat respectable outfit, smiling to yourself as you think about all the ‘nefarious shit’ you and your husband do. The whole world has no clue...

And you have no clue—though you probably should—that as soon as you take off this kutte, to put some proper shirt and pants on... your bare skin captures Charlie’s attention. And just as any dirty bastard would, now he’s already thinking of the next nefarious thing he’s gonna do to you.

***************

Charlie mentions on the video that he hasn’t left the house in a long while. As he says it he looks over at you with a chuckle and a thirsty little smile. He tries to keep it subtle, but it’s hard for him to focus when you’re half-naked and all he can think about is just how lucky he is you’re his girl. In the meantime he’s saying on record how it’s a weird time for the world, what with social distancing and isolation, and how angry he is that people would be using his good name to manipulate others in the middle of such an insane global situation.

2020 has certainly been a strange year. But you’ve been so blessed to spend every damn minute of lockdown with your loving husband, in this house that you’ve made your home, as Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Hunnam. Home is where the heart is and yours is right here.

Your man signs off, sending his fans all of his love. Well, not quite all of it of course—to be sure, the best and biggest part of his heart is all yours.

So is 100% of his dick. The two of you have been fucking roughly five times a day in the midst of this global pandemic. ‘Roughly’ as in ‘approximately’—though fortunately for you, the other meaning applies too, more often than not. After all your husband is a literal sex god.

By now you’ve put on a pink lacy bra and panties with one of Jax’s SAMCRO T-shirts thrown over your torso. So you’re hardly respectably dressed but much more so, compared to when you were in only his kutte a few moments ago.

You had been considering pants but decided against it given that this men’s tee is plenty to cover up most of your skin. It’s all soft and comfy and smells of him. Wearing his clothes as often as you want is one of the thousands of benefits of being Mrs. Hunnam.

But the biggest benefit is the enormous piece of meat between his legs. Which always treats you to the world’s most epic sex.

“Well, that was distracting as fuck,” your man playfully scolds as he slams his laptop shut. Through his grey sweatpants you can see that he’s already hard as a rock. “Good thing the camera didn’t catch sight of my cock. You cheeky little slut.”

“What? Love, it’s not as if you’ve never seen me with my clothes off...” you scoff, with a provocative bat of your lashes as he slowly crosses the room toward you.

“You think that makes the sight of you any less stunning?” he asks as he takes in the view. Although your top is mostly covered by this tee, your legs are bare to see, and Charlie loves seeing his clothes on his woman. “You know nothing, Mrs. Hunnam.”

He then approaches till he’s close enough to place his hands upon your hips, to hear your heated breathing, taste the next words from your lips: “Enlighten me, then.”

Your husband clicks his tongue at you as if he seriously disapproves. You often jump at any chance for 50 Shades roleplay given the role that he turned down some time ago and Charlie is all too familiar with your moves. “Now, Y/N, I think you just mixed up two very separate pop culture references.”

“Then maybe you should educate me on the differences...” you suggest. Of course you’re well aware that Christian Grey and Jon Snow are two very different men, and Charlie knows that but it’s fun for you to both pretend. “You’re the movie star, after all. What does this so-called ‘enlightenment’ involve?”

He smiles and shakes his head, referring back to the first time that he played Mr. Grey in the bedroom as if you could ever forget. “I’ve already given you a lesson in proper submission.”

“Well, I guess I didn’t listen.”

“I doubt that,” he purrs, suddenly reaching to rip the shirt off of your shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. “You look prettier without that.”

You hadn’t resisted at all but it’s fun to pretend that you had. Scowling at him as if you’re mad, you then reach up and tap your palm against the top of his head with a patronizing pat. “Well, you looked better with the hat.”

Charlie gasps as if appalled, insulted to the core of his soul. “Hey, that’s not fair...!”

“I told you to do something with your hair,” you remind him of the brief conversation you’d had before he recorded. Acting as if you’re seriously scolding him though you both know you’re not at all. “Or at least to keep that fucking hat on over it. Instead you showed up looking like a chicken with that ridiculous tuft sticking out at the back of your head, and then admitted to the world you need to get your hair sorted.”

There’s a mirror on the wall nearby, and you gesture toward it, so that Charlie can see with his own two eyes. He realizes he really does look like the world’s sexiest chicken. “So what, now looking like a chicken is a sin?”

“Of course it is.”

He flashes you a precious pout, knowing you’ll be desperate to kiss it off his mouth. “But you once told me I could strut around in a potato sack and still look gorgeous.”

It’s all too true yet you refuse to take the bait. Instead decide to make him wait. “I just said that to butter you up so you’d marry me, sucker.”

“Motherfucker—!” Charlie gasps again, as you start running away from him flapping your arms like a chicken.

You laugh back at him. “More like motherclucker!”

The two of you are very adult—perhaps to a fault—when it comes to the hot filthy sex that you have with him. Honestly filthy as hell. But when it comes to foreplay and teasing and everything else... you are literally just a couple of overgrown idiot children.

Charlie chases you all through the halls and downstairs to the kitchen. “Don’t tempt me into punishing you!”

Needless to say you want him to. “Oooh, you mean with that big cock-a-doodle-doo?”

He finally catches you as you run to the living room, your laughter picking up in volume, pinning you down to the sofa as he ruins you with his icy blue stare. “Shut up about the fucking hair.”

His hands are so close to your neck and you just wish that he would put them there and squeeze. “Mmm, but you’re so much fun to tease...”

Instead of choking you, he drops his hands down toward your chest, tracing the lacy fabric of your bra to grab your breasts, tenderly stroking you. “I bet you think this is when I say to get on your fucking knees.”

You moan at the touch of his talented fingers, begging in a breathless whisper. “Fuck, yes please...?”

“No,” he responds, so brutally denying what his woman wants. “For once, that’s not how this is gonna go. Sit up.”

He props you comfortably in position, amidst all the cushions. Ignoring your urge to get down on the floor, in submission, serve him as his cocksucking whore. Play your usual role as the good little slut. “But—”

“Stay up,” he interrupts. “I don’t wanna play rough. Today I’m feeling soft.”

“Well, that’s a lie...” you reply, lowering your eyes, one hand reaching to graze the prize bulging between his thighs.

“Hands off the merchandise. Let me indulge in playing nice.”

“But whyyy?” you protest with a sigh. “I’ve been such a bitch, hoping that I would get punished for it...”

Your man just shakes his gorgeous chicken-haired head. “You mean rewarded. There’s no point in getting punished when you’re gunning for it.”

Well, fuck him for being so fucking correct. “Charlie...”

“Shhh,” he hushes you softly, as you realize that this is how you’re getting punished: he hears your inner cockslut loud and clear but is determined to ignore it. “Just lie back and let me love this body that belongs to me. Admire and adore it.”

And at those words off of his lips, which he seals with a loving kiss... you lose all power and desire to resist. You’re so completely fucking his. As eager as you always are for rough and filthy sex—as much as part of you will always want to beg—you’re equally obsessed with this. Getting lost in his touch, sweet kisses and caresses from the man you love so much, drowning in the pure magic of romantic bliss.

You love each other so much it’s ridiculous. Hilarious. Downright nefarious.

Within seconds both of your clothes are gone, like they were never even on. His every move is slow yet sudden all at once. The warmth of his soft lips and tongue lavishing love across your chest, his mouth latching around your breast, two fingers slipping in the hot flood of your cunt. Thumb playing with your swollen clit, as he keeps passionately sucking on your tits.

Time fucking bends, seconds to minutes, hours even, as your man descends, until his mouth is where his hand had been—when did that even happen?—every inch of his tongue sending you to heaven. Soon enough he seamlessly replaces his mouth with his cock, and by then... fuck, you’re honestly done. So far gone. He never has to ask to know exactly what you want, because he’s everything you want. And need and love.

As mind-blowing as Charlie is at playing rough, he’s just as good at being soft. He’s all about the fluff and stuff. One tender hand sweeping a strand of hair behind your ear, the other reaching down to pull you near.

There are so many words he doesn’t have to say for you to hear.

Just how grateful he is, that you are his. To have you here. It’s been a weird and crazy year—so fucking weird—and heavy with the weight of blood and tears, the whole world literally plagued with pain and fear. But the love that you share with your husband, is the one thing that’s always constant, true and clear.

And the love he makes... cradles your heart till it’s so full it aches, fucking breaks, as your whole body quakes and the earth fucking shakes. Knowing that he will spend all his life putting every last piece into its perfect place, and holding it together whatever it takes.

It’s not fair that a man like this even exists. Let alone that you’re so fucking blessed to be his. It’s some serious, downright nefarious shit. Gazing up into his eyes of endless blue, you realize for the thousandth time no girl in all the world is luckier than you.

And of course once this session of soft tender loving is through—then, to make all your deepest and dirtiest dreams cum true... there are at least fifty thousand shades of filthy shit your nefarious husband can do.

***************

Hope you enjoyed this, and would love to hear if you did! 🤗💖

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tendermiasma · 3 years

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i’m not even into overwatch anymore but i just wanted to say I ADORE your art style and hope to develop my own into a similar semi-realism leaning...have you made a post about your art journey? I’m assuming I just need to buckle down and do anatomy studies but any tips are very welcome!! Ty for your time <3

Oh man thank you! I’ve never made a comprehensive post about how I got to *gestures* whatever this point in my art this is, and I definitely sat here wondering what “art journey” means for me since I always feel like I’m stumbling around so I’ll answer as completely as I can. But a great way to develop a realism-minded eye is to draw from photos and life. Everyone in the world has said it over and over but it really gets it done, it’s not any more complicated than that. It’s how I started when I was little and it’s not something I planned, but the Legolas posters were right there so how could I not? Your own non-realism “stylistic” touch will bubble up whether you want it to or not and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s not something you need to look for because it happens on its own, whether it’s you seeing something another artist is doing that you like and assimilating it into your work, or it’s your own unique way that you absorb information from the world and use it to solve problems in the drawing in front of you. Some new artists also still have the idea that using references is cheating-- I’m not blaming them, sometimes this weird thing is circulated by more established people as well-- but this is a very small minority. Please use references. I’d be lost without them. The Castlevania team has a giant collection of references for faces of every character from every angle, props, etc. and I always have a second screen up with 10 different sheets of whoever I’m drawing. Feeding yourself info is essential to getting better. Look at how other artists handle something you’re having a problem with too. If they’re doing a similar pose or something, study their drawing and ask yourself what specifically, extremely technically about that drawing is convincing-- what marks are where, and what is the quality or direction of the strokes? Try it out on your own drawing. If you’re stuck, become aware of if you’re holding on too tightly to what you think something should look like. I have to remind myself this as well. Really try to let go of the idea you have in your head about how something works and simply try instead to draw what you see, even if it feels weird. The results are often pleasantly surprising.

I have a funny relationship with studies. You seem to be looking at them like a chore and I feel the same way. It’s impossible for me to sit down and just draw something over and over, disconnected from emotion or a larger narrative. I think a wonderful way to “study” is to incorporate those studies into a project that you wanted to do anyway. I’ve used my minicomics to get better at background painting or specific figure poses that I needed for the story but wasn’t sure how to do. I’m a very “oops I need it now better learn TODAY” kind of artist, if that suits you better than buckling down and doing anatomy studies for hours. Both are great ways to improve, but you have options for how to get there.

In terms of how much time I spend drawing.. well lol it’s a lot. I almost typed “but I don’t do it every day” but yes, my jobs have made sure that I do (I tend to separate personal drawing and job drawing). But the truth is, to get better, a lot of very focused drawing time is important; how much of it is up to you and your schedule. You can sit down for 6 hours and doodle or you can sit down for 3 with an extremely critical eye. It’s about the volume of time as well as focus and I don’t have a clear answer for it, but I can point to one specific year in my life where I made artistic progress like I’ve never seen from myself since. I drew a comic with regular updates during that time and, looking back, the art was not good. But the point was, I was drawing for 7 hours a day after work, at least 5 days a week, and actively looking to draw things that I hadn’t done before or knew that I wasn’t good at, and the result was that every single update was almost like it was drawn by a different person-- readers noticed and commented on the progress as well. It was very much an art bootcamp and I wouldn’t have the skills I do at this point if I hadn’t done it. It’s important that you’re loving what you do if you do it for yourself! That’s how you get through big projects and continue to be excited with where you are. Love is one of the most important motivators and discipline-keepers in art, in my experience. Draw what sets your brain on fire and attack it wholeheartedly even if it’s really weird or niche, not what you think you should be drawing, and you’ll improve a million times faster.

Art journey in terms of what I’ve done with my life (if this is what you meant from the beginning I’M SORRY I’m just trying everything you might have meant) uhhh I haven’t been to art school. I have no idea what my relationship with art would be like now if I’d had any formal training and I don’t really dwell on it. I could either be a testament to being able to get by without it or an example of someone who has no idea what she’s doing at all and lacks many basic foundational art skills. I have an architecture degree. I love architecture, I love the language of space we build for ourselves, and I’m truly, deeply glad for that eye-opening and often grueling experience, but I think my current field is a much better fit. Before animation I worked as a graphic designer mainly drawing storyboards for commercials and internal-industry stuff-- lots and lots of quick colored sketches (one of our main clients was a big glass company and my god I never thought I’d draw so much glass in my life). I was able to do that job due to the skills I developed through personal work. Maybe I’d be a hundred times more powerful if I went to art school! Maybe I’d be completely burned out and bitter and not drawing anymore at all! I just don’t know. I have friends who have had both experiences. Whether you choose art school or not it’s best to keep tabs on if the art you’re currently making brings you joy. Joy and struggle aren’t mutually exclusive. Oftentimes I’m drawing something I care deeply about but it’s VERY FUCKING HARD and I’m frustrated but it’s worth it.

I also do everything while being very scared of the thing. I have a lot of deep-seated anxiety that I’m constantly trying to root out and my brain compulsively twists things around into why I can’t do something, why people secretly know I’m below-par and are just too nice to tell me, how I’m “tricking” people into thinking I’m better than I am, etc. It’s so bad that my first thought when I was initially offered the art test for my current job was to say no; not because I didn’t want it so badly it hurt, but because I thought I’d be too much of a disappointment. After completing the test I spent an hour figuring out the most gracious way to apologize for not being enough. It’s common, but not something to accept and we’re all working on it. I just thought it was important to mention because art is also a mental journey and forces you to do all this navel-gazey shit in order to advance, and feeling like you are Not Enough is rife in the creative community. The work feels entangled with my value as a person because art is a massive part of my life. Something I’m learning is that I don’t have to be confident or sure of myself all the time. This ensures that the process is usually painful and frightening. Often there’s no way to make it less painful or frightening, and I just have to hold my breath and do it. An oddly comforting thing to me the past couple years is to remind myself that the scary thing I’m about to do won’t be the scariest thing I’ll ever do. I implies both that this isn’t the pinnacle of my progress and also that I will inevitably get over it. If you continue with art you’re going to run into things like this and I guess if it was me it would’ve been helpful to know I’m not alone in it.

I hope that maybe answered some of your questions, maybe? If you have some specific questions feel free and I’ll try my best. Hope you have a good day/night!

#anon #asks

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edupunkn00b · 3 years

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Perennials: Hypericum (Inspiration)

Word count: 1660 - T - [ AO3 ] - Canon(ish), Post-POF - Overture May Flowers Event Day 27 Prompt: Hypericum for Inspiration CW: Brief Remus-typical but non-graphic references to blood, gunshots, murder, sexual innuendo. Partial spoiler of and references to the movie SE7EN. ---

However big, however small Let me be part of it all Share your dreams with me We may be right, we may be wrong But I wanna bring you along to the world I see To the world we close our eyes to see - A Million Dreams, The Greatest Showman, Willow Sage Hart

Thomas was lying on his couch, bare feet crossed and propped up on an armrest. He was doodling in the margins of a blank page in his notebook, listening to his Creative Sides. Roman was pacing back and forth, waving his hands as he spoke. Remus stood on his head in a corner, balancing his morning star Lucie on one foot.

"And then you come out -" Remus cackled and Roman sighed, hiding a tiny smile. Patton would have laughed, too, Roman thought. He continued, "And then you can enter from the wings, already mid-monologue, demonstrating that for thespians of your caliber - "

"All the world's a stage!," Thomas completed excitedly. "Oh, I like it!" Roman grinned, that wondrous warm glow of pride and love spreading all the way up through his body from his toes. "So what should my monologue be?"

Roman posed with his hands on his hips and chin tilted up. "How much time do you have?"

Thomas read from his notes, " 'The monologue must be under two minutes.' "

"Mmmmm ...," Remus purred from the corner. "John Doe's speech from the back of the squad car in SE7EN would be tasty."

"Remus!," Roman whirled and stared at his brother, hand held over his heart. "John Doe is a killer! Our Thomas is no villain!"

"Ugh, fiiine," Remus twirled Lucie like a baton, ignoring the nicks on his hands and face when the sharp points scraped his skin. They quickly disappeared. "If you have to be the hero, you could use Brad Pitt's speech from the finale." Remus smirked and waggled his eyebrows. "Cops are heroes, right? What's in the box? Pow! " Remus held Lucie by the spiky top, miming a gunshot. He shrugged. "Sure, we'd have to modify it a bit ... Oh! Or maybe re-write it so you play all three characters? Oooh... and then you can spew blood and -"

Thomas winced, "Hmm, maybe I should pick something a little ... lighter for the audition? And something they won't have to clean up afterwards?"

"Eh, their loss." Remus shrugged and threw Lucie until she lodged into the ceiling. He watched, waiting for gravity to pull her back down. "Personally, I think you'd make a terrifying John Doe."

Roman suddenly clapped his hands together. "Oh, I've got it! The Doctor's Zygon speech!," Roman put on a heavy - and angry - Scottish accent, " 'Because it's not a game, Kate. This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you.' "

The brothers grinned at each other. Remus laughed, eyes bright, "Our resident geeky Gallifreyan would really get behind that choice. I bet he's already got it completely memorized for you."

Thomas nodded, humming to himself and scrawling the idea in his notebook. "Ok, and I need a song ... what about Razzle Dazzle?"

"Hmm ... that could work," Roman hummed. He experimented with a few bars. " 'Razzle dazzle 'em ... and they'll make you a star!' " Roman nodded vigorously. "It really shows off your range. And then -"

"Bor-ring!," Remus called out from his corner, catching Lucie when she fell and bouncing her from one foot to the other. "You need something that's going to do more than simply showcase your vocal range. You need to wow them with the full spectrum of your talents."

Roman scoffed lightly, rolling his eyes at the interruption, but Thomas sat up and looked curiously at the Duke. "It sounds like you have something in mind, Remus. Wanna tell us?"

Remus flipped himself upright, standing on the back edge of the couch. Thomas flinched, moving back in case Remus suddenly slipped fell onto to the seat cushions. Remus shrugged and jumped down to the floor. "Better, Thom-along?" Blushing, Thomas nodded. "Ok, you need something that demonstrates your full range from principled, upright citizen," Remus gestured toward Roman, "and monstrous trash panda with a head full of sex and murder ..." Remus shimmied his shoulders and thrust his hips, grinned wickedly.

Remus met Roman's eyes and the brothers' grins grew. They shouted in unison, "Jeckyl and Hyde!"

"Ooooh!," Thomas leapt to his feet. "Lost in the Darkness is an incredible song! I love it!" Remus started to speak when Roman interjected.

"It'll need some work ... it's been a while since you've sung it." Thomas' excitement was infectious, though. Roman gripped Thomas' arms, spinning him around and then tried a few bars. Remus opened his mouth again to speak before Thomas interrupted.

"You're right. Or, how about Confrontation? That would - "

"H̾e̾y̾!̾ ̾T̾h̾e̾a̾t̾r̾e̾ ̾n̾e̾r̾d̾s̾!̾," Remus used his dark voice to muffle theirs as he shouted over them, "Listen to me!" Roman and Thomas both turned to Remus. Roman rolled his eyes again, but Thomas frowned.

"You're right, Remus. I'm sorry, we were talking over you. What's your idea?" Thomas winced slightly, holding out his hands in a defensive position, "Just - please don't say I should self-immolate again, ok?"

Remus blinked in surprise at Thomas' apology but quickly recovered, waggling his eyebrows and flashing an evil grin, "No, no, no, no, no ... that's for the last performance." Roman groaned and threw himself on the couch. "What I was going to suggest was ..." he paused, waiting for Roman to look at him as well. "You should sing Good 'n' Evil ..."

Thomas scrunched his nose, "But isn't that Lucy's song?"

"Precisely ... there is zero chance some other fu-" Roman glared at him and Remus stuck out his tongue "-dude is gonna go up there and sing it and you can't deny it's one of the best songs in the entire show. C'mon, what could be more perfect than," Remus broke into song, reminding both of them that Thomas truly had two Creativities " 'Evil's the one that is free everywhere - Good is the one that they sell!' "

Roman sat up, crossing his arms in front of his chest, but he couldn't hide the interest in his face. "We'll need to adjust the key."

"I've got just the thing for that!," Remus grinned, snapping his fingers and the three of them were suddenly standing on the stage in a large concert hall. Remus sat down at the grand piano in center stage.

Thomas looked around, mouth agape, staring at the balconies jutting out over the house floor. "Is this Carnegie Hall? How did we get here?"

"Practice, of course," Remus genuflected with a dramatic flick of his wrist, demonstrating once again that the split had not left Roman with all of the twin's reservoir of flair.

Roman pinched his mouth, trying not to smile as Thomas groaned. "That's your second dad joke in the last twenty minutes," Thomas shook his head but couldn't keep a straight face and started to laugh. "You and Patton will be insufferable together."

Remus threw his head back, laughing. "Ok, it's not really Carnegie Hall. You see the pattern on the upholstery?"

Thomas tilted his head, jumping off the foot of the stage to get a closer look. "Thomas, be careful!," Roman called out.

"Eh, he's fine, Ro Bro ... Nothing can hurt Thomas here. This is just like a dream for him." Remus rocked back and forth, cracking his neck unnaturally. He waggled his eyebrows at his twin. "We both know we're the ones who need to be careful in the Imagination ... "

Thomas spun around, staring at Remus, "What? You two can actually get hurt here?"

"Well, sure," Roman answered, "We're part of your Imagination. This -" Roman waved his hands around them "-this is the real world for us." Remus sat down at the piano, quietly playing two different melodies with either hand, eyes trained on the keys. "If we do something careless or dangerous ..." Roman trailed off, his attention drawn to Remus. As if he could sense his brother's glare, Remus shimmied his shoulders, rocking his head back and forth with a wild grin. "We can be seriously injured or even - " Remus stopped playing to draw a finger across this neck and then threw himself to the floor in a corpse pose.

"Oh ...," Thomas sat down in the seat he had been examining. Remus had been right, there were weird little plants in ... interesting positions stitched on the seats. There's no way the real Carnegie Hall had that on the seats. "But ... what happens if you get hurt here and then go right back to the ... other parts of the Mindscape?"

"We heal." Remus muttered quietly, getting up from the floor and pecking out a somber tune on the piano. "If we can get back fast enough." Roman narrowed his eyes at him. Quiet and Remus didn't usually go together.

"Aaany-way ...," Remus shook himself from head to toe. "Get your sweet ass back on stage, Tom-Tom." Roman crouched at the foot of the stage, offering a hand to Thomas as he clambered back up. "How about we start here -" Remus played the opening bars, looking at Roman and Thomas. When both remained silent, he pounded the keys and sang in a discordant tune, "This is where you start singing ....," He raised his eyebrows at them and played the opening again. Remus grinned when both Roman and Thomas began to sing. Thomas stumbled a bit at the bridge and Remus waved a hand upstage and the music and lyrics for the song starting scrolling through the air. At the end of the piece, he spun around on the bench, hands dancing in front of him, "Well, how did that feeeel....?"

Roman clapped his hands together, "That was amazing! Can we try it just a bit lower this time?," He rushed over to the piano, trying a few different notes. Remus joined him, experimenting until they'd found a key they both liked.

"Oh, and what if we add a little nasty dissonance here at 'Good's unreliable! Good may be thankable!' and then go back to the standard melody at 'Evil is bankable!' ...," Remus played the notes, swapping the key for a few bars. Roman closed his eyes, listening, then nodded furiously.

"Yes! And then we could repeat it -," Roman added.

Remus grinned "And swap the melody again!"

Thomas watched the brothers creating together and couldn't stop smiling. He had this audition in the bag!

@tsshipmonth2020

#mayflowersevent #day 27: hypericum for inspiration #perennials #sanders sides fanfic #ts roman #ts remus #ts c!thomas #creativitwins #overture #❤️🧡💛💚💙💙💜💗

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skzsauce01 · 4 years

Text

In Fair Verona︱Chapter 2

Synopsis: Jisung knows he is the Romeo to your Juliet. He could wax poetry about you all throughout rehearsal and even a little after. Except Hwang Hyunjin is the one playing Romeo in the school play, not him. Jisung is just another tech crew member that you don’t know, but he’s determined to win your heart... by any means necessary.

Warning: none... yet

Word Count: 2.2k

Pairing: fem!reader x Jisung; fem!reader x Hyunjin

updates every Wednesday and Sunday @ 11 PM PST︱chapter list

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name,

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Jisung is waiting for fourth period to begin and homeroom announcements to be over when he overhears two girls discussing the play. He stops doodling in the margins of his notebook once he hears you being mentioned.

“She’s so lucky! She gets to kiss Hwang Hyunjin!” the one with the ponytail exclaims.

So that’s Romeo’s name. He makes a mental note to look him up on Facebook and Instagram later.

Her voice then drops to a whisper. “I heard they kissed during in-class rehearsal.”

Jisung snorts and quickly disguises it as a sneeze. Stage kisses in school productions are almost always fake; based on his experience, there’s usually a hand hiding obscuring the kiss, so the actors get as close as possible without actual contact.

“She’s so lucky,” the other girl sighs. “Oh, Y/N, Y/N! Why did you have to get the part of Juliet and not me?” she dramatically says.

Jisung silently agrees but for a totally different reason and goes back to drawing sunbursts when the conversation turns into a debate about who would be the second best choice for Romeo.

Jisung leaves his belongings in the green room after school and sits with Chan behind the soundboard while he waits for rehearsal to start. Chan is busy with testing new sound effects and new music choices, so Jisung scrolls through Hwang Hyunjin’s Instagram. He only finds food pictures and some videos of him dancing. Nothing incriminating.

“Hey, did you bring dinner today? Me, Felix, Changbin, and Jeongin were planning to go to the convenience store during dinner break,” Chan invites.

Jisung has a bowl of instant noodles and a thermos of hot water in his backpack. “I’ve got food already.”

“Ah, next time then!”

“Actors! To your places!” comes through on the loudspeaker, and Jisung hurries backstage. The balcony is being pushed back to the center of the stage already. He shimmies through the gap between the wall and the main curtain, trying not to trip on any cables. Changbin is sitting with his giant binder open and his headset on. He points to another headset on the table, and Jisung takes it and puts it on. The comms are already abuzz with bad jokes and the sounds of turning pages.

The side door opens, and you rush in, adjusting the circlet in your hair. Your lips close and part, and Jisung can only imagine the swears you’re mouthing. He wants to shout something encouraging, but that would only delay you. He also has no idea what he would say anyway. The floor lights for the cyclorama tint your whole body blue as you hurry to the stairs for the balcony. You make it to the top just in time.

Ms. Park tells Hyunjin to start from “She speaks.” To Jisung’s delight, Hyunjin has not improved from yesterday, and his delivery only is slightly better than monotone. Meanwhile, you look as crestfallen as you possibly can. You rest your cheek on one hand and gaze into the distance, which turns out to be the back of the auditorium where the soundboard and light board are. Romeo likens Juliet to an angel, and Jisung agrees — you’re beautiful, bright, and out of his reach.

Hyunjin ends his lines, and it’s your turn to say the most famous line of the entire play: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Your cries resonate with him; why did Hyunjin have to be Romeo? If he knew that you were going to audition for the lead role, he would have too. If the current Romeo managed to get the part, then he would have had no problem. He could have been the one looking up at you, telling the world how lovely he thought you were.

Though he’s far away and off to the side, he sees the way you glow as you recite your lines. Your passion radiates off of you, and Jisung gets a direct hit. He’s so enamored by you, he doesn’t even mind when Hyunjin poorly says his lines.

It’s like that for the rest of the scene. Jisung remains standing and watches you and Hyunjin flirt in Elizabethan English. Before the scene ends, Jisung detaches himself from the curtain and positions himself by the prop table. He pretends to be rearranging the props so that as soon as the lights go out and the tech crew members on stage left drag the balcony back into the wings, you speedily walk to the other wing where he is.

It’s strange to be excited by a mundane act, but that’s what love does, he supposes. He whispers, “Be careful of the cables,” at you.

“I know,” you whisper back. There’s no sharpness to it; it’s just a simple statement.

You brush past him, and your arm, raised from holding your skirt, knocks into his elbow. He stiffens, and you murmur an apology before leaving through the side door.

After a less than satisfactory scene four, the director decides it’s time for a dinner break. There’s a few cheers in the comms and an audible sigh of relief from the girl playing Nurse. Ms. Park reminds them that dinner will end at 6, so she expects them to be back in the auditorium by then. Changbin is already leaping out of his chair and running down the stairs on the side of the stage. Jisung imagines that Chan, Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin are just as ready to eat; they were discussing what to buy for dinner right when the scene started.

Jisung follows the other members of the crew to the classroom for dinner. The room is just as crowded as before, and there’s a long line to use the microwave. Jisung squeezes through the groups of people and gets out his meal.

“That’s a smart idea,” a familiar voice comments. When he looks up from his water pouring, he sees that it’s you.

He looks at the glass container in your hands and realizes that you’re one of ones waiting to heat up your food. “Your dinner’s probably better though,” he lamely responds. His face begins to feel warm, and it’s not from the steam.

“It’s the slightly burnt fried rice I made three days ago,” you smile. “Wanna trade?”

He wants to say yes so badly. But it would be better to play it cool, right? The panic must have shown on his face since you laugh and say, “Knew it.”

The line shuffles forward and so do you. He turns back to his food, disappointed that he didn’t take you up on your offer. He likes fried rice.

(And you, but that’s only the tiniest bit relevant to his plight.)

He is halfway through his meal when the chair in front of him is pulled out. You sit and set your container down. He smells kimchi with a touch of smoke.

“Hi,” you say. The corner of your mouth quirks up. “Any chance you’re willing to trade?”

Jisung shakes his head, playing along. “I’m half way through mine already, sorry.”

“Darn.”

There’s a moment of silence before he decides to break it. “Your name’s Y/N, right?”

“Mhm.” You swallow your rice. “It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but… I don’t actually know yours,” you slowly say. “And we’re eating together, which makes it doubly embarrassing.”

The way you say it makes Jisung’s heart pound. It’s like a date, but not really. “I’m Jisung.”

“The props guy, right?”

He shakes his head “I’m part of the floor crew. ”

“Oh! I saw you by the props earlier, so I thought you were. And you’re always watching the play, so I thought you were waiting for cues or something.”

A wide variety of curses appear in his mind. He can’t let you know the real reason why.

“No! I just really like Shakespeare,” he makes up. More unnecessary lies flow out. “Romeo and Juliet is a really great play. I love the plot and the characters. Speaking of, our play is going to be so great. You — I mean, the entire cast is perfect.”

You light up at the compliment, and Jisung swears he’s looking directly at the sun. “You think so?”

You’re far too amazing to be stupid, naive Juliet, but he nods his head anyway. “You’re a good actress.”

“How do you feel about Hyunjin then? Does he live up to your expectations?”

The brainless Romeo who only pursues Juliet out of lust? “Yeah. He’s exactly like Romeo.”

“Hyunjin will be happy to hear that,” you say. You glance at the clock, and Jisung does too. It’s only a few minutes away from six o’clock. “Dinner’s almost over. Darn, I need to get into costume, too.”

While you pick through the less appetizing portions of your meal, Jisung finishes the last of his noodles. Not a minute passes before you snap the lid back on the container and jump out of your seat. You hurriedly say goodbye and run out the door to the dressing room.

Jisung stays seated, processing what happened. Was it a friendly conversation or flirting? Did you eat dinner with him because you felt bad for him or because you were interested in him? He replays the last few minutes in his head. You started the conversation and chose to sit at his table, so it had to mean something. You joked with him and beamed at his compliment, but you also brought up Hyunjin and no one else. He sighs and leans back in his chair before someone yelling the time makes him jump out of it.

He helps set up the next scene before watching the play from stage right like before. He feels strangely betrayed when he hears how desperately you, as Juliet, want to hear Romeo’s message after getting his hopes up at dinner. His brain knows it’s not real, but his heart thinks otherwise. He paces in a small circle to try and get out his nervous energy. He stops after a minute and forces himself to think of something else. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s him that you’re referring to; he’s the one you want to marry.

In his daydream, you stand in front of him in a white dress and a circlet instead of a veil. The bouquet of roses in your hand matches the glowing blush across your cheeks. You look up at him through your long lashes, and Jisung can barely hold himself together at the sight of you. His hand covers his mouth to stifle his soft sobs. You’re no different. With shaky breaths, you hold a piece of paper in front you and read your vows.

“... in sickness and health. I promise to love you until death do us part,” you manage to say through your tears.

The minister pronounces you husband and wife, and Jisung reaches out to cup your face. In reality though, he is only able to touch air. The pretty stained glass of the church is soon swallowed by the darkness of backstage. There’s no organ playing, only Changbin yelling at him in his ear to get ready for Act III.

The first scene of Act III features a poorly choreographed sword fight, two deaths, and not you. In other words, nothing of Jisung’s interests. Rehearsal ends after the scene is finished, and Jisung halfheartedly listens to the tech director’s notes. Like yesterday, he gets called out for not paying attention enough to calls. He once again promises to do better, but Mr. Gi and Changbin don’t look like they’re buying it. He really has to do better tomorrow.

When everyone is finally dismissed, Jisung goes back to the classroom in hopes of seeing you before he goes home. The actors are still receiving notes from the director, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to be done soon. He tries to catch your eye while he grabs his belongings, but you’re fully listening to Ms. Park. To add to his disappointment, he notices that Hyunjin is sitting by you. Thus, Jisung “accidentally” opens his textbook, sending all his papers to the floor, hoping that you take notice. You do and give him a sympathetic smile.

He plays “Marry You” on the drive back home and sings along, thinking of you.

~ ad.gray

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tsukikento · 4 years

Text

Empathetic Ch. 7

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Summary: After your mom, the number 1 hero in America, gets offered a teaching position at U.A., you two pack up your things and head to Musutafu, Japan to start a new life. Pressure for you in America was at an all-time high, and now you're in Japan, where almost no one knows you, or your family's past.

This tale starts on your first day of class where your new teacher decides the best way for you to fit in is to fight against the strongest person in your class: Bakugou Katsuki.

Warnings/Genre: This piece will feature some angst and reference to an abusive parent, if you are ever worried about other tw’s feel free to send me an ask and I will let you know. There will also be fluff, slight angst, pining, and slowburn.

A/N: This is also posted on ao3 under @allie_win. I’m transferring it over here, pls let me know if you like it! I love your comments! Just a note that any italics means thoughts.

(series masterlist)

The next day everything started off fairly smoothly which was a great change to the chaotic afternoon yesterday. You started the day off waking up at sunrise and going on your typical run before going to shower and getting ready for the day. It was relieving that you were able to spend this time with yourself, only crossing paths with a few of your classmates.

That day, you happened to walk with Iida to class because you left early and he caught up to you due to his speed.

The polite boy stopped to walk with you and complimented you on your performance yesterday, making a comment about how he wished to see you in action and possibly even battle against you. At that, you sheepishly laughed and told him you specifically stayed away from him because of his advantage over you.

When you arrived at the classroom, Iida excused himself and began working on some classwork while you found yourself doodling on a sticky note. The drawing was similar to the one you were sketching last night, except instead of Nyikang in the gorgeous costume, it was you.

Ever since last night, you’ve been thinking about your actual hero costume in comparison to Nyikang’s. Throughout this process, you continuously tried to justify changing your hero costume. Additionally, it made you debate the healthiness of being afraid to change your costume and disappoint your family.

Once again, you bit your lip, your habit getting worse over these last few days, and continued to work on the sketch. It was nowhere near perfect, but that just encouraged you to keep working.

When class started, you crumpled up the sticky note you had been drawing on and started focusing on the discussion about yesterday’s game.

As the average day continued to drag on, a few other teachers came into the classroom to teach their respective subjects.

All of them mentioned yesterday.

All of them congratulated your team.

All of them made eye contact with you as if silently calling you out.

Now, Aizawa was standing in front of the class, telling you all to go to lunch.

By this time, you were quite hungry, and so, you walked up to Ashido’s desk as a few people got up and began exiting. “Hurry up! Let’s get Hagakure and go, I’m so hungry!” You complained, rubbing your stomach to emphasize your want or delicious food.

“Actually,” Mina smiled widely and sneakily pointed to Hagakure walking with Ojirou out of the classroom. “They made a lunch date yesterday during the game.” She whispered to you, so no one else could hear.

“So it’s just us?” You asked as Ashido grabbed her phone out of her bag and stood up.

“Actually,” Ashido started, once again grinning. Before she could finish her statement, Kirishima came up from behind and wrapped his arm around the pink girl’s shoulders.

“She’s eating with us,” Kirishima finished, gesturing with his thumb to Kaminari, Sero, and Bakugou. “You are welcome to join though.”

In all honesty, although you were tired from the previous day, you would love to sit with them. They were all so kind and humorous and made you feel so accepted. It would be the best way to relax.

Well, that would be true if Bakugou wasn’t included in that group.

Not that Bakugou was annoying you or making you miserable. He was just unpredictable and made your heart pound in your chest. You wanted a day with no stress, and Bakugou was a source of stress for you without him even knowing it.

“Sure,” You replied, knowing it would be rude to say no.

It’s only 45 minutes. What could go wrong?

Not even 10 minutes later, you were a blushing mess.

After sitting down with your plate of scrumptious food, Kaminari and Sero began bombarding you question after question.

“Is it true that American quirks are weaker than Japanese ones?” Kaminari asked, before you had a chance to start eating.

“No, that’s a dumb rumor.” You rolled your eyes and looked at your blond friend, “Duh.” You grabbed a french fry and popped it into your mouth in an attempt to soothe your grumbling stomach.

Before you even swallowed that bit of food, Sero inquired, “Do you think your mom could beat Endeavor in a fight?”

You took a moment to think over the question before replying, “Yes, his quirk is at a disadvantage against her’s.” You grabbed another french fry and eyed the tempting sandwich that was next to your fries.

“Why do Americans eat so much?” Kaminari asked.

You looked up to look Kaminari in the eyes. Was that a personal comment? His eyes seemed innocent and unaware. Nah, there’s no way. “Capitalism? I don’t know,” You replied before taking a swig of your water. At this point, you were already over these questions and your empty stomach was not helping to calm your annoyance.

“What’s ka-pi-tah-whatever?” Kirishima added.

You hadn’t realized you said ‘capitalism’ in English. Your face went red in embarrassment and you completely forgot about your stomach, “I don't know the word in Japanese, sorry!”

Everyone chuckled in response, making your face turn just a bit pinker.

However, that wasn’t even your ‘blushing mess’ moment.

“Speaking of America,” Ashido began after the laughter died down, “you said you saw us in the sports festival. Is Japanese heroism popular there?”

“Um, a little bit,” You replied, biting your lip in thought. “Some people are really into it, and others just watch it to see the cool tricks. The U.A. sports festival happens at basically the opposite time of year in comparison to American hero competitions. So, a lot of people like to watch because they miss the hero competition.”

“If you watch us, then are there favorites? Like, I saw an article in the magazine that was about up-and-coming student heroes and was basically a rank for some really popular students,” Kaminari said.

You had just taken a bite of your sandwich and were trying to swallow quickly, but before you could reply, Sero shoved his friend teasingly.

“That’s a Japanese magazine, idiot! Why would Americans rank Japanese students?”

“I was just asking!” Kaminari defended.

“Well, it was a dumb question!” Sero replied.

“You’re a dumb question!”

“Shut up, dumba--”

“We do rank some hero students,” You interrupted Sero before anything more idiotic cold happen.

“Really?” Sero and Kaminari both replied, the brunette looking surprised and the blond looking excited at the prospect.

“Uh, yeah…” You replied, wondering if telling them that was worse than just keeping silent and letting them bicker.

“Are we ranked?” Kaminari asked.

You bit your lip and debated how to respond. “Kind of?” Everyone looked to you and waited for your explanation. You attempted to swallow the lump in your throat before talking, “There are different categories for the rankings, but they are childish. Like, they would be titled: ‘Top Ten Cutest Japanese Hero Students’. It’s all done by teen magazines so they aren’t realistic for how heroes are actually ranked.”

“Well?” Sero replied.

“Well, what?” You asked.

“They want to know if they are ranked in the top 10,” Ashido whispered to you.

“Oh, no, they aren’t,” you said.

Ashido laughed loudly as Kaminari and Sero expressed their sadness by fake crying loudly in the middle of the cafeteria.

Bakugou kicked them under the chair and they promptly shut up.

In all honesty, you weren’t keen on talking about this pole. Your friend from school had forced you to vote and you chose Bakugou on a whim. Additionally, you had trouble keeping your mouth shut when you were nervous. You took in a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare yourself for your habit of blabbering on.

“Don’t feel bad, first years never make it,” You comforted them as they quietly weep on each other.

“Really?” They both asked in unison again.

“Well, yeah,” You paused for a moment, debating whether or not to say this next part, “Except Todoroki. He got 1st place last year.” This fact could either be your blabbering habit or just the perfect thing to say to keep the conversation interesting.

Everyone, including Bakugou, shot up at that.

“What?!”

You scratched the back of your head sheepishly as the five people in front of you stared as if silently asking you to explain yourself.

Maybe I should have kept that to myself, you thought as your classmates continued to stare.

“It’s not like it matters, the poll is silly and not even accurate, the guys that won weren’t even who I--nevermind.” You quickly ate a few more fries to stop yourself from talking as the people around you contemplated the information they were given.

That was a close one…

“Todoroki always wins with girls, it's not fair,” Kaminari sighed.

“Well, can you blame him? Todoroki is cute,” Ashido replied.

Kirishima, now with red cheeks that matched his hair, interjected in the conversation, “You think he’s cute?”

“Um,” Ashido mumbled as she looked towards the ceiling; her face somehow got even pinker, “Conventionally he is cute.”

“I think you guys are forgetting something,” Bakugou grumbled, grabbing everyone’s attention. He had his eyes closed and his feet propped up onto the table, similar to how he acted during class.

“What?” Kaminari inquired.

Bakugou pushed himself up and opened his eyes to look straight at you. He had a smirk on his face and a glint in his eyes that you didn’t quite understand. Your heart beat faster as you wondered if he realized your mistake. “She said it's not accurate. That implies that--”

“Y/L/N-kun likes someone!” Ashido interrupted.

Shit.

Your face became much redder than before and the heat from your embarrassment radiated in the room. Suddenly, your armpits were sweaty and you genuinely debated running out of the room.

It’s not like you had a crush at this point, but Bakugou definitely made you queasy in a way that resembles a crush.

Everyone stared at you with curious faces, as if you would blurt out who it was you liked, but there was no way that would happen.

“That’s ridiculous!” You replied. You bit your lip before speaking carefully, “I just said it wasn’t accurate because it's little girls voting and is nowhere near a well thought out ranking.”

“Did you vote?” Kirishima asked.

Just fucking stop talking you idiot, you begged yourself. Don’t make yourself look like even more of an idiot.

“Um, my friend made me,” You mumbled as you looked down at your food, avoiding the eyes of your friends.

Kaminari grinned and got closer to you. “Who did you vote for?”

You chuckled bashfully and looked quickly over to Bakugou, who was the person you had voted for. He was once again lazily sitting with his feet up on the cafeteria table. His arms were crossed and his eyes were like slits as he stared at you.

You looked away from Bakugou as abruptly as you had looked at him, flustering even more.

Does he care about whether or not I like someone?

You bit your lip and looked down at your food once again. You debated whether or not you should take out your earbuds. First, you would have to figure out how to take them out without anyone noticing. Next, you would be immediately flooded with the thoughts of the whole cafeteria. It would take a moment to hone in on Bakugou and you weren’t sure how strong your quirk was after yesterday.

It wasn’t worth it, especially because the answer might be bad.

You bit your bottom lip and encouraged yourself to finally respond, “That’s none of your business.”

“What?” Kaminari exclaimed. “Can’t you just tell us if it was one of us?”

There is no way that is happening. “It wasn’t,” You lied through your teeth.

“You know what?” Sero interjected, “I bet she voted for Todoroki.”

“Oh yeah!” Kaminari replied. “That’s why she won’t tell us! She doesn’t wanna seem like an idiot because she called the poll dumb.”

Although they were ultimately just teasing you, their words irked you slightly because of the sentiment. You knew that they really hoped it was one of them, that was clear. As up-and-coming young heroes, the job is often more important than your social life, and that definitely impacts your love life too. You tend to only hang out with other heroes because that is just who you are around.

Regardless of the teasing and disappointed looks that Sero and Kaminari shared, this reality was much better than the one where Bakugou learned that you actually voted for him. And so, you kept quiet as Mina jumped to your defense, claiming that it makes sense I would vote for Shouto considering how cool and handsome he was at the festival. That then led Kirishima to say that he was also equally cool and more manly than Todoroki at the sports festival.

All the while, you finally stuffed your face with your lunch, completely unaware of the red eyes glaring at you.

After lunch, the conversation about America and hero rankings died down, everyone now focusing on Ectoplasm and his lecture on calculating high-value exponents without a calculator.

From there, Present Mic came in to lecture on English. He passed out a new vocabulary sheet, which didn’t really mean anything to you because of your fluency in English. Although this period of the class ran fairly smoothly, Present Mic did occasionally start a conversation with you in English to show off his skills.

By the end of class, you finished the English homework assignment within only a few minutes and Present Mic left with a more than awkward joke.

Quickly, you packed up your things and met Ashido and Hagakure to walk back to class. During this time, the three of you chatted about Hagakure’s lunch date.

“I swear he likes you, you should just confess already,” Ashido whispered so no one else could overhear.

“Shut up!” Hagakure playfully pushed her friend away which barely moved Mina.

The three of you continued to chat away, you not talking nearly as much as the other two. However, the walk home was still fun. When you got home, you all placed your jackets on your respective coat racks and took off your shoes. Hagakure and Ashido went to grab a snack while you excused yourself with the excuse of needing to do homework.

Honestly, you were ahead on your homework and could definitely spend some time relaxing with the girls. However, all day, you had been thinking about your hero costume and craved drawing up a design for a new costume. Furthermore, the stress of lunch made you want to destress by fantasizing about the perfect hero costume.

Relieved, you entered your room, took off your school uniform, and changed into your hero uniform. You then spent the next few minutes analyzing and critiquing everything you hated about it. On a piece of paper, you jotted down all your ideas to change the hero costume.

After what seemed like half an hour, you sat down at your desk and began sketching out a similar sketch to the one you made in class. The costume featured loose pants that tightened at your shins only to be wrapped in armor. Your top had armor wrapped around your waist as well but left your chest loose to help with mobility. Additionally, on top of your shoulder were two curved spikes, mainly just for fashion.

It seemed like so long ago since you started drawing this costume. You had gone through multiple papers, with two of them being filled completely with notes on what you wanted to be featured in this new costume.

You bit your lips in concentration, finding all the flaws you could in your less than pretty drawing. You were not the best artist and it didn’t help that you were struggling to contemplate all the changes you wanted.

Maybe I’m going to need more help with this costume than I think.

Defeated, you opened your computer and searched for local costume designers. You found a few options and were getting more into your research on the person you would most likely be paying hundreds of dollars to before you heard a small gurgling sound.

It was your stomach.

You looked at the clock on your computer and saw that it was half-past eight.

“Holy shit,” You whispered in shock as you thought back to the literal hours you spent on fixing your costume. You had barely achieved anything on top of that. Nevertheless, you closed your laptop and changed into a different outfit before making your way downstairs to hopefully find some food.

As you came downstairs and walked into the kitchen, you noted that Kirishima, Mina, and Bakugou were all sitting in the living room. Kirishima and Mina were both watching a movie on someone’s laptop while Bakugou more or less just stared at his phone the whole time.

It looked like they were on a date and dragged Bakugou along because they didn’t want to admit it was a date. As you walked past them and stared at the scene, you paid no attention to what was in front of you and ended up walking right into the dining table.

“Fuck!” You groaned as you grabbed your side to try and soothe the aching pain.

The sounds of the movie stopped and you looked up to see all three people looking at you.

“Are you okay?” Mina asked as she stood up. “Let me grab you an ice pack.”

“Nah, I’m good,” You responded. “I just wasn’t paying attention.” You chuckled to try and lighten the mood.

Tentatively, Ashido sat back down in her seat. “Where have you been all day, anyway?” She asked after it seemed like you recovered enough.

“Oh, I just got distracted upstairs. I didn’t realize how late it was, so I was gonna grab some food,” You replied.

“There’s no dinner left,” Kirishima sheepishly explained as you made your way to the kitchen.

“And we are kind of low on food,” Mina added while you looked through the fridge and cabinets.

You hummed in response and rummaged through every cabinet. After taking a look around, you realized all the food you all had would result in you having to cook. You bit your lip, fully aware that you were too lazy to cook anything.

Maybe I should go get some food. There is a convenient store right next to the campus.

You walked to the coat rack and grabbed your coat off the hanger. “I’m gonna go to the convenience store to get some food, just some instant noodles or something,” You explained to the three other people downstairs.

“What?” Mina interrupted as you opened the door. “This late? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

You bent down to slip on your shoes before standing up again. You shrugged to the two people actually paying attention to you. “I’m hungry and don’t wanna cook.”

“Bakugou can cook!” Mina exclaimed while putting her hand on his shoulder

“Shut up,” He grumbled while shrugging her hand off him. “I don’t want to cook.”

“Well, hey!” Kirishima exclaimed as he jumped over the back of the couch to meet up with you. “I can’t let a young lady walk around at night without a manly guy to protect her.” He grinned at you and slid on his coat and shoes.

Honestly, it felt great that someone would be coming with you because you would be walking around an area you weren’t quite familiar with yet.

Suddenly, Bakugou stood up and made his way to you.

“You coming, bro?” Kirishima asked. “Damn, must be j--”

“Shut up,” Bakugou barked, “If you’re going then so am I.” Silently, Bakugou put on his sweater and shoes while Kirishima chuckled and patted his friend on the back.

“Wait!” Ashido exclaimed. “I don’t wanna be left out,” She said as she walked around the couch to meet you at the door. “We don’t have any movie snacks anyways.” She quickly slipped on her shoes and cheetah print coat. She grinned happily at Kirishima who matched her cheery face with his own.

Even though you were now a group of four, Bakugou did not bring you much comfort and seeing the lovey-dovey Ashido and Kirishima blushing at each other made you feel like a third wheel.

“Let’s hurry. I’m tired,” Bakugou groaned as he put his phone away and opened the door.

“Of course you’re tired, you are usually in bed by now,” Kirishima laughed as you followed behind Bakugou.

Mina exited after you. “Bakugou,” She began, “I don’t know how you fall asleep so early and then also wake up so late, almost at noon.”

That brief conversation sparked an interest in you. Not only had you seen Bakugou up late just a couple days ago, but he also thought about how precious that alone time was for him. If not only for a moment, Bakugou looked towards you before looking forward again.

If you weren’t looking at him, you would not have noticed. However, you were lucky enough to be looking at him and smart enough to know that he was also thinking about that night.

“That’s none of your business,” Bakugou finally replied, his voice eerily quiet yet agitated, as Kirishima closed the door.

Kirishima just laughed as a result and Ashido shrugged at you. You shrugged back, nonetheless curious about Bakugou’s sleep schedule.

Silently, you followed the other four throughout campus. As you walked, a pattern formed where Kirishima and Ashido were walking upfront with you and Bakugou trailing behind. The silence between you and Bakugou was rather awkward and you spent most of your time observing the couple in front of you.

You knew they weren’t dating, but a stranger may just think they were in a relationship. The only thing that someone would notice that could make an argument for them not being a couple was the nervousness, blushing, and lack of PDA. Nonetheless, they still had their hands all over each other and were flirting nonstop.

“It’s gross isn’t it?”

You looked to your left at the sound of Bakugou speaking to you. “Uhh,” You looked away from the fierce red eyes to look at the couple again. Ashido had just teasingly shoved Kirishima while laughing incredibly loud at one of his jokes. “I guess so. I don’t really mind.”

Bakugou scoffed. “You probably don’t mind because you just met them.”

You gave Bakugou a puzzled face, silently asking him to elaborate.

“They’ve known each other since middle school and have been acting like this since the end of our first year,” Bakugou responded. Although you didn’t purposefully try to analyze Bakugou’s voice, you noted his rough, coarse, and tired voice.

I bet he has no clue how attractive he is. Big muscles, deep voice, and messy hair that falls in front of his tired, piercing, red eyes.

You bit your lip and forced yourself to focus back on the conversation. “Ah,” You replied. “It’s just like that sometimes, “You shrugged your shoulders as you spoke, “Hagakure and Ojiro are the same way.”

The conversation died for a moment as you finally made your way off campus and started the trek to the store nearby.

“Who?!” Bakugou finally barked as if he actually took the time to try and remember who they were.

You rolled your eyes and laughed, remembering when Kirishima had to call everyone by a certain nickname. “I think you know them by the invisible girl and tail guy.”

“Ugh, those two?” Bakugou groaned. “They’ve been like that since day one. So bland and boring.”

“Bland and boring?” You repeated, scoffing at the wording. “What does that even mean?”

“They should just date if they want to, it doesn’t matter,” Bakugou groaned.

“Why doesn’t it matter?” You questioned him.

Bakugou looked at you before looking back ahead. After a moment, he mumbled, “Nevermind.”

Apparently, that was his cue to end the conversation, and you decided not to try and push your luck at the moment.

However, that gave yourself some time back to your own thoughts, specifically your thoughts regarding your hero costume. You had made a mental list of all the costume designers you found and liked. The list included their names, average pricing, and specialties. If you were to hire someone to help you with your costume design, you were most definitely going to be thorough in picking someone you could work well with.

Soon enough, your group arrived at the convenience store and brought you out of your deep thoughts. You quickly made your way inside to grab snacks and food. You looked through the large selection of meals and instant noodles, not quite sure what to pick. Asian convenience stores were much more diverse and impressive compared to American stores. Because of this, you didn’t quite know what to pick. Comparatively, Ashido and Kirishima flew through the isles, grabbing a plethora of foods without even having to cautiously look at the label.

This was one of the few times you felt silly. You did not speak perfect Japanese, and you had to meticulously read everything on the box to make sure you knew what you were eating. You felt bad that you might hold up the group and you were tempted to just grab something and suffer the possible consequences.

“Here.”

You looked up to see Bakugou handing you a large package of noodles. You curiously took the box and started reading it.

“Don’t bother. It has more veggies than other ramen and is the right amount of spice for food this late,” Bakugou mumbled as he grabbed himself a box too. However, his box had more red on it and you assumed it was spicier.

“Thanks,” You quietly replied. It was nice of Bakugou to grab food for you, preemptively knowing exactly what you were looking for. You brushed the thought away, telling yourself it was more likely that he was doing this because he wanted to be home as soon as possible.

Bakugou nonchalantly hummed in response before looking around the store, his head peeking just over the shelves. “We need some other stuff too.”

Or maybe not. Maybe Bakugou was once again making you a meal, ensuring that you were eating well.

No, don’t read too much into this. Bakugou isn’t a relationship person and you aren’t in the best place to be in a relationship.

Silently, you followed Bakugou around the store as he grabbed a package of strawberries, which he practically threw at you, and some pre-baked tofu. He also grabbed a small package of seaweed and two drinks.

You continued to follow Bakugou around the store and up to the counter. He dropped everything on the counter and you also placed your package of noodles and strawberries on the counter. The older lady working at the counter smiled politely as she scanned everything placed on the counter.

Although you were rather clueless about why Bakugou was being kind and once again making sure you ate well, you were able to recover once you saw Bakugou grab out his wallet.

“No, no, no,” You interrupted and pulled out your own wallet, and the cash you had.

Bakugou looked at you as if you were crazy and you used that moment to push enough money forward to pay for the meal.

The cashier chuckled sweetly and accepted your cash. Bakugou groaned and leaned back on his foot, upset that you were paying.

It’s for the best, you thought as the cashier leaned forward to place the change in your hand.

“You two are such a cute couple,” She whispered to only you as she placed your change into your hand.

Just as quickly as she spoke, she pushed herself back to being upright and began bagging the food.

While completely red, you looked to Bakugou to see if he heard her comment. “What?” He groaned as he glared at you.

“Nothing,” You mumbled back and looked down to place the money back into your wallet.

Bakugou grabbed the bag of food from the woman and you bowed to say thank you, before following behind Bakugou to exit the building.

Outside, Kirishima and Ashido waited for you two with a bag of their own snacks and smiles on their faces.

“Y/L/N-kun,” Ashido yelled as she ran up to you, pulling you out of your trance. Ashido grabbed your arm and whispered to you, “Come walk with me!”

#boku no hero academia #boku no hero headcanons #my hero academia #my hero academy #bnha #bnha bakugou #bnha bakugo #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugou #bakugo #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katsuki #katsuki #katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader

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faintwalker · 3 years

Note

Artist Asks!! Number 1, 2, 5, 7, 15, and 25 :D Thank you and apologies for the disturbance ^^"

Lots of questions to answer! I’ll give it my best!

1. Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital?

Ah, this is a tough question! I like both of them, really, and they both have advantages-- there are certainly things I can do with each one that I can’t do with the other. Drawing with ballpoint is a nice activity that I like to return to, even though I’m now learning digital art, and I do often find it very enjoyable. Hybrid projects where I combine both types are fun too! So, to me, on paper is more relaxing and digital is more challenging, but I am new at it-- I started learning digital art in January, so how I feel is still growing and changing as I continue to learn.

(Also related to preference, I suppose, is the fact that I am very light-sensitive. I have a glare-resistant drawing tablet that I keep quite dim, but if I am not feeling well, paper out of direct light is safer to draw on, so sometimes that is also a factor in what I prefer in a moment.)

2. How long have you been drawing?

...huh. How do I answer this...? I’ve drawn on occasion since learning to hold drawing instruments, but mostly just doodling and not always very often. A lot of it was just pencil on the edges of worksheets. I drew some pieces with more effort during the 2016-2017 school year in moments of spare time, and then had the occasional project going on since then, but not much. Really, my recent bout of drawing started last summer, and suddenly it became one of my main hobbies. So an answer on “how long” is hard to decide on. I feel in many ways that I am quite new to it.

As I said above, I began digital art in January 2021. Lots to learn there!

5. What’s your favorite thing to draw?

At present, it’s definitely Itsuwaribito fanart, but I’m not sure if that’s specific enough or not. Outside of that, I like to draw somewhat creepy things, like spirits and odd creatures. There are other things too-- it’s hard to pick a singular favorite thing.

(Maybe my favorite thing to draw is emotion, but that’s hard to pin as a thing, and it’s not something I can be sure carries across to others through the art.)

7. How often do you use references?

Depends on what I’m drawing (and sometimes on how much I care about how it turns out). If I’m new to drawing a character, I will usually look at pictures (or detail information) from the source to try and make sure I have an idea of details like how long their coat is, how many buttons they have, what the basic shape of their hair is, etc. (I wouldn’t copy any poses without calling it a redraw.) Sometimes I prop my phone somewhere with a timer set on the camera to get a picture of myself for pose reference-- I have to adjust for different body shapes, but it gives me the basics of poses for some projects. On occasion, I will look up or seek out a thing to get a picture for reference of stuff not mentioned above-- for example, I looked up the bone structure of human hands and ribcages for that one picture I drew of Choza.

Mostly with references I just eyeball them. I sometimes forget to use them as well. They can be helpful. Other times they aren’t needed, like when I draw yet another chibi Uzume.

15. How long does an average piece take you to complete?

Another good question that I wish I could answer more precisely! Most things I tag as “doodle” don’t take very long, as the goal is to worry less on them. Some of my projects are small ballpoint drawings completed in less than an hour. Some are ballpoint projects that take several hours. If a piece takes up a full page of (non-digital) paper, it probably took around a full waking day to do. (Hard to tell online how big everything is, though!)

Digital art goes slower than on-paper art for me at present, in part because of how new I am to it. With paper and digital both, however, my speed is increasing. I can draw more quickly now than I could half a year ago!

...Sometimes it’s best to be slow and careful on a piece, though. The aforementioned Choza picture took about eighteen hours to draw when I drew it, and I don’t know if it’d take a much shorter time to do a similar piece now. Paper-based projects don’t have an undo button for the pen stage, so a slip of the hand will remain.

So, all in all, most of what I draw is done in more than an hour and less than a day. Some big projects, including complicated pieces and not-as-short-or-chibi-style comics, may take longer. (Digital chibi comics take much longer than paper ones, I’ve been finding out.)

25. Do you like to draw in silence, or with music?

The easiest question! I draw in silence. Okay, sometimes there is noise in the background from other people, but I have only tried drawing while listening to music a few times, and the music stops and I don’t keep it going. Sometimes I hum a bit or have a song stuck in my head, but I tend to hyperfocus while drawing, so that fades out and I end up only focused on what I’m looking at. When I get distracted and have less focus, I may think about songs or music, but even my music-related art isn’t done while listening to the music! My focus just doesn’t work that way.

(I find it really interesting how that works for different people! Looks like others are curious too. -wWw- )

---

Thanks for sending in all those questions! It’s not a disturbance at all, and I hope my answers are informative and not too rambling! Art is fun, and I like to talk about it.

#ask answered #ask meme answer #about drawing

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paullahotes · 4 years

Text

Incalescent- Chapter Two

Pairing: Paul Lahote x Fem!OC

Summary: Em just wants to be loved and have a family for once in her life. But nothing has ever gone right in her life before so why should it now?

Word Count: 7.6k

Warnings: semi-abuse from father figure, gross feelings

A/N: Listen, I don’t think I’m a good writer so this could be terrible! Let me know what you guys think of it!

Three periods had crawled by, each one continuously going slower than the last. I was now sitting in my algebra class, watching the clock tick by slowly. This school was shaping up to be different than the others I had been to, everyone wanted to know me here. A couple different boys, whose names I didn’t remember, had all introduced themselves to me. They were all eager to meet the new girl, they rarely got new people in this town and I was ‘front page baby’. Of course I was not too eager to meet any of them and vehemently denied an interview for the front page of the school newspaper.

When I had gotten home this morning before school, my dad wasn’t there but the house was a mess. Our couch was shredded, pieces of wood and clumps of foam covered the living room. The pan he was cooking dinner in was burnt to a crisp, too far gone to be saved. When I threw it out I made sure to double bag it and bring it right to the can to make sure the smell didn’t linger in the house. The only thing I could do for the rest of the smell in the house was open a few windows and leave them for the day to air everything out.

Thankfully Emily had given me a new outfit and food for school because I had no time for either when I looked around at the mess before me. Though, currently the wolves were the last things on my mind. The one thing at the forefront was that I had killed my mother and my father hated me for it. There would be no getting out of talking about this with him, maybe he would want to work things out. I knew though that that was far fetched, in his mind, I had killed the woman he loved. I had sucked the life out of her, leaving her dead and me a burden on him. My face practically mirroring hers a constant reminder of the tragic events.

“Miss Abbott?” The teacher called from the front of the class, his hoarse voice pulling me from the self hating thoughts. He was staring me down, waiting for a reply so I shrugged at him. The class was turned looking at me now, every pair of eyes trained on my face. “Miss Abbott, you’re new here, so I’ll give you some leeway this time but from now on you have better be paying attention.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered back copying down the notes from the board that I had been neglecting. I had already taken this math class three times, I could probably teach it by now. Taking the notes however proved to be a good distraction from my thoughts and before I knew it, the bell was ringing for lunch time.

Paper bag in hand I made my way to the cafeteria and found a table in the corner that no one was sitting at. I sat in a seat so I wouldn’t be facing everyone but so I could still see if I was going to be ambushed by anyone. The few boys who introduced themselves to me this morning all stared me down as they say at a different table. I could hear them muttering about how anti social I was and how even Bella, who had ditched everyone for Edward, was still better than I was coming off.

I didn’t think much of it as I propped my right leg up on a chair, to help with the swelling from the bite from Paul and scrolled through the apps on my phone. The lunch Emily packed me was delicious, with a good mix of veggies and fruit. I usually bought school lunch and picked at it because it was gross so this was a good change. There was nothing interesting on my phone except for a few texts from my dad begging me to come home and apologizing but I wasn’t ready to open up that can of worms over text with him.

“You’re back!” someone said, sarcasm was practically dripping from their mouth. When I looked up one of the girls sitting at the tables with the boys from earlier was looking at some newcomers. If looks could kill the three new people who were standing waiting for seats would be dead.

Two of them were clearly vampires, the small girl with black spiky hair had the palest skin I had ever seen, even for a vampire. She had a sincere smile on her beautiful face, looking as upbeat as ever even with a whole table of people glaring at her The other vampire was a guy, he was standing behind the vampire girl and the other human girl. He was wearing a beige sweater and khakis, his hair disheveled but there was evidence of gel suggesting he wanted to look disheveled on purpose.

The third one of them was a human, if she didn’t have deep brown eyes instead of golden like her two companions I might mistake her for a vampire too. Her skin was so pale it was almost grey. Her long brown hair hung over her shoulders, held back by a plain brown headband. She kept looking up at the male vampire like he was a Greek god with the sun shining out of his butt. He seemed very plain to me, with his beige outfit and brooding look on his face. He looked like he was ready to cry and recite poetry about something sad.

“Our family just loves Forks so much, we couldn’t stay away!” the small girl said excitedly, taking a seat at the table. Her two friends following suit while everyone else at the table shifted uncomfortably in their seats. The rest of the group fell back into their conversations, the girl who was fake excited turned away from the newcomers to talk with everyone.

The table next to me began talking about the three people who showed up at the other table across the cafeteria. One of the people whispered something about doctor Cullen’s wife not liking the big city so they all came back here. The word ‘cult’ was thrown in as a reference to their family because none of them ate or really tried interacting with anyone at this school. I found out from eavesdropping that there were three other siblings that came here last year but graduated. I wondered to myself if Sam and Paul knew that the Cullens were back since just this morning, they told me that they had left.

I studied the two vampires as they pretended to eat their lunch. The girl picked her food apart trying to make it seem like she was taking bites but the guy was actually taking bites. I’d seen my dad eat food to pretend to be human over the years but he said it tasted like ashes. He told me that he assumed the venom in his system just burned it up so why not just take a few bites to blend in with the humans.

The human girl with them also picked at her food not eating it. Maybe she was trying to make the vampires look more normal or maybe she wanted to be one so bad she picked up their habits evan as a human. One of the boys called her ‘Bella’ as she was picking apart the bread on her tray. This was the girl they were talking about earlier, comparing me to her. Which would probably make the guy vampire Edward.

My first thought when finding out that this was the girl everyone thought was better than me was petty. She was plain and from what I could tell didn’t give a damn about anyone else besides the vampires she was with. She was listening and contributing to the conversation with everyone at the table but her eyes barely left the guy. The whole thing gave me secondhand embarrassment.

It wasn’t too long until the bell rang and I was heading to my next class. I pulled my hood over my head to keep my hair from getting wet as I crossed the courtyard to get to the little buildings scattered along a paved sidewalk. This was the first school I had been to where it wasn’t one whole building but a bunch of little ones placed around a campus. Everyone rushed alongside me, most had umbrellas and the ones that didn’t, ran full speed through the crowd to get to their class faster.

I left my jacket on the coat hook by the door when I got to class and found a seat toward the back so that I could be left alone. The assignment for the beginning of class was written on the board, the rest of the class had started writing about it in their journals so I pulled out my notebook. Writing isn't my strong suit but the prompt on the board read ‘write a narrative about something upsetting’ and I knew exactly what to write about.

While I was writing my narrative I glanced up as two people sat at the desks in front of me. Bella and Edward were sitting there, both turned facing each other with their notebooks out. She was glancing over at him every few seconds and I could hear her breathing hitch every time. I had to suppress an eye roll at the sight of it. Sure I had been lonely my whole life but I couldn’t imagine being that into someone. Though how would I even know since I’d never been in that situation.

The class got started and a couple people shared what they had written. I didn’t volunteer to read mine because of how emotional it sounded. Bella and Edward didn’t volunteer either and every once in a while I thought I could see Edward turn and glance my way. After the first couple times Bella noticed and turned back to me and gave me a questioning look. I made sure I looked like I didn’t know what was going on and just sat there doodling in my notebook.

“Are you new?” she asked me when the bell rang, signalling us to leave and head to our last class. This school and everyone in it was going wildly out of their way to talk to me and I wasn’t having it.

“Yeah,” I told her bluntly and quickly walked away. I grabbed my jacket off the hook and shrugged it on going to my last class. I got there before everyone else, having sped off as fast as I could. I could feel my calf throbbing as I sat down. The bite mark wasn’t an open wound anymore but the teeth outline was still there surrounded by bruises. If I didn’t think about it the pain would go away but since I was reminded of it I had to limp to my seat.

I found a seat in the back of this class as well, internally thanking the universe for giving me the best seats as this school. As I sat at my desk waiting for the other students to arrive I stared out the window. The rain had subsided for the time being, the sky still covered in dark clouds. The day had gone much different weather wise than what it had been this morning when Paul was walking me home.

The early morning sun was peeking through the trees as Paul and I walked side by side to my house. His hand kept bumping into my arm as we went. I had seen a couple cheesy movies where the boy and girl would be walking and the boy would bump his hand into hers on purpose because he wanted to hold it. But Paul and I had just met. He was probably so close because my leg was threatening to give out at any second. Emily had thankfully cleaned and bandaged it well so I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a couple hours.

The walk back through the forest was different than last nights run through it. It had been dark and stormy, a combo that hadn’t let me really appreciate how beautiful it was. Though my mental state probably wouldn’t have let me appreciate it either even if it hadn’t been dark and stormy.

The scenery was gorgeous. The entire forest floor was covered in old fallen tree trunks and moss. The green had overwhelmed me on the drive in but being here with the sunlight peeking through the tops of the trees was amazing. You could hear birds chirping and if you listened close enough you could hear the river rushing over rocks a little ways ahead.

Paul nudged me and smirked as we approached the river. My mouth set into a tight line as I thought of having to jump over it with how badly my leg hurt. I frowned up at him and he still had a smirk on his face.

“Do you think I’d make you jump this after trying to take a chunk out of your leg?” He asked me, his eyes twinkling with delight.

“Yeah, actually,” I mumbled back to him. His smile was so bright as he looked down at me. He shook his head and stepped back a bit before putting his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts and pulling them down. I looked away quickly as blush spread over my cheeks.

“You should watch this, I think you’ll think it’s cool,” I peeked back over at him making sure not to look down but directly at his face. His smile grew wider as he spoke again. “You’re cute when you blush.”

My face got even redder than before, I could feel the heat spreading across my face rapidly. Before I could even think of anything to say and let alone say it, Paul was visibly shaking. Then suddenly he exploded into a grey wolf five times his size. I stood there with my jaw practically on the ground. He grabbed his shorts in his teeth and walked them over to me.

“You were right, this is pretty cool,” I told him patting his head like I would a regular dog. He didn’t seem to like it so he nudged my hand out of the way and flung his shorts at my face. “Alright, alright I’ll carry these but I don’t know how you being a wolf is going to get me across the river.”

Paul laid down on the ground and gestured with his head for me to get on his back. My eyes widened and I took a step back and muttered ‘no way’ quietly. Then before I could do anything else Paul jumped up and ran at me full speed. I let out a shriek as he charged at me and jumped, my leg kept me from going to high and I was suddenly on his back. A low rumble from his chest alerted me to him laughing.

“I’ll remember this,” I growled at him, gripping onto his fur. The wind whipped passed up as he ran forward, faster than I could run even when my leg was healed. I made a mental note to work on my speed so he wouldn’t have an edge on me. We got to the edge of the river quickly and he leaped across it like it was nothing, landing gracefully on the other side.

“So how’d you like it?” Paul asked smugly a few moments later as he was pulling on his pants. It had been such a rush not being the one who was jumping. I was able to just sit back and let the wind whip through my hair and relax. Him turning into a wolf was pretty cool too, way better than being half vampire.

“It was alright, I’m glad I’m half vampire and can’t turn into some dog,” I tried ending my sentence sounding like I was teasing him. I wasn’t used to feeling anything but empty. I had never come close to even a sliver of happiness. The feelings I felt being around Paul and the feelings I felt back when we were at Sam and Emily’s house were foreign. My life had never known anything like this and as my stomach turned itself into knots I knew it couldn’t last forever.

“I know that you secretly wish you were as cool as me,” He taunted me, the bright smile back on his face. I tried not to look directly at him now that I knew I would blush at everything he did if he had that smile.

“Please, I could find someone cooler than you without even trying,” I shot back, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them. This was the longest interaction I had ever had with anyone in my whole life. Even longer than anything with my father. I didn’t even know that I knew how to interact with anyone like this.

“Hey now, you gotta be nice to me or we can’t be friends,” Paul joked back, bumping into me. I looked up at him, my mouth opening then closing because I didn’t know how to respond. The look on my face must have worried him because he grabbed my hand and said, “I was just joking, we just met but I think we’ll be the greatest friends.”

“I’ve never had one…” I mumbled looking up at him. My forehead was furrowed as I looked up at him. It was pretty pathetic that I hadn’t had a friend but it was all part of keeping the family secret.

“You’ve never had a friend?” He asked sounding like he didn’t believe me. I shrugged as we kept walking and didn’t look up at him.

“My dad never let me have one, he wanted to keep our existence a secret and thought that if I ever had any friends that they would somehow find out about us,” I explained, the more I thought about it the more dumb it sounded.

“Your father sounds like a dick,” Paul muttered. He was right, that is how my dad sounded. Why else would he keep me from having friends? Why else would he keep me from being happy? Maybe it all went back to him blaming me for my mother dying, though if I could go back in time I would change things. I would never kill anyone consciously, that wasn’t me.

“That doesn’t matter anymore, we’re your friends now!” Paul said trying to pull me out of my thoughts. We were coming to a clearing and Paul slowed down his walk. “The whole pack is like one big family, we fight like real siblings and we have bonfires together. I really think you’ll get along with everyone once they see past you being a vampire.”

“Everyone?” I asked sounding a little uneasy. “There’s more than you and Sam?”

“Yeah! There’s actually ten of us that are wolves, two more phased for the first time the other day which indicates that more vampires are in our area.” He explained to me as I wrung my hands together. There were ten wolves in the ‘pack’ he was telling me about. Less than twelve hours ago I didn’t even know wolves existed and now I knew about ten.

“There’s a lot of you…” I quietly exclaimed. “How do you know when to phase? How can you tell that vampires are near?”

“You’ll have to come out to a bonfire sometime and hear our tribes stories. They explain it all but in short and to quote the stories ‘we have always had magic in our blood’,” Paul explained to me as we walked along somehow even slower than before. Meeting him had been a good distraction from my feelings and the pain in my stomach told me that as soon as I was alone I would spiral.

“That sounds fancy, I don’t think there are stories of how vampires came to be,” I muttered to him. “Though if there were they would probably be dark and contain no magic.”

“Don’t sound so negative about vampires, you aren’t so bad,” he emphasized ‘so’ and wagged his eyebrows at me jokingly. I let out a small chuckle, rolling my eyes at him.

We made our way out of the thick trees and into my backyard greeted by the sun being out fully. There were no clouds in sight. The warmth spread over my skin and I let myself smile widely. The weather had been disastrous since our arrival yesterday and the sun was a welcome change.

“You don’t sparkle,” Paul commented from behind me. When I turned to look at him he sounded surprised, the look on his face was priceless.

“I am half human, silly,” I told him. He cocked his head to the side watching me. “Maybe that makes me deadlier than a regular vampire. I look completely innocent.”

“It sure does,” He muttered before shaking his head and giving me a small smile. “I’ll see you later right?”

“Of course, what else do I have to do? Stay home and hang out with my dick of a father?” I asked him referencing what he said earlier. He was beaming now and waved me off. As I turned to walk to my house he was pulling off his shorts again and phasing into a wolf. I heard a loud howl in the distance as I was opening my front door, bringing a smile to my face.

“Miss Abbott,” someone said pulling me out of my daydream. I snapped back into reality and saw that this teacher was catching me for not paying attention too. I stared at him until he spoke some more. “Miss Abbott, I was wondering if you would like to introduce yourself to the class but if you’re too preoccupied don’t let me bother you.”

“My name is Em and I’m new. That’s all you really need to know,” I replied, sounding sarcastic. I didn’t mean for it to come off bad but I was irritated. More so with myself than the teacher who interrupted.

“Great,” He muttered back, the edge in his voice sounding like he was ready to retire any second. None of the students were staring at me this time except for the two who were sitting directly in front of me, again. Bella and Edward stared back at me, both looking different levels of shocked. Edward looked like he was shocked and frustrated. Who knew a vampire could be so uptight about a new student with an attitude problem?

“Mr. Cullen, one student not paying attention is enough for me for one day,” our teacher called from right beside our desks. I gave the teacher a quick glance and then looked forward to the front of the room where he had our lesson up on the board. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edward stiffen and turn around, clearly upset as he clenched his fists.

Besides a few snide whispers among the other students of ‘the new girl must already love Edward’ and ‘god she’s JUST like Bella, amazed by Edward already’, the class went by quickly and I was out the door while the bell was still ringing. The walk home was brutally cold with the wind whipping at my face, numbing it. With the way Edward already seemed interested in me I didn’t want to risk running home and being found out that I was some type of vampire.

Each step I took brought me new anxiety, that tightened my chest with every breath. There was no doubt that my dad would be home now, waiting for me. I had no idea what to expect from him since everything was on the table now. His mood had changed rapidly during our confrontation that I didn’t even know what to expect from him in that sense when I walked through the door.

When I turned down the street I lived on I could see the car out front of our house but I couldn’t remember if it had been there this morning or not. If he was home he would know that I was close by now, he could probably hear my footsteps and he could definitely hear me breathing hard. The door to the house swung open as I started up our front steps, he wasn’t there but I could hear him walking in the kitchen. My ears picked up on the soft sound of clothing moving against wood, telling me he had taken a seat at the kitchen table.

Once I was down the hallway and into the kitchen I could see him. He was sitting with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of his face. He didn’t look up when I came into the kitchen or as I took my time placing my backpack on the island and taking my jacket off. I took a seat at the table across from him and sat silently, waiting for him to talk.

“I didn’t mean for you to ever find out about your mother,” he stated after a while of silence. His face was unreadable, blank. This terrified more than if he was showing any emotion at all.

“Don’t you think it’s unfair of you to have kept that a secret from me? Don’t you think it’s unfair to treat me the way you do? Don’t you think it’s unfair keeping so much from me?” I asked him those questions with a shaky voice. My body felt like it was vibrating, heat spread from my stomach throughout my whole body. I kept myself from crying but the rest of my body was reacting. A slight sweat was building up on the back of my neck and scalp.

“Everything I have ever done was to protect you,” he said a little bit of emotion breaking through. The way he said it made me want to believe him but he had kept me not only from knowing the truth about my mother but also from knowing anything outside of our little bubble. I didn’t want this to keep happening. As much as I hated myself for now knowing what I did to my mother I wasn’t ever going to die so I had an eternity to go out into the world and explore and I wanted to start doing that soon.

“I can understand that to a point but you’ve never talked about my mother, not once. I didn’t even know what a mother was until you put me in school and I saw that almost everyone else had one. I grew up thinking it was only something in movies, I thought mothers were fictional!” My voice wavered in the end, a few tears spilling out and rolling hotly down my cheek. He sat back, crossing his arms across his chest and looked like he was thinking for a minute.

“You seem to have given this a lot of thought, I guess your little run gave you a lot of time to think,” he was calm now, back to showing no emotion. Though there was a slight edge to his voice. I took in a shaky breath, an indication of how worked up I was about this.

“I’ve been thinking about having this conversation with you my whole life. Do you know how hard it is to not have friends? How hard it is to have the only real interaction you have be with your father and even those interactions are few and far between?” My voice was beginning to crack with every emotion I had felt over the last twenty-three years coming to the surface.

“Em,” he let out a long breath, his eyes almost rolling. “You know how important it is to keep our secret! If anyone found out that we were vampires there would be terrible consequences.”

“How would they find out? What harm would it be for me to have a few friends? Do you think I would go to a sleepover and just tell them I was a vampire? Do you think I introduce myself as ‘Em, the vampire’?” This was when I began to raise my voice. The tears were flowing freely down my face as my father was glaring daggers at me.

“Do you know how hard it is to have the love of your life taken away by a child that you never even wanted?” He shouted at me, standing up so quickly the table lurched forward and shoved me back. The chair tipped back from the force and I hit the floor, not bothering to use any of my enhanced abilities to stop myself. I was lying on the floor when he continued. “You have no clue what I’ve been going through every single day since you were born. I can barely look at you, your face is just like hers, you remind me of her so much. It’s unfair that you get to live when she’s dead!”

“Why didn’t you kill me then? Why did you let her have me?” I sobbed out, tears blurring my vision so that I couldn’t see anymore. The only thing that could be heard for a while the crying, each hiccup-like intake of breath echoing off the walls.

“She wouldn’t let me, she wanted you so bad. She wanted to start a family with me. She was so optimistic, she thought she would live and I could turn her into a vampire and we could raise you. The perfect little family that she always wanted and I was willing to give her anything,” his tone was different now, almost like he was crying too but I still couldn’t see him. My tears wouldn’t stop. “I’m going to leave for a while, to give you some time to breathe. You have my cell phone number so if anyone needs you to confirm you have a dad or anything, just call. Follow the rules while I’m gone, I’ll know if you don’t.”

With the last threat he left, the door slamming so hard behind him that the whole house shook. It felt like years before I could calm down and pick myself up off the floor. My body was stiff as I stood up and put the table and chair back where they belonged. That was when my brain decided to rearrange things and not think about or process anything that had just happened. With the couch from the living room destroyed I decided to move some chairs around to make up for it.

Once the house was completely rearranged and the sun had set, I began to cook my myself some dinner. Though my stomach currently felt like lead I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep at any point tonight if I didn’t eat. When the house began to smell like the food I was cooking, I started to feel better. I let myself breathe the delicious scents in as I stirred my food around the pan.

All the movies and tv shows I had seen over the years told me that this is what your home should always smell like. Your parents should be cooking in the kitchen while the kids are scattered around the house doing homework or other activities. Though I was fully grown now, I had been since I was around 7 years old, but now I was considered a real adult and most people at this age don’t live with their parents anymore. I had never had that and I felt like no matter how many years passed I would still crave a family.

The loneliness crept back in as I stared down at the suddenly inedible food in the pan. The once delicious smells were making my stomach churn, my nose crinkling in disgust. Before I could even register it I was dumping my food out in the trash and scrubbing the pan violently in the sink. I hadn’t even finished my second day here in Forks and I was crying again, the tears running down my face as I splashed the sink water everyone in anger.

How could my father do this to me? Why would he spend over two decades with me, raising me, if he hated and resented me so much? He didn’t seem to give a shit about what my mom had wanted since he barely even acknowledged that I was around so he wasn’t doing it for her in any way.

A sudden knock on the back door pulled me out of my angry thoughts. I jumped at the sound making the soapy water in the sink spill over the edge and on the floor, soaking the bottom of my pants and shoes. The sun had set by now so I couldn’t see out onto my porch but my ears picked up on a rapid heartbeat and a familiar scent was beginning to seep in through the crack in the door. When I flicked on the porch light I was proven right, Paul was standing there soaked from the rain I hadn’t even noticed. I slid the door open silently, letting him in.

“What’s wrong?” His hands came to my face as he asked, palms cupping my cheeks and thumbs wiping my tears away. Part of me knew this behavior was odd from someone I had just met-been attacked by, yesterday. But another part of me wanted to be cared for like this, craved the soft, caring touches.

“My dad left to give me some space to breathe for a while,” I choked out trying to calm down. Paul pulled me into a hug and I didn’t protest, pressing my cheek to his bare chest. The heat was coming off of him in waves, practically burning my cheek.

“Maybe this is a good thing,” Paul tried to assure me, rubbing a hand up and down my back while his other was placed on the back of my head. “He is a dick after all.”

We stayed like that for a while, until reality kicked in a told me I shouldn’t be hugging a complete stranger. I couldn’t tell why but I felt a strong pull to Paul. If I had been in my right mind at all yesterday when he was carrying me through the woods or this morning when he walked me home I would’ve realized it earlier. The second he wasn’t touching me a part of me felt empty, having not realized I felt anywhere near whole when we embraced. I hadn’t even know him for a full twenty-four hours yet so I would be keeping these feelings to myself.

“Are you hungry?” I found myself asking him, gesturing awkwardly to my kitchen.

“Actually I came to see if you wanted to have dinner at Emily’s,” he told me looking around my kitchen. “You said you were going to come over after you got off of school but you never did. I didn’t have a real reason to come and check on you since we just met yesterday and I shouldn’t be worried so Emily suggested that I come and invite you to dinner.”

“I’m sorry, I totally forgot about it with everything that happened when I got home,” my cheeks flushed, the heat pooling in them immediately. Maybe my dad kept me from having friends because he knew I’d be a terrible one.

“Don’t even worry about it, I just really wanted to see you again,” he said the last part unsurely, like he didn’t know that he should actually confess that. His cheeks turned a little red after he spoke and he rubbed a hand awkwardly on the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I would!” My feet squeaked as I walked forward to go with him. I had forgotten about my soaked pants and shoes. “Let me just change real quick.”

I flew up the stairs as fast as I could, throwing open my bedroom door and searching through my boxes of clothes for new pants and shoes. It felt like I had been up there forever once I came downstairs in my new clothes. Paul was waiting for me outback already in wolf form, his shorts in his mouth.

“I can hold those for you,” reaching out I took the shorts from him and climbed on his back, gripping his fur tightly. He took off as fast as he could through the woods, it was so dark out tonight that even I could barely see. The way he ran showed me how sure of himself he was, whipping between trees and over fallen ones without hesitation.

The sound of rushing water filled my ears as we neared the river. Paul never thought twice as he picked up speed and suddenly we were soaring over the it. The water was rushing violently from the heavy amount of rain we had gotten, mist spraying up at us as we went. We hit the other side of the river with a thud, without missing a beat Paul continued forward until we were outside Emily and Sam’s house. Their small cottage lit up the small clearing it was in. I could hear several people laughing inside as I waited for Paul to turn back and put his clothes back on.

“Come on,” Paul said from beside me. He was now dressed and holding out his hand for me to take. My face flushed as I took his hand, feeling more comfortable than I ever had as we walked into the house with our hands intertwined by our sides.

“Welcome back!” Emily called out to me when we walked in. She crossed from room quickly and was pulling me into a hug away from Paul within seconds. When she pulled back she kept her hands on my shoulders and looked me over. “Is everything all healed?”

“For the most part! My leg is still bothering me a bit,” I told her. She looked passed me over to Paul and gave him a sympathetic look. When I glanced back at him he looked like he was on the verge of tears. So I quickly said, “At least you guys know now that I’m not a dangerous vampire, I’d want to keep my people safe too if I were you guys.”

“What kind of bloodsucker are you then?” A boy asked from the kitchen. He was sitting next to Sam and another girl I had never seen. His face was round and youthful but his eyes were hardened like he’d been through a lot. Even though he was sitting I could tell he was a few inches taller than Paul but not as tall as Sam, the three of them the tallest people I have ever been around. The girl next to him that I had never seen was beautiful, her long black hair was pulled into a braid that she had over her shoulder, a scowl on her face as she looked at me. I wondered if they were two of the other wolves Paul had been telling me about earlier.

“I don’t really know,” I replied honestly, shrugging at all of them. “All I can say is I may be half a vampire but I’ve never killed anyone for their blood.”

“Never?” The girl asked me sounding skeptical. No one except for my mom but this wasn’t the time for that. I shook my head at her, everyone in the room looked a little shocked.

“I do steal things though, like blood bags from hospitals so I don’t have to feed directly off of a human. Sometimes I hunt animals…” I trailed off, looking between everyone’s faces. Beside me Emily grabbed my hand and led me to the table and pulled a chair out for me. I was sitting beside the boy I had never seen with Paul on my other side. I could tell that he didn’t like me already from the way he stiffened when I sat down next to him.

“Enough about this! Em is welcome here anytime and she is to be left alone unless she decides she wants to be interrogated.” Emily informed everyone, her eyes landing on the boy next to me. He huffed and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms,

“Don’t mind, Jacob,” Paul leaned in to whisper in my ear. “He’s still in highschool and in love with a girl who doesn’t love him back.”

“Shut up, Paul!” Jacob barked from beside me, getting up so quickly his chair flew back and slammed into a wall. The girl I didn’t know looked like she had gone through this before, Emily wasn’t paying attention as stirred some food and Paul was laughing next to me so hard the table in front of me was shaking.

“Just sit down, Jacob,” The girl said before Sam could say anything, though he was poised and ready, his fists pressed to the table. He took a few deep breaths and picked the pictures off the floor that he knocked down with his chair and came to sit back down. This time he made sure his chair was further away from me and closer to the girl.

“Thanks, Leah,” Sam told the girl, giving her a nod. She nodded back and then went to get some food like nothing happened. Paul started to put food on my plate without saying anything, then began to hesitate when I looked over at him to ask him why.

“I didn’t know if you felt like you should help yourself or not,” Paul explained, continuing to put more food on my plate for me.

“Thank you, I’ve just never…” I trailed off not knowing how to explain this to him and the rest of the people who were now staring at me.

“You’ve never had dinner before?” Jacob asked snidely beside me, a laugh coming out of him.

“I’ve always eaten dinner alone, my father doesn’t eat and he’s my only family,” I began to explain. What I said made the expression on Jacobs face falter, some food threatening to fall out of his mouth as it hung open.

“Haven’t you ever been invited to a friend’s house?” Leah questioned, stopping to ask before she took the forkful of food she had.

“I’ve never had a friend,” I told her quietly. My life was starting to sound pathetic to them and I could tell. I felt Paul’s hand press against my back and rub gently. Everyone was silent for a couple minutes, quietly taking bites of their food. I pushed mine around my plate, taking small bites here and there. Even Jacob was quiet next to me, his face no longer pinched in disgust at my presence.

“Hell yeah another blood sucker free day in the books!” A voice giddily announced walking through the door. I stiffened waiting for them to notice me. The person who announced it stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on me, the three boys following in behind him stopped too and followed his gaze to me. The youngest boy who followed in the first boy looked between Paul and I and gave me a small smile and a wave.

“Sorry to ruin that for you,” I dead panned, our eyes never breaking contact. The young boy who smiled at me laughed quietly to himself, the two others cracking a smile.

“Yeah, you should be,” He said walking over to the table and grabbing a seat directly across from me. As he filled his plate he began to talk to me, “I’m Jared, by the way. You must be Em, the girl Paul im-” Paul growled and kicked him under the table. Jared and Paul stared each other down for a minute before Jared finished filling his plate and began eating. I took a bite of my food as Paul calmed himself down, he didn’t seem angry but worried about whatever Jared was going to say. Though all he could’ve been saying was that Paul attacked me but he did seem to get upset when that was brought up.

“I’m Seth and these two are Quil and Embry,” the youngest boy said with a mouthful of food. He smiled at me and some food fell from his mouth and down his shirt. He began to laugh, causing more food to spill out of his mouth. I slapped a hand over my mouth as I tried to stifle my giggles. That’s how the rest of the dinner went, filled with laughter and happiness. They showed me how a real family was supposed to be and surprisingly I wasn’t sad, I was the happiest I have ever been.

After everyone was done eating we sat around Emily and Sam's small living room talking and laughing more. Everyone except for Jacob, who was sitting outside on the porch in the dark, were sharing stories. Even Leah, who had been scowling lame when I arrived, seemed to be warming to me as I sat quietly next to Paul on a couch. The heat was radiating off of Paul in waves, warming up my body as I sat snugly against him. I felt happy here, at peace. A bunch of people I had just me were accepting me into their home, into their family. Between the heat and the melodic laughter my eyes began to get heavy and before I could even register it, I was asleep.

Tagged: @angelenemies @twilightxcx

#paul lahote #paul lahote fic #paul lahote smut #sam uley #jacob black #quil ateara #embry call #seth clearwater #leah clearwater #jared cameron #twilight fic #twilight #twilight fan fic #new moon #eclipse #breaking dawn

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this-is-a-podcast-fanblog · 5 years

Text

PENUMBRA LIVE

I just got home from seeing Juno Steel and the Train From Nowhere Live, and I have SO MANY EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS AND THINGS I WANT TO TELL YOU GUYS

so full reaction under the cut. Obviously, massive spoilers for the live show, so don’t read if you plan on buying the recording and want to experience it for the first time that way.

Something you guys should know: AS I WROTE THIS, Alice Chuang (whom I met at the show) DM’ed me on Twitter and we have been chatting back and forth for a while now, I am LITERALLY TEXTING ALICE CHUANG AS I WRITE THIS.

Okay. Holy cow. First of all, the obvious: the show was amazing, the actors were all crazy talented, the energy of the crowd was great, I had a fantastic time and am so happy I went. The music, sound, and lights were really cool, minimalist, but conveyed the show tone beautifully.

And THE COSTUMES!! Not sure who picked them, but they were perfect. Joshua had the same trench coat/white shirt/jeans combo from the last liveshow, but for Dahlia Rose he wore a lacy white blazer that also had pink flowers on it. It looked very good on him and his face when Juno says “You bought me clothes?!” was hysterical. Engstrom and Valencia were elegant and totally creepy. M Sutherland had a red and grey suit and waistcoat; he also had eye makeup but it was a little more subtle. Valencia was in a gorgeous shiny red dress and lounge singer black gloves up to her elbows. Those were all cool, but nothing is EVER gonna top Noah’s Nureyev outfit, which was a pair of black pants, white shirt, black tie, and a black and white striped corset with the tie tucked into it. You may be thinking, “oh, HG, that just sounds like a waistcoat” nope!!!! It was like actually a corset! He also had killer eyeliner. For most of the show he wore a black blazer, but as Duke Rose he wore this crazy glittery golden blazer covered in sequins. It was gaudy and he rocked it, it suited Duke so perfectly!

Those four made up the main cast, but there were two other actors - first of all, Kate Jones, obviously, as Miasma. She had ghostly white makeup and covered her face and head with a white shawl. That, plus the fact that the lights turned red whenever she stepped on stage, made the perfect creepy vibe. She had a lot more lines in this than the original - Juno would refer to her voice in his head a lot, and every time, she came out and said something creepy. She was on a little raised stage behind the rest of the cast so she was glaring down at him and it was just asdggkfj;fldj a it was so cool.

Then there was another cast member I totally did not anticipate - Melissa DeJesus (Quanyii) played the Ruby7! She also worked props, so when Juno was talking about Nureyev’s coat, she held it up, when the bell rang during the card game she rang it, and she also played Miasma’s assistant pointing the gun at Nureyev (it was a cardboard rifle, they also used it when Juno had to shoot out of the car). For the Ruby7 she held a steering wheel and stood in front of Joshua and Noah making the car noises into a microphone or with a whistle. Also she had a necklace shaped like a license place that said “Ruby7″. It was such a cute way to show the car, which some of you may remember was something I was speculating wildly about when I first bought the ticket. Every time Nureyev mentioned how great the Ruby7 was she would vamp and at one point she blew him a kiss and he blew one back it was so adorable.

i’ve been typing for a half hour and I haven’t even gotten into the actual show yet

Before the show even started, there was amazing energy. I bought two posters from Kat Buckingham, who was working the merch stand, found a great seat, chatted with the people sitting near me, and just felt the excitement. There were so many amazing costumes, and like a third of people were wearing ear cuffs with chains in honor of Peter (I was among this number). Kevin Vibert made some announcements about emergency exits and whatnot, and then the lights dimmed. There were two curtains on opposite sides of the performance area, Joshua and Noah FLIPPED OPEN the curtains on different sides and just did this power walk to the mics in the middle while all of us audience members screamed and cheered for a solid minute, it was glorious.

Almost immediately I noticed a change to the script - they added a subplot about an additional Martian artifact Miasma had stolen, called the Key of something I don’t know how to spell, which apparently locks away any concept, like locking away sound around a person (this was revisited during the assassin bit). When Nureyev mentioned the key Juno said something like, “Wait, I don’t think that’s how this is supposed to happen” which was a cute way to acknowledge the changes they were making. Then he started mentioning some Season 2 stuff (”I dreamed I only had one -” “We all only have one life, detective!”) and Nureyev cut him off and then launched into a recap of the events of 2Murderous2Mask. He brought up audience members to reenact it, and it was really funny and I loved it a lot.

One of my favorite changes was that a couple of times when Juno was internally monologuing, Nureyev would be there too. At one point Juno acknowledged it like, “I do this thing where I just talk, and usually it’s just me.” Nureyev was really energetic, Noah got super into those parts and would take the mic down from the stand and be gesturing and hopping around while Juno watched. They also went into a lot more detail about the Throne of Arkuthusis (I probably spelled that wrong) and Samantha Carthwright (now called Sammy), who was played by an audience member. Juno explained that anyone who sat in the chair could have infinite knowledge and people would ask them questions. Nureyev then asked the audience member a bunch of questions in different accents which A.) was really funny B.) was crazy because apparently Noah can do an insane range of accents C.) cute because Juno just let him do it for a while before cutting him off. It had a very “petulant married life” vibe when Nureyev shared Juno’s monologues, and I’m not sure if it was supposed to be some significant commentary that Nureyev was “in Juno’s head” or just fun staging. Either way, I loved it.

For the card game, there were a few changes. Engstrom asked Juno if he knew how to play Rangian Street Poker and Nureyev-as-Duke said “Don’t say no!” through his teeth right as Juno said “nope.” and then an explanation followed. After a while Juno lost track and got annoyed and before Engstrom could get mad back or explain the whole thing again Nureyev-as-Duke covered Juno’s mouth with his hand and then when he pulled his hand away he fucking caressed Juno’s cheek with his knuckles while Juno glared at him and the audience went feral.

Hey by the way Noah Simes? Is just fucking incredible like his mannerisms as Duke were so over-the-top but amazing, when he reverted back to Nureyev there was an IMMEDIATE shift just in the way he talked and the way he stood, like with Duke everything was all exaggerated and he drew out all the “you’s” (So in the phone call he basically went “See youuu SooooOOOOnN!!! :D”) but then for Nureyev he was a lot more reserved, and he had this smug little half smirk for most of it. Just like, what does it feel like to be that talented, wish I could relate.

They didn’t actually play cards, but Noah did rip a piece of paper to be the dueling wargoats card. Even so, the tension was strong and you could feel the suspense even if (like me) you knew exactly what was coming next. Also, I forgot to mention, there were a lot of sound effects! When Juno heard someone’s thoughts (he heard Valencia’s and Nureyev’s a few times) that would be a voiceover, the train noises were all played, gunshots, etc. The assassin wasn’t actually shown, but you could hear the voiceover for that as well.

You’re all probably wondering: THE DOODLES. They were actual crumpled balls of paper that Juno pulled out of Nureyev’s coat; later when they were back in the hotel room, Nureyev took off his jacket and said he was going to bed (Noah just kinda stood there with his eyes closed) and Juno threw one of the notes at his head and literally went “Nyeh” as he threw it. We all laughed for quite a while.

Jupeter jumping through garbage chutes was great, Noah sort of pushed Joshua and then they pantomimed jumping down - but apparently I’m supposed to believe that Peter backflipped into the garbage chute, from the way Noah gestured, and I’m HERE FOR THAT, he’s just that much of an extra bitch. (Nureyev was very much an extra bitch throughout this entire show, as you know if you have ever listened to The Penumbra Podcast).

The whole getaway chase was awesome. Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but they had one mic that could be taken away from the stand and walked around, which is how they did the phone calls, the person on the other end of the line would stand off to the side with the wireless mic and perform like that. Once Juno, Nureyev, Valencia, and Engstrom got on the train they did all of those lines, but a nice new addition to the script was Valencia threatened Juno with a gun and Nureyev pushed Juno slightly behind him with a hand on his chest (actually I can’t remember if this scene happened here or in the casino, suffice it to say it happened and it was gay and wonderful) and said basically “if you even so much as warm his skin” and followed that up with a threat, I forget exactly what. Then when Nureyev pumped the brakes of the train he grabbed Juno and pulled him to one side, and Valencia and Engstrom’s actors left.

For the tight room they ducked into to hide, Noah and Joshua sort of pressed together back to back and tilted the mic stands so they were still able to talk into the mic. There was a great line where Juno said something like, “Is there a reason why you keep shoving us into tight spaces together?” and then they got out and Noah took the wireless mic and went up to one of the curtains on the side of the stage, then he sort of fell through with a shout and Juno was locked in the room with Valencia. She took the other wireless mic and circled him, which was soooo creepy and really cool, especially with the moody lighting they had over the whole scene. When Juno pretended to faint Joshua just like,,,, threw up his arms and dropped to the floor in the most dramatic swoon possible it was great, and when Valencia died she fell through the curtain on the side of the stage and someone caught her.

The showdown with Engstrom was tense and great. M Sutherland has a great presence and because he’s really fucking tall he seemed very menacing next to Jupeter (especially earlier when they were in their crazy suits and he was just all polished). With his suit and beard and eyeliner he sort of looked like a younger president Snow ala The Hunger Games, perfect villain vibes. Nureyev did the whole pin-him-by-the-arms thing as Juno described it in his monologue and oh god Noah did the most PERFECT fox smile throughout the whole thing, but what’s weird is I can’t actually remember how Engstrom’s death went?? I assume he fell through the curtain but I just,,, genuinely can’t remember?

Right after that they seemed to have a technical issue with the train sound effects so Joshua and Noah adlibbed it for a few seconds, then it started working again and they grabbed each other’s arms and did the whole jump-off-the-train thing. When Juno asked where the Ruby7 was, Melissa DeJesus came out with her arms tied in ropes, I guess to show the car had been captured and then BOOM KATE JONES AS MIASMA. She’s so scary and intimidating, and her voice sounds even cooler live than on the show.

Then!!! The gun is pointed at Nureyev!!! and oh god Noah’s face in this scene first he looked a little panicked, but then resigned, and the lights went BACK AND FORTH BACK AND FORTH from regular to Juno’s monologue, and this super scary layered clip of Miasma saying “I will have what I want” played and oh god it was just so totally incredible and I loved it and by that point I was aware the show was about to end but I never wanted it to, I wanted to sit there and watch this forever, and I knew I couldn’t which made me a little sad.

and oh wow wow wow...

then we got to the part where they got in the car, and Juno had his monologue, and Nureyev was watching him for the whole thing with the sweetest loving smile on his face, and then he told Juno not to give up on him yet and then Noah and Joshua reached into the space between the microphones and took each other’s hands, so they were holding hands and the crowd went WILD. Obviously this episode didn’t have a kiss, but the ROMANCE of that moment was just PEAK it was so freaking phenomenal, and when Miasma said the whole “There it is, your final resting place,” they didn’t even look at it, for a while they were just looking at each other for a few long seconds, and then they both turned to look at the tomb and they just stood there holding hands looking ahead all resigned and determined, and then the lights went down and it was over.

(the cutest thing about the whole hand holding though was Noah kept glancing over like either he was trying to show Peter’s intense desire to hold Juno’s hand or else he wasn’t sure when he was supposed to grab Joshua’s hand and he was trying to make sure they did it at the same time. Either way it was sweet and looked really good.)

They did the curtain call, I screamed so loudly for each actor, and then anyone who wanted to meet the cast went and lined up in the hallway outside the theater. The staircase by this hallway was also the staircase into the bar, so all the bar and restaurant, so all the restaurant patrons were very baffled to see the Penumbra-goers in our cosplays, (and me wearing the pride flag around my shoulders.) While I waited to meet with the cast I got to chat with Kat Buckingham! I also talked to her when I bought merch, and I told her I thought she was talented - she said “I bet YOU’RE really talented!” and I almost cried, then she told me I was free to DM her, also encouraged me when I told her about my podcast, and was all around just the sweetest.

The cast were at a table, sort of like a convention, and we just went down the line and got our stuff signed. I got to talk to all of the actors and they were SO! VERY! SWEET! I hadn’t thought at all about what I was gonna say, so I just kind of mentioned whatever. I told Noah that I write Jupeter fanfiction and said, “So that means I have your voice in my head a lot”, and he said like “That’s... somewhat unusual to hear, as I’m sure you can imagine.” I told him he was really talented and he signed my poster and was very friendly, thanked me for coming even though literally I was thanking him because HOLY FUCK HE WAS SO AMAZING. Also, Kate Jones asked me what my shirt said (it said “I am too emotionally attached to fictional characters” and thought that was cool.

I told Joshua, Sophie, and Kevin that this podcast inspired me to start my own podcast, and they were so incredibly encouraging and supportive about that! Joshua asked if I had fun (as if I could have not had fun!) and thanked me for coming - like both of these amazingly talented stars of this hit show are thanking me for coming to see them, that’s so humble and kind and ugh I just stan this cast so much. @rudzik-art made some amazing artwork, which I turned into prints to give to Sophie and Kevin, and they really loved it! Sophie even signed both my poster and the one I got for Robin, even though their rule said only one item per person. Then they both thanked me for coming, and I headed out to catch my train home.

Overall, this show was phenomenal. There was only one thing in the whole production that I disliked: they took out the “It’s not polite to tell someone his gift means nothing to you” line, and I’m not really sure why, because that line forms a lot about the characters? But artists’ choice, of course. Personally, I would have loved to see it, but the pacing was just as good without it.

I’ve been looking forward to this for so long, and now that’s it’s over I’m experiencing some pretty strong post-show depression, not gonna lie. I just want to come back and see it again every night for the rest of my life, even though that would not be good for the cast. I want to go out and make art and share my work and maybe someday inspire someone anywhere near as much as this inspired me.

TL;DR THE LIVE SHOW WAS FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

If you weren’t able to make it to either live show and you have some questions about it, feel free to send them to my inbox!

#the penumbra podcast #the penumbra podcast live #juno steel and the train from nowhere #juno steel #peter nureyev #jupeter #rita #miasma #live show #i can't wait for the video #i loved this so much and I love that I can experience it again through the video #aah #I hope the second one went really well too!!!

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avintagekiss24 · 5 years

Text

Doodles and Diamonds

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x black reader (high school!au)

Rating: teen

Warnings: slight language

Word Count: 1858

Summary: Calculus sucks. If it wasn’t for your habit of doodling, you’d never make it through class. Apparently, your drawings help someone else stay awake as well.

A/N: I told y’all I have a problem! Challenges are my weakness. This was written for @littledarlinhavefaithinme 10 marvelous things I hate about you challenge that I found yesterday. The prompt is in bold. Here’s some high school fluff to balance out all of the porn I’ve been posting lately, lol. (the title is referring to a baseball diamond, just fyi)(i’m terrible at coming up with titles).

Calculus is the worst class of the day. It’s right after lunch, so you’re usually stuffed to the gills with french fries and orange soda. You never bring your calculus book with you, so you have to walk clear across the school to get to your car to grab it, so by the time you make it back to the classroom, you’re hot, sweaty, and out of breath. Plus, it’s calculus, so in it’s own right, it’s just terrible. But, day after day, month after month, you stuff yourself stupid with french fries, you run to your car and back, and curse yourself when you finally collapse into your chair from sheer exhaustion.

The only thing that keeps you awake in calculus is your doodling. You prop your sketchpad in between the pages of your calculus book and fill the pages with everything you can imagine. Puppies, dragons, witches, your teacher turning as a frog- doesn’t matter the subject. You think it, it gets doodled.

Something weird happened a couple of weeks ago though. When making your daily trek to your car, you noticed a sticky note on the drivers window. You peeled it off, your face screwed up in confusion as you read over the chicken scratch.

Can you draw lion eating an ice cream cone?

You looked around but saw no one paying you the least bit of attention. You didn’t recognize the handwriting, which, to be honest, you wouldn’t recognize your own mother’s handwriting if your life depended on it. You shoved the note into your pocket, grabbed your book, and ran your ass to the classroom. You glanced around as the room filled with students, trying to find the doodle requestor, but no one even looked in your direction. Class started a few minutes later, and to keep from falling asleep, you drew a lion eating an ice cream cone.

Every day after that, a new post it note appeared on your car, asking for some stupid little drawing. A cat playing the flute, Captain America punching a baby, a happy little dinosaur flying a kite during a storm; the requests were endless. But, everyday, you obliged your secret doodle admirer. You drew exactly what they asked for, ripped it out of your book, folded it up all nice, and left it in the seat of your chair.

Why not just wait and see who picks up the prized drawing, some would ask? And risk being late to art class? The class that just happens to be your favorite, have your favorite teacher, and you share with your bff since third grade? You think not. Finding out who the doodle master is, is really not all that important. Plus, you kinda like the mystery of all anyway.

Today is like all the others. You finish off your french fries, tossing the paper basket into the trash before you head for the parking lot. Your face is buried in your phone, your fingers tapping away at the screen as you approach your 1965 fire engine red Ford Mustang (a present from your dad, who lives clear across the country and has never been there for you and is trying to make up for it with money- you’re not complaining.) You pick your head up, just in time to see one Bucky Barnes standing at your drivers door.

You stop, squinting as the wind blows your out of control, curly, frizzy hair in your face. His head is down, his expensive sunglasses propped up on the top of his head, pushing his hair back. You can’t really tell what he’s doing as you approach from the passenger side, but the likes of jock, douche-bag Bucky Barnes being next to your pride and joy, makes you uneasy.

“Umm, what are you doing?” You finally huff as you reach the passenger side door.

He snaps his head up to you, his blue eyes wide as he shoves his hands into his back pockets, “Uh, you know, just um, admiring your car. It’s in fantastic shape.”

You nod slowly as you purse your lips, glancing around the parking lot, “Uh huh.”

You open the door and dump your bag into the front seat before grabbing your calculus book and your sketchpad. You slam the door shut and pop back up to find Bucky still standing there, his eyes still wide, his hands still in his back pockets. You fold your arms and rest them on the hood as you blink back at him, a smirk on your face as you lift your eyebrows.

He clears his throat and laughs nervously, “Did you um, restore it yourself?”

“Nope.”

He nods, sucking his teeth, “So, you bought it like this, huh?”

“Obviously.” You answer, your voice dripping with annoyance.

He chuckles again as his nerves get the best of him, “Not a big talker, huh?”

You shrug, “Depends on the topic. My fenders don’t really whip me into a verbal frenzy.”

“Right.” He starts, backing away from the car, “Well, I’ll let you get back to it. I’ll uh, I’ll see you, um, in a few minutes, in calculus, I guess.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes at the whole conversation. The two of you have been in the same classes since second grade, and these are the most words the two of you have ever exchanged. You squint at him as he walks off, a small piece of yellow something grabbing your attention from his back pocket. You lean down to peer through the window to the drivers side, noticing that your usual sticky note isn’t pressed to the window today.

You move around to the drivers side, checking the door and then the ground, but there’s... nothing. You snap your head back toward the brunette as he crosses the parking lot, that yellow something still sticking out of his pocket as he moves. Your mouth drops open. Holy shit!

You take off in a sprint, your black converses slapping against the pavement as you advance on him. When you finally reach him, you snag the folded up sticky note from his pocket and nearly double over from the fire that is now your lungs. You should really participate in gym a little more often. He turns, throwing up his hand at you as you try and catch your breath, your hands on your knees.

“What the fu-” He starts, his words halting as soon as he notices the sticky note in your hand, “Gimme that.”

You stand up straight, lifting your arm up into the air as you whip around so that you’re facing the opposite direction. He pulls at your arm and swipes at your hand as you turn sharply left and right, moving your arms up and down and side to side to keep it out of his reach. You bend over and stretch out your arms, using your ass and hips to keep him at bay as you unfold the three by three piece of yellow paper.

“Can you draw a giraffe driving a fire truck?” You read out loud, laughing as he swipes at your hands again, “Oh my god.”

He curses lightly underneath his breath and finally drops his hands to his sides, “Fine. Fine. You caught me.”

You stand up straight again and turn to face him, “I would have never guessed in a million years that it was you.”

“Why not?”

You scoff, widening your eyes at him, “Golden boy, all star shortstop Bucky Barnes, who hasn’t said two words to me in ten years, is leaving weird requests for me to draw on my car? The Bucky Barnes?”

He shrugs, “I like em, your drawings. You’re really good.” You scoff, rolling your eyes toward the sky, “I mean it! You are.”

You shake your head, unable to wipe the smile from your face, “Thanks. That’s, that’s really nice of you to say.”

“You’re welcome.” He says proudly, “You know, conversations work both ways. You haven’t said anything to me in ten years either.”

“Second grade, actually.” You agree, “You broke my purple crayon.” He throws his head back and laughs loudly, the sound of it making you smile in return. You made Bucky Barnes laugh. Pride swells in your chest.

“Holy shit, you still remember that?”

“Of course, I do!” You screech, “I loved that crayon! Purple is my favorite color. I’m still mad you about it, honestly.”

He throws his hands up, still chuckling, “I’ll buy you a new one. Okay? Will that squash it finally?”

You close your left eye and hum as you tilt your face toward the sky, pretending to think it over, “I dunno, man. That was a special purple crayon.”

“I’ll buy you a whole pack of crayons.” He smiles widely, “I’ll get you that sixty four pack, baby. You’ll be the talk of the town with that thing.”

You cover you face with your hands and laugh, “Oh, god.”

“Everybody will be so jealous of you. It’ll be so fetch.” He exaggerates, holding out his palms toward you as he stains his voice to reach a higher pitch.

“You’ve clearly lost your mind.” You laugh.

“Hey, I’m just glad our ten year stalemate is over. I don’t know how much longer I could have lasted.”

The two of you share another laugh before it dissolves into silence. He still smiles at you, causing another large grin to break onto your face. You drop your head under his gaze, giggling stupidly as you tuck some hair behind your ear. Are you flirting right now? Is that what’s happening? What in fresh hell?

“So um, you should come to one of my games some time. Like, Friday night, maybe.” He says after a minute, nodding slowly.

You click your tongue and nod with him, not really sure what to do or say, “I don’t know. I don’t know much about baseball.”

“That’s okay.” He shrugs, “We can get some pizza or something afterward. Or, french fries, since that’s all you eat.”

You snap your eyes back to him. He wouldn’t know that unless he’s been watching you. Why is Bucky Barnes watching you? What is happening? This is definitely taking a turn that you did not expect.

“I mean,” He shrugs, shaking his head, “You don’t have to, I was just, I just, you know, it’d be cool or whatever, since we’re, you know, talking, or, whatever.”

“Um, yeah, okay. Yeah. That, that’d be, that could be cool.” You answer, nodding your head faster as you fumble over your words.

Bucky smiles, running his hands through his hair, “Ok, cool. Cool. I guess, I'll see you Friday.”

“Well, aren’t you coming to class?” You ask, pointing your thumb toward the building behind you.

“Oh shit,” He laughs, “Yeah.”

He shoves his hands in his back pockets as the two of you start a slow stroll to your calculus class. You both end up being late and take a tongue lashing from Ms. Fertman as you take your seats. You scoot down in your chair, crack open your calculus book, and draw a giraffe driving a fire truck.

tags: @jetaimeamore @mixedbutdivine @shay-iamiam @wildfirecracker @amberjoy38 @mannarn @bellaamor88 @stellarxfresh @metsforever @freshprincessofwakanda @euh-say-what-now @golden-ariess @ishipwhateverthefuckiwantto @bitchacho25 @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @mangos4u @flowersbound @atthediscowithoutpanic @marvel-mystery @honeyloverogers @awesomecamillatthings

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#10marvelousthingsihateaboutyou #bucky barnes x black!reader #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky x black!reader #bucky barnes #avintagekiss24 #high school!au

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comicteaparty · 5 years

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October 19th-October 25th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from October 19th, 2019 to October 25th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

Describe your design process for new characters. How do you go about it?

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

Ohooh it is my time! First I draw a bunch of quick drawings of body and face We are a small team, so then we had discussions, we knew how they looked in general, sallly had to be small with curls etc. Then when the body was chosen it was time to draw outfits. Since we are doing a whole world we had to find out about what kind of clothing generally people would wear, what accessories, what does nobels and rich wear, contra poor, what is religious garments. Then the faces had to be chosen and drawn again. Then when all elements was in place, it was time for colors. For Lani, I did like 30 different versions of colors, ans combination before we found the right one. For side characters there has been only a few sketches, and since we knew the whole class system with clothing, it was easier to pick and match compared to place in society. Then thinking about the role the person have in society. Next is designing scientist, and that's going to be fun!

Line up if the finished designs of the main(edited)

Face exploration

[IMAGE]

More final clothing design

[IMAGE]

Color exploration

[IMAGE]

spacerocketbunny

Oh damn I love all this! I never thought of actually mapping out all the different classes religious/ non religious formal/ casual etc. That's so smart! And these designs are so cute ahhhh

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

aaw thanks! It was very important for us that it was clear to see! Since the man Andrée is a nobel, and Sallly was part of a crime gang, and Lani is a tempelgirl, and we do have a lot of different social groups

The Q - working on WAYFINDERS

And their homeland is very northern/Viking inspired. I'm very excited to show the other country in the story, which has a much more Mediterranean flavor!

Also yes @Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS is super impressive!

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

Aaaaaaaw you are too sweet!

AntiBunny

Process? Not so much a process as an idea forms in my subconscious and then like Athena rises fully formed in armor from my head. After that they will go through a few revisions. Usually they get simplified a bit, I try to make them a bit more iconic, and easier to draw repeatedly of course.

In AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ this resulted in some of the earlier character designs being a tad inconsistent, for instance a character in a T-Shirt interacting with a character in a long winter coat.

Since then I've been trying to come up with more consistent seasonal outfit designs. With Book 2 I think I've gotten a lot more consistent with the outfits all making it very clear that it's summer.

So short version is that it starts out with them forming organically from loose ideas, then getting refined and redesigned over time. Not exactly the most scientific approach I know.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

For new major characters in Phantomarine (http://www.phantomarine.com/) I usually try to design a character and draw them at least 5 times before I have them show up in the comic. Their initial design usually pops into my head pretty quickly, but I do a bunch of test drawings to A) see what looks best and B) isolate things that might be difficult to replicate, and simplify them as much as I can. For new minor characters, my process is way more haphazard - and I’ll admit I fall back on a lot of similar face and body shapes when designing incidental crowd characters or random one-line characters.

But the area I’ve had the most fun jumping into - and didn’t expect to even try out - was costume design. I imagined my characters staying in their main outfits for the entire story, but was encouraged to design wardrobes for each, just as a fun exercise at first. And now, I see outfit-swaps as ways to get out of drawing ruts - and it’s more fun for the readers, too! Makes total sense that characters would switch clothes over a longer story, so when I started doing it, it was not only a “OF COURSE!” moment, but a huge relief in terms of being allowed to try new designs. I’m really looking forward to drawing my characters in all sorts of different ways now.(edited)

The Q - working on WAYFINDERS

THem color schemes though!

MJ Massey

I need to get better about this. I usually slap dash throw characters together, especially background characters, but based on their character traits, I have an idea of how I want them to look.

For my main characters, I start drawing them a couple times, mostly just doodles and then like a concept art or two to really get the hang of them, but I find that drawing them in the comic is what gets them under my fingers the best

Emily and Chester were the ones I designed first, as the two mains I wanted to make sure they would play off each other well. With Emily, the key thing was to make sure she wasn't too cute or attractive--she's supposed to be kind of plain looking and a little drab

Chester, in contrast, is soft and playful looking while Emily is more angular and sharp

Cronaj

For Whispers of the Past, my characters have gone through several redesigns over the years, as I spent time planning the comic, getting better at drawing, and discovering the deeper personalities of my characters. As it is my first comic, I wasn't very organized in my initial process. Since my art style is not very cartoony, I don't use the same stylistic cues to help the readers tell the characters apart, and instead, I rely on a lot of subtle features to tell them apart, such as Agatha's thick eyebrows and full lips:

Or Izrekiel's round under-eye, or his round face:

Some of these reference sheets are more complete than others, and some are older or newer depending on how much help I needed when adjusting each character's designs to my evolving style.

Desnik

I usually start with writing them before I totally know what they look like. Sometimes they wind up with props that I need to work into the design as the story gets rewritten.

Deo101 (Millennium)

For me I generally have a solid idea in my mind before I start drawing. I draw that idea, refine it a bit, and then I draw them about 10-100 more times, depending how much they'll show up. For background characters i pretty much design them right then and there, but for major and minor named characters, i need to get comfortable with them and really test how they react to things. I also will paint my main characters, because I find that forcing myself to fully realize what the character would look like realistically really helps me be more informed when I'm simplifying them later! I tend to focus pretty strongly on color, and tend to monochrome designs. There is also some research involved, where i make moodboards once i get the initial design down so I can refine things! A lot, i know.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble #comic tea party #ctp

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frederator-studios · 6 years

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Tiya Zhong: The Frederator Interview

vimeo

Tiya Zhong, known to the interweb as Addictiya, is an animator, illustrator, designer and doll artist still brushing off glitter from her graduation just a few weeks ago. Her final film as a student of Sheridan College’s Animation program, “Lost, Stolen, Dropped,” is an autobiography of her daily struggle. It is also among the most relatable, inspired and squishy 2 minutes of animation I’ve seen in a good long while. Enjoy the short above, then read on for Tiya’s journey from schoolgirl doodling in her textbooks to professional artist!

Did you always want to be an animator or artist?

I discovered my passion for drawing when I was 4 years old, and I have always loved doodling figures on my textbooks, reading comics, and watching animation. When I was little, I never thought about becoming an artist - I just thought it would be fun if I could draw forever. In high school, I wanted to be a comic artist, but I became fascinated with making characters come to life. Animation was even more vivid than comics, which is why I chose to major in it.

How did you decide to move from China to Canada to attend Sheridan?

I grew up in China, so at first I planned to attend a university in Beijing that features the best animation program in China. In an extra-curricular art school where I was studying to pass the university’s entrance exam, I met a substitute teacher who'd studied abroad. Talking with him made me realize how many opportunities and great artists are out there. That’s when I started to research animation schools in North America, and got to know Sheridan.

What did you like best about studying at Sheridan?

I learned a lot at Sheridan. The school has great, experienced teachers. But I learned the most from my peers, who are all amazing artists. Being in that group gave me no choice but to improve. What I enjoyed most is how free the environment is, compared to the one I’d been in. I also had a lot more resources at my disposal. Being at Sheridan really helped me discover my own art style.

Did you work any jobs during your time in college?

Since high school, I have always worked on stuff for conventions: things like zines, charms, and commissions. During college I actively kept my eyes on the industry and started to take freelance jobs. I’ve done character illustrations for games, art for a published illustration tutorial, design work, and more commissions, mostly with Chinese companies. I think it’s really important for artists to have at least some experience working with partners or employers before finishing school.

What are your favorite techniques, considering you've worked in both 2d and stop-motion? And those are just the two I know for sure!

Yes, I’ve done a little bit of 3D for assignments, but so far I’ve only worked in 2D and stop motion. I love both techniques equally! They are two different forms of art and each has stunning aspects. I love how free 2D can be, and how much you can play with crazy distortions, squash and stretch. I also love the process of crafting puppets and sets and being able to hold them in my hand.

What inspires you and your work the most?

Japanese anime definitely influences my work. They are my childhood and what made me keep the pencil in my hand! In the process of creating, I also look for references in many forms: live action movies, fashion, short films, photography. Anything related to art.

Is there anything that comes up in your work over and over?

I built my interest in life drawing while studying at Sheridan. Now, emphasizing the beauty and curls of human bodies has become a core part of my drawings.

How was the experience of creating "Quarters" in a team of 9 animators?

Creating “Quarters” with 8 other amazing artists was a really great experience! It was our first try, but there were no conflicts and everything went smoothly. Everyone pitched an idea for the film and we voted for the ‘four neighbors’ idea, which became “Quarters”. I worked on layout designs, prop and sets fabrication, shooting area setups, animation, and some post-production color corrections. We spread the work pretty much equally to everyone, so that we could all gain experience in every stage of creating a stop motion film.

vimeo

What inspired you to create "Lost, Stolen, Dropped"?

I had two other ideas for my final film before “Lost, Stolen, Dropped,” but they didn’t feel authentic to me. Personally, I prefer telling stories on subjects that I’m knowledgeable about, or have experienced myself. So one month into my 4th year, I gave up my first idea and all the storyboards I’d done for it. I thought, “What subject am I really familiar with? Is there anything that I know better than anyone else?” At the same time, I lost my brand new Cintiq pro pen. Not long before then I had lost my wallet. Aaaand my portable hard drive. My roommate commented that losing things is my everyday life. That’s what inspired me - I am really good at losing things! So I decided to make a film about that.

Love it. Do you often pull from your own life in your stories?

Actually, I can trace it back all the way to primary school! I used to draw comics as my diaries. With four panels comics, I’d record anything that happened in my life that I found fun. By the end of grade 7, I had a whole sketchbook of my personal life. I only showed it to my closest friends.

What were the biggest changes you made to "Lost, Stolen, Dropped" while working on the film? What were the biggest challenges?

I made a big change in the story. At the end of the first version, I made lots of copies of the main character, which came from all the different scenarios or timelines. They all appeared in her messy room, staring at her and guiding her to find her phone. That ending had a very dark and absurd feeling to it. The problem was, in order to explain that story and deliver the right feeling, the film would need to be a lot longer. And so, too much work for me. In the end, I changed lots of things and compressed the storyboard so I could finish it.

What do you plan to do now that you've graduated? Sorry to ask that question, I know it's the worst for new grads, haha.

Haha, I was so lost on this before, but now I kind of have a blueprint! The very first thing I want to do is find a job that I like, start saving, and get my PR (permanent residency) here in Canada, which is very realistic. I'll use my savings to go to grad school or take online classes: anything to improve my skills and broaden my perspective. Eventually, I want to work on personal projects without having to worry about financial issues.

Do you have a favorite cartoon, film, or artist?

Different films have been my favorite at different times in my life... I just love work that has great stories or strong emotions. I can’t really pick one film as my favorite, but Masaaki Yuasa is definitely one of my favorite directors! What I admire most about his films is how the abstract parts serve the expressive storytelling, and the drawings are always loose. That’s what I need to learn!

What's your biggest dream?

My biggest dream used to be becoming a zoologist! That was when I was 8. Now, my dream is to connect with great artists and studios over the world. To learn from them, work on fun projects, live a happy, healthy life, and occasionally go on vacations so that I can work on my other hobbies!

What are your hobbies outside of animation?

I’m interested in a wide range of things! Biking, gym exercise, photography, choreography, sculpting, sewing, leathercraft. But my greatest interest, outside of animation, is dolls and puppets! I love all kinds of dolls and toys. Different doll artists always make dolls with different characteristics, and that self-expression element is what appeals to me. I want to be able to create my own porcelain or resin doll one day. I am working hard toward that goal! ❀

Follow Addictiya on Instagram

Thank you for the interview Tiya! Love your work and am so looking forward to seeing what you do next. Enjoy home and your summer vacation pre-Adulting, you’ve earned the heck out of it!

- Cooper ❀

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wordshakerofgallifrey · 6 years

Note

“You’re not my type in the slightest, yet here I am, head over heels and I don’t understand it!”

*Sorting Hat voice* hmm… no pairing, interesting, very interesting… well the user seems to have a one-track mind, so… better be…. SPRACE.

just kidding :D

Jack and Kath featuring punk!Jack (with a cut because, as promised, it’s long)

Katherine didn’t know about the boy in her College Algebra class. The first few weeks of the semester, she warily avoided him, with his leather jacket, clunky black boots, and shock of purple hair styled in a mohawk.

She never tried to judge too harshly based on looks alone, but add all that to the permanent scowl that seemed to be on his face, and he seemed… dangerous.

So he sat in his corner, and she sat in her perfect not-quite-center-two-rows-from-the-front-seat.

That is, until one day, nearly two months into the semester, someone else was sitting in her perfect not-quite-center-two-rows-from-the-front-seat, and Katherine had to move to the back.

“Really,” she muttered, slamming her bag in a chair. “It’s halfway through the semester, you can’t just take my chair like that—”

“Well, good mornin’ ta you too, Red,” a thickly accented said on her right. “Ya in my seat.”

Katherine whirled around, banging her knee on the bottom of the table to see… shit, she never learned his name, did she? “I–what?”

“Ya sittin’ in m’seat.” he shrugged. “S’okay, I’ll sit next ta ya. Kid in front likes ta snore anyways, an’ no one sits next t’me.”

She stared at him as he sat in the empty space next to her. She thought about responding, knew she could at least thank him for letting her bum his seat when she’d just been complaining about the same thing.

But their professor entered the room then, calling for attention—even though he still had to turn on his computer and actually get his stuff ready for class, which would take another five minutes—and pass around the attendance sheet, so she didn’t say anything.

But Katherine did pay attention as the boy next to her scribbled his name with his left hand before passing it on to her, and she looked carefully over the list of names.

Jack Kelly.

***

It’d been another two weeks and Katherine still didn’t know about the boy—Jack Kelly—in her College Algebra class. After that first class she sat next to him, she… just kept sitting there.

Well, in the empty seat next to his, she wasn’t a seat-stealer like some people.

Sitting next to Jack Kelly was interesting. For all his tough looks and scowls and air of uncaring, Jack was…

A complete, total dork.

The second class she sat next to him, he spent the entire class doodling in his notebook. Katherine couldn’t make out what exactly he was drawing, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a cartoonish cat in the corner of his page.

The third class, he didn’t even pretend to listen to their professor, instead he watched Vine compilation after Vine compilation, doing his best not to crack up at “Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does.”

After their fourth class, she saw him walking through the quad, with another boy on his back, laughing at something he’d said.

By the fifth class, she actually talked to him.

“Aren’t you worried about not passing?” she asked him as he sat next to her.

“What? College Algebra?” Jack scoffed. “Pul’tzer, ‘m an art major. ‘Sides, I gotta couple’a buddies who’re act’ally good at this shit, they help me.”

Katherine furrowed her brow. “How—wait, you know my name?” He’d never referred to her as anything but Red since that first day.

He snorted, raking a hand through his fading purple hair. “Ya the dean’s daughter, ‘course I know who ya are.”

She flushed. Her father was the dean, famous for cutting arts funding. Of course Jack would know him.

Ignoring him in favor digging through her backpack for her pencil bag—Journalism major or no, she didn’t want to fail College Algebra—Katherine hid her surely-red face from him as he stuck an earbud in one studded ear and…

Where was her pencil bag?

“Shit,” she whispered, suddenly remembering exactly where it was.

Sitting on her stack of textbooks.

On her desk.

In her dorm.

“Shit.” Katherine dropped her head on her notebook. A moment later, something tapped her shoulder and she twisted her neck to see Jack holding out a pencil to her.

He shrugged as she stared at him. “Ain’t usin’ it anyways.”

“… Thanks, Jack.”

Winking at her, he turned back to his phone pull up Netflix. “Sure thing, Red.”

***

The seventh class, he wasn’t in attendance, and Katherine certainly did not spend the entire class, glancing over at his chair, to see what he was watching that day.

Nope.

Not her.

***

Eighth class, she missed in favor of lying face down on her bed with a heating pad over her stomach, trying to alleviate her cramps, definitely not wondering if he was checking her seat like she had the week before.

***

Ninth class was cancelled because their professor was sick, and Katherine spent the class time in the library, trying to stay on top of her reading for her Comp class, not thinking about—

“‘Ay, Red.”

Speak of the devil…

“Jack!” she said, surprised to see him. “Uh—hi!”

He slung his backpack off his shoulder, rifling through it a moment before pulling out a notebook. “Ya weren’t there last class, so I took notes f’r ya.”

Stunned, Katherine took a moment before replying. “You…?”

“Well, I tried,” Jack shrugged. “Then I showed it ta m’roomate—Crutchie—an’ Race—they’re the one’s good at math—an’ Racer said, ‘Kelly, these’re fuckin’ pitiful’ an’ then he an’ Crutchie fixed ‘em f’r me so ya got the right inf’rmation.”

“Th-Thanks, Jack.” He flipped to the page and slid the notebook towards her, and Katherine couldn’t help but feel touched. In the six classes she’d sat next him, she’d never seen him take a single note in class.

Still she offered. “I can give you my notes from the class you missed—”

Waving a hand, he dropped into the chair across from her. “Nah. Don’t need ‘em.”

“Well… thank you. For the notes,” Katherine clarified. “It won’t take me long, but if you need to go—”

“Nah, I’ll stick ‘round. Don’t got anywhere else to be. ‘Less ya uncomf’table wit’ me here…”

“No!” Katherine hoped she wasn’t blushing as she cut him off way too quickly. “No,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could. “I mean, you’re fine, it’ll take me fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe.”

Smirking at her, Jack pulled his phone from his pocket, earbuds wrapped around the paint-splattered case. “Whatever ya say, Red.”

He scrolled through his phone as she began copying his notes, written in two different handwritings, one surprisingly neat and one just a little nicer than Jack’s.

“I’m sorry, Crutchie and Race?” she couldn’t help but ask after a moment.

Jack laughed a bit, propping a foot up in the chair next to him. “We like nicknames.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have one?” she shot back.

He raised an eyebrow at her, smirking. “Copy ya notes, Red, an’ we’ll see if I tells ya.”

***

She stopped counting after that.

They started talking more than stilted pleasantries before and after class, walking to and from the classroom, exchanged numbers after the library—”In case ya miss again, Red”—and texted late into the night.

Katherine finally met the infamous Race and Crutchie, along with a whole group of rowdy, equally rough–looking boys, most of who she recognized from her various gen-ed classes.

It was something else, seeing him with his friends, especially Crutchie. His tough demeanor melted away and he was almost a completely different person, and she started seeing that side more and more.

Jack did his best to distract her during class, passing her notes or seeing how often he could mark on her arm before she noticed.

She just shrugged it off, only passed corrected notes back—his spelling was about as good as his speech and it showed—with a large smiley face underneath.

It was fun. It was comfortable. It–

It was nearly the end of the semester before she realized that she was falling for the boy in her Algebra class.

“Oh no.” Katherine said, out loud, as the realization hit her in the middle of shampooing her hair. “Oh noooo, this is not happening…”

Jack Kelly was not her type, he was rough and coarse and didn’t care a bit about his classes and… and caring and not nearly as tough as he appeared and a total dork and, and—

“No.”

Katherine didn’t returned his texts for the rest of the night, stayed locked in her dorm room, and slowly spiraled in her existential crises.

She did not like Jack Kelly.

The next Algebra class, she got there early and sat in her original, perfect not-quite-center-two-rows-from-the-front-seat and tried to ignore how she could feel his eyes burning a hole in the back of her head throughout the class.

The second their professor dismissed them, Katherine made a beeline for the door, hoping to beat him out the door.

Unluckily, she was stopped barely ten feet out the classroom by a determined Jack Kelly.

“Jack, I have to get to class—”

“Don’t gimme that, Pul’tzer, I know ya don’t got a class after this one.” His eyes were hard and confused. “What was that, ya not sittin’ by me t’day?”

She almost rolled her eyes, if only to get him to go away so she could make her escape. “Jack, you cannot seriously be upset that I didn’t next to you today.”

“I ain’t. I’m upset that ya ignored me an’ ya clearly tryin’ ta get away from me, so what the hell’s goin’ on, Kath’rine?”

Katherine set her jaw, ready to tell him off, but something in his face made her stop. She’d never seen that look on his face, something so open and… she refused to use the word vulnerable, not when Jack Kelly was concerned, not when he’d re-dyed his hair again, gotten another piercing in his left ear, but…

She couldn’t think of a better word.

Jack apparently took her silence as all the answer he needed, because he nodded curtly and started to pull away. “Yeah, okay that’s fine, whatever—”

“You’re not my type in the slightest, yet here I am, head over heels and I don’t understand it!” she finally burst out, cutting him off.

He stared at her a moment, agape, and Katherine felt her face go hot. This is what you get for opening your mouth without thinking, idiot.

She turned to leave, but Jack grasped her wrist and pulled her back towards him.

“‘Bout damn time, Red,” he muttered, pausing a moment to make sure she wasn’t pulling away, before kissing her.

***

By their last College Algebra class, Katherine still wasn’t completely sure about the boy who sat to her left.

But she couldn’t wait to find out the rest.

#long drabble #thanks claire!!#hope you like!!#jack kelly #katherine pulitzer #newsies #newsies drabble #disney writes stuff #this got way longer than i expected #enjoy! :D

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spencer-quinn · 6 years

Text

Choose Life (2010)

GUYS I really hope you love Curly as much as I do. If you don’t understand any references/slang lemme know cause I LOVE gushing about British culture cause I’m vain lol. I mostly muted it, but I didn’t wanna lose his roots.

When Jordan had said “my roommate’s back later, he’ll drive you home,” Spencer hadn’t exactly anticipated carpooling during a drug deal. He’d left that part out.

‘Curly’ has a mop of dark hair falling in ringlets around his face. He opens the window before lighting a cigarette and the brunette strands blow out of his eyes in the wind. Thick eyebrows and dark lashes frame hooded eyes that droop in the outer corners just a little. Spencer wonders how much that has to do with drugs and how much it has to do with genetics. It looks good on him, nonetheless.

The teenager watches shamelessly as the stranger holds the smoke between his lips whilst he fumbles in the storage compartment, fishing out a flip phone.

“So Spencer,” Curly mumbles around the cigarette. Spencer realises now that it’s a joint, but makes no comment. “You and Jordan are…”

“Just friends. We uh,” he breathes out a laugh, “we just met yesterday.”

The man hums, eyes darting from the road ahead to the phone he holds near to his lap, texting hurriedly as he drives before dropping the device back into the compartment.

He takes the joint from his lips and holds it between his fingers as his hand joins the other on the steering wheel. He has blue smudges over his eyelids and something sparkly scattered in his hair and Spencer feels like he’s in another world. He’s obscurely beautiful.

“You’re just messing about?”

Spencer just shrugs at first, until Curly takes his eyes off the road to look at him expectantly like Spencer owes him this much. “I guess. I’m not sure I’d even label it as—“

“I’m taking the piss, love.” Curly has an accent that Spencer can’t quite place, a loose drawl throwing him off. “J doesn’t bring anyone back to the flat unless it’s for sex or drugs. The only reason he keeps me around anymore is because my Molly is mint.”

Spencer hums this time as he turns back around in his seat and props his feet up on the filthy dashboard, head still turned in the man’s direction as Curly continues to speak about not being able to feel his fingers and it being the best feeling in the world.

Unsure of how to respond, Spencer instead asks, “what kind of name is Curly,” which the man seems to find funny, his answer held up for a moment as he giggles at the bluntness of the question.

“The kids at school used to call me Curly Wurly, after this candy bar they sell in England.” He’s smiling as he explains. “It just stuck. I can’t remember the last time anybody but my mum used my real name.”

“So you are British?”

“I am,” he confirms, sounding proud and Spencer wants to tell him how hot that is, but instead says “cool” and looks back towards the road.

*****

Curly is rarely home, apparently, because the next time Spencer sees him is around three weeks later. He gets a call from Jordan during Geography and tells his teacher it’s an emergency as he slips out of the room with his phone pressed against his ear. Turns out it was. The idiot got arrested and needed a babysitter for his roommate whom “absolutely cannot spend the night alone.”

“What a prick,” is Curly’s immediate reaction, but he’s smiling with those same hooded eyes as he rocks back and forth in the doorway of the apartment. His eyelids are grey-black today, and Spencer’s not sure if his irises are dark or his pupils are dilated, but the charcoal compliments it either way. His nails are orange and his hair is free of glitter but far from clean as it falls manically over his head.

“I was meant to stay here tonight,” Spencer lies to save the man’s pride, arms crossed as his eyes dart from his face and into the apartment where an open door at the other side projects bright colours around the distant room. The colours switch in time with the heavy electro beat that shakes the corridor.

“Well. A’ight then,” he mumbles, rubbing a hand over his belly as the fingertips of the other tap against the doorframe until he steps aside. “You better come in.”

***

“… Keh?” Spencer frowns, arms folded on the coffee table in front of him as his ass grows numb against the trodden-down carpet. Curly’s sorting through baggies on the surface with one hand as he chews on the thumbnail of the other. He pulls his hand from his mouth as he shakes his head.

“Ket-t-t.” he corrects, adding more than enough emphasis to the T this time. Spencer’s learned that his accent doesn’t allow for that to come naturally. “Ketamine.”

“Right. Which is?”

“A drug.” His reply is short, but he glances up through his lashes with a smug smile before he adds, “an anesthetic. Times fifty. Dead good if you don’t fancy feeling your arse for an hour or so.”

“I don’t need drugs for that on your shitty carpet,” Spencer retorts and Curly just tells him to piss off as he begins to cram small, clear ziplock bags into a tin box.

He holds up both of his pointer fingers to suggest one moment as he raises to his feet without the assistance of his hands. He waltzes over to a door that Spencer’s never entered which, when he opens it, spits out the rumbling bass from earlier, forgotten behind the wood that’s just thick enough to dull the impact enough to provide nothing but a heavy hum.

Spencer watches him mess with something on the top of his dresser as the flashing lights from his TV continue to illuminate the room. Curly leans over the surface, tight curls becoming a veil to hide his face. Spencer doesn’t need to see his face or the chipped wood to know what he’s sniffing. The man knocks his head back then, hair flung from his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling, arms hung at his side as his chest rises and falls. Spencer continues to watch until Curly stumbles backward, away from the doorway and out of view.

The teenager takes a sip of his water and places his glass back on the CD that serves as a coaster. He listens as Curly flicks through a few tracks in his bedroom, until he’s satisfied enough to reenter the lounge, closing the door behind him to return them to the dull and comfortable murmur.

“D’you want anythin’,” Curly asks, and Spencer can’t help but notice that the further gone he looks, the looser his pronunciation becomes. Vowels melt between softened consonants and feathered digraphs, giving away the man’s rough edges.

Spencer shakes his head -absolutely not- and instead asks, “where in England are you from?”

“Essex.” He doesn’t sound emotionally involved as he expands; “East London. A shithole,” and crashes onto the couch behind Spencer, who turns to lean back against the coffee table to maintain eyes on the man. “Until I was eighteen.”

Curly sticks out his tongue like it’s too big for his mouth, and stays like that for a while as his gaze returns to the ceiling, eyes wandering up, up, up, until they’re almost all white. Then suddenly, his mouth pulls into a grin and his eyes are on Spencer again.

“And now I’m here, and I can’t fucking see.”

“And we’re smiling about that?”

Curly nods slowly, his smile diluting as he mumbles “yeh” before the dim room falls silent.

There’s no bulb in the ceiling fixture and the only source of light now is the streetlight outside the window, shining intrusively into the room as the curtains lay in a pile on the ground. The floor is covered in bottles and cans and the carpet is soiled with stains that Spencer doesn’t want to know about. He’s been here for a couple of hours, and it feels like he’s only just catching his breath.

Curly’s shirt is gone - Spencer can’t remember when that happened - and his tattoos are far more sporadic than Jordan’s, whose chest looks like a complete piece in comparison to Curly’s dotted doodles. He has one nipple pierced and the bar matches his orange nails, Spencer notes as the man drags a trembling hand over his chest, which rises as falls as if he’d been thrashing and shrieking for the past two hours as opposed to sorting pills and powders on a coffee table. Spencer doesn’t feel safe and he’s hungry and the room is cold but everything about the man has his brain chanting stay.

Curly screams for the sake of it and the silence shatters.

“Love. Let’s dance.”

***

“You’re ridiculous,” Spencer pants, eyes bright and eager so as not to miss a beat as Curly moves against him, hands holding the teenager’s face as he sings against his cheek. It’s a song Spencer’s never heard, which makes sense since Curly introduced the playlist as “the best Brit classics you’ll ever fucking hear!”

He doesn’t really get the music; the pronunciation is just as lazy as Curly’s and the words of almost every song paint a painfully average picture. Curly belts them out though, like he resonates with them, and it somehow keeps him captivated. Nostalgia, Spencer thinks.

He grins against Spencer’s cheek, so close that his teeth graze his skin as he says, “you’re gorgeous.”

“You’re high.”

“So fucking high,” Curly agrees as he steps back, linking their fingers and holding their joined hands above their heads to twirl himself beneath them before it turns into what Spencer swears is a lazy jive.

He laughs as he lets himself fall against the wall, panting as Curly goes on, spinning and swaying around the room like a hurricane, stumbling on trash and dishes as he goes. He continues to sing, yelling out “you’re all sheeps and cattle!” as he points to the streetlight outside. Spencer’s almost riled himself up enough to push himself away from the wall and back into the centre of the room when the apartment door opens, and a head of buzzed blonde hair ducks into the room.

Jordan takes one look at Curly and grumbles “oh fuck me” as he paces across the lounge and into his housemate’s room, barely glancing Spencer’s way. The apartment falls into a screeching silence before he reemerges. Spencer’s ears ring in the absence of the music and Curly wines at Jordan for turning it off.

“I’ve been gone for less than twenty-four hours and you’ve turned the apartment into Beverley’s.”

Still bouncing on his toes, hands held awkward and limp against his chest, Curly says, “Beverley’s is a mint bar,” just as Spencer asks, “who’s Beverley?”

Jordan just rolls his eyes, snatching a lighter from the side and pulling a cigarette from his pocket as Curly goes on to explain exactly why Beverley’s is ‘more than just an Irish pub’.

“Yeah, I’m really great, thanks for asking,” the blonde grumbles over him sarcastically and falls back onto the couch. “What was jail like? Oh, y’know. Cold. Lonely.”

“What happened?” Spencer’s question comes out quiet and he shuffles across the room to sit beside him. Curly’s still talking but it’s mostly to himself now.

“Oh, well, as well as finding the weed in my car, they found your fucking money-” he points at Curly, finally regaining his attention. “- and thought I was dealing. What the fuck was your cash doing in my car, Curly?”

“Was hiding it,” Curly mumbles and Spencer’s pretty sure that, if the guy had one, his tail would be tucked between his legs now.

“Of course you were,” he scoffs, smoke clouding his breath. “Keep me out of it, alright? I smoke, I don’t deal. Fuckin’ lucky they didn’t keep me.”

Curly perches on the edge of the coffee table, nodding as he says, “sorry mate,” and proceeds to knock Spencer’s water onto the ground. There are worse things in the carpet, and they all seem to think the same thing, judging by the fact that they ignore it as it soaks into the ground. Probably an improvement, if anything.

“S’alright. They couldn’t charge me,” he shrugs after a long pause. He looks dissatisfies even as he visibly shakes it off like he doesn’t have time to dwell. “Have you eaten yet?” Before the question is even entirely out, Spencer says no. “Cool. Chinese, then. And then-“ he wraps an arm around Spencer’s shoulders. “- I’m taking you home.”

“But-“

“Curly’s gonna need my full attention tonight, sweetheart.” He’s already holding his phone to his ear and, before Spencer can argue, he asks, “what’s your order?”

***

Curly doesn’t make it until the arrival of the food, so Spencer doesn’t go home after all. The man passes out on the floor mid-way through tidying up after himself. Jordan tells Spencer “get your ass in there” once they’ve eaten, and nods towards his own room with the first smile Spencer’s seen from him since he got home.

“How did you meet him?” Spencer asks around an hour later, under the sheets as he watches Jordan search for his underwear on the ground and step back into them.

“Mutual friends. He works at the club now.” There’s a heavy silence, like something else is bursting to be said. He adds, “we dated for a while,” with a short laugh, like it’s not a big deal.

*****

Spencer thinks it might be a big deal. There’s a guy called Jeff that used to work at the tattoo parlour who’s throwing a party to ‘get it all out of his system’ before he starts college - he’d said “it’s never too late” before they all cheered to it. It’s a Wednesday which is ridiculous, but the turn-out isn’t half bad.

Spencer’s spent more time with Curly than he has with Jordan tonight, because the two men seem to be arguing and, well, Curly can’t take care of himself these days. Spencer’s not had a drop of alcohol - wouldn’t dream of it in a place like this - but he lost Curly for a little while and, when he resurfaced, his eyes were wide and his body was all bones and no muscle.

The man is just as pale as ever and his plain white shirt only has three buttons fastened. He wipes his palm over the sheen of his chest, hand hanging loosely from his wrist. He moves like a marionette as he says, “I just fucking miss it all,” eyes on the house. He sways a little, then allows himself to fall to his side. It’s as if his strings are released when he collapses onto Spencer, his limbs landing wherever they land and his head landing in Spencer’s lap by pure fortune.

“What do you miss?” Spencer shifts a little, because the wall they’re sat on is digging into his ass and Curly’s weight isn’t helping.

“He’s mad at me again. I said I’d stop,” he wines as he rubs his face against Spencer’s knee. “He won’t wait forever.”

He combs his fingers through Curly’s hair. “What’s he waiting for?” There’s a silent understanding that ‘he’ is the short blonde that’s leaned against the kitchen sink inside, back to the window ahead of them. “Curly?”

“I feel sick.”

“Okay. You wanna go?” Spencer helps him sit up again, already standing from the wall and letting the man hold onto his elbows. Curly lets go to wipe the back of his hand beneath his nose, and when he pulls it away, blood smudges his face.

“You can go. I’ll wait for J.”

“No, c’mon. We’ll find some space inside.”

Inside is the last place he wants to be, having found an undeniable disliking for parties like these just recently, but it’s October and it’s cold and he doesn’t want to leave by himself anyway.

There’s a front and back lounge, and they find an armchair for the both of them to squeeze onto but they’re barely there for ten minutes before a group of boys is dragging Curly off again. They call him ‘Curls’ and Spencer feels a pang of jealousy as he’s forced to acknowledge that, despite having spent the last three hours alone with him among the crowds, Curly is not his person.

He lets him go with his friends, who help him to his feet and ruffle his hair as they go, and the timing seems almost too perfect for it to be a coincidence when Jordan slips through the group of people to claim Spencer.

“Finally. You’re all mine.” He pulls Spencer up by the hand and he must be drunk because he’s beaming. He says, “been waiting my fuckin’ turn,” which Spencer actually kind of hates, but he returns the kiss that the man takes from him anyway and lets him drag him away, back into the kitchen.

He pushes Spencer into the room, crowded up against his back with his hands on his stomach, beneath his shirt - cropped, thanks to Curly who recons the past of fashion is the future of fashion - as he announces “here he is!”

It’s mostly men in the room and Jordan’s introductions go right over his head, but his chest against Spencer’s back is the comfort he’s been needing to feel all night. He nods politely, smiles at a few of Jordan’s friends, and whispers over his shoulder, “Curly’s upstairs. He doesn’t look so good.”

Jordan just scoffs, mutters “fucking idiot,” and grabs the back of Spencer’s neck with one hand and the neck of a bottle with the other.

#para #self para #para:choose life #I LOVE CURLY FUCK #curly

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clonerightsagenda · 6 years

Text

Ok, let's finish this up tonight, now that I've gotten my cover letter ironed out. We're to Cherubquest, and I have a lot to say about the way John interacts with some of the meta stuff in this subact, so let's get started.

As they approach the MSPA terminal, John and Dave have another chance to talk. In John's tirade about Con Air, he reveals he thinks Dave is the true hero of the story. Meanwhile, Dave has repeatedly said he thinks John is the real hero. This is mostly due to both of them holding themselves to silly standards and then putting their friends on pedestals in comparison, and in the conversation, they both agree that's probably a little silly. The conversation closes with

JOHN: now, let's go write ourselves a happy ending!

which is a callback to something Jane said a long time ago.

Now, it's time for the conversation between Dave and Caliborn while John's trying to hack the narrative prompt. This log makes me laugh literally every time i read it. Part of its purpose was to relentlessly mock the theories that Dave would die because he's the most important tragic character ever, but the log also explores some meta stuff about Homestuck as a narrative and authorial control that ties into what I'm doing with John, even if he doesn't participate in the conversation. And I've got a lot to say about this, because I wrote my undergrad thesis on how Junot Díaz portrays the author as inevitably a dictator in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Great book by the way, if you haven’t read it. It has the most kickass opening I have ever read.

In that novel, Díaz quips that writers and dictators have never gotten along because “like recognizes like”. The novel explores the politics of storytelling – how those in power shape or silence narratives – and it makes even its own narrator and author complicit. Any act of storytelling is inherently dictatorial to an extent. The person telling the story gets to choose what to include and what to leave out. Everyone listening is forced to accept their version of events. There's a big motif in the novel of gaps - things that the dictator has covered up, or things that the narrative is not willing or able to tell. The blank pages are a sign of suppression and violence, but they can also be an opening for someone willing to write on them.

Caliborn is a textbook example of putting the author into authoritarian. He seizes control of the narrative and attempts to retell the story in a way that fits his sensibilities. (Some conspiracy theories argue that he succeeded.) This extends way past his Homosuck doodles. As Lord English, he shapes and defines the alpha timeline, dooming any deviations from the path he has set to wither and die. Any story that doesn’t meet with his approval and match the one he’s telling is sidelined. Caliborn has been forcing everyone to be bit parts in his epic from day one.

(As a sidenote, this is a flaw I accuse Dave of having – of thinking of other people’s motivations and reactions as peripheral to his aims, like they’re props in the drama of his life. Of course Caliborn is much much worse (many teens are solipsistic) but it’s intriguing.)

I’m aware of the obvious catch here. After all, the two of us decided we didn’t like the way the story was going, so we barged in and grabbed it. Now we’re telling a version, and the characters are dancing to our tune. My conclusion from reading Díaz’s novel (though not mine alone; I wasn’t fast enough off the block to be the first person writing on this) was that to avoid being dictators, writers have to leave gaps. A motif within The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the pagína blanco or blank page, something that hasn’t been filled in. The narrator leaves gaps, asks questions, and specifically says he cannot finish telling the story on his own. The readers have to piece things together or make assumptions, and different readers are likely to do that differently. The novel draws on so many different frames of reference, probably intentionally, that no one person will grasp it all.

So silence is one way to not impose your authority over a narrative, but then no narrative gets to exist at all. But the other option is openness, or multiplicity. I wrote in a gag about Caliborn’s superior headcanons, because he’s trying to make his vision overrule all while wildly misinterpreting the characters we know, but headcanons? Fanfic? Fandom in general? That’s how readers turn a dictatorship into a democracy.

As I was working on the outline for this project, I had to wrestle with what made Lord English a compelling villain. After all, Dave says it himself in his argument with grimbark Jade. He lurks on the periphery. He hasn’t done much to any of them directly. Technically, he’s the reason any of them exist. But he’s also what has them trapped in only one option, punishing any deviation even if it might make things better for them. He’s the reason for the dreambubbles being stuffed with dead dreamers who objectively did everything right. He’s the tyranny of the narrative given form.

I was rather pleased with this conclusion. Then Act 7 happened and a bunch of other people came up with the same idea as an explanation for why canon had to end the way it did, which made me feel far less original, not that I was very original to begin with. Did canon pull it off? That’s up to you to decide. Will we? Same thing. After all, if we want to avoid the same level of tyranny, at some point we have to back off. At some point, we – like all the other authors – have to die. Metaphorically. Hopefully, anyway.

How does this tie into John's arc? As I said earlier, John has a tendency to view things through the lens of fiction. When he gets the retcon power, he now has authorial control over the story. He can defy the alpha timeline, which is the narrative Caliborn/Lord English privileges. Dave makes a joke about Karkat's sickle plus John's hammer meaning they'll seize the means of production, but John does. He seizes the narrative, and he writes them out of the hole they're in. By saving Calliope, he defies Lord English's will and starts a chain reaction that will lead to his defeat on more than one front.

Specifically, he calls Calliope's name. At the very beginning of Homestuck, we're shown that you have to name the character before you can give them commands. We're told later that the cherubs' names are important, but it never comes up again. So I made it relevant again - maybe Roxy just saying Calliope's name wasn't enough, but armed with the narrative prompt and Breathy power, John can call her name loudly enough to bring her back from the dead. Plus, with his meta power, he fucks around with the comic proper - clicking links and appearing outside the panel frame. This story is his now. After viewing his life through the prism of a story, he's going to use that to rewrite it better.

Now that I have forced you to sit through a miniature version of my undergrad thesis, let's move on to post-Cherubquest content. As the Betas prepare to fight Jack, John stares up at the sky and is treated to a cloud-memory of his dead father. (Has Gill shared the sketch for this panel? It's ridic.)

EDIT: She once sent it to me. Here it is.

He's facing these memories now, even if they're not ones he enjoys. As a side note, you'll notice the next panel has everyone drawn in old school Homestuck style to show how far they've come. The thick lines are kinda unsettling tbh.

And finally, our most recent update. John is getting used to the fact that ok, he might be silly and dorky and not the traditional Platonic form of a hero, but he gets the job done. He's actually one of the characters who'll rely on the walkarounds a lot more for closure - be on the lookout for him to sort of settle some of his issues re: emotional repression, heroic ideals, and doomed timeline bias when we get there. Still, he's on his way! And he got to do some stuff on his own terms, instead of just being bossed around, so he's a lot happier, even if he is burdened by the harsh reality of their lives. The past may be brutal, but things are looking up.

#tlcstuck #dvd commentary #i'm caught up!#since i'm waiting on the kanaya one

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