#not exactly but i wanted to draw a background and that was the best one i could think of

[aesethewitch]

Ambient Spells

The idea of the ambient spell isn’t so uncommon. My use of the word “ambient” may throw you for a bit of a loop. An ambient spell is any spell that permeates a space in an unobtrusive way. They affect the area surrounding their vessel and require little to no maintenance or upkeep. They’re long-term workings that require varying levels of effort to put together and cast. Depending on what exactly you need, they can be as simple as setting out a bowl of salt or as complex as crafting a home decor piece from scratch.

I always recommend making ambient spells that are self-fueling. I often refer to them also as “set it and forget it” spells. They’re the crockpot of spellwork — work up front for a slow burn output.

Chances are that you’re already aware of or even know how to create ambient spells. Any spell that affects the vibe of a room, for example, would count as an ambient spell. Lighting incense specifically to invite in positive energy counts. A ward that sucks up baneful magic and transforms it into blessings also counts. The primary idea of an ambient spell is that it’s making a change to your environment in the background. It’s the cool breeze in summertime, the subtle piano at a fancy restaurant, the scent of fresh-baked cookies fading as the day goes by. Positive, but not overt.

When to Use (or Not Use) an Ambient Spell

By their nature, ambient spells are fairly general workings. They can be quite powerful, of course, just like any other spell. The thing to keep in mind is that they’re not ideal for targeted magic.

For example, I wouldn’t create an ambient spell to banish someone from my life. I might make an ambient spell to make an area unwelcoming to them, or to anyone who would do me harm. The unwelcoming vibe might discourage them from coming around, sure. But it may not work outside of the area the spell lives in; and it may not get rid of them for good.

Similarly, an ambient spell might make a good general ward for keeping out loud, unwelcome spirits, but it wouldn’t specifically cast out the one particular spirit who’s been causing problems. It might discourage their behavior, but it wouldn’t necessarily get rid of them. A concentrated, single-use banishing spell would work significantly better for that purpose. Afterwards, an ambient spell can keep the area clear of that spirit’s influence.

I also wouldn’t use an ambient spell to draw in specific success. General success or money, absolutely — whatever wants to come my way is welcome, via a basic money bowl set up next to my wallet. But if I specifically want a promotion or a particular amount of money, I’m not going to leave that to the ambient money spell. I would craft a spell specifically for what I’m looking for.

When deciding what kind of spell to cast, keep this idea in mind. An ambient spell is best for behind-the-scenes results that happen without your concentrated effort. When you want something specific, a more targeted spell will work better nine times out of ten.

Creating an Ambient Spell

It’s possible to create an ambient spell with nothing but energy work. However, I often find that these fade quickly and don’t lend themselves well to self-fueling. They tend to need more active upkeep than I prefer for a spell that’s meant to be set and let go. I recommend choosing an appropriate vessel of some kind to contain the spell to help it last longer.

How do you decide what’s an appropriate vessel, though? And how do you set one up? How do you make a spell self-fueling? Let’s start from the top and go in order.

Identify the Purpose

Decide what the spell will do. This is going to define the components and the way you’re going to cast the spell. In my experience, ambient spells work best when they’re given a single purpose. For example, I wouldn’t make a spell that’s a ward and a cleanser and a spirit welcome mat. It dilutes the purpose. Choose a single, clear motive for the spell.

Choose a Vessel

Now that you know what your spell will do, it’s time to decide what it’s going to look like. The vessel you choose should reflect the spell’s purpose in some way.

An open bowl works well for absorbing energy. Why? It’s open. The face of it is open to the room, ready to take in whatever kind of energy you assign to its contents.

A closed jar, on the other hand, would be good for repelling. It’s closed off and sealed — a one-way road going out of the jar and into the room to clear it.

A wreath hung at the door could serve a lot of purposes, depending on what it’s made with. I would use a wreath as an agent of transformation or as an energy emitter to release a certain energy into the space.

A stone makes a solid vessel for protection or grounding. I have one on my working altar to help keep me in the moment and create a good environment for working magic.

When you’re choosing your spell vessel, keep in mind how visible you want it to be. Certain vessels are going to naturally be more obvious than others. A wreath, for example, is hard to miss — but it also just looks like nice home decor. A jar full of herbs and things would be more obviously a spell, but they can be small and easily hidden.

I have both obvious and hidden ambient spells peppered around my home for varying purposes. If you’re keeping your practice a secret, you’ll likely want to keep your spells more obscure or hidden. But if you aren’t, and you can make the choice of whether you want the spell to be in plain sight or not, consider the effect you want the spell to have.

If you want the spell to absorb bad vibes, baneful magics, the evil eye, or other negativity, a hidden spell might serve you well. Hiding the vessel somewhere means that whoever’s casting against you may not expect the resistance. On the other hand, if you want a vessel that allows friendly spirits to visit you during the holidays, a beautiful centerpiece on your dining table that’s charmed with spirit-friendly magic might serve the purpose.

Choose an Energy Source

Ambient spells need to draw energy from somewhere. Think of it like a battery. The ingredients you put into the spell may provide a temporary charge, but if you want the spell to be long-term, it needs an input. How will your spell recharge itself?

If you want the spell to be shorter-term, only a few days or so, then you can skip this step. But if you want an ambient spell to last a while, like a ward or vibe-adjuster, you’ll need to think about this carefully.

Like when choosing the vessel, the energy source should match the purpose of the spell. For example, I have a simple room refresher spell set on a table that’s central to my home. The purpose of it is to take anxiety and negative thoughts to turn them into positivity. I set it up so that the act of walking past the bowl swirls the air around it, and therefore also the energy around it. That kinetic energy fuels the bowl’s magic and keeps it going. I don’t have to actively recharge the bowl or its contents, because we walk past it constantly.

Another example would be an ambient spell to help you do the dishes. (Whether that’s remembering to do them or finding the motivation for it is up to you.) The fuel for the spell could be the act of walking into or past the kitchen, running water elsewhere in the home, or even cooking or eating.

The energy source could also be something like lighting a candle next to or over the vessel on a schedule, if you prefer. This would add an upkeep step, of course, and wouldn’t be my first choice. The only ambient spell I do this with is my money bowl, and that’s because it’s tuned to be able to shift focus from day to day depending on what exactly I need (commissions versus tips versus discounts, etc.).

Setting Up an Ambient Spell

Decide where you want to place your spell’s vessel ahead of time. If you have pets or kids, make sure you put whatever it is out of their reach. If the vessel is something like an uncovered bowl, you’ll want to be sure that it isn’t going to get knocked over. Similarly, if it’s made of glass, you don’t want it to fall and shatter. If your vessel needs to be hidden somehow, determine where you’ll keep it. It would be smart to make note of where the spell is and what it looks like in your grimoire or spell notebook just so that if you forget about it, you can identify it later on down the road.

After you know where you want to put it, it’s time to choose ingredients and fill your vessel. The components you decide on should, obviously, match your goals.

Casting an ambient spell is much the same as casting a regular spell. The only thing to keep in mind is that an ambient spell has a sort of prolonged release.

Upkeep and Care of an Ambient Spell

For the most part, ambient spells should require little to no upkeep. With that said, you should still do routine check-ups on them. I include them in my regular rounds when I check on my wards and various protections, but you could do yours whenever it makes the most sense to you.

Depending on how you decided to fuel your spell, you may need to do a bit of feeding. Whether that’s lighting a new candle, refilling a cup of water, mixing around a pile of herbs, or giving the vessel a little shake, do so anytime it feels like the spell’s energy is flagging. It may take some practice in sensing energy to know exactly when a spell needs refueling. This is partly why I suggest creating a schedule to check in on the spell; ambient spells are a great type to practice sensing spell energy, since they’re typically long-lasting and may wax or wane depending on the day.

If your spell is fully self-fueling and it doesn’t seem to be working anymore (or at all, even from the start), it’s time to take it apart. Discard disposable components according to your practice’s tenets. Cleanse the rest for future use. I would suggest washing your spell vessel alongside magical cleansing.

A Ready-to-Use Example

Here’s an extremely simple example of an ambient spell I use in my home to keep the main living area light, fresh, and conducive to getting work done. Since both my partner and I work from home, it’s important that our areas have an aura of focus.

Materials:

- A small bowl, preferably green or brown - Enough salt to fill the bowl halfway - A few pinches of dried rosemary

Instructions:

1. Ensure the bowl is clean and dry. Pour salt into the bowl until it’s halfway full. 2. Sprinkle dried rosemary into the salt and stir. 3. Instruct the spell, in whatever way makes sense to you, to exude focused but calm energy into the space. 4. Place the bowl in an area that is frequently trafficked. 5. Leave the bowl in place until it no longer provides a fresh, focused energy to the space. Dispose of the contents, clean the bowl, and reset the spell.

Notes: - This spell is powered by movement specifically, because both my partner and I work from home, and we pace when we’re having a hard time focusing. The spell draws in the energy from our pacing and the frustration we’re putting out to fuel itself. It then transforms and releases the energy as calm, focus, and productivity. - I suggest a green or brown bowl because this spell is meant to work for our jobs. Green for success, brown for grounding. Personally, my bowl has both colors. - When instructing the spell, you can speak to the bowl, write a petition, do an incantation, or whatever else you like. This is the most personal part of the spell, and it’s what makes the thing Go. It’s up to you to decide how it’s going to work.

Final Thoughts

I would hesitate to call ambient spells “low energy” spellwork. While they can be low-energy-friendly in the long run, and they can be extremely simple to set up (such as the one I described above), they aren’t always. Ambient spells do require an up-front energy cost. Even so, I find them very rewarding and useful.

Folks who visit my home often comment that it’s an inviting, friendly, good-natured space where they can leave their worries and anxieties behind. That’s on purpose. I’ve got ambient spells in place that eat up anxiety and spit out positivity. I’ve got ones that repel hexes and are charged by sunlight. All of these spells are long-lasting and well worth the effort it took to create them.

I hope this little guide is useful to you! If you’ve got questions, feel free to send me an ask. I’m happy to ramble about ambient spells or other types of magic as much as you’d like.

And if you did enjoy this post, consider dropping a couple dollars in my tip jar! Supporters of all types (tips, commissions, shop purchases, and memberships) get early access to posts like this, sometimes up to two weeks early, and every bit helps me keep the lights on.

#aese speaks #spells #spellwork #my spells #witchblr #witchcraft #witch community #beginner witch #ambient spells #practical magic

[kiwinatorwaffles]

theyre so stupid they should interact forever and ever /j

#team canada #mcyt #pauseunpause #vintagebeef #ethoslab #kiwi’s scribbles #starblight desert #not exactly but i wanted to draw a background and that was the best one i could think of #i forgot how diversity 3 looked like again i played it like. last year. sorry

[phoebelovingcare]

THE NEXT PERSON WHO SAYS IT DOESN'T WORK GETS PUBLICLY EXECUTED VIA HAMMERCAR (check reblogs for further info)

"what's it like to use nightshade/glaze?"

so based on my own experience I thought I'd make this more transparent since I know a lot of people hesitate to take action on some things if they do not know Exactly what happens. it's me i'm people. So;

Nightshade takes about 30 minutes on its fastest setting. The end result tends to look like mild jpeg artifacting, very slightly creased paper, or just brush texturing. Looking at it normally, it is undetectable. Glaze is very visually similar, given the strategy, except that Glaze's longest time setting is 5 minutes.

You put in a file, select how much you want it affected and for how long you want it to render. For Nightshade, you also attach a tag to it, that way AI finds what it's looking for with an associated word. You select a folder for the final result to save to, then hit run.

It takes a lot of GPU/CPU. The fans on my laptop sound a bit like I'm running Minecraft, and it refuses to run if you have too many programs open. I could run Youtube and Nightshade at the same time, but Youtube did Not like it. Best to just take a break while you let it do its thing. Run Nightshade before you go out or something.

It does NOT like transparent png backgrounds. Makes me wonder how AI does with 'em. Anyways, running a backgroundless drawing through Glaze and Nightshade respectively makes it turn out like this:

creasing effect is more noticeable, and it adds strange blocky black and white backgrounds to it. If you want good results for your time, be that less than 1 minute or 180 minutes, consider getting rid of the transparency.

I would post a before and after picture of a Nightshaded piece but of course, I would like to post exclusively poison on this site.

As one last note, it took me a lot of effort to find where you're actually supposed to download these tools, so Glaze is here and Nightshade is here. Overall I highly recommend using them if you can. Don't let AI run you off of your sites: run the AI out yourself.

#anti ai #protect your art #nightshade #glaze #webglaze #anti ai art #pheb speaks

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @chaaistheanswer

Hi everyone! I am Clara, but you can also call me chaa! I am a digital artist based in Auckland, New Zealand, with a bachelor’s degree in Creative Media Production. After graduating from uni, I moved out to pursue my art career and I’ve been a freelance digital artist ever since. I love concept art, especially character design! Creating characters influenced by my love for fantasy is what I live for. Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed my art! And thank you, Tumblr, for this opportunity!

Check out our interview with Clara below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I specialized in art in high school and have a bachelor’s degree in Creative Media Production from Massey University with an animation pathway. For our thesis film, which I worked on with several of my classmates, I took on the role of producer, art director, and concept artist. Our short film was featured in the Wellington Film Festival Terror-Fi in 2020. After graduating, I went on to become a freelance artist, but my goal is to work for the gaming industry as a character concept artist. Ever since I first picked up a pencil, I knew I wanted to become an artist!

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Art block is quite common among artists, and unfortunately, I too have fallen prey to the affliction. I have several ways of overcoming art block: watching movies, playing games, reading, or going out for a drive with my sister. These are just a few things I love to do to help keep my creative juices flowing!

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

I tend to obsessively research about completely unrelated topics while I draw. I find learning new things helps improve my concept designs, especially in creating backgrounds for my characters.

Over the years as an artist, what were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

Video games and anime were my biggest inspirations! Anything with a captivating story that’ll send me to the edge of my seat, and loveable characters. I’m particularly drawn to high and dark fantasy.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

Technology has made a huge impact on us artists over the last few years. I used to draw a lot on paper, but since getting a tablet, I find myself searching for the undo and redo buttons and even trying to zoom constantly while I draw on paper. I used to only draw for myself as well, but after posting my art online, I now have an audience to whom I can share my art. Because of this, I am able to earn a living doing what I love by creating illustrations for clients.

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

I am very proud of this recent commission I’ve done for a client! Fortunately, the piece turned out exactly how I wanted it to look, and my client was very happy with the result. I am also in the process of working on a Webtoon, which is going as smoothly as I hoped it would be before its re-release!

What advice would you give to younger you about making art that's personal or truthful to your own experiences?

The best advice I would give my younger self is to never hold back! Try not to think about the negatives of creating and sharing art that you believe in. Embrace vulnerability, and don’t be afraid to dig deep into your own emotions and experiences. Always explore, and don’t limit yourself to your own bubble. And most important of all, stay true to yourself! Stay true to your values and beliefs, and never compromise your own authenticity for the sake of pleasing others. Your art is a reflection of you as a person.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@yuumei-art has been an inspiration to me since my early Deviantart days. I admire how she uses her skills to focus on environmentalism and cyber activism. @nipuni is another inspiration of mine. I found her when I was in the process of recovering from Dragon Age Solavellan hell. I admire how she manages to capture faces well while also sticking to her style. Her paintings are so beautiful and very pleasing to my eyes!

Thanks for stopping by, Clara! If you haven't seen her Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here. For more of Clara's work, follow her Tumblr, @chaaistheanswer!

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #chaaistheanswer

[netflix]

Spotlight: Adam Stockhausen

Production Designer, The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar

Oscar winning production designer Adam Stockhausen (not pictured above, that’s Benedict Cumberbatch), whose work you may know from Wes Anderson films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Asteroid City, The French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, and Moonrise Kingdom, as well as titles like Bridge of Spies, and West Side Story (2021), took the time to answer some questions.

Which details from or aspects of The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar did you focus the most on while adapting it to the screen? How did you meld Roald Dahl and Wes’s worlds?

The details on this one started with Dahl’s writing hut! We matched the details pretty carefully and exactly. As soon as we step outside of the hut though we start to move through the world of the story and the world of the stage at the same time. Wes had the idea of how he wanted to do this from the very beginning. My main challenge was trying to figure out how to pull it off—making the parts move and getting each to have the right detail.

What’s a small change you made on a project that ended up having an unexpectedly significant impact? 

Lots of times this happens—where what seems like a small thing at the time becomes a very significant turning point. I’m in Berlin now writing this and remembering being here scouting for East Berlin for Bridge of Spies. We were struggling to find a section of town that still felt old enough to show the early 60s, and decided to take a chance on a quick search in Poland. That quick search changed the whole production plan and ultimately gave us the look of our East Berlin.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work? 

Technology has definitely changed the way we plan the work. We used to model everything in cardboard or sometimes just plan in two dimensions with pencil and paper. We can now plan in 3-dimensional space using modeling programs and see what real lenses will do.  This allows for more accurate planning and makes scenery moves like the casino set in Henry Sugar possible.

Do you have any signature easter eggs you like to leave? Any small details that you are particularly fond of? 

I wouldn’t say there are easter eggs in this one. But there are loads of special details! I think my favorite might be the levitation boxes where we painted a perspective view of the background onto a prop box. The actor sitting on the box appears to be floating in a very special and theatrical way.

Did you talk about reflecting the iconic Quentin Blake illustrations in production design? How would you go about doing that? 

Not really. They are such incredible drawings and I’d say they’ve been inspiring me since I saw them as a child! But for this the starting point was really the machine Wes devised to move us through the story—and pairing that to specific references scene by scene.

There is such an intentionality to the aesthetics of a Wes world. Is there a set or frame that took you a long time to get perfectly right? 

All of them! It’s a very labor-intensive process getting these frames right. Occasionally one will click right away, but usually it’s a process of refining and refining. The jungle for instance went from sketches to models to samples and back again several times before the final look settled.

If you had to present one frame that showcases the best of your work, what would it be? 

Oh my. Maybe the jungle? I really enjoyed making the jungle!

With all the moving sets in the trailer for The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar, it feels reminiscent of a theatre production. Are there distinct differences in approach between film and theatre and how much do you blur the lines between them in your work? 

I think the lines are blurred completely! Or maybe they aren’t even there. I love that Henry Sugar is so incredibly theatrical in its storytelling.  It allows us to show the artifice of the sets all the time which somehow makes them even more satisfying when they finally do line up and create a complete picture. I think the casino set is a perfect example—the pauses where it all lines up for a second are even more enjoyable because we get to see it broken apart and sliding away.

Thanks, Adam!

#spotlight #entertainment spotlight #adam stockhausen #wes anderson #production design #filmblr #wes weaving #web weaving

[mi-ni-me]

Hooooooomygawd. This is exactly what I was ranting about in my last post! I should’ve been posted this, but of course everytime I try I get immediately distracted and start scrolling or completely forget and walk away doing something else 😅. BUT HEYYYYY IM HEREEEE, and I’ve decided this week’s spread is underfell based since that’s what most doodles I had were🌚. So let’s just jump right into it,,

1-4.)First off an Underfell! Papyrus spread cause I luv him and I wanted to have one to match his brother. I’ve been planning on doing spreads for each skeleton but obviously that’s going to take a little longer than planned lol! My underfell papyrus has no eye-lights, not because he’s blind but because I like it best aesthetically. I also hc he wakes up early to go to the store, but is still grumpy cause it’s 5 am…even though it’s his personal routine he did to himself🌚. Though! He wears sweats and that’s the ONLY time you’ll catch him in some sweats. His primary weapon is a sharp ended bone for easy access, he’s 6’6 with his heeled boots on, which are inspired by a certain someone. Finally, he has a stinky lazy cat named Doomfanger, I personally don’t like cats but I’d try for him,,

5,6,7.)HOO doggy I needs him😩 my uf!Gaster otherwise known as “Ego” n some background info for him and the boys when they were younger. He was the Royal Mad Scientist and very smart yet incredibly self centered, his experiments sons Sans and Papyrus stay home until he gets back after long hours and can be gone for days at a time. Though his oldest, Sans is very responsible they still wish he didn’t work his hours. Finally, before his disappearance into the core, his sons were both visiting before everything went down, Dr.Gaster, who after finally achieving SOMETHING within the core is faced with two incredibly difficult choices, he who is OBVIOUSLY MAD!!!!!??! Decides to instead leave his children in order to see the truth. This without a doubt is one of the first of many hardships young Sans and Payrus face.

8,9,10.)Last but not least a cat study page for Doomfanger since I found out I wanted to draw a cat without knowing how to draw a cat whatsoever, so I practiced!! Doomfanger is stinky cause he doesn’t like baths, lazy from lack of discipline (surprising but Edge can’t even yell at the poor thing.), and greedy from overeating, does this sound like someone we know?🌚 He has a scar across his left eye and half his fluffy tail is almost bare leaving only fluff at the end. Doomfanger doesn’t get along well with his uncle, which many find odd as they’re incredibly similar, too bad they don’t see it themselves. (Bonus Edge holding kitten Doomfanger, the beginning of a deadly friendship. And yes this one is noticeably newer than the others but it’s on the same page and fits the theme so let’s assume it was there from beginning 🌚😂)

#my art #undertale #sans #underfell gaster #underfell sans #underfell #underfell papyrus #paprus #self insert #doomfanger #uf!gaster #me w uf!papyrus #2023 #traditional art

[redslug]

Coloring tutorial I guess

That's my most default shading style, a hybrid of line drawing and painted shadows, and I'll tell you exactly how to get this look. But before we start, you need a weapon This is my main brush for basically anything, including line art on days when I don't feel like switching to something actually intended for inking. It's a lightly textured square brush with color variation on every stamp. Intended for Procreate but you can always just rip the alpha texture out of the file and use it for a brush in any drawing program. That out of the way, let's go. I'll use the same line art as the one in fluff tutorial. Set the line layer to ~60 or so opacity and get to blocking in the base colors of your character. The jitter brush will introduce some color variation on it's own, but changing the color occasionally will add more visual interest.

After this I add a multiply layer on top and dab orange or red in places where we might be able to see the base of the hairs or peek at the carapace underneath.

It's places where hair parts and where it's shorter. This accent color works great on joints as well. Example of the thing I'm going for in real life:

Especially visible behind the head. It's not present on every moth to be fair, but I like to add these accents even where it wouldn't make sense, just because it looks nice. Even on insects without hair. Block in the eyes and mandibles now, best if it's on separate layer.

Now, the actual funny tricks begin. If you're one of the people who only use multiply or add blend modes, stop it, get some help Understanding the math behind blend modes is gonna get you a long way. My lineart is set to subtract more often than not. I find it produces juicier and more colorful results than multiply. I want to give this picture a warm orange feeling, so the color of my lines should be the opposite - blue.

And, subtract.

Perfect, but not quite. We can push the lines to an even softer feeling. Take the line layer, copy it, invert the color and set to multiply. I then throw gaussian blur on the resulting copy and reduce opacity until the lines bleed into the surroundings just a little bit.

On to actual shading. People who shade without getting in some background first scare me, so let me throw something together real quick.

A simple gradient will also suffice for this use. We just need some information on which colors are present in the surroundings. Copy your background, bring it on top of your character layers and gaussian blur it real hard. Set it to multiply, remove all parts of the layer that go beyond the pixels of the base color layer. Adjust opacity until the character fits in the background.

Let's identify the light sources. In this case it's only the sky, but it produces two distinct colors - soft blue lighting comes from the top, slightly stronger red comes from behind. The blue light I set to exclusion blend mode because it felt most appropriate in this case. Both add and screen looked too strong to be the light coming from such dark sky.

In this lighting context the lower part of the body will receive less light that the upper part. I use the green of the bushes set to multiply to darken the bottom.

The character is surrounded by all kinds of soft light, but it can't get everywhere. It's time to add ambient occlusion, or contact shadows, for those without a 3d background. Anywhere where there is a crevice or surfaces almost touch, a soft shadow will form.

I do it on a multiply layer with a neutral gray-green color. Gray because any color light isn't really getting in there and green because the fluff is somewhat transparent and whatever light does pass through it gains a greenish hue.

Last step, red rim light from the fading sunset behind the character.

Since it's rim light I just work with normal blending mode. Setting it to add or something of the sort would make the rim light brighter than the source of the light. And it'd be odd.

And that's it. I usually throw on some post processing in Snapseed. Pull some curves, throw on a bit of grain, etc. But it's a topic for another time.

In conclusion, try to think about the environment more when shading. What route does light go through to reach where you're coloring? Did it reflect off of any colored surface? Did it pass through something transparent to gain a different hue? What color shadow would this ambient lighting produce? Go have fun with your colors now.

#art tutorial #anthro #insect #moth

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

It's a quieter week as a few shows have just wrapped and the next wave hasn't started yet, but there is still Japanese ql airing, including what is shaping up to be an all time fav. Both of these current airing shows are on Gaga and I highly recommend watching!

Love is Better the Second Time Around

This show is so good, and so mature in exactly the way I hoped. And I don't mean mature as in explicit--there is sex in this show but it's not some wild heat level. It's mature in that it's a story about characters who know themselves, know what they want, and draw boundaries. Both Iwanaga and Miyata are going down as favorite characters for me; I especially love that Miyata is a more knowing and self aware spin on a really well known bl archetype (think Rain from LITA but if he actually knew exactly why he was reacting the way he was to Payu and was mad about it instead of just overwhelmed and confused). This week we got a lot deeper into his teenage hurt over Iwanaga and now have a firm understanding of why he's alternately giving into and resisting this attraction. I am looking forward to Iwanga figuring out how to repair the damage he caused and earn his trust back.

My Strawberry Film

This was easily my favorite episode so far of this meandering little show. Every week I am left wondering what exactly this drama is trying to say and be; it certainly doesn't feel like a bl. We have spent the vast majority of our time on doomed het romance while Ryo quietly pines for his oblivious friend in the background. But this week we finally got to know Minami outside of Hikaru's narrow gaze, and I like her a lot. Her scene with Ryo where they discussed their romantic woes and established each other as a safe zone was very sweet, and showed how perceptive she is about all these dynamics happening around her. I was discussing with @bengiyo whether the show is going for an aromantic read with her, and I'm not sure. I see the makings of it, but the presentation of her feelings on romance feels a bit muddled. I loved her calling Hikaru out on being self-centered and having absolutely no patience for his petty jealousy. Hikaru thinks he likes her, but he doesn't actually know her (or his own best friend). I liked the final scene between Ryo and Hikaru as well, and the terrible angst of Ryo's confession that he immediately took back. The way the lights and audio from oncoming traffic played over his face in that scene was a really fantastic way to communicate both a moment of clarity and a moment of fear in the aftermath. I'm curious to see where this show takes the ending; a romantic conclusion for the two boys would not feel genuine to me at this point, but I could see them leaving us on a note of burgeoning curiosity and hope.

Bonus: No Touching At All

I recently watched this 2014 jbl on @twig-tea's recommendation, and I really loved it (I have already watched it twice and will definitely be doing so again). This is a classic office romance between a young gay man, Shima, and his "straight" boss, Toga. It's a simple story but well executed, and the film has a strong sense of place that I really loved. Shima and Toga have a fairly instantaneous attraction, and Toga is the kind of laidback character who simply never gave much thought to his sexuality and doesn't care about the fact that Shima is a man; he likes who he likes. Shima, however, is carrying a lot of internalized homophobia and trauma from closeted men messing him around in the past, and has a hard time believing in Toga's sincerity. I really love the way this conflict plays out in the story, and I especially love the way Toga talks to Shima. He's a no bullshit kind of guy and he tries his best to reassure Shima, but he's not a pushover, either. Ultimately Shima has to work through his own insecurities and make the choice to be brave to make the relationship work. The ending of this one is amazing and left me feeling very confident in this couple, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's the grey for this one, unfortunately, but if you have trouble finding it in HQ let me know and I'll point you (don't watch it on YT, the version on there is potato quality).

#japanese ql corner #love is better the second time around #koi wo suru nara nidome ga joto #my strawberry film #no touching at all #japanese bl

[the0racl30fd3lphi]

More than friends, less than lovers. x.t

pairing: xavier thorpe x gn!reader

summary: the whole hyde ordeal has faded slowly in the background as life carried on, the student body ready to grasp onto some new drama. luckily for them, a love triangle is exactly what they needed to fuel the gossip.

warnings: fluff, angst, love triangle (kinda)

a/n: y'all this idea literally came to me at 4 in the morning so please bear with me (as i also wrote it at the ass crack of dawn) i am so obsessed with percy and xavier and wanted to write this desperately, he is all i can think about.

word count: 1,727

part 2 part 3

——————————————————————————

You hated this. This, stage, between what you were and what you could be. Xavier was your best friend. He always had been, truth be told. Yet as soon as he broke up with Bianca your relationship had a shift. Suddenly somethings had a deeper connotation, a hidden meaning. You didn’t hate it. In fact, this was exactly what you had been waiting for for years. Until She came along.

You didn’t hate Wednesday, unfortunately. She had done nothing to spark your anger. It wasn’t like she was purposely making Xavier adore her. It looked like she would rather be without it, being honest. But did it annoy the hell out of you that he was so enamored with her so quickly, when she did nothing to give the idea that she would reciprocate? And yet he seemed to not want to give up on her? While simultaneously leading you on, making you believe you might have a romantic future with him? And being oblivious to the pain it caused? It was the only thing you ever thought about.

Genuinely, you wondered how he could still be so obsessed with her to buy her a phone, after she wrongfully got him imprisoned. If that wasn’t a walking red flag you didn’t know what was.

You and Xavier had stayed close throughout this internal turmoil you went through. It hurt like a bitch, but you’d be damned if you lost him over a girl he liked. Suppressing your feelings wasn’t anything you were stranger to, there were other ways to get out your thoughts.

Something you did often, that you’d never tell him was how frequently you abused mimicking his ability. At first he had found it interesting and expressed he had no problem with you copying his habits. But if he knew what you used it for he’d probably be mad.

Each night, after leaving his dorm and sneaking back into yours, you drew a photo from that day. What he looked like when he smiled. How he laughed. Taking into extreme detail his face, scrunched, while watching a show together. Though you weren’t really watching the show so much as watching him.

You kept these drawings in a box, under your bed, all the way in the back. It was hidden enough to never be seen or touched by anyone. So you used the late Rowan’s telekinesis ability to bring it out and put it back. Was this a healthy coping mechanism? Oh not at all, seeing as some drawings that originated from the latest of nights and most intimate moments, would have made Wednesday blush. Of course it's all innocent, right up until you put it down on paper.

"Drawing lover boy again?" Your best friend Val, barked at you from across the room.

"Lover boy? That's a new one," you softly put the new drawing of him in the box, and back under your bed in the furthest corner. "Not such an accurate name this time, you're losing your touch my friend."

"Well you wish it was, so close enough in my book," She shrugs and jumps onto your bed.

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," you pull your laptop on your lap, and press play on your favorite show to watch together.

"You sound like your father," She gags and you playfully slap her arm before shushing her and cuddling into her side.

——————————————————————————

It was lunch the next day, you had a free period the class before so you were waiting for Xavier to show up at your usual bench in the quad. He was taking a little bit longer than normal so you started early on your homework.

"If it isn't Xavier's little girl," she paused. "friend."

"Bye Bianca," you waved and put the volume up on your phone.

“Where is he this time? With Wednesday maybe?" she crossed her arms and smiled maliciously. "It's already started!" She laughed.

You tried to mind your business, she only ever wants to cause problems and you know this. "What's started?" you kept your eyes on your work, putting the volume lower to hear her better.

“He's bored of you. Just like when he got bored of me and you two got closer? He's onto Wednesday now, and done with you." She raised her eyebrows and put on an innocent doe-eyed look. "Well, anyway, have a good lunch!"

She walked away and went back to her friends. You didn't want to believe it. Would Xavier really replace you with Wednesday? He couldn't, he wouldn't. Even when he was dating Bianca, sure you hung out less, but you were still in his life. She was just trying to get in your head right?

“Sorry I'm late, got a little held up in class," He put his stuff down next to him and grabbed some food from the lunch you packed for the two of you. Cooking had become a stress habit for you, so nightly you sneak into the kitchens and prepare something for the next day.

“What kept you?" You put your stuff in your bag and grabbed a snack from the pile.

"Class, I said that didn't I?" He talked through a mouthful of food.

“Yeah but, what kept you? The teacher? Extra work?” you tried to press while eating your half of the lunch.

“Uh, just some extra credit work, wanna bring my grade up you know?” His answer was strained, and his eyes looked anywhere but at yours. So you followed his gaze, to Wednesday.

“Yeah, for sure,” You mumbled and went back to eating. Even if you wanted to escape him for another hour, to try and calm the thoughts in your head, you couldn’t. You two had the same class next period and you always walked together.

——————————————————————————

The day felt strained, any conversation with Xavier fell off track and eventually died out too soon. It’d been too long since this pattern started. Ever since she came to Nevermore, things slowly got worse between you two. You weren’t as close as before and it killed you.

So like every night, afraid to break habit, you snuck out of Xavier’s dorm to hang out. Right before you were going to knock on the door you heard two hushed voices in the room.

“You can’t keep doing this Xavier, you’re hurting her.” a voice pressed him for answers, sounding upset.

“We’re fine, Ajax.” Xavier fought back, offended anyone would accuse him of doing anything to hurt you.

“How dense are you that everyone can see it, but you?” Ajax stressed the end of his sentence still trying to be quiet.

“See what!” Xavier was getting increasingly agitated.

Your grip on the handle faltered and it wiggled just loud enough for both boys to notice it. Suddenly the door was opening and you smiled sheepishly at Xavier, “Hi.”

“I’m gonna leave,” Ajax looked between the both of you and you moved out of the way for him to exit. He sent one last glance Xavier’s way before he closed the door and went back to his dorm.

“Sorry, did i interrupt anything?” You apologized, still feeling the tense air.

“No,” He ran a hand through his hair in the same manor that always drove you crazy. “Nothing important.”

And just as quick as your conversation, Xavier went to sketching as you made yourself comfortable in his bed with your book. How quickly he could make your heart speed up and then break it felt like a world record now.

——————————————————————————

It’s been two weeks now since you accidentally overheard Xavier’s conversation with Ajax that night. Things hadn’t changed between you two, and you can’t figure out if that’s a good thing or not yet. Val had been pushing you to just confront him about your feelings. She knew letting them simmer inside was doing no one any good.

So on a night similar to that one fateful evening, you mustered up the courage to finally ask him what you meant to each other.

“Hey Xavi,” you asked, leaning slightly to the side now as he turned around from the mural he was painting on his wall to look at you. “What do I mean to you?”

He seemed to freeze, face tinting slightly rosier, whether it was blush or anger you didn’t know yet.

“What do you mean?” He dipped his brush in the cup he used to clean them, going right back to his art. It made you study his face, his posture, before continuing your question.

“I mean, I know what you mean to me. I know what i feel for you,” you felt emboldened by seeing him try and play off his nervousness watching him tense and straighten his back. “But I don’t know what I am to you.”

He paused and blinked, it looked like he was going to say something but he made no move to speak. After two minuets he finally opened his mouth, “Where is this coming from? You’re my best friend, you’re.. I..” He trailed off.

“But it’s more than that. More than friends,” he flushed pink, taking in a large gulp. “But less than lovers.” His grip turned white on the brush as he slumped slightly. Still he made no move to speak, so you turned away and went to collect your things. Nothing was said between you two as you packed up what you brought and slung your bag over your shoulder.

As you slipped out the door and into the shadows, mimicking a poltergeist you had once seen and turning yourself almost completely invisible. No one could even hear you breath and you floated through the halls back your dorm.

And in the faint night hair, before you left the wing his dorm was in, you could’ve sworn you heard him call your name and try to get your attention. But it was futile as you just sped up and got back to your dorm quicker.

Val said nothing as you slumped into your bed, rolling your stuff off the side and curling up with a blanket in your arms. She must’ve been able to infer what happened, and she climbed in next to you to hold you as you silently wept. Not even a shake ran through you as the tears fell. No one could hear the sound of your heart shattering that night.

#xavier thorpe x reader #wednesday #peter hynes white #xavier x reader #xavier thorpe #im so in love with him #i wanna shift for him so bad

[thatsthewrongwallcraig]

Insomnia

Summary: After tossing and turning for the better part of the night, Roman helps you to find ways to relax.

Pairing: Roman Roy x fem!Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Content Warnings: Fluffy Smut 18+!, Everybody Is Needy And Soft In Here, Unprotected P In V, Nipple Play, A Little Bit Of Logan Roy Slander, Roman Being Absolutely Enamored With Reader, L-Bombs, Established Relationship Because I Just Want Roman To Be Happy For Once 🤧

A/N: This fic was brought to you by my current inability to sleep 🫠

(Happy little edit: By the time I finished the fic, I had finally slept a whole night 🥲)

Tagging:

@alalalaaallaaalaaa @crypticsewerslut @angelsanarchy @arch1viste @icarus-star @fadedviolets

Für Elise - Reimagined By Alexander Joseph (I WHOLEHEARTEDLY encourage you to listen to this piece of art!)

Round after repetitive round your slightly burning, half-lidded eyes followed the quietly whirring ceiling fan right above the bed. Everything was perfect, the sheets fresh, the room temperature comfortably cool and the muffled out city sounds in the background provided just enough white noise to drown out your everlasting inner monologue and yet you just couldn't fall asleep.

You've already been cutting out caffeine for a few days now, carbohydrates too and with that practically everything that was remotely fun, hell, you even picked up a guided meditation podcast here and there trying to simply put yourself to sleep by getting bored enough but nothing really did the job. With each and every night passing like this, getting one to two hours of fairly interrupted sleep at best, you dreaded it a little more.

"Goddammit." You huffed under your breath before turning yourself to the side where Roman was comfortably snoozing next to you.

His back was facing your front as you scooted up close to him to gently wrap your arm around his waist, fingertips sneaking themselves underneath the hem of his white t-shirt while you rested your forehead against his shoulder. For a few minutes you just listened to him breathing in a steady pace, his ribcage rising and falling with every peaceful inhale and you couldn't help yourself but to envy him a little.

You couldn't explain to yourself how he did it, dealing with pent-up assholes, the worst of them being his father without a doubt, all day long and then just passing out when he felt like ending the day. Right now you wished for that ability to be one of your own, too, but for now it was to no avail. Pondering over it for longer would only turn you more sour by the minute and that wouldn't exactly help anyone here right now. Instead, you gently sighed into the soft and warm fabric of his shirt, shoving as much of the internalized malice regarding your situation to the side while much rather focusing on your curious fingertips that you led to wander over his defined torso. In gentle, slow strokes, you traced the outlines of his muscles up to his ribcage, caressed his collarbone, that was slightly curved upwards in this position, and then all the way back down again, your fingers getting lost in the softly curled hair of his happy trail down to the waistband of his shorts.

"You're getting me all worked up here.." Roman's sleep-drunk voice whispered to you.

"Sorry… I didn't mean to." You reciprocated, drawing your fingers from his lower abdomen until you felt his broad hand softly pressing yours back onto his skin.

"No, no, it's fine, don't you worry, babe. Still can't sleep, huh?" His tone was laced with a heavy layer of upright worry about you.

"Nope, Morpheus still won't treat me with a dream or two. Just endless buzzing up in the noggin." It left your mouth alongside a tired and painfully exhausted yawn.

"I'm sorry.", Rome yawned right there with you whilst he turned himself on his back, offering you his arm to seek shelter under, "Come here, you don't have to suffer through that alone."

"You don't have to be sorry, it's none of your fault." You shrugged your shoulders a little, quickly moving into his embrace and resting your weary head on his chest.

"But I really think it would be if I didn't try to help you somehow." He stated rather bluntly before placing a soft kiss to your hairline.

"Oh, Rome, you don't need to make this your problem, really-" With a well audible smile in his voice, Roman cut you off.

"But I want to! And I'm going to." He whispered against your forehead as his hand, that hung around your shoulder, started to softly caress your upper arm.

In barely even there strokes with his fingertips, Rome brushed over your skin from shoulder to elbow and back again, leaving waves of goosebumps after goosebumps in his wake.

"Now you're getting me all worked up!" You smiled against his chest, pressing your body impossibly closer to his, the silky soft fabric of your satin slip dress rubbing against his shirt.

"Oh, god forbid, am I right?", Roman laughed out softly, "And what if I do that right here?"

His other hand reached out to lift your chin up to his face before he leaned in to press a longing and anything but chaste kiss to your lips.

With that, he elicited a low moan of yours to get swallowed up by his mouth, his tongue darting out between his lips, gently snaking towards yours, nudging it playfully. Immediately, you felt your blood rushing down between your legs in nearly violent determination, an aching need to feel him even closer with you drowning out everything else.

"Fuck, Roman." You sighed against his lips, trying to steady your breath.

"If you insist.", You felt the grin forming on his face, "Please, take a seat and make yourself comfortable."

"If you insist." You chuckled right back whilst reaching down to your hips, taking a hold of the lacey string underneath the slip dress and shimmied out of it.

"Keep the dress on, please? You just look stunning in it." Roman asked in a breathy tone, pulling himself back a little to sit up straight against the headboard.

"Of course…" You whispered with a smile on your lips, rising yourself so far from the mattress until you were able to arch one leg over his waist and straddle his lap.

"Oh, damn.." He groaned a little raspy as the length of his pulsing cock pressed against your thoroughly soaked folds, your slick threatening to just drip down on him.

"That's all you, getting me wet like that." You said in return, wrapping your arms around his neck before rolling your hips against his lap to let him slide right inside of.

The feeling of him filling you right up to the brim, the girth of his cock stretching you out delightfully, had you both moaning out in pleasure. It absolutely didn't matter how many times you had slept with each other in whatever way, the moment of Roman thrusting into you for the first time was something that simply knocked the air from your lungs and eradicated any and every thought from your crowded mind.

"You feel so fucking good around me, you have no idea.", He hummed against your cheek before peppering the corner of your mouth with playful pecks of his lips, "And it just drives me insane when you wear just that slip dress here."

"It's the one you gifted me on our last anniversary, remember?" Your breath heavy as you started rolling your hips at a slow pace.

"How could I forget, babe?" Rome smiled at you, cheeks flushed in a soft tint of red and his olive eyes sparkling with unbridled joy even in the dark.

Seeing him beam at you like this made you forget all about not being able to sleep for the past two weeks, it made you forget all about the negativity that followed your each and every step through the days but what it made you remember clearly was how much you loved him. Every part of him from his expressive eyebrows, to his loud mouth to his colorful and exciting character.

"I love you, Roman." It fell from your lips before they touched his in a nearly bruising kiss.

"And I love you…more than anything." He reciprocated as soon as you broke from the kiss a little, leading his mouth to wander over your jaw, pressing loving kisses and playfully soft bites down your neck and all over your collarbone.

The tip of his nose stroked over the cleavage that the silken slip dress gave room for before his lips wandered down another notch to close around one of your perked up nipples, suckling at it carefully. A rush of pleasure seeped from your chest throughout your whole body as you felt the thin fabric soaking up his saliva, a wet patch forming around your areola before he moved on to the other side. The ceiling fan from above rendered the damp spot cold to your skin, sending soft shivers down your spine whilst you allowed yourself to just not think for once.

With eyes fluttered shut, you let your head roll back, basking in each little sensation he gifted to your body. This right now wasn't about chasing an orgasm just for the sake of getting off, no, this moment of shared intimacy was about feeling each other in the closest way possible and you reveled in every second of it.

"Love you so fucking much.." Roman's breathy tone got muffled by the fabric and you could hear that he was equally far gone by now, carefully joining in on your rhythm with every roll of your hips over his lap as his hands held you by the waist.

You intently listened to his shallow breathing, the sound of skin slapping against skin and the wet sounds of his lips Kissing and sucking on your nipples in a seemingly relentless vigor as you felt your walls tightening around his cock, the tip of it stroking over that especially sensitive part repeatedly.

"I'm about to…fuck, I…" It cascaded out of your mouth into the bedroom as you weren't even able to for a coherent sentence before it rippled through your body.

Orgasmic bliss set every nerve on fire for a split second, your pussy contracting in reckless waves around him, pulling him further in and eventually throwing him over his own edge. With raggedy breaths and choked back moans, Roman pressed his face into your neck as his fingers clawed at your waist. You felt him filling you up with throbbing pumps of his twitching cock as he pressed himself as far as possible into you with one final thrust.

Neither of you said a word whilst you pulled yourself off of him, the accumulation of bodily fluids leaving a little mess in his lap and between your thighs, and curled your satisfied body up to his again.

"Do you want me to read you something?" Roman asked and to say it caught you by surprise was a broad understatement.

"Huh?" You looked up to him with arched brows.

"I vaguely remember you telling me how much you liked being read to back when we started dating and I'm quite a bit ashamed that I never did that for you by now." He answered with a soft smile on his lips.

"You…you remember that?" It rolled over your tongue in some sort of excited shock.

"Of course I do, babe. So, would you like me to? If you're lucky, I'll find something a little more suitable than a yucky Forbes magazine."

#roman roy x reader #roman roy smut #roman roy x you #roman roy x fem!reader #roman roy #succesion hbo #succession #succession fanfic #kieran culkin

[mad-raptorzzz]

[ID: A headshot drawing of two SandWing dragons from Wings of Fire. It is Sunny and Thorn, who are embracing each other for the first time. Thorn is larger and in back of the image, her head is gently holding Sunny's head close to her neck. She is looking slightly downwards at her daughter with tears of joy in her eyes and a soft smile on her face. She has warm brown eyes with dark sclera. She is tan with dark brown freckles throughout her face and neck. Her horns are dark grey. She has a few scars on the left side of her muzzle and along her neck. She wars a lot of jewelry: a red nasal piercing in the right nostril, two gold eyebrow rings on the left side, two gold clips with one red clip in the middle on the top of her left ear, gold hoop with a dangling orange stone in the left ear, a dark blue scorpion hanging earring in the left ear, and a copper chain with moonstones around her neck. She appears slightly scruffy. Sunny is a bright yellow dragon with a pale yellow belly. She has an orange frill with brighter streaks and some spikes sticking out. Her muzzle fades into a dark brown color. She also has happy tears in her bright green eye with pale sclera and a soft smile on her face. The lighting is very warm and calming. The background is a simple yellow gradient that is brighter in the top left and darker in the bottom right with some yellow spots here and there. /.End ID]

"Oh my little Beetle, I've searched every sand dune in the desert for you"

Probably the best mom in the whole series, well definitely the first arc. My favorite scene in book 5 is when Sunny and Thorn are reunited. It's adorable and it's nice to have a good parent for once. I also really can't figure out how I want SandWings to look. I know big ears for sure. But I can't figure out anything else. I've seen some camel-faced SandWings which are really cool, but I've also seen some with like leopard gecko tails to store water/food. And I've seen some really cool face/horn shapes. I am going to keep reworking them I think. Also, going to keep reworking my Sunny design because she's the dod I draw the least. I know I want a color point Sunny but not exactly how to do that.

#wings of fire #sandwing wof #sunny wof #thorn wof #they are very cute and thorn for sure calls her beetle still #thorn is also one of the best queens #i bet her and moorhen hang out sometimes #thorn also wears a lot of makeup and has like 2-3 tattoos #queen thorn #sandwing hybrid

[amerricanartwork]

Quetzalli on Trafficlights and Birds

Well @toxictoxicities, it has been done! You gave me the chance for me to give my own interpretation on this matter, and I can’t resist chances to add some narrative significance! I decided to make a separate post on it because what I came up with ended up being long (as always with me), and in case anyone else would enjoy these thoughts.

However before I go in with this essay I've put together I have to give a very important note: These thoughts are gonna be primarily based around my personal interpretations and headcanons for Seven Red Suns and No Significant Harassment. I’m generally a person who needs to know exactly what I’m working with to do something well, and as such my ideas about metaphors, symbolism, and greater narrative significance typically depend a lot on me understanding the characters and ship not just in their general dynamic, but various other deeper elements — what their core desires/fears are, what their backstories/histories are, each of their main character traits and why they are that way, then from there what they see in each other and why their relationship benefits each other in-universe, and what other effect(s) the relationship has or could have on the characters in-universe as well as the greater narrative out-of-universe, with the additional optional knowledge of what the main plot of the story they come from is to possibly tie in important moments. Seeing as you probably aren’t going to explain your Trafficlights interpretation completely to this intense of a degree anytime soon (though I’d absolutely enjoy hearing it whenever it comes!), if I’m going to make some metaphors I think the best option is to just use my current character interpretations so I have this background familiarity, especially since I’ve actually been developing these things a whole lot for my own iterator off-the-string happy ending AU!

Also, I want to say to that if some of these idea sound familiar, it’s because I realized I can actually project some of my previous Lilypad ideas onto this Trafficlights portrayal as well. I feel my Suns and Moon are similar enough in their personality traits that many of the same dynamics and significance could reasonably apply. In fact Tox, I’m gonna admit I actually did take some inspiration for my Lilypad portrayal from seeing your particular Trafficlights and drawing my own conclusions about how that dynamic worked, and overall my depiction of Seven Red Suns is largely inspired by your own take on that character, which I found quite unique compared to the rest of the fandom for being the first one I saw to show Suns as being far less imposing and confident internally than they seem in public. So I guess I am once again coming full circle now!

I think this is already more than enough words, but I just felt the need to give those prefaces as context for all of these ideas. With that being said, I hope you like at least some of these!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Option 1: Birds as Freedom

From what I’ve read, a common symbolism for birds is freedom, which to me is easy to see because of their signature flight ability. Flight can be considered the mode of travel with the greatest freedom because it’s not restricted by landmasses (or even planets, if you include space travel), and because flying is literally defying, or “freeing oneself” from gravity, one can easily associate it with weightlessness and thus being carefree and without worries or negativity.

With any off-the-string iterator story, it’s easy to give going off-the-string a positive significance because it’s literally the puppet “freeing itself” from the limited confines of their chamber, and by extent the limits imposed upon them by the Ancients. This is further supported by how some iterators in canon do appear to perceive their cans as a limitation or cage, as evidenced by the broadcast dialogue. In fact, I've heard No Significant Harassment is one of these very iterators, so I imagine he’d absolutely want to go off-the-string so long as he has a good incentive to. 

To relate this back to birds, you could very much use a caged songbird as a metaphor for the iterators; beautiful, brightly-colored creatures “raised” in captivity and trapped in boxes to serve other people, once “singing” out their ideas from within to those people, but now just giving those “songs” to each other. Thus, going off-the-string (perhaps to the Emergence facility in your AU) could be seen as these “birds” finally flying free to be with one another “in the wild”, finally able to fly and live their lives more fully as they were denied for so long. So regardless of any other symbolism, Trafficlights — and any other off-the-string iterator ship by extent — leaving their cans could be seen as them “flying free” together from the restraints forced upon them.

However, I’ve also recently realized another freedom symbolism besides freedom from the Ancients’ restrictions, and that’s freedom from their own. This is something more impactful to my Seven Red Suns, who like Moon, is also someone who hides a lot of his true personality for a more polite, proper, and dignified public persona, shoulders a lot of weight he isn’t always able to handle alone, and puts lots of limits on himself and what he’s “allowed” or “supposed” to do, albeit for entirely different reasons. Now contrast that with Sig, who although he also hides a lot of his true feelings and knows when to dial it down, is someone who is a master at breaking rules and going against convention. In fact, I like to imagine it’s literally in his nature (er, programming) to think outside the box, generating all sorts of different ideas to solve problems that don’t always totally follow outside rules or what’s “typical” for using a certain item. 

When you bring these two together, I imagine Sig could absolutely be the one to encourage Suns to let loose more, letting down his proper and and uptight persona to show more of his emotional side and explore things he didn’t allow himself to before (like I said, this is one of the ideas that works with Trafficlights as well as Lilypad)! It’s as if Suns is a bird too used to living in the cage and afraid to truly fly again, and Sig has to coax him out into embracing that freedom. You could even take this with the idea of iterators not being used to romance, a restriction Suns absolutely puts on himself and even others because he believes a “proper” iterator isn’t supposed to have such deep attachments, of which romantic love could be considered the worst because it’s both breaking Karma 3 of Companionship and can directly lead to Karma 2 of Sexual Intercourse, so it’s essentially a double-risk. But again, Sig is willing to explore these new feelings, and now that they’re off the string and can love each other more physically and directly than ever, what better time could there be for Suns to “spread his wings” and fly alongside him?

Option 2: Birds as Passion/Romance

To me, the second biggest symbolism that birds can have is that of passion and general romantic ideas. Technically all birds could have this association because feathers and wings in general are pretty showy, so spreading one’s wings could just as easily be a gesture of great emotion and expression as it could be preparing to be free. In addition though, whereas the previous point was more related to songbirds, this seems to correlate more with birds of paradise especially, who have the most colorful and varied plumage of the bird kingdom, thus making it easy to say they’re “showing their true colors” without fear. Some birds of paradise, particularly parrots/parakeets/macaws/etc. are very social creatures by nature, so it’s even easier to draw the connection between their vibrant plumage and social behavior with being expressive and outgoing.

As for the romance element, to me it seems birds are commonly used as such symbols already; there’s doves and swans being symbols of love often included in some way at weddings, words like “lovebirds” referring to lovers as well as one of my favorite words, “twitterpated”, which means to be very smitten and infatuated and also has a clear bird-based association and maybe even origin. But then there’s the idea of songbirds singing to each other, which I think is a particularly romantic idea which plays into one of my favorite shipping tropes I call, “answering the call”. So far, I like to describe it as when someone is looking for companionship and romance for a while, either openly or as a subconscious desire, but is eventually found and “answered” by someone willing to love with them. It’s such a romantic idea to me because it often includes so much loneliness and sometimes even tragedy before, making that moment where they finally find someone all the more sweet!

Okay, now to bring this back to Trafficlights. Starting with the first idea, I think it’s easy to associate Sig with these kinds of birds, especially macaws and such, seeing as I imagine he can be just as “colorful” both literally and personality-wise, and cares deeply about his relationships in a similar manner. But even then, like I mentioned before Sig can sometimes feel like he needs to hide those feelings because others don’t fully understand him and he doesn’t want to risk creating tension (although hiding his feelings like that kinda does anyway). 

To resolve this, I’ve decided to use what I imagine Sig would appreciate and value in Suns that would evolve the relationship past friendship to romance, that being that Suns was one of the first people besides Moon who believed that Sig’s ideas and his dedication to his friends could be something more, something better and used for good. My Suns is defined largely by his perfectionism and endless drive to make things the “best” versions of themselves. In my timeline of events he already helped Sig in that way during a pretty important moment, not to mention it’s just really inspiring how much Suns cares about trying to bring about the “best” for everyone. On Sig’s end, this is how they at least developed a friendship, and in this alternative what would cause that appreciation to evolve to romance eventually. In fact, in my headcanon it was the combined efforts of Moon first understanding Sig’s feelings and Suns helping to perfect his role in his group, with both of them working really hard to help him find new belonging with the Local Group, that was what got Sig out of his “rough patch”. Thus, in a way, Suns directly helped Sig make new connections, “spread his wings”, and “find a new flock”, which can easily be the main reason why Sig would fall for Suns.

Now, what about Suns? Relating him to birds and passion also hinges largely on another pretty crucial headcanon about my Seven Red Suns, which is that he is secretly a huge romantic with a passion for the fine arts. In addition to striving for an “ideal” world at all times, he appreciates art and the deeper symbolism within. However, because of what I said earlier about Suns placing a lot of high standards on himself, he doesn’t actually make art of his own, believing it’s “not an iterator’s place” to do such a thing themselves because it’s not in their purpose. But even then, he can’t help himself from seeing things artistically and drawing his own conclusions about things.

That being said, I imagine Suns could have a strong appreciation for birds in particular; their beauty, combined with their flight, makes them seem as though they’ve already “ascended” on some level above other animals. On top of that, I think Suns would come to see Sig as sort of a bird himself! Maybe a big green macaw with the most beautiful plumes who’s also far more intelligent than others think. But even more so, when it comes to what Suns appreciates in Sig that causes him to fall in love, I imagine it’s how Sig is the only person who sees through his facade for who he really is. Everyone else around him seems to either put him on a pedestal, with their own high expectations to follow, or is intimidated by his grandeur into avoiding much direct contact. Again, however, Sig naturally thinks outside the box and challenging people’s ideas, so it’d be pretty easy for him to break down some of Suns’s diplomacy to show that more emotional side (another idea that I use in Lilypad as well). No Significant Harassment is the one person Suns feels like he can be himself around, helping him realize that even those parts of him he hides make him “perfect” by virtue of being his real and unique self. It’s like Suns is a great eagle, looked up to and feared by other birds as a large bird of prey and thus lonely and pressured to soar above all else, and only the surprisingly smart macaw is able to lower his guard, helping him see he’s just as beautiful and inspiring on the ground as he is soaring high in the clouds. 

And then there’s the idea of “answering the call”. I’ve already seen your Trafficlights will probably play out as a slow burn, with Sig and Suns harboring growing feelings for each other for a while but only really acting on it once Emergence kicks in. In this case the dynamic would be mutual, with both of them longing for a deeper connection, but perhaps not realizing it until this timeline. I imagine Sig would be the one more conscious of this desire though, seeing as he openly seeks connection with others, so it’d be as if he’s a lonely songbird wanting to sing out but never getting an answer. And then of course, when Suns finally does respond it’s that much more poetic!

Trafficlights as Rio (spoilers, by the way)

OKAY HEAR ME OUT, I just have to include some words on this because this movie, this freaking movie is not only one of the two that kickstarted my love of birds but is what started this whole Trafficlights-as-birds-symbolism thing for me.

To give some context, if you don’t already know I am someone who not only loves making metaphors and symbolism with my ships, but loves finding associations between them and outside music or stories. I often look for connections to the old Disney animated fairytales, but I really end up doing it to all sorts of animated stories that I believe have pretty universal themes.

That being said, if there’s any association I’d make for Trafficlights as I currently see them, it’s to Blue Sky’s Rio and some of the scenes from that story. Firstly, Blu as a character already somewhat parallels my Suns in that he’s awkward and not the best at interacting with others. Not to mention his inability to fly, which came from him never getting a chance to embrace his emotions before being captured and taken from his home, could be paralleled to Suns’s bottling up his emotions, especially since flight in that film is directly related to feelings of happiness, love, and freedom, so Suns in a way is also “stunted” in his emotions. Meanwhile Sig on the other hand is more like Jewel, someone who at least understands his emotions a lot better and thus “knows how to fly”, and who resists others’ attempts to cage him and tries to get his partner to do the same. Like Blu Suns refuses at first, his logic and desire for a dignified self image getting the best of him being able to let loose in any environment where he isn’t surrounded by close friends. 

Then there’s the freaking “Hot Wings” scene, which takes the most responsibility for this association of mine. Largely because the two side-characters, Nico and Pedro, also seem to carry a dynamic with their lyrics that just reminds me of Suns and Sig, respectively, a lot (honestly I just thought about it on a whim one day and I can’t unsee it now…). Not to mention the entire scene is about pretty birds dancing, which given you’ve also made a decent number of drawings of Trafficlights dancing together, I think is just super fitting. And then Jewel’s singing once again brings back this idea of freedom and showing one’s emotions and love, with the remaining question being whether or not Blu can eventually unlock this feeling inside him despite his fears and fly up with her. This is something I think could work with Trafficlights, at least how I see them, for even if Suns can be more emotional around Sig and maybe his friends, he still has trouble doing so in public, not always liking the pressure of being “perfect” but not wanting to risk looking like a fool around everyone who looks up to him.

It works even better with one of the later scenes in the film when Blu and Jewel finally manage to cut the chain keeping them together, which causes Jewel to immediately lift into the sky with the pure joy and euphoria of once again being free to fly as she pleases. However, Blu is left looking up at her as she flies with their friends, and you can tell he’s both realizing again just how beautiful she is and longing so much to join her in the sky, yet still unable to fly. Once again I can’t help seeing Suns in Blu’s place, looking at Sig having fun and being so carefree, loving the feeling of being off-the-string, and him thinking Sig so beautiful and wanting to join him too. And eventually, just like Blu does in a true “answering the call fashion”, he is able to “spread his wings” and they finally can fly away together!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Okay, I think that’s all I have to say for now on this topic. This essay, excluding the preface at the beginning, is 2498 words! I think that might be a little bit more than my Lilypad essay! I really hope it delivered!

But even then, this was so fun to do! Even though Trafficlights isn’t my main ship and isn’t going to happen in my own AU, I’ve recently been looking to better figure out Sig and Suns’s relationship anyway to understand why they’re at least friends with each other. Of course there are some other factors in their relationship, some of which I’ve edited out for the sake of these ideas because it throws a bit of tension in the dynamic that could compromise its ability to work as a ship, but this was still an important aspect and I’m glad to have gotten a chance to develop it! And then of course, a reason to think about ships as well as shamelessly plug one of my favorite movies ever is also very nice!

This may all sound super silly and maybe none of it works with your Emergence Trafficlights, but regardless this was seriously such a fun opportunity, and I’m glad you gave me a reason to do this! I would love to hear your thoughts on or additions to all this, if you can!

#others: toxictoxicities #art #artwork #sketch #drawing #digital #digital art #fanart #rain world #shipping #rw shipping #iterator #rw iterator #no significant harassment #NSH #rw nsh #seven red suns #SRS #rw srs #trafficlights #rw trafficlights #quetzalli draws #quetzalli headcanons #quetzalli's thoughts

[polariae]

Hi my loves!

So I would like to inform u of some problems about the fanfic Savior i am Co working on and the truth on how my Fanfic Ideas of my OC Izumi x Geto got taken advantage of. And how the tragectory of everything went on. From the start to the reason why I wanted her to stop/delete my FF.

As u know I have had my OC Izumi for some years now as a staple in my artworks and I got so much love and curiosity from yall to know more about her. I ofc had a whole backstory in my mind already fleshed out from the start for Izumi, since i just love to make up stories and backgrounds for OC characters. Its just something that comes naturally and all my maladapive daydream girlies will know exactly what im talkin about 😂 and after so many DMs about wanting to know more about her i was like, a fanfic would be amazing to do!

The problem was, English is not my first or second language and I just didnt had the means to bring my thoughts rightly to paper. I also am really invested in drawing here and that takes up all my freetime already. So i had no time or skills to make this FF work.

Thats how I came across a tumblr user who had open a requests on her page so I dmed her. I liked her other work she made with Geto (even tho it was kinda brutal) i liked her writing style a lot. So I asked her if she would like to write this story with me. We agreed that I would give her my ideas and she would write it. I saw her as a friend and trusted her.

But soon she wanted to add and change things up, she said that thats how it is with co writing and thats just how its gonna be. I was okay with that at first, since the changes were sometimes beneficial and it was fun to brainstorm with her. It was clear that this was my vision and any changes had to get through me. We both agreed on that but I was naïve and let myself get talked into things. I just wanted her to keep writing and was dependent for her collaboration.

For anyone who read the FF: The character Kai was never planned by me, it was a character she wanted to have in it, hes someone who abused Izumi in her captivity. He was like the prisonguard of her. I was like okay fine u can add him but i said from the beginning that I do not want him to touch Izumi in a sexual way.

I shouldve known immediately that things will go south as the writer said she wanted to add sexual abuse in it.

I was very reluctant but I sensed how she spoke that she wouldnt wanna write further so I agreed in just very mild things, which already were awful enough but i tried to make the best out of her wishes. Since she was insisting. And i hoped that if id agree to this mild things that that would be it and hopefully not picked up further in the story and at last forgotten by the readers.

My only thing i always said was: I dont want to have any of this abuse to interfere with Izumis and Getos relationship. That was a big thing since I wanted them to have a romantic and loving relationship further on. The NSFW scenes were planned to be sweet, and sensual especially cuz Geto wouldve been all Izumi knew sexually and her first (and Geto is just peak hotness and perfect for that) Izumi should enjoy her firsts with Geto fully.

Going on she started to change more things.. and it got further and further away from how Izumi and all was. She started to change Izumi and her personality. Shes so far off of what I pictured her to be and what was discussed. But that wasnt the worst thing.

Then the writer just started to take things to new levels, Izumi having to be forced to suck Kai off for food, Kai fingering her to her orgasm against her will etc.

Pls know that she just posted the chapters without informing me, so i always tried to talk her into removing these scenes but to no avail.

Boiling point was now the latest chapters cuz she made Izumi have panic attack and flashbacks. Worst, she made her having one as Geto and Izumi tried to take things further in the bedroom. She made Izumi think of Kai and her sexual abuse. Tormenting Izumi with memories of Kai sexually abusing her when Geto was touching her. Its awful.

And that was what made me just so so sad. Cuz Kai wasnt even supposed to be in the story at all. And now exactly what I didnt wanted happened. At this point i wasnt even invested anymore in the story cuz it just wasnt enjoyable to read about all this mess. Izumi was snappy, her personality is weird and unpleasant and it was just such a weird vibe between Geto and Izumi. The writer always talked her way out by saying thats just how trauma works ect. Without acknowledging my wishes and my OC Izumi. Izumi and Geto just were soo weird together and after this all their whole dynamic was not there anymore. It wasnt loving, it wasnt sweet.

And i would like to add that im a sucker for Angst. Like im not someone who reads fluff. But this was even for me not even Angst anymore, it was just uncomfortable.

Like it was the drop that made it overfloat. What made me not wanting to be associated with it anymore. She wrote on many Autors Notes especially the recent ones, that she does not have the drive to write more on the FF. That she healfheartly literally ended the FF today in 3 chapters. This fanfic just has nothing to do with what I imagined anymore and im sad that i gave away all my ideas away to her tbh. If i had known I wouldve never asked her to write my ideas out. It also became her most read Fanfic. We discussed sooo many cool ideas and scenes for this fanfic till the end chapters like i just dont understand why she just insists in having this sexual abuse in it and tormenting Izumi. And also drag it over so many chapters. So many of you DMed me and said hoe uncomfortable it made u feel reading the latest chapters and how the storyline just didnt seem the same anymore. Which was as u see now absolutely true.

I asked her many times on why she insists on having sexual abuse in it so much? But shes never gave me an answer, no she tries to turn in on me saying "u agreed to it". Which as I discussed with u above was not what happened AT ALL. She says she cant remove it anymore, wether the scenes or Izumis mental torment and trauma. But she COULD.

ITS A FANFIC. U can always make it work.

Its also funny how she tries to say "im doing it for free" to hint that she can do whatever she wants. In that case i just have to say; i also gave all my ideas for free like? Its insane how this is even a conversation.

The gaslighting she is doing in the chat is hard to manage and Im srsly so sad and also annoyed that this had to happen.

I wont engage in this with her more cuz I have to keep my mental health in tact.

You saw how she is turning things around, how she manipulates and changes the context of conversations. I remember vividly how the first times she laughed at how emotionally invested i was in my story and belitteling me. I created Izumi nearly 4 years ago while I was batteling severe anxiety while i was homebound. How she always blackmailed me in saying "ur not paying me so I can do whatever I want" and when I then gave her some payed content for free she is now changing the narrative as if she never asked for money. I was the one who thought we would do this for fun and was always hurt when she talked about this tid for tad mentality.

I tried to build a friendship and let things that she said pass during our "friendship" out of good faith. I was hurt how she treated me and dismissed me and my character requirements and how now that I was the one saying I dont see her as a friend anymore she turns it around to make it seem im the "mean" one for now standing up for myself. I am still shook about this disingenious behavior. I never sent hate to her even tho she tries with all her power to say so. I even insisted to keep things kind and graceful. And after she shit on me and I saw that she wouldnt budge, I stood up for myself. Also; Calling me a bitch and telling me to fuck off is no "quirky" way to talk to people as seen below. Especially in this context.

Shes now deleting every comment that doesnt benefit her on the comment sections. Im not surprised. So be it.

Tbh I do not care anymore. I just made story posts but since she showed the DMs I wanted to post the truth for u to read here as well. Iwont let this negativity from her linger any longer and give her any platform.

As I said in the DM i rather had kept this private but I had to share the truth in this matter since she spread misinformation. You deserve to know how things really went behind the scenes. And im sick and tired that my kindness is always taken advantage of.

I had to speak up for myself, my Ideas and my OC. Thank u for all that messaged me and having my back! Everyone of u sent nothing but love and support my way my heart was bursting out of greatfulness.

I LOVE YOU.

If you've read so far im so so grateful for ur time. And in due time I will tell the real story of Izumi and Geto in a FF worthy of their love.

Latesr DMs she also posted but here with context.

#notice #geto fanfic

[wherethefireliliesgrow]

Moonlight Sunrise (Part 2)

Minatozaki Sana x reader

Part 1

GENRE: angst, fluff, non-idol

TYPE: Short fic

You could feel the warmth emanating through the wooden doors of the hub, followed by muffled roars of laughter and conversation.

Momo had invited you for a drink in the local pub the night before the start of the event. You had spent the day training and preparing yourself, and you also did some shopping, buying food to pack for the event as it may last up to several weeks, depending on whether any contenders are alive.

Taking a deep breath to brace yourself, you pushed open the door and walked in.

The chatter died down immediately the moment you stepped in, with all of the men looking at you menacingly and with a hint of fear. War heroes, knights, and even thieves were there, all wanting a piece of the treasure. They had nothing in common in terms of background, only one thing—they saw you as their biggest threat.

"Y/N!" A familiar voice called from the back of the pub, Momo. "Over here."

You slowly made your way towards her, hands deep in the pockets of your coat. Some of the people stood up as you passed them, afraid yet trying their best to show their dominance.

You heard one of the groups of people make a move to draw out their weapons as soon as your back was turned, and you swiftly drew out your poison-soaked dagger. Skillfully dodging his swing, you silently and swiftly had your dagger at his throat.

The crowd fell silent, tension thick in the air, as beads of sweat formed on the scarred man's brow.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He cried out, craning his head to look at his leader for help.

His leader, a blurry hard-faced man, simply looked away and sat down.

"Now now, Y/N," Momo sighed, getting up from her seat and tugging you to release the man. "Let's not kill anyone before the competition."

Reluctantly, you relented, allowing the man to stumble backward and collapse onto the wooden floor.

"But feel free to hunt as many down in the labyrinth," Momo mused with a mischievous glint in her eyes, laughing when she saw the rest of the people shuffle uneasily.

The crowd cleared within seconds, leaving the bar now half empty.

"What a way to clear the crowd, I'm impressed," a soft voice called from the table Momo was originally sitting at, and you looked over to find another of your past colleagues and close friend of your sister, Minjeong.

Minjeong trained with you, your sister Yeji, and Momo at the same academy, spending most of your childhood together under the same master. She was skilled in poison and herbs, choosing to leave the academy as soon as she turned 16 to set off on a journey to learn more in this area. You hadn't seen her since.

You did, however, hear stories about her once in a while—how she turned into a master of poison and started her own academy at the young age of 21. Most of the weapons infused with poison, like the very one you had, were developed by her. Her name was now Winter, possessing a beauty as captivating and alluring as the first snowfall of the season. Her features were delicate yet sharp, like the frost that kissed the landscape with its icy touch. But beneath her stunning exterior lay a darkness, a chill that could freeze the hearts of those who crossed her path. As all of the people who had unfortunately come in contact with her dangerously poisonous infused blade, only managed to utter "cold as winter" before they hit the ground dead.

Contrary to what you had heard about her through these past few years, the tall girl was here, smiling goofily, grabbing you into a familiarly tight hug.

"I missed you, Y/N unnie."

You returned the gesture affectionately, feeling a surge of nostalgia. Minjeong had always been like a younger sister to you, a role she embraced wholeheartedly during your time at the academy.

"You've grown tall, baby rabbit." 

She let out a laugh and dragged you and Momo to sit down with her. "That's exactly what Momo unnie told me when she saw me."

Momo simply glared at her with her arms crossed in front of her.

You let out a sigh. This was the face she made whenever someone was about to do something stupid.

"What are you doing here, Minjeongie?"

"Same reason as you. I'm going into the labyrinth."

"No," you said simply, shaking your head, with Momo nodding in agreement. "That's too dangerous."

"Whyyy," Minjeong whined, her tone childlike despite her lethal reputation, "I'm fully capable."

"We know you are, Min. It's just that it's too much of a risk. No one knows what's in the labyrinth," Momo tried to appease the younger girl. "Besides, what could you possibly want from the labyrinth? Money? We can provide that, just tell us how much you need."

The younger girl pouted. Seeing this menacing girl acting so childish must have been bizarre for the people she hunted down.

"I have money. I just really need this material that's rumored to be in the labyrinth," she paused, before quietly muttering, "the ashes of voidlings."

"Absolutely not," Momo hissed, "are you out of your mind?"

Minjeong looked at you pleadingly. She knew you were always the one to relent and fall for her maknae charms.

"If Y/N unnie is with me, it will be safe."

You sighed, shaking your head. "Not this time. Voidlings are not creatures you can kill. Even Master Kim said to flee when we encounter one."

Voidlings originated from dark witchcraft, when a spellbounder cast the darkest, most evil curse on a deceased, turning them into beings of the dark, preying on fear and weakness. These beings were created only if the deceased was filled with enough anger and hatred, making them powerful and nearly unbeatable. There has been no sure way to defeat these creatures. Nearly every person who encountered them died on the spot, let alone survived long enough to defeat them and gather their ashes.

Desperate, Minjeong blurted out the reason she swore to keep secret. "It's for Yeji."

"What?" You paused, putting down your mug and looking at the young girl.

"What about Yeji?" Momo asked, completely out of the loop. You hadn't told her the reason why you were here.

"Yeji wrote me a letter a few weeks ago, asking me for help. She wanted me to accompany Y/N unnie into the labyrinth, saying it was too dangerous for anyone to go alone. She told me you were going for her, and that was when she told me about her illness."

"She's sick? Wha-when? How?" Momo furrowed her brows in concern. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"She's been sick for two years now, and it's getting worse," you lowered your eyes, staring at the droplets that formed on the outside of your mug. "She was poisoned by one of the unknown beings in the far eastern territory, and no one has a way to cure her. That's why I was hoping to find the Luminite stone—you get one wish, right? Maybe this would work."

"My students and I have been trying to figure out a counterpoison for that, and I need the ashes of voidlings," Minjeong patted your hand in comfort, "If the stone doesn’t work, we can try for this."

The three of you sat in silence, each one lost in your thoughts, weighed down by the news like thick clouds pressing down. With every passing moment, the heaviness in the air grew, filling the room with uncertainty and a sense of foreboding that stretched into the late hours of the night. It was as if the very atmosphere held its breath, anticipating some ominous revelation lurking just beyond reach.

After much contemplation and discussion, you and Minjeong came to an agreement, despite Momo's disagreement. If you failed to find the stone within a week, Minjeong would enter the labyrinth and help you find and defeat a voidling. None of you were happy this decision, but this was the only way to save Yeji.

"It's late, you have a big day tomorrow," Momo yawned, rubbing her eyes. Minjeong was already fast asleep with her head drooped over the table.

"Yeah, I have one more stop to make," you said rising out of your seat, "Can you let me into the castle?"

"You know I can't do that, Y/N," Momo sighed before lifting the sleeping girl in her arms.

"Please. There's someone I need to say thank you to."

"Fine," the head of security relented. "Minjeong is crashing at my place anyway."

The three of you slowly made your way down the empty pebbled roads, the moonlight guiding the way, just like old times when you would leave training and head back to the dorms together. However, this time, there was a noticeable absence – Yeji.

"By the way, what's Princess Sana's favorite food?" 

"What the fuck, Y/N? Be quiet or we're going to get caught." 

"Please?" 

"Fine. Apples I think. Anything apple flavored."  

"Nice." 

"Shut up." 

.

.

.

.

Pushing open the familiar run-down wooden door, you found the space in front of the labyrinth deserted, as expected. You had a feeling the princess didn't want to be seen, especially after giving you that fake name.

Silently, you walked towards the metal bars and peered into the dark misty abyss again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blonde girl. Instead, you saw only eerie shadows that seemed too haunting to be her. You definitely didn't want to come in contact with any of those beings.

Deciding to call it a night, you reached into your knapsack and pulled out a bottle of apple cider along with some small cakes bought at the market earlier that day. Placing them on the bench where you had sat together the day before, you wanted to thank the princess for her compass, even if you weren't sure if it was real or not.

Before you could make your way back, a familiar soft voice cut through the whooshing sounds emanating from the black clouds within the labyrinth.

"Hwang."

Turning, you found Luna sitting on top of the towering metal bars, swinging her barefoot legs casually.

"Hey."

She jumped down from the metal wall, landing gently with a thud.

"Couldn’t resist visiting me, huh?" She chuckled, eyeing the items on the bench. "Ooooo apple cider!"

She eagerly tore open the bottle and took a swig, resembling a little kid on Christmas morning. You couldn’t help but soften at her endearing behavior.

"It's just to thank you for giving me the compass."

"How do you know if I'm not fooling you?" She turned to look at you, a piece of cake still in her mouth.

"I don't," you said honestly, "but I'm willing to take that risk."

"For an assassin, you're oddly trusting," Luna mused, before splitting one of the cakes and passing it to you.

"How did you-"

"I hear your name once in a while in the labyrinth, Hwang." Luna giggled at your bewilderment, before lowering her voice as if she was an announcer. "The greatest assassin of the century, Hwang Y/N, the NightWalker. Some of the competitors talked about you, 'What would the NightWalker do in this situation?', 'Oh no, I'm cornered, if only I could walk on water like the NightWalker.'"

Your face flushed with embarrassment as she teased you, her laughter echoing through the empty space.

"Shut up," you nudged her with your shoulder.

She no longer felt like a monster; she felt like the cheerful princess people always talked about in their stories.

Luna put her fingers to her mouth, trying to stifle her giggles.

"Besides, it's a win-win situation if I get the stone," you shrugged, biting into the cake, the sweet-savory invading your taste buds.

"How so?"

"You're Princess Sana, aren't you?" You laughed at her surprised expression. "It says on the compass. If I win, I promise you'll be able to see the sunlight whenever you want. I have no interest in locking you by my side."

Instantly, the carefree girl in front of you shifted to the defensive half-human being. Sana's eyes glowed red once again, and you felt your body constrict, as if a rope was squeezing you tightly. She was looking for any lies behind your eyes. She found none.

"Sorry," she muttered, releasing you from her stare. You simply waved her off.

"I can't see the sunrise either way. I'm bound to the stone," she murmured softly, her delicate features cast in a faint glow from the moonlight.

As she spoke, her shoulders hunched slightly, a subtle gesture that spoke volumes of the weight she carried. Your heart couldn’t help but flutter in sympathy for the beautiful being before you, her words tinged with a hint of melancholy.

"The moonlight will be the only light I see for the rest of my life."

"I'll figure out a way. I always do," you promised.

Sana looked up to meet your eyes, her own remaining human and soft this time. In that moment, her gaze held a sense of vulnerability. You found yourself momentarily lost in her soft honey hues, the warmth of her gaze enveloping you. A faint blush tinged her cheeks as she met your stare, a silent acknowledgment of the connection between you.

"You're an odd one, NightWalker."

"As are you, Princess." you replied, unable to resist a teasing tone.

"Don't call me that," she muttered, trying to hide her smile, but her eyes betrayed her amusement.

You spent another hour or two talking to Sana, enjoying her company and the lighthearted banter that momentarily lifted the weight from your shoulders.

"It's almost sunrise. I have to go," Sana announced, stretching as she rose to her feet. "You should get some rest too, Y/N."

You nodded, following suit and standing up.

The princess grinned and extended her hand in a handshake. "Partners?"

"Partners," you agreed, shaking her hand firmly. Her touch sent a shiver down your spine, despite the warmth of the night.

Satisfied, with a hint of pink on her cheeks, Sana turned to make her way back towards the labyrinth, her figure gradually disappearing into the darkness.

"You better bring me some more of those cakes, Hwang," she called back before vanishing completely.

"Aye-aye, Princess," you replied, unable to resist one last teasing remark.

"Don't call me that!" she retorted with a laugh, her voice echoing faintly in the night.

Previous Chapter

Cute filler chapter this time 😉

#gxg #kpop fanfic #kpop imagines #wlw #twice x reader #twice fic #kpop fic #wherethefireliliesgrow #itzy #twice #sana #twice sana #sana x reader #minatozaki sana #minatozaki sana x reader #sana imagines #fem reader #aespa winter #aespa

[giorno-plays-piano]

Metamorph

Part I

Pairing: art teacher!Aemond Targaryen x reader (Horror AU)

Warnings: dark!Aemond, obsessive behavior, murder, horror, yandere, kidnapping, misanthropy, general creepy stuff.

Words: 1.5k

Summary: Drawn to the artworks of one of the most esteemed artists in the city, you wish to learn from him and find out what inspires him to create his masterpieces. You have no idea how much his secrets will cost you.

P.S. Unhinged Aemond, my dear Ewan nation! No physical harm done to the heroine, though.

___________

"Are you ready?" He asks you calmly, but you can see his impatience, the way he restlessly looks at you and back at the door leading to one of the smaller studios he always keeps locked at all times. Aemond can't wait to show you something, some other paintings of his he prefers to hide from others, and you feel both intrigued and disturbed by what you will find.

He is a genius, no doubt. One of the best artists of the century, the critics say, and while your city literally consists of art studios and galleries, people speak of Aemond Targaryen with a weird reverence, and his name is constantly on the ear.

His drawings caught your attention the moment you saw them online, mindlessly looking through your feed. It was hard to explain what exactly made you stop and look at them - even after months of attending his course you still couldn't quite put your finger on it - but you saved the pictures, printed them out, and then was staring at them hanging from the wall for days like you had been hypnotized. The ones you stumbled upon first depicted all sorts of buildings, always only in black and white, overgrown with... something. Flowers, vines, some greenery that looked like flesh and bones, painted in vivid red, of course. It was sort of scary... but also sort of not. It was a work of art, not some background picture from a cheap horror movie. The architecture he chose, they way he drew it as if he was recording his own perception onto the paper, each stroke written with his style, perhaps his very soul embedded in it... It was impossible to describe it with words. One had to see it to understand.

So, you had visited a gallery where his works had been exhibited, and since then you were fully supportive of city's infatuation with Aemond Targaryen. There was no way you could stay indifferent to his art, especially considering your own desperate attempts to get better at drawing.

How could he be so expressive while mostly using just black, white and red paint? Most of the time, he wasn't even painting but drawing, making sketches, that sort of thing. And yet you were obsessively saving and printing all of his artworks you were able to spot online. Some you hang on the walls of your apartment, some - the ones that made you held your breath - you kept in a drawer like you were a dragon guarding your treasure chest. One time when your mom accidentally spotted them you literally wanted to fall through the floor. It was... too intimate for sharing with anyone. Despite the paintings and drawings showcased openly in the galleries for everyone to see, they felt like they were your great secret, your own hoard, too precious to even talk about it, less let people see printed artworks you kept hidden in the bottom drawer of your cabinet.

Who was he, the man who brought these breathtaking paintings to life, you had often wondered. How had he done it? How did he make the red paint so vivid, so expressive and yet not vulgar? How could he lay strokes with such precision, but not the same way most artists did? How did he build his compositions that they felt real and surreal at the same time? What sort of magic was that? Everyone around joked he must have sold his soul to the Devil.

When you saw Aemond for the first time, you thought the same thing because he scared the Hell out of you. First, he wore an eyepatch and had a long, ugly scar crossing half of his face. An incident from his childhood, someone whispered to you. Someone had stabbed him in the eye.

This felt disturbing and surreal, too. Stabbed a child in the eye? What the Hell? Wasn't he from some wealthy, upper-class sort of family?

Perhaps, it was one of the reasons why Aemond seemed so sullen and chilly, his only presence making the temperature in the room drop a couple degrees. Despite his obvious attractiveness, it felt like he was an alligator waiting in front of a crowd of stupid bunnies who came to admire his teeth. Didn't help he was dressed in all black, and both his skin and hair were alarmingly white like he wasn't really a human being.

A stupid suggestion, really.

He'd been through some serious shit, someone kept murmuring you in the ear as you stared at the artist, open-mouthed and frozen in place. His dad was really wealthy, but rumors had it he didn't really care about him or his siblings, and his mother was constantly on antidepressants. Then the incident with the eye-stabbing happened, but it was still shrouded in mystery even with journalists trying to dig up the truth for years. After he grew up, Aemond went to study business and started working under his grandfather. Rumours had it he made some crazy money but started hating his life, ended up having serious issues with drinking, and at one point, he suddenly left everything and disappeared.

Whatever happened then was a mystery, too, and the artists never spoke about it in any of his interviews expect for saying that drawing has saved him. Although nothing suggests he is a former alcoholic and had once been homeless thanks to the immaculate way he dresses, you thought there was something in his face that made you wonder if he actually got better. Aemond seemed... very hostile.

But he'a an artist, too, and you've found all of them weird in one way or the other.

Of course, despite the fact that you've been drawing for years, you've never thought yourself an artist. No, no, you just enjoy it as a hobby, and you're nowhere near people like Aemond Targaryen.

But when you heard he opened a drawing course for the general public, you were so frantic about getting in you swore to yourself, regardless how much it costs, you would get in. Even if you wouldn't be eating for the next few years.

Seriously, it was Aemond freaking Targaryen you were talking about. A literal King! He had been the talk of a month even in the capital thanks to his recent dragon paintings collection that was sold in an auction for a ridiculous sum of money. So what if he's scary and had this chilling-to-the-bone stare? Most successful people you knew seemed at least a little frightening. Besides, if anything, you could just drop out of class.

But if you were brave enough to apply, you could have a chance to actually see him at work.

How did his studio look? What sort of routine did he have? What kind of paint and pencils did he use? How had he gotten that amazing crimson color you were trying to replicate for months without any success? What did he use for inspiration?

Clearly, you just couldn't let this opportunity slip away. You had to try to get in.

Surprisingly, the course wasn't even that expensive, sold at nearly the same price as most other art courses as if Aemond was just like any other artist in the city. The problem laid in his way of choosing the students: he requested to see the artworks of applicants to determine whether he'd take them or not.

It nearly put a stop to the whole thing because you were terrified of him seeing your drawings. What would he think about an amateur like you? How could you even dream about coming to him instead of improving your technique first with some other, way less known artists? He was Aemond Targaryen, for God's sake.

But you knew he might never take other students again. He might even move to the capital that would give him much more than your city ever could. What if he just disappeared? It could have been your only chance to see him work.

When he accepted you along with 9 other students out of more than two hundred participants, you thought you were dreaming. How? Why would he? You were far from professional. Goodness, you weren't even planning on becoming a true artist, and it felt like you were cheating on people who did. So, how could he take you, knowing that?

Not that you were going to drop out before the start of the course. Over your dead body. You literally spent the entire week shopping for new materials even though you knew he would give you suggestions later. But how could you show him your pencils and brushes that looked like your dog chewed, ate, and then threw them back up? You'd rather jump from the roof.

___________

Alas, on the first day of the course, you stood there among other students, holding your breath as you watched the door of the studio open. Aemond Targaryen was going to teach you his art.

Part II

Tags: @heavenly1927 @yazzzmints @devils-blackrose @lost-and-founds @kennafild

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond #aemond x reader #ewan nation #hotd #house of the dragon #the house of the dragon #yandere

[fun-k-board]

Hi, may I request a headcanons of The Brotherhood(Quicksilver, Blob and Toad) whose crush is gn reader? How would they act?

The Brotherhood (X-Men: Evolution) X gender neutral crush

Note(s) : Sorry it took so long, I was struggling to figure out how to write for them (⁠*⁠・⁠～⁠・⁠*⁠) I think I got it right though?

Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver

'Hey! Over here, nooo, not there, silly! Here!'

Oh he's so annoying (affectionate)

Pietro's main goal is to make you think about him wherever you are, that means bugging you constantly.

Assuming you're in the same school, he's constantly switching out your homework with blank pieces of paper, drawing messages in your books, speeding over to poke you in class knowing you can't do anything about it, etc.

It only gets worse if you're an X-Man.

During missions if you're against each other he's constantly going after you, it's gotten him in trouble with Mystique more times than he can count because he refuses to acknowledge the main purpose of the mission, instead, he only wants to annoy you.

Sometimes it's just pushing you over then zooming away, other times he constantly taunts you while running so fast you can't catch him or tell where he's going next, whatever it is, he makes sure it's enough of a bother that you start to get frustrated.

If you're in the brotherhood he can at least get missions done but you know he's bothering you the entire time, you basically end up doing all the work.

Is he flirty? Absolutely.

Expect his arm around your shoulders or waist while he talks on and on so fast you can't even catch what he's saying, but when he does slow down he's all 'You're the only one for me.' 'I love your shirt, is it new?' 'Your eyes are so beautiful, I could stare at them for hours.'

Lance and Todd are throwing up in the background.

Wanda wants to punch her brother into a separate dimension.

Fred's just chilling.

Think of him like Lance with Kitty but more focused on teasing you rather than being completely smitten, don't get him wrong, he loves you and he'd probably even make you a sandwich if you asked, but he'll be an asshole about it.

'Oh, come on, that's so much effort! Can't you just do it yourself?' but before you can answer he zooms off to do what you asked of him. 'here, I guess.' he huffs, a grin on his face as he hands you the item you requested.

Frederick J. Dukes / The Blob

'Do I have to stay with them..?'

Fred is under the assumption that it's impossible for you to like him back after what happened with Jean, of course he was pushy and unfair with her, but she also rejected him and all of the X-Men despise him. So, he doesn't exactly have many options when it comes to friendship, let alone dating, besides the Brotherhood.

Then comes you.

Whether you're an X-Man, member of the Brotherhood, Morlock, perhaps just a fellow mutant, or a human, student at school, he'll truly never believe that he has a chance.

While before he was fairly obsessive and pushy with his crushes, with you he's silent and very awkward, even if you're nice to him he expects backlash if he ever confesses.

If you're a member of the brotherhood his awkwardness is slightly less explainable and far more noticeable, you're his teammate, you spend almost all day together, yet he can hardly look at you and loudly complains when he's paired with you or left alone with you. It probably makes you feel like he hates you.

He's very embarrassed if you confront him about it.

Awkward, he stumbles over his words and is breathing a little heavy as he does so, trying his best to explain that he doesn't hate you, he's just. Well. You see.

It's a similar situation if you attend his school, human or mutant, he's very sweet to you and tends to avoid messing with you. Fred usually quiets down when you get near, almost shutting down in a way. The others tease him for it all the time.

He'll most likely try to avoid you, maybe Lance, Pietro and Todd will push him to interact with you just to 'stop him from bugging them about it', they totally just want to help him out, and it ends with him always running away in embarrassment or assuming, if you're quiet or not that reactive, that you hate him.

If you're paired in a school project, Fred will absolutely just skip school, he doesn't care, he skips class regularly anyway, no Pietro, it's not to avoid you, he's just too cool for class.

If you're an X-Man, it's very different.

Fred is under the assumption you both share a mutual hate for each other, you're enemies after all! The tightness in his chest that he's feeling is totally just violent urges, that's it, that's all, it's not the want to hold your hand, hold you, tell jokes and make you laugh, no, no, that's not it at all!

He tends to target you to try and avoid his feelings quicker, he hates hurting you, but throwing you away from him, physically, makes sure he won't get distracted by you.

Fred ends up crying in his room when he goes home because he's afraid he hurt you.

Heck, even the other members of the brotherhood just want him to get with you already. Lance is especially eager because he won't be the only one being made fun of for dating an X-Man.

Eventually it does spill somehow and I'd imagine he would try to run away from you, maybe you catch up or explain to him later on, whichever one, he'll get very happy when you confirm you share feelings for him. He practically fixates on you so hard that you're the only thing he talks about.

Todd Tolansky / Toad

'Hey, how it's goin', beautiful?'

He proceeds to fall down on his face.

Todd is a bit of a creep, constantly following you around and showing off his nonexistent muscles, telling the most unfunny jokes and pulling pranks on people in an attempt to impress you.

He doesn't smell nice, he's been told this his entire life, that he's slimy, disgusting, every insulting name under the sun. As such, he decides to at least try and take a shower more often for you, to make you less likely to avoid him, of course!

Todd has a big grin on his face every time he talks to you, bouncing off his feet like he's just won the lottery. He's also very, very flirty, just not that good at flirting.

His pick up lines are very 'the immediate Google search results for pick up lines.' type of cheesy, very stereotypical and eye rolling.

If you're an X-Man, member of the Brotherhood, human, mutant, etc, it doesn't matter much to him, he treats you the exact same. The only real difference is how much time he spends around you.

In the brotherhood he does try to avoid flirting in front of the guys to avoid embarrassment or teasing, but surprisingly he does ask for a lot of advice regularly. It usually never goes well, Lance and Pietro tend to just give very wrong or confusing tips and Fred doesn't really have any to give in the first place.

If you're an X-Man he tries to impress you by fighting your teammates, usually he loses, but sometimes he does win! He'll pose and ask if he's just the coolest guy or what. Todd doesn't like fighting you but he will, because unfortunately Mystique is absolutely terrifying and he doesn't want to face her wrath.

In school he likes to ask for your help, constantly bugging you about how he just desperately needs your assistance to study for this test coming up, which to be fair he does. But, if you agree to help him, he doesn't actually try. He just flirts with you the entire time.

His crush is obvious, incredibly so, even the most clueless of individuals would know he loves you because he says it directly every single day. He doesn't exactly need to 'confess' per say, all you really need to do is accept his flirting or flirt back, maybe ask him out yourself.

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