#<- new tag for posts I wrote

[wait-this-isnt-my-homework]

Being a queer PhD student in STEM in the USA right now is like "the president wants to stop funding for DEI programs, I sure hope that doesn't eventually lead to me losing my job. Oh wait, it's only for people who are employed by the federal government, so I'll still have my job and will be able to get my degree. Oh wait, I work in a public university with grants that largely come from the federal government. Shit."

And 2 seconds later I have to be like "I don't have time to worry about that now. I need to figure out how to interpret this file that visualizes acceptor electron orbitals by energy level in this wide bandgap semiconductor with non-native doping and defect complexes before my meeting on Friday. And I have a test in my Photon Interactions class coming up next week."

Meanwhile my peers are re-writing their NSF grant proposals for the DOE and DOD because now they're blacklisting anything with the word "barrier" in it, even though electron barriers are (unsurprisingly) not at all DEI-related.

[gluttonous--beast]

kinda.... sleeper build hiccup?

[salt-bun]

doodles, wips and unfinished things from October 2024 up until yesterday? I just wanted to post something because it's been a long time since I posted anything and realized that I didn't finish much or post anything in months!

[sforzesco]

it's time for spartacus :)

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[al-luviec]

notes app kizaki ... i like him

[sonnshine441]

No offense but why u fw waycest like genuinely what do u tell yourself that makes u think its justified to ship two people who are related by blood

This is judgey but also I do really want to understand how your mind works

Well, to be honest, I ship waycest because they're my top two favorite of the band members. In all fandoms I'm in, most of the time I ship my two favs together. And I ship all of the mcr members together.

I also got introduced to mcr through waycest fanart, not that I knew they were related at the time, of course. I was like "Waow these ocs look cool."

But the biggest part of it, I suppose, is that I don't really get how sibling incest, especially between people who can't make kids together, is that big of a deal. Maybe that's just me being an only child showing, but I just don't get it? Like the power dynamics between a parent and a child make it realistically impossible to have a consensual relationship, but those power dynamics don't really show up in this scenario, especially considering them as adults.

Boss/employee relationships aren't seen by the majority of people as bad in fiction, even though if the employee wanted to break up, they could risk getting fired for "unrelated" reasons. Imo that's a much larger power dynamic than between two siblings. And yet no one deems those problematic, even though irl, you're often banned from dating in the workplace unless you were beforehand (though this seems to be mostly an american practice)

Also Waycest shippers haven't called me a slur and told me to kill myself.

TLDR: I'm an only child and I don't understand why it's such a big deal because Mikey and Gerard are both adults who can't get eachother pregnant. I don't feel the need to justify it to myself, I just ship it because I like it.

[jankwritten]

worth fighting for

link (valgrace, t, 1k)

“You’re my prince charming,” Jason says, mostly under his breath so he doesn’t interrupt Leo’s monologue about how Mulan made him want to ride fireworks when he was eleven. Leo hears him, anyway, and freezes. (Jason’s proud that, at least, Leo’s trained himself out of flight.)

inspired by art by @pthalomars

[abirddogmoment]

omg Miles got a video of Rory's point today (see one post ago), (unedited) key takeaways are that she held the point when I walked up (excellent indicator of steadiness), she almost broke but caught herself (understands the concept of pointing, lacks the maturity for full steadiness), and I immediately released to flush *after* she made the decision to hold (well timed reward, ultimate reward = flushing and chasing grouse)

[akito-shinonome-daily]

🎤 day 451 🎵

➥ today’s akito is from the (brave new world) cinema 3DMV!!

[necrotic-nephilim]

What's so fun about BruJay as a ship is Jason's sheer obsessive devotion to Bruce. Jason is possessive over Bruce, to the point he doesn't care about the deaths of others so long as he has Bruce's attention. A part of the UTRH arc this isn't talked about enough is that Bludhaven fucking explodes mid-way and Jason won't let Bruce see if Dick is alive.

batman (1940) #650

A lot of discussion about UTRH paints Jason as this anger-driven cold, calculating machine up against Bruce when it's so clear that his love for Bruce is what drives him at his root, even if he won't acknowledge it. He says it himself, he would've done anything if it was Bruce who'd died instead of him and his anger is rooted in that possessive devotion not being reciprocated.

batman (194) #650

BruJay as a ship always to be, to some level, unrequited. Even if Bruce loves Jason back in that way, he'll never be that obsessed with Jason. Jason will always view Bruce's love for Dick or Tim to be a distraction, proof that Bruce isn't dedicated enough to him. Jason has the need to always have Bruce's attention, even when it could come at the cost of Bruce's other loved ones. Something something cannibalism as a metaphor for love in how Jason wants to consume Bruce's whole existence. He can't let Bruce leave him again, can't let Bruce love or grieve anyone else. Forcing Bruce to choose between Jason and the Joker isn't just about confronting Jason's killer, it's about confronting the other person who exists as this duality with Bruce and consumes so much of Bruce's life. That's the role Jason wants to fill, calling himself Red Hood and forcing Bruce to look at what he's become. But still loving Bruce and wanting more than anything for Bruce to reciprocate that love in the way that Jason understands. I just think it's good soup and rife with Dynamics that are underexplored with them.

[solwasateenexocolonist]

Another new start or perhaps just another page in the book

The stars still sing an dacen, this year has been tough yet to become reclient we need to push thru. But for this night, let us hold hands as we send Earth's own sparkling notes to sing with the night sky. As a new year arrives everything changes yet everything is the same. How ever and who ever you celebrate with, I wish you a happy new year

[the-art-of-sanshoku]

little roleswap AU ive thought about once or twice

[rubensmuse]

having meditated on it, the issue with the lords of fortune isn't that they're doing repatriation now, it's how it's being handled as a piece of storytelling. and the way it's being handled is fucking BORING.

the thing about returning looted artifacts to their cultures of origin is that, in real life, it's an extremely dicey issue. and when i say that, i'm not saying "and that's why we should not do it in real life nor depict it in fiction", because obviously we should do both of those to the best of our ability. but it isn't straightforward.

in real life, arguments made by museums in looter countries against repatriation often bring up how there isn't always a solid record of which pieces of art and culture were stolen or parted with via coercion, and which were traded for willingly; or refuse to recognize the sovereignty of a nation of people who claim ownership of an item and prefer to return it to a modern-day government that does not represent them; or, alternatively, bring up the fact that the modern-day country requesting the artifact "back" was not the same country that created it, and use that as evidence that they don't have any claim to it at all. there are political considerations, there are diplomatic considerations, there are military considerations. it's a whole thing.

in the setting of dragon age, you don't have all of these exact problems. but in a scenario where we're to understand that this semi-decentralized guild of treasure hunters has recently shifted gears toward repatriation, we don't have zero problems. the principle one is that thedas as a continent and the states within it don't actually function the same way our world does, meaning "repatriation" might not even be a consideration for anyone who isn't an elf, but i don't wanna get into that. there are far more granular issues instead.

for example, one story in tevinter nights follows a band of lords pulling off a heist. does this mean stealing from the living is above board, but robbing the dead is frowned upon unless you give some of it back to the descendants? how old does an artifact have to be before it stops being fair game? how culturally significant does it have to be, and how do you even measure that?

what if you're a long-time member just in this for the plunder, and now that your guildmates are advocating all this scholarly and/or culturally respectful stuff, you're just pretending to go along with it and palming smaller relics for resale? what responsibility does the lords of fortune as a guild have to penalize you? what ability?

what if you proudly present a dalish clan with a burial urn you found outside of its context, and then their keeper gets fucking pissed at you because that was supposed to stay in the ground, you idiot, and now you and your guildmates are suspected of defiling a grave? on the flip side, what if you DO defile that grave, and return the relics inside for a finder's fee alongside the lie that you got it from the real graverobber, because offering a bounty for returned cultural artifacts creates a demand for them?

what if your opinion of what counts as "sacred" is different from someone else's, on a cultural in addition to an individual basis?

what if two dalish clans who hate each other place a claim on the same relic?

what if, perhaps, you have a kossith contact in your guild, living the qun outside of a qunari community. and you've been giving her all of your qunari artifacts to study, in the spirit of goodwill and cultural exchange. and then one day on your way to her house a ben-hassrath steps out of the shadows and politely requests the tablet you're holding, and also directions to your contact's residence, because as far as the ariqun is concerned, you've been giving vital pieces of qunari culture and history to someone who isn't a qunari?

what interesting scenarios! what rich stories we could get out of them! even the barest reference to some of these issues would suggest a more multifaceted view of a faction, and entice players into selecting it for their character.

and at time of writing, i'm still waiting to see anything like them in the game.

[statementlou]

.

[starry-sophrosyne]

Just.

a WOTC spinoff au where Sophist doesn't get banished but Bertrand still joins the rebellion (as/becomes the leader now, maybe for a diff reason like he got suspected instead of sophist for killing his father or something idk-) and Brent is forced to marry Cherie anyways, while he can only watch/help him prepare for his wedding as his best man (around the same time as WOTC, maybe Brent delayed marrying anyone for a few years due to the unstability of the kingdom after Bertrand left and his dad died)

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i might write somewhat of a full version of this as a drabble but i would need to read up on versions of this writing prompt (i need ideas bc motivation for this drabble idea is lowkey low) but GOD the amount of things that would go UNSAID. In this universe, he gently pushes his friend towards the ballroom again, only without a lingering feeling on both of their lips. Because how could he? Right before he was about to get married, and unaware of his true feelings for him too? No, instead, without realizing it, he tears up:

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"Never thought you'd cry at my wedding." — Brent's eyes widened in shock, a look comprised of genuine surprise and concern on his face just as Sophist realized the tears trembling in his waterline. Trying to play it off, he hoped his dear friend would take it as a moment of emotional vulnerability in opposition of what he currently felt.

"Oh, shut up! Am I not allowed to care about you for once? God, you asshole, of course I do! Why wouldn't I? I'm just.. really glad to see you so happy." — He rambled, ripping his glasses off his face with more emotion than he would've liked. Swiping the glassiness of his eyes onto his cheeks, he tried to force a painful smile, but still. He stiffened as Brent gave him something of a somber smile, heart cracking with every second that ticked by. Reasoning and rationality threatened to be swallowed up by his turbulent emotions, even as he gripped his hands together so hard they shook, because why? Why were they put through this? Was it unlucky fate that disdained them, or maybe.. Maybe it was just him. If that was all, then how could he ever be mad or guilty? He didn't deserve this, but he didn't deserve him either, and if Brent truly didn't feel anything for him at all, then he could never ruin his happiest moment. But even still.

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Please, he thought, as he bit his lip so hard he thought it'd bleed, don't walk back to me. Don't give me a reason to make a bad decision.

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"Yeah.." — The room went silent, replaced with wavering smiles and palpable tension. What would he even say at this moment? This was his finality, his never-turning-back.

"Go get em buddy, knock her dead with your dressed up looks!."

"Oh shut up the fuck up." — He laughed once more, but even as he turned around and gripped the door knob, he wanted to stop. Ever fiber of him wanted to turn around, run towards him. Embrace him, kiss him, run away with him; but he couldn't. Not because he didn't want to, but because he simply, couldn't. Too much depended on this marriage. His mother was relying on him, his kingdom was relying on him, Cherie was relying on him. His mother had lost too much, his kingdom had too much to loose, and Cherie was a woman that could bring them the power to end it all; But even still.

Taking a deep breath, he grit and ground his teeth so hard he thought they'd crack. And then, he turned to look back at him once more. And oh, he looked wonderful. His purple brocade vest was embroidered with violet, donning a lacy ruffled cravat as were the cuffs of his sleeves. His pants slim fit and tailored, he looked just like a regular noble, except for his signature mask, which was similarly styled to match his clothing; though his traditional jacket and hat were absconded for the event. Even still, he was perfect, and he wasn't his.

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His eyes lingered just a bit too long, just enough for his hardened heart to crack as his eyes revealed everything he'd wished to hide, unsafe from his best friend's astute observations.

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He swore he saw Sophist's expression change, eyes breaking open into a pool of glassy sorrow, but instead, they closed as he offered Brent an encouraging smile. They squinted back open just slightly but teasingly; a playful gaze that taunted him: "Cold feet, gonna chicken out?" He could practically hear his irritating voice, nagging him in an oh so familiar and lovely way. It helped, as he chuckled and his heart settled just a bit, but even still, he takes a deep breath. He's walking away from what, no, who he loves, but.. as long as he can remain by his side..

It's just enough for him to take the leap forward, as he twists the door knob with a conviction; but even as the light shines on his face and the ballroom explodes with noise, his heart cant help but sink.