#I even sketched Pearl in full working gear once

[lucky-7times]

lil Blorbo sketch.

Working overall comfyness approved.

[alcinadimitrescuwu]

The Portrait (An Alcina x Maiden Fanfic)

You walk into the Atelier and find yourself once again gazing at the portrait of the Lady of the Castle, Lady Dimitrescu. She must have commissioned the portrait when she was younger because she looked like she was in her mid-20’s. She stands in an ivory-colored dress with a full skirt, holding a glass of wine. Her face is clear of her laugh lines, under-eye circles, and wrinkles but she is still as elegant and beautiful as ever. You move closer to get a better look and suddenly wonder who might have painted this portrait. Were they close to Lady Dimitrescu?

“Do you like it?”

You whirl around swiftly and find yourself face to face with Alcina Dimitrescu. The corner of her mouth quirks up in an amused grin, making her laugh lines indent into her cheekbones. Her golden eyes are glittering with mischief.

“Well?” she prompts.

You come back to yourself. “I-It’s lovely, my Lady,” you stammer. “Did you commission someone to make it for you?”

Alcina lets out a laugh like tinkling bells. “Why, yes. In fact you could say that the two of us were rather close.” She steps closer to you and the portrait, a knowing smirk on her face. “It was actually me that painted that portrait.”

“You?” you blurt out suddenly. Then you realize how rude you must sound. "Forgive me, my Lady,” you say, ducking your head in apology. “I meant no disrespect. I just didn’t know you were the artistic type.”

“Oh, I’ve dabbled in a lot of different art forms in my life, pet,” she says, and you see her eyes mist over as she reminisces. “I was classically trained in opera, I’ve painted landscapes and portraits, written poetry...I even was a jazz singer for a time. I made that portrait when I was 25. I was a very different woman than the one you see now.” She smiles self-deprecatingly. “Well, aside from the obvious, anyway.”

“It’s exquisite,” you breathe as you lean your head to get a better look at the portrait. You think of something and turn to her. “Do you still paint, my Lady?”

“Lately I’ve taken to sketching. And now that you know my secret,” she says, giving you a conspiratorial wink. “Perhaps I might come in here and do my sketching while you clean.”

You suddenly remember the actual purpose of why you came to this room in the first place. “Right! I need to polish the bells! I’ll just get started on that, then!”

You hear her chuckle low in her throat as you scramble up the ladder, taking out your polish. You look over back at her and she has sat down on the sofa, slipping a pair of pearl chain half-moon spectacles over her nose. She takes out her pens and charcoal, flips to a new page in her sketchbook and bends her dark head down to work.

Soon you and Alcina have a little arrangement going where every time you enter the Atelier to work on your tasks, you know you will soon see Alcina ducking her head under the lintel to work on her sketching. While you are on the ladder, you sneak glances at her every so often. Her lashes kiss the tips of her cheekbones and her brow is furrowed in concentration. Sometimes you will look from her to the portrait and you conclude that if possible, her aging has made her even more beautiful.

You feel a hand on your back and jump making the ladder wobble slightly. The hand braces you against the ladder so you don’t fall and you hear a soft chuckle behind you. “I’m sorry, dear. I suppose I should have announced my presence beforehand. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not a problem,” you say and you feel color flood your cheeks as you see you are truly face to face with Alcina Dimitrescu. Her face is merely inches from yours. Her golden eyes catch the light from the chandelier and up close you see they are not just golden but with hints of silver around the iris.

“There’s this spot around the gears that doesn’t get enough attention that I’d like to show you,” Alcina hands hover around your waist. “May I?”

You nod your consent and she gently moves you on the ladder until you’re on the other side. She bends down and whispers in your ear. “Just between the cog and the gear. Do you see it?” The smell of her perfume is intoxicating. You nod that you understand and she smiles. “Good! I know you always do a thorough job and I wanted to bring that to your attention.” With that she settles back down and resumes her sketching.

This goes on for a while, you working while Alcina is sketching. Occasionally she will take a break and stand nearby observing you as you work. You find it difficult to concentrate when she is around but she eventually smiles to herself saying, “Yes. Very good,” before returning to her seat. A couple times you are not certain but you think you might have seen a flush creep up her cheekbones before she resumes her sketching.

A couple of weeks of this go by and you notice Alcina is not satisfied with the progress of her drawing. You see that she is erasing more often and often starts from a completely new page in her sketchbook. “No, no, this isn’t right!” you hear her say aloud one day. You chance a look at her as you are on the ladder polishing the candlesticks. She is furiously scribbling on the sketchpad and when a loose lock of her ebony hair falls into her eyes, she pushes it impatiently away. You try to lean down further to get a better look. You’ve seen how talented she is, surely the sketch couldn’t be that bad…

Suddenly you feel the ladder twist from under you as you lose your balance. Your arms pinwheel helplessly in the air as you try to regain your footing but to no avail. You shut your eyes tight as you fall, hoping at the most you’ll just sprain an ankle.

Instead of the hard floor, you fall into something soft. You open your eyes and jolt back as you see Alcina’s aureate eyes staring back into yours. She chuckles. “It appears I cannot do much but startle you these days it seems.” She looks at you with a concerned expression. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes, my Lady, I’m fine,” you mumble. You blush scarlet as you are very aware that her gloved hand is on your upper thigh, your skirt riding up in her haste to catch you. She becomes aware of this too and smoothes your skirt down, murmuring an apology, but not before you catch the blush in her cheeks.

She turns her head quickly away to hide it, her hat covering her profile. “Would you like to take a moment and rest, dear? You’ve been working so hard, you deserve a break.”

You nod soundlessly and she takes you over to the sofa where she has been doing her sketching. She closes her sketchbook with a snap before you can get a good look at it.

A maid arrives with Alcina’s afternoon tea. “Set out an extra cup for Y/N, if you please,” she commands the parlor maid. The maid nods and pours you both cups of steaming apple cinnamon tea, perfect for a cold winter’s day.

When the maid bows and leaves, you turn to Lady Dimitrescu. You clear your throat. “Um, my Lady?”

She smiles at you over her teacup. “Yes, pet?”

You can’t help it. You’re positively burning with curiosity at this point. “What have you been drawing?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Alcina’s cheekbones flood with color. “Oh, it’s nothing special really,” she says hurriedly. “Just some scribbles.”

You can hardly believe it. Was Lady Dimitrescu, usually so full of pride and grace, embarrassed? You see a scrap of paper on the ground near the sofa and pick it up. Alcina tries to stop you but you’ve already turned it over in your hands. You let out a little gasp of surprise as you see what Alcina has been drawing all this time.

There on the paper is a charcoal drawing of you polishing the bells. In the corner of the page is a closeup of you, your face shining in the chandelier light.

You look back at her, your mouth open in shock. When you finally gain the ability to form words, you ask, “Is this what you’ve been working on all this time, my Lady?” you ask quietly, your voice barely more than a whisper.

Alcina nods and opens her sketchbook to show even more pages of you. You staring at her portrait, you reaching up on your toes on the ladder to dust off a high shelf, you pouring her tea. There are pages upon pages of your likeness.

Alcina turns her head to face you. “I must confess that I had been in need of a new muse for my art,” she says. “When I saw you gazing at my portrait, something stirred within me. There is something about you that draws me to you.” She takes your chin gently in her gloved hand.

“Your hair,” she says, and she takes off your cap and settles your unbound hair about your shoulders. “Even pinned under your cap, it cannot conceal its beauty.” She takes your hand in hers. “Your skin,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to the back of your hand, making you feel a pleasant shiver go down your arm. “How it shines under the lamplight. Your eyes.” She is moving ever closer. “The way I could get lost in those fathomless depths. And your lips…”

Her face is so close to yours now, her lips parted. “What about my lips?” you whisper, scarcely daring to breathe.

You are not quite sure who closes the distance between you first, but you are suddenly in Alcina’s arms and you are kissing her fiercely, your hands weaving their way through her ebony locks. Her hands settle themselves around your waist as her tongue gently parts your lips. You lay back on the sofa and bring her head gently down with you. She braces one hand on the side of the couch while the other gently holds the back of your head.

The sound of the clock chiming startles you, making you break apart suddenly. Alcina lets out a girlish giggle. “We simply have to do something about those nerves of yours, draga mea,” she purrs. You smile and lift your head up to receive her kiss again.

[love-takes-work]

The Art of Steven Universe the Movie: Outline & Review

The Art of Steven Universe The Movie was released March 3, 2020. It's a wonderful journey through the concept art, character development, and experience of fashioning these ideas into the movie we all love.

Nuts and bolts: The book is published by Dark Horse, and it was designed by Ryan Sands (a zine specialist), with commentary by Takafumi Hori, Kat Morris, and Rebecca Sugar. It includes art by Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Takafumi Hori, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Angie Wang, Ashley Fisher, Becky Dreistadt, Chromosphere, Danny Cragg, Elle Michalka, Hilary Florido, Ian Jones-Quartey, Jasmin Lai, Jeff Liu, Joe Johnston, Julian De Perio, Katie Mitroff, Leonard Hung, Miki Brewster, Patrick Bryson, and Paul Villeco.

Full review below with low-quality images.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

An introduction explains the same origin story that Rebecca Sugar told us in the movie DVD's commentary: that she accidentally restored her phone to factory settings and lost years of important stuff, and she ended up applying that devastating premise to her movie. That combined with the concept of "breaking" the main premise of a TV show to make a movie was how she got started developing the story. The opening of the movie styled like a storybook is blocked out with some great drawings and breakdowns of which narration would go to what storybook pages. This is combined with some partial sheet music for "The Tale of Steven." Rebecca writes about how she felt having to wrap pre-production on Season 5 only to take on this even bigger movie challenge. The biggest challenge was writing all these songs in such a short time--six weeks--and having to deal with the stress, being crushed under all that pressure while still wanting to do this story so badly, and it was humbling to still have to work so hard to sell the idea. The feeling of relief to finally be done that Steven expresses in "Happily Ever After" is very similar to what Rebecca went through feeling like she wanted to be finally done but still knowing what she had to do to climb an even bigger mountain. Some very cute Steven-at-age-16 and Connie in Space Camp clothes follow. Notes indicate that Steven and Connie are the same height now, but his poofy hair is just slightly higher than her head.

Notes from 2017 also give us the "Neckstravaganza": design notes on Steven's new form, with a neck and a jacket. It's very cool.

Some beautiful Joe Johnston boards follow, with sequences from the "Happily Ever After" song. We also get Angie Wang's final design (with Ashley Fisher's color) of the injector, including some sketchy concept art for it from Rebecca Sugar and Hilary Florido. In the rough concept notes, they call this the "Mega Injector," with notes for Takafumi Hori to use for scale. It looks beyond huge in a Leonard Hung drawing.

Spinel concepts are next. Some notes explain that aivi & surasshu (the usual composers) were involved very early since it was a musical, and Rebecca included them when pitching the story to the Crew so they could organically develop the sound. The heart shape was central to Spinel from the beginning, and early versions of her had an entire heart shape to her head.

(There's a doodle of what looks like a cartoon dog in the pile of drawings shown in this section. It's not clear what that was.)

Spinel was given the heart imagery partly because Rebecca had learned early on about the importance of symbols, and when it came time to assign one to Steven, the star was chosen because it's so positive and is read as gender-neutral. Rebecca still hadn't used hearts for anything, so it was time. They also incorporated really old, dated character design ideas to make Spinel feel like an outdated cartoon from the rubber hose era.

The aspect of her design with the running mascara versus cute eyelashes predated the rotation of her Gem. Rebecca likes to start with more realistic sketches when she's figuring out a character, and then she'll move to making it more cartoony. A quote from Miki Brewster is shared: "Spinel can do anything, as long as it's entertaining!" Her "best friend" form is described as "a doll for friendship fun & games! Of a different era--hokey, charming, weird...super gullible and trusting. Incredibly loyal, constant entertainment machine!"

When it comes to developing her "worst enemy" form, Rebecca explains a bit that she has a really complicated relationship with old cartoons because nostalgia is not compelling to her--the animation from the 1930s is so neat, but considering the social limits and the way the industry was at the time, Rebecca doesn't think she could have participated. Especially considering nowadays she even had to struggle to be allowed to tell the stories she needed to tell and it would have been impossible five years ago. The norms of the time aren't entirely extricable from the art itself.

Takafumi Hori weighs in with commentary on how fun it was to animate a scary but fun character on top of Miki Brewster's boards for the "Other Friends" fight sequence.

Next, moving on from the central new character, they also spend some time discussing Steg. Rebecca first explains "Steg Multiverse" as a character so uplifting he can make you fly, combining Greg's unending support and Steven's positive power. She makes reference to the early "stegosaurus" concepts they had for his look, but they didn't want to lose the opportunity to have his hair flow. Rebecca confirms that the pompadour idea was established in "Steven and the Stevens" so they wanted to give it to Steg, and she credits Paul Villeco for really finalizing his design and bringing him to life.

And of course the poofy hair from Steven and the double-necked guitar was essential for Steg.

Next, the book gives us a whole page of handwritten notes about "Drift Away." Kat Morris explains the intentional duality of the scene--how Spinel should be shown seeing her own past with new perspective, being embarrassed, blending together who she was with who she is. The partial lyrics to the song and some sketchy boards are offered.

Rebecca shares her personal connection with the subject matter--how she once left a stuffed animal in her garden and the side facing the sun faded. It really made a mark on her as a child that things changed without her, because of her actions, and that she'd left this treasured toy alone without thinking about it all that time, letting it be affected by the elements without her interference. She wrote "Everything Stays" for Adventure Time based on that plushie, and realized that she was writing about it again for the Steven Universe movie.

Many beautiful miniature boards are shown in this section.

Partial sheet music for "Drift Away" is also offered here. It's credited to Rebecca Sugar and Aimee Mann. The music sheet is followed by some lovely images of the garden by Julian De Perio, Patrick Bryson, and Leonard Hung.

Takafumi Hori returns for a discussion of the final fight sequence during "Change," which he animated from Jeff Liu's boards. He discusses trying to keep the fight feeling dramatic and serious even though Spinel's fighting style is funny. He wanted to keep her tension. Hori-san throws in a word of thanks for being allowed to work on his favorite show again, praises Jeff and Miki, and compliments Rebecca Sugar's demos. He hoped we'd get a soundtrack album. (Of course, we did.)

Some final boards by Rebecca Sugar and Becky Dreistadt of the characters in their show gear descending the steps close out the book. There are also some cute little doodles at the end on the credits page, like a head of lettuce with caption "lettuce adore you" and Spinel in a drifting go-kart laughing, captioned "drift away."

The back cover pictures Steven with his arm around a heartbroken Spinel, comforting her.

Overall, the book is wonderful--the accompanying information is generally not new to anyone who watched the DVD's documentary and commentary, and many of the sketches have been released one way or another directly by the artists through Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr blogs. There was still plenty of wonderful new concept art that wasn't already out there, and looking at some of the iterations Spinel and Steg went through was particularly captivating. There was no new insight into the development of the plot beyond the premise and the Spinel-related conflict, though; nothing about how they decided to focus the Garnet storyline, the Pearl storyline, and the Amethyst storyline for how they would each get their memories back, and there was no spotlight on their movie versions--modern Cotton Candy Garnet, copycat baby Amethyst, and factory settings uncustomized Pearl. I was hoping especially for some Amethyst stuff because the movie was the first place we got to see her with the simple default outfit and segmented limbs. It was primarily an art book with commentary on some of the most definitive movie aspects--it didn't reach the depth that Art and Origins gave us. It has a start-to-finish feeling in a sense, but it's mostly just splashes of information that are fun to know. It's a great companion and definitely should not be missed by any fan of the movie. I recommend it heartily!

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

[twxntrash]

The Moon is Beautiful, Isn’t It? Ch. 3

By the second week, the school had finally let go of the training wheels for their students. Enough class time spent getting to know your classmates, teachers or just going over the kinds of things they’d be taught. Instead, now the class was in full swing and the teachers were actually teaching the students finally. Honestly, Peridot was beyond ecstatic with it. If she had to do one more kindergarten level game just to learn that the boy next to her was named Billy and had been to Chicago once, she was going to scream.

She went to school to learn about the subjects she was studying, to learn about programming and history and math and so on, not what her classmate's favorite shows were or where her teacher grew up.

The only two classes she had that didn’t take the entire first week before getting into gear was gym, which had started off the first day with the rigorous, brutal workouts, and art. By day two, Ms. Lazuli had already started lectures, and last Friday she sent the class off to their weekend with the assignment of brainstorming for their first project and had not-so-subtly hinted that they would need to explain why they drew what they drew.

Now it was Monday and Peridot still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. It wasn’t like their first art project was going to be difficult by any means. It was just a sketch they were supposed to make that made use of shading and perspective. But, Lazuli wanted the sketch to be about something important to them for their first assignment.

Peridot couldn’t say she really had too many things that were all that important to her. Percy was dear to her, but, she failed at an epic proportion when it came to drawing cats and dogs. But, she was at a bit of a loss today. She didn’t even have an idea of what to do for her sketch, and they were supposed to start working on that today. Maybe she could ask Ms. Lazuli for an extension, claim she was busy the entire weekend helping her mother out in Empire City.

No, Peridot doubted that excuse would fly with her art teacher.

But, the girl was early enough to her first class that maybe she could try to figure something out while waiting for class to start. She could think of some reasons on the fly, pass any stuttering and stammer off as being shy. Not like the class was going to pay any real attention.

Reaching the door, she gave the knob a turn so she could enter, but found the door wouldn’t budge. Pursing her lips, she tried again to no avail. Strange. Maybe she’d come too early and Ms. Lazuli hadn’t unlocked the door yet. If that was the case, then Peridot had no choice but to wait for the teacher to arrive so she could take her seat in the back.

Truthfully… Peridot wasn’t sure what to make of Ms. Lapis Lazuli just yet. Throughout the entire week, she felt like her teacher was watching her. It sent chills up her spine, but every time she’d look up, those blue eyes were either watching some other part of the class or skimming through papers on her desk. Then, whenever Lapis walked by, it felt like she would purposely move as close as she could to Peridot. Be it brushing past her so they just barely touched, or making sure to draw in close whenever she came to their table to scold Amethyst, and sometimes Peridot as well, for making a ruckus in class. When she did that, Peridot felt so terrifyingly small, like a mouse before a lion.

She wasn’t sure if she was just imagining it or not, but it was driving Peridot mad. If Lapis was watching her during class and purposely penetrating her personal space without regard than Peridot wanted to know why . What did she ever do to make Lapis so… so… she didn’t even know how to describe her teacher, that’s how bad it was getting.

Maybe it was all in her head. She wanted it to all be in her head, that would be so much easier to handle. She could take some pills and things would feel more normal.

“Peridot? What are you doing here so early?”

As the saying goes; speak of the Devil and she shall appear. Lapis Lazuli was approaching her from down the hall, one hand carrying her travel mug, and on her opposite shoulder was the straps to one of those artists tote bags. She seemed genuinely puzzled by seeing the blonde outside the class door. But, Peridot was more puzzled by her teacher's appearance.

She had bags under her eyes, and her eyes themselves were slightly bloodshot. Sunglasses were perched atop her head as though she’d just pushed them up when she entered the school. Her hair wasn’t as neatly combed as it usually was, and her outfit wasn’t nearly as put together as she’d been last week. All in all, the teacher looked like a mess today.

“I got here early- are you okay, Ms. Lazuli?” Peridot cut herself off when her teacher got closer, she could see Lapis flinching at the bright lights of the hall.

There was a sarcastic smile now when she heard Peridots question. She pushed past the blonde and fished out the keys from her pocket to unlock the door. “Don’t drink, kiddo. Especially when you’ve work in the morning ” was all she answered with.

Oh, great. Her teacher might be a drunk. What a nice thing to learn.

“I’m underage,” Peridot remarked with an eye roll as she stepped into the classroom as Ms. Lazuli turned on some of the lights. However, both stopped when they saw the current state the room was in.

“Jesus, fuck !” Lapis hissed as she saw the mess.

It was as though someone went to town with the supplies. Paint tubes and cans were strewn all over, clay left open and dried out all about the room. It looked like someone had even strewn paint around the room, caking the walls and floors and even the ceiling. Whatever order the room may have had the previous week was but a happy dream now. The room looked like a tornado had ripped through it.

Peridot blinked as she tentatively ran her finger over some dried up red paint, “This happens like once a year,” she said to her teacher as she shrugged out of her own surprise and trudged to her usual seat. Lapis stared at her as though she had spoken in a different language, blank confusion on her face so Peridot decided to offer a more precise explanation. “At least once a year some students vandalize a room or so. Though, usually, they just steal the supplies from the art room to wreck havoc on some other corner of the school. First time I’ve heard the art room becoming the victim.”

Last year someone had spray painted all over the gym different Pokemon badges and symbols. The year before it, someone drew dicks all over the hallway floors. Peridot was actually pretty sure that one was Amethyst. This year wasn’t anything as ‘creative’ as its predecessors, but they made way more of a mess than the orderly vandalism of the previous years.

Lapis groaned as she took to her desk and sank into her chair, “It’s going to take forever to try and clean this room up,” she grumbled as she buried her face in her hand. “First yesterday and now today, can this week get any better?” it was a bitter remark as she sent a glare up to the ceiling, as though she was trying to stare down God, challenging him to just mess with her more.

A part of Peridot want to try and offer some form of help to her teacher, but the other, much larger part of her decided it’d be better and safer to just stay here in the back and try hope the teacher forgot she was there. It would only be a matter of time until other students came in anyways.

Though, she did feel a little sorry for her. Hungover and having to deal with coming to find her classroom was made into a mess. Well, at least for now Lapis was glaring at the desk rather than looking at Peridot, so, she could breathe a little easier for the time being.

As she had expected, students did start to come after a little bit. Taking up their usual tables and laughing amongst themselves. The volume of the growing class must have been torture because Lapis was holding onto her head as though it might explode. Peridot knew the feeling of an awful hangover all too well and couldn’t help but wince as well as though she was the one suffering the headache too, even if she wasn’t.

“Hey! P!” Amethyst greeted loudly as she entered the room and made a quick beeline to their table. Her eyes practically had stars in them as she took her seat, “Peri, you aren’t going to believe what me and Pearl did this weekend!” she said quickly as she leaned towards her friend, the smile on her face was damn near infectious because Peridot couldn’t help the way her lips quirked upwards when she saw it.

“What’d you guys do? Did you finally get her to a Mike Krol concert?”

“Nah! It was cooler than that!” Amethyst shook her head and grabbed a hold of Peridot by both her shoulders, “Peri, I got her to come to one of my wrestling matches, you know, the ones in the ring by the warehouse hosted by Mr. Smiley!”

Peridots eyes widened, “No way, Pearl hates going there! You’re joking, you’ve got to be!”

“I’m telling the truth. It’s hard to believe it myself.” Amethyst was laughing as she began retelling the story of her weekend, “We were just chilling and chatting and I brought up that I’d need to prepare for my match later that day, and Pearl, she just tried to be casual as she said it but man was it so awkward--it was adorable-- she went on how it seemed so important to me, and how I always had fun and that, well, she used a lot of words I don’t even remember, you know how she is. But she basically asked me if she could come, and she came. It was amazing! I got to show off all my best moves to my best girl!”

Peridot was grinning wide by this point, “Really? Amethyst, I’m so happy for you!” They both knew that Amethyst had been trying to get Pearl to go to one of her matches for ages since Amethyst went to all of Pearls dance recitals. The fact that she went to one, and without Amethyst even asking her too, well that was a shocking but wonderful thing.

“Yeah. Damn, I’d never felt so alive in that ring until I heard Pearl cheering me on,” Amethyst leaned back in her chair, she had a smile on her face, a soft, gentle smile. Her entire expression was that of love and adoration for her girlfriend, “She was so worried too when I was done with my match. Mother henning me the entire time and scolding me for the bruises I got. But, hey if she’s worrying about me that just goes to show she cares about me so I can’t get upset over a bit of nagging from her.”

“You guys are just… something,” the blonde murmured as she shook her head. They were nothing alike yet the two had complimented each other so perfectly. It was the kind of couple someone didn’t see that often.

Amethyst gave a soft chuckle, “Heh… yeah.”

The two fell silent as class began, Lapis did remarkably well with the bright lights and usual noise of the art room despite her hangover. With the schedule for the day scrawled out on the board, she wasted little time getting the class to work. Handing out large papers to sketch on, various pencils, erasers, and any other tools the students would need for their assignment for the day.

“You guys can start the actual drawing in a  bit,” the teacher said as she passed by the tables to hand out the supplies, “First, we’re going to go through and you’re each going to tell us what you’re sketching and why. Remember, the sketch is of something important to you.”

Oh, the moment that Peridot dreaded. She’d gotten distracted when she came into the room that she forgot to even think of the last minute idea for her sketch. She had nothing to say when the class discussion reached her. Being in the back had it’s benefits and it’s repercussions. She was either among the first or last during moments like these when everyone in the class had to speak and, statistically speaking, the class tended to remember the first and the last more clearly than the students between. Meaning that they were going to remember her fumbling and not having anything to show for today.

No, no, she still had time. There were about fifteen students before her, she could quickly think of something important and why it’s important to her while everyone else was talking. It wasn’t over yet.

Some student up in the front, Buck or something, said his sunglasses and Peridot zoned out on his reason for why. Another student had their car, one their cat. The class was going through this rather quickly, far faster than Peridot was able to try and process an idea of her own. It was funny how the brain went blank when you were desperate for an idea. There were far to many people saying cellphones so she couldn’t do that.

They were up to her table now and Amethyst puffed her chest out in pride as she spoke, “My sketch is of a wrestling ring,” she announced, “Cause, anyone who knows me know I love wrestling, so what better to show that then to sketch the ring?”

Lapis nodded at that, “I see, thank you, Amethyst,” she said and her eyes locked onto Peridot next, “And you, Peridot? What are you sketching?”

Feeling as though the entire class was staring at her, Peridot squirmed in her seat as her nerves made her feel like she might throw up, “I… well, you see I’m sketching…” she didn’t dare look up from her table, not at her classmates or even risk meeting gazes with Lapis. “I’m sketching my… my game consoles!” she said it so quickly that she felt her face drain and then all the blood rush to it. Hesitantly she looked up and Lapis was still staring at her, waiting for her to go on, “I mean, I like gaming,” her voice found confidence as she spoke, “I like video games a lot, they’re fun and they can have great stories. I really like my consoles too, so… I was going to sketch them.”

Despite having grown more confident in her answer as she spoke her explanation, it all fell into a timid quiet note as Lapis continued to watch her. After what felt like forever, though it was more like a few seconds, the teacher gave a nod. Satisfied with Peridot’s answer.

“Good, I look forward to your sketch.”

With that, the class was free to start on their project and the rum fell into a moderate hum of noise as they chatted while they worked. Peridot couldn’t help but feel like a weight was taken off her chest and she could breathe properly when she took her paper. She managed to get away with that despite being so painfully unprepared and no one seemed to have noticed.

The rest of the class time went with her trying her best on her sketch despite having absolutely no idea on what to do for it. So, she was doing her consoles, did she want to do them all or do it one or two. The suffering of having too many gaming consoles, she supposed. And of not preparing beforehand. But, once she got into the motion, it was easier to work on. Occasionally she’d glance over to Amethysts to see her progress or to chat with her a little bit.

As usual, she felt like she was being watched the entire class time, but each time she looked up there was no one looking at her. It was strange, but, she was doing better at ignoring it compared to last week.

Eventually, the class came to its end and the sketches were collected at the front. Being at the back of the room left Peridot and Amethyst among the last ones to drop their sketches off on Lazuli’s desk and head to the door. However, before Peridot could scurry off into the freedom of the hall, she was stopped by her name being called.

“Peridot,” Lapis said slowly, waiting for the short student to turn and face her. Had she done something wrong? She wasn’t sure, Lapis’ expression seemed friendly enough, but that didn’t promise anything, “If you could, can I ask you to come back during your open period? I could use a hand in sorting out this mess of a room.”

Oh, right. Lapis knew she had a free period in her schedule. Honestly, Peridot didn’t necessarily want to give up her hour of peace and freedom, but, she couldn’t bring it in her to refuse a teacher of a request.

“Oh, um, sure,” Peridot mumbled, scratching at her neck as she looked away, “I can help, it’s no problem.”

Lapis almost seemed relieved when Peridot agreed, “Thank you. Really, thanks,” she breathed, smiling at her student, “Now, you should be off. I’ll see you later.”

  It had only been two hours since the first period, and it felt like two years.

Lapis was in misery and regret all day, though she was doing remarkably well at hiding it from the other teachers. She wished she hadn’t drunk as much as she did the previous night because she was suffering sevenfold for it now. Her head was throbbing like someone was playing a never-ending drum solo inside her skull, the light hurt her eyes, and she was just so tired and sore. To make it even worse, the mess made of her art room didn’t do anything to help her mood.

All the woman wanted was to go home, crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the week. She was swearing off alcohol forever after this.

Though, her morning class wasn’t all suffering. It was a pleasant surprise to find Peridot already at the door before she’d gotten to unlock it. A few moments of privacy with the student that she would have fully taken advantage of despite her hangover if the state of her classroom hadn’t ruined that. Then watching her stammer to try and come up with a plausible subject for her sketch and try to think of a reasoning was amusing. Lapis had known right off the bat that Peridot had only just decided to use her gaming consoles as the focus on the sketch when she was called on. The woman had her fair share of last minute ideas during her years in art classes to recognize one when she saw one.

She was glad that Peridot didn’t try to argue or refuse when Lapis asked her to come to the room during her free period to help clean up the mess it had become. She wasn’t sure how well it would have gone if she tried to argue with Peridot to get her to join. So much easier if she did it of her own free will.

Yikes, almost sounded like she was trying to force Peridot into doing something illegal. Lapis was going to blame the alcohol for it.

A soft knock on the door and the slow sound of it creaking open alerted her of Peridot’s entrance before the girl even stepped foot into the room. She could already feel her mood, soured by her hangover, lifting up when she saw that round face of hers, and quickly moved to stand up from her desk.

“Glad you could make it,” Lapis said as she approached her student, “It wasn’t too much a problem, was it?”

Peridot wasn’t meeting her eyes, something she found amusing, though a bit disheartening, “I, it’s all okay. Free period, remember? Didn’t have any school work yet anyways.”

“That’s good! Can’t let little old me cut into your academics.”

Peridot mumbled something in return. It was clear that she wasn’t exactly comfortable being one on one with Lapis, and that didn’t bother the woman too much. She was just glad to have some time to talk to Peridot without prying eyes of her other students or fellow teachers. What better time to get to know the student then by having her help her in the classroom while everyone else was gone?

Smiling, Lapis clapped her hands together, “Well, let’s get to work.”

With that, they were off in the room, doing their best to clean up the mess that the vandalizer that made. Lapis tried to strike up some conversations, though Peridot didn’t seem too much for talking. That didn’t stop her from trying and more. Oh, she certainly did more than just try to talk to the blonde.

Every time she got near Peridot, Lapis would be sure to brush against her. If she handed her something then she’d purposely make them touch, she would linger far too close for far too long. Since there were shelves too high for Peridot, Lapis even hovered over her, stretched out with Peridot sometimes wedged between the wall and her to put away or take out whatever the blonde had been trying to reach.

Oh, she just loved the blush that Peridot got whenever she did that.

Her headache was still a problem though, and as time passed the pain only grew even worse. It was a hinderance and one Lapis could really do without.

“Are you okay, Miss?” Peridot asked as she paused in scrubbing away some glue that had been poured onto a window sill. “You kind of look like you’re in pain.”

Offering a smile, Lapis waved her off, “It’s okay, just… hangover is a bitch.” She’d be happy if Peridot left it alone and they could continue to work and her continue with her fun. But, it seemed like her student had other plans.

Worrying her lip between her teeth, Peridot hesitated a few moments before she spoke up again, “You know… I have some aspirin in my bag if that’ll help,” she offered.

Lapis perked up at hearing that, “Really? Yeah, that’ll help a lot, thanks,” she murmured as she followed Peridot up to her messenger bag, being handed the small bottle of pills. Taking a couple of pills, she tossed them in and swallowed them down, “Thanks a lot, Peri, this should help curb my headache some.”

“Um, yeah… no problem,” she mumbled, blushing a little when Lapis used the nickname instead of her whole name. As she put the medicine back in her bag, she spared a glance up at the teacher, “So… um… why did you get drunk last night? Teaching that rough?”

Lapis laughed at that, “Only just started teaching, don’t think I have the right to become an alcoholic from it just yet,” she grinned as she gathered up some materials that she’d been working on before the pills, “Just had a bad date last night, and between the choices of get drunk or listen to her obnoxious spiel any more, I chose the alcohol.”

Peridot stared at her, clearly surprised that Lapis’ date was another woman, to which the woman only smiled coyly at. After a few seconds of fumbling for words, Peridot followed Lapis who was now making her way into the supply closet to drop off the discarded art tools, “If I can ask… how was it a bad date? I mean… you’re, well, you’re not ugly.” it was so awkward of a remark that Lapis almost dropped her boxes when she laughed at the mortification on Peridots face.

“Thanks, I’m glad you think I’m not ugly,” she teased, moving to put the box on one of the shelves, “Honestly, it wasn’t even me. My date just ended up being a bitch. She was nice last Monday when we had a date at the bar, but yesterday I guess she showed her true colors. You don’t want to hear it.”

“I kind of do, actually,” Peridot answered quickly. Quickly enough to make Lapis raise a brow. Maybe she was just kind of in the mood for gossip, it didn’t matter. Lapis didn’t mind sharing her terrible date stories.

Shrugging, Lapis leaned against one of the shelves, “Where do I start?” she asked grinning, “First off, when she got to the bar she was late, I could forgive that. I’m not too nitpicky when it comes to timeliness, so long as I’m not waiting thirty minutes without a call. But, then she spent more time talking about things going on her phone or dissing the beer she was drinking. I guess she was just trying to act all sweet and nice the first date so she could score a second. She acted like she was the queen of the universe and that we should all bow to her, even complained that I didn’t dress nice enough to have a date with her.”

“Seriously?” Peridot gawked and shook her head, “That’s just rude.”

“I know! And guess what she did for a living.”

Peridot raised a brow now, thinking it over, “Secretary?” she offered after a few seconds.

Lapis shook her head, “Nope,” she answered, laughing a little, “She did a fat load of nothing. Said I got the bottom-barrel job being a teacher while she didn’t even have a job. At least I was employed, but she claimed she didn’t need a job. Not so long as she could leech off the money of her rich dad or whatever.”

“Jesus, you certainly got the bottom of the barrel date is what it sounds like,” Peridot whistled in disbelief.

“Yeah, and after that, I just ignored her in favor for a steady stream of whiskey, and you can see the results of that,” Lapis pointed at herself with a little grin. As she spoke she could hear the bell go off, and a glance at her watch told that they had been in the room for both the initial hour and for the lunch hour. Oh well. Peridot must have noticed too, not that she looked annoyed by it at all, but Lapis got her attention back to her by leaning forward to close some distance between her and Peridot. She wanted to mess with her one last time before sending the blonde to her next class, there was a mischievous look in her eyes now. “What about you?” she asked.

Blinking, Peridot tilted her head as she took a wary step back, “Um… what do you mean?” she asked after a moment.

Lapis followed her with a step foward to keep the distance between them short, “I mean, how about you and the dating field?” she asked her, “You must have dated some people, right?”

“Of course! I’ve people lining up to go on a date with me!” Peridot boasted quickly, hopping back a few feet, giving a nervous grin while pointing a pair of finger guns at Lapis, “No man or woman can resist the charms of the Great and Lovable Peridot!”

They stood there for a few second, Lapis and Peridot just staring at each other in silence after that before Lapis finally broke out into soft laughter.

“You’re too cute,” Lapis snorted as she covered her mouth with a hand. Seriously, Peridot was just too much, from appearance to behavior, she was just so precious and innocent, Lapis just couldn’t help but smile at that dorky, cheesy smile and finger guns pointed at her.

The blondes face heated up a bit as she brought a hand to the back of her own neck, averting her gaze in embarrassment, “Ah… thanks, heh,” she mumbled back.

Peridot would have to get going soon, they both knew that. The next class starts in roughly five minutes and the senior wasn’t one to miss or be late. But, Lapis wasn’t all to ready to go and say bye to the little nerd and wait until tomorrow to see her again just yet. She wanted a little more time to talk and laugh and to cherish this bubbly feeling Peridot was causing in her chest. Well, there was one thing she could do to try and extend her time with Peridot a bit.

“Say, since I made you miss lunch to help me out, why don’t I take you out somewhere after school to get some food?” Lapis offered with a smile, “My treat. It’s the least I can do, you helped me out big time, and you didn’t get to have lunch.”

At hearing her offer, Peridot shrunk back, looking out of the supply closet of the art room nervously, as though there were eyes watching them and ears listening in on their conversation. “I… I don’t know,” she answered, “Is it even appropriate? I mean, you’re my teacher, should you really be taking me out to lunch?”

“What’s so wrong about it?” Lapis shot back innocently, tilting her head as she looked down at Peridot. “We’re just going to eat, friends go out and eat all the time, so why should you and I catching a bite be anything different?”

“W-Well… I, it’s just…”

Placing her hands on Peridots shoulders, Lapis forcefully, but still gently enough, turned the blonde around and gave her a light shove out of the closet, “I’ll let you think it over. If you do decide to take me up on my offer than meet me here after classes, okay?” Lapis offered as she picked up Peridots bag and handed it to her after she got out of the supply room herself, “As for now, you should get your ‘great and lovable’ self off to your next class.”

She couldn’t help but love the embarrassed look on Peridots face when she used her own self-describing phrase against her. Though she may not say it out loud in case others might hear, the blue haired woman just found it adorable. Her smile never left as Peridot stammered a goodbye and hurried out of the art room.

 Hopefully Peridot would take her up on her offer.