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runwayrunway · 9 months

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id be interested in seeing you rank plane emojis from different platforms (by their livery, or by whatever else) just for fun, if you want!

You're right. I WILL do this for fun, because this is fun. Not based on livery, since they're mostly white with blue wings - just how much I like them. I'll be adding a rating out of 10 for each one because I think that's the tradition for this sort of thing.

Apple - 4/10

I mean, because I have an iPhone this is my default conception of an airplane emoji - I think it's fine, I just find it a bit offputting how they model the individual flaps and cockpit windows but the rest of it is a white airbrushed tube. It's a weird contrast.

It's fine, I think. Acceptable. I maybe think emojis by default aren't the most aesthetically pleasing.

Google Noto Color Emoji - 4.5/10

I think this is a slight improvement over the Apple version because of the more consistent stylization. It's also a little more contemporary, since most airliners that are flying now have two engines. I like that they added a few windows and highlights to keep the cabin interesting, and I think it's a bit...something that they took off the flaps but added flap track fairings. Cockpit windows look awful though.

Samsung - 2/10

This is a bit more of a realistic shape for an airplane but for some reason I don't like it. Maybe it's the fact that you can barely recognize that there's a tailfin at all, or the cockpit window looking weirdly...shiny? I think what gets me the most, though, is that those engines look like Super Mario pipes.

Microsoft - 1/10

She's a little...phallic somehow. I just think a top-down view of an airplane is almost always going to look worse if you make it super round and blobby. On the bright side, it's still recognizable as a plane.

WhatsApp - 7.5/10

I really like the way this one is red. Way to stand out in a crowd. It's also quite realistic without giving up on being stylized. My one issue is with the cockpit windows, which look a bit out-of-place and weird. This seems to be a common point of failure for this sort of emoji. Also, I'm unsure if this is meant to be a two-engined 747, but if it is points off for those not existing.

Twitter - 6/10

I hate to ever hand it to Twitter but this is just solid. That's an airplane, just a very simplified and round one. Even the cockpit windows on this one look okay.

Facebook - 3.5/10

Maybe airplane emojis with airbrush shading just look bad to me. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the shape of this but I don't think they differentiated the tailfin from the fuselage enough. It looks like a stub. Also, what is up with that miserably short wing chord?

Telegram - 7/10

I mean, it looks like a 3D version of the Apple one, but it's surprising how much making it 3D improves it. Plus, gotta hand it to them deciding their emoji was being flown by Tex Johnston. I admire that sort of verve.

Microsoft Teams - 0/10

On the flipside, animating this one and making it 3D makes it so much worse! It looks like it was made right when people just figured out that 3D animation was a thing that was possible to do, back in the 50s or something. And boy are those pixels crunchy - I wouldn't mind this if it weren't already heinous. Seriously, how is that tailfin even attached?

Skype - 10/10

Now this I really like. Most of these are impossible to assign a model to but this distinctly looks to me like one of the earlier, stubbier 737s, just really short with a pointy nose, and she's waving at you. Crisp, nice smooth animation, just fantastic.

Twitter Emoji Stickers - 0/10

Looks bad. One of the few of these which are very easy to recognize as a specific model of airplane - this is clearly a 747, based on the inclusion of the hump. There is a reason basically none of the others are trying to be a 747. Adding a weird lump to the front of your emoji doesn't really make it any less weird-looking, and rendering a plane from above tends to be weird-looking already. It looks like she was stung by a bee.

JoyPixels - 6.5/10

As with the WhatsApp red, I appreciate anything setting itself aside in color, so I have to compliment the choice of this sort of toothpastey green. This is one of the better simplified airplanes we've gone over today, and the only thing I really dislike is that it has the same issues with the tailfin Facebook does.

Toss Face - 0/10

I can barely tell this is supposed to be an airplane. It makes me want to, excuse the mental image, toss face.

JoyPixels Animations - 10/10

Now THIS is what I'm talking about! Just a nice little pixel aircraft, doing the same sort of smooth wriggling as the Skype airplane - no criticisms.

Sony PlayStation - small/10

Adequate, but too small to really assess further - but the fact that I don't dislike anything about it is honestly a credit at this point.

Noto Emoji Font - 3.5/10

This just looks like the Samsung emoji but rendered with plain lines. Removing detail from these tends to improve them.

OpenMoji - 0/10

Oh, no, I take it back! Too few details! It's like a torpedo with wings awkwardly stapled on. A really phallic one at that.

emojidex - what the hell/10

I think this more or less looks fine, and the livery it has also looks fine, but I'm so thrown off by the fact that I don't think this is a real airplane. I am obviously not an authority on every model of airplane ever built but I'm reasonably sure this isn't a real one. It most resembles a BAe 146/Avro RJ, the only four-engined t-tail plane intended for passengers rather than heavy cargo. But the 146/RJ has high wings, located above the cabin windows, so...what is this airplane? What does emojidex know that they're not telling us?

Messenger - 7/10

While not ugly per se, it's a bit futuristic for my taste. Still, the choice to model it from a position other than directly from the top avoids a lot of the pitfalls that make many of these so bad to look at.

LG - 4/10

Boring? Yeah, without question. But this is just a good representation of an airplane, and at this point I'll accept that. Does the tail thing, though.

HTC - 3/10

Something about the way this is shaped makes this look more like a rocketship than an airplane. Or a Convair Pogo.

SoftBank - 5/10

A decent pictoral representation of an airplane. See: LG. Fixes the tail thing.

Docomo - 5.5/10

Also a decent pictoral representation of an airplane, but I think rendering it in silhouette gets rid of many of the pitfalls associated with airplane emojis. No details to mess up, just the shape of an airplane. Why do the majority of these have four engines? Seriously, there are only three four-engine airliners in passenger service right now. Have the people designing these not flown since the early aughts?

au by KDDI - 2.5/10

Okay, I know I've been saying being a good representation of an airplane is good enough but this is just simplifying too far. This isn't an emoji, it's a unicode character.

Mozilla - 1/10

Why pointy but only sometimes? Why does the tail pinch in like that? It's ugly, Mozilla, you made an ugly one.

#off-duty #transmissions #stopovers

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graffitibible · 2 years

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genuinely confused wdym by gerard way white saviorism

you asked me this about 3 weeks ago, and i'm sorry it took me so long to get to it. i had to think very hard about how i was going to answer this one, because i want to be transparent in just how frustrating i find this issue without drawing a lot of fire from really pissed off my chem fans who hate the idea of my daring to speak up against their perfect white fav (which has happened often, and continues to happen often. fortunately i'm pretty immune to this by now but i do find it very annoying)

i want to be very transparent in that i think that pretty much everyone can benefit from the idea that their favs are flawed. i'm very aware of the flaws and missteps that people i admire, both personally and professionally, have committed in their lives, and it is down to my own sense of morality over whether that's a dealbreaker for me. i don't like the idea of calling out bad behavior for the sake of clout or whatever. but i do care about not people being spoken over when they point out a legitimate criticism, and that is the bottom line here.

below the cut, i'm going to be discussing some very heavy topics: racism of all flavors is the most prevalent one, but i'm also going to touch (briefly) on topics such as antisemitism, incest, and abuse.

and i am also, in general, going to be saying a lot of very unkind things.

when it comes to criticisms of the scene, of narrative writing, of mistakes that people make...my chemical romance, and gerard way in particular, are consistently rendered immune. when we discuss misogyny in the scene in the early and mid aughts, my chem's name never comes up (despite the fact that bullets, their first album, most certainly has lyrics that certainly evoke the same violent misogyny present in a lot of works from that era). when we discuss racism within the scene, my chem is never really discussed at length except perhaps to point out that ray toro is a latino man who is either ignored or sexualized (or both) by a deeply racist fanbase. there is a tendency, within these spaces, to give my chem the benefit of the doubt where the same grace is not extended to others.

this is what i mean by "white saviorism." because gerard way's whiteness in particular protects them from a lot of this. and i say this because of all the things that has made it deeply uncomfortable to interact with broad swathes of my chem's fanbase, the racism has unquestionably been the number one deterrent. there is a very unique brand of racism present within my chem spaces - and i know i am not the only person of color who feels this way, because i've spoken to many who can say the same - that is particularly violent, particularly virulent, and particularly ingrained. experiences with this, along with my own growing distaste for gerard way as a writer, has soured my experience with the music so tremendously that i can no longer really interact with it at length.

i am not, however, above citing my sources. so. let’s talk about racism in gerard way’s writing, shall we?

i have always been up front about the fact that i do not find gerard way to be a particularly inspired, interesting, or good writer. i find most of their work to be aggressively mediocre and highly derivative. but my own personal opinion of their work has very little bearing on the extremely racist rhetoric that upholds a distressing amount of it. here is where i'm going to link a pretty informative twitter thread that outlines a lot of these instances in detail, but it is by no means exhaustive.

it's in the umbrella academy comics, wherein the main characters are all white despite being children taken from "all over the world." it's in the orientalist racist caricatures of the vampire viet cong group that the heroes square up against. it's in the casual instances of slurs that have cropped up several times in their works without any understanding of the impact those words have (an anti-indigenous slur in the umbrella academy comics, an anti-romani slur in the killjoys national anthem comics - which, i should state, came out in 2020). it's in the appalling writing decision to, in national anthem, make the sole black character the character with "animal powers" who rips out adversary's throats on all fours. it's in the frequent and persistent sexualization of women of color, particularly asian women. it's in the colorism involved in the interplay between mike milligram (a white man), code blue (a latina woman), and jaime ramirez (their mixed child), wherein jaime's skin tone shifts at the drop of a hat depending on which of his parental figures is in the frame (code blue is dead by the time the story picks up properly, but her sister, code red, effectively raises him...and he ends up staying with his father).

and it is unquestionably, overwhelmingly present in danger days. this is a danger days blog so this is the area in which i have the most research, so i want to be very clear when i say this:

racism is an insidious, incontrovertible, and inextricable foundation of the very conceptual underpinnings behind danger days and all its associated works.

the orientalism is baked into the very aesthetic of the album. better living industries is a japanese mega-company that takes everything over, the big bad of the franchise. the asian "aesthetic" is all over the canon in the music videos and comics: non-asian characters are seen wearing it, it's in all the marketing and even present on the album itself, wherein a woman is clearly heard speaking japanese on the "party poison" track. there was also the baffling inclusion of the "clown monk" character that was cut from the music videos back in 2010, wherein a white man is wandering around wearing buddhist robes (they inexplicably liked this concept so much that they brought it back for the national anthem comics which, again, i will reiterate: came out in 2020).

this is not surprising. danger days is deeply derivative in concept (up to and including the name itself), and because most of its influences come from cyberpunk dystopia fiction from the 80s, most obviously the 1980s film blade runner. works of fiction in that vein frequently draw from the idea of "yellow peril," and are rooted in the extremely racist and xenophobic rhetoric that western civilization will be invaded and dismantled by the evil, scary asians. the end result is a concept of a "dystopia" that is mired in the very stereotypical fears of the time: fears of an east asian surveillance state invading the west, fears of the all-powerful homogenized "other," and so on.

this did not stop gerard way from exotifying and fetishizing the fUCK out of all their asian characters though!!! the director of better living industries gets to be the primary major asian character in the killjoys california comics, and she spends a good chunk of it in dominatrix gear, with a whip to boot - both villain and sex object. the comic’s sex workers, referred to as “pornodroids,” are all asian-coded and, although we get one of the comic’s two same-sex pairings (3/4 of the characters involved in said pairings are dead by the comics’ end), the characters of red and blue spend the entirety of their screen time in the highly sexualized apparel of their occupations. there’s also the character of korse’s boyfriend, who does not get a name and spends all of his screen time lounging around shirtless in korse’s apartment. nice of gway to reduce the only asian dude to eye candy fridged for korse’s manpain. i guess.

also, i should not fail to mention - the killjoys california and danger days sections of canon are INCREDIBLY white for pieces of fiction that take place in california, which is one of the most racially diverse areas in the states. in terms of latino characters, we get jet star (by virtue of being played by ray toro in the music video, though i should point out that there is no guarantee that this is actually reflective of jet star’s true appearance, since none of the killjoy appearances are necessarily 1:1 with those of the band in the comics), and we get...POSSIBLY vaya and vamos, who are ambiguously brown and have names in spanish which implies they might be latine (but given that this is california and most of the population speaks spanish, is not necessarily a given). we also get volume, the sole black character, who gets a handful of lines before being unceremoniously killed off within moments of meeting him. the girl’s mother is definitely drawn as a woman of color, but she gets one line, no name, and the girl herself is drawn as very straightforwardly white and considered to have a “fair complexion” in the comics.

this trend unfortunately continues into national anthem, wherein there’s certainly a more diverse cast, but unfortunately, very little of that cast actually gets concrete development. mike milligram is our central protagonist, our sole white character (gerard way basically only ever commits to writing white protagonists)...and he’s also the only one of them who gets an arc of any kind. code blue (a latina woman, and his girlfriend) is fridged for his manpain. code red, blue’s sister, does not get nearly as much focus on her grief despite losing someone she knew for much longer than mike ever did. jaime, mike and blue’s child, resents red for raising him and chooses to stay with his birth father once the events of the comics are over. i’ve touched on how animax, our sole black character, is given “animal powers” and is pictured several times brutally ripping apart his enemies, but i should also point out that his big character motivation is - no joke - rosa parks. as in, rosa parks being erased from history, and he wants to stop it (these comics were weird, and also incredibly bad). everyone else has a deeply personal motivation save for animax, whose motivation is basically that he wants people to not forget that the civil rights movement like, happened.

there’s also the instance of kara jeong, or kara 100%. this is the one that really makes me grind my teeth, because she’s frequently praised as a cornerstone for trans representation. and i agree that having more trans women of color in comics is great! but this does not erase the fact that, like literally every other asian character gerard way has ever written, she is very much sexualized. her job as a model means that “it was essential that she was good looking” and it is not as egregious an example as, say, the director in the california comics...but it’s an unsettling addition to a constant pattern. there are a lot of shots of kara’s bare neck and shoulders and long legs, and all that on top of the fact that, like anyone who isn’t mike milligram, she gets very little characterization at all...well, it’s not a great look.

these are the issues in gerard’s writing that are the most frequently dismissed and ignored. this post is horribly long to begin with, so i don’t want to carry on (ha...ha....), but i want it on record that i very much could. this does not even begin to touch upon the bizarre inclusion of a constant incest undertone in almost everything gerard way writes (the umbrella academy is the most obvious here, but even in the killjoys canons...red and blue are lesbian lovers in california while being sisters in national anthem, and that’s kind of a little uncomfortable, all things considered), nor does it address gerard’s insistence on including very homogenous abusive backstories for no reason besides, i guess, character angst (and these abusive backstories all involve a physically abusive male figure, because i guess this is the only kind of abusive relationship gerard way can visualize).

[EDIT: just remembered, because i forgot to mention it (knew i was forgetting something) - there's also quite a bit of antisemitism present in the umbrella academy comics that is further exacerbated in the show. i'm not the best equipped person to talk about that (i've only watched the show up to s2, at which point i kinda got sick of that garbage enough to just tap out of it), and i also have only looked over the tua comics a few times as opposed to the show, which is not run or primarily written by gerard way. that being said, he's definitely a creative consultant on it, so...i think maybe they should've reconsidered making reginald hargreeves a baby-stealing lizard man and having the bad guys all speak to each other in yiddish, possibly.]

let me be the first to say...none of this surprises me. these are all pitfalls i’ve seen white writers (and writers of color with internalized issues) commit as well. and i also, as well, want to make it clear that i imagine very little of these appalling writing decisions were committed with active malice. i sincerely doubt that anyone involved in these writing processes steepled their fingers and cackled wickedly over what crimes they would commit to their many brown fans.

i want to be very, very clear here. i lay all of this out not to “shame” gerard way or write a “callout post” or anything to that effect. i want to be utterly transparent in that i think gerard way’s racism is as mediocre and unremarkable as their writing is: derivative, lazy, shallow, and incredibly commonplace.

and that is where the idea of “gerard way white saviorism” comes from. because these are all, individually, acts of horribly insensitive, damaging, and deeply racist rhetoric that would unquestionably be addressed if it were anyone else doing them. but because it’s gerard way, and the internet loves gerard way, and everyone has decided that gerard way is their white liberal fav who can do no wrong...like the case with everything else surrounding my chemical romance, they get a pass. they are exempt.

this is far from everything. it’s just what i can remember at the moment. i am not the first person of color to point this shit out. i imagine i will be ignored, much like every other fan of color who has made these points in the past. people don’t like to imagine that gerard way can be capable of these sorts of oversights. they don’t like to think about it. they want to persist in painting their very ordinary, centrist, white liberal fav as someone whose every word is deeply progressive and insightful and flawless. because, consistently, they get the benefit of the doubt where others, especially folks of color, do not.

so no one talks about it. no one talks about how gerard way’s writing is consistently racist in a very clear and distinct way that no one wants to address, making it more insidious. no one wants to talk about the mind-bogglingly racist conceptual underpinnings holding up the entire danger days album. no one wants to talk about how gerard, and all of my chemical romance accepted, or at the very least tolerated, bob bryer’s overt antiblack racism for years, for nearly a decade, and never said a word.

no one wants to talk about it. because that would mean they’d have to come to terms with their white savior not being so perfect.

so they don’t.

and shit like this is why i find the overwhelming majority of my chemical romance fan spaces to be deeply unwelcoming to someone like myself: a brown person who tries to call out racism when i see it. and i know i’m not the only one.

#ask #anon #z speaks #gerard way //#im...not going to maintag this. feel free to reblog it though.#posts that are the equivalent of firing a couple shots into the air to keep the rent low lol

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purplealmonds · 10 months

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🩸 Portrait of the Blood God's most devoted acolyte.

Close-ups, process pics, and artist commentary below the cut!

Close-Ups:

Process:

Commentary:

This was actually my first Technoblade piece, but when I found out the anniversary of his passing near so it was postponed for a more tonally appropriate project.

Yes, that’s a hoglin head he’s wearing. My headcanon is that this was his first kill. The skull’s rather small, and the tusks haven’t quite grown in yet so it’s likely a juvenile. It’s the right kind of fucked up for someone who owns a sword called the “Orphan Obliterator”. It becomes desiccated and gross over time, but he keeps it on as a trophy and the added intimidation factor. It contrasts strongly against the ornamental vibes of the rest of his outfit as a nod to his violent origins. From a design standpoint, I wanted to feature both his actual face and his pig persona. This seemed like a decent -and aptly gory- compromise.

The halo is his crown. Obvious godhood and death symbolism aside, it was also a creative solution to the challenge of making a crown sit in an aesthetically pleasing way on a bloody, decapitated boar head.

The text encircling the halo reads “Blood for the Blood God,” “Technoblade Never Dies”, and “One of Us”. We can only hope that our voices still reach him, wherever he is now.

The draped folds of his white shirt were stupidly difficult for me to capture. It was backlit, and a lot less skin-tight than what I was used to rendering. At one point the fabric was also slightly transparent and showcased a little more of the skin tone beneath, but it diverged too much from the color study so I dialed it back considerably.

The enchantment text engraved on the axe and sword read “Axe of Peace” and “Orphan Obliterator” respectively. (I know it doesn’t make sense that the sword’s unsheathed in its holster, but you wouldn’t see the fancy text otherwise!) The actual enchantments on these weapons manifest as a shimmering ripple effect inspired by Damascus steel.

A lot of interpretations of Technoblade streamlines his coat to a cape. I wanted to stay true to the source material, but instead of him wearing the oversized coat I draped it over his shoulders Howl’s Moving Castle style. Not pictured at his angle is the gold chain keeping the garment from drifting off. I also altered the fur lining to resemble an ermine pelt - a traditional feature of royal mantles in combination with the red velvet fabric.

When looking at Technoblade’s character skin, I was at a loss on how to interpret the checkered pattern of his pants. I ended up making them into wooly cowboy chaps worn atop faded maroon trousers. His DSMP cabin was located in the chilly tundra, and he worked with quite a lot of wildlife and livestock so I think this is in character for him! Bit of trivia - without the wrinkles, the trouser fabric color looked very, very similar to his skin tone. And with the sword conveniently covering his crotch, I had some very unintentional symbolism happening down there until I added the stitches. Whoops.

#technoblade #Technoblade never dies #Technoblade fanart #techno fanart #mcyt fanart #mcyt #blood #fan art #blood for the blood god #one of us #purplealmonds #2023

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bobacupcake · 10 months

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We got the earth and the sky, but has anyone asked about what you think of Abzu?

i love abzu!!! another one i have watched the gdc talk for which you can watch here!!

the two big things in abzu are the fish animations and the overall environment lighting - lets start with fish!! there are a lot of them. and when you want to animate a lot of things, your computer will explode. this is specifically when you animate things with bones, how a lot of computer things are animated

luckily one thing that gpus can be really good at is drawing a tonnnn of the same object really fast, using something called instancing. as long as its the same mesh and material, it can be rendered a ton with just a single draw call (like i am talking hundreds of thousands). so lets make 10 thousand fish. unluckily this doesnt work with skeleton animations. luckily you dont need them! especially with fish

even though all the objects need to be the same mesh and material, doesnt mean they cant have different input. not only that but shaders let you modify individual vertexes, so, what if you just take all 10000 fish and wiggle them along an axis, like this

and give them all slightly different inputs so they arent all doing the exact same animation, maybe by giving them each their own unique number. now you have 10 thousand fish swimming around, wiggling, at almost zero rendering cost

these are all individual 3d models and all their animations are running in the shader !

the other way they animated fish without giving them bones was through something called blendshapes - these are usually used for stuff like facial animations, where you move vertices around to your desired "shape" (so like maybe your default face is :| but you edit the vertices so your character goes :> etc), and keep track of the difference between each vertex's position and its original position so you can move it whenever you want

that doesnt need any bones so they used this for things like fish going CHOMP and fish making sharp turns

for the actual environment, they experimented with a bunch of things like using actual volumetric lighting, but in the end they found that just using fog worked best!! they did tweak it a bit though - they had a "zone" between where the fog started to get thick and when the fog just ended up being a solid color where they dimmed any lighting - this really helped the background geometry stick out and give that underwater feel (left is without dimming the lights, right is with dimming the lights!! fun to think about how firewatch did something similar but changing the fog color based on depth rather than literally dimming the lighting)

they also let different volumes have their own fog value, so if there was say a cave off in the distance, it could have less fog than the surrounding area for clarity & also made the fog look a bit more volumetric

and the other huge thing that helped was "portal cards" - not an official term but its what they called them, basically just quads they could stick in any place where they needed to make something "stick out", like a cave, or a hilltop that blended with the background too much. the card sampled the depth of objects behind it, and used that 0 to 1 value to map a color to it. and then the closer youd get to these cards, the more transparent theyd get, until youre right on top of it and you dont need the objects to stick out of the background anymore!! here you can see a Me, but very dark, and then i slide the card over it. the black and white is the camera depth of all objects behind the card, minus the depth of the card. and mapping that to a color makes me stick out way more than i was initially!! then as you swim closer to me, the card fades away, until you pass the card completely

these portal cards were also used to make the light beams poking out from the surface, theyre just animated a bit!! you can see how the portal cards affect the look of things in this frame breakdown

and one other thing thats pretty prominent that wasnt touched on in the talk is all the caustics on the ground, those little wobbly light things you see underwater. but those were probably? just added to every shader as a "add this caustics texture on top based on the with the texture mapped to the world x and z position and only if the object is facing up"

like this !

anyways thats all from me on abzu..!! really pretty game

#anonymous #ask #potion of answers your question #gamedev stuff #long post #i optimize every gif for you guys even if its already under 10mb

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etherati · 10 months

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Belmont crest and colorrrrssss

I have a lot of thoughts and feels about the colors used in various versions of the Belmont crest in the netflix show, and how it fits into traditional heraldry. I have decided to make that everyone else's problem. So.

In Leon's portrait, we see him in a surcoat of white with the Belmont crest rendered in azure blue.

In traditional heraldry the "white" component of this would be synonymous with the metal silver/argent, as matte white was not a meaningful color choice and all colors had to be combined with a metal (silver or gold) rather than another color. Now, I know that in the Doylesian sense, this color choice was made because of Leon's original character design, which utilized different tradition imagery and had nothing to do with the Belmonts specifically:

But the text is what it is and the show gave us the first Belmont in an azure and argent version of the Belmon crest. Color meanings vary depending on your source, but azure typically referred to truth, loyalty, and unwavering morality. Morality is, of course, a construct--you can imagine that for the rebellious ex-church-knight Belmont it probably had some input from the bible but moreso was informed by his own oath--to "battle the night". Yeah, this gets made fun of--he's the dumbass who wants to fight an entire time of day--but we know what he means, ok. He's swearing to defend the daylight world against the things in the night that would harm it. He is defining his moral position going forward very specifically--he will uphold humanity and destroy that which would cause it harm. In a fic of mine he described it as representing the daylight sky, which given that he's a vampire in that fic carries even more poignancy, but even in the canon version it works, because that is the moral field he is aligning with.

Meanwhile argent/silver generally refers to purity, sincerity, and faith, which yeah, this is definitely a character who has purity of purpose. This combination of colors suits a vision of the Belmonts that served humanity unerringly, who had faith even when the church itself seemed flawed, who defined their morality by the divide between daylight and night and executed it with sincerity and dedication.

Fast forward to Trevor's time. The family has risen and fallen. At its height it was considered a great noble family--a warrior dynasty, as Alucard put it. Trevor's tunic and his armor both bear the crest in gold; once we're in the hold, we see that it's set against a deep burgundy in the official banners and standards.

Why the change? What does it mean? Red is obvious--it's the warrior side of them, the military might, the weight of generations of fighters and all the blood they've spilt. It's the most common color in heraldry because conflict and war were themselves so common, but the Belmonts (to our knowledge) weren't besieging neighboring Lords' territories. They defined themselves by their fight against the creatures of the night, defined themselves to the point that they became The Fight. The warrior is the largest part of their identity. In the same fic I had Trevor say that the red represented family to him, like bloodlines, which is not the traditional meaning--but given that nothing defined his family or his relationship with them as much as The Fight, I still think he was onto something. Additionally, red can carry the meaning of sacrifice and martyrdom, which also fucking fits, unfortunately.

As for the gold, usually this refers to faithfulness, nobility, constancy, and glory. On its own, it's a statement of those qualities--particularly nobility and faithfulness. Combined with warrior's red, the glory piece of it starts to assert itself. A family of martyrs and warriors, noble and glorious--that's how they saw themselves, anyway. The family had gotten so far up its own ass that it cared more about perpetuating those ideals and standards than it necessarily did about the original purpose and duty of its existence! Eventually Trevor re-finds that purpose, when he drops the cloak in Gresit and re-dedicates himself to protecting the people--but it's worth noting that the crest he displays in that moment is gold alone, without a specific colored field. The version of the Belmonts that defined themselves by the amount of blood they'd shed are dead and buried, their flags tattered; the one who survived has taken their steadfastness, their faithfulness and constancy and nobility, and managed to reconnect it to what they always should have been.

Which brings us full circle, back to Leon's portrait--because there's another crest, there.

Azure and gold. All the steady dedication of a long standing nobility--much less fragile than one man's personal purity of purpose--applied to moral defense of humanity and the daylight world, rather than simply to fighting and glory for its own sake. There's a reason this is the color scheme I plan for Leon to end up in, in my fic-verse, and is the one that I think may have been in between the other two, chronologically. It conveys all the Belmonts are meant to be and do, without reducing them to simply violence. They fight, not for the fight's sake, but to protect the people they've sworn to protect.

Anyway. Yeah. Uh, colors!

#castlevania #castlevania netflix #belmont stuff #trevor belmont #leon belmont #CoLoR tHeOrY~~~#heraldry #meta #eth blathers and everyone else suffers

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sleepynegress · 6 months

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So, I'm Watching Dollar Tree The Gilded Age: The Buccaneers (I apologize that this is a long one folks because of ADHD Romantic Period Drama w/ ~Color~ tangents)...

Okay... So, I have to preface this by admitting that Bridgerton never has been my great big thing. It's a cake sculpted from cotton candy.

Pretty and sweet, but not much substance. And very much leaning on the "fantasy" so everyone can enjoy the costume romance fun (but it does please me to see my marginalized players, playing well...). -Using an author's works as a base, who not only started with an all-white palette but was flippant and insulting in response to the idea of inclusion... And yet...

I'm just saying, it is something that the woman who walked away from ABC because an exec didn't respect her enough to get a Disney pass for her family, went on to make that lucrative author's uplift deal with, instead of say, Beverly Jenkins. I love underdog romances that aren't the typical het white bread. Give me the canon gays (I never got slash...but I love when it's canon, especially with color), the big girls, the dark brown skin girls, the Black couples, and the interracials, especially when both are BIPOC and there's no lag in charm/looks in the lighter half in some expertly lit, dressed, confection that makes everyone look as gorgeous as they actually are and there's all kinds of soft plotting and chemistry. Bridgerton for all its lazy ways of handling color, gave that. Everybody is hot. And the people that studios have typically just pretended either weren't "invented" yet or were all living horrible tortured lives of enslavement got to get the sweet costumed wooing, will-they-won't-they, ~romance~ treatment. But... being an obscure Black history nerd... I'm neurodivergent, so I have some deep-dive GEMS that I'll mention here that I NEED TO SEE DONE WELL, before I die. FYI I called Dido Elizabeth Belle a good 8 years before that was actually made. It is frustrating to see some of the ACTUAL interesting capacities in which some actual existing Black folks in history who did live interesting, not tragic lives, not given the big glossy budget, well-written renderings they deserve... In lieu of what has now, firmly taken hold as a trend, colorblind casting in known white works. See recent adaptations of David Copperfield, Persuasion, Tom Jones, & Great Expectations,

and now, this The Buccaneers (which like I said, is Dollar Tree, and *worse* the colorblind cast sister Conchita is using her regular-eggular Cali accent and...is not a compelling actress & her man is a jar of mayo) and baby...them costumes are Reign-levels of anachronistic/bad. It's the lazy jump onto the trend Shonda exploded, and Mr. Malcolm's List started (yeah, that short film was put on YouTube a full year before Bridgerton debuted). So, my point... Instead of *just* doing colorblind casting in old classic white period works... I need to see these ACTUAL GREAT stories of and/or written by or about the colorful people who lived in those societies. And this is where it could get long... but I'll do my best to keep it short... EXAMPLES that were gotten right and those *I need to see adapted*: ____

Interview With The Vampire is inclusive color-AWARE casting... The showrunner went beyond and actually rewrote the narrative to make sure the inclusion wasn't lazily done, but actually improved the depth of the source IMO. And I believe the showrunner is a queer white man. It just takes empathy and effort.

Passing... is a moody slow-burn horror based upon an actual work written by a Black woman in that period, and adapted by a white-passing WOC who not only lived the theme, but rendered it expertly.

Belle is often pointed to as a good example, but my nerd-ass knows Gugu's beyond AMAZING handling of the material elevated it.

Too much was changed from the reality of her life (IMO), still...Most period dramas are about as "true" and yall know I was not a fan of Sam Reid's over-dramatic ass in this... (yelling in that damn carriage for what?!) but he is PERFECT in IWTV. Sanditon being made, despite the typical side-character Black character issues...really was a reset because Miss Austen had already envisioned, in her day and above her class(!) a Black heiress as a character getting the Austen treatment, w/o any modifications the salty and ignorant would prefer to think is beyond "true history". ----- I have a little hopeful part in my brain that wishes it had the power to will capable adaptions of the lives of Carlotta Stewart Lai - middle-class educated Black woman who became a teacher & lived an "Anne of Green Gables" type of Edwardian life (more interesting really) surfing, having "bathing parties," and teaching Hawaiians with her Black family, Portuguese, Hawaiian and Chinese friends on the big island... Her life was w/o the stereotypes people assume all Black Americans lived in Victorian/Edwardian "America".

Gustav Badin, a Black man who was "Chessmaster" of the Swedish Royal Court in the 1700's...was in charge of the Royal family's secrets after the Queen's passing, really gives me intelligent queer Black man energy in his portrait and lived out a non-tragic life in a VERY white space many don't know we occupied.

And The Hunters... Who already have a short film and I've posted about it here... but I would LOVE to see an actual rendering of their lives in the Klondike, with their gold and silver prospects and son grandson Buster and daughter Teslin in Edwardian Canada.

(that is Teslin at the highest point in the photo, named after the lake she was born at)

(and the Hunters' grandson Buster ice-fishing)

All this to say... Now, that I've thoroughly veered away from my review of a middling show... I WISH THESE DAMN SHOWRUNNERS used a little effort in research and imagination and gave us more "true to life" renderings of Black life (and life of color, in these romanticized spaces) that isn't tragic nor the patronizin inclusive "fantasy"... That feels like it's smirking at me while saying "we know you weren't ~really~ here, but here! have a cookie!!" These people existed.

You don't have to *just* make inclusive versions of white works with the lie that you have to do that because thee above people ~didn't exist~. Nor do you have to be lazy when you do!! (see: IWTV) Right now, for me... It feels like for the most part we're in a period of very shallow "advancement" in period rep. And I'm saying if little old me can find the actual stories that could make AMAZING true history-based media. Why can't the more powerful people do the same?? P.S.

You already know I'm fresh off being mad about that shitty Bass Reeves show...but I'm even madder because I can't even say, "just make sure its made by Black people," because Jeymes Samuel (AKA Bullitts) gave us skinny biracial StageCoach Mary!!!

---NO!! I will never stop being mad about it!!

DO BETTER!! Have the empathy and care for the material, regardless, and don't rest on "I know what I'm doing because I'm Black" That male gaze won out over truth in The Harder They Fall *smh*

P.P.S I get the feeling the lazy adaptions are about cash-grabbing, what they see as a trend, and being all the ready to jump back into the whitewashed business as usual, that ain't true to *all* actual histories nor (as Austen proved) fictions of those eras or spaces.

P.P.P.S. On The Glided Age!! I do love that the Fellowes drama has Erica Armstrong Dunbar (known for her book and research on Ona Judge -another figure whose story needs to be adapted!!!- the Black woman who successfully escaped enslavement from George Washington's household and was doggedly pursued by him throughout her life) and Salli Richardson-Whitfield as producers... so, Denee Benton's Peggy is authentic... but as much as I like The Gilded Age, I want to combine Fellowes comfort drama... with a CENTRALIZED Black character... Why can't someone do all of it correctly?? WHY??!!!

#I am so sorry...#I may have to attempt to do a video essay on youtube to truly cover what I want to fully say in this..I #blah blah #meta #the buccaneers #the gilded age #bridgerton #black history #marginalized folks in period dramas in comfort period drama is what I want #and done WELL!!#give me sarah forbes bonnetta's life

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1-800-deactivatednearu · 9 months

Text

woag character design notes

[i.d.: a drawn line up of the half life vr ai characters, from left to right, gordon, dr. coomer, tommy, bubby, gman, and benrey. /end i.d.]

yeah i skipped some guys , i dont draw some of them enough to have much unique designs and some of them are a png of a dog

trust me i am just surprised as the rest of yall that i am doing hlvrai art . design notes below (very long, mind your step)

gordon:

wow this guy dont got no head

i didnt want to give gordon a face because of how unexact the person is as the fandom engages with it. is it wayne rtvs? (well as presented to an audience, yes) is it gordon freeman? (well as seen from an in game perspective, yes) is it a whole new guy entirely? (well as

i cut the confusion and took it a whole new direction: guillotine

hlvrai being treated as a very broken game is fun to me as a design perspective, so if you (the audience) are not supposed to see his face, what happens when you see it anyways? missing texture time

there are eyes drawn over because i did not have confidence in my expressions at first and then it grew on me

i think if i were to draw (and i have drawn) an actual person under the mask i would still censor the eyes because that is where the vr headset sits!!

(i do not like putting an actual flesh to gordon though)

though i really like seeing how other people interpret gordon hlvrai it is not . my gordon ? we are talking about the same guy . but this is my gordo . i made this one . this guy my guy . maybe i should draw other gordon designs

i can draw the hev suit from memory and it is also the entire reason why i can render metal confidently

i liked how people changed the lambda to read ai :] i also have no clue if i wrote the lambda correctly

(i did, i just checked)

dr coomer:

as much as i draw/drew him i find it more fun to not stick to one set design :)

so a lot of my takes on dr coomer tend to jump from idea to idea, especially from what other people are doing, though they could be fitted to the left and right designs!

the left design is mainly based off what i saw in fandom spaces

we see rounder shapes, making for a more friendly and welcoming appearance

i think of this as straying from the more professional uniform of the actual scientist models

enter swimming shorts and bright yellow socks, for some reason

so now he kind of looks like a cool science teacher :)

it might be the lab coat

the right design is mainly based off thumbnails for hlvrai itself

these use a more angular appearance

i want to push how comically buff he is because of strength he shows at times, especially since his left design seems to completely down play it as a comically not buff man who is still very strong

the shadows on right design coomer get so much more harsh and exaggerated because i have comic books on the mind :)

he really does look like a dehydrated comic book character huh

tommy:

stick bug (he gets it from his dad) (this thought process is explained at gman section)

i pushed a lot of the saturation of colours in her design because i think tommy gets to be a little silly with it

fun art story of the day! when you color, try messing with hue! you might notice you can get away with a lot as long as your values are about right

i like pushing this with white because you can get away with a lot of things reading as “off white”

old faithful for me is cool shadows with a warm transition colour to keep things visually interesting

i keep making white objects the trans flag

happy pride

tommys design looks a little like a school boy, with the tucked in button up shirt+suspenders+shorts+jacket tied around the waist . and the primary colours . but like it is really fun to dress up so brightly

i actually was strongly inspired by medieval babies if that is a weird descriptor? i wanted him to both be a middle aged man but also a young adult

do not be like tommy, who has their finger on the trigger of the gun while not even looking at where it is pointing and good god he is squeezing the trigger . top ten firearm safety of all time

bubby:

the absurd part is that i think bubby is tall . he is just between tommy and gman who are exaggeratedly lanky .

i wanted to make bubby a pointy kinda guy, so he is the only one actually wearing the lab coat proper . and the only one actually wearing dress socks but not even wearing dress shoes

i wanted to give him a novelty tie but i was running low on ideas and running high on boreds so we dont get a tie

he does have crocs though!! in attack mode!!

i do think we all kind of saw his model and collectively decided it works for him because i have honestly not seen major divergences from his model?

gman:

stick bug

i wanted to stress the more spooky and unknowable nature of him and took it in the dark souls direction of “make bigger than player character”

maked too bigger

he cannot walk through any doorways but you will have to crane your neck to look up at him

in the opposite direction of tommy, i pulled a lot of the saturation in gmans design

it feels important to make them both not fully match the rest of the slightly less broken npcs because there was so much work to make them look cool so i have to respect that

actually a lot of gmans and tommys designs are made in opposite to one another

gman has a largely stationary face and very stiff line work

while tommy is pushed to expressive as possible

thats pretty fun, way to go me

benrey:

benrey also has two designs

and in both of these i keep getting too lazy to use a reference so the vests are super plain (forgetting the badge and black mesa logo) . i think the helmet is supposed to be darker actually .

the design ethos of benrey was “built like a brick shithouse”

a friend of mine took this cooler and interpreted it as a shield/wall/barrier as a physical (and narrative) obstacle

again the first uses fandom designs

most notably the overcast shadow (seen in video thumbnails but i never noticed it or understood why so many people did it until someone pointed it out to me)

i think hlvrai is such a great medium because it acknowledges it is a game and is able to play into that to great effect! i think the shadow is fun to imagine as solid black as a small reminder of the impossibility of the space :]

benrey is a smug cat in the body of a human . to be honest . and this is the full range of emotion i have ever drawn him with

the second was mostly because as fun as taking creative liberties are, i just really wanted to see benrey as is: the half life security guard model in all its slight wonk :]

i actually do prefer this design . it is a little more uncanny because i choose the worst translations of the model . i like it because it is a little more uncanny !

that can be said for like . every single design in this line up huh .

#hlvrai #my art #gordon feetman #dr coomer #tommy coolatta #dr bubby #gman coolatta #benrey #half life vr but the ai is self aware

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librarycards · 2 months

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Hello, do you have any books on children's rights and patriarchy to recommend? 🥺

this is very much a category in-progress; children's rights discourse has advanced a great deal in the last few years (and will almost certainly continue to)! here are a few texts I recommend [with the caveat that these generally address children's rights but have other foci]:

Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child (also, Jules's substack!!)

Eric Stanley, Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable

Stanley & Smith, eds., Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex [in both, Stanley / Stanley & Smith track the process by which youth, particularly queer/trans youth of color, are rendered unpersons)

Kathryn Joyce, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption [discussion of adoption –– in many cases, explicit child trafficking serving christofascist ends –– is inextricable from children's rights and is far too often ignored]

I have learned perhaps the most about children's rights and youth liberation from queer/trans disabled & Madppl. Remi Yergeau's Authoring Autism as well as Eli Clare's Exile & Pride have been pivotal here. Samuel R Delany's Heavenly Breakfast also has an incredible set of passages on youth liberation, harm reduction, and substance use.

Finding blogs like (now-inactive) We Are Like Your Child have been transformative, as have Mel Baggs's (z"l) body of work, which I discuss in more depth here. One final shout is to Parenting Decolonized, who call attention to the entanglement between racial capitalism, ableist cisheteropatriarchal white supremacy, and the oppression of children, incl. its reproduction via the nuclear family form.

#hope this helps!#ask #anonymous #book rec #youth liberation #autonomy

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redslug · 5 months

Text

Denoiser wisdom

Since a lot of people showed interest in my workflow of using SD like a renderer for existing sketches, I'll be sharing the little tricks I find while exploring the capabilities of SD with Neuroslug. Read the inpainting post to understand this one. When inpainting, the model takes into consideration what is already in the area it regenerates and in the areas around it. How exactly it'll follow these guidelines is determined by denoising strength. At low values it'll stick closely to the areas of color it sees and won't create anything radically different from the base. At high denoising strength it'll gladly insert colors, shapes and silhouettes that weren't there originally. Basically the more you trust your sketch the smaller your denoising strength should be. It doesn't mean you won't need the high denoising at some point. Let me explain it using yesterday's artwork. It all starts with a rough sketch.

Since I have a particular composition in mind and want it to be maintained, I'll be using a low denoising strength to fully regenerate this image.

It means that the algorithm won't have enough freedom to fix my large-scale mistakes, it's simply not allowed to change the areas of color too dramatically. So if you want to do this yourself make sure to set the image to black and white first and check that your values are working and contrast is good.

To make sure the result isn't too cartoony and flat I used brushes with strong color jitter and threw a rather aggressive noise texture over the whole thing. This'll give the denoiser a little wiggle room to sprout details out of thin air.

It kept the composition, the suggested lighting and the majority of flowers kept their intended colors too. This was denoising strength 0f 0.4. To contrast that, same base image with denoising at 0.7:

It's pretty, but it's neither the style nor composition I wanted. Let's refine the newly redrawn base to include the details that were lost in transition. These were intended to be roses.

It's here where I learned a little trick. You can mix and match different models to achieve the look you desire. Neuroslug is good at detailed moths and painterly environments. It's not good at spitting out really detailed flowers, they end up looking very impressionist which is not what I want in foreground. So, I switched to an anime focused model and let it run wild on this bush with high (0.7) denoising strength.

Nice definition, but it looks too smooth and isn't in line with what I want. Switching back to Neuroslug with denoising at 0.5 and letting it work over these roses.

This way, I get both the silhouette and contrast of the anime model (counterfeitV30) and the matching style of Neuroslug. It's also useful in cases where the model doesn't know a particular flower. You can generate an abstract flower cluster with the anime model and use the base model to remind the AI that what you want is in fact a phlox specifically. So I did this to basically every flower cluster on the image to arrive at this:

It's still a bit of a mess but it has taken me about 80% of the way there, the rest I'll be fixing up myself.

My "Lazy Foliage" brush set was really helpful for this. I'll release that one once it accumulates enough brushes to be really versatile. Now we block in the character.

Yes, I left the hands wonky since I intend to be drawing them manually later, same about the foot. There's so much opportunity for the AI to mess them up that I'd rather have all the control on these details.

When it renders the face it can really mess up everything, so I do it with low (0.45) denoising strength to discourage new eyes popping up in inappropriate places. Take note that I kept the antennae out of the mask. AI is easily confused when one subject overlaps the other.

Good, good. Wait. Why are your eyes hairy? Now, mask out the eyes, remove all mention of fur from the prompt and

That's about right. Since the eyes are all one color block I can afford to raise the denoising strength for more wild results. Same for areas of just fluff on the entire body, it's all one texture and having the denoiser at 0.6-0.75 is beneficial because it's going to add locks, stray hairs and other fluffy goodness. Just make sure to not make the mask too tight to the silhouette, it needs some space to add hairs sticking out.

With the skirt it was back to really low denoising. The folds I blocked in make sense with the position oh her legs under it, so I didn't want it to be lost.

Lastly, I drew in a flower that she's planting and ran over it with moderately high denoising to make it match the surrounding style. Ignore the biblically accurate roots there, I'll fix them by hand.

One last pass over the whole thing in Procreate. I draw the hands and add details such as the round pseudopupils, face ridges and wing markings to keep the character consistent with the previous image of her. And a bit of focal blur for a feeling of depth. Phew, even with generous use of AI this whole thing took an entire day of work. In the end what determines quality isn't the tool you use but the attention you choose to pay to finding inconsistencies and fixing them.

#neuroslug #ai assisted art #stable diffusion #anthro #moth #tutorial #I guess it counts as a tutorial at least #what are these long posts even #slug's experiments

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trans-androgyne · 30 days

Note

You’re honestly one of the most approachable transandrophobia bloggers I know.

One thing I’d like to discuss about is that a lot of the transandrophobia is being spearheaded by white trans women.

It shows a lot that whiteness is still everreaching even onto gender. There’s BIPOC trans people (especially BIPOC transmascs) that get harassed and shut down by these large white trans women bloggers. One time I saw one of them say “that is moot” to intersex people not being including on discussions about AFAB trans women.

It’s a very important concept that people are aware that white women hold up racist structures, it’s the same with the big white trans women on this site I’ve noticed. Due to their whiteness they do not actually know intersectionality and assume their gender is the sole reason of oppression. That white concepts of gender, sexuality, and disability are a truth and applied to everything.

I’ve been vocal about being a BIPOC transfemme, and the blatant bigotry and cruelty from the big white transfemme bloggers just ring it bad for me. My culture taught me kindness and patience, so seeing this popular rise in aggression and entitlement in transfemme spaces has rendered them quite unsafe for the people they supposedly protect like me.

The best conclusion I have for this is that the rise in transandrophobia has ties to racism, ableism, inter sexism much more. I want my discussions of trans experience such as both transmisogyny and transandrophobia to be free from other pre dispositioned bigotry. That as a transfemme someone who they claim to protect, that the whole wider trans community needs to do better.

Take care and I hope your day is wonderful

Thank you, I appreciate your analysis here! The transfems I know have also pointed out that a lot of it seems to be coming from predstrogen’s very white online trans women social sphere. It seems like transfems of color on here also have strong criticisms of that group’s behavior, including acting like being a transfem inherently means you have all the best takes on oppression. I hope we can get some better, more intersectional perspectives in the conversation.

#transandrophobia #intracommunity issues tag #ask #mine

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novacqnes · 1 year

Note

hi hello!! may i request a ellie x wife!reader (cause i love ur detective ellie fic so much oh my) where’s the reader is jealous of this new girl in jackson being mentored by ellie on shooting lessons and the girl is being flirty towards ellie to a point where she’s caressing ellie’s muscles 🙄 ellie notices the reader’s jealousy that leads to taking the reader to a “private” shooting lesson and they just show that they only belong to each other 🤭

lesson learned // ellie williams

warning: angsty; guns, jealousy, possessiveness, smut; face-sitting, oral, dirty talk, fingering (switch!ellie)

pairing: ellie williams x fem reader

a/n: this is by far the longest fic that i’ve written so it took me a while but it is finally done! thank you for sending a request :)

to say you saw red would’ve been an understatement. sure, it acknowledged the magnitude of anger behind an individual, illustrating it as one of the most powerful colors— one of vengeance, fury, and rage. yet for that very reason, it rendered the phrase useless to you because the emotions you experienced weren’t that of blinding rancor. rather they were that of a distinctly unique type of jealousy. it was the type that blurred the lines between anger, drawing in facets of passion and love that transformed the film of crimson over your eyes into a piercing navy blue.

through the blurry hue of your gaze stood a vast field that made your passion seem almost minuscule in comparison. dozens of people stood in the dry grass, thick beads of pestering sweat clung to their skin as the sun’s wrath strengthened. in your ears the loud reverberating sounds of bullets whirred by, enough to be heard from a mile away however you weren’t phased by it. your attention was centered elsewhere just a mere few feet away from where you stood.

monique? or maybe it was monica? you watched as she stood clueless with bright red cheeks that served as nothing more than a taunt to you. her fingers snuck tightly around the grip of the gun and her posture deformed. it all seemed purposeful. you couldn’t fathom how she could survive for so long without even knowing how to hold a gun properly let alone fire one? by no means was she a pro, yet every giggle and glance at her mentor seemed like a ploy to get closer to the woman.

unsuspectingly ellie stood behind the woman, a bit too close for your own comfort. she wore a white tank top and tight blue jeans that molded against her body. offering you and monica the clearest of views. repeatedly your eyes were drawn to her arms, their shape, and more specifically how her muscles contracted with each slight movement. the sight stirred a pit of warmth inside of you but the flirtatious glances from monica morphed it into gut-wrenching nausea.

“like this, el?” she cooed, her voice light and ditzy. she loosened her grip around the pistol as she leaned into ellie’s touch. her gaze cautiously trailing back towards your wife’s arms. her name mimicked a wretched poison rolling off the tip of monica’s tongue. it felt foreign to your ears, spurring a loud ringing sound through them.

“here, i’ll show you.” she moved, taking the gun from monica’s hands as she demonstrated the right form. the newbie watched carefully as ellie extended her arms out, lacing both hands along the black grip. words flowed from her mouth yet you couldn’t make out a thing. fierce nearby bullets made it so ellie’s voice was beyond distorted and the only source of reliance was the stomach-churning image right before you.

much of it was a blur although you remember monica’s fingers gliding along the smooth surface of your wife’s skin. they trailed over her biceps lightly before making their way to her shoulders. her movements were subtle and slow, causing your chest to tighten with each one. fresh hot tears brimmed the corners of your eyes and a distinct bitter taste plagued your tongue. all you could do was watch for what felt like hours as the woman you loved was touched by someone else— in such a casual manner.

there was something so arrogant and brazen about the way monica looked at ellie, even in the way she caressed her. it was as if it was all a game to her and with that, you couldn’t stand to remain in the scorching field anymore. with your vision blurred with tears and hazy blue splotches, you turned sharply on your heel, narrowly dodging the onslaught of incoming bullets.

jumbled, poorly pieced-together thoughts clouded your mind on the way back to the home you shared with ellie. the memory of her and monica seared its way into your mind despite your best efforts to suppress it. you needed to believe that it was nothing. otherwise, you were bound to drive yourself insane. you trusted ellie and there was no denying it, she wouldn’t allow it to go any further. nevertheless, it didn’t feel good having to witness it.

at home you curled up on the couch, basking in the serene silence as darkness fell. she was late again. it wasn’t entirely unusual for practice to run late yet it didn’t soothe your doubts. you loathe to admit it, truly, but you couldn’t really breathe without her. even now, your lungs felt like they were closing in on themselves, the longer you waited, the more it hurt, and you cursed yourself for caring about the stupid lesson.

the loud creak from the wooden door yanked you from your thoughts. ellie emerged from behind it, her collar drenched in sweat. short auburn hair was pulled back between her ears giving you a prime view of the freckles splayed across her cheeks. they were flushed pink, only deepening as she set her sights on you seated across the room.

“hey, i missed you earlier…” she whispered, shooting you a quick grin. a deep warm feeling engulfed you as she sauntered over collapsing beside you on the couch. dark crescents took shape under her eyes and the fatigue was palpable but nothing beat the feeling of having her all to yourself.

“thought we were gonna walk back together?” ellie trailed her fingers along the side of your face, brushing the pad of her thumb on your cheek. you shrugged, moving closer. her skin felt warm and dewy pressed against yours. it nearly distracted you from the memory that hung over you like a looming gargoyle.

“i was tired,” you muttered, your voice bordering on a sharp but short tone, easy enough for ellie to detect. she didn’t address it right away but her eyes did. for a moment they settled on you, hints of confusion glimmering in them yet neither of you dared to bring it up first.

“you feeling okay?” specks of doubt reflected in ellie’s gaze as she studied you, concern seeping from her voice. maybe you really were losing it. jealousy had a way of manifesting itself through physical symptoms, stomach aches, chest pains— sudden changes in behavior. ellie brought her hand to your forehead feeling for a temperature as she leaned down. you weren’t entirely sure if she was aiming for your lips or temple, to be honest, you didn’t spare a moment to figure it out. you couldn’t kiss ellie— not without the image of monica pervading your thoughts. hence you didn’t, dodging the small peck from your wife’s lips.

ellie’s brows furrowed into an arch, “what was that for?” small, but prominent lines formed on the top of her forehead. confusion flickered in her expression as instant regret mounted onto yours.

“it’s nothing— just not in the mood. are you mentoring monica again tomorrow?”

ellie shrugged, “probably, why?” there it was again, that fucking look that made ellie want to drop down to her knees and apologize— and for god knows what? it all made sense. however, your response further solidified it. ellie hadn’t thought about monica since their lesson. but even the smallest mention of her from your mouth was drenched in envy that she couldn’t quite fathom. she was yours and yours entirely— surely you should’ve known this?

you hated this kind of silence, the kind that in its true form was the loudest. draining out every inch of sound in the room. it remained that way as ellie inspected you, piecing apart every aspect of your being, from the shift in your pupils to the steady inhale of your breath. abruptly you rose from the couch mumbling a low “forget it,” as you left your wife behind.

ellie felt more confused than she did conflicted. she wanted to call after you, maybe even follow yet she couldn’t bring herself to move. surrounded by silence she sunk back into the linen couch, bringing her arms behind her head. she needed some way to prove it— some way to reassure you and it was apparent that she wasn’t going to get anywhere tonight, but she could at least try.

icy tension filled the room faster than ellie could blink. unmoving, you remained on your side of the bed, eyes fixed on the cream-colored wall. the mattress dipped down beside you, accompanied by a warm earthy scent that filled your nostrils. slowly ellie brought her arms to your waist, pulling you towards her chest. the immediate reaction was cold although you didn’t move away. neither of you uttered a word, but in truth, the lingering uncertainty said more than either of you could for the rest of the night.

bright rays beamed through the curtains, followed by the sounds of clinking steel that yanked you from your slumber. the bed felt lighter, even more lonely. it was normal for ellie to leave in the morning and that wasn’t the issue— it was who she was leaving for that agitated you. that smug face and whiny high-pitched voice that would consume your wife’s time for hours on end. and you feared this morning would be no different.

you ambled into the living room to find ellie prepped for yet another shooting lesson. she wore a brown flannel shirt that fit loosely around her arms. blue jeans that clung perfectly to her legs, offering you an ample view of the soft skin along her waist. on the table, in front of her a black duffel bag stuffed with bullets, guns, and glass bottles.

“up early again?” you whispered, joining her alongside the wooden table. an ounce of annoyance crept into your tone despite your attempts to suppress it.

ellie slipped a hand around your waist, pulling you towards her as a small smile took place on her lips, “i’m taking you out today….”

quick palpitations reverberated against your chest with ellie’s words and the pesky fleeting feeling of jealousy seemed further than ever. you flung your arms around her neck, sucking her into a warm embrace. for just a slight moment there wasn’t an inkling of doubt— with the exception of the next few words that sounded an awful lot like “….to the field.”

“i’ll pass,” you said sternly, dropping your arms at your sides. any semblance of prior excitement that you’d exhibited vanished, leaving ellie beyond conflicted. this was the only way for her to prove that you had nothing to worry about. the only way for her to truly do so is with your trust. which she wasn’t sure she had at the moment.

ellie began, “y/n—“

“i said no. if i wanted to watch monica stick her tongue down your throat i would’ve stayed yesterday….i don’t even need shooting lessons,” you spat, with a bit more venom than intended. the guilt gradually began to creep in— marriage was built on trust. there was no reason for you to feel this threatened— this possessive.

secretly you wanted ellie to protest, another side of you, tucked away even further would’ve even liked to see her beg. although none of that came. rather she merely stared at you with pools of olive green peering into your soul. after a few seconds, they flickered between yours, and an unlikely sound filled your ears— low chuckles?.……was she laughing?

“what?” you sputtered, fervent heat rushing towards your cheeks. a vibrant peach hue reddened ellie’s cheeks as she shook her head fighting to contain the outburst.

“you missed the target yesterday… each. time.”

“so?” your entire face felt like it was set ablaze. you’d been too occupied with monica and ellie to truly put any effort into your shooting. to be completely honest you had no idea that ellie was even watching you begin with— that thought alone made you feel more secure.

“nothing— but you’re getting kinda rusty, no?” she smirked, loading the first round into the magazine of her gun.

“oh please— i’m as good of a shot as you. i was just having an off day,” you blurted, crossing your arms over your chest. she could sense it, the restless urge emitting from you. with each retort you grew even more defensive and right where ellie wanted you to be and she took great pleasure in stirring it up.

she outstretched her palm, in it lay a black revolver. she whispered her voice low and enticing, “listen i hear you… but you wanna prove me wrong?” her offer hung in the air— longer than anticipated. there was something provocative about the lack of subtlety in her tone, and the microscopic gleam in her eye that only urged you to take her up on it, so it was settled.

the field was vast, populated by expansive patches of brownish-green pasture. short hazel-colored tree stumps were scattered about at various distances, making it a prime spot for target practice. the sky was a misty blue, struck with a fiery orange and lemon hue that engulfed the area surrounding the two of you. high-pitched chirps ran through the air and slowly you realized just how quiet it was. in fact, the two of you were the only ones there.

“where’s everyone else?”

“it’s a private lesson,” ellie said, propping up the last of the bottles. the smirk in her voice was as palpable as it was scheming. she’d failed to mention that the two of you were going to be alone and surely it was purposeful, however, you couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

you removed your gun from your belt, joining ellie on the outskirts of the field, “you didn’t mention that.”

a small grin crooks the ends of her mouth as she turns towards you, “does it make a difference?” her eyes appeared even more radiant with the rising sun brimming the horizon. you shook your head lightly, sneaking one last glance at them.

“the first person to clear all the bottles wins.”

“what’s the winner get?”

“depends on you, babe,” ellie announced, extending her arms out in front of her body. fuck— it was difficult not to look at them. bright rays from the sun illuminated her muscles so that the skin you could see appeared as if they were glowing. the sight struck a mild but nevertheless alluring chord deep inside you. so much so that it nearly caused you to miss ellie’s cue.

her voice echoed, “three, two, one,” ripping you from your thoughts. immediately the loud crack of bullets whipped into the air, as the two of you mowed down the first round of glass bottles. there wasn’t much time to think before you were onto the next, sprinting to the next row of targets with ellie on your heels. the steady pump of your heart escalated to a rapid thump that pounded against your poor chest. you could feel her eyes on you, watching— calculating your every movement and it only pushed you to move faster.

it was down to one more row at the very edge of the field. your legs felt like they were bound to give up at any moment but you forced yourself to continue, stomping on the brown weeds beneath your feet. out of the very corner of your eye, you could see her drawing closer with each step and the sound of hasty fire trailing behind. slowly, your breathing became more labored and your form even more sloppy— if this was ellie’s fucked up way of trying to improve your shooting then she was doing a terrible job at it. you stepped towards the last bottle gearing up to shoot when you were met with a low…..

click.

“no—no out of all the goddamn times—“

click.

the chamber was full— you were sure of it. this was not the time for a fucking gun jam. you extended your arms out once more, hoping— no praying for a miracle when you were met with that same disparaging…

click.

quickly you realized there was no gunfire looming behind you. in fact all that was left of ellie’s targets were meager green glass pieces that littered the tops of tree stubs. the only sounds pervading the air were the pathetic clicks that left your gun and the vile language that left your lips.

ellie began, “here let me—“

“i don’t need your help,” you muttered, sharply turning your body away from her. the words were uttered with an underlying layer of her that you hoped she wouldn’t be able to detect. her hands were the first to make contact with you, settling along the small of your back. the touch was gentle and meticulous, reeling you back to reality.

“y/n, look at me.”

her voice was smooth and velvety, clashing with the tough exterior that surrounded you. she moved her free hand over yours, slowly taking the gun from you. a part of you was afraid to look up, afraid of what it meant. looking into ellie’s would force you to be vulnerable in a way that you hadn’t been in your marriage yet. still grappling with the cracks of insecurity that fractured it.

“i canceled those lessons so i could be here with you,” she whispered. the air was perfectly still and so were the creatures that existed in it. although it felt like the two of you were the only organisms there. ellie was close enough so that you could hear the light beat of her heart against you, ushering you to return her gaze.

“but what about—“

“nothing else is more important to me,” she cooed, bringing her hand up to your face. there she ran her hand along the underside of her jaw before taking your hand in hers. the two of you walked towards an empty tree stump where you sat in silence. allowing the remnants of her words to linger in your mind. the stern emphasis behind each word made your heart skip a beat and nearly forget why you were so upset in the first place.

ellie spoke first, “i need you to hear me when i say this— i don’t think about anyone else, it’s almost like there isn’t any room to think about anyone else. and i didn’t really get it at first when you ran out.”

“get what?”

“why you’d be jealous of her? I thought about talking to you, trying to reassure you but… i don’t think any of that’s gonna work,” she shrugged rubbing a hand against your thigh. there was something so subtle, even more so suggestive about her word choice— hell even the way she said them. blatant arousal was laced behind her voice and it shot straight to your core.

“you have to tell me what you need. how can i prove it to you….” her voice was so unbelievably calm and hot. feverishly hot. it took a moment for a proposition to process. she wanted you to tell her how to please you— and she was completely surrendering herself. this was her way of proving it— proving that she was all yours.

“what do you want?”

“take your clothes off.” it came out faster than you could think but nevertheless ellie complied, beginning with her brown flannel she undid the white buttons, stripping the clothing from her scarred skin. she then moved onto her jeans, pulling them from her sculpted legs. ellie made sure to prolong the process, her eyes never leaving you as she removed each and every piece of cloth from her body. soon she stood bare, ready for your next command.

“you wanna make me feel good?” you purred, ushering ellie closer. she sank to her knees before you, nodding as you cupped your hand to the side of her face. you pressed a slow, magnetic kiss to her pink lips before glancing over at ellie’s duffel just a few feet away. in it was a small black tarp that on regular occasions was used for collecting the glass left behind, but you had other plans for it. following your gaze ellie reached for the plastic laying it down on the grass beneath her. there was something so infatuating about her compliance that drove you insane— in the best way possible. she seemed so eager, so desperately ready to please you.

“i want you to lay down— don’t touch yourself.”under ellie’s watchful eye, you stripped yourself down to nothing, giving her an ample view of your naked body. she bit down on her lip, wrestling with the urge to touch herself and you. soon you join her on the tarp, straddling her as you lean forward.

“you can touch me, baby,” you whispered, softly nipping at the sensitive skin along her neck. her hands trailed up your thighs, sinking her fingernails in before moving towards your back. you clasped onto her face, pressing your lips against hers fiercely. ellie’s lips moved south, showering your exposed tits with sloppy kisses. in both hands she cupped them in her palms, sucking a nipple into her warm mouth. she ran her tongue along the sensitive flesh, feverishly sucking as you clutched onto her.

“how’s that?”

“fuck— it’s so-so good,” you hummed in between moans. ellie’s pace continued leaving you at a loss for words. you spared just a few more moments before pulling away, breathless. her eyes were hungry and lustful glimmering in the midst. just below, her sweet lips appeared so soft and tempting. sexy wasn’t nearly enough to describe it. a sudden urge plagued you and it began at your wet core. you needed to feel her, more specifically her mouth against it.

within a few mere seconds, you instructed ellie to lay back, bringing your wet pussy to her lips. the contact was cold, sending a brisk chill up your back. she started off slow, tentatively dragging her tongue against your lips before fully pushing them forward.

“don’t— fuck— tease me,” you writhed, bringing the pads of your thumb to her nipples. you circled them around it, drawing muffled moans from ellie’s lips. she spat up, lapping up the wetness from her core. she hummed at the taste, sucking your sensitive clit into her mouth as you pushed yourself against her. your hips began to take up for themselves, grinding against ellie’s mouth with no end in sight. you could feel it— parts of your vision beginning to blur and simultaneously the frenzied flicks of your wife’s tongue sped up.

“like that? like the way i fuck your face?” you spat, pressing your eyes closed. it was practically impossible for ellie to answer yet everything about the way tasted pointed toward a yes. her hands raced up to your ass as she squeezed it in her palms, desperately trying to find a way— any way to push herself closer.

“you want me to finish all over your face? is that what you want?” your movements became much more rushed, vigorously chasing after a high. white spots slowly came into view and your posture was unsupported. ellie took advantage of your weakened state, craning her neck upward. she focused on your clit sucking it torturously slow until you were a blubbering mess above her. she pushed on, singalong out the sensitive flesh as streams of pleasure tore through your body, faster than you could fathom. soon with enough strength, you pulled yourself from ellie’s body, collapsing alongside her.

“what else do you need?” she mumbled, twisting her neck in your direction. her face was beet red and slick with your fluids, and it only fueled the twisted pleasure at the center of your pussy. you shifted toward her, slowly kissing up the blue vein that decorated the side of her neck. once you reached her ear you nibbled on the lobe, ever so softly running your tongue on the top, “i’m gonna take care of you now.”

quickly, you repositioned yourself at ellie’s pussy, hovering above it as she spread her legs. they were covered in goosebumps that seemed to multiply as you drew closer. between them you settled, kissing along the inner part of her thighs. you could feel her tremble against her, pressing her eyes closed in frustration.

“i want you to look at me el….i wanna see those pretty eyes,” you cooed, bringing your lips to her core. she jumped back but you eased her towards you. once she was comfortable you brought your tongue to her dripping slit, sucking her needy clit into your mouth.

“holy—shit.”

tears brimmed the corners of ellie’s as she forced them open. you kept your gaze on her refusing to look away, she looked so beautiful like this, so exposed. you adored the way she simply melted on your tongue allowing you the chance to taste the deepest parts of her. after a while you spat down on the pads of your fingers ushering to ellie’s pussy. slowly you pushed in your index finger, watching as your wife’s walls clung to it— hot and even more desperate.

“fuck y/n— i need more,” she panted, gradually moving her hips your hand. you were more than delighted to grant ellie her wish, pushing your middle in. filthy sounds of her wetness and choked moans filled the air, replacing the peaceful calls of songbirds and insects. you worked your two fingers inside of her, pressing up into you felt the spongy tissue of her g-spot. without hesitation you curled your digits up to meet them, teasing ellie to no avail.

“i’m gonna come— please let me.”

she soon began to writhe against the tarp, allowing even the foulest obscenities to fall from her lips. you could practically feel her getting closer, along with the vehement grip of her feverish walls.

“go ahead baby…so fucking wet for me, and so so beautiful,” you whispered, gingerly talking her through the rapture that engulfed her body. ellie’s legs shook violently against you and her vision briefly became blinded by hot tears. you crawl upward to the top half of her body, placing soft kisses all over her face. there, a moment of stillness left the both of you breathless.

upon first opening her eyes you were the first thing she saw. she moved swiftly pulling you in a fierce kiss that lasted for what felt like ages. for a moment the two of you held each other in a moment of newfound trust and understanding. there was no need to say it. undeniably ellie was yours as you were hers. and nothing felt more satisfying than having physical proof of it.

“i’ll stop if you want. the lessons with monica,” she whispered, tracing circles into the side of your arm.

“no need.”

surprise struck ellie’s face as she gazed down at you, eyebrows drew back “you sure?”

you grinned at her with a new, vibrant light beaming out of the corners of your eyes. you pressed a quick kiss to her chest, propping yourself up against the soft skin as you smirked, “never been more sure.”

#the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou #tlou 2 #ellie tlou #ellie williams #tlou ellie #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams x fem reader #ellie x fem reader #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x y/n #ellie x female reader #ellie x you #ellie x y/n #ellie williams x you #ellie williams smut #ellie williams angst #ellie williams fanfic

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xbruised-peachx · 4 months

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Yooo first time ever requesting anything on this platform but like. Gromsko? Fender? As dads 😳? Gnawing at the bars of my enclosure for more content with my favs :3

OHHHH SWEET ANON I've thought about this a lot, in particular with Grom, might make a render someday... eventually... when i have time... dont hold me to this.

Tags: fem!reader, pregnancy, critical levels of cuteness and sweetness, author is not responsible for baby fever caused by this fic, one-shot, not betaread

Gromdad/Dad!Gromsko ⛈🇵🇱

He's always been a family man, not even just for wanting kids. Learning to care from his grandmother, he knows there's so much more that goes into having a truly good family life beyond just having a big family. He knows the value of true familial love that some struggle with because all they want is some big lineage. He's seen swaths of men who just want to pass on their genes but then not be there for the family they helped create. He never wants to be like that. He wants to be like his grandmother, like the other men in his family; true, respectful men that bring honor to them through compassion, care, and true familial love. Someone that will be passed down through generations due to the genuine heart he has.

Announcing to him that you're pregnant would genuinely brighten up his whole day. He would sit silent for moments as a smile crept up his face, in complete disbelief as his mind raced. He would only be able to choke out a soft "W-what?", unable to hide his smile as it grew and he laughed out of sheer awe. Head in his hands as his mind scrambled more for what to say, struggling even to gather a thought in his native language, let alone translate it. You rubbed your hand on his back, worried about him but he'd quickly pull you in for a tight embrace, taking a deep inhale in as he rested his head into the crook of your neck. Pulling back, you saw as he had a soft smile, his eyes gleaming a bit more as he showed a soft expression, wet with tears that threatened to come out. "I... I think I'm the happiest man in the world right now."

Having him around during pregnancy was a godsend. Sure, his medical training was for war and not for prenatal care, but he would be trying his damnedest and reading professional books on care. He wouldn't dare you to lift a finger the entire time, making meals for you like he usually would, and cleaning the house. Whatever you are craving, he'll figure out a way to mix it up even if it's... questionable in flavor to him. He also adores shopping with you, picking out a theme for an animal for the nursery, going with lions with the warm orange and oak colors making it very inviting as he set up the furniture. He especially adored the small scale clothes and shoes, and you couldn't even resist the cute allure of the matching red and white tracksuit when it was in a miniature scale. The nights though were where the true comfort lied, just on the couch, watching a movie or show while wrapped in blankets, his arms wrapped around your waist as he softly rubbed where the bump was forming. You couldn't see his face due to the position but he would be looking in absolute adoration. He knew pregnancy was hard on you, but that you were more than willing to put up with it for him? He will do anything to make it easier for you.

Above all, he is an amazing father once the baby is born. He admits, he cried when he first saw them and held them in his arms. He wasn't ever the man to cry, but the pure joy made him break. No doubt too with him being a big guy himself, his kid would come out naturally big and stay that way through infancy (I think of the one tiktok where he says "you look like a busted can of biscuits"... feel like that happened to Sobi at least once). One of his favorite things to do is while the baby is on their back, grabbing his helmet and going over them, letting the little bits of fabric dangle down as he leans down, shaking his head lightly as he watches the baby's reaction, eyes going wide then a huge smile growing as the baby starts giggling. His own smile goes wide as he hears every time the baby lets out a screaming laugh as he shakes his head. Watching it all warms you heart. It warms your heart even more as nighttime hits and you hear a low voice coming from the nursery, a tune that is out of key but warm and inviting in his own way. To his side a "Goodnight Moon" book but his singing... He expressed how he wanted to have the baby know both English and Polish. And there he was, softly singing in a rocking chair, no doubt his baritone singing making a soothing rumble as the baby fell asleep against his chest; Oj, lulaj, lulaj... Maleńki sokole... Oj, jak ty mnie urośniesz... Pójdziesz ze mną w pole...

Dad!Fender 🤘🇭🇺

He's always had the looming loss of his father over him, that legacy being his driving force as a soldier. But when he got with you? A new type of dread loomed over him; would he meet the same fate as his father? The thought terrified him, leaving you alone to raise a child, he didn't want to leave another child with the same fate as him. He wanted to be different.

When you told him about the results of the test, you were worried. You knew he wouldn't end things with you but that this still was completely unplanned. And that made him think of his own parents again. He remained silent, thinking in his head of what his own father must have thought when he was told... but as your hand slid over his and he met your eyes, seeing that worry and doubt, it melted him a bit. He thought of how his father must have thought at the time, with his mission in Budapest, the situation in Budapest at the time... thought story had its parallels, he realized it was different. He wasn't a CIA operative in a different country, he was a strong soldier in his own way, now working for a PMC that he could break his contract with for the time being. He had a strong relation with Kortac and they would absolutely understand his absence. He realized he can make it different, he will break the fate. Taking your hand and meeting your eyes, he looked determined but caring still, a smile on his face as he spoke, "We got this... We'll be strong together and get through this, darling... I'll be here for you."

With his break from Kortac he was more than willing to care for you while you were pregnant. His love of working out meant he had plenty of vitamins to help out both you and the baby, but also he was more than willing to grab new ones that were specialized for prenatal. Anytime you passed out on the couch, taking a nap just from the sheer work of your body growing your child. He'd smile and lift you with ease to the bed, often just taking a moment to lay with you while you rested. It warmed his heart being there for you. He had no mission professionally, just the goal of being there for you and supporting you. He felt less dread as time went on and he saw you happily walking around the home, smiling as you leaned on the doorway to the new nursery as he put together the complicated furniture.

When the baby was born, he couldn't ever describe the elation he felt. His own father dying before he was born, he finally felt at ease as he proved he could break the cycle, that it wasn't his destiny to have the same fate as his father, even if there was parallels. He'd carry everything for you out of the hospital, including the baby themself. And he always wanted to be there for you and the baby after, he was often the one getting up in the middle of the night when they cried, not minding at all as he savored every moment he got with them. He loved spending tummy time with you and them, encouraging the lil' thing as they grew and got stronger. Every moment was so precious to him, and he was glad to be there. Though his dad seemed before to be an omen, now he couldn't help but think of him positively, hoping wherever he was that he could see the proud man he left on this world, now a proud father.

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