#I love the composition and the pose!! It definitely looks like she's on her way to get shit DONE

[cryptidcalling]

Get your cape on General, it's time to get to work (Beautiful commission done by t0yyb0xx on instagram!)

[oklotea]

MY FAVORITE TINTIN SIDE CHARACTERS

ARRGRGWHDHEH I'M VERY VERY PROUD OF THIS I'M NGL!!!!!!! I LOVE THE WAY I COLORED THE CHARACTERS, I LOVE THE POSES I DREW THEM IN, I MADE SOME DECENT COMPOSITION IN THIS ONE!!!! HATE THE EDITING I DID I FUCKING SUCK AT EDITING

Anyway, I'm going to ramble about these guys and you can't leave until I'm done ok? Ok.

First of all, MY BOY MY SON MY PERSONAL LITTLE DEMON, ABDULLAH!!!!!!! he is very endearing to me!!! But I really do wish we could've seen more of him!!!! He looks mischievous enough to sneak on adventures along with the marlinspike crew himself for shits and giggles!!!!! HIM AND HIS DAD'S DYNAMIC IN LAND OF BLACK GOLD IS MY FAVORITE IT MAKES ME SO GIDDY AND HAPPY. like no matter how obnoxious and annoying Abdullah's pranks can become, his dad will forever love him unconditionally. MY FAVORITE DYNAMIC. I MISS THEM SO MUCH.

A little note, even though a lot of poc representation in tintin is pretty influenced by the stereotypes of the time, and a bit of orientalism, tintin and the land of black gold is also the first time in my childhood where the words "assalamualaikum" Was muttered in any piece of animated media. It definitely wasn't perfect, but that was important to me as a Muslim child. Maybe that's why Abdullah and his dad hold a special place in my heart!

Next up we've got ARREGEHFHFHHGHJ!!!!!!! CHANG!!!!!!! MY FRIEND FROM SCHOOL WHO HELPED END A CRIME RING IN SHANGHAI!!!!!!! I adore him and his personality so much!!!! HE WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS AS A KID AND HE STILL IS TODAY WHEN I REWATCH BLUE LOTUS!!!!!!!! The way that the moment he was saved by Tintin in that flood he pledged his undying loyalty to Tintin will never not be sweet to me. HE IS SO TALENTED AND CUNNING, HE SAVED TINTIN FROM CERTAIN DOOM MULTIPLE TIMES IN THE LITTLE TIME THEY'VE SPENT TOGETHER, AND IN TINTIN IN TIBET, TINTIN SAVES HIM ONCE AGAIN (Tintin in tibet is also a very memorable and special episode for me) AND JUST-- ARGEHDBEHF I CAN CONTINUE ON AND ON ABOUT HOW CHANG SHOULDVE BEEN INCLUDED IN MORE ADVENTURES!!!!! actually Tintin has TONS OF CHARACTERS who should have been given more important roles in a lot of different stories!!!! Idk maybe that's just a wish that will never be fulfilled.... Still I can dream!

And last but DEFINITELY not least... THE MILANESE NIGHTINGALE HERSELF, BIANCA CASTAFIORE!!!!!!!!!!!! AGHHDHEHFHJDHV MY GORGEOUS MY BEAUTIFUL MY LOVE MY EVERYTHING I MISS HER SO MUCH

SHE WAS A HIGHLIGHT FOR ME!!!!!! AND SHE IS VERY UNDERRATED!!!! I love seeing how much she treasures her friends, how she's so dramatic about everything, how she has such an unapologetically loud and large presence and personality everywhere she goes, how she is genuinely passionate about her singing and her art, how she clearly knows her worth and won't settle for less from anyone.

Every time she was on screen she always made me feel very happy and warm inside, also I really like her voice!!!!!

AND HER DESIGN!!!!! ARRRGHWHFHH HER DESIGN!!!

I'm ngl, she was the hardest for me to draw. But at the end I'm quite satisfied with the results!!!!

She would be such an amazing friend. SHE'S ALWAYS BRINGING GIFTS AND BEING CONSIDERATE WITH HER FRIENDS, AND SHE WOULD NEVER HIDE JUST HOW MUCH PEOPLE MEAN TO HER

PLEEEEASEEEE CASTAFIORE I MISS YOU SO MUCH GIRLFRIEND COME BACK TO ME-

Anyway, the last picture is how I'd imagine Chang and Castafiore's first meeting would go. She as always, acts as sweet and polite and extra af as she always does, let's Chang know that Tintin's talked a lot about him! And then she would bring out some biscuits and pastries she bought as a gift for everyone, and then she and Chang would sit together while eating, and they get along really well, CHANG HAS A WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR THAT CASTAFIORE CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF, (haddock would be completely dumbfounded with how good at talking to Castafiore Chang is, and how anyone could talk to her for so long) but little did haddock know, in their conversations, Castafiore does a whole lot more listening than speaking, especially when Chang starts to tell his back story, and all the things that have happened to him and Tintin. After Chang ends his story, he looks up at her after a while of being lost in his story, and mascara is dripping down her face silently, her mouth is agape, and for a few moments couldn't say anything.

Suddenly she burst out loud, pulled Chang into a hug, and sobs after listening to the horrors this sweet kid has gone through.

In over a few hours she seems to have grown a strong attachment to this kid, she'll probably send a package filled with gifts a few months later, along with a long letter talking about what she's been up to and her wishes that Chang will succeed with anything he's currently busy with, and that he shall take care of himself well.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the small character appreciation I was able to share for some obscure/underrated characters! And that they will occupy your mind just for a little while. I love these three so much, tintin shaped me as a person, tintin made my childhood, I hope you have a great day.

Click for better quality!!!!!!

[desertdollranch]

Opening and reviewing my first Starpath doll

As a doll collector, one of the most exciting experiences is obtaining a "holy grail" doll you've dreamed of having for a long time. I got to do that today, when I welcomed a Starpath doll into my collection!

Starpath dolls were one of those 18 inch doll companies that are available for a few years, and then suddenly and without notice go defunct. That's disappointing, because these are really nice quality dolls, and they were paired with story books that could be customized to have yourself as the main character in magical adventures. There were four dolls available in different ethnicities, all with non-character names: Wishing Star, Wandering Star, Shining Star, and Morning Star.

It's been about four years since these dolls were discontinued, and because of their short period of availability and their low popularity, they are quite hard to find now. And when they are listed for sale secondhand, the sellers always list them for a whole lot more than they're worth. So they all sit around unsold for years and years, in the hands of uninterested, mega-profit-motivated sellers rather than collectors who actually WANT to own them. That's pretty common in the secondhand world, and it's always sad to see.

So I got super lucky finding my Starpath doll, Wishing Star, for a serious bargain price, at just a fraction of what I've seen them listed for.

Keep reading below the cut to see my review of Wishing Star!

I love coming home to a doll-shaped box on my front patio.

It did get soaked in the sudden downpour, but my girl was wrapped up right in protective plastic.

She arrived in her original outfit, including her socks and shoes.

Unfortunately she does have some stains on her face, but I'm confident I can get them off with either a good scrub or a benzoyl peroxide treatment.

Her hair is a wig, not rooted. It's very soft and silky. Her eyes do not open and close.

Her body composition is similar to American Girl dolls, with the soft cloth torso and limbs that can be posed. Her arms go up and down just fine, but she can't lift them up and out very far.

She's stitched up the same way. Her head is held on with zip ties.

She has nice details in her fingers and toes. Looks like her previous owner put some clear nail polish on them.

Her body tag is so cute. "Made in China with love for Starpath Dolls." (The website listed there is not only defunct, but I get a warning from my browser that the site may be trying to steal information from me, so you're missing nothing by not going there).

I put her in a few different American Girl and Our Generation outfits, and she fits perfectly into them. Including the shoes!

Overall I'm very pleased with her! She's beautiful, great quality, and definitely worth waiting for.

I don't have her name picked out yet. I've narrowed it down to five choices right now. Then once she's named, she'll get to meet her three younger sisters!

[childrenrecord]

rant about this novel cover under read more

just want to talk abt this novel cover for a second because it's one of my favorite kagepro official arts ever sorry if this sounds insane or doesnt make sense im just ranting kagepros everywher. anyway. the use of negative and positive space is used so well here by sidu idk art terms all that well (fake artist) butttt i just think the placement of the objects along with shadows really place the focus on marry's expression here. my eyes go from marry's face to the blood splatter, and because the red is reaching to each corner of the page, it lets me see all of the painting as a whole. it allows you to take in the full drawing, and understand what's going on even though at a first glance this drawing seems cluttered and messy. the longer u look at it though that's definitely not the case. the objects around marry are meant to be circling around her, the stop sigsn taking up the foreground, then her spike things??? taking up the background to form a sphere like image. in a way it reminds me of the golden spiral. uhmmm disregarding that the symbolism here is crazy i guess you could also consider the composition a symbol in itself since it's supposed to be circle like and time loops etc but besides that the bandages, or ribbons idk either one is possible since theyre both facets of marry's design or it's just inconspicuous cloth. it's grabbing onto her and holding her down or possibly dragging her down. i think holding down might be more accurate because of the way marry is posed? looking up entirely focused on a specific point, as if she's trying to reach something, yearning for it. the stop signs are supposed to be representative of the kagerou daze obviously, so in a way i guess this could be interpreted as the daze is the thing holding her back, which makes sense as her role as the medusa. being a medusa means you are tied to tragedy, and the kagerou daze is a literal representation of tragedy, and here marry is being tied down to it. moving on to the red blood splatter, like i said in the first part it's spread to every corner of the drawing, so basically all encompassing. basically i think it's to do with marry's role as the medusa, death will follow her everywhere she goes. on top of that, the splatter is shaped like an X, like marry is a target. she literally is being marked for tragedy here. the splatter is bursting from her heart specifically as well, alluding to how saeru believes it's love that put marry, and azami, in such a state of suffering. it's their fault for loving too much, for allowing their heart to be seen. last thing, the spike things form a half circle around marry almost like a protective shell. i think those r supposed to represent the mekakushi dan, and in turn their snakes, because there's 8 of them. so here they surround marry, to marry the mekakushi dan are what protect her from falling into despair. it's the main reason why she resets every time they are killed at the end of each route. but noticing here, they arent completely circling her, which makes sense because in this novel do we see specifically marry's strength. how because simply the mekakushi dan gave her their love, she can keep fighting for the happy future she has learned she deserves. she can keep going, even without them, because she remembers the feelings she experienced during their time together. i guess put simply they have her back, almost literally in this art.

[zhraek]

here i am with My personal top 20 gwent cards art:

20. Usurper: Officer by Katarzyna Bekus (can't find their socials :(

i'm not very interested in usurper, but i really like how his first stage is drawn. colors and composition are powerfully driven into my head. besides tbh i really like idea that gaunter had a hand in a lot of the crap that happened in the witcher and the art itself is proof for me of how almighty and malicious gaunter is

19. Kaedweni Revenant by Manuel Castanon

i just like art with undead and this one has a really nice color combination and the quest from tw2 is also very good :D

18. Griffin by Anna Podedworna

i don’t know what to say i just like to see monsters hunting their prey

17. Slyzard by Bartlomiej Gawel

no words they are just very good

16. Letho of Gulet by Lorenzo Mastroianni

this is letho i like him and i like the art he deserves to look cool 👍

15. Penitent by Valeriy Vegera

maaaan this art is a big fucking banger no fucking way i love everything about this art but i don't like ability of this card i would like it to be changed

14. Bear Witcher Mentor & Bire Bear by Bogdan Rezunenko

first of all, they are just awesome i feel like there's going to be some real shit here like no fucking way someone's going to die, come on, secondly they're definitely connected to each other

13. Cleaver by Daniel Valaisis

my favorite asshole stands in his swag pose and really exudes an aura of danger and seriousness look at him, he's incredibly cool and we just have to be polite to him otherwise he will make sausages out of us

12. Barghest by Anna Podedworna

doggies from the first witcher yay!!!

11. Skellige Wolves by Anna Podedworna

i'm a simple person i see cool art with wolves and my favorite color palette i press like

10. Necrophages by Adrian Smith

artist very accurately conveyed my vision regarding the monsters they are disgusting terrible and if i saw something like this irl i would die of fear

sometimes i wish i can draw like this

9. Bear Abomination by Valeriy Vegera

sluttiest way to tear someone apart

that's all i can say🧍‍♂️

8. Zoltan & Duda by Grafit Studio

it's just a cool card in every sense that saved me many times during the game and it's just beautifully drawn

7. Mahakam Volunteer Army & Clan An Craite Greatswords by Bartlomiej Gawel

they are together because they have the same artist, the same color palette and almost the same composition anyways everything in this arts makes my neurones activate and about first i always think about that scene with dwarves from lotl and oohhhh...... help me...

6. Svalblod by Manuel Castanon & Vildkaarl by Anna Podedworna

i don't know what to say uuh i'm svalblod fan and i love this bloody crazy shit that's showed here

bon appetit for bears i guess

5. Aelirenn by Lorenzo Mastroianni

if i think about scoia'taels, then only about her…. i have so many feelings for this art that i can’t describe. like— i just get goosebumps every time i see her and understand why elves continue to honor her memory. she deserves that

4. Oneiromancy by Lorenzo Mastroianni

this artist is a fucking genius, he knows his work for one hundred percent, and even if he didn’t know what he was doing, i don’t give a damn cuz i love this art sm. a billion color that perfectly gathered in one place to blow your mind with this stunning vibe of an enchanting dream. god i wish that were me

also funfact, this card is the most useful of all that exist in gwent

3. Francesca Findabair by Lorenzo Mastroianni

Lorenzo is a great artist, we all know that, but i have a lot of unprocessed feelings about this art. i love it? i hate it? i don't know shit. i love the way francesca is portrayed? yes. is she dangerous and you can feel it? just fuck yes she will kill me with her look. does she look like a beautiful fairytale queen from dreams? bless her. i'm impressed by the architecture that surrounds her? fuck yeah. does she look to me like a woman straight out of the work of alfons mucha? hell yeah!!! but do i hate this plastic snakes she casts? undoubtedly.

2. Ulfhedinn by Anna Podedworna

i'm very weak for every stuff with werewolves and this art is just bomb like yooo this art really instills the idea that there is no one stronger or more dangerous than this motherfucker

giants? dragons? witches? wild hunt? no fucking way i'll be afraid only of this asshole

aaaaaaand drum roll to the main winner!!!!

Triptych artwork featuring Munro Bruys, Zoltan Chivay and Figgis Merluzzo by Yama Orce (

you have no any idea how much i adore this art. this is simply incredible in everything! muted color palette, the confusion in the background and sense of movement even without help of an animation program, the design of the key characters, their poses and emotions. they are damn filled with anger and courage they want revenge for their loved ones and comrades and this can be seen in the way they put all their strength into strikes and clashes they have no mercy for invaders. they're here to pay these bastards back for everything they've done

but the most important thing is that this is a scene from a book where my favorite characters kicked nilfgaardians ass

also i really love the fact that artist used his photos as a reference for poses he needed to draw :D

[bandit-o-s-oc-arch]

ZME→NEW(2022)

ZME → NEW (2022)

wow! i'm really happy somehow with this, it came out super fun and chaotic, feels like one of the first proper blend of my current level of "lyricspost" and one of my illustrations. took a really long time agonizing over this, only today were all the pieces in order to get texture and real coulor on this, and i'm so happy with it.

ah! wow! its ZME, one of my only like, fully drawn oc's, a zombie chick who is also definitely another self portrait thing(oops! all mes). i've drawn her alot of different ways, shes always shape shifting slightly(appropriate for an alien corpse full of several different strains of necrotic oogies i feel) but this felt like the first time i really gave her time outside my sketchbook.

and how much time it's been! I started this back after i finished my TennoCon piece(JULY!!) as an attempt to get prepped for Art-Fight but i was just hitting a wall with having to digitize every detail in this(look below and like wow i was really asking for it) it was pretty exhausting but i eventually got every piece put together... and then it was a matter of just getting that compositing done which was a total pain in itself!

pose wise, i wanted to challenge myself further with this and draw a character sitting down, not standing still posing flat with one arm kinda doin something. i choose a Peter Shire chair because i love Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis Design style and i thought it would be interesting to pose with.

I went with the hand reaching up like that because it felt right to have ZME look like it was falling in place, not moving. and because shes just so many different fungi and bullouses and rot and sinew and thats hot and sexy of her ZME is technically naked here, sans shoes(feet likers lose again!!! HAH) because naked, rotting, spacing out at the same time on art-furnishings is [legally distinct from ]converse appropriate.

and then for the wild colors i just was having some fun, making her glow like shes in a laser tag space and grafitting the clean shapes of the Bel Air chair into being as corrupted as ZME is. i was going for trying to make her feel meaty and off, but that good neon cyan sci-fi gore-meat > human red flesh. idk thats it! enjoy! please ♥️Like♥️ and 🔁Share🔁

[first-mistake-forever-more]

Hi I love your art, you have the ability to pack so much emotion into simple things… It’s amazing.

I have a question：Do you think it is beneficial for all rookies to learn art fundamentals and do dedicated learning？And did you personally spend any time studying art fundamentals ? thank uuu

Hi thank you for the kind words I'm obviously no authority on this but from the point of view of illustration: Yes, I do think so. . I studied art fundamentals for a few years on and off when I was more on the figuring out part of my style development. I think composition and color theory were the more important things to learn for me (They translated later into my other, more graphical art ventures too). Gesture drawing also kinda saved my characters more than anatomy. I always felt classic anatomy was a bit rigid and I kinda disregarded it for a while but since 2020 or so I started rly trying to observe how it works. Both have helped me tremendously in constructing weighty poses and character designs. (I think that's the best part of anatomy, really selling that your characters are actually standing in the scenery you built for them) I think any artist(illustrator moreso) that wants to develop a personal style should have at least a small grasp of fundamentals but I also think one absorbs that kind of knowledge with an observant eye, I can say personally most I've learned from art was from looking at other artists and how they solve illustrative/artistic problems(problem from a design definition). From big things like how do they compose a scene? communicate emotion? to more simple stuff like how do they draw eyes, or hands? (completely unrelated ramble but I think that last one is very prevalent in online artistic circles, when one artist develops an appealing solution this solution tends to spread, a bit like a DNA strand or meme, around their circles and the people who follow them, I've seen it happen to me, many friends and people who I don't know. I think it's an interesting phenomenon in how quickly it happens compared to pre-internet eras (can you tell it's more fun for me to observe social dynamics than to make art)) U can sometimes tell the difference slightly between an artist who studied fundamentals and one who didn't if you did study them (not saying one person is better or worse) Personally nowadays (not saying this is a good thing) I almost never practice anatomy unless there's a specific problem I want to tackle, but I believe that's only because for my current sensibilities, I've kind of developed a way to draw figures which suits me. Some people like drawing more realistic/classical stuff and kind of flexing those muscles but that's really never been me. On the subject of dedicated learning, if you mean going to a drawing school or course I can say it can only benefit you. In 2018 I went to a classic comic workshop for a few months and I still have retained things from it even if I ended up dropping it because it wasn't for me. Anyone who can drop you a bit of knowledge is great. Appart from all that, while I think it's beneficial.. I don't really think it's necessary, I don't know. I haven't Really studied fundamentals in years. I usually experiment inside my own style, observing and incorporating new things all the time. Trying out different tools, coloring processes, that kind of stuff. But of course, you have to Get to that point first. I always say I can't really do the same thing twice, and I really think it's true, it makes me feel a bit hacky. So I'm always trying to do something different or new (even when you compare two very similar pieces of mine you can tell there's differences; I never have a ruleset for making art). My girlfriend likes to draw and she never studied fundamentals, picking up stuff along the way, and we draw on relatively similar styles (even before we started being together), and I can tell you I've seen her make things which were super emotionally resonant, and deeply beautiful. I even think she's better than me at a few different aspects. When we draw together it's very fun This is just a bit of my personal history with classical learning, I hope it helped but as you may be able to tell I'm no authority in the subject, my experience is limited. I wish I could go on and on for 100000 words but there's a character limit on tumblr and I already cut this down a lot hahah

[emmjacksoncharacterillustration]

REFLECTION

What went well?

- I love the final colours that I chose for my illustration - it portrays a dark, moody vibe which I think fits in with the post apocalyptic setting. I also think all the colours work really well together, which is the result of me colour balancing each layer to have a slight brown, sepia tint.

- I love Reese’s pose, and I’m really glad I changed it from my original composition. This pose is way more dynamic, and poses her as a warrior about to jump into battle.

- Overall, I’m really happy with my composition, and found it really fun to line the intricate shapes.

What didn’t go well?

- I definitely should have put more detail into my sketch before I started lining - particularly the mecha’s design. I found myself having to design a large part of the mechas on the spot. I still think they looked really really cool, but I should have done more exploration around what I wanted the mechas to look like, beyond their head.

- I think I could have simplified the background a little bit. The busy background, while fitting in with the story, doesn’t offer much contrast between the detailed foreground.

- I knew from the very beginning of this illustration that I wanted to design a game cover, but I feel like that did end up limiting me. I felt like an action scene between Reese and the mechas would have (A) shielded the viewer from seeing Reese’s whole face, and (B), been too extreme for a cover of a game. However, am action shot of Reese fighting the mechas would have suited my narrative a lot better, since she kind of looks like she’s on their side, when really they’re the enemies.

- I’m kind of concerned that my game cover template isn’t as high res as I needed it to be, but I honestly can’t tell because I’ve been staring at it for like 10 hours…

What would I do if I had more time?

- I think I could have done more exploration with the compostions - it didn’t change much from my composition pre-crit, because I did really love the composition

- I think including more characters or mechas into the illustration would have been cool. Like if I had a composition with Reese and her sister back to back fighting mechas.

- I would have designed this without the game template to give me more illustrative freedom.

Overall im really really happy with my illustration :)

[ladybeug]

hey buddy just wondering if u have any tips for Go Very Fast. drawing wise. i think u are the speediest draw-er I know with such a cute style and I very much enjoy your amazing stick figures and such and would like to learn how to Do That if possible. unfortunately I’m the slowest artist I know and I get v hung up on stuff and have a hard time loosening up and just doodling. i always end up fussing with construction lines and stressing about making things much more finished and proper than I intended to even if I originally set out to just make a 30-second uggo doodle for laffs and kicks. as resident Esteemed Doodler do you have wisdom for high-strung nerds such as myself who seek the sweet nectar of Literally Just Doodlin, Learning And Improving And Stuff Ofc But Mostly Just Having a Great Time About It (not that any of your doods are uggo, on the contrary I find them all high-quality art and I would pay money to visit a fancy art gallery with your very doodliest doodles on display in all their glory)

HI! I would LOVE to talk about Go Very Fast, drawing wise!! It's my all-time favorite kind of drawing, and it is very near and dear to my heart.

First of all, let's get this out of the way: it's practice. we all know it's practice, we've heard it, we are tired of it, we are taking a nap instead of practicing.

Here's my tips and thoughts:

(1) Let it look bad!!! It's going to look bad!!! I'm sorry its just true

Sometimes it will look like the people have broken 5 bones:

Sometimes it will look like whatever the fuck this is:

oh god how did this happen:

It will even look bad when the picture looks good! For example, take a look at Evita in the lefthand panel here:

Overall the panel is nice. But if you focus on Evita's actual shape it's awkward. The arm on the sill doesn't look like it's supporting any weight, and the arm pulling back the curtain doesn't make sense, and the pose looks like it would hurt my back, and it's just not very attractive.

But its FINE THAT IT LOOKS BAD, because the composition of the whole thing is okay and the scene is clearly communicated.

Connecting to my next point:

(2) Focus on the outlines and the silhouettes!

Composition is always important but its pretty much all you have if you're working really fast.

Here are some drawings I did really fast that I think are really hard to look at:

Can you tell what I was trying to draw? Can you tell that that's ladybug fighting godzilla there in the distance? I can't. I literally drew this and sometimes I have to squint to figure out what it is. It looks like nothing. the silhouettes are not communicating "ladybug and godzilla", because ladybug is in a big white explosion, and godzilla's tail is cut off and obscured by the foreground, and also the shape isn't very good. It's so busy that your eye doesn't find the shapes I want you to find.

(compare to the foreground, very clear, adrien's silhouette is so obvious, simple, unobscured)

Here's one that's too busy to read easily:

This panel is ALL OVER THE PLACE, the silhouettes are unclear and it's hard to know where to look or even what they're holding because the shapes are so busy and undefined.

To make this better, while still drawing it just as fast, I could have:

(a) The people are the subject of this panel, so I should have made both of their heads more defined and easy to see. I would keep all of chat in the panel so you could see both his party hats (clear silhouette) and maybe given queen bee's pigtail more shape.

(b) added less detail to chloe's armful of gifts and given her actual arms more definition so you would focus on "she is holding a lot" instead of wondering what the fuck was happening in that mass of lines. Chat noir's armful is closer to what I wanted to go for.

On the contrast, here's some examples of fast comics I've done that have really clearly communicated shapes n silhouettes.

They are so easy to look at:

Look at that. NONE of those drawings are good individually and I did them all very fast, but because the silhouettes are so clearly defined its very easy to look at and understand.

Here's another. SO fast. So clear and easy to view:

It's about the CLEAR SHAPES!!

chat noir and ladybug are very very good for clear silhouettes and fast drawing - they contrast each other so good! you can get away with a ton of GO VERY FAST:

Like the silhouette in this one is an absolute lump!! but because they contrast each other you still get both their shapes really clearly.

(3) Some exercises to try

If you want to be mindful about drawing quickly and not getting caught up in details, I can recommend a couple exercises.

<>Time yourself. Give yourself 30 seconds to draw something, and if you don't like how it came out too bad!!! Try again!! 30 more seconds, new image.

<>Do continuous line drawings, to focus on shape/form. put your pen down and draw your subject without lifting the pen up. don't even vary pressure, just one long bold line, creating the entire image.

<>Draw literally just the silhouette of the whole pictures you're thinking of. And then draw it again in one continuous line.

<>Go for quantity over quality! Do a lot of sketches of your subject and try to capture the essence of it, the feel, the gesture, the gestalt, before you go in and fill out the details. Or be like me and don't fill out the details at all haha

These will look bad!!!!!! That's good.

These will give you practice, but I hope will also help free you from the idea that your art has to be perfect and pristine to be worthwhile. This isn't to knock down detailed or precise art, which I adore! It's instead to remind you that art is good if it makes you feel something, or makes you think, or makes you laugh, or if you just like to look at it. It can be anything you feel good about!! or bad about!! art is wild!

I have always been inspired by artists like Kate Beaton and Quentin Blake. Their art reminds me that I can be a valuable communicator and excellent artist just with doodling and simple shapes. They've helped me have confidence in my lumpy art even though I really struggle with more detailed beautiful illustrations, and that can make me feel like i'm not a real artist! But I am. I'm just a very fast lumpy artist.

Anyways, thank you for the ask. I love to talk about it, I love to draw fast and bad, and I love to look through my old sketchbooks for examples of bad bad fast fast drawings.

I'll leave you with this one, which was so fast and bad I had to start over immediately:

[tennessoui]

Imagine Obi-Wan's reaction when AnA's new (first?) album cover features a red-haired model in a sexy nurse outfit in a pose and composition of what is CLEARLY based on That One Candid Photo™ that Quinlan took of Obi-Wan at that Halloween party, where he's half-turned and looks VERY seductive. (He was in fact mid-blink and it was truly random luck/misfortune that the joke pic turned out so well.)

Ahsoka is still Outraged about it and much prefers the international edition cover, which is cool graphics with no sexy allusions to her brother in sight.

his nurse hat is crooked and his lipstick is all smeared from the drink but it definitely looks on the album cover that the red headed nurse in question has been making out in back corners with strange people

but yes her eyes are all half-lidded and just begging the question 'are you next ?'

and ahsoka IS incandescent with rage she tells anakin she'll leave the band if he makes that the actual album cover when they're picked up by a record label (Asajj Records) (Quinlan recc'ed the band to her, more as a 'guess what/who my best friend is doing now' thing but Asajj knows what's going to get famous and she likes their sound)

anyway so they have to change it to a different one but anakin is sneaky and adds bonus tracks so that it has to be a different release and they can keep the first slutty nurse as the album cover

when the band finally does break up when they're in their thirties (extremely amicably and they do reunion shows and instagram lives etc etc) anakin and aayla are like 'yea it's not that we dont still love each other and love the music, we just want to go different ways in the music industry. anakin wants to be a producer, ahsoka wants to be a songwriter, and aayla want to work on music composition for movies'

but ahsoka interrupts and she's like 'that's true but also anakin wrote one too many songs about fucking my brother and i couldn't take it anymore.'

[berrydoodleoo]

Two tarot for the price of one! Ardyn and Ifrit as the Devil (of course) and Aranea and Garuda as the six of swords. More about these choices beneath the cut:

So first, Ardyn. I was not super drawn to Ardyn on my first time through the game, I was busy yelling at the characters (specifically Iggy and Gladio) for making such bad decisions. Why on earth would you trust him even a little bit?!?!?! He is practically carrying a sign saying ‘I’m a bad guy’! You’re protecting the primary leader of your government AND your only hope of salvation! Obvs I’m still frustrated.

But moving past that, I think the connection between Ifrit and Ardyn is interesting. It’s probably the most obvious connection, as they appear together often, and Ardyn can control him through the Scourge. But I think they mirror each other well on a story level -- Ifrit was originally a kind and benevolent god, who gave humans the gift of fire and uplifted them (like Promotheus). Ardyn was originally a kind and benevolent healer/king, who wanted to save humans from the Scourge. But like Prometheus, they both end up in chains and tortured for millinea. In the end, they both decide to destroy humanity.

They also tie into the Devil nicely. Upright, the card symbolizes oppression, addiction, obsession, dependency, excess, powerlessness, limitations. Reversed, it’s independence, freedom, revelation, release, reclaiming power, reclaiming control. The card itself shows the Devil front and center, with two smaller figures enchained at his feet (in this case Somnus and Aera). I originally had something more complicated in mind, including both Scourge Ardyn and Healer Ardyn to emphasize the upright/reversed sides of the card, but between the additional two characters and the flames, there was just too much visual chaos. And I had to include the Bone Throne, of course. :)

Aranea! This card took F O R E V E R, mostly because I decided to be clever and create Aranea’s canceled DLC look and Solara, who used a few existing elements but needed a lot of customization. I really liked Aranea’s character in the game, but I feel like the chopped story between Aranea and Solara is a major missed opportunity. There are a growing number of video games that focus on fathers and their children, and I would love to see something similar with a mother and her child. Aranea and Solara traveling and training together during the apocalypse, with Solara’s potential destiny as the Empress of Niflheim, would have been a fascinating mirror to the Witcher 3.

My original idea was to put Aranea and Garuda together, even though Garuda isn’t one of the Six. They’re both linked to air and the sky, Garuda as an eagle and Aranea as a dragoon and airship commodore, and they both have a tendency to drop in and save Noct’s royal rear when he’s in danger. FFXV Garuda is a counterpart to FFXIV Garuda, who is screamy and tyrannical, which mirrors Aranea’s role as counterpart to invading and conquering Niflheim.

Given the air connection of the characters, I focused on the suit of swords, and the six of swords really captured some elements of Aranea’s character. Upright: moving on, departure, leaving behind, distance, accepting lessons, and reversed: stuck in past, returning to trouble, running away from problems, trapped. Aranea isn’t loyal to the Empire, although she does care about her country and countrymen. In DotF, she is very aware of how she is exploited as a mercenary and commoner, but also how the MTs have it worse. Underlying that is the reality that, despite how badly she and her men are treated, as Niflheim subjects they benefit from the exploitation of the MTs -- and we know that the MTs are just regular humans whose growth has been accelerated and who have been systematically abused by Niflheim. So the card’s themes of running from problems captures this element of avoidance of responsibility, and the themes of transition and accepting lessons capture her rejection of the Empire and its military and taking on a role as a leader.

The card itself is a really striking image of a woman and child on a boat, with six swords stacked in front of them. There is a man pushing the boat, but to me, he always reads as an outsider -- he is standing well above the woman and child, and is separated from them by several harsh lines. To me, the card symbolizes the act of fleeing from hardship into peril, and being surrounded by danger and bleakness on all sides.

Which led me to creating Solara’s model! I stuck to her concept art as closely as possible, and also gave her a stuffed Cait Sith. I started with an unused child mesh from the game and rigged it with Talcott’s armature and using the Data Transfer to get most of the weighting correct. It was definitely a learning experience! It’s not perfect, but for a simple pose like this it worked.

For the rest of the card, the six swords became a six-legged spider demon (also chosen because ‘aranea’ means ‘spider’). The boat is symbolized in Aranea’s ship, approaching in the distance with a little help from Garuda. I’m still not completely happy with the final image, especially the wheat and how busy the composition is, but eh. I do like how Aranea’s jacket and Solara turned out, so I’ll have to find a way to use them again.

[fras-redacted-shapes]

And here’s the breakdown for this piece!

Tons of ugly wips below the cut, you’ve been warned :)

This idea was the very first one I had for this series, before I planned it as a series. According to my records on discord I first started planning it on... August last year (ಠ_ಠ).

I had not found more environment game assets by then and neither had looked into ripping models myself, so I started modeling the room on Blender. I abandoned the idea because I wanted to focus on that DAOCtober thing. Love jumping from one idea to the next without finishing the first one :^)

DAOctober done and I wanted to return to this piece. I gained a ton of knowledge of Blender doing the renders for that month that I wanted to get more ambitious with this piece, but doing just one picture was not enough, that’s where this project was born.

-

The prompt for this one. Not all of the details made it in the end. A few I forgot to be honest. I was borderline burnt out and wanted to move to something else. In the end those missing details were not necessary I believe.

Writting this prompt definitely helped improve the initial idea.

Sketch! It’s awful haha. Like in the previous one, the goal was simply to know where characters and objects were going to be placed on the floor, camera angle could be found later. I didn’t use the first 3D room for this because this is way faster and the revised idea required three more characters to be added.

Sketch done I proceeded to place and pose all required characters. Textures were placeholders I took from Quixel Megascans. Overall super rough. After shooting these I moved to the Entrance picture.

Then I came across environment assets as well as I learned to use ninjaripper to rip models and textures myself. And rebuilt the entire room and placed all the characters (at some point I wanted to include Aveline and Varric, but the scene was already too crowded and I bet that their Guard Captain and Viscount duties took them away at the end of the day).

After much fiddling I found a fitting camera angle and got to sketching.

The composition ended up being static and rather symmetrical, which I think fits the solemn mood of the scene.

The (f)ugly stage of a painting lasts like 90% of the entire process, but I reached a point I considered the picture to be unsalvageable and abandoned it.

About two weeks later that I spent painting other things, I tried a different approach and it worked (for reference, the above painting I started by pretty much painting on top of the sketch, while this new I started by placing flat colors and then a layer of shadow on top). Huge fucking difference.

And it went pretty smoothly from there.

About 1/3 of my paintings go through this process, where I don’t know what the hell went wrong or how the f I can fix it, so I just scrap it altogether and start over. Don’t believe the sunk cost fallacy. Starting over is better.

This is the last wip shot I took before finishing it.

You’ll notice this first iteration had Marian gesturing to enter the room. But after much consideration I decided that it should be Bethany. As I thought it’d be more appropriate for each character.

The logic being Marian still feeling guilt over Leandra’s death (thanks game for making Leandra’s room always inaccesible and that one line of dialogue as an excuse to not enter it after her death), and well, everything.

Bethany’s Warden path is painful. Every encounter with her after the deep roads expedition feels like a kick in the guts. She resents her fate and her sister. She’s the one that dreamed of nobility and princes and that life was snatched right away from her. I’d like to think she also lowkey blames Marian for not saving Leandra.

So Marian would be carrying a heavy burden of regret and guilt, ruining her sister’s life and failing to save their mother.

But in the end Bethany comes around to her warden fate. She admits it wasn’t Marian’s fault, so giving her the agency to decide for both of them to finally move on and lift Marian’s burden of guilt, was to me, fitting.

And that’s it. Thanks for reading!

[muwi-translates]

Collar x Malice Producer’s Secrets

These were comments made by the producer Shima Reiko mentioned an interview in the Official Fanbook about original concepts during drafting, things she had to cut, and changes.

The TL quality of some of these are splotchy because I’m not as good with JP>EN, and some parts are also missing because I felt they were irrelevant (was doing this live in a chat for fun), they are definitely not an 100% accurate representation of the interview. But I wanted to keep this somewhere since they’re fun to read.

Some have spoilers so under the cut they go:

Ichika: Originally, Adonis was involved in the reasoning as to why she became an officer. in the earlier stage, there was a draft where she was supposed to speak in dialect when she got angry.

Yanagi: The mastermind originally had a deep involvement in his youth. The mastermind ended up going through changes, so there's only "remnants" of the original idea in the final product.

Kei: Originally just a member of the detective agency who was there to protect and monitor them while protecting their identities.

Mineo: In the beginning he was supposed to have met her at the police station, fell in love with her at first sight and had a unrequited crush on her.

Takeru: Was originally going to have a scene where he shoots at the end, but it was cut.

Shiraishi: Was originally a clean-freak and "kept a human (like a pet) to observe them", this was ultimately changed to his current more 'pure' depiction.

Sakuragawa: I think it says that she was supposed to originally be Ichika's friend in the first place, but this made Ichika seem less 'lonely', so it was cut.

Yoshinari: Originally had a scene where he and Yanagi bonded when they were in low spirits at some point. Also, his original name was 'Araki'.

Mukai: From the beginning she was supposed to be a little ladylike. producer remembers asking others for help on how to properly use "~desuwa".

Satake: Originally had more scenes in Mineo's route, but producer had to sadly cut them. She wanted to leave one where Mineo and Satake got drunk.

Morioka: He was meant to be way scarier at the start of writing. Also, he's divorced.

Minegishi: Originally more sarcastic with a personality to suit his 'blackbelly' (cruel) position, was supposed to be a spy for National Police Agency and there was supposed to be some sort of betrayal.

Police Chief Dude: Written as a "easy to understand low life character", originally messed around in the headquarters and also used Ichika's collar when it was exposed.

Saeki: The conversation at the shooting range at the start of the game was meant to be way longer, but it was ultimately cut because it made him way too suspicious.

Mochida: Originally had some scenes where he was being suspicious to mislead the player, but it felt too forced so she cut it.

Rei: Originally had a lot more screen time. From the moment they met until the moment they fought each other, the plan was to spend some time digging into the character. This is in her top 5 biggest regrets. There was also a development where the protagonist was introduced independently from the mastermind side of things.

Suzune: Originally had a scene where she was going Feral, and they were meant to be drawn. Cut because they were too gorey.

Shion: Originally didn't have a soft expression (this was later added to the scenario) and was going to first appear with a murderous/dangerous expression instead.

Souda: Originally planned a scene for him to "fight with weapons" but then considered his viewpoint and decided it would probably just be a fashion thing. The game he was into was originally an FPS but became a smartphone game.

Rika: Originally had a scene where she planned to kill Zero, but then the point that "Executors don’t ever meet Zero" came up and it was an important plot point, so she dropped it.

Kazuki: Came up with a concept where they weren't related from the beginning. When coming up with reasons why he became rebellious, one of them was "because the pudding I was looking forward to got eaten".

Akito: Wanted to create more scenes that focused on his composition hobby, felt that it was relatable.

Ogata: Originally a lawyer, but then this posed problems when he was in trial so she changed it. After Mikuni he was gonna be the second most important character in Adonis but then he would need to appear in all the routes, so they adjusted him to meet the themes of Mineo's route.

Hana: Was supposed to do weird shit in all routes except Mineo's, but producer ended up just picking one and adjusted it.

Isshiki: Wanted a scene where he was actually singing.

[dandystory]

A Black Eagles Retrospective on Maddening

I’ve been spinning plates for a few months with real life events, and I’m actively trying to lighten that load one plate at a time. In an effort to regain some balance between my career and myself, I returned to a little bit of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, a game I hadn’t really touched since blazing through it at launch. At that time, I blasted through both Black Eagles and Blue Lions on Hard/Classic, and I felt a genuine connection to both my units and the overall flow of both paths.

That being said, each path is a pretty large time commitment, and the lack of difficulty, huge amount of activity points and the overall sameness of the first half for each route caused me to lose some steam before making my way to Golden Deer. This time, however, I decided I was ready for a new adventure with a fresh set of units and supports to explore. I decided to up the difficulty to Maddening, and start on a NG+ plus file to avoid some of the built-in monotony(I’m looking straight at you, fishing) and off I went.

Initially, my ask for a challenge was rewarded; the first few chapters of maddening are easily the most frustrating, and I was in a for a rude awakening with just how squishy a lot of my units were. Additionally, unlike El and Dimitri, I found I couldn’t just throw Claude into a group of enemies and come out with a win. I had to adjust my strategies, get comfortable with the idea of taking turns slowly, and learn when it was OK to push, and when I needed to take advantage of a quick retreat.

Looking back on it, those chapters served as the building blocks for how Maddening operates. They aren’t nearly as difficult as they felt at the time, and the more I played, the more I realized they were just introducing a method of playing the game that was necessary on this new difficulty, but not so on Hard or Normal. Much like playing Sekiro, the more I played through the game, the more comfortable I got and the more I felt like Maddening was the most natural way for me to experience this third path.

Unfortunately, NG+ put a rather large damper on this whole experience the further along I went in the story. I’m fully aware that this was probably my fault, because after all, NG+ really only adds more options. You don’t have to add professor rank, and you don’t have to insta-recruit all your favorite students. But the more I played, the more I realized how hard it was to pass up that easy convenience. This brought on the slog that usually awaits the player near the end of the story to chapter 6 or 7, and I honestly wasn’t ready for that. I made it to chapter 13, and then I felt like I was done for a while.

Instead of playing more FE3H, I started to watch more content about it on YouTube. I saw a lot of the planning, careful recruitment of characters, and overall fun that comes with playing the game on maddening without the benefits NG+ provides. I’ll be honest, I also saw that title screen that comes with beating the game without NG+, and I was drawn to picking up the game one more time.

Rather than go back to the Golden Deer route, I decided to pick a house I was more comfortable with. Edelgard was the reason I choose the Black Eagles in the first place, and I felt like I wanted my first clear on this difficulty to be with the house that made me love the game. I was familiar with the units, with what their general strengths were, and I also wanted to learn a little bit more about how I could optimize them with a little bit of planning. I did a little bit of research on what abilities and classes I should pick up along my journey, and also made a commitment to using my in-house units as much as possible this time. No Shamir, no Lysithea and no Felix this time around. Well, maybe just a little bit of Felix.

I’ll go over each of the units I used below, and how useful I thought they were on this game mode. Ultimately, reaching the end on this route proved to be more challenging in some ways, and a lot easier than Golden Deer in others. Generally, I think the ways the player can break the game apply to all routes, but team compositions and roles for each unit offer enough variety that I think I’ll be playing through on this mode again with a different route.

Edelgard

Edelgard was easily my favorite unit after Byleth for this run. My view of her was a little warped after my initial run with this house, as I left her in her unique classes for much of the second half of the game. I appreciated her survive-ability, but I often found her lagging behind and I honestly wasn’t familiar enough with Warp/Gambit strats to make her more of a viable tank.

This time, I went straight to Wyvern Lord and never looked back. There were a few times where I overstepped my limits in the initial stages of the game and had to Divine Pulse her back to safety, but she grew as a Dodge Tank and player phase wrecking ball as the game went along. By the final chapter, all the gardening I’d done for strength and speed boosters made her a 40/40 unit. She consistently functioned as my secondary dodge tank, a buster for monster and boss health bars, and a free pass for my team to slow down large enemy groups thanks to her ridiculous charm stat. Her biggest contribution by far, though, was wiping out 2 full bars of health from the Immaculate One to end the fight in the last chapter of the run.

I also S-ranked her in the end, which felt the most natural of all the options available.

Byleth (The Literal MVP)

I usually run a male, Enlightened One Byleth, but I decided to go with a dodge tank Falcon Knight this time around. For much of the game, she carried maps as a reliable front line unit that set up kills for my weaker units. I found myself wishing I’d invested more in axes in part 1 for pure damage, but I realized just how much I appreciated having a good sword unit when Wyvern Lords started to flood the later game maps.

I made sure to pick up both Death Blow and Darting Blow for this run, and I did the standard two tea times per month to pump up her charm as much as possible. Honestly, it felt like I messed around with this Byleth’s class progression a little too much (I debated if I really needed another flier on this team), but she still ended up with 40/40 strength and speed, and she was nearly untouchable on enemy phases with her Rapier.

Overall, she was the MVP for most of my maps, and she functioned as my primary method for pushing forward my units. I feel like Wyvern Lord and Falcon Knight are probably the most optimal way to play Byleth as a unit, but I’m a little mixed as to whether I’ll be taking this path again going forward. On my next run, I’d like to let some of my other units shine as well.

Ferdinand

My previous experiences with Ferdinand before this run were really poor. In my first run, he went through Paladin and carried a lot of the early game, but he fell off in the second half of the game. Because I didn’t know about death blow and swift strikes in my first run, I didn’t take advantage of his full tool kit and I had a really poor impression of him. I also tried incorporating him in my Golden Deer run, but he had awful strength gains and became a liability really quickly.

This time, I decided to run him through to Wyvern Lord. Initially, I was a little hesitant because I felt like I was crowding my team with too many fliers, and missing out on some helpful gambits. But my faith was rewarded, and Ferdinand turned into easily the third best overall unit on this run. By the final chapter, he’d naturally grown into a 37/37 strength and speed unit without the help of stat boosters, and with a little bit of focused healing to proc his personal ability, he handled enemy phases with ease and contributed a ton of chip damage.

My Ferdinand wasn’t optimized, though, as he never learned Swift Strikes and spent most of the game with a Hand Axe equipped for handling pesky snipers on enemy phases. I needed an answer for Falcon Knights, though, and Ferdinand served as a secondary answer behind Edelgard in the late game. Ultimately, I feel like I got a little lucky with his growths, but I’d definitely be more open to utilizing him going forward.

Jeritza

When I first played through Black Eagles on launch, I don’t believe Jeritza was available, and his addition to my team on this run honestly made me realize just how much Crimson Flower needed another versatile unit. He was easily one of my favorite four units, but I won’t say he was a wrecking ball like Edelgard, and he didn’t provide as much utility as Ferdinand during enemy phases. Instead, he acted as a balanced combination of offensive punch with enough defense to absorb both physical and magic hits for my weaker units.

I made sure to master his Death Knight class on this run, and although I certified for Wyvern Rider in preparation for the final few chapters, I never felt the need to switch his canon class. The fact that he couldn’t keep up with my front line units turned out to be a blessing, as he could soak up hits for both Dorothea and Lynhardt in the back. On player phase, I gave him a few Killer Lances and a Crit Ring, and he mowed down a lot of the Sword Masters that were giving me trouble in the early game.

Honestly, there’s not much to say about Jeritza other than that his balance and array of abilities brought an offensive punch to my team that I felt was missing from my first Black Eagles run. As good as the Black Eagles roster is, the lack of a physical tank posed a problem for me in the first part of the game. Though I remedied it by implementing a few dodge tanks, I wish Jeritza had been available a bit earlier to provide some balance to the team.

Felix

As I mentioned earlier, I was hesitant to recruit much during this run based on my experiences with Golden Deer NG+. But I realized pretty early on that I needed a Sniper replacement for Petra and Bernie as I took them down different routes this time. My previous experience with Felix was as a Swordmaster, and then as a War Master. He excelled in both, but as I looked through the roster of available units to fill my Sniper void, I found Felix to be the most suitable.

In retrospect, I didn’t fully understand Maddening when I first started this playthrough. If I could go back, I’d probably choose Ignatz instead, as his personal ability and versatility lean more into the sniper class in my opinion. Felix was a perfectly serviceable sniper on this run, but I always felt like I was lacking some of the kill potential I had with Ignatz on my previous Golden Deer run. At the same time, i felt like I was missing out on the War Master class by forcing Felix into a void I needed to fill. I also didn’t really have time to get him death blow on this run because he was a late recruit, so that played a factor in his performance as well.

Still, he consistently doubled leading up to Hunter’s Volley, and he was a decent crit machine in the middle chapters. My Bernie lacked punch on this run, and he more than made up for it all things considered. This was my most replaceable version of Felix and I don’t think I’d use his Sniper class again going forward, but he was perfectly serviceable in his role.

Hubert

Honestly, Hubert was pretty terrible on my first run on Hard/Classic, and that was probably due to my mismanagement of his class path and general lack of understanding of how to optimize mages. This time, I was a little bit more prepared to deal with his short comings, and I patched over them with better class and ability optimization and the Dark Knight’s increased movement.

Maddening presents an interesting challenge for mages, as they seem to provide a little bit more utility and chip than the raw offense they provide on lower difficulties. For example, my Golden Deer Lysithea fell short on a lot of damage thresholds, but she was great at warping units, and she was an easy out for Cavalry units. Though I didn’t generally love using her, I found her kit to be useful, and that generally applies to Hubert as well. Though he can’t Warp units around, I did make use of Banshee and Mire, and I also made sure to build his faith enough for Recover to act as a secondary or tertiary healer for Dorothea and Linhardt.  

He also packed enough of a punch, though, that I overall enjoyed using him far more than Lysithea. He also was a little bit more sturdy, so I didn’t have to treat his movement with kid gloves. That was a welcome change for this difficulty, as it was one less worry for how I routed my maps. Overall, I really enjoyed this Hubert, and he was easily the 5th or 6th best unit on my team for this run.

Petra

This one was really hard for me, because Petra was a fantastic unit in both my Black Eagles and Blue Lions runs on Hard/Classic. However, I was indecisive with her class path on this run, and I think Maddening’s enemy stats punished her pretty severely for that.

Petra ended as a Wyvern Lord on this run, though for future runs I might take her down the Falcon Knight route. Maybe I was a bit unlucky, but her final splits for strength/speed were 30/40, which meant I was able to reliably double for much of the game, but a lot of my damage felt like chip at best. I found myself leaning harder into her bows for reliable chip damage the farther along we went, and though this was probably an effective use of her strengths given the rest of my units, I felt like I minimized some of her effectiveness the farther the game went along.

I initially planned to use her as an assassin, but I felt like her progression was lacking in the mid-game. I didn’t find many opportunities for her to provide value, and she was lacking some of the punch and defense that my other units provided. I made the decision to take her down the Wyvern Lord path at some point, but it was probably too late to save her strength stat, and at that point my front line units already had established roles I was comfortable with.

This Petra was mainly used for her movement utility to get chests before I cleared maps, and some reliable chip damage for breaking monster shields and getting rid of pesky fliers. Not a bad unit, and she provided good utility, but probably not my best Petra.

Bernie (A Utility Pitfall)

My first Black Eagles run gave me a mediocre impression of Bernadetta; she was my best sniper, but I was too focused on Edelgard and Byleth running through the enemy like hot butter to really appreciate the value she provided on that run. Additionally, I neglected feeding her experience before the timeskip, and I put her in too many sticky situations on the enemy phase to have a realistic chance of providing value.

On my maddening run, however, I made the decision to play around with Vengeance tactics to make my life a little easier. In the first half of the run, she was a secondary boss killer when Byleth was either too far behind, or was picking up some stragglers for experience. I put her in Pegasus Knight and watched the magic happen. She was the perfect glass canon for my team, and she made a lot of frustrating maps seem really simple when I was still struggling to adapt to this mode.

However, the further I went along, the less apt I was to go through the set-up of lowering her HP, and the less I wanted to use another flier on my team. Honestly, having a team of 6 or so fliers just didn’t seem fun, and so I transitioned her to Sniper, and then Paladin to make use of Hunter’s Volley for a while, and then Vengeance when I recruited Felix. As the game went along, I found myself using Encloser far more than Vengeance, and while it’s probably a pitfall to freeze an enemy in place rather than just killing them, I really enjoyed the utility. Her final class ended up being Bow Knight, and she transitioned from a boss killer to a utility superstar. Although she probably would function better on most teams as a vengeance flier, or as a sniper, I had enough firepower to make it through maddening already, and I really loved this utility version of her. Not my best unit, but one of my favorites.

Linhardt

Having used all of the main healers in the game, I can say with ease that Linhardt is my favorite. He provides a ton of personality, and his versatility with Restore and Warp really made me appreciate his overall viability as a main healer. For overall healing, I know Mercedes provides a little bit more oomph, and I think Marianne offers more raw damage output, but ultimately I didn’t really need either of those traits from my main healer. Physics were my main form of currency on Maddening, and I had enough damage up front to compensate for Linhardt’s lack luster offense.

Ultimately, there’s not much to say. He was really key in keeping my units alive through this run, and he was key in setting up Byleth on Felix’s paralogue as well as Manuela’s paralogue with Warp. I just stuck him in the Bishop class and let him go work. He was also decent at providing chip damage in the late game, and I never felt especially worried about his fragility. I just paired him with my dancer and Jeritza, and it made for a pretty safe back line.

Dorothea

I royally screwed my dancers on all of my previous runs, so I committed to at least using a dancer on this playthrough. For some reason, I’ve made Flayn a dancer on all three of my runs prior to this, and each time I completely abandoned her for a better unit (or she’s been kicked out of my house thanks to Crimson Flower), so this time I picked Dorothea.

Dorothea struggles pretty heavily early on in the run, as she just doesn’t have a wide enough spell list to really kill enemies for EXP. As such, she was pretty underleveled for most of the first half of the game. I considered benching her, but I committed to the dancer plan, and just focused as much as I could on building up her utility until then. Her secondary function was to dish out extra physics when possible, and to provide chip damage on nearby enemies when my back line couldn’t finish the job. Ultimately, though, she ended up functioning as a way to support Linhardt’s low movement, and to move Jeritza and Hubert through maps with limited movement for mounted units.

In the end game, she helped Byleth and Edelgard chunk down the Immaculate One before she could get off her AOE, and she was just a really solid unit through the mid and end game.

Caspar

We’re reached the point where I’m digging into my filler units, and it’s a little bit sad for me to see Caspar here. I benched him in my first Black Eagles run, and though I was committed to him this time, I quickly realized he probably just wasn’t worth the trouble. He was already conveniently able to serve as a guard adjutant for my non-mounted units, and he racked up enough experience doing that to stay relatively close for maps that needed an 11th unit.

Ultimately, I decided on War Master for him so could provide some punch on the last map. He wasn’t terrible, but his low speed and versatility overshadowed his raw strength.

Sorry Caspar, I promise I’ll commit to you one day.

Constance

I probably could have put some more time and preparation into the selection of my last unit, but honestly I really like Constance’s design, and she provided some utility and damage on maps that allowed for a 12th unit.

I had initially recruited Sylvain for this role, but he was so far down the Fortress Knight path that he’d become borderline unusable in regular combat. He was perfect as a guard adjutant, but his strength ended up at something like 17 by the end game. I ended up babying Constance up to the Dark Flier class, where she primarily functioned as a funnel for EXP as Byleth’s adjutant. She stayed consistent on levels, and she was my only mage able to really use the Thyrsus without any drawbacks.

She provided good utility with her spell list, and she was never really in danger thanks to her class. Not a great unit on this run, but she served her role well, and I’d definitely be interested in committing more time and resources to her on future runs. Plus her character design is really cool. 

[loveisblindfanfictionbka]

Love Is Blind: Chapter Three

Marcus smirked as he watched Chris mess with the straw in his drink, “Man, whoever she is has got you messed up bad.”

Chris jerked his head up and frowned in confusion, “huh?”

“You have completely zoned out on me, Bro. What’s going on?”

“Just thinking.”

“So your divorce? What happened?”

“I wasn’t any good for her. It just wasn’t gonna work out.”

“How’d she take it?”

“Not good. I’m surprised she hasn’t put a hit out on me.”

Marcus chuckled, “that woman loves you too much.”

“Loved.”

“Loves. I said what I said.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“Do you know she hasn’t dated since your divorce?”

“No. I never bothered to keep up with her.”

“Really?”

“I don’t have the right to. Why keep up with her life if I didn’t have the decency to stay in it?”

“You got a point.”

“So who is the new girl?”

“There is no new girl. Just somebody I’m getting to know.”

“So there is a new girl.”

“No.”

“Chris, we can play with semantics all night but be honest, do you like her?”

“Yes but we’re just friends.”

“For now.”

“She’s still in love with her ex-husband. I’m not in control of my life and neither of us are looking for anything serious.”

“Then what’s the harm in making her your new girl. You both know whats the deal up front.”

“Besides she doesn't want to meet me anyway.”

“You’ve never met?”

“I met her online. I only have a vague idea of what she looks like but we’ve never actually seen each other or spoke to each other.”

“Really? I didn’t know you were into that.”

“I set it up out of boredom but I got lucky with talking to her. She’s really nice.”

“What she do?”

“She’s a Vet. Owns her own clinic and shelter”

“Nice. Is she local?”

“Not sure. I know her business is in the city. Never asked if she lived there or not.”

“Chris, you might know her already.”

“I doubt it besides I think the not knowing her is the best part.”

“No identity, no expectations.”

“Exactly.”

“Well more power to you. Hope you don’t miss out on an amazing woman wanting to be all mysterious and shit.”

“I’m not concerned.”

A: How has your day been?

C: Hectic. My daughter caught the flu so I’m out of commission for the next few days

A: Aww...poor baby. Is this the first time she’s been sick?

C: No so I’m pretty prepared for the theatrics that will be coming my way

A: She’s that kind of kid, huh? Lol

C: Lol regardless of the fact that she’s three, she gets sick and reverts to an infant but I love babying her. Just don’t tell her that

A: Lol, your secret is safe with me

C: How have you been?

A: Good. Finalizing details for this gala a certain someone got me to attend

C: Lol, you made the deal, I just accepted

A: Yea. Whatever.

C: Did you decide on a date for our virtual outing?

A: I mean you have the child

C: It’s not like I’m gonna be leaving my house though

A: That is true

C: Are you nervous?

A: No, it’s not like you’re gonna hear my voice or see me. What’s there to be nervous about?

C: I don’t know I’m asking you

A: Are you free this weekend?

C: 8 pm Saturday?

A: Works for me

C: Cool

A: You know you could’ve just picked a time and told me

C: Yea but it was your idea so your choice

A: Hmm...I guess

C: What you thinking about?

A: If I should send you a sneak peek of my dress

C: You have it already? I thought the gala wasn’t for another month

A: A month goes by fast especially if you own your own business, time is not of the essence

C: Ah, very true. Are we still doing text to speech or?

A: I have some equipment I can use for voice changes. You?

C: I work at a college, I’m sure I can find some

A: Cool

C: Is your voice that distinctive that I’d be able to figure out who you are from hearing it?

A: Yes.

C: Ah, now I’m curious

A: It’s not that I’m worried about knowing you but I’ve been interviewed and stuff before so hearing my voice would definitely be a dead giveaway and ruin the mystery

C: I understand. 

A: Does any of this make you uncomfortable?

C: No. It keeps things simple and uncomplicated. No complaints from me

A: Cool

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robyn quickly composed herself as she posed for the picture in front of her phone. The self-timer clicked and she grabbed the device to see her handy work. She smiled at the successful shot. No identifying marks but it captured her body and clothing perfectly. She sat down and logged into her dating app to send the picture to Chris. Not wanting to be consumed with nervousness, she logged out completely before taking off her clothes and heading to take a shower. Their double blind virtual outing was tonight.

Chris smiled as his phone pinged and he clicked on the new message. The long-sleeve navy blue dress hugged every curve of Anna perfectly. She was completely covered but it still felt just as sexy as if she was naked. That was an art. The message read, “I probably could’ve waited a few weeks to send you this but I figured what the hell. What do you think?”

Chris rubbed his hand along his chin then through his hair as he stared at the picture. Was he making a mistake letting this stay just an online thing? Could she really be as amazing as she seemed? Maybe it was just the lust talking. He had sworn off women the past few years so it wasn’t like he had many outlets for any kind of attraction. Anesa was with his sister and cousins for the night while he had his virtual outing with Anna. He really didn’t understand why she just didn’t call it a date but then again they aren’t supposed to be dating so it makes sense.

Robyn shook off any nervousness as she sat down in front of her computer. It was easier to not be tempted to use the camera if she didn’t have one so she decided to use her desktop instead of her laptop. The older monitor was wired for sound but not video. She had emailed Chris a link to the video chat site with its autoset to start at 8pm. She glanced at the cover of the screen and sighed as the clock flipped from 7:59 to 8:00.

“Hi Anna,” an auto generated voice came through her speakers

“Chris, it’s nice to hear your voice.”

Chris laughed, “well something like my voice. How are you?”

“I’m great. You?”

“I’m good. Thank you for the picture.”

“Eh, I was trying it on and thought why not. You never answered my message”

“Well, I knew I was gonna talk to you soon so I figured it’d be easier to say what I was thinking than writing it”

“Ah, so what do you think?”

“I think you look incredible. It’s hard to be sexy and completely covered from neck to toe but you definitely pulled it off.”

“Why thank you. My friend was a little upset that I picked that dress.”

“Why?”

“She thinks I need to show more skin.”

Chris laughed, “well you’re single, no harm in doing that.”

“Single and not trying to mingle though.”

“If you look as amazing in the face as your body does. Nothing short of staying home would keep people, men especially, from trying to talk to you.”

“Oh don’t say that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“Still don’t say it.”

“You’re afraid of dating?”

“No, just not prepared for it. I don’t really want to like anybody else.”

“Not even me.”

“You are a very pleasant and partially unwanted surprise. I don’t think I could not not like you though.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment”

“Good because I meant it as one,” Robyn laughed, “Feel weird yet?”

“Nope. This is a lot easier than typing though.”

“It is. 

“So how was your day?”

“It was good. I had the start of auditions for my upper level songwriting and music composition classes.”

“Really? How do those work?”

“The student either performs live or brings in a recorded piece that they wrote and/or composed.”

“Do they have to be the performer?”

“It is preferable but no. I get my share of duos from time to time.”

“Is it easier to audition as a duo or solo?”

“To me, neither. I try to be equally as hard on all my students.”

“Did you work in the music industry before?”

“Actually no, just a dream deferred, I guess.”

“What about your divorce made you switch careers?”

“Music has always been healing for me. I had no desire to be famous or anything like that but I wanted to deal with music. Teaching did that for me.”

“Were you healing from your marriage?”

“No. My mother had passed away and it just threw my life into a spiral.”

“Were you close?”

“Not like we should’ve been. I was raised by another family member and my mom wasn’t really around most of my life.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s life. You learn to make the best of it.”

“It doesn’t sound like you did.”

“To be honest, I didn’t at first. I was mad at everything and everybody. I just gave up.”

“And your marriage was a casualty of that.”

“Yup.”

“And you still love her?”

“I don’t want to but I do.”

“I know that feeling. So you were adopted by the family member or they just took you in?”

“Just took me in, nothing official.”

“Oh ok.”

“You have a good relationship with your family?”

“Yea, I think we still sit on different sides of the fence when it comes to my ex but other than that nothing major.”

“Why?”

“They loved him. He was my high school sweetheart so we kind of grew up together.”

“Same here. Do they want you guys to get back together?”

“Absolutely.”

Chris laughed.

“Sometimes I wonder if there were things he told them that he couldn’t tell me.”

“It’s possible. It's easier to open up to somebody you don’t feel responsible for. Men worry a lot about looking weak in front of their spouses. We wonder if women will still trust our judgment if they think we’re more emotional than logical.”

“Any woman worth her medal knows men are more emotional than logical, y’all just like to play with semantics. Just because you don’t deal with your emotions doesn’t mean they don’t exist or magically go away. Y’all just have different methodologies than we do.”

“Were you a therapist in a past life?”

Robyn laughed, “No, I took basic psychology classes in college.”

“Definitely sounds like you took more than the requisite elective.”

“I did. Almost had enough for a minor but I overloaded on vet classes to try to finish my bachelor’s early.”

“Did you?”

“Just a semester early, nothing too major.”

“That’s awesome. Were you always a vet?”

“Actually no. I took a few years off after veterinary school, did a bunch of odd jobs before I came back to my chosen profession.”

“Ah, good deal.”

“It had its perks.”

“How’d your husband feel about that?”

“We weren’t married initially but he didn’t seem to mind even after we did get married. He had a bit of an old school rearing and liked being a provider, I can admit.”

“And all that time you never had children?”

“I don’t think he could’ve emotionally handled children but then again, we might have fought for our marriage more if there were some involved.”

“You think so?”

“We both grew up in separated families, raised by a single parent or guardian. Two parent households weren’t the norm for either of us.”

“Ah ok.”

“We had always maintained the idea of having children once we got married but then we got married and things just didn’t work out. I wanted to try immediately after the ceremony but he kept stalling. First, it was getting his career off the ground then the timing just wasn’t right and by then we were divorced. I don’t think he wanted children with me.”

“You know being a parent isn’t something to take lightly, from what it sounds like it wasn’t you, he just wasn’t ready. At least, he was self aware to know that.”

“And your wife?”

“After the first year, we barely had sex.”

“Were you not attracted to her anymore?”

“I was. I just didn’t really like myself anymore and it made it hard to be physical with her. We had years of having sex and making love. I wasn’t the same so it didn’t feel the same, I felt like I was shortchanging her.”

“Sounds like you made a lot of decisions for her.”

“I know she would’ve stayed if I didn’t leave but I also knew she wasn’t happy. I couldn’t say I love her and subject her to an unhappy marriage, it’s not fair.”

“Why didn’t you just get help?”

“I did that’s what led me to ask for a divorce.”

“Your help told you to get divorced?”

“Not explicitly. My therapist told me that I needed to take time to focus on myself with no distractions. My mother had died, My father showed back up in my life. It just felt like everything was falling apart and then I had my wife. Trying to be supportive but completely unhappy and walking on eggshells. It felt like I was torturing her and I didn’t want us to live like that. I didn’t want her to live like that. When I tried to explain what was going on, it just made everything worse.”

“What you mean?”

“I broke her. In such a short marriage, I broke her and I didn’t know how to undo what I had done. I also wasn’t in the space to undo it. I just wanted to die and I didn’t want her to see that.”

‘Did you try to-”

“It was a week after she had moved out. Complete nervous breakdown.”

“Chris, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was bound to happen. The mind can only take so much before it has to reset itself.”

“Did you tell her?”

“No. I made my family promise not to say anything to anyone either. I made her leave for that exact reason. Sometimes you can just feel when you’ve reached your breaking point.”

“True. So she had no idea?”

“No. If she had, she probably would’ve came back and never went through with the divorce. I didn't want her spending her life fixing my mess, that’s my job.”

“Wow. I appreciate you telling me this.”

“I’m surprised I did. Had this been a year or two ago, I probably would’ve stopped talking to you as soon as you asked about her.”

“Really?”

“Yea. Failure sucks.”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like you failed. It’s not like all avenues had been exhausted.”

“If your ex-husband had did this, would you be so accommodating?”

“If he had actually told me all this happened with him, absolutely. This is so much different than the silence and moping around that I got.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“I mean I definitely have to get over feeling so betrayed first. Ten years of a relationship and he couldn’t trust me enough to let me in, that’s a hard pill to swallow.”

“Yea but it happens. I imagine my ex-wife would probably feel that exact same way.”

“I might not know you well enough to say this but I really think you should find her and talk to her. The years may have softened her.”

“I don’t think it would be right. I caused her enough issues, the last thing she’d probably want is to be reminded of me.”

“There you go making decisions for her again. You never know until you find out.”

“I guess.”

“Unless you don’t want to find out.”

“What you mean?”

“I think you’re afraid that you really did break her and she never bounced back. I think finding out that she hasn’t moved on scares you more than anything.”

“I-”

“You love her and I don’t think you will ever stop, so you want her to be happy. You want her to have forgotten about you and got everything she ever wanted in life. But if she hasn’t, you’d have to realize that though you did everything to protect her, you made the biggest mistake making her go especially when she didn’t want to. As a woman who’s been there and still there, you didn’t give her a chance to be what you needed because you were so worried about not being what you thought she wanted, even though you never asked.”

Robyn pulled her covers up under her chin as she laid back staring at her ceiling. Talking to Chris, really got her to thinking about her ex-husband. Did something happen to him to make him shut him down? Did he really walk out to save her like he told her? If so, why didn't he trust her to be there for him? At least this Chris is healed but clearly she has a penchant for damaged men. Is she a damaged woman? Did her ex really break her to the point she could never recover?

Chris sat on the phone with Anesa, half listening to her ramble about her day. He was going to go get her from his sister’s house but after talking with Anna, he needed the night to himself, to regroup. He couldn’t say that she was wrong. He never really thought about if his ex-wife was happy or not since he left. At least not out loud. Like what right did he have to shake up her life again after shaking it up in the first place? That’s why he never asked about her. It wasn’t right to be about her life if he made the initiative to walk out of it. Anna really showed him the other side of the situation, it really wasn’t as pretty and hopeful as he thought it would’ve been. He never thought of his divorce as a mistake but did he really ruin something that could’ve been fixed?

[arolla-pine]

Fake Dating - p.12

(12) - Work or passion?

“Are you sure Nino won’t be eavesdropping?” Marinette asked in whisper, when they entered the garden.

“I can rely blindly on him.” Adrien smiled. “He’ll keep away to let us talk comfortably, but close enough to chop off your head before you stab me in my back.”

“What a picture!” Marinette laughed.

This joke overcame an awkwardness they felt every time they stayed alone. In addition, since the moment Adrien had made Marinette aware of breaking a touch barrier, she kept thinking about taking his hand again. To control herself she folded her hands in the back, just in case. By the way she noticed that he hid his hands in his pockets and she couldn’t stop wondering if the reasons of that weren’t similar to hers.

“Luckily for you, I left a knife in another purse…” she joked.

“What a relief!” he laughed. “But still I should be careful. You know, you may be a ninja or some assassin.”

“Nah, you’re a small fry, so revealing my assassin’s profession wouldn’t be worth it.” she snorted theatrically.

“Good to know. So, I can remove martial arts from the list of your talents?”

“I wouldn’t say so. My mom enrolled me once in aikido. She’s always said that every girl should know how to defend herself.”

“Wow…” he commented.

“Not a big deal.” she shrugged. “Everyone can learn it. You could try. Then you wouldn’t need a shadower anymore and Nino could stop pretending to be your bodyguard. You could be normal friends.”

“He doesn’t pretend. He’s really good.”

“Have you ever needed him? You know, in real life. I mean… Has anyone ever attacked you?”

“It’s been a few times when someone overstepped the bounds of acceptable contact.”

“What happened next? Did Nino chopped off their heads?”

“No knives, so all heads stayed where they were. But he could broke some bones. I didn’t look.”

“Oh, you’re one of those sensitive…”

“It’s rather about protect me from witnessing in case we were sued. I could always say that I saw nothing.”

“No offense, Adrien, but it’s wrong. It’s like you were a coward.”

“My father told me that I should do that. He wanted me to avoid troubles.”

“But you would leave your friend in the lurch!” Marinette clearly didn’t accept his excuse. On the contrary, it made her truly mad. “You couldn’t even testify to help Nino in case of a lawsuit or even a penalty of imprisonment! Someone could accuse him of overstepping the limits of necessary defence!”

Adrien was staring at her in astonishment. He’d never thought about it that way. He had been taught to follow his father’s commands without question. Nobody had told him that what he was doing was wrong…

“I think you’re right…” he whispered after a while. “I’ll have to learn to keep an eye on Nino.”

“Learn?”

“You know… It’s difficult to change your habits. Especially when your father spent years on teaching you how to behave.”

“Geez, Adrien! It sounds like a training not a parenting!”

“I’ve never thought about it that way. My dad prefers a disciplined behaviour.” he admitted.

Saying this he stopped at an arcade corner of the garden in front of Château d’Auvers-sur-Oise. He leaned against an arch support and although he put his hands out the pockets, he crossed them on his chest.

“What about your mom?” Marinette asked quietly, leaning against the other arch support.

“She died when I was a boy.” He murmured, not looking at her but somewhere outside. “I’ve almost forgotten what she was like…”

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t know…” she whispered, touching his arm softly.

“We don’t know a lot of things about us. We were supposed not to apologise for that…” he reminded her, staring at her eyes.

Why his gaze suddenly became so powerful? Was it because she was touching his arm? She took away her hand immediately and looked away. Such things shouldn’t happen! Not in such a situation. Not with someone whom she’d met yesterday. Not with someone with whom she was to pretend being in a relationship. Not with him.

“What about your parents?” he asked, feeling he should say something to break this silence between them. He set off the wall and moved in the direction of a park behind the palace.

“They’re both fine.” she replied and followed him.

This time neither he hid his hands in pockets nor she folded hers in the back.

“Are you of Chinese descent for real?” he asked curiously.

“My mom is. My dad is French. Actually he’s half-French half-Italian. My grandma is Italian.”

“What a composition!” Adrien laughed.

“Explosive mixture…”

“I don’t know that yet.”

“In fact I’m as gentle as a lamb.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Of course, I am!”

“You know what, Mari? Maybe I’ve known you since yesterday, but I’ve already learnt something about you. That you’re rather an energetic person.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.” she muttered.

“Please, do.” He smiled in reply and his hand conveniently brushed up against her hand.

Marinette felt a strange sensation in her stomach. A very similar to that one she’d felt at the moment when they looked in their eyes in the arcade. She was quite cautious about such emotions, because she was aware that they were going to prepare to act as a couple in love, so she shouldn’t react that way on little gestures like those. She knew Adrien was doing that to make a fiction more believable. She kept repeating herself that she should get used to holding his hand, to hugging him, or maybe even kissing him in front of a camera… She should be as professional as he was. She was supposed to act as a woman in love. Not to fall in love for real!

She shook off those thoughts. She had to focus on the task!

“Since when have you sung?” he asked her at the same time when she was asking:

“Since when have you posed as a model?”

They glanced at each other and burst out laughing. That eased the tension and they could come back to their conversation.

“I don’t remember when I started singing.” Marinette admitted while they entered the park. “I think the music has been around me since forever. Probably I was singing before I learnt to speak. My parents must have been impressed enough or maybe they just wanted to have a few minutes of silence at home… Anyway they enrolled me in voice classes. I learnt there how to breath, how to control my voice, how to practice…”

“Practice?” Adrien spotted.

“I have to do some exercises of my vocal cords.”

“How do you do it?”

“Oh, it’s so boring!” she snorted. “Rumbling, murmuring, you know… Just a warm up.”

“Can you show me?”

Marinette glanced at him sideways, but finally stopped and presented some of vocal exercises she had to do every day. It didn’t sound like singing, yet Adrien couldn’t take his fascinated eyes off her mouth.

“It’s like you take out your voice from your mouth and hide it back again.” he summed up, when they moved on.

“I learnt to control acoustic emission, air flow… Believe me, it took me so long to get it! Now it’s much easier, but still boring…”

“Incredible…”

“Seriously?” she shrugged. “It’s rather my work than passion.”

“Singing?”

“Oh, no! Singing is passion! Those exercises are my donkeywork. But without it I wouldn’t be able to sing at quality I do it now.”

“Well, I’m impressed.”

“And you? Modelling is more your job or passion?”

“Definitely my job.” he winced slightly.

“Then why do you do this?”

“My dad…” Adrien began and realised again that his life was so subordinated to his father.

“Wow, you’re really trained so well. You can do your work even though you hate it…”

“It’s not like that. There are some advantages of it. I can travel a lot, visit different countries…”

“Right… Because you’re poor and cannot afford travelling in a spare time…” she commented sarcastically.

“My father is rich, not me. Besides…” he hesitated.

“Besides what?”

“Besides I’m afraid I can’t do anything else…” he confessed.

“Yeah, right!” she snorted. “You’re an intelligent guy. It’s impossible that posing as a model is your biggest ambition!”

“Modelling is not so easy, Princess!” Adrien laughed. “Nobody would pay for pictures of a model with a blank stare. You can show emotions by using your voice, melody, words. I have to do it by using my body language only.”

“Uhm… I’ve never thought about it that way…” she whispered, noticing by the way that his hand brushed up against her hand again.

“I have to be like a chameleon, flexible. I cannot be the same all the time. It depends on the theme of a session or ad campaign. It consumes a lot of energy.”

“You do look like someone consumed, not consuming…”

“I take care of myself. Is it wrong?”

“Not at all. Do you eat sweets sometimes?” she winked at him, and this time it was she who brushed up against his hand.

“When no one’s watching…” he confessed and winked back at her.

And then he took her hand.

––

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