#a drawing without a sketch that i spent too much time colouring

[backslashdelta]

I wish............ I could draw

[waywardangel-wilds]

Peeta is always open to drawing or painting anything for Katniss and she's frequently taken him up on it. It's usually not that difficult for him, he loves the chance to paint, to refine his skills. Katniss loves having not only a reminder of certain memories but also a physical representation of Peeta's enduring and almost quiet love for her. And it's easy. Natural. That is until Katniss looks at Peeta one day and asks, "Would you do a self-portrait for me?"

That's hard for him. The sketches are never quite right, the colors are off. Katniss doesn't ever nitpick at his paintings, and she isn't being unkind or anything, but she always looks at the drafts with an uncertain expression only to say, "Somethings not right, Peeta."

Peeta gets frustrated. Why can't he just do this painting? He asks Katniss what is off about the sketches, and it's always a thousand little things. His eyes aren't that severe. He's supposed to have freckles there. His mouth is softer in real life. His hair doesn't curl like that. His expression is off. He can never seem to get it right. What is it about this painting?

They're lying on the couch one day when Katniss says, "Maybe you just can't see yourself the way I do."

That makes him curious. How does she see him? They start trying to figure that out. He says that she should describe his face to him as if he were a plant for the book, and maybe they could arrive somewhere accurate.

Katniss finds it a little funny, even odd, he's himself. He has to be more familiar with his own face than she is, but she humors him. They sit down in his studio together and begin.

It becomes an exercise in getting to know her, somehow, on a level that he hadn't explored before. She spends a long time talking about the shape of his eyes, the fan of his eyelashes, and the color of his irises. Her cheeks stain with embarrassment, and his heart knocks against his ribs, trying to escape, maybe even trying to reach out to her.

She has something to say about details he'd never even thought of before. The angle of his chin, the exact colour of his hair. She has descriptions that don't make much sense to him too. His smile is like spring and his scars are like marigolds. When given time, Katniss ends up arranging a whole bouquet of wildflowers with her descriptions.

He loves her. He already knew that. Heck, people on the other side of the country already knew that, but he'd had no idea, somehow, he still had no idea the depth of Katniss's devotion. It's beautiful and seemingly never-ending and it fills his own heart with joy.

They create the portrait together, after many hours spent alone. It's a painting of his own face, yet, it holds a deep intimacy and he can't seem to look at it without smiling and blushing like a fool. He doesn't think of it as his, even if it's a painting of himself, the painting is wholly Katniss's. He presents it to her when he's finished and Katniss smiles warmly, looking down at it with such affection. She hangs it in the hall, near the bench where she keeps her arrows so she can look at it when she leaves every morning and when she comes back home. That part of the house is very private, he doesn't even really go there that often, so it feels special. To know that Katniss wanted to bring him there with her, in her own way.

[hbystuff]

Process breakdown #1

Here is a breakdown of the butterfly animation. This was originally posted as a twitter thread, but a real blog post seems to be a much better format for it.

Step 1: Static Drawing

I've long wanted to experiment with Bokeh effect in pixel art as a way to avoid drawing background. It ended up being a lot more challenging than just a normal background 😂. Still an interesting experiment nonetheless and I might use it for some other stuff in the future.

Step 2: Rough Animation

I traced the static drawing with a contrasting colour, then roughly sketched the other frames. Seeing it in motion made it clear to me that the form was very obviously incorrect, but I thought I'd adjust as I go.

Step 3: Refined Animation

Before I got to this point, I naively tried to put in the colour. I quickly realized making the "veins" look consistent would be very hard without guides. So I looked up pictures of actual Morpho butterflies to study the wings in detail. Also made the shapes (mostly) correct and doubled the frame count once I was happy with the shapes.

Step 4: Colours

This was the most fun part. I conceptualized the wings as two blue tinted, matte, textured mirrors rotating in 3D space. When two mirrors come together, they start reflecting each other. The closer they get, the less the lighting from the surrounding world contribute to the colours you see. Eventually, nearly no light from the outside world make into the gap and all you see is dark blue/black.

It started looking almost like mirrors as I figured out the rough movements of the reflections; then a shimmering mess of colours as I threw in more details from the static drawing. The key trick to making the complex colours look consistent was to pay attention to every "partition" of the wings to make sure the dark colours creep in and out smoothly.

I also gradually filled in the eye spots and details on the backside of the wings, not sure if many people noticed them but I was pretty happy with how they looked.

Step 5: Shadow

A big part of realism comes from how a moving object affects the lighting around it. In this case: the shadow on the flower. This is a rough version of the shadows as I worked on it. Wasn't too concerned about making it look 100% correct, since the wings probably catch all the attention anyway.

Step 6: Final Touches

I spaced out the movements so it didn't feel quite so frantic. Instead of using the last frame as the resting frame, I used the second last, and only briefly showed the last frame at the begging and end of the motion to add a bit of realism (although in reality, butterfly wings probably don't have enough mass for that to happen, but hey, 🤷‍♀️).

Also spent some time to reduce the palette down by merging similar looking colours. Also reused the darker, subtler yellow in the background to create the illusion of more flowers out of focus.

[snow-143]

Water Coloured Tears | Jeon Jungkook

six- late night inspo (1.7k words)

'You're late.' I say without looking up at him.

'And you're as blunt as usual I can see.'

Finally, looking up at him, I squint my eyes before replying, 'Don't change the topic. Why are you late?'

'I had something to take care of.'

'Look, if you aren't going to take this project seriously just say that from the get go. At least that way I can prepare to pick up your slack, so I don't fail.' My voice is a little more accusatory than it could be.

'I'm only 15 minutes late. Chill.' He's finally sat down, across from me, levelling us out.

Managing to soften my voice, I return to my previous point, 'You are going to take this seriously, right?' 

'Yes, y/n, I'm taking this seriously. I really just had to deal with something.'

'Okay. Then lets get to work. I was thinking we could both brainstorm on our individual pieces today. I have a couple of ideas, and I'm sure you do to.' I can't help but smile thinking about the art we could make together. We used to always come up with the craziest ideas together, they may not have always come out as we imagined, but we always had fun.

'That sounds good. What do you have in mind?' He's smiling now too.

'Get your sketchbook out, and I'll tell you. That is if you remembered to bring it.' It was meant to come off as harsh, but it came out far to soft, as if I was joking with him like old times.

'Shit...'

'Jungkook, I swear to god if you tell me you've forgotten it again I will shove this eraser down your throat.'

It's silent for a minute before be bursts out laughing, retreating his beaten up book from his bag. 'Not funny.' And with that I fling the rubber off his head, hitting a perfect bullseye.

This does nothing to sober up his laughing, if anything it made it worse. He's now hunched over the bench making a massive scene out of it all. 'God. You're scary when you're angry, you know that?'

'I've been told once or twice.' I let out a little laugh at this.

When he finally straightens up it's my turn to laugh at the others expense. A massive red mark has formed right in the centre of his forehead. 'Damn I have an extraordinary shot, maybe I should've gone with sport. My talent is obviously being wasted here.'

'Very funny.' He rubs the red splotch on his head cursing, 'How bad is it?'

'What? Worried it'll put off the flock of women always surrounding you?'

'Oh, trust me, It'd take a lot more than this to deter them.' He's smirking now, and It's putting an end to my fit of laughter.

'Right, sorry. Forgot you were like some sort of Greek god here.' I scoff.

'You jealous? Because you sound jealous.' He's still smirking, god do I wish I could slap that smirk off of his face.

'Jungkook, I've seen you playing Barbies with your little sister. Trust me, I do not see in you whatever every other girl on this campus sees in you.'

As soon as I'm finished talking it's like his whole demeanour has changed. He's not smirking any more, so I guess I got my wish.

'So about the individual pieces, how exactly do you think we should go about it?' Is all he replies.

Ignoring the lump in my throat I open my sketchbook and show him what I've planned so far. They aren't very detailed, but they show the overall message I'm trying to put forward.

By the end of my little presentation he's smiling again, and I can't help but feeling a little shy. We've spent hours showing each other our art but after all this time I feel like I'm laying my soul out to him.

Art has always been the way I express myself, and I'm always worried that maybe I'm showing too much.

I've only done sketches for 3 pieces. Technically 4. One that I'm planning on making out of stained-glass, it'll be made up of multiple different parts that hang from the ceiling to make an overall image. The second one is a drawing of a man, that may or may not resemble Jungkook, comforting a little girl, who may or may not resemble me as a child- representing someone healing your inner child. Of course, I'll have to find a way to incorporate the photographs, but I'm sure I'll be able to make up some pretentious explanation.

And lastly there's a sketch of 2 sculptures, both resembling me and Jeon. I must say I enjoyed drawing him far too much, and I'm sure I'll enjoy sculpting his face even more. They count as 2 pieces as we will make them separately, but they also fit together. I've drawn them, so they have cloth covering their eyes that can be removed. I'm also planning on having LED lights in their eyes, so we can change the prospective of them. We can arrange them in many different ways; with them facing away with the fabric covering their eyes, them facing each other with different colour settings on the lights to represent emotions, etc.

I've explained all of this while showing him the drawings. Him adding a little hum here and there, never interrupting me.

The sculpture is the only one of his that I've planned as I wanted it to be a joint project and for the rest I don't want to control his creativity.

'I know I've planned ahead a lot, and we still need to incorporate the pictures, but I'm sure we can think of a way to incorporate them. And for the others we can centre it more around the pictures. It's okay if you don't like the sculpture idea it's your project too, but I just thought-'

'This is amazing, y/n.' He cuts off my rambling. Closing the book I look away from his gaze.

'It's just a rough idea. You can put in any input you like.'

'Actually, I have a couple ideas myself.' Looking over at him, hinting at him to elaborate, I notice he's still smiling. It's gentle, admiring almost.

After a moment he breaks from my gaze, focusing on his sketchbook instead. 'There not as detailed as yours but... I just had a burst of inspiration last night and this morning.'

He's rubbing the back of his neck now, a nervous habit of his. I'm the one smiling now, he always did get inspired at random times. He'd go months without even picking up a pencil sometimes and then seemingly at random times he'd get 'inspiration' and then you'd never see him without his face buried in a sketchbook.

'Is that why you were late?' Glancing at me, he gives me a shy smile.

'Sort of.' He says before opening his book.

While he's flicking through his drawing, trying to find the most recent drawings in the unorganized mess I decide to try and get a look at his other drawings. It may be an intrusion, but I'm curious on how his style has changed over time.

'What was that?' I ask after he rushes to turn the page.

'Nothing. It was nothing.' That was definitely not nothing. There is a high chance I have lost my mind because I can't believe what I just saw.

It was a drawing of me. A drawing of a picture I posted on my Instagram over a month ago at least. Except the background was different.

In the actual photo I'm laying on my bed, but in his drawing I'm in a field of flowers. One that looks suspiciously like one next to his childhood home.

And surely that can't be right. It makes a lot more sense that I've finally lost it.

Deciding that I did infant hallucinate it, I focus on the drawing he's stopped on instead.

It's a beautiful drawing. If he hadn't told me that he only started on it last night I'd easily believe that he spent hours on it.

It's a drawing of a girl. Me. This I can accept as the whole project has to revolve around the other person. Except it's not just a regular drawing of me. I'm sat in a dark room with my legs crossed and my arms up in the air, looking more carefree than I truly have felt in months. My smile is bright, blinding.

But the thing that catches my focus the most are the angel wings I've got. They almost look like they're shining in contrast to the dark background. There's a bright light coming off of me lighting up the surrounding space.

'I um, I already have a photo to represent this one.' Looking up at him, we lock eyes.

I don't even know what to say. It's beautiful. I look beautiful. He truly is an amazing artist if he could show someone he clearly has some sort of disdain for in such a positive light.

Before I can even compose myself to ask any questions he's clearing his throat and looking away. Getting one last look at the drawing, I watch as he turns the page.

The next sketch is one where we are hugging. I'm basically a rainbow incarnate, full of colour. Whereas he looks like the storm clouds that hide the prism of colour away from sight. There's a bright light in both of our chests. But where we're connected in the embrace my colour is leaking into him. At first, I think it's a beautiful concept until I realise that where he's gaining colour I'm losing it. He's draining me of it. Leaving those parts of me a dark void whereas he's being filled with my light.

'I also have a picture for this one.' This time I don't look up at him. I don't think I can.

'These are insanely good Jungkook.' Swallowing the lump in my throat, I ask what we should do this Wednesday.

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a/n: first saturday i haven’t been at work in like a year so i figured i’d write last night instead of sleeping :)

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Walking on Sunshine

Ao3

Summary: Now that Luke knows he has carry-overs, what better way to spend his time than trying to figure out just what they are? Content: Crackfic in a series of crackfics, meant to be 100% angst free but oops!; accidents, sigils, flying, hijinks, potatoes banter, go ahead try and guess what you're about to read, go on guess Ship: Lucky Jumbo (Mumbo Jumbo/Luke Carder) Note: Part seven of Lucky Jumbo

~

Using the kind of precision that only came with doing the same thing far too many times, Luke oh-so-carefully rounded out the inner swirl on the wing design he had been repeatedly drawing far too many times. The thirty other potatoes he had scattered on the table in front of him had nearly identical symbols sketched on each of them, some with multiple, some in other colours. None yet had done what he wanted them to do, but he had a good feeling about this one.

(It was, coincidentally, the exact same good feeling he had had about all the other non-reactive potato-drawings as well.)

Since learning about his carry-overs, at the beseechment of Mumbo and for the sake of his own curiosity, Luke had invested himself in experimenting with different creations and experiences, trying to determine what he had and hadn’t brought over with him from his old world.

His tests had yet to show much success.

He hadn’t suddenly developed any of the diseases that made the other hermits look at him in horror when he described them. The sun no longer had any significant effect on him as far as he could tell- no sunburn, no heat exhaustion, no tanning- even if he stood about in it, unprotected, all day long. His various mushroom recipes had yet to produce anything even slightly psychedelic, and Hermitcraft apples lacked the seeds for him to try and make cyanide out of.

It hadn’t all been for naught, though. Luke had discovered some things. His attempt to boil potatoes had resulted in the creation of ‘potions of survival,’ which neither improved nor worsened a player’s health and hunger. It didn’t prevent injury, but it did stop the natural decay that came with starvation and sprinting.

(“-I think it’s because potatoes are supposed to be the one perfect survival food. You know, the ‘if you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?’ cheat answer. All the necessary proteins and vitamins and stuff, but not really nutritious to only eat forever.”

“Vitamins?”

“Right, you guys don’t have those. Or food groups. How do I explain this… ok, imagine you have a dozen different hunger bars, and you have to balance all of them, without seeing them, and while avoiding the secret evil hunger bars too.”

“What?”)

And he learned that he was still capable of drowning, although Mumbo assured him that all hermits could drown, which rendered both Luke’s test and conclusion moot. It also rendered Mumbo distressed, because Luke was distressed, because there was nothing comforting about sitting underwater while testing your ability to wet-drown while squids continued to accidentally dry-drown around you.

Outside of those few discoveries, however, Luke’s efforts had largely been for naught. Hermitcraft lacked a lot of things he had once had, while simultaneously containing a seemingly endless amount of things that Luke had never heard of before. It was hard to experiment with what he didn’t have, and he wasn’t exceptionally keen on messing around too much with what he didn’t know.

And that had given Luke an idea.

After all, messing around with what he didn’t know was exactly how Luke had ended up in Hermitcraft in the first place. Inscryption had gotten him- er- forcefully removed from his old life, yes, but he was fairly certain that it was what had transported him to his new one. So if he could have carry-overs from his world… why couldn’t he have some from Inscryption as well?

It was a terrifying thought. When Luke first realized it was a possibility, he had spent the rest of the day locked up in his mock recording studio, trying to decide how likely such a thing was, if he had seen any signs of it being a reality before then. He hadn’t, not to the best of his knowledge, but with how long it had taken him to realize he had any carry-overs, it wasn’t the complete reassurance he had been hoping for.

But if Xisuma said the only way to figure out Luke’s carry-overs was through trial and error, then Luke could never really be sure either way without testing.

Granted, he wasn’t going to try and test everything like he had been with sunburn and drowning. But Inscryption hadn’t all been sacrifice and mind-games and slowly growing inescapable insanity. If he could replicate something a bit safer from the game, he would be able to determine if he had carried any of its code into Hermitcraft with him. If he hadn’t, no more need to worry about it. If he had… well, he’d get Mumbo to build that bridge when he got to it.

Hence the airborne sigil in the potatoes.

Three dozen or so attempts had yet to produce any result, which Luke figured most people would take as a good enough sign that Inscryption and its rules hadn’t followed him into Hermitcraft. But Luke needed to be absolutely, completely, one hundred percent certain, and if that meant turning a full stack of Mumbo’s potatoes into an oddly repetitive art project, then so be it.

With care not to let any drippings mar the potato skin, Luke pulled back the stick he had been using as his drawing utensil, the tip of it sharpened for precision and dipped in squid ink. The sigil was perfect, the edges on the inner swirl sharp where the ones on its three feathers were rounded off. Although he had no exact reference to compare it to, it matched his memories of the sigil to a T, to the point where he could almost see the pale green glow of Magnificus’s stolen paint hovering over his drawing, a grisly afterimage of the original symbol. It was as close to accurate as Luke could ever hope to get it.

And yet, the potato did not fly.

Feeling the same mixed sense of defeat and relief he had gotten after each other potato also remained grounded, Luke tossed it onto the table with the rest of the lot. As much as he didn’t actually want his efforts to all be for naught, the growing evidence that he didn’t have any Inscryption carry-overs was reassuring.

After staring at his pile of dud-spuds for a moment, Luke pushed himself away from the table, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. While he did fully intend to test the drawing on every one of the sixty-four potatoes Mumbo had leant him, there was only so long Luke could do so in one sitting before starting to feel like he was inviting in the Inscryption madness himself. He left the pile of doodled-on vegetables and various writing implements on the table as he headed for his house’s front door, making his way outside and into the fresh air.

Given the usual state of things, Boatem wasn’t too lively. Grian was nearby, messing with an odd assortment of blocks (if Luke had to wager a guess, it probably had something to do with colour palettes), but other than him Luke couldn’t see any of the company’s members, suggesting most were either tinkering with interiors or out interacting with non-Boatem-ers. Pranking was always a possibility as well, but if Boatem was up to anything major Luke was sure he would’ve been pulled in on it.

His guess was proven right for at least one hermit when a few minutes later, as Luke was doing his best to stop seeing the same three-feathered wing pattern in every other block, the door to one of the houses a bit down the way from his on Mumbo’s mountain opened. The redstoner himself emerged, walking out backwards as he shoved carpet into his pocket, clearly trying to get a good idea of how the building’s interior now looked with whatever changes he had made.

Mumbo’s distraction made it very easy for Luke to lovingly sneak up on him, standing a few spaces behind him and taking his own glance inside before speaking up. “Looking good, but I think it could use a little something more.”

Mumbo startled as though Luke had set off an end crystal behind him, which didn’t say as much as Luke felt it should. “Luke! You can’t surprise a hermit like that!”

“I think I just did.”

For his humor, Luke got (lightly) shoved. “I thought you were busy with your potatoes.”

“I am,” Luke acknowledged, casting a glance at his house, “but I needed a break.”

“And you felt the best use of that break was to scare me witless?”

“That seems a bit dramatic, seeing as I wasn’t even trying to blow you up or shove you into the abyss.”

“Those are pranks, very different situation.”

“Would you have preferred I said hello with a sword, then?”

“That’s hardly creative.”

“But it is dangerous, which seems to be the more important factor here.”

“Not every prank is dangerous, just… a good deal of them.” Clearly aware that he was losing his side of the debate, Mumbo wisely switched topics. “What have the potatoes done that you need a break from them?”

Luke let the obvious subject change slide, if only to grab at the chance to bemoan the current state of his own project. “They haven’t done anything, and that’s the problem.”

“Are you expecting them to do something?”

“Yes, I-”

“Are you aware that, here, in Hermitcraft, potatoes do nothing but grow and taste delicious?”

Luke huffed, doing his best to seem annoyed while Mumbo laughed at his own comedy bit. “Yes, I am. And I know that you knew I did too.”

“Well, it’s hard to be sure. Your potatoes had ‘vitamins’ in them. Who knows what they could get up to with those.”

“I told you-”

“Yes, yes, the secret hunger bars and the chewy cavemen. I don’t actually need- nor want- a refresher.” Mumbo waved his hand, as if that alone could remove the existence of the concepts. “Really, though, what are you expecting? Have you been trying to make them do something?”

“In a sense.” Luke replied vaguely. He had done his best to avoid directly telling Mumbo what he hoped to achieve with his potato project ever since he had asked for the necessary materials, not wanting to freak him out (or get his hopes up) over something Luke wasn’t sure would work. “But they’re being uncooperative.”

Mumbo hadn’t pushed Luke to go beyond non-answers at any point, but Luke could tell he wanted to. Not that Luke could blame him for that. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Last I checked, you’re not the one with the messed up code. For you, the potatoes will always be vitamin-free.”

“It’s for the best.” Mumbo said, as if he was the one who had made the decision to not personally carry-over things that weren’t even his to carry. “But I meant more if you wanted to discuss it, see if you can talk your way through what’s going wrong.”

“Well I know what’s going wrong, I think. Just not how to fix it.”

“What’s the problem?”

Luke hesitated, trying to decide how best to phrase the issue. “It’s… a drawing.”

“A drawing?”

“Yeah. It’s a- a special symbol. Supposed to have an effect on the object it’s drawn on. But it’s not working.” Luke sighed. “I don’t really have any references for it here, so I’m only sketching from memory, but it doesn’t seem inaccurate. Probably means it’s not something I carried over with me, but it’s hard to be sure.”

Mumbo tilted his head slightly. “Is it like an enchantment? Typically those need to be activated before they work.”

“They’re actually pretty similar, yeah.” Luke admitted, briefly thinking through the different events and rituals that had been used to imbue his cards with the different sigils’ powers. “Maybe I don’t have what I would need to activate them here.”

“What do you need to activate them?”

Sacrifice. Magic paint. Death. Robobucks. “...Nothing I can get here.”

Again, Mumbo accepted the barely-an-answer response. “That could be it, then. Unless you are drawing it wrong. Is it a particularly complicated symbol?”

“Not really. At this point, I could draw it in my sleep.”

Mumbo hummed. "Can I see how you've been drawing it?"

Luke waved in the direction of his house. "I left all my examples behind, otherwise I'd show you."

"Can't you go grab one?"

"I told you, I'm on break."

Mumbo rolled his eyes in amusement. “I’m sure I have a potato on hand that you can draw on here, then.”

“I also left my drawing supplies in my house. And I will also not be fetching them.”

“You’re making it rather hard to help you.”

“You’re not being creative enough with your suggestions.”

“Art is not one of my strong suits.” Mumbo cast a side-glance at the interior of the house they were standing beside, reaching out and shutting the door as he did so. “I don’t have to be creative about it.”

“You could be.” Luke said, just for the sake of it. “But fine, fine, I’ll find a solution all on my own.”

Mumbo leaned against the now-shut door, crossing his arms. Their bantering was pointless, and more than a little stupid, but Luke knew Mumbo enjoyed it as much as he did. “One that doesn’t involve walking back to your house in any capacity, I take it?”

“Clearly not. I can’t walk on my break.”

“But you walked over here.”

“Not necessarily. Seeing as you didn’t notice my approach, it could have been in any manner of ways.” Luke half-answered, faking thoughtfulness. “For all you know, I could have jumped the distance, or teleported, or-”

“Flown?”

“Cruel, Mumbo. That’s cruel.” Mumbo’s expression was as close as it could get to a shit-eating grin, given his moustache was doing all the work for the grin. “But that does give me an idea.”

“Instead of walking to get the supplies, you’ll fly?”

“Why would I? I have everything I need right here.” Luke moved to join Mumbo against the door, facing the redstoner. He held up a hand, pointer finger extended. “My finger… and your moustache.”

Mumbo, who had somehow always dealt with nonsense much better than Luke, merely chuckled in bemusement. “Should I be concerned for my moustache’s safety?”

“No more than you usually are.” Luke reached forward, swiping a finger through Mumbo’s moustache in the path of a vaguely curved line. The hair somewhat parted as he went, leaving an impression of the arc. “I’ll draw the symbol right here.”

“I can’t quite see it from there.”

“Quiet, you’ll ruin my work.”

Despite the fact that he was correct, and Luke’s plan wouldn’t actually be of any help with showing him the sigil, Mumbo dutifully didn’t say another word, quietly watching Luke instead. Luke, for his part, felt as though they were once again in their weeks of fake not-dating, looking for any excuse to be close in a totally, completely normal, non-romantic way. If anyone else from Boatem opted to pass by them at that moment, they’d get made fun of as much as they would’ve back then, too.

“Any guesses as to what the symbol looks like?” Luke asked as he zig-zagged in the tips of the wing.

“A lot of squiggly lines?”

“That’s not very nice. I’m putting my best effort into this, Mumbo, I’d appreciate your respect.” It was a blatant lie to claim Luke’s current work was a good effort, much less his best, given how wonky his line work was (he blamed the canvas), but Mumbo didn’t need to know that. “And I thought I told you not to speak.”

Mumbo gave Luke a look that almost could have been classified as a glare if one ignored how terribly fond it was. Luke grinned in response, right as he finished off the symbol with a half-hearted swirl.

And that was when everything went to shit.

The joke Luke had been preparing- something about how now Mumbo could look at the symbol, gosh, wasn’t that helpful- died on his tongue as the sigil, the messy sigil that only bared a passing resemblance to the one he had been trying to replicate, flashed yellow in Mumbo’s moustache. Panic flared automatically, followed in a microsecond by denial’s reassurances- that couldn’t have been what Luke thought it was, just a trick of the light, mind games, nothing real.

And then the panic came right back as Mumbo’s moustache started to grow.

It took Mumbo a moment to notice what was happening, picking up on Luke’s distress first. He looked as though he were going to say something, but before he could, the edges of his moustache were growing past the sides of his cheeks, getting wider and bushier from the center of his face outwards. The sudden additional weight sent him toppling forward, barely managing to grab Luke’s shoulders before he fell over entirely. Automatically, Luke’s hands came up to hold Mumbo’s arms, trying to stabilize him.

“Uh, Luke?” Mumbo’s voice was light, but slightly shaky. “What’s happening?”

“I- I don’t know.” Luke admitted, pulling back enough to watch as Mumbo’s moustache continued to grow. Was rapid-hair-growth a side effect of airborne? It was technically possible, since Luke had never actually seen the sigil applied to anything that had hair. Was that how Leshy had gotten so overgrown with plants? They were kind of like his hair.

But that didn’t seem right. The hair wasn’t just growing in general, it was strictly going outwards to the sides, as though trying to maintain its shape. And despite how far off Mumbo’s face it had gotten (it had already grown further out than Mumbo’s arms could stretch), the moustache wasn’t drooping at all, like a rod had been put through it to keep it in place. On the bottom of the moustache, the hair had started to bunch up in an odd way, forming three bumps on each side of Mumbo’s face.

…Three bumps. Fuck.

Mumbo’s wings-turned-moustache started to flap as soon as Luke had made the connection, startling a shout from Mumbo. Luke tightened his grip, trying to prevent the sigil from doing what it was meant to do, but it was a losing battle. It made absolutely no aerodynamic nor logical sense, how wings made of facial hair were able to lift a grown man from a single connection spot of a strip of skin underneath where a nose should be, but Inscryption had never made any sense either. Luke was slowing the process by anchoring Mumbo, but even his feet were starting to lift from the ground.

“Luke?!” Mumbo was completely off the ground when he next spoke, sounding upset but not pained, and Luke took a small relief in the fact that whatever was happening, at the very least, didn’t seem to be hurting him. It was also good that he could still speak, although it did jarringly remind Luke that he still had absolutely no clue what the exacts of Mumbo’s mouth situation were. “Is this what the symbol’s supposed to do?!”

“It’s- kinda? It’s supposed to elevate you but not like this!” Luke’s hands were slowly slipping down the sleeves of Mumbo’s suit, and he bit back a curse. “I swear, it wasn’t working on the potatoes- I don’t know what’s changed!”

“I’ll be happy to work that out with you as soon as my moustache isn’t trying to carry me into the sun!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll-” Mumbo’s moustache wings flapped particularly hard, and Luke stumbled as he lost hold of Mumbo and hit the dirt, “-shoot.”

Mumbo, luckily, managed to grab onto the edge of the house they were next to, but his hand placement was awkward at best, and Luke could tell it wouldn’t be long til the wings were winning out once more. Mumbo seemed to know this too, fingers pressing as close as they possibly could to the roof. “Why did you let go?!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Luke shoved his hands into his pockets, grateful for how his tiny elytra immediately pressed against his palm even if he still didn’t understand ‘inventory.’ He started shrugging on the artificial wings as he went to retrieve his fireworks as well. “Your moustache has a mind of its own!” “It didn’t a minute ago!”

Only singeing his fingers a bit, Luke joined Mumbo at his current height after overshooting him by a little (a lot), drifting past him as he tried to find a way to help the situation. His elytra was more like a glider than actual wings- it couldn’t keep him level in one position for very long, especially given Luke still royally sucked at using it- so he wasn’t able to stay beside Mumbo for very long at a time. Even if he could, he wasn’t sure what he would do. The airborne sigil was obviously too strong for Luke alone to hold Mumbo down, and as was he’d be lucky if he managed to grab Mumbo without also body-slamming him away from the one handhold he still had.

“How long do you think you can hold on for?” Luke half-shouted at Mumbo as he soared past him once more, beginning to sink beneath Mumbo’s level. He didn’t want to risk setting off another firework quite yet. “If I set down to get help, will you fly away the moment I turn my back?”

As Luke spoke, one of Mumbo’s hands slipped off the edge of the roof, the now free half of his body getting tugged up as soon as it did, leaving him with only one anchoring point. Mumbo chuckled nervously, doing his best to look at Luke despite their contrasting positions. “It seems I’ll be flying away whether your back is turned or not!”

“Point taken.” Luke directed himself towards the ground, doing his best not to crash into it as he did so. His first idea as to who to get was Xisuma, but he had no clue where the admin- or nearly any other hermit- currently was, which consequently meant he didn’t know how long it would take them to arrive.

A quick check, however, showed Luke that Grian was still where he had been ten minutes ago, staring intently at a line of blocks.

“Grian!” Predictably, Luke messed up his landing, taking pride in the fact he managed to not fall over as he stumbled over his own feet. When he next took his eyes off the ground, he found Grian had heard his call, turning away from his work to look in Luke’s direction. “Help!”

Luke’s incredibly concise request was met with little other than a confused head tilt from Grian. To expand on his point, Luke frantically waved his arms in Mumbo’s direction, hoping Grian would be able to work out the situation from there.

He did not. “Use your communicator!”

It took Luke a moment of his own to figure out what Grian thought was going on, putting the pieces together when he looked back at where he had just been gesturing. To his chagrin, he found that Mumbo had lost his other handhold on the house and was quickly floating away, likely appearing to Grian as though Mumbo was flying of his own volition and Luke was only looking to get a message passed.

Ignoring the fact that he could also send Grian a communicator message to explain the situation, Luke yelled back, “He’s not wearing an elytra!”

It was hard to read Grian's expression (eyes) from so far away, but Luke didn't think he was imagining the way the builder squinted at him, even more confused, before he looked once again in Mumbo's direction. Luke was also fairly sure he didn't imagine the moment Grian realized what was wrong.

 "Is that his moustache!?" Grian asked rhetorically, sounding much more amused by the situation than Luke had expected. He was in the air barely a second after, having moved so fast Luke hadn't even noticed him set off a firework. Given Mumbo was actively disappearing into the sky, Luke appreciated the speed. 

Luke promptly followed suit, finding that by the time he reached them, Grian was already at Mumbo's level, holding his arm to keep him from flying any higher. Grian’s wings were flapping hard, a blur of red-yellow-blue as he worked to keep Mumbo in place.

“Was your moustache not glorious enough already for you, Mumbo?” Grian teased cheerfully, laughing at Mumbo’s half-hearted glare in return.

“In Mumbo’s defense, this is my fault.” Luke did his best to keep his glide in a tight circle around Grian and Mumbo. “And in my defense, it was an accident.”

“A rabbit foot stew kind of accident, or a poppy tea kind of accident?”

“My mistakes have categories now?!”

“They always have.” Grian joked with a laugh, ignoring Luke’s indignance as he went on, “But I meant, is it a Hermitcraft thing you don’t understand, or a you-thing that Hermitcraft doesn’t understand?”

Luke blinked. “Are moustache wings a Hermitcraft thing?”

“No! No they are not!” Mumbo replied before Grian could, twisting his hand around so that he could hold one of Grian’s arms as well.

“Just checking.” Grian said, heavily tongue-in-cheek, but he adjusted his own grip on Mumbo to be a bit more secure. “It’s going to take me a bit to get Mumbo back to earth with how hard his moustache’s fighting me.”

“Want me to help?” Luke offered, although he still didn’t trust himself to not accidentally slam into Mumbo and send him off into the ether.

Understandably, Grian didn’t seem to trust him either. “Sorry Luke, but I saw how well you landed. Probably better to leave this to me. Unless Mumbo wants a chance to test how far his new wings will take him-”

Mumbo was increasingly looking like a cat clinging to a tree branch for dear life. “Grian.”

“What, do you not trust Luke to get you safely to the ground?”

“I trust Luke! But his flying skills…”

“Hurtful… but smart.” Luke circled Grian and Mumbo once more. “I’ll touch down and try to set something up for when you two land.”

“See if you can find a lead.” Grian suggested as he kicked at the air, tilting backwards as he started to slowly pull Mumbo down. “We can tie it to Mumbo’s ankle, fly him like a kite ‘til we get this all figured out.”

“I’m glad you can find this funny.”

“I don’t find it funny at all, Mumbo. I think it’s hilarious.”

Luke left Mumbo and Grian to their back-and-forth, grateful they were distracted enough they likely didn’t notice him eat shit in lieu of a landing. He brushed himself off as he got to his feet, shucking off his elytra as he started towards his house. After Luke decided he did want to keep the skeleton horses from the unfortunate lighting-skeleton attack, Mumbo had helped him stock up on everything one needed for the keeping of undead livestock, leads included, and he had a pile of them sitting in one of his storage chests.

Of course, on the way to his storage area, Luke had to pass his pile of art project potatoes. They were still exactly as he had left them, completely grounded, no signs that so much as one of them had suddenly activated like Mumbo’s moustache had.

With nothing else to think about as he started shifting through his horse-stuff chest, Luke’s thoughts turned to the question that Mumbo’s plight had created: why had the airborne sigil worked on Mumbo’s moustache, but not any of Luke’s potatoes? His drawings were detailed, as accurate as he could possibly get, and the potatoes were a much more reasonable size to start flying- the sigil he had traced into Mumbo’s moustache was crude, a shadow of what it should actually look like, and yet it had worked so well it was able to lift two people at once.

Luke idly shoved a lead and a spare fence post into his pocket. His memories of Inscryption were ones he typically tried to avoid focusing on, but as he made his way back outside he ran through everything he could think of that was related to sigils. They were mostly the domain of the Scrybes, not the players- it wasn’t like Luke was ever personally imbuing the cards with magical life.

The Scrybes weren’t the only ones who could work with the sigils though, were they? The Mycologists didn’t create sigils, but they could fuse their cards in such a way as to double their effect. There was someone else too, but the name seemed to be out of Luke’s grasp, flitting about on the edges of his memory.

Luke put the thought aside as he found himself once again in front of the building Mumbo had been clinging to only minutes ago. He and Grian were nearly to the ground, and Luke quickly busied himself with putting down the fence post and tying one half of the rope around it.

“Toss me the other end, once you can.” Grian was carefully hovering himself and Mumbo slightly above Luke’s head, likely getting as close to the dirt as Grian felt he could without hitting anything. He still had one hand holding onto Mumbo tightly, while he held his other out, waiting for the lead. Mumbo, for his part, had Grian in a vice grip, and Luke wouldn’t be surprised if that was due to more mischief from Grian.

Luke half-handed, half-threw the free end of the rope to Grian, who thankfully managed to catch it on the first try. Mindful of the precarious situation they were in, Grian managed to wrap the lead somewhat around Mumbo’s midsection, goading Mumbo into helping him tie it.

“I’m not that big of a spoon.” Was Mumbo’s immediate response when Grian asked him to let go for a moment and check the strength of the knot. “Can’t you do it yourself?”

“I could, I could.” Grian acknowledged as he rolled the lead between his fingers. “But then the knot might not be strong enough. And we wouldn’t have any way of checking other than me letting you go and seeing what happens. Which, now that I say it aloud, sounds like an excellent plan, let me-”

Mumbo snatched the rope out of Grian’s hand before he had the chance to finish the thought. “Let go of me, and the only part of your base left standing will be the back of it.”

Grian chuckled, the picture of untrustworthiness even as he switched to holding onto Mumbo with both hands. “No need to threaten, Mumbo, I’ve got you.”

True to his word, Grian waited until Mumbo had securely triple-knotted the lead around himself, wrapping it around one arm a couple of times as an extra precaution. Only then did Grian hesitantly release Mumbo, hovering and at ready to re-grab him if the lead broke. Thankfully, it didn’t, and Grian gracefully joined Luke on the ground while Mumbo used the rope to slowly pull himself downwards.

“Now that Mumbo’s not going to disappear into the sunset,” Grian folded his wings over his back, Luke having learned over time he was one of the hermits who never really put his elytra away, “can I ask what potion caused this? And does it only work on moustaches?”

“It’s not a potion.” Luke replied as he helped Mumbo in his efforts, tugging him down close enough to the fence post he was able to latch onto it. “And I don’t even know why it’s working in the first place. It wasn’t working on the potatoes.”

“Potatoes?”

“I was using them as test subjects.” Luke frowned at Mumbo’s glorious moustache wings, as if once again seeing them up close would provide him with the answer he needed regarding their existence, before glancing towards Grian. “None of them started to fly. Why did Mumbo?”

If Grian was capable of frowning, Luke was sure he would. “Does this usually work on potatoes?”

“Or moustaches?” Mumbo tacked on.

“I’m… not really sure. I’ve only ever seen it work on cards.”

“Did you try it on any cards?”

“No.”

Luke’s response was a second too fast, but Grian thankfully didn’t comment. “Maybe it just doesn’t work on potatoes, then.”

“I was a potato!”

“But I never was.” Grian tsked, shaking his head. “This is why you don’t steal souls.”

“We had a contract!”

“I don’t think potatoes are the defining difference with this.” Luke interjected, before Mumbo and Grian’s all too familiar soul sharing-borrowing-stealing argument could escalate past the contract stage. He still didn’t understand ninety percent of what the argument was even about, and he intended to keep it that way. “Or moustaches.”

Luckily, Mumbo’s moustache wings were still a greater distraction than anything else, and Mumbo and Grian abandoned their debate. “Well… you said this was like an enchantment. Did you do something different with the activation?”

Luke half-leaned on the fence post Mumbo was clinging to, trying to think through if he had accidentally muttered an incantation at some point with Mumbo that he hadn’t when working on the potatoes. None of the Scrybes had ever used one, to the best of his knowledge. And the Mycologists had used a hacksaw, not wordplay. “Not that I know of.”

“How did you apply the enchantment?”

“I used dye to paint it on the potatoes.” Luke answered Grian, looking back at Mumbo. He still couldn’t remember who the other sigil-manipulating character was, but it was starting to feel like an itch, like something he was right on the verge of getting. “For Mumbo, I, uh…”

“He traced it in my moustache.” Mumbo finished for Luke when he trailed off.

“Young love.” Grian said teasingly, although Luke only half-heard him. He was distracted, staring at the fence post he had been leaning on. Staring at the wood.

In Inscryption, sigils almost exclusively appeared on cards, but those cards were created only by the Scrybes. That was the whole point of the base game- only the Scrybes, with their tools, could create cards. The Mycologists could manipulate the cards, but not make their own, not really. If you wanted to imbue a card with the power of a sigil as a player, you needed a totem.

And if you needed a totem, you needed to see the Woodcarver.

The moment Luke remembered the name, his head started to hurt, but he ignored the pain in favour of following his realization to its full conclusion. His potato drawings hadn’t worked because he wasn’t Magnificus, wasn’t Grimora. He didn’t have a magic paintbrush or quill. But that was for drawings.

Inscryption. Inscription. Inscribed.

Without saying anything, Luke took a quick step back from the fence post, garnering confused looks from both Mumbo and Grian as he pulled one of the many potatoes he hadn’t yet drawn on out of his pocket. Luke dug into the skin of the potato with his fingernails, not worrying about precision or accuracy as he carved the airborne sigil into it. The resulting symbol was messy, and terrible, and had the two hermits looking at him like he had gone mad.

But the sigil still flashed yellow.

Just as with Mumbo, it only took a second for the sigil’s effect to set in, the strips of potato skin and flesh to the sides of the etching peeling away from the body and growing into potato wings as Luke watched. He let go of the vegetable as soon as its wings started to flap, the potato immediately launching into the sky with wild abandon.

“I see you’ve figured it out.” Grian’s eyes were on the potato, tracking its ascent. “The trick was-”

“Carving.” Luke cut him off. His hands were shaking, ever so slightly. “The difference- it had to be carved.”

“You were carving my moustache?!”

Luke tore his gaze away from the flying potato, turning to look at Mumbo instead. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but laugh at the exaggerated distress in his expression.

“Carving might be… might be a bit dramatic of a term for it.” Luke amended, forcing a calmness into his voice he didn’t entirely feel. He moved back to Mumbo’s side, crouching down in front of him, squinting at his moustache. After a moment, he spotted where he had originally marked the symbol. “Hold still.”

“I’ll try.” Mumbo said, his moustache wings flapping in protest. Careful to not accidentally jab him in the face while he was at it, Luke tousled the section of Mumbo’s moustache that had the sigil, effectively removing it.

Near instantly, the moustache wings stopped in place as though they had been frozen, causing Mumbo to abruptly drop fully to the earth. They began to shrink as well, reversing the process that had created them in the first place. By the time Luke had shifted to sit beside Mumbo, checking to make sure he was alright, his moustache had fully reverted to its original form, albeit not as well-maintained as it usually was.

Mumbo’s hands flew up to his face, patting down his moustache as if confirming it truly was back to normal. Once he had determined all was well, Mumbo let out a breath, slumping against Luke’s side in a more dramatic manner than was entirely necessary. “Oh, thank End.”

Luke wrapped his arm around Mumbo's shoulders, offering support while also taking some for himself. "Mumbo, I can't apologize enough for- for all that."

"Don't apologize!" Grian spoke before Mumbo could, sounding excited. "This is the best thing you've carried over yet! Think of the opportunities this offers Boatem incorporated! And all at the very minor cost of nearly losing Mumbo to the sun."

"That's it. Luke, put wings on Grian's house."

"Yes, please, prove my point."

Luke huffed a laugh. "I'm not sending anything else flying today." He turned towards Mumbo, who was heatlessly glaring at Grian. "Are you okay?"

“Oh, I’m fine.” Mumbo patted his moustache another time, as if illustrating his point. “And you don’t need to apologize- accidents happen all the time.”

“This isn’t really your typical ‘accident.’” Luke pointed out before sighing, more fond than exasperated. “Not that anyone here knows what that even means.”

“We pride ourselves on that.” Mumbo joked. “Besides, once I got past the shock of it all, it was a bit fun. Spoiled by the fear of flying so high I’d have to starve to death to return to the surface, but still fun.”

Luke decided that, coming from someone whose hobbies included pushing coworkers into the void and working directly with quasi-radiation-dust, only being somewhat put off by the possibility of dying in space was a fairly tame statement. It was also one he had no good response for. “Regardless, I promise not to test any more sigils on you, supposedly working or not.”

“No more on Mumbo, alright, but what about-”

“I’m not testing sigils on any hermits.”

“Not hermits then!” Grian pivoted without a second of hesitation. “But what about inanimate objects? As long as you can carve into it, it’ll fly, right? Imagine, Boatem’s newest advertising campaign- an army of flying boats, taking over the server!”

“Won’t they just fly into the sky?”

“Not if we weigh them down properly!”

Luke let the focus of the conversation shift away from him, Mumbo and Grian debating logistics of how to best utilize the symbol they didn’t even know the name of despite how the discovery had gone. After all, to them, there was no difference between this carry-over and one of Luke’s potion ones.

Tilting his head back, Luke watched the airborne potato disappear into the clear blue sky and tried to think of anything other than an old woman and her proffered totems.

~

As far as Luke could tell, the unfortunate incident of moustache wings hadn’t had any lasting effect on Mumbo, outside of him worrying over his moustache’s appearance slightly more than usual. He had been carefully brushing out and styling it for at least ten minutes, time Luke had spent sitting on his bed and waiting for Mumbo to finish up so they could go to sleep.

When Luke had eventually returned to his art project potatoes, Mumbo had tagged along, just to see what the sigil actually looked like, before returning to the interior design work he had been busy with before Luke sent him sky-high. He had been detailing the work to Luke for about as long as he had been messing with his moustache, although Luke admittedly hadn’t been paying perfect attention to it all.

Unlike the one who had actually been in a position of danger because of it, the sigil business was still sitting heavy on Luke���s mind. Or, better put, the implications of it were.

“Mumbo?” Luke felt bad for cutting Mumbo off, but he had something he needed to say before they went to bed, and he didn’t want to try and broach it after the lights had been put out.

Mumbo clearly took no offense to the interruption, turning cheerily towards Luke as he put his comb away. “Yes?”

At that- Mumbo’s ease, how unbothered he was- Luke nearly lost his nerve. He didn’t actually want to talk about what he had to talk about. He had chosen Hermitcraft, and Boatem, and Mumbo over his past, with the intention of leaving one part of it completely behind. Speaking it aloud in his new life felt like it would break something, as though merely mentioning it would summon it to him.

But actions spoke louder than words, and the actions of the day had screamed the one thing Luke had been trying to avoid. It wasn’t a matter of keeping it out any longer, and it didn’t feel right that Luke was the only one who fully understood what Mumbo’s moustache wings meant in the grand scheme of his carry-overs.

“I… there’s something I need to tell you.” Luke said haltingly. “About… the sigil.”

Picking up on the (rather obvious) distress in Luke’s tone, Mumbo moved to settle on the bed next to him, concerned. “What about it?”

“It- it has to do with where I came from. And how I got here.”

"We don't have to talk about any of that unless you want to." Mumbo reminded him, since Luke was certain absolutely nothing about the way he was approaching the conversation made it seem like it was one he wanted to have. "I'm completely fine, I promise. And Grian's excited about the flying symbol, but if you don't ever want to use it again now that you know it works, he won't push. None of Boatem will."

"It's not just about the sigil." Luke clarified, although he did appreciate Mumbo's reassurances, although he'd be happy to drop the subject there and never return to it. "And it's not about wanting to talk about it, it's- I need to."

"I only want to talk about it if you do."

Luke huffed in lighthearted exasperation as his own words were thrown back in his face. He doubted there was any way he could convincingly argue this is different. "If I say I want to, will you believe me?"

"Not in the slightest." Mumbo reached over, taking one of Luke's hands and holding it in his. "You're shaking, love.”

“Barely.” Mumbo affixed Luke with a look. “Alright, alright. Maybe I don’t want to talk about all of it. But… I won’t feel right if I don’t tell you some of it now.”

“Well, if you want to,” Mumbo stressed each word, leaving the backdoor for Luke to escape the conversation wide open, “I’ll listen to it. However much you want to tell me.”

Luke nodded, taking a deep breath, steeling himself. Hermitcraft wasn’t going to deteriorate around him, no matter what he said next. The past was still past, even if he spoke it aloud. Mumbo squeezed his hand, comforting, and Luke let out the breath.

“I want to tell you about Inscryption.”

[k00295632]

Animation

Reinvention in story telling

Three Blind Mice, Epic/Historical, Space Age (1957-present)

Week 3, 22-28/04/24

Monday

Did a zine workshop during the morning, I made a sad little zine with some bits of rough potential visuals for the project.

I then jumped straight into creating concept art and trying to figure out how to combine natural cave formations with architectural features. What I ended up doing that day was creating this rough pencil of some stalagmites and drawing arches and doorways on top of it.

Using this as a starting point I went off and photocopied it a few times, which I then cut up and collaged together on a page to gain a rough idea of what this metropolis could look like.

This is what I ended up with. I love how the buttresses came out but the perspective of the piece looks completely wrong, making it look cluttered without purpose. I tried colouring parts blue and pink to separate it a small bit, but I think the main issue is that all of the structures are the same size even at a distance, in future I'll have to make the ones in the back larger and more hazy looking whereas the ones in front smaller and more detailed. This was just an experiment so its not too important.

Later that evening I did a colour study of scenes from Akira to develop my understanding of cel shading, I also watched a few videos on the production of Akira. It ended up being very useful and I found myself very surprised with Akira's colour palette. I quite literally colour dropped the colours from the scenes and and did rough drawings of the scenes using them, I was really surprised to see that the colour I dropped was the same as the one in the scene. It was absolutely fascinating.

Tuesday

I further looked into combining architecture with cave structures by doing a quick study on Antoni Gaudi's building designs and did a study on different stalagmites.

Looking at Gaudi's designs was interesting as he uses lots of organic shapes that almost look like they're melting in a way, and in other works like the Sagrada Familia he has lots of towers with unique features.

I tried combining these features to the stalagmites I studied to gain unique structures that would be believed to have belonged to an underground metropolis. I ended up with some nice designs, I worry a small bit that they might be too detailed but overall I'm happy with them, I still think these designs would have to be further developed but I don't have the time to do so.

At the moment my plan is to individually recreate these digitally and then photoshop them together in different ways to gain the illusion of having more designs than I do.

The photo is a small bit fuzzy but this was the first structure I recreated digitally. This took me around 6 hours to do, which was mainly because I've never done a proper digital piece before, so it took me a bit of time figure out what worked best and what short cuts I could take. I actually drew on top of a picture of my original paper sketch instead of redrawing it.

I created this solely using the air brush tool, and I love how it turned out, it looks so drippy. The only thing I can say really is that I wish I got it done a bit quicker, and that the values were much darker on my personal monitor.

I used the background from Akira as a reference for the colours.

Thursday

I made 4 more structures, significantly much more quicker too. While I spent too much time on the first one it gave me the experience needed to bang these ones out quickly and more efficiently. These were also done using the airbrush tool. For the backgrounds we actually made it a point to solely use airbrush as a way to commemorate the animations from the 70's/80's.

Since most of my pieces were done I got started on piecing them together. I tried making the buildings further back bigger and transparent and the ones closer to the viewer bigger. This was as far as I got on Thursday. If I'm being honest I'm not happy with the layout. I was using the Akira background as a reference but then realised it wouldn't work as the light source in the background is from behind, in my background the light source is from the front. I knew I definitely had to redo the layout.

Friday

We did a pitch workshop with Paul and Yvonne and then as a team discussed how we would go about our pitch . We discussed who would say what, what we thought a funder would want to know before investing in a project, we worked out costs, how many episodes, how many animators it would take to animate it in a year and ect...

We also did a few rehearsals in the studio improvising our lines and timing ourselves to get a feel for it. We decided that I would open and close our pitch, introducing our Nursery rhyme, genre, & time period while also setting the scene for our animatic.

Before work I managed to redo my background, I thought this one turned out way better. The perspective looked way better than last time too. I feel like with more time I could develop this further but I don't have that time so this is what I have and I'm happy with it.

Sunday

I made the presentation for our project, and the team went on call to rehearse our pitch. We did this twice.

[birdstooth]

Drawing MASTERCLASS

lol jk thought I’d show some of the process here in case your other favs aren’t online and u have a couple of min to waste while waiting for the bus

🎵Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair🎶

On the left, u have janky first draft, and on the right, u have less janky second draft😅. Depending on how much time I spent on draft 2, I might do a final cleaner version, and then then add colours :)

My hard limit for a doodle/comic is 3 drafts for reasons that I will go into below, but basically I find that if I try too hard, it triggers the perfectionist demon and then it’s not fun anymore lmaoo

For me, 2-3 drafts is the balance between making something I can look at without cringing, and still have fun drawing lines and shapes.

Also it’s ok to have a very very, objectively bad first draft. My brain is like Swiss cheese so if I spend too long trying to get something down on (virtual) paper by making it look nice, half the idea floats away before I can make a record of it.

So first of all, since this is the unofficial website for ppl with crippling anxiety (roll call! 🙋‍♀️), just thought I’d say: if u are on the fence about posting your [content] online, go for it!!

I used to look at all this really cool [content] (art, writing, photography w/e) and be like “wow, that’s some good content! I’ve got a long ways to go before my content can reach that standard!”.

Or sometimes, I would see amazing content with very few notes and think “whoa, if this extremely accurate recreation of the Mona Lisa made with used gum found under park benches has only 12 notes, it’s not really worth posting what I have, right?”

But then at some point I decided that it was easier (for me) to make stuff that was vaguely funny instead of “good”, so I stopped trying to draw the perfect shapes with the perfect shading, etc. and just went with like, the minimum accuracy required for an object to be recognizable lol.

I’m not saying don’t chase your dreams or whatever, but try not to force yourself into a style or content type that doesn’t suit you. I have a short attention span and a zillion ideas, so for me, it’s actually much more satisfying to make these goofy little doodles bc I can do quick sketches between procrastinating at work, or while I’m watching my dinner rotate in the microwave 🥲.

When I was in my “every drawing must be perfect” phase, I would spend hours on making sure the proportions were realistic, and the lines were clean, and spend days or weeks in a single piece. Some people are suited to this kind of work and have the patience to see it through, but for me it was very unsatisfying and sapped my motivation so I decided to be realistic about my abilities + the time I have available to improve my skills (I think this is very important bc u might have the patience and the work ethic to practice, practice, practice until you are at the top of your game, but if you have a job or school or other obligations, it might not fit into your schedule) and do a kind of compromise.

Yeah, I’m still envious of other people’s content and no, I don’t think my content is the BEST I can do, but it’s a balance between doing what I like and getting satisfaction out of it. Sometimes, if you push yourself too hard, you end up hating what was supposed to be a hobby, u know?

[jlonejacketwthe30out]

( wayyy overdue but completed😁👍🏾)

I LIKE MY TOWN

continuing on IMMEDIATELY from my last ILMT thing

here are some of my scanned sketches, which i very messily lined over (something something "its my art style!") which i wanted to include in my work as a sort of collage with the some more ephemera i had from the shopping complex.

some ephemera: candy wrappings (they're SUAR good...) + a poster off the wall that hadn't been taken off properly

(my ~expanded~ idea around my typography before & after adding some of my scanned sketches in the background - i really liked how this drawing turned out! ^^)

thoughts on ephemera collaging - i love thinking ❤️

several scans of my work with & without the ephemera included - this picture goes crazy dont it. i wanted to do collaging because i have always liked the texture that collaged imagery has 😊

as part of the aim of this project, i did some printing YAYYYYYYYY !!!! i really enjoyed monoprinting but since it was my first time, i made some mistakes which ended up giving me some super messy results (a friend in yr3 stopped by and told me it was probably because i forgot to blot away excess ink - of course i did 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂)

my scanned monoprint outcomes - i LOVE the one on the right; i think the colour combinations are very effective. on these i did try to add my drawings but because of my errors they are way too noisy to make anything out. to save myself the trouble i just left them as they are.

for an alternative outcome, i also did some linocut printing too. (from home, my bedroom this time so my cat is here too. bro sleeping like he spent hours hunched over carving letters into rubber just for the print to come out backwards - crazy.)

here are my linocut outcomes! on the right is my first result, a very very cruel realisation that i did EVERYTHING wrong ⚰️but i did lke the effect. in the centre is a very scruffy transfer print that i made with the tracing paper (left) i used as a guide for the typography. i really like the effect of the overlapping results but i wasnt sure what i could do with it with the time i had (not much !! lmfao !!!!)

this is the scanned result of my original linocut - which was backwards; i flipped it in photoshop. was project would have been awesome if i didnt miss that one printmaking induction - everything went downhill from there im being so serious😓

thanks ENDLESSLY to my buddies star and julia for their respective feedback!!!

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #12: It's Alive... Alive! Honest! And A Little Sour, And A Bit Sweet!

Guten Fhtagn! It's been... a while again.

(this is just a colourful teaser for you now, because it feels silly to make a post that starts with a wall of text - even though I personally love walls of text. Keep reading and you'll find out why those weird empty rectangles are here! And as I often do: there's an animated GIF in the end of the post!) Lately, life has sucked me into a giant cycle of great and lush eventfulness. Kinda as if I hopped into a funnel and then swirled around a bit. I might even say it was fun (haha, fun funnel 😁 What, not funny?.. Lame?.. Aah, well then). So, below goes a straightforward chronological report on what happened to "Time & Again" during this long looooong period of my blogging hiatus.

2 weeks ago I've actually spent only a few days working on "Time & Again" - much less than anticipated. As I always say, life usually takes away so much time from art!.. 🤣 However, it's always a choice. Because I'm not drawing 24/7; never did, and perhaps never will - because otherwise I'll never go birding, among other things. And birding is love. Birding makes Frosty happy. I wanna see more nuthatches and northern flickers around me, preferably every day, when possible. Too much to ask? Yes! But life is always about setting priorities straight and meticulously balancing the things you love and want to do. Because something always goes first, and something other goes second (third, fourth, etc.). So that is what I'm trying my best to do here.

But that was only half of the problem. The other half of the problem was about my futile endeavour to relight the creative spark that was seemingly extinguished over the course of the previous 2 weeks - perhaps due to the reasons mentioned above in this post. I'm always very hesitant to take breaks as I work on my projects, because it breaks immersion - and getting back into the mood again might pose a serious challenge. That is exactly how some of my novels/stories failed to see the light of day in the past. Now, since the work on Chapter 5 is nearing to its end - yes, it's almost done!!! - it's just very disappointing to slow down and having to look for the spilt marbles on the floor (however, Lothar, personally, will definitely benefit from at least TRYING to find his own marbles 🤦‍♀️ dear goodness, that man is indomitable). The work still went well, but without excitement I previously had. And I perpetually have serious problems trying to figure out a personal cure for the "lack of spark" issue: not even once in my entire life have I found a resolution that works wonders like a panacea for me in situations like that.

That said, with all of the distractions and not-exactly-creative events with myself in the epicentre, I managed to keep my word and created a Krita forum thread featuring majority of WIP screenshots from Chapter 5, which you can view following that link. Now, my only objective in this regard is to keep updating it 😁 (what I'm kinda failing at recently)

While not being exactly productive with "Time & Again" - that is only up until this week (read ahead) - in the meantime I have reconsidered a couple things that are related to the artistic part of my existence. One of the decisions was to take down the links to my DeviantArt account sometime after this post goes life. The reasoning behind that decision is as simple as an egg: because I don't post anything on DeviantArt anymore. And I keep forgetting to do it anyway. And I keep forgetting simply because it doesn't really matter. In the recent years I perceived DeviantArt to be nothing but a sort of a personal sketch/art dump simply for the sake of gaining more exposure [not really - read an UPD note ahead]. Let's be honest here: DeviantArt is not a good place anymore. It used to be awesome in 2008-2010 or around - for me anyway. But nowadays... Not so much. I don't think I want to delete it yet, for I still want to pop up, perhaps, once or twice a year and dump all the new artworks in there for the future archival purposes - and in case if somebody might be still interested. But for now, I view my DA account as an almost completely dormant collection of trash masterpieces of yore. So I will stop promoting it for the reason of it being obsolete like the morning dew beneath your feet in its current state. (holy effing smokies, that song was very difficult to find to provide a link to! 😱) [UPD 2024/03/12]: my aim with this was originally a bit off - which I realized only now. Aside from it being a random artworks dump, my decision to keep my DeviantArt account alive was precisely for linking back to it: meaning, I was thinking about uploading artworks on there in order to specifically use them in my posts and on the websites. So, yes, it is a relatively dormant collection, but also a convenient stash of art things to utilize elsewhere (thank you, id Software, for teaching me this word! 🤣). I'll see if that really works out in the future tho.

There's also something else that I don't to reveal just yet, and I'll keep it a secret for now 😉 I must try something before I jump to conclusions.

HOWEVER!.. This last week has changed the tides considerably, in my favour. Again, having only a very hypothetical and a rather unclear clue on why that happened - what, I must admit, mesmerizes and puzzles me to a great extent - that long-longed-for spark I thought I had lost along the way somehow magically returned back to me after I spent a few hours (and 2 days in total) of writing an arch-important "Notes & Commentary" section for the reissue of all the previous "Time & Again" chapters that is nigh (here, I teased ya. Now live with it 😎🤣). I really like "Time & Again". Even while it's still incomplete. Even if Lothar is just a stubborn a**. Even if a certain other character has quite funky fetishes. Even if Jeanny is perhaps dealing with her own little pinky demons. I really like "Time & Again", and I really enjoy its style, so revisiting the whole thing for the sake of writing additional materials for it quite possibly worked in a positive way on my spark. I love you, my spark. Let's keep it this way for as long as we can from now on. So now the work goes quite well, and I feel very good about it. There's still something troublesome that needs to be dealt with... but that'd be a painful tale for yet another post.

And, of course, I experimented with some Krita stuff again - for it seems, Chapter 5 really marks a period of great technical discoveries for me.

For example, finally, after all these years 😅🤣, I learnt and made a very good use of the toggle "All Layers" and "Current Layer" settings of Contiguous Selection Tool (that'd be your Magic Wand tool, ya Photoshoppers around - including my past self). That helped me to speed up flood fill of the certain areas. Speaking of flood fill and all, I experimented more with the "smart fill" as well. In the previous post, I was dreaming about an advanced AI algorithm to automatically recognize and colour the characters according to a user-prepared colour pallete. I might be exaggerating a bit, but flood-filling flat colours on every page felt almost stupefying - and, in short, not fun. I've read a little about the potentials to automate the process in Krita and have discovered a few neat tricks that I might use to speed up the process of colouring of the next Chapter. But right now - that's a story for another day in the future. And at last, let's talk about the backgrounds. I find it that the backgrounds that are just, let's say, "placeholders" and don't contain the surroundings of the characters are sometimes challenging. And in Chapter 5, there's gonna be plenty of those - because oh boy do I love long conversations! (strong self-awareness and self-mockery go here) And most of these conversations don't even require detailed environments for the backgrounds! Because people are just friggin' talking! And their surroundings don't matter on those particular panels. I've looked through quite a few graphic novels and comics at the local book store to get extra inspirations - but very often I see that the artists simply fill the panel with a solid colour. Completely flat. I must admit, I'm deeply hesitant to do the same, because I like at least a little texture on storywise-insignificant solid colours. It gives... depth.

So this is what I've been doing so far (and yes, you guessed it now! the picture in the very beginning of this post is very relevant here!):

While the "flat solid colour" on the background just seems... too flat, I decided to utilize a gentle gradient as a base, and then to apply additional brush strokes on a separate layer with special blending mode in order to create the effect of imperfection and ever so slightly visible texture to it. After a few sessions of trial and error, and thinking about how it feels and if it matches the mood of the chapter, I ended up using a couple of watercolour and splatter brushes together, in black, and the layer blending mode that I figured worked best for me was Soft Light (SVG). As illustrated by the following GIF:

And LAST (but as usual: not the least, but I won't cover "the least" in this current post for now, for the post is already a fatso - typical, innit?!), I've learnt how to use Filter Layers for the quick colour correction on the go. And this might be extremely useful in a long run for the future chapters of "Time & Again". I might cover this in one of my next posts.

That should be enough for now. So let's summarize: I most certainly did NOT disappear because "Time & Again" ceased to exist, or because I've been abducted by aliens, or because I got carried away giving belly rubs to pinky demons, or anything alike. I disappeared BECAUSE I was working hard on my story, even though at times it didn't go as smooth as I wanted to 😉.

Well, folks, let's wrap it up for today, and see you next time in another blog post! Take care! You will see Lothar in action again soon enuff! 👋

[odoraful]

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖 𝐅𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑

following a long trip in liyue, you return to mondstadt to reunite with a certain blonde alchemist.

word count: 961 a/n: speaking of characters who haven't shown up in a while (ﾉД`) i thought i'd write a reunion scene to manifest his return, hoyoverse, the people need him back! i hope you have a lovely day/night!

A sudden breeze picked up as you walked up the rickety wooden steps of Stone Gate towards Mondstat. It felt cool on your skin, providing a needed respite against the midday sun. The wind tousled your hair before subsiding, leaving it laying at an awkward angle. You chuckled, brushing it out of your face. Must be telling me to hurry up, then. You thought. In the City of Wind, the breezes seemed to have agendas of their own. Interpreting this as their playful welcome to your arrival, you quickened your pace.

There was an invisible thread always drawing you back to this city, no matter how far you travelled. It was tied inextricably to the sense of comfort and warmth you associated with it. Leaning on the wooden railing lining the boardwalks of Stone Gate, you saw the very person who tugged at that tenderness in your heart. The blonde alchemist had his sketchpad out, glancing between the page and the railing opposite him. You saw a small bird perched on it. It flittered its wings every so often, and you saw his eyes widen at the movement. You slowed your gait, hoping to not scare it away. However, the bird turned its head at your arrival and flew upwards in your direction. Albedo’s eyes followed where it had flown, landing upon you. 

Albedo had spent the weeks of your absence at his campsite. This was the first time that you weren't just a day's trip away in the city, or even by his side. In those early days following your departure, he swore he saw phantom images of you. Sucrose would notice Albedo’s eyes linger on empty spaces around the campsite. When she asked, he would reply that it was nothing and continue his work. However, in the corners of experimental notes, Sucrose curiously found sketches of you. She counted them. There was one with your arms folded, a playful expression on your face. Another was you taking a curious peek at an alchemical substance. She spotted one more of your side profile staring up at a twinkling sky. Although Albedo was used to setting distances between people, it was different with you. Alone without you felt… emptier. Idle moments when he drew his favourite expressions of you could only briefly fill that emptiness. 

You covered your hands over your mouth. “I’m so sorry Albedo!” You rushed over to meet him. 

Cocking his head to the side, he pouted a little. “I didn’t expect the first words I’d hear from you to be an apology. What for?”

“I made too much noise coming over to you and I scared the bird away,” you said, sheepishly. 

Albedo shook his head, his expression remaining composed. “It’s alright. The bird had stayed its course and coincidentally flew away at the same moment as your arrival. Besides, I had already finished my sketches.” 

He noticed the dejected look still on your face. This certainly wouldn’t do for your reunion; he had to find a way to cheer you up. He flipped through his sketchbook, opening to the most recent page. You peered over for a better look. The sketches were strikingly true to life. Albedo had even drawn sequences of the bird fluttering its wings which were overlaid on top of one another. The resulting effect gave the illusion that the bird was moving on the page. 

“The bird is known as an emerald finch. It’s one of the rarer finch species, known for its blue-green coloured plumage, like a jewel.” 

You inspected the drawing closer. “Ah! I thought it looked familiar. I always saw a few of these birds gathering in the plazas in Liyue.”

Albedo nodded. “Yes, emerald finches are predominantly found closer to Liyue Harbour. However,” he took up his charcoal once again to scribe the date down in the bottom corner of the page, “this little one happened to find its way to me.” He met your eyes and smiled. “It’s quite adorable, isn’t it?” 

During your travels, you remained patient. You counted the days until your return, but never let your wish impede the work needed to be done in Liyue. You both made sure to write letters to each other each week, but despite the regular correspondence, it was only now you realised just how badly you missed him. Letters weren’t nearly enough. You couldn’t feel his calming presence, see that fond smile, hear him casually talk about, well, just about anything. 

Not letting a second more waste, you threw your arms around his torso. The position was certainly a little awkward. You had hugged him on his side, himself still holding his sketchpad.  

“Dearest, hold on.” Albedo murmured. He quickly tucked his sketchpad away in a pocket on the inside of his coat. Releasing your arms from him, he turned to face you properly and circled your arms around his waist once more. “There, that’s much better.” 

You buried your face against him and he reached a hand to stroke your hair. 

“I missed you.” Your voice was muffled against his clothes. Albedo could still make out the slight waver in your tone. He breathed deeply. A wholeness surged within him as he heard those words, and felt you tangibly in his arms at last. 

The winds had been still up to this moment. They knew well enough to respect the privacy between lovers. 

EPILOGUE

“Are these little drawings of... me?” You were flicking through his notes relating to his latest project when you saw sketches of, undoubtedly, yourself. 

Albedo faced away from you, busying himself with collecting random papers on the table and putting them in a neat stack. The action held no practical purpose, but it did help to hide the bashful look on his face. 

[launchsteinward]

Me: *while drawing*

This is going to be a rough drawing, no sketches just line art

Also me: *while colouring*

The colours and shading needs to be better-

[Click for better quality]

@yo-it-deylight @a-tinylunardream @dothecatdance

[i-lovethatforme]

Fic idea you should actually totally write: Somehow MJ immediately shakes off and/or lifts the memory spell herself. But instead of moving heaven and earth to find Peter, she figures he has reasons for not finding her again so she more or less moves on with her life . After ten years of relative happiness and contentment, she finds Spider-Man purely by chance. Part of her desperately wants to rekindle her relationship, but another part is terrified of uprooting the life she built for herself for a person who might not even want her back anyway…

Nonny... not me completing this drabble to see this ask in my inbox?! Our minds?! It's not exactly the same because you're rude for ten years but 💕

-----

“Just like that?” Ned asks, his brows furrowed in a way that means he wants to understand but he can’t. 

“Yep,” MJ replies, popping her lips. She runs her forefinger around the rim of her coffee cup instead of tapping her fingers on the table like she wants because she doesn’t want Ned to figure out she’s nervous. That’s she’s not entirely sure this is what she wants. Because if he pushes her on this, she’s not sure how long she’ll be able to stand her ground. 

Because Ned is right. She has spent the better part of two years trying to figure out exactly what was missing. Why there was always a blank space in photographs where someone would fit perfectly, or why she can’t figure out where her small collection of puns t shirts came from, or why she has so many used blush pink watercolours when she doesn’t care for the colour. 

And now she knows.

Peter Parker. Now she remembers the way his hand felt in hers and now she remembers why she likes to draw the view from the roof of her old school so much and why whenever she needs a warm up sketch she automatically draws a fluffy haired boy she never recognised. 

Now she knows. She spent time and a lot of heartache collecting the pieces that were never meant to be put back together. They were never meant to be broken in the first place. 

But they were. And though now she can remember him promising them to tell them everything. It’s been two years and he hasn’t. 

It’s been two years and she hasn’t seen him since the first day at the bakery. Sure, she’s seen Spider-Man on television for one too many near misses that always made her chest hurt and she can’t think about it now without her throat burning. But she hasn’t seen Peter at all. 

“He said he’d come,” Ned whispers, as he rips his napkin in two. “I don’t care if we’re in danger -”

“But he does,” MJ replies. She knows now what she figured out as he leapt from the bridge, he was always going to keep them safe. Even if it meant going it alone. 

It’s just who he is. 

So, she won’t make his decision harder for him. If he wants them out of his life, then she knows how hard that must have been for him back then, and maybe even now - and she won’t make it worse. She’ll help him in the only way she knows how. She’ll stay away. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to contact him?” Ned asks, his eyes pleading. MJ has told him he’s welcome to do whatever he wants - whatever is going to heal his heart. 

“I’m sure,” she replies, chewing on her lip and looking out the window before Ned wins her over without even saying anything. She can’t even be sure if she misses Peter anymore, or if she’s missing what could have been. They’ve been apart longer than they were ever together. He has a girlfriend now, someone he posts occasionally on social media. MJ wonders if he’s told her he loves her yet. She’s not sure she wants to know either way. 

“I’ll go and pay,” Ned says, pushing himself away from the coffee he let go cold forty five minutes ago. But MJ can’t tear her eyes away from the street. She looks at the pedestrians that are safer because Spider-Man’s around - the people he willingly saved hours after May’s funeral. People he looked out for when he had no one at all. People he would lay his life down for, when they don’t even know who he is. 

The world is better with Peter in it. Her life was better with Peter in it - but it’s not her choice anymore. There was a time she loved him, maybe she still does, maybe it will never really go away. But as she sees a child with a Spidey sweater on, she smiles anyway. Because she’s not the only one who loves him - she never was and she never will be.  

Maybe that’s enough. It will have to be enough. 

“You ready?” Ned asks.

“Yeah,” she sighs. It’s not like when they leave here, having had their final discussion on whether or not they should seek Peter out, their world is going to end. It just feels like this part of their life is done. It’s over. The life she had with Peter is gone. 

It doesn’t feel like the world’s ending when the door closes behind them and the wind picks up strands of her hair. It doesn’t feel like the world’s ending when she waves goodbye to Ned where he turns left and she continues straight on. But it hurts all the same. So she buries her hands in her coat, her chest aching with the need of a good cry. She just needs to get home first. 

But then -

“Oooph,” she says, almost knocked to her arse by a busy body on the street. She can’t really complain, she was barely looking where she was going and they did stop her from falling to the floor with their hands on her arms.

“I’m so sorry, miss,” they start and she knows that voice. She’s thought about nothing but that voice for days. It plays in her dreams and she thinks about it even when she’s desperately trying not to. 

But it's not the fluffy hair and the weird eyebrow she sees. It's the suit because of course, it is 

“Spider-Man?” she asks, finally looking up from the ground in time to see the lenses on his mask widen. 

“Mic - ma’am,” he stutters, his hands hovering on her arms as if she might still fall to the floor. She didn’t expect him not to recognise her but the way he almost said her name will haunt her for an unreasonable length of time she’s sure. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” she breathes, clamping her jaw shut before she screams that she misses him so much she feels a little insane. She knew letting him go wasn’t going to be easy but she wasn’t anticipating it being this hard this quickly.

“Good,” he says, his chest almost doubling in size with how deep the breath he lets go is. “That’s good.

“Are you alright?” she asks, her eyes flicking over his face. She’s not sure what she wants him to say other than to tell her he’s missed her and he loves her and staying away was the worst idea he’s ever had because then she won’t have to continue walking. Then she’d be able to stay. 

Her question startles him and he drops his hands.

“Erm, yeah, yeah, of course, I am, yep,” he says, running his hand over his mask and it’s so much like her Peter that she almost breaks right there. She has no idea how Peter managed - she can only assume he’s over it now. She bites her lip to stop from saying something she'll regret. 

“Okay, well,” he starts, gesturing with his hands like he’s got to swing away. MJ didn’t hear any sirens but now she looks, people are starting to stare. 

“Yeah, well, have a good day, Spidey,” she says, feeling like that's useless but there’s nothing much left to say that’s at all fair. 

“Yeah, you as well,” he sighs. He looks like he might touch her again, maybe say something else. But then he’s gone. 

And MJ can’t find it in herself to leave. It’s not like this random corner of Manhattan is now her and Peter’s spot because her and Peter aren’t even a thing.They’re less than a thing. And he’s already gone. So she’s standing on the corner looking like a fool and feeling even worse. So she’ll count to ten and then she’ll go. 

She hits eight and a half and sighs, feeling her heart fall to the floor and she goes to walk away. She’s not sure why but she turns to check she’s not about to walk out in front of someone because if someone else bashes into her, she won't be as forgiving.

But as she does, her gaze catches the red and blue of his suit peering down from the rooftop. She sees him duck but there's no wall to save him. She's already seen him looking at her. His head pops back out and she can picture Peter's blushed face so clearly her chest almost cracks in half.

She waves because she can and he waves back. A small, barely there wave but she'll draw it when she gets home anyway. 

Staying away from Peter is going to prove difficult. That much she knows. It's a good thing New York is a big place. She'll probably never see him again even if she wanted to.

[yeojaa]

( NEVER LET YOU GO. )

You do things without thought, making impulse decisions that’d make Freud proud.  Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.

(or:  Jeon Jungkook’s just as impulsive as you.)

pairing.  tattoo artist!jjk x f!reader.

genre + rating.  slice of life fluff, light smut.  explicit (but only at the end). 

tags / warnings.  mentions of heavily tattooed!JK, casual drinking, tender lovemakin’, JK with the bad jokes, honestly just him being funny and chill like that one guy you never get over...

wc.  7.6k.

beta reader(s).  @hobi-gif​, @papillonsgf​, and @yeoldontknow​​ 💛 ty for always indulging me and most importantly, supporting me when i begin to spiral. 🤠

author note.  i got this idea into my head one evening in the shower and now... it is this.  it’s not your usual bad boy tattoooist!JK fic but i hope you enjoy regardless.  as always, feedback means a lot! 

You and forethought aren’t close friends.  You really aren’t even distant cousins, or part of the same family tree.  You consider it a stranger, wave loftily as it passes you by, squinting like you can’t properly make out what it is.  Careful consideration?  Thoughtful patience?  None of that exists for you.  At least, not when you really, really want something. 

It’s what has you here now, bumbling your way into the tattoo shop like a newborn baby bird.  

You wonder how it must look, whether the shop assistant is used to this.  Random girl shows up on a Sunday afternoon looking like a fish out of water, eager yet afraid.  By how she greets you - with a curious stare and not quite a smile - you’re sure she is.  

“Do you take walk-ins?”

You’d meant to make an appointment.  Had sat for hours on the shop’s Instagram page, combing through the residents’ portfolios, trying to decide who to reach out to.  When you’d finally decided, you’d realised books were a thing and most of them were closed.  (Just your luck.)

Still, it never hurt to try, right? 

“Everyone’s fully booked.”  The girl sounds bored, apathetic yet genial.  (You don’t blame her.)  By the way her stare swings over you, it feels like a dismissal.  You’re ready to admit defeat - head half-bowed, words draped over your tongue.  “But our apprentice might be able to squeeze you in.”

An apprentice?  Well— that’s not exactly what you’d been hoping for, but this shop is reputable.  Well-known.  Considered one of the best in the city.  Surely their apprentice would be fine.  Just less seasoned, not as experienced. 

You all but snap your neck nodding along, gratitude tumbling out in the form of awkward laughter.  “That’d be great!”

The girl passes you off with a nod of her head, gesturing down the hall.  “Last room on the left.  His name’s Jungkook.  His schedule says he’s all clear, but maybe knock before you go in.”  It’s not the sunniest smile you’ve ever received, but the small thing she offers helps with the nerves.  Stills them beneath your skin as you do as you’re told. 

“Jungkook?”  There’s not really anywhere to knock, every wall neatly frosted glass and no doors in sight.  (You had passed a few folding screens but otherwise, it’s open concept, each room offering a glimpse into the artist who works inside.)  It feels too disruptive to tap your knuckles on one glass pane, lest it interrupt someone else. 

(His studio is minimally decorated but inviting:  one big cabinet; two of those typical IKEA shelves in the 4x4 grid that every new homeowner and their mother have; and a shop table, upon which a black backpack sits.  Various plants dress the room - both hanging from the ceiling and along the window - and Polaroids string over walls, held aloft by twine.  A Roomba sits by itself in a corner and the tattoo bed dominates most of the space, positioned closer to the dividing wall;  one teeny tiny rolling chair sits beside it.  There’s a bench on your left, with a pair of Birkenstocks tucked beneath.  All in all, very homey.  Reminiscent of your own apartment.) 

Hidden behind the bed, crouched low to the ground beside the cabinet, is a head of dark hair that speaks, drawing your attention from studying the cozy space.  “Oh?”

You’re not expecting the face that turns to you, all big doe eyes and the sweetest dimples. 

For a moment, you forget what you’re here for.  Why you’re standing in the empty door frame, staring down at the guy like you’ve spent your entire life secluded and have no idea how to speak.  

The longer you’re quiet, the more his concern seems to grow, single brow disappearing into his inky fringe.  It hangs in his vision at certain angles, shields the brightness of his stare with each turn of his chin.  “Are you okay?”  He’s even risen - stopped what he was doing - so he can see you more clearly, without any obstruction in the way.  Good for him, but worse for you. 

He’s so cute.  Were you prepared to look like an uncertain idiot in front of this… angel?

“Y-yeah.”  You manage after what feels like forever, sweeping your nerves under the rug that sits on the floor, separates the sole of his sneakers from hard concrete.  “Um— I was told you might have some time?  For, uh, a walk-in?”

(Why’re you stuttering?  You’re never shy.  Or rather, you’re not this nervous mess.  People have always called you an extrovert, outgoing as hell, a social butterfly.)

(You aren’t those things but you appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.)

“Oh!”  Realisation dawns across his features, throws his kind smile into greater relief, and you have to actively tell yourself not to stare, tearing your gaze away to focus on the wall of stencils past his shoulder.  He moves into motion then, stepping around the bed to meet you still rooted in the doorway.  “Yeah, I’ve got time.  Come in.”  Up close like this - there’s only maybe two feet between you - you can make out the little scar on his cheek;  the tiny beauty mark below his bottom lip;  each individual lash that frames his Bambi eyes and flutters when he blinks.  “I probably can’t draw you anything new right now but I’ve got some flash, if you’re interested?”

Even if you weren’t interested, you don’t think you’d say no.  You were always a sucker for a cute boy and this Jungkook?  He was that.  In spades. 

“Sure.”

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”  He’s retreating back into the room, moving to grab his iPad off the far table.  It’s balanced on his arm when he swivels to you, prominent front teeth on full display.  “I’ve got a pretty big selection.” 

When he drops onto the bench - a wayward vine above his head tickling his cheek - he gestures to the spot beside him.  This time, you don’t stare for a stupid amount of time, instead taking up the seat without hesitation. 

“So—”  He’s swiping through the photo library with his Apple Pen.  You’re sure there are pretty sketches on the screen - you just can’t focus on them, too preoccupied by the artwork that crawls across his hand and into the sleeve of his oversized, well-worn shirt.  It’s an intricate chrysanthemum, impossibly well-shaded with bold colours that demand attention and stand out over his fair complexion;  it creeps halfway up the back of his hand to tickle over his knuckles.  He notes your attention with a quiet chuckle, fingers wiggling.  The ink moves, flows, ripples with the motion, before his hand relaxes, knuckles unravelling as he offers the limb to you and your curiosity.  “Do you like it?”

“It’s incredible.”  It really is.  You’ve never seen anything like it, as if a painting has been done across his skin, laid in watercolour rather than tattoo ink.  “Did it hurt?”

(You almost want to hit yourself for the stupid question.  Of course it did.  It’s a hand tattoo.)

Jungkook only laughs again, doesn’t hold it against you despite the verbal barrage you’re faced with internally.  “Like crazy, but it was worth it.  This was my first tattoo and all the rest have just sort of been—”  He shrugs, fabric of his shirt bunching around his collar.  

“A piece of cake?”  You can only imagine.

“Exactly.”

You nod thoughtfully, as if that means anything to you.  (It doesn’t.  You’re bare as a baby’s bottom, blemish free save for the occasional hellish pimple and the scar you have from surgery on your hand when you broke parts of it in sixth grade.)

If he can tell you’re talking out of your ass, he says nothing, redirecting your attention back to the iPad propped on his lap.  “Do any of these interest you?”  He’s resumed scrolling, swiping carefully through pages of flash.  There are assorted floral pieces (plum stems, lily stalks, fully bloomed mums) and various skeletons (what looks like a deer, a dragon, a wolf).  They’re mostly blackwork with fine lines and heavy contrast, so wonderfully detailed you spend too much time studying one piece before he’s flipping to the next.

“That one.”  It catches your eye more than the others have.  Likely because it’s one of the few pieces in colour, soft hues spilling over neat lines.  A pretty little cat with a braided collar, big golden bell centered beneath its head, unravelling petals sweeping around it.

“You like cats?”

You do.  “She looks like mine.”

“It’s settled.”  He beams then, rising so quickly you’re startled;  you watch as he moves around the space with decisive steps, putting your plan into motion.  A paper is pulled seemingly out of nowhere, laid on a wooden clipboard and offered with a blue ballpoint pen.  “If you can fill all of this out, I can get the stencil ready.”

Well, that was easy.  Somehow, you’d thought it’d be more complicated, a ton of back and forth and yes and no.  You can’t deny you’re nervous, staring down at the consent form.  

(It doesn’t mean you read it any more than you normally would, though.  You gloss over all the points, making note of what you’re agreeing to without really considering any of it.  You’ve wanted a tattoo for most of your life.  There’s really no going back now.)

(You just hope it turns out like you want - that you’re not just being blindsided by a sudden superficial crush and a lack of critical thought.)

“I think I’m done,”  you mumble, slashing the date into the paper with gusto.  

“Do you have your ID?”  You’ve got it ready for him when he returns to take both it and the form.  “I’m just going to make copies and then we can discuss more.”

He’s gone with that same smile, disappearing back the way you’d come. 

Alone, the nerves set in.  You’re actually doing this.  Getting a tattoo.  Putting something permanent on your body.  It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once, shaking your hands in your lap.  Maybe you should’ve eaten more before you’d come.  (You’d woken up late - had only shoved two pieces of raisin pinwheel bread into your mouth before you’d made up your mind about this.) 

(But had you really made up your mind?  Was this going to be it?  It feels mostly like yes, though the repetitive thud of your toe against concrete seems to indicate otherwise.  It’s as if you’re tapping out something in morse, telling yourself—)

“Okay!”  Jungkook’s back before you know it, driver’s license returned to you along with an unsealed envelope.  You eye it curiously.  “A copy of your form and an aftercare sheet.”  

He’s really thought of everything.  Or the shop has.  Either way, you appreciate that when you’re not so sure, caught somewhere between giddily excited and vaguely worried, as if someone’s pulled a weight off your shoulders, taken on some of the burden of this spontaneous choice.

“So, where do you want it?”  It’s like he has a one track mind, utterly focused on the task at hand.  (Probably a good thing, given you’re about to voluntarily let him needle your poor skin.) 

You hadn’t thought about that.  You’d always liked the idea of a back of the arm tattoo, positioned somewhere along your tricep so it could be seen while turned away.  “My arm?”

“Upper?  Forearm?”  There’s not an ounce of annoyance or exasperation or anything else negative.  He’s just genuinely curious, peering over his shoulder at you. 

“Tricep area, I think?  Would that look good?”

“If you like it, it will.”  Then he grins - beams so bright you half expect the sun to come zooming out of his mouth - and laughs, a funny little cackle that makes you do the same.  “I’m kidding.  That was cheesy.  But I’m sure it’ll look fine.  We can try laying it down first, so you get an idea?” 

“That sounds good.”  A lot better than endless years of regret for poor placement. 

“You’ll, uh— need to take your shirt off though.”

It’s then you realise your mistake:  wearing a turtleneck.  “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A beat of silence passes, then another, and he smiles so kindly you wonder what your expression must look like.  Sour, like you’d sucked fresh lemon?  Awkward, as if you’d never worn anything less than double layers before (a proud Never Nude)? 

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can reschedule.  Or I can put a divider up so you don’t have to worry about being seen from outside.  Whatever you’d prefer.” 

The longer you stay quiet - a seemingly common occurrence today - the closer his brows furrow, preparations coming to a standstill.  You can tell he’s not trying to rush you, politely waiting for an answer with transfer paper in one hand and scissors in the other.  

(If only he could peek into your brain, see the whole reason you’re hesitating is because you can’t quite remember which bra you’re wearing, whether it’s the slinky black one that offers absolutely zero support or the lacy blue one with the cute detailing and practically see-through cups.)

(Did it really matter either way?  He was probably desensitized.)  

“It’s fine.”  You find the confidence somehow, nodding firmly.  Jungkook’s still studying you carefully, though.  Waiting as you strip your purse off your shoulder and reach for the hem of your sweater.  It feels funny in your fingers, more like steel wool than sheep’s.

One breath.  Two. 

You fold your turtleneck neatly, laying it beside your bag and turning back to face him.  “All right.  Let’s do this.” 

“So, which arm?”  He’s close now - crossed to you in two strides of his long legs - and holds up the stencil.  

Your right rises, fingers wiggling as if to say hello. 

He lays the design down, pats it into place with deft fingers.  You don’t realise the breath you’re holding until he pulls the sticky paper away, leaving neat line work in its wake.

“Oh.”  It slips out of its own accord, almost a whisper as you stare at the design in the mirror.  “It’s so pretty.” 

There’s pride in his eyes as he stares with you, bounces his gaze between it and your face.  “Thanks.”  He lets you linger, peering thoughtfully at your reflection before speaking, casually hopeful.  “What do you think?”

“This is it.  Right here.”

Maybe he’d fist pump, if he were any less cool.  As it stands, he simply nods, cheeks round like fresh baked bread, nose scrunched with glee. 

“All right.  We’ll shave you down and get started.  You like the colours, right?”  Once again, he’s buzzing around the room, gathering up all his materials and snapping black gloves on once everything is laid out upon his cart.  It’s heavily stickered, covered in video game vinyls and anime mattes.  (You recognise a handful of them, make a note to ask him where he got them from.)  He pats the tissue papered bed top when you make no movement toward him.  “Hop on up.  Face down, if that’s okay.”

You do as he says, climbing atop with minimal grace.  It takes you a bit of adjusting to get comfortable, folding your left arm under your head and allowing your right to simply dangle, uncertain of where it should be.  

“You’re sparkly.”

“What?”  You’d misheard that, right? 

“Your skin.  You’re sparkling.”  He sounds a little in awe, surprised as wetness spills across your arm, the edge of a razor following closely thereafter.  

“Oh.”  Heat creeps over your cheeks, slinks all the way up into your roots and has you chuckling awkwardly.  “It’s my soap.” 

“Sparkle soap?”  Whether he’s just making conversation or genuinely curious, you’re not sure.  He does seem delighted by the fact, though, as if he’s never seen a girl covered in glitter before.  (Which, fair.) 

“It’s this specialty holiday soap.  It has pigment in it.” 

“That’s cool.”  He’s laying the stencil down again, smoothing it over your now-hairless arm.  “It smells nice.”

Obviously, you agree.  It’s honey and citrus, brightly fragrant but not overpowering, lingering on your clothes like the subtle golden glitter does.  Still, you flush, heat crossing from a casual day under the sun to burning-on-the-stove hot.  “Thanks.” 

“Was that weird?  I hope not.”

“No, you’re fine.” 

He hums a tiny noise, something that sounds like understanding and appreciation all at once.  

Then the buzzing starts - a steady, inescapable brrrrrrrrr - and he’s gripping your arm, steady yet gentle.  “Ready?” 

Honestly, you’re not sure.  Hearing the noise makes it seem scary, has your entire body tensing up like Pavlov’s dog.  Your honesty can’t be helped, a nervous giggle chased off your tongue.  “I think so.” 

“I think so too.”

By the time you’re done - a good almost five hours later, your arm stinging so bad you wonder why you’d ever sat down in the first place - you’d fallen asleep twice, started drooling on your other arm once, and really, really have to pee. 

“All right—”“  The incessant buzzing stops.  Liquid spills where the pain centres, followed by rougher paper towel.  “You are finished.”

(You might be imagining it, but he sounds about as relieved as you.  Maybe because you’d been sitting for hours on hours, turning down his offer for a break because you just wanted to get it done and therefore forcing him to do the same.) 

“Can I see?”  You don’t want to leap to your feet - feel a bit too lightheaded for that - but you’re bouncing with excitement, the thrumming in your arm intensified when you shift to catch a better look at Jungkook’s face. 

“Yeah, go ahead.  Just be careful - you might be a bit—”

He’s right.  You nearly topple over the moment you stand, none-too-gently rolling off the edge of the bed and barely landing safely on your feet.  It’s only his close proximity that prevents you from falling to your knees, one degloved hand darting out to steady you. 

“Careful!”  It’s politely reproachful, coloured soft with worry.  

“Sorry, sorry.”  You seize the edge of the bed, gripping tight as you wait for everything to settle, the lightheadedness to recede.  Everything straightens out quickly enough.  “Got up too quickly.”

“Do you need a snack?”  He’s already up, moving faster than you, rummaging through the cabinet against the far wall.  “I’ve got seaweed and Choco Boys and shrimp chips and—”

You can’t help but laugh, hobbling to the mirror to inspect your new piece of art.  “I’m fine.”  That, and you’re too occupied with the ink that now sits embedded beneath your skin, a flurry of lovely colour and impressive line work.

“Choco Boys it is then.”  The familiar yellow package is thrust toward you, a pack of his own already ripped open.  Mushroom-shaped treats are tossed into his open mouth, lips curling around chocolate and his next words,  “it’ll help with your sugar levels.”

A thank you comes, fingers curling around the snacks, but you’re still in deep, so focused on the lovely hue that bleeds over your skin, marks up previously unblemished flesh and holds your attention.  It’s better than you could’ve possibly imagined, a piece of artwork forever yours.  It makes you giddy as you stare at it - almost reach for it, but stop when you catch the alarmed widening of Jungkook’s eyes.  

“You like?”  

“I love.”  You’d stare at it for hours, if you could.  Likely will, once you get home, sitting in front of the mirror like a zombie.  “Thank you so, so much.”

The brunet beams as he polishes off the last of his Choco Boys, tossing his dark hair back with a flick of his head.  Triumph rolls off him in palpable waves, sitting pretty in the lines by his eyes, the scrunching around his nose.  Seeing how it blooms in his stare is like a straight endorphin shot, as if you’ve done more than just be the canvas he’s laid all his hard work into.  “It was a pleasure.”

It’s a whole month later - enough time for the piece to heal - before you decide you want another one.  It’s not as spontaneous as the first time, instead led with an Instagram direct message to @jeonink.  (You half expect him not to answer;  you’re utterly delighted when he responds not five minutes later.) 

Maybe it’s fate or maybe it’s luck that has him with availability the same day you reach out, bringing you back to the studio three hours after you’ve messaged him.

He’s just as cute as before, black baseball cap pulled low over his ears, silver-lined ears twinkling beneath the shop lights.  

“So, what’re you thinking?”  

Truthfully, you hadn’t done much thinking.  Just like before, you’d decided you wanted a tattoo and, well, the rest had been history.  You figured you’d let him have free reign, given how happy you were with your first piece.  “A sleeve?”

That surprises him.  His whole face lights up, eyes wide, mouth rounding curiously.  “Like, a full sleeve?”  It’s not necessarily a no - more of an are you sure? he hides between the syllables.

“I think so.”

He nods slowly, knowingly, arms folded over his chest, expression suddenly unreadable.  “You caught the itch.”

Your own features twist, brows shooting high.  “The what?”

“The tattoo itch,”  he clarifies with a laugh, the sound sweeping your concern away like the sea.  “People say once you get one, you get addicted to the feeling.”  He’s extending both arms to you now, hands palm up.  For a moment, you’re note sure what he’s doing.  (In actuality, you’re distracted by the fact that he’s in a tee, muscle cording his limbs, undulating as he turns his arms over.)  “I got bit by it when I lived in Japan.  It’s actually what got me into tattooing myself.”

You remember what he’d said last time - how he’d spent a handful of years overseas, working in restaurants after having followed his last partner there.  He’d shared lots about his life, giving you the Sparknotes version while you’d ground enamel to fine dust.  

“I guess I have the itch then.”

“Guess you do.”  

Your dream comes to life in four excruciating sessions.  It’s some of the worst pain you’ve ever endured (you’re never going to get an elbow tattoo ever again) but you’d do it all again in a heartbeat, utterly in love with the mural that now lives on your skin.  A peony caps your shoulder while one runs halfway up your bicep.  Another takes up the entirety of your forearm.  There’s a darling little bird and delicately inked koi.  It’s breathtaking, greater than anything you could have dreamt up.  

You’ve been staring at it for at least three minutes now, tracing over the freshly laid colour with a tender touch.  You’re grateful for the SecondSkin, the clear bandage that wraps everything up and keeps it safe from your over eager hands.

“You did it.”  Jungkook’s grinning at you, feet kicked up where he sits, his usual bag of Choco Boys balanced in his lap.  “Big girl.”

From anyone else, it might sound condescending - might rub you the wrong way and have you glaring daggers.  Instead, you take it in stride, beaming at him from your seat.  He’s been there with you every step of the way, been there for every hour (seventeen over three months, to be exact) you’ve dedicated to finishing this beauty up.  Tease you as he might, you know he really is proud of you.  

“You mean we did it,”  you return, giddy like a child.  

“Ah, right.”  The chocolate-covered snack he’s devouring goes crunch crunch crunch before he speaks, mouth still full, eyes crinkled.  “I guess I did do all the work.”

“Hey!  Screw you!”  You’re glowering at him, middle finger raised in defiance.  

(How curious that your relationship has grown like this, turned from tattoo artist and client to what feels like more.  It probably makes sense, given the long hours you’ve spent together, the support he’s had to offer each time the pain has gotten this side of too much, chattering your teeth and dizzying your head.  Solidarity in pain and all that.)

(You really had tapped out once, when he’d crept his gun into the ditch of your elbow.  You’d asked him whether it’d hurt beforehand and he’d only laughed, shrugged off the question and continued with the careful shading to your inner arm.  That in itself had hurt like a biiitch;  you hadn’t thought it could get worse.)

(You’d been mistaken.)

“Am I wrong?”  He drawls, full of laughter and that big dumb smile of his you’ve grown accustomed to.  It eats up his cheeks and disappears his eyes, makes it hard to be mad at him when he looks so sweet.  

“Yes, you are.”  You’ve got absolutely nothing to back it up, but who cares.  This is the sort of banter the two of you have developed, like two old friends forced to spend too much time together.  (Not that you’d complain.  You’ve loved hearing his stories, all the tales he regales you with whenever you’re in his chair.)

A snort is his answer, the full roll of his eyes over-exaggerated and playful.  “You’re lucky we’re all finished or I’d sneak in an ugly fish somewhere on your arm.”

You think he’s kidding - know he takes too much pride in his work to do that.

Still, you stick your tongue out, hopping down from the bed with your freshly inked arm, hands clapping together in celebration.  “You wouldn’t dare.”  You’re confident, crossing to the bench to tug your flannel on, careful of the dull pain that throbs beneath the thin medical dressing.  

“Wouldn’t I?  I’m leaving anyway.”

You’re ready to call him out for it, insist he would never ruin the sanctity of his profession in such a way, when you realise the words he’s spoken, the casual tidbit he’s just dropped like it’s nothing.

“Leaving?”  

(Is it you or do you sound disappointed?  You can’t dwell on it for long, worried you’ll miss his explanation.  Had he mentioned it previously?  Slipped it in when you’d been delirious from pain?  No, you would’ve remembered that.  You swear you would’ve.)

“I’m moving to Tokyo.”  How he’s so casual, you have absolutely no idea.  You suppose it’s not a big deal for him - he’s not from here anyway.  Home is back in Korea, the place he’d spent most of his life before moving to Japan and then here, just two years ago.  (God, your memory is good.  If only you’d retained knowledge like this when you were in school.)  “My flight’s next weekend.”

Your face must be hilarious because Jungkook’s laughing, cackling like the evil villain in an anime.  

“Gonna miss me?”  

Would it be inappropriate to say yes?  Because you will, you realise the moment he’s posed the question.  You’ve grown to consider him a friend, someone who you send random memes to on Instagram (usually pertaining to #tattooartistproblems or one of your shared hobbies, like video games and finding the best noodle soup restaurant in the city).  

You go for the safe bet, answering with a question of your own.  “Are you gonna miss me?”

“I’ll miss your restaurant recs,”  he answers, offering honesty to your reticence.  “You can still send me funny photos though.”  

You can’t help your laugh, the tiny quirk of your mouth into a smile.  “I guess you’re right.  Will you still be tattooing?”  It’s an innocent enough question - you really do want to know.  You can’t imagine going to anyone else, even if it means you’ll be shelling out an absurd amount of money for a plane ticket.

“Yep, new shop.”  Something twinkles in his stare, has him giddy as he rises to his feet, tossing his empty packet of snacks into the trash bin.  “Actually, where I got most of mine done.”  You understand it then - that it’s a move of faith.  He’s finally come full circle.  You’re unbelievably happy for him, brimming with delight to mirror his pride.  

But you’re still going to give him a little bit of a hard time because you have to.  It wouldn’t feel right otherwise.  “Whoa, big shot.”

“I am actually,”  he sniffs, raking an ink-strewn hand through his hair.  It’s longer now than it was when you met him, curling over the tops of his ears, hanging in his eyes at every turn.  “You’ll be lucky if I remember you when I’m famous.”

“Famously lame, maybe,”  you tease, slipping your bag over your shoulder.  You busy yourself pulling your keys from the interior pocket, checking your phone as if you’re ready to go.  It’s only when you’re standing in the hallway - you have no real intention of departing like this and he knows that, considering you haven’t paid yet - when you level him with a half-formed smirk.  “But I guess I should take you for a drink?”  

His hoodie is on before you know it, yanked over his head and tugged into place as he joins you.  It’s become your regular routine - leaving together after your sessions, a perk of always booking the last slot he has available.  (Not that you relied on that, but simply because your work schedule didn’t really allow for anything else.)  “Obviously.”

Jeon Jungkook is a talented artist, a dedicated snacker, a lover of the colour black.  You discover, sitting on the patio of the nearby bar, that he’s also really, really good at holding his liquor.  

(Not that he’d ever indicated otherwise.)

“Do you think you’ll get anything else done?”  He’s on his sixth pint, casually leaned back in his chair as he picks at the fries you’d ordered but that he seems perfectly happy to help himself to.  (Payback for all the times he’s forced snacks on you maybe?)  “Like, a face tattoo?”

You scoff at the question as if greatly offended.  “You think I’d get a face tattoo?”  

While a little glazed in the eyes, you can tell he’s altogether coherent, grinning across the table at you.  “Hey, I don’t judge.  You like making surprise decisions, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Okay, so he’s got you there.  Used your own impulsive history against you.  “I would never.”  

“If you change your mind, do I get first dibs?”

“Dibs on what?  Tattooing me?”

He nods as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world.  “Duh.”

You can only roll your eyes, tossing a wayward burnt fry end at him.  “Yes, Kook, you get first dibs on ruining my face.”

His expression twists, mouth shaping around words he’s keeping caged behind his teeth.  There’s something he isn’t saying, a comeback he’s chosen to lock up.  You wonder what it is.

“Hey - nothing wrong with face tattoos.”  

“Really?”  You’re leaning forward, a clear challenge written across your face.  “Then why don’t you have one?”  He has a million others as it is:  a hand, nearly the entirety of both arms, his chest, his shoulders, one of his legs.  (You haven’t seen them all in person but you have seen them online, memorialised on his Instagram feed.)  

“And hide all this?”  One inked hand is gesturing toward his own face, gesticulating wildly as if that’ll drive his point further home.  “I would never.”

“That’s what I said!”

It doesn’t matter to him, not when he’s fully sober and most certainly not now, when he’s slightly buzzed, eyes glossier than usual.  “But I’m cuter.  It’d be a shame if it were me.  You…”  The way he trails off is suggestive, indicative of something mocking and mean.  (Except it’s never cruel - far too friendly and soft to ever hurt your feelings.)  “—not so much.”

Another fry hits him right between the eyes and then another disappears into the hood of his sweater, lost to the black fabric that bunches up around his neck and hides the flush he’s been battling since you two got to the bar an hour ago.

“Don’t be rude!”  

He beams at you then, so unnecessarily endearing you can only throw one more piece at him. 

“I’m kidding.”  You knew that already but pretend to ignore the pseudo-apology, choosing instead to polish off the last of your now-cold fries.  A bad choice, you realise when he continues, surprising you with the words that come out of his liquor-laden mouth so much so that you almost choke.  “You’re actually pretty cute.”

(So what if you’ve sort of maybe been waiting to hear them?  Wondering if the tiny crush you’d developed was in some way reciprocated?)

(Not that this meant it was.  Only that you perhaps weren’t alone in thinking he was the most lovable - and somehow simultaneously hot - person you’d ever met.  It’s almost rewarding to know the long hours together hadn’t left him unscathed.)

“You all good?”  The look on his face is worse than that smile he usually offers, instead a devilish smirk that makes him look like Satan himself.  

Were you?  You’re not sure.

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Really?  You can’t?”  You’re not sure what that means, whether you’re simply reading too far into it.  But then he’s dragging his bottom lip through his teeth, head cocked curiously.  It’s a bait, you realise—and one you’ll gladly take.

“Should I have expected it?”

Shoulders hike, rising up around his ears.  “I thought I made it sort of obvious.”  

Had he?  Thinking back on it, you can’t really recall.  Of course, he’d always been friendly, indulging you in your pursuit of body art, sketching up the loveliest things you’d never even think to dream of;  accepting your distracting Instagram messages without complaint, always tossing you a like or some sort of acknowledgement no matter what you’d send (and you’d send some random, random stuff).  Chatting with him daily had just become the norm, conversation flowing freely whenever you’d pop in for your next session.

But that was just because he was a nice guy - or so you’d thought.  You realise now how wrong you’d been, too occupied with your own crush to notice his (if it could be called that).

“You like me,”  you hum, surprisingly nonchalant despite the little pitter patter in your chest, the flutter of your heart within your ribcage.  

“I think you’re cute,”  he retorts, though there’s no real weight to his rebuff.  The two statements are really one and the same and you’re giddy with the knowledge, absolutely tickled pink.

Except for the fact that he’s leaving, fully prepared to start a new life in another city in just one week.  The irony isn’t lost on you, like fate’s laughing even as she offers you this little crumb.  (You feel like Oliver Twist, frankly.)

“Same difference.”

He huffs - you’re reminded of how adorable he is when he does that - and downs the lukewarm remainder of his beer.  “I take it back.”

“No, you don’t.”  Where the confidence comes from, who knows.  You grip it tight with both hands though, hold it snugly as you level him with a stare that has his own unwavering.  It’s almost as if you’re caught in a staring match, a battle of unspoken wits. 

It drags on longer than it should, just the two of you locked to each other with nowhere to go. 

Then he does the last thing you expect:  shoves his chair aside and leans across the table, stealing a kiss and returning to his seat, all in the span of time it takes you to blink.  

(His lips are so soft.  A little chapped, a tiny bit dry, but soft - deceptively delicate.  Bitter, touched with sea salt and something else distinctly him.  French fries and beer and his Chapstick.) 

(For the briefest moment, you wonder whether you’d just imagined it - if your imagination had truly gotten the best of you and you’ve absolutely lost your mind.) 

“You just kissed me.”  It seems like you’ve found your new favourite hobby of just repeating things, giving live play-by-plays like an awkward narrator in a romcom.  

“Yeah, so?”

“You’re leaving.”  Speaking the words into existence feels bad;  you see the way his eyes tighten, the subtle sobering of his expression even while he tries to keep his cool.  

“I am.”  At least he’s realistic.  It saves you from any uncertainty, keeping the what-ifs at bay. 

You suppose it means you have nothing to lose. 

“Do it again.”

And Jungkook does - over and over, sinking the taste of him almost as deeply as ink, offering a piece of himself you want to keep for just as long.  

It takes you longer to add to your collection of art, nearly four whole years before you decide what you want next.  (It’s a back piece this time - a full body suit from your shoulders down past your ass.  Another cat, dressed in traditional Japanese clothing and surrounded by flowers.  An ode to your first tattoo, to the one that had started it all.)

(You’re not sure you’re ready for the pain, though.)

“Lay down,”  the artist instructs, back turned to you, busy preparing his materials.  You’d stripped down while he was occupied, discarded all your clothes to the allocated basket and stood quietly in anticipation. 

You do as he says, dropping atop the tattoo bed with a quiet oof.  The stencil has already been laid, the entire outline ready to be inked into your skin.  You can’t deny you’re more than a little nervous.  It’s been years since you’d last gotten anything done, uninterested in finding a new artist since Jungkook had left. 

(Which he had, exactly as he’d intended, gone on a 6 AM flight that you’d driven him to, teary-eyed and embarrassed.  He’d laughed at you standing outside of the departure gate, his suitcase at his side, arms wrapped around your shoulders.  You’d refused to show your face, burying it instead into the warmth of his neck, into the familiar scent of him that was going away for who knows how long.

“Stop being a baby,”  he’d said, smothering you in kisses, the full weight of his laughter palpable through your close proximity.  It'd rumbled out of his chest all the way into yours, finding a home behind your ribcage, right alongside where your heart fluttered, shaded blue and sad.

“Stop being mean,”  you’d countered, petulant like a child.

It couldn’t be helped.  You’d had only one week with him - one glorious, chaotic week filled with eating too much junk, rewatching your favourite animes, and generally making up for all the lost time you’d never even known there was.  As amazing as it’d been, it still hadn’t prepared you for the goodbye.

That was your fault, though.  You’d wrongly entertained the idea that maybe things would work out, that he’d change his mind or ask to take it - whatever you had, that is - with him, keep it going somehow.  He hadn’t.)

“Do you have a preference where I start?”  You’re unbothered, hair loosely knotted over your shoulder.  Ready for the session to start - ready to feel the familiar sting again.  (You’re proud of that.  It might have taken you years and years but here you were, tackling something huge.)

“Nope.”  

“Sounds good.”

The buzzing begins and pressure lands upon the small of your back, a gloved hand laid over the centre of your spine.  You remind yourself to breathe in, out, focus on something other than the pain that fizzles over your skin and then ebbs into tenderness.  Where he’s started - just above the fattiest part of your butt - isn’t too bad.  Tolerable and yielding.

You can do this.

Your back aches in a different way than you’d anticipated, soreness buzzing beneath inflamed skin and making it uncomfortable to move around.  It’s not any worse than your arm had been - the lines along your spine had felt comparable to that of your elbow - but it’s fresh, not dulled by years like your sleeve now was.

The artist is stripping his gloves off, your back neatly covered and the bed stripped of its original tissue paper.  He’s leaned against the sink, onigiri held in his now-free hands, nibbling at the edge of the rice ball as you turn this way and that in the mirror.  “You did good.”

You’re still undressed, admiring the linework from different angles, shimmying closer to your reflection to catch the lighter inking that makes up the undefined edges of the various florals.  Something tells you that you should be shy - eager to redress after spending nearly five hours naked in the secluded studio - but you don’t care.  Your back is quickly becoming a masterpiece, something that might as well be hung in the halls of the Louvre.  You’re in love with it.

“Thanks.”

You mean thank you for his compliment but also for all his hard work, the long hours he’s put into bringing this beauty to life.  It means so much - like progressing to the next level.  

Which, you suppose it is.  This is a fresh start for you.  A new beginning in a new city.  

“Proud of you,”  he hums, suddenly close, broad palms searing heat over your hips.  He’s careful to avoid the edge of the bandage that wraps your back and holds you delicately, like fine china or the most precious jewel in the world, lips sweet against your temple.  

You meet his eyes in the mirror - the same sweet doe-eyed stare from five years ago.  A little darker now, aged by the hand of time but endlessly kind, shining beneath the overhead lights.

“Proud of you,”  you chirp, identical smiles spreading over your faces.  

Jungkook’s having none of it though, bratty as usual.  “Proud of us.”

You suppose you can settle for that.  You really are proud of the two of you - for how far you’ve made it and all the obstacles you’ve overcome.  From the first few weeks of sadness, all the melancholy that’d set in when he’d left, to exactly one month after, when he’d called you in the middle of the night, drunk and stumbling home.  

(It’d been infuriating at the time - incoherent and foolish as he was - but it’d bloomed something between you, something neither of you could ignore.)

Four years of miserable long distance had become this:  a love that's brought you back to his side, to a city you’re unfamiliar with but that he calls home; to a city that never sleeps, loud with pachinko machines and some of the best food you’ve ever had;  to the place you’ve been missing every minute you were apart.  

You’d never thought you would move for someone, uproot your entire life for a relationship, but he’d changed that.  Made it worth it in ways you had never considered.  Convinced you more and more with each trip you’d taken, two visits twice a year, for a measly two weeks at a time.

“Should we head home?”  He means your physical home - the apartment the two of you had decided on in Roppongi, the one you haven’t seen yet, that he’s had to move into all by himself.  It’s not quite as nice as the home in his arms.  

You say yes anyway.

“I’m so talented.”  The words come entirely too whole for your liking, loud somewhere above your head.

“Are you serious?”  You’re levelling your boyfriend with the most incredulous look, whole face scrunched up, hands fisted into his dark sheets.  It’s uncomfortable at this angle - kinking your neck as you look over your shoulder - but you really can’t believe he’s just said that.  He’s knelt between your legs, knees spread wide around his own, his hand halfway up your back and tracking heat over your spine.  

Somehow, he has the audacity to look surprised.  “What?”

“You’re really patting yourself on the back right now?”  Now, when he should be pounding you into oblivion, working that big fat cock of his through your fluttering walls, making you moan his name into his pillows like it’s his only job? 

(It truthfully could be.  You’d rank his skills in the bedroom on par with his skills in the studio.)

“Oh.”  All at once, he’s the devil - sin personified. Or would be, if he didn’t somehow still look infuriatingly cute.

The gentle touch turns bruising, heel of his palm pressed hard into the tender notches of your spine.  “You don’t like when I admire my own work?”  Asked as he shifts behind you, length dragging out of your dripping cunt to gently tap against your aching clit.  The head of it glides through your folds, mercilessly teasing but never slipping back in, never filling you whole like you need.  (Because you really do need it.  You haven’t seen him in six months, left to your own devices - literally.)  It feels like heaven and hell, too good and not nearly enough all at once. 

“Kook,”  you snap. Try to, anyway, his name far too whiny and breathless to hold any real weight.

“I’m just admiring you, sweetheart.”  He’s dragging the hand over your back, tracing all the lines he’s embedded into your skin.  They make up his favourite piece, inked permanently into his favourite canvas.  A testament to his hard work, his dedication, his love.

Any other time, you might not care.  Here and now, after not having felt his touch in what feels like forever, you’re burning from the inside out, a million volts of electricity tripping your circuits.  When you speak, it’s more a plea than a reprimand, uttered so sweetly you know he can’t deny you. “Admire me later.”  

“I’ve missed you” is his only answer, punctuated by a fluid roll of his hips, the heavy press of his cock back into your dripping cunt.  “I’ve missed this,”  he breathes out, sinking all the way in, so slow you can feel every ridge and vein as he fills you.  

“Missed you too,”  you parrot back, a little delirious now that you’ve gotten what you want.  

Now that he’s right where he should be - with you.

tag list.  @neverthefirstchoice​​​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​​​ @snackhobi​​​​ @codeinebelle​ @xjoonchildx​

[zinzinina]

Drift

Pairing: Tech x GN!Reader Length: 1.1k Rating: General Warnings: None

A/N: This is a little birthday gift for the lovely and talented Ellie @themaydecemberist​! Liz ( @ladyopress​ ) created this beautiful playlist for you, and she kindly let me use it as inspiration for this drabble. Thank you for being such a sweet friend and for sharing your incredible creations with us! I hope your day is filled with all the things that make your heart sing. x

He’s still tapping away at his datapad as you scramble to get your boots on.

“Tech? We need to go,” you try. The rest of the crew had left in such a hurry there hadn’t even been time to discuss the mission. Wrecker had started saying something about remembering a last-minute supply run, but Echo had whacked him hard in the arm, shoving him down the ramp before he could finish whatever it was he’d been saying.

They hadn’t even waited for you or Tech to follow. Maybe they didn’t want you to come, you think, hurriedly fastening the laces. But you don’t want to be left behind if there’s any chance of danger for the rest of the crew. This thought urges you on, making you fumble. You glance up, and realise Tech hasn’t moved from his position at the control dash.

You frown. This isn’t like him. He’s usually the one coordinating the punctuality of the others, with the familiar exasperation of a put-upon babysitter. Testily reminding Wrecker he doesn’t really need heavy artillery for a recon mission. Waiting for Hunter to issue directions so he can check schematics first and avoid catastrophe for the rest of the team. 

His concentration is absolute as he finally answers without looking up. “We won’t be accompanying them. I have an… unofficial assignment for us. I’m setting the coordinates now. It’s quite a short jump; within the sector. Hold on.”

You edge closer, leaning on the back of his seat as the viewport streaks into movement. “Really? Just the two of us?” You’re a little excited, if you’re being totally honest with yourself. This has never happened before; every mission so far requiring the entire team to be together. The closest thing to alone time you’ve had with him is sitting squashed knee-to-knee in his bunk, voices hushed under the snores from the surrounding sleepers. 

You’ve spent countless late nights listening to him recount the intricacies of whatever he’s currently working on, hanging on his every word. The rest of the crew visibly tune out when he starts talking, but you could listen to him for hours; his intentness infectious. More than once you’ve found yourself sketching schematics based on the ideas he’d talked about; the sound of his voice inspiring the movement of the stylus under your hand. 

He isn’t talking now. If anything, he seems slightly tense. Easing quietly around into the seat beside him, you sneak surreptitious glances at his face. He frowns behind the thick lenses of his glasses, tapping resolutely away at his datapad. It muffles your excitement a little; regardless of how much you’re relishing this chance to be alone with him, he had mentioned an assignment. It could be dangerous — more dangerous than anything he’s encountered before. And it would explain his stony sobriety. This thought occupies you for the rest of the journey, and you jiggle your leg nervously, daydreaming as minutes tick away.

When he finally leans up to decelerate the hyperdrive, it takes a few seconds for your eyes to adjust to the return to realspace. You aren’t sure what you’re seeing at first. And then it hits you.

Azure and emerald fill the viewport, glowing with the fluorescence of a bioluminescent explosion. The colours of the forming stars are so vivid you can almost feel them on your skin, bathing your face in light. The nebula is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Its danger is contained by its distance, though its destructive power is unmistakable; both ancient and newborn. It’s the most beautiful thing you could have imagined, something you’ve dreamed about and never dared to hope you’d see in person. You have absolutely no idea why you’re here.

You turn to look at him, and he’s watching it too, the faintest smile turning the corners of his eyes upwards. “The Utegetu Nebula. Like your drawings.”

He’s right, and wrong. You’ve drawn these ionised clouds countless times, trying to capture the whirl of molecular disruption without losing the scale of the nebula. You’ve mastered the shape: the sketches pinned around your bunk are evidence enough of that. But you’ve always been frustrated with your inability to recreate the brightness of the real thing. Now, gazing out at it, you feel humbled. No human could have reproduced this much vibrance. 

He’s talking again. “I only regret that an opportunity to bring you here hadn’t presented itself sooner. But the timing seemed pertinent, and with our convenient proximity to Roxuli following the last run, it simply felt necessary to… Well, when I was able to redirect the rest of the crew, I thought… What I mean to say is… Happy birthday.” Warmth settles in your chest. There was no secret assignment. He remembered, and he was trying to surprise you. Which is why you’re so touched that he still looks so nervous, blinking hard at his datapad. Filled with affection, you lean across and kiss him lightly on his cheek.

“Thank you, Tech.”

His owlish, bright eyes look even larger than normal as warmth creeps under the copper of his skin and up his neck. You can’t help but grin at him. This brilliant, earnest man; so capable and precise… blushing. He returns your smile with a hint of self-consciousness, adjusting his goggles to sit further up his nose. 

“There is one more thing.” He taps twice more at the datapad, and sets it aside as the ship’s internal lights dim. Low music fills the space, washing over you as gently as the colours through the viewport. It’s Core-world music; the beat strident but the words gentle. Wordless, your lips part as you look across at him. I could never define all that you are to me. 

His eyebrows draw down slightly, as though he’s making a calculated risk with his next words. “This seemed to be the closest aural approximation I could find to the… way I feel about you.”

Clearing his throat, he stands and offers you one of his long-fingered hands to ease you to your feet beside him. With his touch light around your waist, his awkwardness falls away. It’s not dancing; not really. More of a gentle swaying; undulating with the swirl of the forming galaxy beyond the small ship. Floating deep in an ocean of stardust.

[mmvalentine]

Pomegranate pt 4 | Feysand

Hades/ Persephone inspired AU. We gettin spicy now. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

Hybern have slipped into the mortal lands, and will any day now be at the wall.

The wall has always been the weak point of Pythian, and the Spring Court holds the south most border. After gathering as much information as he can, Rhys sends word to Tamlin.

The first attempt is a letter, which goes unanswered. Rhys waits for hours, until he cannot wait anymore. The second attempt is to send Mor, but by afternoon she returns. She was not granted an audience with the High Lord.

“Gods fucking damn it,” Rhys roars when she tells him. She doesn’t flinch, just looks worried. “Tamlin you stupid fucking prick,” Rhys mutters. He has started pacing. It is one thing for Hybern to attack another court. It is one thing for Hybern to breach Prythian. It is one thing for war to be on their doorstep.

It is another to endanger Feyre.

“I’ll go myself,” Rhys growls.

“Careful,” Mor says. “If you go in there all hot-headed, you’ll only give him a reason to start a fight.”

Rhys gnashes his teeth in frustration, but eventually nods his acknowledgement. Mor bites her lip, bows her head, then leaves him. Rhys takes a deep breath in through his nose, rolls his shoulders, and then winnows onto the steps of Tamlin’s manor.

It’s been a very long time since he has been on this doorstep.

Once, years ago, his father brought him, wanting him to have experience of a High Lords’ meeting. Rhys had known Tamlin had a daughter, but on that day she was nowhere to be seen. Rhys wonders idly how much of her life Feyre has spent locked in her room.

He strolls through the great doors, not bothering to wait for Tamlin to deny him entry. As he walks, he shoves his hands into his pockets, and listens to the chatter of the minds of the house residents. He does not look for Feyre’s. Doesn’t want the distraction.

Rhys finds Tamlin in the study, and leans against the doorframe.

“Afternoon,” he says in greeting. Tamlin’s face twists at the sight of him.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d grind your bones if you ever came back here?” he says. Rhys just looks at his nails.

“You did,” he said, “but I’m in an altruistic mood, for some reason.”

“What are you jabbering about, boy?” Tamlin snarls. Rhys pushes off the door frame and looks him in the eye.

“Hybern,” he says. Tamlin snorts.

“Not this again.”

“Tamlin. My spies are never wrong. Hybern is moving against Prythian as we speak, and you need to be ready.”

“I don’t take orders from whelps,” Tamlin growls.

“Fine,” Rhys says cooly. “Do what you want. I only thought you’d be interested in the preservation of your own lands, or your people, or your daughter for that matter. I shouldn’t be so presumptuous.” Tamlin growls again, but Rhys looks bored.

“You dare speak of her,” he begins.

“Calm down old man,” Rhys says. “I just wanted to come here in person, so that I could be assured that when Hybern attacks and the Spring Court falls, you knew it was happening and you let it.”

“What do you care?” Tamlin spits. “You only rule a savage court, you’ve never spared a thought for another in all your life.”

“Yes,” Rhys says simply. “And if we’re worried, so probably should you be.”

“Leave. Now.” Tamlin pounds the desk as he speaks. Rhys just shrugs.

“As you wish.” He sketches a bow from the waist, and exits the room.

But he doesn’t walk out of the manor.

Rhys folds himself into the shadows, and climbs the grand staircase without anyone noticing him. Feyre’s bedroom door is locked, of course, but he he shimmers through the wood without much effort.

“I know I should have knocked,” he says, “but I’m not looking I swear.”

“Rhys!”

“Can I come in?”

Feyre laughs, soft as eiderdown, and pulls his hands from his eyes.

“Yes,” she says. “Thank you for asking.”

“I would have asked from outside,” Rhys tells her, drawing her into his arms, “but that would have ruined the whole sneaking around thing I’ve got going here.”

Feyre stands up on her toes to kiss him. Rhys sighs over her lips, and the taste of her soothes his soul.

“Are you okay?” she asks. Rhys chuckles.

“I’m not the one being kept prisoner in my own bedroom.”

“You look tired.”

“I haven’t slept the last couple of days.”

Feyre touches his cheek and he leans into her palm. “Well come lie down then,” she says, and turns toward the bed by Rhys stops her.

“Feyre,” he says. “I have to tell you something. It’s important.”

Feyre’s eyes darken with concern, but she tugs him forward and he gets on the bed with her. They lie on their sides facing each other, and Feyre touches his chin.

“What is it?” she asks. Rhys folds her fingers into his.

“For a long time now, Hybern has been looking to expand its territory,” he tells her. “I have reason to believe- I am sure, they are now gathering in the mortal lands, and plan to attack Prythian from the south.”

“The south… is us,” Feyre says, eyes widening in understanding.

“Yes,” Rhys says. “I have tried to tell Tamlin but he won’t listen. I’m starting to think that if I told him the sky was blue he’d disagree, just because it was me saying it.”

“That’s probably true,” Feyre admitted. “So… what do we do?” Rhys lifted their entwined hands and kissed her fingers.

“I want you to know that I won’t let anything happen to you. The Night Court is ready and willing to send aid. Tamlin won’t hear me. Could you try to convince him to let us help?”

Feyre exhaled heavily. “Well, he doesn’t listen to me either. But of course, I’ll talk to him.”

Rhys kisses her knuckles again, on both hands. “Thank you,” he says.

“Rhys? What if doesn’t agree to it? What if he doesn’t listen?”

Rhys slides a hand under her hair, and his thumb strokes her jaw. “We’ll come anyway,” he says. “And I am finally going to get you out of here. Okay?”

“Okay,” Feyre says, and her voice is small with worry. Rhys kisses her until the tension slides from her shoulders.

“Rhys?” she says.

“Yeah honey?”

“I love you too.”

Rhys quirks a smile, and kisses both her cheeks and then her nose.

“I love you too, too.” He kisses her mouth then, and she wriggles closer to him. Rhys slides an arm under her and rubs his fingertips against the is of her skull.

It is so easy to forget wars and jailers when Feyre is touching him.

Feyre’s bare feet press into his ankles, and Rhys slides a hand down the outside of her thigh. The silk is cool beneath his fingers, and there’s a split in the fabric just above her knee. He catches her calf and hitches it over his hip as he keeps kissing her, and she squeezes him closer with her leg while his hand strokes her ankle.

“Are there flowers in the Night Court?” Feyre murmurs between kisses. Rhys smiles against her lips.

“Yes,” he says. “And the most wonderful fruits.”

Feyre’s hands are sliding up his chest now, fumbling with the fastenings in his shirt. She nips his bottom lip, and he licks the back of her teeth.

“Don’t they need sunlight to grow?”

Rhys laughs. “Feyre darling, we have just as much sunlight as you do.” His hand on her ankle has slid back up her calf, and is now curving around the underside of her thigh above her knee. The cream coloured dress is pushed further up her legs.

“But it’s always Spring here,” she says. She’s found the hem of his shirt and her hands have slipped beneath it. They are warm on his stomach.

“Well it’s not always night in the Night Court,” he assures her, and moves his lips to her throat. Feyre tips her head back to give him better access.

“Why?” she gasps.

“Because,” Rhys murmurs, trailing kisses down her neck, “things need to grow. And we need the warmth.” His hand on her leg is moving again, and cups her backside now. “And because no amount of power in the world stops the sun from rising.”

He kisses her mouth before she can ask any follow up questions, and the taste of her moan is so sweet it makes his head spin.

Rhys presses Feyre onto her back, and his hand on her ass slides around to her hip. His other arm is still behind her, and he massages his fingers in the back of her head. Feyre tugs at his hair, and he pushes her skirts further up so he can stroke her from knee to hip. Feyre shivers under his touch as his thumb skirts her inner thigh.

“Touch me,” she whispers, and Rhys’s hand tightens on her thigh before it dips between her legs.

Feyre’s hands fall from his neck and grab a hold of the sheets. Rhys watches her eyes flutter closed as he moves his fingers again, lightly over the cotton of her underwear. He slips beneath the waistband, and Feyre’s back arches up off the bed. He bites down on his own moan- Feyre is so wet on his fingers.

“Gods Feyre,” he breathes. He slides his hand down over her pussy before circling lightly against her clit. Feyre bites down on her lip and makes sure to stay quiet. Rhys thinks he’s never been so turned on as he is as he watches her writhe on his hand. He’s circling faster now, and sucks against her nipple through her dress. Never taking his eyes off her face.

“Don’t let anyone hear,” he reminds her softly, just as he pushes his index finger deep inside her. Feyre grabs the front of his shirt and kisses him hard, as she begins to fuck herself on his hand. Rhys grinds the heel of his palm against her clit as she does, and his other hand makes a fist in her hair.

“You are so fucking gorgeous,” he tells her. “I just wanna make you feel good.” He adds a second finger, and can’t help but imagine what she’d feel like if she was rocking on his cock like she was on his hand. Feyre’s nails scrabble at his chest, and her eyes meet his only momentarily before rolling back in her head.

“Do you feel good Feyre?” he asks her. She nods, mouthing words but not making any sound. “Can you come like this?” he whispers. Her hands tighten in his shirt and she’s struggling to draw breath. “That’s it,” he says. “Don’t make a sound, just come on my fingers.”

And she does. Her lips move silently, and her hips bow up off the bed. It takes Rhys a minute to realise she’s mouthing his name.

Feyre tightens around his hand as she climaxes, and when she finally comes down, she looks so peaceful. Rhys gives himself another moment to watch her, and then kisses her softly.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he whispers. Feyre’s eyes open into his, and waves crash in her gaze. He put his fingers in his mouth, kisses her again, and then disappears like smoke.

****

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @whythefuckdoiexist @inejsarrow @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @philosophorumaurum02 @story-scribbler @allthecolorsneverseen @asteria-of-mars @fandomstalker27 @realbookloverproblems @dealfea @s-tormwitch @cretaceous-therapod @whenyadoesntcutit @scatterbrainedgirl @tanvee1231

[kidovna]

tips for beginner artists?!!!!

i feel like i may have answered this a few times before but i’m still gonna see if i can be helpful:

be patient. trust me, you’ll be so much kinder to yourself on your art journey if you’re patient!

do lots and lots of live sketches. observe people and do quick drawings if you’re looking to improve your human anatomy skills!

experiment with different kinds of mediums to see what suits you best and experiment with things more than once! some materials may seem horrible to work with at first go but the more you use it, the better/easier they seem (like video games hehe)

don’t be scared to use references, but if you’re referencing someone else’s art, please don’t post it or don’t claim credit for it!

it’s always great to watch videos on youtube for picking up on specific things you want to learn (for example - colour theory) i spent a lot of time just watching speedpaints with or without descriptions because watching people draw and observing their techniques always helps

if you’re doing digital art, remember to blink,,,, i teared up so much the first month i started drawing digitally because i was staring at my screen like 😳 also give yourself time to adjust to the feel of drawing digitally!

and this may be the least helpful tip but most effective - keep practicing. ask for critiques when you’re in the right headspace for it (and let the person you want critique from know that you’re going to ask them for it! not everyone may feel comfortable giving constructive criticism!)

i hope these were helpful tips,,, if anyone wants anything more specific, i’ll try my best to help you! i’m not very good at articulating my thoughts these days so it’d be lovely if you were a little patient with me too 💜

i also have an instagram highlight called art tips (it’s a little more specific like about the brushes i use and the way i get commissions) so you can check that out if you’d like! i’m kidovna on there too :)