#a light exists in spring

[araived]

A scene that should go down in the history books. I reread a light exists in spring recently and I love it so much. Haruno Saku is absolutely everything to me.

@katlou303 thank you so much for writing and hope you don’t mind the little sketchy comic! I was inspired. Their chaos fuels me.

[adventuresofalgy]

It was a dull, grey, damp, misty sort of mild kind of morning, and a great mass of cloud was hovering above the hills, tickling the tops of the ridges around Algy's home and threatening to descend at any moment… which was not at all what the weather birds had forecast, for they had promised Algy a nice, bright, clear day with plenty of sunshine for a change.

A little disappointed, but scarcely surprised, Algy fluttered over to a low bank covered in a dense carpet of dry leaves, where a clump of hart's tongue ferns grew in a shady corner of his assistants' garden. The fronds seemed somewhat the worse for the winter, but they remained evergreen, and as Algy looked around he could see that other new green shoots and leaves were beginning to emerge with apparent enthusiasm here, there and everywhere.

Admiring the fortitude of the ferns, Algy was suddenly surprised by a gleam of low sunlight which sneaked through the branches of the shrubs behind his back, and as patches of yellow light played around the leaves, a Great Tit in a nearby tree began to sing its repetitive spring "song". Evidently his wee fluffy cousins, as well as the plants, knew that although March was not only scarcely here, but still many weeks away, spring was going to be unusually early this year, and Algy recalled that:

A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period – When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay – A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.

[Algy is quoting the popular poem A Light exists in Spring by the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.]

[katlou303]

Update! Chapter 16 of a light exists in spring has just been posted!

[almanacofillustrations]

A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period -- When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay --

A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.

Emily Dickinson, "A Light Exists In Spring"

[risingape]

This is how I found out about the Boulevard du Temple photo and it's honestly so cool! The wild thing to me isn't even the man getting his boots polished, as noteworthy as he is, but that there were so many people on that street that we can't see in the photo because of the exposure time

Things my special interest makes me immune to: most "eerie" "haunted" "look at this terrifying creepy thing" social media shit that's just like a grainy black and white photo or some 1950s jazz. Recordings of old-timey music isn't going to make me anxious, it's going to make me listen to some nice music that was very popular in a certain decade just like the mid-2000s pop you and I have so much nostalgia about. You try to spook me by showing me the terrifying Boulevard du Temple photograph and I'll laugh in your face because I know the exact process by which the photo was taken and why the clarity was limited by the technology and I also have a trained empathy for humans who lived in times so long ago you think they're practically aliens, and to me the photo looks like a street corner in urban France featuring the first ever photobomber in history, a man getting his shoes polished on a day out. He's probably having a wonderful afternoon, I don't know. "Doesn't it creep you out that everyone in this photograph is dead now?" No. Most people who have ever lived are dead now. One day the person in all my selfies will be "dead now." Come to terms with it now or you'll kill yourself stressing about how to live forever.

Maybe YOU look at a photo of a party from the 1880s and see a sinister supernatural force trying to possess you through the screen. I see a moment in time in which these very real people were existing and having enough fun to want to take a selfie. And how cool that we get to hold onto that for them all these years later.

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

Heartstopper S3: opens with Tori lying on her bed, sweating in the summer sun, with a fan in front of her face

Me: WHY ARE YOU WEARING JEANS AND A JUMPER

[ozwuv]

I'm very intrigued by your use of light, how you conceptualise it, how you choose the mood, and how you adjust it to make it work in the way you want. I don't really know how to ask or what I am asking in specific haha But I love your use of light and it always calls my attention whenever you do something with it, it's usually very interesting and adds a lot to the move of the pieces, fixing them in a context beyond the piece itself that adds so much. I wonder how you come up with it, both conceptual and technical process.

Thank you so much!! I'm not too confident in coloring to be honest, my process changes every time I do it bc I'm still in a constantly experimental phase with it lol, means a lot to hear that!

To be totally honest I have a set palette I use when doing base colors and the rest is just layer modes and gradient maps. I also don't do much conceptualizing, I just kinda make it up as I do... sometimes I have a vague idea in mind, like wanting something to have really dull, solemn colors. Other times I like to just throw a bunch of clashing colors together on purpose for more chaotic drawings and it usually makes it more chaotic in a way I think is fun.

But yeah, to boil it down I set flats down with preset colors, throw on a monochrome multiply layer with just one or two colors I want to be the focus as a gradient. Sometimes another multiply layer with shading, but I've been too lazy to do most of that so I usually check out after hair and faces (which I generally start with)... and then I'll flatten everything, duplicate the layer and throw a gradient maps on (sometimes multiple) with varying layers of opacity. Sometimes I'll erase bits of these layers to give things kind of bursts of contrasting colors... examples if it helps

This is a super haphazard response but so is my coloring process, idk if this helps much... I am truly always throwing spaghetti at the wall and most of the time it sticks hahaha. I don't color that often bc it is usually what frustrates me when I'm drawing. I've said this before, but once I get frustrated with something I know that means I need to wrap it up, so I wind up with a lot of B&W sketches. Which is fine. :] (my recent stuff is a fluke, I do not color or detail stuff like this historically lol)

In short: if nobody got me I know gradient maps got me

ETA: OH ALSO blurring the hell out of stuff that is further in the distance or otherwise not the focus of the drawing is my cheap trick to create depth. most of the time i forget to do this but it makes me like things more lol

[moreliketwelvehundred]

you make a fool of death with your beauty <- no eyes that see such beauty would lose their sight . or whatever

oh my god......

[smaller-comfort]

Ask game! Feel free to pick the WIP

9) Did you get stuck at any point? How did you get past that? 21) Did the fic end up shorter or longer than you had planned? 26) Share your favorite detail

9. Hmm. I don't know that I get "stuck" on stories so much as I get distracted. Right now, for instance, I don't have any room in my brain for anything except Save Scumming, so all my other wips are on hold. But Save Scumming itself sat untouched in the back of my gdocs for over a month because I was writing necron stuff instead. So, I guess that's how I usually unstick myself; I work on something else for a while, and when I go back to it later, I've forgotten whatever it was that frustrated me.

Otherwise, I spend most of my Saturday mornings doing mindless retail work, so I make a lot of progress on stories in my head when I'm stocking shelves. Lot of stories have gotten started and finished in the yarn department. Or beads. (Fuck seasonal, though, I hate putting out seasonal shit.)

21- I don't generally plan anything, so I don't really know how long something is going to be until I finish it. That said, everything is longer than I think it will be. This keeps happening, even when I try to temper my expectations. (It's all relative, really. Save Scumming will clock in at around 12k, making it the longest thing I've ever written and completed. The Obyron/Zahndrekh thing is currently around 9k and it might theoretically only be half done, depending on how overboard I go with certain scenes.)

26. I'm very fond of the interlude about the soldier's chant in the Obyron/Zahndrekh thing, which I've posted in a previous wip wednesday bit. And I'm extremely pleased with a lot things in The Usual Sort of Idiocy about Drazak and the Flayed Ones.

Like this line, which is getting cut because it doesn't actually belong anywhere:

The necrontyr had built their entire society around death, and burned themselves too quickly and too brightly to understand grief. Grief was a necron problem, now, and what was grief but another kind of hunger? A sorrow that devoured, and could never be sated.

On the SoS side of things...I think the idea behind Glass Harp is very clever, and every time B'st flirts with Resh'an he goes through at least three of the five stages of grief before responding with a 404 not found error. This is extremely fun for me. Love putting that guy in Situations.

[angrybatgaming]

I'M BACK, BABY!!! And lookie who came to visit! Our first Performance traveling spirit, Frantic Stagehand! He'll teleport you to that area locked behind the 6 (or was it 8?) player elevator/door! You can also talk to the Assembly Guide, since they're hosting the Spring Camping event, but they don't offer to shake hands with you.

After some work, I have a new outfit put together! I saw some interesting combos put together by other players, but I like how well the Star Collector's cape looks with the hood and pants/tunic. Trying to decide if I want the mask as well. Kinda prefer the Journey mask best.

The dragon cape/scarf also looks nice!

Ending on a funny note, Alchemist broke Commodore while I was checking to see how much his cape would cost. I DO have a clip, but Tumblr ate it when I tried to save it as a draft. I'll post it as soon as it reappears.

Still have other stuff to post, but that's all for now.

Judging you.

[katlou303]

Update! Chapter eighteen of a light exists in spring is now up!

[ouroboobos]

i truly believe tiktok is haunted by the devil. occasionally ill go on there for a specific video and be like haha i forgot some of these people are funny!!! and then within literally 5 minutes of scrolling im like maybe i need plastic surgery

[ncityzen]

I miss the summer so much istg I can't live like this anymoreeeeee

[shibbledibble22]

I havent posted anything in a while so here's a simple portrait of a character I've been meaning to draw for ages

Her name is Aurelia

[ryusjwks]

yapping abt nonmc

Non-MC reader fanfics are always written by authors who know exactly how to hurt a person. The pain is so intense and so well-crafted that, dear God, sometimes I find myself rereading the same paragraph over and over again. And after a while, I start to see myself as that woman—waiting to be loved but never receiving it in return.

Imagine loving someone. Looking at them with the most fragile, the most human part of your heart. When you hear their voice, everything inside you comes to a halt, and your entire existence shifts toward them. But they… they don’t even notice you. Or if they do, their recognition is not with the powerful grasp of love, but with the light touch of mere acknowledgment.

To you, they are a star, the very center of the universe. But to them, you are just another speck of light in the sky. If you were to disappear, they wouldn’t feel your absence. You turn back, realizing your hands are empty, crushed under the weight of your love. And they? They continue revolving around another world, another sun.

You are a meteor, trying to rise and shine, but unable to enter their orbit—shattered by the gravity of a planet that was never meant to hold you. You dissolve into dust, fading into silence. And they move on, as if nothing ever happened.

This plays out differently for each character, but the ending remains the same.

In Zayne’s case, you are either his fiancée or his wife. He is always cold and distant. His words are measured, his presence heavy yet quiet. Even if storms rage behind his eyes, his face remains unreadable. He has always been this way, and you have accepted it.

But then, he smiles—at her.

That smile is like spring breaking through the ice, subtle, warm, and gentle. As if, for just a moment, the layers of frost within him have melted. And in that moment, you realize he was never truly like this—not for everyone. He is not just a distant man; he is only distant toward you.

And that’s when it sinks in. A weight settles inside you, stealing your breath for just a second. Because you have seen it now—he can be affectionate, he can be warm, he can smile. But that smile was never meant for you.

You are likely Sylus’s assistant, though in rare cases, you might be his wife. Sylus has always been indifferent—to everyone. To you. You walked in his shadow on the battlefield, threw yourself in front of bullets for him, but to him, it was merely necessity. A duty. Your presence was nothing more than part of the mission. Until she came along.

With her arrival, Sylus changed. His face softened when he looked at her, the sharpness in his voice faded. He made sacrifices for her, and when he spoke to her, the rigidness in his posture eased. Sylus was no longer the man you knew. Everyone questioned if he was still the same person, but you already knew the truth.

He hadn’t changed. He had simply never been yours.

With Xavier and Rafael, the pattern is almost identical. You are nothing more than a companion who has traveled through centuries with them, defying time itself.

As time weaves its path, they always take the lead—making decisions, guiding, fighting. And you? You are merely a shadow beside them. A witness. While they sacrificed their homelands for love, you were the one who heard the cries of the people they left behind. On one side was their passionate devotion, and on the other, your quiet grief.

For them, time had stopped. But for you, the world kept turning, though it no longer resembled the place you once knew.

And then there’s Caleb.

Caleb was always by MC’s side. He was her protector, her shield, her most trusted person. And you were there too. You grew up in the same house, sat at the same dinner table, shared the same stories. But his eyes always sought only MC.

Through the years, you watched how he looked at her. How he stepped forward at the slightest sign of danger, how every word he spoke to her carried an unshakable certainty. You bore witness to his protection, his sacrifices, his unwavering love—but never once was any of it directed at you.

You were there too. You lived those same moments. But you were never the center of his world.

Some see her as a mistress, a backup, an extra wedged between the main character and the LI. As if she were a mere footnote in someone else’s story, placed there by mistake. But she’s not.

She is not just someone trying to insert herself where she doesn’t belong. She was there from the very beginning. She walked the same path, fought the same battles, gazed at the same sky. She was never a stranger lingering on the edges of the story—she was a part of it.

The difference is that her name was never written into the main plot. Her words never echoed, her presence was never at the center. And yet, she was never just a replacement. Because love isn’t a competition, it isn’t a role to be filled, it isn’t about winners and losers.

She simply loved. With everything she had, without expecting anything in return. Her eyes were always on him, but his eyes were never on her.

[kitchensinksurrealism]

having a sibling of a similar age is so weird bc you'll have this vague dreamlike nostalgia for something you're not sure actually existed, and then there's just someone else with the exact same memory