#also I had to fuck around with brightness/saturation of this picture

[spookystarfishzombie]

[splickedylit]

The lighting on your most recent gamkar piece. It's like. So soft? So sublime but still so noticeable? I really like the way the lines kind of mesh with it, or like. Idk if im wording things right, but at least don't interfere?

That's so sweet! I mostly do shading by The Vibes, but I'll try to break down what I did with the lighting/coloring/shading in [that one], and hopefully it's helpful as a tutorial because it's also going to show my whole ass about how messy my shading layers are lol

I get all my flats down and set my lines to overlay--that's probably what you're seeing RE: "the way the lines mesh with it", if I had to guess! It isn't very noticeable here except in places like Karkat's pupils or the lines on the horns/claws, but later as lighting layers are added it'll give a softer edge to places that are being hit by light. I'm a huge sucker for backlighting and rimlighting so I went ahead and threw some vague, blurry lightsources into the background, to be glowed up later in the process.

2. first multiply layer, for the hardest/darkest shadows--real color on the left, set to "multiply" on the right for comparison. This is for places most hidden from the light source, like under the nose, eyebrows and jaw, or where two things are pressed together (ie the intersection of their hands). Sometimes for pictures where the light is warm-colored I'll choose a cooler cast for the shadows, a desaturated purple or blue, but I wanted the whole piece to be kind of a soft, dreamy red-through-gold, so I kept the tones of the shadows warm.

3. second multiply layer, softer-edged, to darken up broad areas of the characters that are turned away/hidden from the light. Worth noting; the layers in steps 2, 3, and 4 are all "clipped" to the layer with the flat colors on it, which just means I pressed the button that tells Paint Tool Sai "no matter how much I scribble around, only show it if it's on top of [flat color layer]"

4. overlay layer, for the places the light is falling on people (and a few places maybe it shouldn't, technically, but what can I say I shade by the vibes). The lights in the background are gold, so I kept the saturation pretty high on this one, to give everything a goldish look.

5. Two final layers--on the left we have a hard light layer in pale gold, outlining the edges most sharply hit by light. I paint this on there full opacity so it's easy to see what I'm doing, but it looks overwhelming if it's too bright, so it's about 50% opacity in this one.

6. On the right; I duplicate the layer I made in step 5 and use the "gaussian blur" function to make it blurred and soft, then adjust the brightness and fuck around between different layer types (I tend to end up with "add", "hard light", or "linear dodge") until it looks as glowy as I want it to. In this case, it's a linear dodge layer at 75%. In an effort to cut down on how many layers I use, you can see I also took the opportunity while I was linear-dodging to add some extra glow to the lamps behind them, to sell them as actual light sources a little better.

7. profit????? Honorary mention to Karkat's blood, which is its own layer, and the shine on things like eyes, blood, and jewelry. Final tally (layers named for clarity because I'm a slob and never name my layers):

[thesixthplaneteer]

OC-tober day 2 - New OC

My newest character I'd call an OC is Ralph, the love interest and coterie-mate to my wife's character Khloe in the VTM game I'm STing for, The Poisoned Peach. Ralph is a spiced up self insert and has been a blast to play.

A factoid about him is his full name is Randolph Gaylord King IV. He's a thin blood but has the clan curse of his Nosferatu sire. My goal when playing him is to be the coolest and dorkiest guy in the room. I wanted to write something focused on just the boy but also wouldn't be any spoilers for my wife, so here is his embrace! I hope you enjoy!

The warm summer night air blew hard, causing him to stumble as he drunkenly tried to navigate a city he’d never been to before. Ralph took a deep breath and tried to focus on his phone which had directions to his hotel on it, but his head was swimming and his vision blurred. “Fuckin’ Marta ass,” He half slurred and grumbled out loud. “Last train at midnight ass.” He switched to his Instagram to check how posts from earlier in the night were doing. 

There were several posts of him posing with other Instagram celebrities, nearly all he could not remember the names of. The more popular people he’d posed with got his own posts better hits, as he thought they would. Annoyingly, the pic he took of someone taking his prosthetic foot wasn’t doing well. It was an embarrassing situation he’d hoped to monetize but obviously it wasn’t as interesting as the barely concealed female presenting nipples in his other pictures. 

He soon looked up and realized he had no idea where he was. “Fuuuuuuck.” He let out in frustration as he quickly looked back to his phone, pulling up the directions again... just to see that he’d overshot his hotel by over a mile somehow. “Fuck two electric boogaloo. Fuck it, I’ll Uber-loo.” Grumbling in resignation, he tried to find the app.

He opened his eyes after what felt like a long blink. His head throbbed and it felt like there was a knife twisting in his stomach. He choked on the smell of shit and piss that saturated the air. He blinked to clear his vision but the room was dark. His blood ran cold as the years of military training started to kick in. He kept silent and slowly felt around to get an idea of where he might be. His prosthetic was gone, there was a slimy substance on most surfaces, he could hear rats squeak and scurry. He prayed he was wrong, but he put the clues together and figured he was in the sewer. 

Pulling himself up against the wall, he gripped at his stomach as the twisting pain persisted. Like an insane hunger he’d never experienced before. “The fuck!?” He mumbled as he felt a sharp stab suddenly in his belly, the source directly from his own fingers. He rubbed at their tips, and felt that his nails had become extended and pointed. “What the fuck!?” His heart started to pound in his chest, and he struggled to hold back panic. 

He didn’t have much more time to his own thoughts, as suddenly a light flashed on. It wasn’t a particularly bright bulb, but in the pitch black of the room, it may as well have been the sun. He blinked rapidly to combat the trauma to his eyes and clear his vision. He couldn’t see anyone, but his fear of being in the sewer was confirmed. 

“Who’s there?” He choked out. There appeared to be no one, but someone had to have turned the light on.

“Oh poor Randolph. So scared when not surrounded by your bimbos and himbos.” A voice like grinding stones said from seemingly nowhere. 

Ralph spun and looked around. He saw no one, even the rats were silent now. 

“What did you do to me!?” Ralph yelled out, feeling a white hot anger rise within him. 

“I made you one of us! One of the normies. I ripped you down from your pristine pedestal and humbled you. Now you’ll know the same pain me and my brethren have felt all our lives!”

Ralph turned to now see a creature standing where there was nothing before. Dark, beady eyes peered out from beneath a hood. Its skin was mottled gray, its teeth crooked and jagged. Its wicked smile was so wide it seemed like his lips would split. It held a mirror in its hand and raised it above its own head to meet Ralph’s gaze. 

A cold numbness went through Ralph's body as he saw what he knew was him, but refused to believe it. His eyes were black and amber, his nose upturned and bat-like. His hair was just wisps of what was. His skin was splotchy. His nails were black and grown out like claws. 

The creature beyond his own reflection was smiling and speaking. Making grand hand gestures. But all Ralph could hear was the beating of his own heart in his ears. All he could feel was the desire to drain the creature dry. The thought of opening its throat and drinking from it like a fountain. Ralph’s eyes darted down to the floor as the creature spoke to him. He keyed in on a broken brick in the path between him and it. When the creature turned and its eyes were not on him, he made his move.

“You’re stricken, so stupid, you can’t even speak-” 

The final words he heard as his body lurched forward. He leapt and pushed off the ground with his hands like a feral beast. The creature’s eyes and his own met before the first blow was struck. All of that confidence was gone. Fear was on its face, soon followed by brick. The first strike was hard and threw the creature off balance, the mirror it held falling and breaking on the concrete. It sputtered out something but Ralph was quick to keep pressing the advantage, slamming the brick into its face again, bringing it to the ground. It was like hitting a sand bag. The contact was solid but it was obviously not doing the amount of damage he expected. Still, he was unrelenting. He was on top of the creature before it could get up. It tried to throw him off, and was almost successful, the scrawny frame of the creature hid its strength well. Whether through pure rage or muscle, Ralph stayed on top and beat the creature until the brick crumbled to dust. 

“Get him off me!” The creature cried out in panic. 

Ralph didn’t take the time to register the cry for help. He started to go in with fists where the brick failed. But his arm was stopped, an iron grip on his wrist catching him mid-swing. He tried to spin and punch the sudden second attacker, but they grabbed his other hand as well. This one was bigger and more monstrous than the other. A cleft lip revealed teeth befitting a cryptid rotting within its mouth. Its eyes were a bright red that almost shined. There was no nose on its face, not even nostrils. Its ears were elongated and several inches of lobe hung down from them. 

The fight left Ralph as he realized he wasn’t walking away from this. He went limp in the new creature’s grasp. Somehow, it was able to speak clearly through the cleft lips and monstrous teeth.

“The kid is a shit and what he did wasn’t right. But I can’t let you kill him. That’s for someone else to decide.” His voice was soothing and warm. “Name’s Jorge.” 

[allseeinganalyst]

Frozen II Novels - Review

It's been a while since I reviewed or analyzed anything here. This blog was made for that exact purpose, but I've posted one half-hearted review-ish thing about Mob Psycho and the Nanoha look-back is taking a while.

Part of that is due to being that I find myself in weird mental spaces more often than I'd like. The internet is a hell-hole, but it's also one that's borderline impossible (and certainly very impractical) to actually just sever ties to. I've ditched Twitter and I don't use TikTok (except to look at videos my partner sends me), but I still get, somehow, hit with a lot of LOUD, SHOUTY voices that seem to make it impossible to enjoy anything.

After about three-to-four midlife crises about things (i'm 30 this November), and a chat to my partner, I've managed to get the mental TARDIS that is my mind up and running again, ready to tour the fictional universe and enjoy what is has to offer, getting back into the things I love, without getting bogged down in the screeching of fandoms and social media.

Gods, that was a very long way of trying to say "I read a cool Frozen book."

Frozen 2 - Forest of Shadows and Frozen: Polar Nights - Cast into Darkness are two original novels set in the world of Frozen (Duh.) Forest of Shadows was released in 2019 and I actually read it back then, while Polar Nights was released in 2022, and I picked it up from Target and read it in march of 2023.

To get this out of the way, while it does sometimes throw people off, I am actually a big fan of Frozen. I've loved it since the first movie. It's not my favourite Disney film (that would be Tangled, and whoo-BOY, will we get to Tangled related media at some point on this blog!), it's probably a close second. I love the animation, I love the songs, I love the characters and I love the world. I was even sad when the hype for Frozen died down, and no, I don't think Enchanto is better - That's another LOUD SCREECHY OPINION that I'm not sad to hear less of.

These are obviously not the only Frozen novels out there. I do own "A Frozen Heart", which I've really got to get around to, because apparently it contains some Hans backstory, and Hans is a character I'm really interested in learning more about, and obviously there is a slew of additional Frozen media. Frozen-Mania gripped the world in a chokehold not seen since the god-damn Shrek movies, and it had an effect on our media and culture so great that no doubt, someday there will be an essay on youtube by Super Eyepatch Wolf explaining and analyzing the overwhelming impact of a Disney movie from 2013 and the INSANE fandom that sprung out of it - which I was a part of from very early on, and quite honestly you can use it as a self-contained example of how fandom has changed since then... BUT I'M DIGRESSING.

The point I was trying to make here is that, most of the media released post the original Frozen movie is fairly generic. Baring one or two things, and of course, the animated shorts, a lot of it is standard kids stuff - Storybooks, Quick Reads, Junior novels, picture books, etc. Some of it is really fun, and the art was almost always either a wonderful, bright cartoonish 2D style, or a painterly, soft style that's really pretty to look out - But not a lot of is espeically unique. It's got a "Frozen Flavour" to it, but it's all very standard. If you changed one or two things, you could swap out Elsa and Anna for Rapunzel, or Ariel, or any other number of Disney Princess characters and the stories would be more-or-less the same. Stuff that mum and dad can give to their kids to let them have their Frozen fix without having to endure "Let it Go" one more time. (Side note: If you do happen to be one of those people who're bitching about how over saturated that song is - Fuck you, I'm going to play it again on purpose.)

The point I'm getting around to is that these books, cheep target paperbacks they may be, are not that. There's a distinct world and continuity here, and it's even possible to place a timeline.

These books (I believe there may be a third between them for a reason I'll get too shortly) have recurring characters, direct continuity and callbacks. All of them expand on the world of Frozen, moving away from the generic Disney-Princess storytelling of kingdom mishaps and "oh-no! character X is lost/upset/lost a precious item/wants to do something special/has a special occasion/etc" and into a deliberately constructed world, with a soft but distinct influence from Nordic and Sandenavian folklore.

They are not perfect, but they are worth talking about. Spoilers abound below, for those of you who are interested!

I'm not going to summarize the plots. I want to talk what I find interesting, annoying, curious, fun or frustrating about these books. These reviews are intended as a form of looking after my own mental health anyway. If you're interested, I've given names and pictures of the covers. Go look them up. Or better yet, read the books yourselves and tell me what you think!

The coolest (pun 400% intended) part about these books is they are clearly on a timeline. They're designed to slot very nicely into Frozen canon, and do so very tightly I might add. The timeline that we can establish is:

Frozen > 3 YEARS > Forest of Shadows > Frozen 2 > Polar Nights.

Forest of Shadows leads directly into the events of Frozen 2, even referencing the scene where Elsa wakes up the spirits at the end, while Polar Nights is explicitly stated to be a matter of 2-3 months since Anna took the throne.

During that 3 YEARS period there, you can obviously slot in Frozen Fever, Olaf's christmas special and probably one or two of the storybook stuff released post Frozen. If the (hilarious) "Olaf Reenacts Disney Movies" shorts are in ANY way canon (and... They MIGHT be to some degree, I'll get to this later...) they almost definitely slot in between Frozen 2 and Polar Nights. Again, I'll get to why later.

I believe I am missing a novel or story somewhere that fits into the same timeline as Polar Nights references an event that's a bit too specific to not have been depicted in some form of media, but I can only work with what I find locally. Although I am in no uncertain terms a fan, I only have so many resources and time to put toward things, and Frozen isn't at the top of that list. If a novel appears on a store shelf, I'll buy it. If it doesn't, I go without.

While my thoughts are mostly focused on Polar Nights, because I read Forest of Shadows over 3 years ago. I'm talking about both novels for the most part.

They are decent in size. Small enough for kids to read with no trouble, but more than a short story. Both tell full length, original stories.

These books paint a slightly wider view of Arendelle and it's surroundings than what we see from the movies. Neighboring kingdoms are mentioned by name (including Corona - Rapunzel's kingdom from Tangled. - Again, I'm going to get back to this later), and there are several named, recurring characters like Tuva and Ada, lesbian blacksmith wives (explicitly mentioned as being married) or Sorensson, the Astronomer who lives far outside of Arendelle and is introduced in Forest of Shadows, then plays a small but significant role in Polar Nights. There's recurring references to Aren of Arendelle, the founder of Elsa and Anna's kingdom, and a secret room or passage discovered in one book is referenced and used again in the next. It's really consistent and it makes it feel rewarding to read these novels. I very much doubt that any future Frozen visual media will reference their events, but if the stories themselves can keep a continuity across writers, then that's good enough for me to feel like I'm really in a bona-fide expanded universe.

There's some stuff in these books that I have personally wanted to see since the first movie. Things like finding out how Anna never recovered the original memories the trolls took from her, or finding out what Elsa spends a lot of her time doing in Ahtohallan...

(conjuring ice memories, apparently. Yeah, seems like while she's not going to "drowning depth" again, she is using her magical ice powers to pull up home-movies of her parents... Gotta wonder if she didn't accidentally pull up one of their date nights and then shattered the whole thing into ice shards in a panic once her dad put on the Barry White music.)

The books ALSO give me something that I have held in my head since the very first movie - Anna cracking jokes about her past and her mistakes.

I've always loved the idea that Anna doesn't seem the type to get all "Shell-Shocked PTSD Veteran" over her traumatic memories. That's Elsa's job, so I've always imagined she makes a lot of jokes and lighthearted fun out of it. Like, she seems the type to go: "OH HEY! That's a great statue of me! And I'd know! I've been a statue! Made of ice! Wanna see me do the pose?"

And while we don't get that exactly, we do get her ribbing Elsa about having Marshmallow throw her out of her ice castle, grumbling about how "Hans isn't actually THAT good looking", and generally having a sense of "oh no, I remember what happened LAST TIME..." about her. It's not as explicit as I'd like, but it's there and it helps with that feeling of the world being alive and moving. These characters do remember what happened yesterday. They are actively learning their lessons and trying to avoid the mistakes of their past.

The stories are compelling enough. While not groundbreaking, edge-of-your seat page turners, they both offer an adventure that's very much on brand for Frozen, effectively utilizing the characters and the world. This isn't a story where you could change a few names and slap Aurora or Belle or Ariel in instead. These stories feel tailored to Elsa and Anna. Unfortunately, there's a bit of an issue that I assume arises from being an author hired to write your own original entry into a carefully curated, multi-million dollar franchise, owned by the real world's full on Mega-Corp.

See, while I love the connected, constructed world these novels build around the movies - They do in-fact, happen to be being built around the Frozen media franchise, and Disney have been notoriously strict with this before.

If you were a part of the early Frozen fandom (again, I was), you might remember the sheer excitement around when it was announced that Elsa and Anna, as well as Arendelle and a number of other movie characters would be coming to Once Upon a Time, flinging the universe of Frozen into unexpected live action.

I'm not going to get into my thoughts around OUAT, because... YEAH I'm trying to be focused and that is worth a WHOLE other blog post - which I don't have any REAL desire to write out unless someone BEGGED me to do it, but long story short, given that the show explicitly is alternate continuity for ALL Disney's franchises, it had a lot of leeway in what it could do with it's regular cast... But not the Frozen characters. Although the writers did get to play around creating new backstory and lore, and chopping and changing a bit, there was a strictness to what they could and couldn't do with the characters. They couldn't give Elsa a love interest. They couldn't dramatically change anything from the movie. Characters had firmly fixed personalities that were absolutely not allowed the usual "flex" of OUAT - No extra edginess snuck in, nothing out of character.

(They did have incredible costumes though. Way better than any other live action projects that I've seen).

My point in all of this is, that was explicitly in an alternate universe. OUAT had NEVER had any bearing on any of the franchises it pulled it's roster from, and was marketed to a whole different audience.

These books are NOT. They are marketed toward the same audience as the movies, and are intended to fit alongside it. And it is painfully obvious that Disney holds a tight leash when it comes to ways for writers to interpret their billion-dollar characters. Obviously this is pure speculation, but I would imagine the writers for these novels were given dedicated character bios of characters like Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and not allowed to deviate or even go into much depth beyond what was listed in those bios.

I say this for a couple of reasons - The most notable of which is the dialogue, and to a lesser extent the character actions. Characters have an unfortunate tendency to sprout stiff, unnatural dialogue, based on certain things that were mentioned in the moves.

Nowhere is this more egregious than with Anna and chocolate. The movies mention her having it as her favorite treat, and she has like two memorable moments involving it in the first movie, but the books treat it like it is NEVER off her mind. If the books mention Anna wanting to do ANYTHING, most of the time, it involves chocolate in some way. She brings it with her on expeditions. She can't wait to get back to the castle and eat some. She has a "choco-versary" with Kristoff, the anniversary of the first time they ate chocolate together. It comes off as a weird obsession, instead of the favorite food it was in the movies. Similarly, she's mentioned as having "Sandwiches" as her favorite meal a few times. Not only is this FRUSTRATINGLY non-specific, it also seems PURELY based on her one line in "Love is an Open Door" and it's callback during her conversation with Kristoff in the first movie... Although to be fair, this did also get a call back in Frozen Fever where we see her be enthusiastic about one, so... whatever.

It gets stiff with dialogue between characters too. Almost every conversation with Elsa and Anna seems to drift towards "we were seperated, but now we are together again, and I love you and am so proud of you!". They'll discuss the plot, and they do have some genuinely great moments (like Elsa talking about the trolls and Anna pointing out, somewhat sadly, that "no, sis, I can't remember, they took my memories as a child...") but a lot of it is re-hashing their end-of-movie "sisterly bond" stuff. It's a real shame especially in Polar Nights, because that is set AFTER Frozen 2. We could have had scenes of Anna asking Elsa for help ruling as Queen, or Elsa observing how Anna does things differently from her, but we learn nothing more about how these two interact than what we already knew.

The other problem that I assume crops up from Disney's strict oversight is that it's obvious the writers are not allowed to affect the world too much. They can play with the figures in it, but can't change the landscape dramatically. This is understandable, as it's unlikely the Mega-Mouse wants some kids novel throwing out a detail that might force them to change how they write the next movie. They're not going to kill off Kristoff, or suddenly give us a Hans redemption arc - As interesting as that would be, the writers need the all clear from Disney, and Disney won't want some hired novelist to make a major change to their giant money making machine which is no doubt shaped like Elsa's head.

This means that, although the stakes do feel real for the books themselves, there's a sense that nothing that happens within really affects the world that much. Characters don't learn a vital lesson or change in any significant way, and those that do are new characters, constructed for the book, who can easily be ignored by the wider narrative - Polar Nights has a whole segment with a pair of sisters, obviously designed to parallel Elsa and Anna, who's past and backstory, and the mysteries and mistruths thereof, form more-or-less the basis for the entire plot, but our ACTUAL sisters can't have a chat more complex that "boy I'm glad we're not separated anymore, also we're proud of each other!"

The result is - and this is kind of what I've been driving toward this entire time - these books give me a VERY distinct feeling, and it took me a while to identify what it was. I didn't catch it when I read "Forest of Shadows", but it WAS there, and Polar Nights has it there in full force.

These novels feel like FILLER.

Traditional, ACTUAL, filler.

SIGH - Quick sidetrack.

The term "Filler" is thrown around a lot these days, often by people that I don't think realized the term originally had a more specific meaning - At least from what my experience is.

"Filler" was primarily a term used by the anime community, referring to episodes of a show that were not adapted from the original manga. This practice was done as most anime, especially Shounen anime like those pictured above, ran almost continuously, and when your airing an episode a week which is sometimes able to adapt multiple chapters from the manga, you're going to close the gap pretty quickly.

This meant that things would be done in the episodes to stretch them out. Anything from lengthening fight scenes, to additional dialogue, all the way up to - perhaps most famously - whole new arcs created purely for the anime. These arcs had to tell their own stories that were entertaining, but obviously couldn't massively shake up the status quo, as they had no idea what would be coming next for these characters and this story. They relied on events distanced, often entirely unrelated to the plot at large (in-fact, rather infamously, Bleach once went to a year long filler arc in MID-SWORD-FIGHT BETWEEN CHARACTERS). Often they would invent new characters, new powers, and often draw on events of the past, or spotlight background characters to create an unobtrusive narrative.

These arcs can, and have, been good. There's nothing inherently wrong with filler, but as TV Tropes says: "These arcs can, and have, been good. There's nothing inherently wrong with filler, but as TV Tropes says: "At their most extreme, absolutely nothing that happens in a filler episode will affect things going forward, even if it seems like a character developed or grew in some manner."

Filler's definition has expanded a lot, and was never really as fixed as I tended to take it, though I still see it used incorrectly. If an episode of a show had the characters sitting around talking, with the plot not advancing at all, but we still learn things about the characters that matter, and have an impact or call back later, or their relationships change in SOME way, then it's NOT filler. In the words of my Media Teacher: "Just because it didn't feature a car chase and a shoot out, doesn't mean it doesn't matter." - Filler doesn't matter. Slow paced slice of life episodes can matter a LOT.

As a side note, to this side note, Filler in it's most traditional sense is dying out, and has been largely, though not entirely, gone from anime by the mid 2010's. Anime have switched over to the "cour" style of episode production, with a season consisting of usually around 12-or-24 episodes (a little leeway in either direction is common, like having 26 or 10 episodes), which focus on tightly adapting one arc or novel or portion of the story. They then take a break, and return with the next season whenever, picking up where they left off. This is why you don't really see stuff running for 200+ episodes in a row anymore, and why something like, say, Attack on Titan has five seasons. This has allowed for MUCH reduction of filler, and virtually eliminated the need for the filler arc. They do still pop up, but notice how today's "big shots" like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer have multiple seasons instead of just running for a billion episodes like shows such as One Piece, or Naruto.

Though speaking of that, apparently some new shows are determined to carry on the traditions laid by their parents... *side-eyes Boruto*

AHEM. I really need to drop this topic and get back on track. QUICK, what's an appropriate Frozen-related GIF to use to move on?

I fuckin' told you I was gonna play it again.

ANYWAY, so my point is that - despite feeling like we've really entered a living, breathing world, with its own history and people, it feels like we're never allowed to see that world DO anything.

This wasn't too bad in Forest of Shadows, because even though it couldn't do anything massive, it could create the illusion of movement, by transitioning characters from their Frozen selves to their Frozen 2 selves, laying down hints of what would be fully realized in that move, but it is REALLY on display in Polar Nights - The set up involves exploring Anna's first major kingdom event as Queen, and yet, we really don't get any meaningful detail about that. We don't get a sense of how it feels for her to suddenly wield all this power and responsibility when, not just a few months ago, she was more or less the spare princess that could spend her days having picnics with snowmen. I mean sure, there's mention that she's nervous, but it really doesn't go into much detail. She's just "Queen Anna", the same way we saw her at the end of Frozen 2.

(Elsa's also still referred to as Queen - sometimes she gets directly called "The Snow Queen" - but this is a detail I like. It's not like the people forgot or disavowed her as their monarch. The two are called "The Queens of Arendelle" at one point. It's an interesting touch.)

The events of Polar Nights involve a lot of things happening (including major characters losing their memories of each other), but it all amounts to a problem that's easily resolved with Sisterly Love, and by the end of the book, everything's normal. I know these books are not going to affect the movies, but one of the cool things, as I mentioned, was that they did have continuity between each other. Sorensson was introduced as a man of science in Forest of Shadows, and then in Polar Nights, Anna and Elsa go to him for help with something they want a scientific explanation for. While some of these characters might pop up again to be mentioned in the next novel, it's hard to believe it'll focus on Anna dealing with the fact that... Say Dragurs are real, and exist out there, and that things like grudges and nasty legends and rumors can bring unwelcome power.

Some of the dialogue and phrasing is just plain awkward too. A lot of the time, when Anna spoke to Kristoff, it felt very bland, and forced-romantic, rather than their natural, more banter and warm interactions in the movies. We don't even get a call-back to "I prefer you in leather ;)" - Although that may have been pushing the biscuit. If they went any further with how Anna feels about that, the LOUD SCREACHERS might lose the ability to pretend she was being 100% wholesome and child-friendly with that line...

There's another line where Elsa's narration indicates she wants Anna and Kristoff to have kids so she can be "the cool aunt, literally" - A line that exists purely for that one lazy joke, since no other mention of them having children exists that I can remember.

(Though I am borderline certain that Frozen 3 will focus on their child, but again, that's getting distracted)

Polar Nights also avoids any direct appearances of Northuldra. No Honeymaron or Rider or anything - The only other significant characters that appear from Frozen 2 are Mattias (who fills a bit of a generic "general/captain of the guard" role, but that's his job so it's fine), as well as Gale and Burnie and the Water Nokk, who do have roles to play, but relatively minor ones. They are mentioned, but even when we see the Enchanted Forest, it's purely featuring the cast from Frozen, plus the wind and the new plush mascot lizard. Again, it's a shame because beyond: "Elsa loves the fact that she is living free" and "Elsa spends time pulling up home movies made of snow", we get nothing about how the former Queen is living as a spirit. Okay, I don't expect the book to explain about how Elsa hates needing to pee in a bush now or something absurd like that, but when you go from living in a castle to living in tents and caves, you've got to feel more than just "free" right? We don't even see how she interacts with the Northuldra. How do these people, who revered the spirits, interact with one who can speak to them in their language? Who can sit and chill out with them? Who can pop round for dinner? We get none of that, and it's sad, because it would have been nice.

Polar Nights features a mystery story between two sisters, one of whom is said to have outright murdered the other, several fights between Elsa and a Nordic zombie wraith that mimics her powers at one point, a Pirate Queen and her fleet sitting menacingly at Arendelle's borders, at one point escalating to firing on royal ships during a massive storm in an eternal night, Anna and Elsa traveling to a whole different neighboring kingdom, and Anna's fiance explicitly losing his memory of her, and anything they ever did together...

... and somehow it comes off as less compelling and impactful than Frozen 2, where - and I don't want to downplay or insult Frozen 2 because I think it's amazing and obviously it's themes run far deeper BUT - the main antagonist force boils down to "Dam that a bastard-man built one time".

(On that, Polar Nights is intent on reminding everyone that King Runeard was a Bad Man™ and every single character essentially goes "BOO! HISS!" whenever his name comes up. And yeah, the dude was an absolute bastard, and he only gets revealed to be worse in Polar Nights but you would think Anna and Elsa would have more complex feelings than "hate that guy" to their granddad who they believed was a bit of a legend up until the events of the second movie. Still, maybe they genuinely don't and at any rate, unpacking those feelings might be a bit more complicated than a novel intended mostly for kids is willing to get into.)

There's more that could be said, but I worry I've been sticking to the negative for too long. Yes, these novels do feel like anime filler. Lots of stuff happens, but it doesn't really impact anyone. There's new characters introduced and side characters discussed and all sorts of things that really don't mean that much to the world in the long run, and no doubt will be forgotten by the time Frozen 3 rolls around BUT...

BUT

The books are an enjoyable read. They let me return to the world of Frozen and explore a bit more of the land these characters live in. Yes, I wish the book featured a conversation between Anna and Elsa that didn't just feature them rehashing what they've learned in the movies, but it is STILL good to see them together again. It's heartwarming to know that Elsa still stays in the castle, that Anna let her keep their parents bedroom, that the people of her former kingdom still call her "Queen".

It's great to see side characters mentioned, and not just appear once. It's great that these books are allowed to look outside of the generic fairy-tale fare and bring up things like Dragurs and Huldrefólk and, while I do think the Sisterly Love being the solution to Polar Night's problem isn't the best ending, it does FIT with the themes for the franchise and it isn't a re-hash of Anna and Elsa, instead holding up a mirror to them and showing them what they could have been had their lives been but a tiny bit different.

They're good books, and I would rate them:

A solid B

Was originally a B-, but upon writing this out, I re-evaluated and I wanted to stress that I actually really do like them, and I hope they make more. I really want Frozen to be that thing that winds up having 20 different novel series, six comic books, two original TV series and a line of successful movies. It'd make me happy.

That is just about all I have to say on this topic except for:

OKAY SO YOU KNOW HOW I HAVE BROUGHT UP TANGLED A COUPLE OF TIMES AND I'VE BEEN SAYING I'LL GET BACK TO HOW I THINK IT INTERACTS:

Well - We all know Frozen featured Rapunzel and Eugene visting Arendelle and, ignoring some of the crazy and common fan theories (they're cousins I swear it still works if you squint), that suggests that there is a shared universe and I believe these books CONFIRM that when taken in conjunction with other evidence...

Consider that, Corona is directly mentioned in Forest of Shadows, and that would seem to confirm it, but I've still seen that, and the Tangled character's cameos waved off as cheeky Easter Eggs, BUT... REMEMBER THOSE FUCKIN' OLAF SHORTS? The ones where he re-enacts disney movies?

YEAH WELL, in the Tangled one, he has a bit of extra dialogue where he goes something like "this one is for one of my favorite people in the world, Rapunzel" or SOMETHING LIKE THAT THAT SUGGESTS HE'S MET RAPUNZEL PERSONALLY, and...

AAAAAND...

Polar Nights reveals that he and the others HAVE stayed in the Enchanted Forrest before, which gives him a timeframe where he could plausibly tell these stories in universe, AND AND AND AAAAANNNNND:

He also has a short where he re-enacts "The Little Mermaid" which IS CHEEKILY IMPLIED TO BE A BOOK THAT ANNA LOVES in Polar Nights, so Olaf has a REASON to know that story, AS A STORY--

AND BASICALLY THIS CONFIRMS THAT FROZEN AND TANGLED ARE SET IN THE SAME UNIVERSE AND THE FRANCHISE IS GOING TO CONCLUDE WITH AN ULTIMATE CROSSOVER THAT puts Avengers to shame and I SWEAR THAT IT'LL BE SO AWESOME AND--

The Analyst has been dragged off into the night by sensible people. Please ignore his ramblings.

[chainsaw-dick]

Hullo! Don’t know if this has been asked/answered before, but if it isn’t a bother how did you get started drawing transformers characters (assuming you remember ofc)? I’ve got a couple that I really want to be able to draw more often but there’s something about mechs that my hands just do not like. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

First off, I'm so sorry about how much time this took to answer. I had some issues figuring out how to go about explaining everything, but hopefully, this helps at least a bit.

I hyperfixated on Optimus Prime when I was like... 8?? I was really young, and that hyperfixation is still with me, so my brain sort of forced me to draw him and burned the process into my memory.

I, of course, started out by just copying other people's art. Very badly, might I add. It looked all fucked up and flat and the shading was off, if there even was any. But it was a start, and that's the important part.

You're gonna improve overtime, you'll figure things out and get to a point where the shapes you draw the most often, no matter how complicated, come naturally to you without much thought. If you draw something enough times, you'll understand how everything is spaced out, how the angles work, they way shadows and perspective mess with it, and you'll be able to draw it without any guidelines. But that's besides the point.

The key thing to remember about anything is that, when you really think about it, it's not much more than a bunch of boxes and spheres. Everything can be broken down into basic shapes, which is especially true for mecha, because they tend to be made up of blocky, symmetrical shapes. Yes, even Bayverse designs.

I'm gonna show you my process through this step-by-step. The way I draw differs greatly depending on whether I'm including line art in the final thing, like in this case. With that being said:

Step 1: basic shapes/sketch.

My slight redesign of TFP Arcee is gonna be helping us here.

I start off by putting down the basic shapes, which usually means boxes and circles. Remember, mecha are 3D objects. So is their armor. It wraps around their bodies while itself also being a three dimensional thing. Try to avoid making it look paper thin. Make it thick.

Next, I add in the actual details. The jump from picture 1 to 3 might seem daunting, but it's not. Arcee's forearm is a cuboid with some weird edges. Nothing difficult. The car door sits on the outer side, with its wider side facing outwards and slightly up, and a small ridge curving around the general shape of the arm and angling downwards. You can see this on the opposite arm. Her arms work similarly to Knockout's.

Step 2: Putting down flat colors and basic shading.

Flat colors → an Overlay or Soft Light layer for some nice colors → a Multiply layer with one block of shadow that gradually fades in. The last one helps you start and offers you a direction while you're zoomed in and shading small details.

Step 3: actual shading + light source:

The perfectly drawn and absolutely straight red arrow is the light source. You can see that it's pointing down at the metal, sort of from the side, meaning it's gonna hit the most on the inner side of Arcee's leg. The front part will be darker, but given the angle of the light source, still not completely dark.

I wanted the top half of her body to be really obscured by the shadows, so the legs and arms are lighter in comparison, while her midsection, chest and shoulders are very dark. In the next step, this will make her eyes, and therefore her face, stand out more.

Step 4: Light

I used a Normal layer here with a purple that sat somewhere in the middle of the saturation/brightness levels, meaning it's not bright enough to seem out of place.

Going back to what I said in the first half of Step 3, the brightest spots on Arcee's body will face up and inwards.

After that, I used a Screen layer to 1, add a glow effect around her bio lights, and 2, traced thin lights along the edges of the parts that are being hit by the light source. Also added a darker background, and something for her to sit on.

Please remember that you can start with easier designs. G1, for example, are very boxy and with little details. Great for learning how to work with 3D shapes and perspective.

[rataltouille]

BONFIRE, BONFIRE!: A COLLECTION OF FLASH FICTION + POETRY

so i’ve decided to compile all twenty [these will be split into two so that the post isn’t super long] of the writing pieces i’ve done for my random celebration into one post so that it’s easier to read / access share!! you can also find it here, all put into one work, on wattpad, because i feel nostalgic about that website and decided to just post it!!

NOTE: i know that this shouldn't need to be said, but these 20 pieces belong to me so please don’t copy/repurpose it for your writing!! i plan on using these somewhere in my own writing and either way they’re stuff i’ve written so don’t use them!!

1. cooking + destructive + purple from @andiwriteunderthemoon [also i kind of cheated with this prompt and asked my sis @dreamscanbenightmarestoo for ideas and so the base idea’s from her!!]

I didn’t mean to set my house on fire, alright?

Let me set the scene: I’m sitting in my room, watching the infomercials that blur together, and suddenly there’s a bright purple flash on the glitching screen: /grapes/. They’re shiny, plump, and oh? A recipe for fine wine? Don’t mind if I do. So I pop into my kitchen and cut the grapes, dice them up, finally using the knife after years of not cooking— /mother, are you proud of me now?/— and stick the soft, luminescent fluid into a glass bottle. Following each step of the recipe.

The recipe didn’t mention an explosion.

Destruction rained around my house like a meteor shower. The bubbles from the fluid, frisking up at contact with metal, swam across my shoes and into the living room. It touched the TV, which still flashed the recipe, which I was still cursing at. And then, you know, it burnt up. The couch scorched first, I think. So that was fun. I later realised that I’d used my reserve of petroleum, which I’d put in my kitchen cabinet, instead of vinegar. I think I’ve got to move back in with my mother again.

2. running + quiet + sky blue from @kryskakikomi [i have no idea what this is i drafted this in a fever dream state]

Summer crawled up his skin like a worm. He was seated at his dining table, crosswording his way through the sticky morning, when it struck him that the humidity was new. He’d been caught in summer before, of course, but this year was different. His parents had whisked away to their hometown, and he still didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to go. He loved their home— he could have been running on beach sand and waves could have cruised over his feet, and his face would reflect sky blue under palm trees. Instead he sat doodling and scratching at cement walls in a quiet that nagged at his ears, grappling his flesh like a fishing hook, reeling him in. Boredom, him sister told him, before she also left for someone’s home. What would you know? he whispered once the door latched from the outside. Maybe /she’d/ like to sit on the same wooden chair, all the pink paint worn out, and scratch out squares of empty text until the pen poked through the other hand. He scoffed. At least he knew the number of scars on the wood; he could hold that over her when his parents returned.

3. hallucinate + hazy + violet from @chloeswords [i wanted to write something dreamy and ethereal but everytime i look at your url i’m reminded of church mud and indirectly my religious trauma so here we are 🤡]

We hold the book in our arms and chant for God. We don’t know what he looks like. They say that he’s sharp, never pixelating or blurring or showing through, like a hazy image would. No, children, our family says, he will come clothed in gold and velvet— the colour a deep and rich crimson, or chartreuse. And of course, he weaves a violet into his hair. Because he is just that humble. Just that gentle. Loving.

We’ve almost understood now. Pray, clasp our palms together into a transient equinox, and pray. Maybe he will shine down on us. Maybe we will speak so loud and chant so long that our lips will chap. Maybe we’ll simply hallucinate him to salve our bones. Our family says, he will bless you. And so he will.

4. halcyon + pluviophile + beige from anon [i was yearning for cats i am a cat person i love cats]

I remember my life before I moved to London,

Those halcyon days that I spent scooping up cat litter and brushing warm fur,

Being a mother to beige and white and black little felines.

They keep better company than humans.

Now I’m a self-proclaimed businesswoman, artist, influencer, pluviophile,

Even when I’ve barely stepped foot outside during the rain,

[But it needs to be said that when it rains in London, it pours].

I think I’d like to open a cat cafe;

I’m rich enough to pull it off.

5. sing + vulnerable + olive green from @occiidens [this was actually super fun to write because it’s a break from the typically unhinged stories i gravitate towards]

You watch from the highest hill of your town, hand wrapped around the serrated wood of a red oak tree. The bark pokes into your flesh, drawing blood that shouldn’t have been taken from you. You scowl. Just another thing that lives to cause you pain.

Three storeys down is a young man, short and smiling and lovely. He has dark skin and darker hair, walking with the stride of a deer, and he’s smiling; the joy reflects onto your face, even though you can’t hear him. He wears a cotton shirt, the olive green stark against the fire-blue sky. You call out, sing his name, three times in a row.

When he finally looks up, squinting as you silhouette under the sun, the smile widens. A wave. You’re suddenly overcome with embarrassment. Your palm digs into the bark until the wound is freshly dug again, the skin supple and vulnerable. You want to wave, but your hands would look so awkward, and the blood wouldn't help. So you turn on your heel and run— why are you so awkward?— and the grass around you is brighter. This is now a tomorrow issue, you conclude. You’re still smiling.

6. dislocate + ostentatious + blood red from @oasis-of-you [this got really unhinged really fast. TW: body horror]

If you take a turn at Finn Avenue,

Rogue your way down a blood red river,

[It’s not actual blood, do not worry. The colour’s a pigment and it’s saturated enough to give you the texture, the touch, the taste of blood, but I repeat, it isn’t true blood. You might think that it’s ostentatious of us to make you cross a river like that, but you’ll understand why.]

And if can stick your fingers inside the fluid,

You’ll find a bone.

Don’t pull it out fully! Only observe.

[This is a real bone, most likely animal. We may be ominous, but we don’t hurt humans. Not yet.]

So what do you do now? You want passage into a better world.

You came here because you saw the brochure, the flyer,

Radiant Idyll, home for love, but you also saw the jutting anatomy that leads to the city. The pictures were rather clear.

Why do you look so surprised? We’ve put this on the brochure— don’t you ever read the fine print?— to avoid this exact situation. That you would cross a body, a skeleton, pooled over in a fluid that we don’t name, but it’s probably alive.

It’s watching you right now.

So what do you do now?

Hurry up, unhinge your arm, dislocate the elbow, drop it into the blood, forgive me, false blood, and pay for your passage.

Oh! Excellent; that’s record time. We do hope you enjoy your stay!

1. @noteaboy [i’ve interpreted your url as ”note, a boy”]

There’s an orange tree. It’s spring, and there’s an orange tree, and it brims with fruit and citrus perfume. Point your lens flare downwards, and note, a boy. A young man, perhaps, because he combs his hair, uptight and firm, and he wears a tie. A long suit. He doesn’t look up, because his hand holds a book. /He/ holds the book, not the hands— tenderness doesn’t translate through anatomy, I’ve taught you this before. He’s waiting for someone. There’s only the rustle of leaves. He drops the book onto the lap of the tree, crushing the apple that had fallen down. Orange, not apple. Take note better. You only have one chance to get this right.

2. @eatingjupiter [your url is so beautiful omg]

The goddess had said this before she died: you need to watch over him. He needs your sentry to survive. The goddess’ words weren’t heeded. Little baby Jupiter tottered on lava as him parents small-talked with their kingdom. Well, it must have been small talk, because nothing seemed to happen afterwards other than his mother’s face collapsing in agony, anger, annoyance. He knew not to touch them then. He’d fly off into the sun one day, but if his hands were but and charred, he wouldn’t survive even a third of the journey.

The prophecy was simple: the firstborn to the kingdom will metamorph into a celestial, purify themselves so that only stardust remains. Live in the sky forever. The astrologers were baffled; you don’t just become a star. They should have heeded the goddess.

Jupiter was sixteen when he expanded and collapsed all at once. He still lives, they say, and the astrologers /were/ right, in a way: people just don’t become stars. They become almost empty space. Nobody knows if his hands were burnt when they left earth’s orbit forever.

3. @laughtracksonata [your name gave me slight horror vibes idk why!!]

Hahaha. The Horror Movie (don’t ask me for a name, I’m not good with those), with its cymbal crashing and plastic sounds, it’s so loud and scary that it hurts, father. Please turn it off.

Father doesn't listen. I shiver on the couch. The screen flickers like radio static and reflects off our wide eyes. What kind of a home is this anyway? I don’t want to fucking listen to a laugh track or a horror VHS tape or watch the bass crescendo as the serial killer jumpscares the watcher. I don’t think that having hour pupils glued to the same blood-splattered movie, with the same recording looping in his eardrums will help him. He laughs along, sometimes. It’s scary. Father needs a new hobby.

PART TWO COMING SOON!!

anyway this got REALLY long so i’m posting the third prompt group, the one based on songs, as a second part in some time. i hope you enjoy this, and PLEASE do boost!! i spent a lot of time writing these pieces and am pretty proud of them :’)

general taglist: @lovingyou-is @guulabjamuns @andiwriteunderthemoon @coffeeandcalligraphy @melonmilk @silentlylostwriter @charles-joseph-writes @eklavvya @eowynandfaramir @bitterwitchwrites @laughtracksonata @whatwordsdidnttouch @indeliblewrites @thenataliawrites @summersguilt @illimani-gibberish @sarahkelsiwrites @writing-in-delirium @shaelinwrites @sienna-writes @chewingthescenery @jennawritesstories @chloeswords @aelenko @keira-is-writing @cherylinanika @infinitely-empty-pages @jmtwrites @august-iswriting @freedelusionbanana @beetleblue88 @mistercaleb @iwannawritepls @hanwatchingmovies @mortallynuttyqueen @idratherliveinnarnia @maisulli @thegreyboywrites @ahowlinwolf @ravens-and-rivers @oasis-of-you @yanittawrites @chazza-writes-sometimes @skyfirewrites @lovebenders @treybriggsthewriter @themidnxghtwriter @ash-karter @queen-devasena @a-procrastination-addict @gaymityblight @beyondthebracken @madmaxst26 @adielwrites @moonpixxel @hollow-knight-dnd @keep-looking-here @overlap @ashleygarciawrites @ryns-ramblings​ @wordsbynathan @novaemlynlewis​ @sophiewritingstuff​ @howdy-writes​ @occiidens​ @nsanelyawkward​ @viawrites-andacts​

[the-odd-job]

What is your step by step drawing process like, if you don't mind my asking?

I'll just use Sunstealer as an example since he's the most recent thing I did. Under the cut because this is horridly long. You wanted step by step, I’ll give you step by step. 

That is a threat.

And every step of the way I use a sharp pen with high pressure sensitivity and a sharp eraser with high pressure sensitivity, unless stated otherwise.

1. Alright, sketch first of all. I pick a whatever color, set a folder to multiply, and add layers in it. I start with the face/helm and take moderate care with making it look decent.

2. From there I sketch the rest of the the pic, preferably very loosely. I aim to not lift the stylus from the pad very much and instead just SCRIBBLE lines into the vague shape I'm after.

3. Set the sketch folder’s opacity real damn low, like somewhere under 10%, create a new folder, set it to multiply, and this is where the horrid amount of layers and layer folders I use comes in. But, you can see I actually did a second sketch of the arms (and legs, though that isn’t visible here) ‘cause I couldn’t make them look right based on my initial sketch.

4. On top of my second sketch I draw the rest of the clean lines. The lines were drawn with this purplish color, btw. I use something akin to it pretty often in my lineart.

5. After all that I use the Auto Select tool to select everything outside my lineart, e.g. everything I don’t want to have color. I then invert the selection and lay down my flats. At this point I used the gold as my base color, but then added separate folders for each following color, clipping them to the gold base layer below. In the case of black, its folder has a whole bunch of layers while I tried to figure out what parts to color black. With layers for the different parts, I can just click them on and off to see what things look like with or without them.

6. Okay, now to the meat of things. I use a correction layer (hue/saturation/luminosity in this case) to change the base gold to a far darker color that I can easily edit later without losing my initial color choice, and create a new layer on top of all my colors, set it on multiply, and in this case used a sort of peachy color to add my first shadows on top of the whole entire picture. At this point the exact colors in use don’t matter one bit, though, as long as you see what you’re doing.

7. I create a second multiply layer on top of the last one, and go over the whole thing again, adding deeper shadows, this time using bright red. But again, color doesn’t matter yet. I like contrast too, so you can see some areas turn almost black.

8. Shinies! We add our first Add (Glow) layer (that can be named differently in other programs, in SAI it was just “Luminosity”). Once again, color doesn’t matter, just as long as you see what you’re doing, but I was working with about the same peach I used on my first multiply layer. And how I add the shines is basically just color the glow over the whole area, then use the eraser in sweeping and circling motions to remove parts of it. I don’t treat each plate/portion separated by lines individually, because then you’ll just end up with mismatched areas that don’t communicate with each other at all and just fight. (Remember to erase the shine from over your shadows too. Auto Selecting the shadows and erasing the glow from the selected area is a good trick.)

9. More shinies! This time we want it to show up as a bit lighter/brighter than our previous shiny. Using a brighter color or higher opacity does the trick. I do the same thing of coloring large areas and erasing shapes out of them afterwards, but this time I make it argue with my first glow layer a bit. Some overlap is good, but I also want them to live their own lives. (I included a view of the second glow layer alone, but I worked with both glow layers visible.)

10. We now have two multiply layers and two glow layers. What we also have, is a base color (gold) and separate folders for every subsequent color (black, face, insignia in this case. And optic, but let’s not touch that yet). We now copy our two multiply layers and two glow layers, and move copies of them into each folder (sans optic) and clip them to the base layer in that folder. We move copies of the multiply and glow layers right over our base layer too, below our other color folders. (I deleted the glow layers from the “face” folder because I don’t want the face to be as shiny, and the multiply layers from the “insignia” folder because there’s actually no shadow over the insignia.) We can make our original multiply and glow layers invisible so they’re not messing things up, and what we should have is... The same exact thing as in step 9. Wow.

11. Now we actually make it look good! Though let’s just color the optic while we’re at it so it’s not all empty. Anyway, this is the stage where we really start to think about color and opacity. I want a neutral lighting to showcase his colors best, so let’s see how we get that. The thing we’ll just do is use Tonal Correction > Hue/Saturation/Luminosity to change our multiply and glow layers one by one, starting from our first multiply layer. I turn the other multiply and glow layers off so I can see what I’m doing and and tweak the colors until I get something that doesn’t scream “interesting lighting”, because I want neutral lighting. 

12. Then I go through all of the layers one by one and do the same thing to each of them. The reason I have them each on separate layers is exactly this, that I can affect all of the drawing’s colors individually and make them look just as I want to and always have the option of just going back and easily editing things. I also add a glow layer to the face, but with a brush rather than a pen so I get a softer look, buuut then add a second glow layer with a low opacity to add just a little bit of sharp light in there. And now we have a thing! But it looks pretty flat, doesn’t it? We don’t want that.

13. First of all, let’s add some soft glow to the gold. New glow layer below our multiply and other glow layers, choosing a soft color to accentuate the gold, and then using either a brush or airbrush we add just a bit of color in there. Arrows point to the spots where I added it, because we want the effect to be subtle and easy to miss.

14. We can do better than that, though. Let’s add a multiply layer and do the same thing, adding juuuust hints of darker color here and there. It adds a touch more depth, but again, we want it to be easy to miss.

15. Let’s have a look at the black, next. You may have noticed I turned off the second glow layer on it entirely, and that’s because it was decided that the black shouldn’t be as shiny as the gold. We still want to add some life to it though, and because Sunstealer’s black tints towards blue, let’s make some blue happen by adding a glow layer, and again, very softly with a brush or airbrush, add just hints of color in there. 

16. It still doesn’t really good though, does it? It’s pretty boring and lifeless despite our efforts. More layers, then! Some fucking edges, this time. A glow layer above all of our existing layers and folders to affect all of them (except optic, ‘cause optic doesn’t need it), take good ol’ bright white, turn the opacity down a bit, and add sharp light to the edges. Like, all the edges that are touched by light. Seams, everything. We want this motherfucker to shine.

17. Okay, now do the same, except this time on the shadows. The layer is on lower opacity and I didn’t use white but desaturated blue instead. Just add a bit of reflected light in there.

18. Slowly getting there, but let’s do a couple more things. First of all, warm color. Basically, I just like to slap a random color on top of the whole damn thing when I’m finishing a drawing, using either a color, a glow, or a normal layer, depending which one gets me the best results that time. Or, all three, if that’s what I feel like. This time I used a color layer with briiiiiight neon orange. I switched the layer to normal and opacity to 100% so you can see where it’s actually applied, which is, again, on top of all the layers. A pretty large area, but even on 100% opacity with a normal layer you can see it’s pretty transparent. If I had wanted to do a more interesting lighting, I would’ve left it more visible and maybe added another similar layer in a different color, but I wanted neutral lighting so we leave it as just a tiny, tiny hint in there. 

19. Still not done. Colors reflect other colors, so let’s make that happen on the black and have it reflect our gold some.

20. Almost there. What are we missing? Color correction, that’s what. I didn’t do much of it for this piece, but with some I really play around with correction layers and layers set to overlay and whatnot. But let’s see what we have here. First of all, there’s one brightness/contrast correction layer affecting the gold only, increasing the contrast so things look a bit brighter. 

21. There’s also a second brightness/contrast correction layer, this one simply increasing the brightness a bit. It’s mostly for the sake of the black, because I wanted to make it look a bit more blue by making it lighter, but it worked to make the whole image a little brighter along with it. Aside from the optic, that’s still on top of everything else. But like said, how many corrective layers I have going on depends entirely on what I’m doing. In some cases I can have around a dozen in effect, not all of them always affecting the entire image, but split around to do their thing on different layers.

22. But speaking of the optic! It glows, so let’s make it glow with two layers on top of both of the “color” and “lines” folders. One layer is for the blurred red glow, the second is for the sharply reflected light.

23. And for things like these I like a simple background, which I generally do by just using a couple of gradients and altering their color to whatever looks decent. I also often add an outline to the entire character in pieces like this to make the character pop a bit more, by just copying my base color layer and performing gaussian blur on it.

WHEEZE. That’s that, though. Finished product can be viewed here. 

Oh, and ctrl+shift and tap will jump you straight to the layer you tapped on. Makes moving between layers and finding the damn layer you wanted to edit a hell of a lot easier.

Annnnnd obsessively naming layers and layer folders so you can tell what the heck they actually are when you have way, way many layers to work with.

*thumbs up*

[crispy-ghee]

Forgive my absolute novice question, but those environment studies are BEAUTIFUL! I've never done them but I want to try, since it's good practice. What's your process, do you have any advice?

Thank you! No reason to apologize either. I can give a glimpse into my process, but fair warning it’s quite messy (I did this one quickly after work as an example) and I might not have the besssst explanations for everything. 

Everything under the cut!

I do these off of photos I find on google images, since i’m not using them for profit or anything like that. I kind of decide what i wanna try and study (tropical scenes, forests, mountains, whatever) and then just look for an image that strikes me. 

Something to note when you’re going into this is to have some idea of what you want to try and focus on. If there’s a specific thing you want to work on or capture when you do this. For me, it was trying to get better at seeing and picking colors, plus maybe fiddling w/ how mountains and rocks work haha

Having a specific goal makes doing studies easier because you don’t feel like you have to focus on basically everything when you’re painting. When the end goal is just ‘get better,’ that’s a lot of stuff you have to try and get right or pay attention to! Doing things one at a time is good.

So anything like...Wanting to understand color, wanting to understand shadows, wanting to understand light, wanting to know how trees work, or even something like ‘i saw this photo and i like how the light hits this one particular spot and i wanna capture how that spot feels’--just give yourself something to focus on!

Anyhoo, I picked this one. wanted to try a desert scene. My focus, again, is trying to understand color a lil better (kinda gave myself a rule, which was ‘no colorpicking’)

I work on a really tiny canvas btw like... 3 inches by 2 inches, and with a kinda fat chalk brush with pressure opacity on. This makes sure i can’t get fiddly on it. 

Usually start with a really basic composition sketch that is definitely gonna be inaccurate, but that’s okay since that’s not what i’m doing this for lol

a lil more ‘detail’ pulling out the forms of biggest interest. sometimes this includes the a shape of a large shadow, like at the bottom! just the big important sections of the composition that you see. 

I start laying in the colors really messily, again going for BIG at first. Right now the focus is establishing those big spaces in the composition. Right now this also includes some of the stronger shadows, since those are important to the form of things. The colors I choose to lay down vary, but usually go for the sort of ‘mid tone’ that i can suss out, maybe a a bright hilight, and then a deep shadow. 

lol okay this is definitely a jump forward. But you can see i focused on the mountains. I ended up painting over that tree because it wasn’t in the right place anyway.

Anyway, TIPS on how I approached this: 

TRY NOT TO GIVE A SHIT OVER WHETHER SOMETHING IS SUPER ACCURATE. Just make sure that it reads!

Focused first on laying in the darkest shadows, bc those really inform a lot about the shape of the thing. 

A lot of squinting and stepping back, and also making the reference picture zoomed out small. This really makes the small detail disappear and helps keep you from getting caught up and confused by it. Sometimes you can eliminate certain details, or combine them with nearby details. 

I added some new colors here and there, but nothing too strong. I avoided introducing too many different colors though, and most of what i had was a result of mixing the colors I already. If you add a very different color, that creates an area of high contrast. Which can be great, if that’s the focus and you want to hilight the area, tho! 

Tried not to draw outlines. In fact, I made sure most of my strokes were downwards or sideways to make sure that I had to focus on things as blocks of color. 

How do you do manage the shape w/out outlines? One thing to remember! You perceive form through contrast! Basically, in an area, how does the shadow butt up against the light? Look for those edges/places where they meet, and then think about how different those areas look to each other. Are the colors really different from each other? Are they similar? Is the edge hard, or is it more gradual? Look for those places where things meet!

Keeping in mind that color is relative. When you’re trying to figure out what color something is, peer at the color itself and try to isolate it. For instance a color may seem grey to you, but maybe it’s blue, and it looks much more desaturated bc you have it up against a really warm, bright color. Maybe what you think is a green is actually a red or a brown. SOME TIPS: 

If you’re not focused on color as your study, feel free to colorpick off the photo! You’ll see the difference between what you perceived and what the true color was, and you’ll learn from that!

I’ve gotten good enough to be able to peer at colors and separate them in my brain from the rest of the picture. If you can’t do that, then you can mask it out physically in photoshop so that it’s literally isolated! You’ll get way better at picking up on color differences this way, and then can work towards doing it without having to physically mask things. 

Questions to ask yourself when trying to figure out a color: Does it feel warmer or cooler? What hue is it (does it look purple or purple or red to you)? How saturated does it look?

Shadows usually gradiate. Shadows are made bc they block out light. So they’re darker when it’s harder for light to get into a space. So the further away from an edge or a crease, the lighter the shadow becomes.

Be wary about your colors getting too muddy, bc that happens when you’re mixing colors. Step back now and again, and if they look like they’re getting too grey or brown, feel free to paint some saturated color back into it.

Anyway, I added the trees (spent less time on them bc they’re unimportant to me lol) and cleaned up a couple other things...

And the last step is just creating a clean border around the painting to make it look clean! 

And there’s my study. 

ALSO

Also

the most most most important step

is to close the fucking Reference you were working off of and not look at it after that, because you’re gonna like what you did way better as its own thing when you’re not comparing it to the real deal lol

Anyway...I think that’s all i have to say? Idk. If something’s not clear, feel free to ask, but that’s what I got. This painting was pretty rushed so it’s not the *best* representation of everything, but hopefully it got most of the point across. 

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

Artist Commentary: Yankee Doodle Burned It Down, Pages 1-3

Popping a read-more on this cause MAN I had a lot to say about these fuckers.

HOLY HELLO friends and followers, this project took from July 19th to September 4th of 2020, and with that much time spent I, of course, wanted to do an artist’s comments on it where I scream about everything that went into these pages... buuuut it was also more picture than Tumblr would let me put into a single post. Granted, I could have gotten clever in a number of ways, but I decided my specific flavor of clever would be with gifs! So now we have transforming pictures that go from rough sketch, to refined, to linework, to flat colors, to finals.

As mentioned on previous occasions, this entire comic happened because of some goofing around on discord.

And after making a dumb joke about Hancock whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy, my brain decided to go Picard on my ass and said make it so. 

Rough sketches came easily enough; first two in a single night, the third a couple days after. It was at that point that I realized if I really wanted to do this right [and I’m a perfectionist, of course I want to do it right] I was gonna need like... all the screenshots of the various guns. Not just some of the screen shots. All of the screenshots. Thankfully my buddy @lunafermosa​ runs Fo4 on their PC and was able to grab upwards of 25 screencaps of every gun in both Paige and Hancock’s regular loadout for me, at various angles, because she’s amazing. 

Refined sketches is where things started getting... fun. Namely that I spent multiple days on the bottom left panel of page 2, figuring out the guts of that flamer. That one panel saw many hours of work, as did the bottom right panel with the front view. And then? Refining the third page, oh hey, I can just sketch this from memory now! Funny how that works. 

Linework was easily the biggest hump in this project. It’s where all the mistakes from the refined sketches come to light, it’s where everything has to be fixed into it’s final positions... it’s also where my brain suddenly decided to go MAXIMUM DETAIL on John’s face, as well as the fence around the raider compound in the third page... despite the fact that all the wood structures in the third page are on fire and you can barely see all the detail work I did [sob]. 

Flat colors presented a number of challenges, specifically in getting everything structured for optimal shading. Generally one wants to structure their layers so that objects in the foreground can save you work on the background, and so that background objects can be shaded broadly without to much fussing about fine detailing in the foreground. Deciding which objects ended up in which folder was a... thing. Paige in her little hiding spot at the top of page 2 is actually shaded with the background... and I still wonder how many people actually noticed her on that page XD Or the fact that the barrel of her rifle is in the bottom right corner of page 1 XD

Getting into final effects, shading was done in steps for each page. First thing was deciding my bright and shadow tones, which in general was a near white yellow and an almost fully saturated navy blue, respectively. This changes when we get into the reveal of the flamer, and the scenes that are on fire, where we adopt an orange tone for bright and a dark-ass red for shadow, as well as a bright white-yellow for where things are really shiny. This introduces some contrast in the last page, reinforcing Paige’s position as being at a remove despite still being very much part of the action, taking out distant raiders that aren’t engaging with John directly on the ground [you can actually see the guy in her crosshairs on the third page getting popped in the BG of the next panel, beyond the smoke]. 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED making this comic, and it was a great little test run for what’s going to be my production pipeline as I continue making stuff like this. I’d like to regularly produce comics from Paige’s story, as well as memories that are mentioned in the fic but don’t factor into the plot enough to warrant full flashbacks. And everyone’s response has been SO FUCKING FANTASTIC I can’t even. 

Thanks everyone, see you on the next one.

It’s uh... there might be feels. XD

-The Artist

[shreddedparchment]

The Brightest Star Pt.01

Lovable Polestar

05/07/2019

Pairing: Thor x Reader          Word Count: 9,492

Masterpost          Warnings: language, eventual smut maybe, violence probably, cozy Thor, Thor in his undies

A/N: So, this started because I was telling someone about my original fiction and they just didn’t care? I’ve had others try to read it too and they never do. It’s a little heartbreaking when you feel so excited and happy about something and no one cares even when all you want to do is just share your excitement. So, that feeling sparked this fic. I wasn’t sure where I was going with it but now I do. I hope you like it. This is also for all those lovelies of mine that wanted me to do some more Thor. If you happen to reblog, thanks so much for helping me spread my work! xoxo

Thor can vividly remember the first time he saw you. He can remember it so clearly that his heart still aches when he thinks back to that moment when his whole world lit up with a poignant and fierce fire. It engulfed him. It overwhelmed him. His skin began to hum, and then half a minute passed, and his fire was bathed in ice water and the misery set in.

You were sitting at a table, looking like other women that he’d seen. You were one face among many with no particular quality that set you apart. You were just another girl.

Then someone, the guy to your left said something that Thor couldn’t hear. Then the girl to your right said something. Then your eyes shone with stunning excitement. They sparkled and lit up like stars, gleaming bright amongst the other eyes in the room.

You smiled, the brilliance of it nearly knocking his breathe from his lungs because it was more than you looking adorable, it was the pure joy that radiated out of every facet in those damn eyes.

Your cheeks were spread so wide and tight he was sure that they must be hurting. It was a smile for the ages.

You looked from the guy to your left to the girl on your right and opened your mouth once to say something, but the girl leaned forward, and she reached out to grab the guy’s left hand. You shut your mouth.

Then the guy responded, and you opened your mouth again, but the guy shook his head and laughed and spoke once more.

You closed your mouth and the sparkle in your eye dulled a little. Like the sun hid behind dark clouds, overwhelming him in gloom. Your shoulders hunched as the two beside you continued to talk, animatedly exchanging words and laughter. You smiled lightly when they looked at you but then you sat back, shoulders slumped as you pulled your drink closer and took a long sip through your straw.

Slowly, as the two continued to talk, your eyes glazed over. All life had drained from them and all Thor could think about was how he might find a way to put that light back into your eyes.

Which brings us to today.

Thor had come to that same shop several days in a row, eager to see you again and when you finally showed up, you were alone but not for long.

When you were joined by the same two people as before, they greeted you brightly. Then the three of you sit at the same table and once again your eyes glazed over, and you’d sat in silence while your friends talked.

Occasionally Thor would see that brightness return but it never lasted more than a few seconds.

Thor didn’t mean to become a stalker. He seriously, really, truly, honestly didn’t mean to follow you out of the café. He was just so curious.

He followed you and your friends to a nearby park and then a small antiques shop. Then the male left and the female with you listened only halfheartedly as you talked to her.

She would listen for a few seconds and then her eyes would wander, and she’d interrupt you and point at something across the street or in a shop window or just cut you off because she was bored. Every time she did, you relented.

Thor hated her. Even now, as the two of you wander around the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at the watercolor exhibit, you stop in front of a lovely piece with greens, yellows, and pinks—Thor’s too busy watching you to see what the painting actually is—and point at it, your eyes bright and stunning again.

Thor swoons, his heart thudding loudly in his chest.

Until your friend walks away while you’re still talking.

Your eyes lose their sparkle again and you look at her as she calls out for you. “Y/N! Look at this one!”

Thor growls, annoyed and frustrated for you. You sigh very lightly, so lightly he’s sure no one but he notices, and then move over towards your friend. You smile at her, no sparkle in your eyes but your smile is genuine. It’s kind and polite and patient.

The painted smile on a porcelain doll.

Why are you so perfect? Not that he likes your submissive side. He hates it, in fact. No, that’s not right. He loves it…wait? Loves it? Fuck, he loves it. Shit. What is he getting himself into?

He loves it because it’s yours. It’s a small side of the person you are. What he loves about it is that even in the face of all the overlooking these so-called friends put you through, you still manage to find joy in their company. You smile kindly at them. You take joy in your time with them even though the joy is only surface deep.

Thor can relate. How many battles had he fought after he’d lost his people? His family? His self-worth and felt only the subtle secondhand joy of his comrades after the fight was won? Sometimes, you do things just to pass the time.

Thor keeps to the opposite side of the large room. He avoids looking at you for more than a few seconds at a time until you stop at yet another painting and turn your back on him.

Your eyes light up again and it's all he can do to stay put. He licks his lips, clenches his fists, crumpling the informational pamphlet he'd grabbed on the way in.

He'd already ruined it by rolling it up over and over, fidgeting with it every time your friend interrupted you or moved away when you were talking.

Impatiently, with an itch to move to you, he smacks his large thigh with the rolled up paper. The tap, tap, tap, isn’t loud enough to draw your attention but it does get him some ugly looks from the couple to his right.

He's not even facing the wall anymore. His body is turned fully, wearing a navy blazer with a pair of matching navy slacks, black and white Chucks, and underneath the blazer is a plain white t-shirt. It's a little sheer. The toasty peach of his skin is slightly visible through the stretched white fabric.

He looks at the annoyed couple to his right and gives them a toothless smile, chagrin across his face. “Sorry.”

They don’t seem to care that he's Thor. They move past him, still frowning.

With a furrowed brow, Thor turns back to you, eyes still shining bright. He tries to hear what you're saying and he can just make out your voice if he tries hard enough.

“-I think it's the mountain. It kinda looks like a stormy sky if you don’t notice the subtle strokes that shape the peak. What do you like about it?” You ask your friend but she's looking down at her phone.

“Hold on, Seth is calling.” She puts the phone to her ear and walks away. “Hey, Seth. Where are you?”

Thor's too busy watching you to look after your friend.

You're biting your lip, watching the girl walk away before you turn your previously shining eyes on the painting.

The audacity these people have to ignore your excitement, the genuine elation you feel on a daily basis, constantly stepped on?

The urge to join you is renewed and he takes several steps in your direction but your friend comes barreling back towards you, heels clicking and clacking against the waxed floor, just when he's made up his mind to introduce himself.

She catches herself on your arm and you turn an excited smile to her.

“Seth finally asked me out!”

He can see your face fall. You blink a few times but before your silence can register as too long, too awkward—Say something, little mouse. You'll give yourself away! Thor thinks desperately—you smile again.

“That's so great Nan. I'm-I'm glad he finally got his shit together.”

Thor smiles, genuinely surprised yet pleased with your vulgarity in such an austere place as the Met. His cheeks flush, the gentle way your mouth wrapped around the word was utter perfection.

“Me too!” The girl, Nan, curly brown hair, caramel skin, and wide hips gushes.

“He should have come with us.” You say but Nan is not listening. She's on that cellular phone again. Can the damn woman not carry on a conversation with you for more than ten seconds?

You watch her text and in stark contrast to this Nan's elation, your timid sadness stands out. How can no one but him see it? What's wrong with everyone in your life?

Thor can tell with that look alone that this Seth—the blonde man that has been meeting you at the café for two weeks—is someone you yourself desired.

It takes Nan a few more minutes, four and twenty-seven seconds actually—Thor counted—to focus back on her present company. She's still got her arm wrapped around your elbow.

She looks at the painting and stares for all of two seconds before, “Is that mountains? You'd think they'd have painted a clearer picture.”

You smile, amused for some reason. Thor would really rather tell her to silence her ridiculous comments.

“It's watercolor, Nan. It's not supposed to be super clear. It's the artist's impression. You see how clear the people are? But the entire background is blur-"

“Ugh! Y/N, this is boring. Let's go watch a movie or something. Yeah?”

Thor's hand crumples up the pamphlet into a tight compressed ball.

“Oh.” You mutter, disappointment saturating your beautiful tone. “Okay.”

“Yay!” Nan exclaims then begins to drag you away.

Thor watches you crane your neck to get another look at the painting before Nan completely pulls you from the room.

With slow steps, Thor moves to the painting and reads the small placard.

The Lake of Zug

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London

1775–1851 London)

Date: 1843

He stands there, staring at the painting for what might be hours. All the while he ponders the very possibility that what you might see in this painting is the very thing he saw in you when he saw your eyes light up and then extinguish.

He accepts, after a time, that it is not possible for this painting to make you feel the way he felt when he first saw you brighten then dull.

You are way more exquisite than this painting with its blurry watercolor mountain.

-----

Thor continues to stalk you. Okay, he doesn’t stalk you. Or he tells himself he doesn't. But…the consensus is…

“Thor's stalking a girl.” Nat says, amused and brimming with smugness.

“I am not…pfft…stalking a girl.” Thor waves her off, rolling his eyes, quirking a brow as he lifts his cup of coffee and takes a sip.

“Yeah, you are.” Nat assures him, leaning over the counter with her chin in her hand. Long delicate fingers rest against the curve of her jaw and rap the dark quartz countertop.

“Am not.” Thor says, a swift heavy swallow before his cup is laid aside.

“Yeah.” Nat chuckles because it's too good to be true. Too cute. Too weird that Thor, the God of Thunder, is obsessed with a girl and doesn’t have the courage to speak to her. “You are.”

“Look, I am not stalking her. I am merely going to the café that she goes to every day, to possibly see her. And if—if she happens to be there, I-"

“Follow her?” Nat offers.

“No! I walk in a similar direction until she reaches her destination then I go my own way. Unless she happens to go to a place where I might maintain a considerable distance while I-"

“Watch her?”

“While I-I-I-" Thor stumbles, not sure how to spin this one.

“Gotta tell ya pal, it kinda sounds like you're stalking this dame.” Bucky slides in beside Nat, her arms immediately wrapping around his bicep where she leans her head—in what she insists is a platonic expression of affection—and laughs as Thor huffs.

“Fine! Whatever. I’m stalking her. Are you happy?” Thor booms, arms raised in the air then childishly crossed across his broad chest, biceps large and beefy, sun-bathed skin stretched and bulging.

“What are they happy about?” Steve wonders, moving into the kitchen, mid-yawn.

“Thor finally admitted to stalking that girl he saw in the café down the block.” Bucky explains.

Steve stops, eyes shining, mouth open in mock surprise as he stares from Bucky to Nat and then to Thor. He shuts one eye, still sleepy. “Woah, hey. That's progress. Good for you, Thor.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Thor grumbles.

“Woah!” Nat chastises, lifting her head from Bucky's arm, amused but also surprised by Thor's defensiveness. “Hey, we're just trying to help.”

Steve doesn’t seem to care. He’s already rifling in the fridge for food.

“How? By making me feel worse? I know I shouldn’t be watching her. I’ve tried to stay away but I can't stop thinking about her.” Thor sighs, looking down at his cup and swirling the smooth brown liquid, still steaming.

“Guess he's got it bad.” Bucky whispers to Nat who nods. He turns back to Thor then takes Nat's cup of coffee to steal a sip. “What is it about this girl, Thor? I mean, you’ve been around for almost…what? Fifteen-hundred years? And you’ve seen thousands of girls here on Earth. What's so special about this one?”

Thor has wondered this very thing over and over since he first laid eyes on you.

It makes absolutely no sense. You are not exquisitely beautiful to anyone but him--or so it seems as you only every draw his gaze while out and about. Thor has come to see you as the only beauty in all the realms that could possibly match the need in his heart. A fitting piece. His ideal. Yet, you are nothing like the women that the people of Earth deem as particularly desirable. That is to say, there is nothing wrong with you either.

Had Thor not seen you in that exact moment when your exuberance had shot out from those dazzling eyes of yours, stunning him into immobility, changing his heart forever and then fallen dull and sad the very next moment, perhaps Thor would not feel the way he does?

“I don’t know.” He admits. “I think that is why I cannot get her out of my head. She’s just so…so…so…”

“Vulnerable?” Nat offers.

“Hot?” Bucky wonders, Nat smacks his arm. “Ow.”

“Right?” Steve suggests, sipping his cup of coffee with a knowing look in his storm blue eyes. Thor meets them and his own brighten considerably.

“Yes. Right. That she is. I don’t know what makes her right, but she is so very right. And she is indeed most vulnerable and strong at the same time though her strength is not in the way we would count it. She’s not a fighter. Not in that sense.”

“There’s more than one way to be strong.” Nat affirms, nodding at Thor with a proud smile on her lips, her fingers gently stroking the muscle of Bucky’s bicep as she takes another drink of her coffee.

Thor turns to Bucky who’s sitting now with his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, staring at the Thunder God.

“And she most definitely is hot. Perhaps not like those women on your magazines or in your picture boxes.”

“Dude, you know what they’re called.” Bucky gripes, amused.

“Televisions, yes. She is not that. She’s real.” Thor gushes slow and mystified.

His eyes are a mist of love cantered outpouring unrestrained and unbidden. He can feel it flow out from him in waves of gossamer heat, enveloping all of them and painting them in beautiful heaven light. Golden warm and saturated in allure.

Can they feel it? Can they feel how he loves you already?

Nat’s hand tightens around Bucky’s bicep and Bucky’s chin slips from his hand as he shifts in his seat, radiating towards Nat. His arm wraps around her shoulders and he pulls her closer.

Steve’s eyes glaze over briefly then with a lovestruck look across his usually calm expression, he smirks.

“Woah, there. Reel that in, buddy. We don’t want the whole tower to start finding closets to make whoopee in.” Steve’s smirk shifts to a grin as his eyes move over to Nat and Bucky who are sitting much closer to each other now, Nat’s leg draped over Bucky’s right knee.

“Oh, sorry.” Thor blushes, feeling woeful for his slip. “I forget sometimes the effect I have on the people of Earth. I don’t use that ability much. Have had no use for it. How strange. This is the first time it's slipped out.”

Slowly Nat and Bucky slap out of the daze as Thor reigns in his uncanny fertility booster. Nat blushes scarlet as she realizes she’s practically on Bucky’s lap and quickly scrambles off of it.

“Oh, I’m…sorry.” She whispers huskily at him.

“No, it’s my mistake.” Bucky hurries to appease her, cheeks burning along with hers.

They renew their distance and put an extra foot between them for good measure.

Thor eyes them cautiously. He knows what’s been budding between them, but they still haven’t-

“Anyway,” He begins. “You are right in your assumptions that she is nothing but a normal girl. And she is that, but she is so much more. To me. I don’t know why.”

“Hot doesn’t always have to mean physically attractive.” Bucky offers, still blushing but calmer. Though, he keeps stealing glances at Nat.

“But she is physically attractive. She’s attractive to me. Her body is perfection.” Thor argues.

“And that’s great.” Bucky tells him. “It’s good that you’re attracted to her physically. I just mean that a perfect body—the women you were talking about in our magazines and on T.V. and movies—it doesn’t always mean one thing. What I’m saying is that, even if she’s not perfect to me or Steve or any other guy on the planet, if she’s perfect to you, then that’s great, Thor. But—and I’ll kill you if you tell anyone I said this—you aren’t just after her for that are you? To…bury the old hammer?”

“How dare you accuse me of such misconduct!” Thor shoots to his feet, hand banging the table.

“I didn’t!” Bucky hurries to calm him. “I’m just saying that while being attracted to her from a distance is great, maybe you should finally try and talk to the girl?”

“He’s right.” Nat agrees. “We know you like what you’ve seen so far, but what if what she has to say doesn’t hold up? You aren’t planning on stalking her forever, are you?”

Thor calms down instantly, slowly sitting back down to wrap his hand around his cup once more. “Please don’t call it stalking.” He begs.

Nat smiles. “Fine, but you are going to talk to her, right?”

“Yes.”

“When?” Bucky asks.

“I-I don’t know.” Thor grieves, grabbing fistfuls of blonde hair, grown out in waving locks that just reach the tips of his ears. He needs to cut it again.

“Soon, Thor. You can’t keep following her. She’ll think it’s weird. God of Thunder or not. You follow a girl; it means you’re a creep.” Steve insists.

“But I’m not a creep.” He sobs, no actual tears, just the sentiment. “I swear I’m not.”

He looks desperately between Nat and Bucky then finally at Steve who is nodding.

“We know that, Bud. But…do yourself a favor and talk to her sooner rather than later. You don’t want to be that Avenger. The one people read about in the tabloids.”

“Oh, you mean me?” Bucky turns to look at Steve, a smirk in place.

“Yes.” Steve says and sips his coffee.

“Right.” Thor agrees, sitting up straighter, downing his drink then rising to his feet. He pulls the front of his hoodie down, adjusting the collar so that it looks neater. “Right. I can do this. I’ll talk to her. Yeah. I will. It can’t be that hard, right? I can do this.”

“Not wearing that you can’t.” Bucky frowns. “Trust me, you show up in a hoodie…”

“He’s still pretty hot, Buck.” Nat assures him.

“Still.” Bucky insists, nodding at Nat with an I know he’s hot, alright? expression. “Trust me. At least wear that thing you wore that time when you followed her to the Met. That navy blazer.”

“Again?” Thor wonders, worried. What if you’d seen him in it and he hadn’t noticed? It has been weeks though.

“Then we’ll get you something else, but definitely don’t go in a hoodie and jeans. Save that for when she’s known you for a while. For when you’re actually dating.”

“Dating? Courting?” Thor smiles, his heart aflutter, his stomach twirling. “Y/N and I? Courting?”

It fills him with a humming euphoria, the idea of you and him dating.

He pictures it. You cuddled in his arms on a sofa watching TV or reading a book while he watches you, that beautiful brilliance in your eyes stunning and agonizing all at once.

That euphoria rolls over his friends again and only when he looks at Bucky and Nat, Nat straddling Bucky’s hips with her hands in his long dark hair, does Thor realize he’s doing it again.

This time Steve is too amused to interrupt. He’s leaning his elbows on the counter, staring at Nat and Bucky with a smug smile.

“Oh, sorry.” Thor shuts it off, clearing his throat nervously.

It takes a second, but Nat suddenly straightens her hands, gasping lightly as she looks back at Bucky’s hands secured around the curve of her butt.

“Hands, Barnes, or I’ll cut them off.”

“Oops.” Bucky says, though he sounds anything but apologetic. “Thor’s fault.”

Nat rises and now the shade of a cherry tomato, she marches out of the kitchen.

Bucky turns a blushing soft smile to Thor and shakes his head once. “Thanks, man.”

“You’re welcome.”

It has been almost six months since Thor first saw you. Over time he has come to appreciate your quiet nature. Not because he would prefer to have you silent. He longs to speak with you and get your side of many things.

However, he can see the way you work now. Your mind. He can almost see you thinking. Doing it. The subtle art of listen, look, learn and then speak—if those horrible people you call friends ever allow you to do so, that is.

Today, Thor made sure to get up half an hour early. He poured through his closet and the meager pickings of fine clothes within. He can't use the navy blazer. You might have seen him in that though he has no reason to suspect you have.

There’s a black tie suit but…that's too formal, right? He's got several nice pants. Trousers? Slacks? He's not sure which ones they are exactly but he picks a nice black pair, stiff crease lines at the front and back.

He tosses his towel aside and begins to pull them on before he thinks better and carefully folds them on top of the drawer for his collection of fancy watches. A gift from Tony though he hardly ever wears them.

He rifles through the second drawer and produces a pair of red briefs then slips them on, adjusting himself in them with a frown. He's not much for underwear, truth be told but with you…he feels weird dangling about in his pants.

He smiles as he pictures the flush you might get from realizing he's not wearing underwear. Would you be embarrassed? You’re so sweet. So gentle. So perfect.

He places both hands on his now brief covered hips and can’t quite wipe the smile from his face. He looks up into his full length mirror and his cheeks are red. His eyes are brimming with excitement. His smile is goofy and wide and he hasn’t felt this eager in so long.

Not for a girl. Only for battle.

“Snap out of it, Thor. Get it together.” He chastises, clearing his throat as he realizes how stupid he must look, standing there in his underwear smiling like a dumbass.

He grabs his pants and slips them on. Muscles rippling, he pulls on a plain grey t-shirt then moves to look at his shirts. Most of his button ups look too stifling. Tight and hot. Choking.

Although, with the weather on the more brisk side, hot might not be a bad idea.

He slides over to the jackets and sweaters and finds a thick, soft, knit navy sweater. Too thick for both an undershirt and the sweater. He peels off his shirt and then slips the sweater on.

He pushes the sleeves up to just below his elbows and then moves back to his watches to select one that’ll match.

As he chooses his shoes, a pair of black boots, he feels his heart ache in nervousness. It quivers, afraid.

What if you don't like him? What if you get one look at him and simply get up and leave? What will he do with himself? He'll be heartbroken.

This is foolish. He should just keep watching you from afar. This is safer. This is better.

If he never tries to talk to you, then you can never reject him. He can continue to watch you from a distance and enjoy your dwindling smiles.

Dwindling. Less and less do you smile. Still as observant as always, but you almost rarely speak with your friends though you still sit with them and accompany them places.

No. He must show you that there are some who will hang on your every word. That you are worth listening to. You matter. So much. To him. Already.

You have yet to speak a word, but you are already so important.

Somehow Thor is able to find his courage and he heads out, dressed nicely enough to impress with the easy casualty of his outfit.

With Bucky’s approval—who then takes a quick exit when Nat wanders into the common room—Thor heads out to see you now feeling sure that he’s doing the right thing.

The café is not as busy as it usually is. Thor understands that you like this. For as long as he’s been following you—he refuses to see what he’s been doing as stalking, damn Natasha—he’s known that you come early on purpose. You show up an hour before your friends and he’s honored that by staying away and only coming at his regular time instead of the earlier hour you set aside for yourself.

He’d shown up by chance one day, to ask the barista what your favorite drink was as you bring your own reusable cup and he can never see what they put in it, only to find you sitting at your usual table. Alone. Enjoying the silence of the early morning with your phone screen shining up at you. What do you look at in that hour?

Thor really wants to know.

The little bell above the door dings and Thor moves in, searching for you the instant the rich caffeinated air fills his lungs. Hazelnut, vanilla, mocha, and caramel; cinnamon, sweet syrup, chocolate, and the smell of baking bread welcome him warmly.

He finds you as he had that one morning. Sitting at your usual table—reading, right in the middle of the shop, four chairs around a small square birch yellow table. The sheen of wood inviting and cool. Luckily for him, your table is near the register.

He adjusts his sweater. Nervously he strokes the small spiky hairs on the sides of his head where he had Steve buzz it short again leaving a long wide strip along the top of his head slightly longer. He fixes his watch, regretting his choice to wear it as he’s not used to it and it’s distracting as hell.

The closer he gets the more he can see what you’re wearing. Your blue coat is hung on the back of your chair. He’s seen it before. The rest he has not and he almost stumbles as he bumps into a chair, accidentally shoving a patron forward into his coffee.

“Oh, forgive me.” Thor begs. “Sorry. So sorry. I’ll buy you a new coffee.”

Thor leans down to whisper at the man who waves him off then seems to realize that it’s Thor having bumped into him.

“Oh my-Can I have an autograph?” He asks excitedly, beginning to rise but Thor quickly pushes him back down by the shoulders so that he remains glued to his seat.

“Shh, yes, of course.” Thor gives him a tight nervous smile and quickly signs his name on the first page of the book the man holds up for him.

“Thank you so much! My wife is such a fan!”

“Oh.” Thor smiles wider, flattered. “How kind of her. Please, keep your voice down.”

He has nothing to worry about though. You don’t look up. You’re wrapped up in your book.

Thor’s only temporarily distracted because he tears his eyes back to you in your gray long sleeved sweater, your soft orange suspender skirt—large buttons along the front and large round buckles at the shoulders—and a pair of worn brown leather boots on your feet.

Your hair so often left to its own devices is gathered high on your head into a messy bun leaving your neck exposed for his eyes to feast on.

He has to force his eyes away from you because you’re beautiful and he’s staring and as lovely as your eyes look all brilliant, devouring your book, he needs to stop staring!

He turns to the barista and gathers his thoughts to focus on his plan.

“Woah, you’re here again today Mr. God of Thunder?” The short barista asks, green eyes shining, excited smile on her face.

“Hello.” He peeks back over his shoulder at you but you’re still just staring at your book. “Just Thor is fine.”

“Right. Yeah, cool. What can I get for you Mr. Thor?”

“No. Just ‘Thor’.” Thor insists, slightly muttered under his breath in embarrassment.

“Oh. Okay. Th-Thor.” The barista giggles. “What can I get for you Mr. Thor? I mean, Thor! Just Thor!”

Why is she being so loud?! Thor sighs and he hears you shift behind him. He doesn’t dare look. “Um…I don’t know. Yesterday I had-”

“A regular coffee. Cream. Two sugars.” The barista laughs again and though she is sweet, Thor is beginning to worry about the amount of noise she’s making. “Would you like the same today?”

Behind he can hear the scrape of your chair and he turns to look for you. You’re getting up, gathering your things. No! You can’t be leaving. With your arms full as you hold your coat, book, and purse, you hesitate then move towards one of the alcoves along the far wall.

Damn barista! She was being too loud and probably drove you away. You like your silence in the morning.

You shove your coat into the booth, your purse thrown on top of it and your book deposited on the half table that protrudes from the wall. A small lamp lights the space, dim lights overhead. It’s in all reality a booth with only one side as if someone decided to rip it in half and then place the seats in alcoves one in front of the other.

The setup, minus the walls in the middle, remind Thor of the seats that he’d once seen in a yellow school bus when a group of kids had visited the tower.

You come back, grab your cup, and Thor knows that it’s now or never.

“Excuse me, Miss?” Thor’s voice is trembling, his hands are shaking with nerves and he hopes that you can’t tell and that no one from the team is spying on him because he has never felt himself so vulnerable before.

He feels exposed, like a vein, easily cut and raw.

You freeze, startled to be addressed by him it seems because your eyes are wide as saucers. Your lovely mouth pops open as you stare at him, perplexed and shocked.

“I’m sorry to bother you but, might you perhaps make a suggestion? I like coffee but have never had anything more than a plain coffee with cream and sugar.” Thor explains, hoping to bury the shake in his voice with his words and a fidgety smile.

He curls in on himself. Hoping to seem less intimidating with his shoulders hunched.

Your eyes wander to the barista and your brow narrows in more confusion.

Speak to me, my pearl. Thor thinks, pleading wildly with you silently.

“Wouldn’t the barista know more about what you should try than I would?” Your voice is surprisingly strong. Sure. Nothing like his quaking timber.

“Oh, but, your coffee al-” He stops himself and chooses his words carefully. “Your coffee smelled so tempting just now when I passed you. What are you having?”

Shit. He’d almost said always smells so tempting. He must be careful.

Your perplexed expression doesn’t waver. Instead you stand up straight and bring your cup up to your nose to smell but beyond the White Chocolate Mocha that he knows you are drinking, he can smell you and you smell more exquisite than he thought possible. Like coconut and strawberries and the slightest hint of nutmeg.

How is even your smell so tempting and perfect?

“It’s a White Chocolate Mocha.” Your hands are cupped around your mug, soft fingers curled gently. “Without the whip cream.”

Your lips are perfect. Kissable. He would love to taste the coffee on them.

“If you have a sweet tooth though, with the whip will be better.” You reach up and tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear and Thor wishes he were your hand so that he might caress the sides of your head as you just have.

“Sweeter.” You assure him and your face finally relaxes into a soft and stunning smile. It must be no larger than a slight curve to the corners of your lips and yet it transforms your face and you are alight again.

Thor can’t breathe.

“R-Right.” He wheezes, then clears his throat when your smile grows larger at the sound of his voice. “Right. Thank you. I will try that.”

Your eyes are shining so bright, life breathed into them by the discussion of coffee for some reason. Your lips part and you laugh. You actually laugh. Not an audible laugh. It’s just a sigh. A small puff of sweet air from your lips as your eyes shift down to his shoulders then back up to meet his eyes and Thor suddenly feels a swell of pride to know that he actually tried to look good for you.

Do you like what you see? Gods, let her like what she sees.

You nod and without another word you wander over to your selected alcove and slide into the booth. You steal one more glance at him and then shyly look away and bury your nose once more in your book.

Thor is floating. He feels as light as a feather. Like he could fly. Well, he can actually fly. But he feels as if gravity were nothing. He might float up to the ceiling and crash through to the floor above. He might rise higher and higher until he’s in the sky itself, floating amongst the birds and clouds.

He doesn’t remember placing the order for your suggestion but suddenly his name is being called by the barista. She’s pouting as she places his cup on the counter and slides it over to him, not releasing it until he has it held within his hands.

“Thank you.” He mumbles. Smiling stupidly at her.

As he turns to look back towards you, all he can see is your elbow, hidden in the booth as you are, but just your elbow shines in pristine light.

Thor thinks back to all the teasing he’s endured from the team over his crush on you, for that is what this must be. A crush. Honestly, all the teasing was worth it if it eventually led to such a small but treasured moment.

You. Smiling. At him.

Twitterpated. The word Sam had teased him with not two weeks ago pops into his head and he’s smiling like a sap. Too enthralled with you to care what he might look like to others.

With your tiny laugh playing over and over in his head, Thor is instilled with a sudden confidence and he marches forward, careful not to seem too eager but also unwilling to hide his enthusiasm for you. He crosses into view and he sees your eyes focused hard on your book.

He stops, sliding a little as he hesitates to interrupt you. You look so invested that he almost wishes he was that book. He’d give anything for you to gaze at him like that.

You flip the page and don’t see him, although you tilt your head a little so that you’re facing him as you read.

Suddenly your eyes burst into sunshine, twinkling like the starlit nights on Asgard, bewitching and majestic. How the hell is it possible that you can fit an entire galaxy into your eyes? That must be the only way that your eyes can sparkle like that. There is no other explanation.

Then you laugh. Thor’s heart shatters then mends and becomes whole once more only to erupt into a gallop at the small sound of your actual giggle. A real giggle. He suspects this is what his mother had meant when she’d told him that when she first heard him laugh as a baby, her world had suddenly centered and nothing else mattered than to make him happy. Then when Loki had come and he’d laughed, her world shifted again and now she had two suns shining in her sky.

This is what she probably meant because nothing will ever be the same after hearing that giggle. He must make you laugh. He’ll make you happy or die trying.

“Excuse me?” He says bravely, taking one large step to move up to the edge of the table you’re at. The alcove is smaller than him and he has to duck a little so that you might see all of him.

“Oh, hi.” You smile, kindly, sweetly.

Can he kiss you yet? Your eyes are still shining. Up. At him. He’s awash in their purity. He might just stand there forever. If only there was a way to freeze a moment.

“Hi.” He says, deep voice shaking in his chest.

You smile a little more, huff another one of those tiny laughs, and lay your book down. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He says stupidly. “I mean, I already said that. I was wondering if I might join you?”

“Oh.” Your smile falls away, replaced by genuine surprise. “S-sure.”

Why are you stuttering?! ��I do not have to, if you would prefer to read and enjoy your coffee alone-”

“No!” You hurry to say, smiling that sweet smile again. “It’s not that, I just-Of course, you can join me. If you’d like?”

You almost seem unsure but you’re already shoving your coat over and making room for him. The booth isn’t small, but it isn’t large. For someone like Thor there are rarely large enough seats.

“I would like it very much.” And he smiles, unable to fight the heat in his chest and the way it drives him towards you. He slides in, realizing as you lean back that he’s sliding too close to you too fast, his arm already draped around the back of your seat.

He quickly makes it seem as if he were simply trying to get himself comfortable as he settles into the spot beside you and then brings his arm back forward and wraps his own hands—both of them, best not be tempted—around his hot cup of coffee.

You’re sitting facing him, slightly turned, your right knee touching his left and he can feel your skin’s heat through his pants.

No touching, Thor. He reminds himself. For even though he’s been watching you for such a long time, you have only just met him.

For almost five whole minutes, the two of you sit in utter silence, sipping your coffees and saying nothing. You look up at him with those shining eyes and you smile. Thor smiles back, unable to speak in case you do.

He doesn’t want to interrupt you! You’ve had six months of withdrawal. He’s watched you shrink and shrink until you became so overlooked that you were never asked your opinion by those you counted as friend. And it became natural that you never offered it freely.

Say something, my cherub. Anything. I will listen.

When he thinks he might go mad, you actually lower your hands into your lap and look down at them shyly as you bite your bottom lip. “H-How do you like the coffee? Too sweet?”

You look up and meet his eyes and he almost doesn’t realize that you’ve asked him a question because he’s so enamored with the sound of your voice, easy and tentative, uncertain in its strength all of a sudden.

“Er, no. It’s just right. Perfect. The whip cream is great.” He takes a sip as if to prove it to you.

“I-” You hesitate, and your confidence seems to be wavering. No. He wants you to be confident! Speak to me, my gem. Tell me everything. “I actually don’t like the whip cream. Sometimes they forget to take it off and I’ll drink it like that, but I prefer not to have it.”

“Do you not like the taste?” Thor’s more lurid self disappoints. Though the whipped cream back on Asgard had been a bit less saturated in sugar, they had used it very similarly. In the kitchen…and in the bedroom.

“Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s just messy. It makes the coffee all weird. I like whip cream. In moderation.” You explain, then reach up to touch your cheeks.

Was he too obvious? Shit.

“I see. Sugary foods are best in moderation. Or so the team keeps telling me. I never leave them any Pop Tarts and they get angry at me.”

You laugh. Amused by his story about being chastised by his team? Should he share more of them? No! He’ll let you dictate the flow of conversation.

“I’m sorry-” Thor suddenly realizes that he hasn’t introduced himself. “I seem to have lost my mind today. I am Thor, son of Odin. God of Thunder.”

You huff another irresistible laugh. “I know. I mean, it’s nice to meet you.”

Thor’s cheeks flush. Of course, you’d know him. He’s everywhere. Not on purpose but being an Avenger does that.

“Though honestly, dressed like that, I didn’t realize it was you at first. You look different than when you’re in your uniform?” Your eyes roam his form. Devouring his outfit.

“A bad different?” He worries.

“No! No. You look…” You stop yourself and touch your cheeks again.

You look so good bashful. Gods, he’d really like to hug you and kiss you. But no doubt he would scare you away if he tried.

Small steps, Thor. Take your time.

He blushes redder. “And what is, if you do not mind my asking, your name?”

“Wow, I’m an idiot.” You frown. “Sorry. My name is Y/N. Y/N y/l/n.”

Like he didn’t already know that. “It is my great honor to meet you, Y/N y/l/n.”

Though, to be fair, he didn’t know your last name until this moment.

“Y-Y/N…” He stutters over your name. Somehow saying it aloud finally, to you. To your face. Gods, that face.

This time he's very aware as that golden wave of euphoria washes over him. He sees it reflected in your eyes for a moment. A daze, and you scoot closer.

No! Thor shuts his eyes, shoving that impulse aside. He won't make you do anything with that.

When he opens his eyes however, he sees that you’re fussing with your jacket. Leaning towards him so that you can pull it out from under your butt.

Wait…had you not responded to his thing? His power?

He turns it on again, focusing on his intense desire to have you, to keep you, to love you.

You look at him once your jacket is out and you flatten it against the wall then turn to face him a little better. You lean back against it and give him an innocent smile.

And you wait, hands in your lap as you sit facing him. Legs carefully crossed. Thumbs twiddling. Patiently waiting for him to speak even though the push of attraction is emanating from deep in his belly.

He shuts it off again, clearing his throat. “Um…”

What does this mean? Do you not like him? Are you not at all attracted to him? If he takes it from what happened with Nat and Bucky, his thing only works when the two people are already emotionally involved or highly compatible.

Are you and he not compatible? That is unacceptable.

Thor reaches out, placing his right hand on the table, tapping his finger against the edge of your book as he tries to focus on just you again and not what your immunity to his pull might mean.

“Um…what is this book about? You looked very engrossed when I walked up.” Thor smiles softly.

You look to your book and your eyes brighten in that heartwarming way and Thor forgets his worries because all that matters is that look of excitement in your eyes.

“It's a novel. A er…a love story to be honest.” You seem embarrassed for a moment. “Do you read novels?”

“I must confess all the books I have read were mainly in my studies as a Prince of Asgard. While that did mean reading a few classics, they were of Asgard.”

“Ugh, I should probably be reading educational books. Non-fiction. But I-I'm a sucker for a good love story.” You chew on your lip and Thor wants nothing more than to reach over and trace that bottom lip with his thumb.

“What is this one about?” He asks again, eager to keep that excitement in your eyes.

And it's there, in your eyes, for all of two seconds before it fizzles.

“You wouldn't be interested.” You tell him. He can hear the defeat in your voice. You’ve given up. You’re not prepared to show your excitement to anyone. After what might be a lifetime of being overlooked, let alone the past six months.

How long before Thor found you had you been timidly stepping aside, letting others speak while you kept your words to yourself?

You deserve to be heard.

“If you are interested…I am interested. Please, tell me.” He begs gently, his voice low because he so wants you to be comfortable with him.

You look at him, eyes boring into his as if in search of a lie but Thor only smiles, turning a bit more to look at you, laying his left arm along the back of the booth.

It comes rushing back, the sparkle to your eyes, and after another tempting bite to your lower lip, you huff another quiet laugh and look down at his chest.

Thor is well aware that he must be giving you what Sam had also referred to as “heart eyes" but he doesn't care. He wants you to see it.

While before he had been patient to watch you from afar, now that he has you before him, smiling and laughing and biting that alluring lip, he must have you.

He'll take it slow. He knows you’re not forthcoming. He'll have to woo you. Carefully.

He makes sure to pepper in some questions as you speak but he keeps himself silent as much as possible. You drift from your book to other topics, movies with similar themes and other books with the opposite. You come back to the one you're reading eventually and Thor is determined to be completely silent now so that he might listen to the way your voice rises and falls with your enthusiasm.

How can your companions not see this brilliance and be mesmerized? Why do they see only their own need to express their thoughts and shut you out?

Fools. Blind fools.

You’ve been explaining the book for almost ten minutes, uninterrupted when you suddenly realize this. Your eyes widen with worry but Thor smiles broadly, pearly whites against the hay and chestnut scruff of his beard.

“That sounds quite dramatic.” He acknowledges. “And sad.”

“It is a little. Dark. Exploring the choices and viewpoints of two cheating spouses? It makes you realize that people sometimes have unique reasons for straying. Not that it's right. I’m not defending it. I don't really have much experience myself but I would never cheat.”

“Have you not dated?” Thor wonders, stupidly hoping you’ll say no. He's feeling greedy.

“Not for a long time. We broke up because he moved, not because we grew apart.” You confess.

“Oh?” Thor's heart gives a small ache. Someone else in this world had had the opportunity to love you.

“This was years ago.” You explain. “And you?”

Thor blinks, realizing what you're asking him. Eyebrows raised high, smile returned as he nervously looks at and fiddles with the corner of your book again.

“Well, I dated Jane, here on Earth. Most humans know that. It wasn’t exactly a secret. And I did have a lot of time to court others back on Asgard and on other various planets throughout the Universe.

“Now that I think about it, I’ve had lots of experience dating.” He admits, turning his eyes back on you only to find you looking down at your twiddling thumbs on the orange of your skirt.

You look worried. Sad?

No. That's not how he wants you to look. Where's the brightness? Did he make you sad? How? What did he say?!

“I should go.” You suddenly say.

“Go?” Thor asks, his voice slightly strangled around the word. But he barely got to spend any time with you!

“Yeah. I’m meeting my friends in the park? They wanted to go see this new store opening downtown and then I have to go into the office for a few meetings.” You sit facing forward and begin to gather your things. “I’m actually late. I should have left half an hour ago.”

Thor looks down at his watch and realizes the two of you have been sitting in the booth talking for nearly three hours.

The morning is now aged and the sky outside bright and sunny despite the constant fall chill in the air.

“Forgive me. I didn’t realize we'd talked for so long.” Thor slides out, rises to his feet and grabs his now empty cup of coffee.

He waits for you to slide out and watches you pull your coat on before shoving your book into your purse and hoisting the bag onto your shoulders, your reusable cup held in your left.

You smile up at him, nervous and still a little sad.

“Um…thanks for keeping me company.” You tell him sweetly as he follows you to the door. “I had fun.”

Thor is unashamed to stare at your beautiful face. He sees the sparkle of excitement return to your eyes and knows that you mean what you say. You enjoyed the time you spent with him and he would gladly do it again.

He must see you again.

He leans over your left to throw his cup away but your right hand shoots out to grip his wrist.

Your hand is small around him. Your skin warm and soft. No, not warm. Hot. There is a burning heat beneath your skin and it steals him of his sanity for a moment.

She's touching me! Thor celebrates.

“Aren't you going to save it?” You ask him and Thor's brow knits in confusion.

“Save it? My cup?” He wonders.

“No…” You shove your own cup under your arm and take hold of the heel of his hand with your left to hold it still then slowly turn the his cup with your right until the cardboard sleeve is facing him.

On the sleeve is a number that Thor realizes must be a phone number. Had you given him your phone number?!

Glee explodes from his eyes at the sight.

“The barista went out of her way to get you her number.” You explain and Thor's fire of elation is quickly snuffed out. “Aren't you going to keep it?”

“Oh.” He says lamely and hates it as your hands fall away from his to grip the strap of your purse. “No.”

He throws the cup.

Reaching over, he shoves the door open wide and flattens himself against it so that you might go first.

You’re still staring at the trashcan where he threw the cup but when you realize he's waiting, you hurry through. Thor is glad when you stop just outside to turn back towards him as he joins you.

“Y/N?” He probes shyly. Nervous out of his mind for what he's about to ask you.

“Yeah?”

“Might I not have your number?” His heart is a hammering of eagle wings in his chest. He nearly faints as you bite your lip again and shake your head.

He's full of desire and disappointment all at once at the sight of your nervous habit and the shake of your head? Are you denying him your number?

You reach into your purse and pull out your book and a felt tip pen. Thor stares with quiet ecstasy as you open the book and on the inside of the cover you write down your number then underline your name just above it.

You shove your pen back into your bag then hold out the book for him.

“If you weren’t you, I wouldn’t be giving you that.” You admit, voice trembling. “I don't give out my number to strangers but you’re not exactly a stranger, are you?”

Thor has never particularly hated being known as Thor, the God of Thunder. Avenger. However, he has never loved it quite like this before either.

“Er…I…um…well, thank you.” He blathers stupidly.

“I really do need to go.” You tell him.

“Of course.” He nods. “Have a—good day?”

He hesitates, feeling as if the sentiment is not good enough. His stutter makes you smile and you turn and walk away.

He watches you for a moment, staring at the shape of your body, the length of your legs, the worn leather of your boots before opening your book to look down at your number.

“Thor?”

His body is humming. Never has his name sounded so sweet on a pair of lips. Never has his heart nearly shattered and exploded all at once. Never has he needed something without knowing he needed it like the way he suddenly needs to hear you utter his name again.

He looks up at you, your star shine eyes deep pools of galaxy, enrapturing him. Holding him hostage in their purity.

“Make sure you call me, okay?” Despite the quiet confidence or that blatant enthusiasm shining at him, your timidity flows through in the shake of your voice. “I really want to finish that book.”

“Of course.” Thor assures you and holds it up for you.

Oh, please, say my name again.

“Bye, Thor.” You give him a little wave and he returns it as his body melts at the sound of your sweet tone wrapped around his name.

He watches you until the blue of your coat is out of sight.

Is it too soon to call you right now? He wants to hear your voice.

Twenty minutes later, Thor storms into the tower, the common room empty save for the stoic redhead sharpening her knives on the coffee table in the living room portion of the large room.

“Natasha, my friend, I need your help.” Thor exclaims, stopping a few feet from her.

“Hey, man.” Bucky says, moving around from behind Thor and towards Nat where he drops off his own set of knives before sitting on the floor across from his crush. “How'd it go? Did you get to talk to your mark?”

“She's not a mark.” Thor grumbles. “And yes. I did.”

Bucky beams up at him, his brown tresses hooked behind his ears. “Woah, good for you. Was she everything you hoped she'd be?”

“She was more but stop distracting me. I came with a mission for Natasha.”

The two of them freeze and turn to stare at Thor.

“What mission?” Nat asks, intrigued.

“I need…a cellular phone.” Thor then holds up the book beside his head proudly, big goofy smile in place. “She gave me her number.”

Forever Tag List - CLOSED!!!!!!! Until I can make more room. @until-theend-oftheline @jessieray98 @dsakita @coldfacedwarf @just-trying-to-survive-marvel @fairislesheets @jewelofwinter @mannls @moonlessnight14 @sovereignoblivious @pandazlazykid @lilulo-12 @moli1497 @shifutheshihtzu @the-real-mary-jane @pastelxvirgo @just4muggles @vulpecula-minor @wildefire @mdgrdians @tiffanynguyen03 @shield-agent78 @i-cant-shine-without-darkness @the-wayward-robot @babytrollgirl @alagalaska @sincerelytlh @theonelittleone @sea040561 @xrosegoldwolfx @peppermintvanillaa @awkwardfangirl2014 @crist1216 @xxloki81xx @idk-random-fan-girl @romimiux @badassbaker @this-side-of-midnight5 @booklover2929 @natura1phenomenon @xlittlestarling @whosmarisaaarw @hiddles-rose @supernaturaldean67 @literallymoonshine @sebbystanlover-vk @pineapplebooboo @quokkatrash @marvelpott @spaghettirogers @rainbowkisses31 @basementcafe @death-unbecomes-you @kind-sober-fullydressed

[writingsofmyimagination]

King and Queen

Summary:  Jungkook becomes very needy before he goes on tour and becomes even more desperate when he gets back (Part 1 of a 2 Shot)

Jungkook x Reader

Words:1988

Warnings:Smut, Sub/Jungkook, Dom Reader, Light bondage, Ice Play, Thigh Riding.

Happy Reading :)

//Charlie Puth – Attention// you groggily rolled over and reached blindly in the darkness towards the way too bright light of your phone.

“This better be important Kook, its 2am” frustration seeping through your drowsiness causing your brows to furrow.

“Please come over” the bright wide-eyed voice asked politely. Sighing to yourself before continuing with your response

“I saw you like 4 hours ago, and you have to be up at 6am to catch your flight; don’t you think you need to rest?” knowing full well he’d take this rhetorically.

“No, please, I need you more… my queen” He whined. Like a switch, all tiredness dissipated and a half smirk diffused across your face. He knew exactly what he was doing calling you that and you knew exactly what he wanted.

“Aww my little bunny, always so needy for me before he goes on tour” you teased fake pity in your voice. You flicked your lamp on and shuffled yourself out of bed and scanned the dimmed room for your grey skinny fit joggers. You fished a white tank top out your draw and pulled it over your ivory floral lace balconette bra.

“I’ll have to help myself soon” He toyed, your eyes widened in awe of his bravery.

“You dare!” you warned “You won’t be allowed to be inside me until long after your back” Your tone sending all the warning he would need.

“Don’t be long” the phone beeped and he was gone, you pictured the smug look adorning his face right now. Cheeky shit!

 As you clicked the key as soundlessly as you could you wandered if he’d behaved. There was always a slight hope that he wouldn’t. Last time he misbehaved you got to chastise him; you refused to let him touch you and make you cum. You enjoyed rubbing salt into that wound by making him watch while you came by your own doing. It drove him crazy and he certainly learnt his lesson. You gingerly made your way to his room, the lighting from outside showered just enough light, casted just enough shadows to navigate yourself successfully. A slither of white light peeked from under his door, inhaling the essence of your role before stepping inside.

“Such a good prince” impressed, he was on his knees dead in front of you in nothing but black boxers. He was knelt back resting on his calves, legs slightly parted and palms upright on his thighs. His eye were weighed down with obedience, dark hair trickling onto his face.

“What is it you wanted so badly to get me up for?” you spoke, hands on your hips, still in front of him.

“I want to hear you cry you out my name while I fucked you once more before I go away” His voice was so sickly sweet and innocent despite the filth that rolled out of his lips. The apricot colour skin taught against his muscular build, every bit of definition a treat to the eyes.

“I suppose I can’t deny you that” agreeing for him as well, It was going to be a long month. You knelt in front of him tipped his chin up per-missing him to look at you. His eye were craters of dark brown sugar starting to caramelize with unresolved need.

“There will still be consequences for waking me up, you know I hate that. Understand?”

“Yes M’aam” so obedient with his response.

“Good, now get up and kiss me”

You both bounced up, he launched at you his lips hit yours with unrestrained urgency knocking you back into the door. His weight pressed to your chest battling with your quickening chest undulations. It accelerated even further when his hands clamped onto your hips securing you in place.

“I think you can feel too much” you moaned in between breaths. “Stop and go back to waiting like a good bunny”

Jungkook stole one last lingering kiss desperately, a slight pout on his lips. You used to punish that behaviour but you grew to find it to be too unbearably cute and sexy when he sulked.

You went to a chest of draws at the back of his expansive wardrobe and took to the bottom draw and removed the satin blindfold and restraints. He’s lucky he’s going on tour and his skin needs to be flawless otherwise you’d be bringing out much more. He’d be restrained with rope until he was raw; he’d be left marked, bruised and flogged. Upon returning he’d not moved an inch.

“Always such a well behaved boy” kneeling behind him lightly blossoming kisses across his back, he inhaled each time your lips skimmed his skin. He always smelt like fresh soap, your hand trickled up the back of his neck snacking through his silky dark hair. He groaned when you yanked his head back

“On the bed” you whispered straight into his ear, which prickled at the sound of your command.

 As soon as he’d laid down you climbed and straddled his waist, you stripped your shirt and bra off letting your breasts sit perkily.

“So beautiful my queen” he eyed your flesh with a cocktail of love and hunger. His fingertips traced your stomach

“Aah” you warned, his hands raised apologetically. The notion did not reach his eyes. You returned a mischievous smile as you secured his hands and hooked them over a notch in the middle of the headboard. You purposely ground your hips into his still clothed crotch steeling a moan he attempted to cover up with a hiss from his lips. Absorbing the groans with your lips as you kissed him with fierce passion, biting his lower lip. You felt him grow hard beneath you

“Is that nice my prince?”

“Mmm” he tried to mimic your hip movements but you centred your weight and stopped him.

“Too impatient Kookie” you removed one of his senses firmly tightening the blindfold behind his head. Seeing Jungkook’s breathe hitch sent a tingle to your core, your arousal transferring to your joggers and your clit beginning to ache. You sat back, pressure on his erection and stilled

“I think I may need one more thing”

You left the bed and chucked on your shirt and ventured to the kitchen. He hated being left restrained, especially in the dorm for fear of getting caught. You took your time returning the devilish smile never wavering. On finally returning you shed all your clothing and clinked a glass delicately on the bedside table. Gasping as you straddled his thigh pressing your wetness onto him, a pursed moan also escaped Jungkook.

“See what you do to me bunny, how wet I get for you” you were selfish and  started grinding yourself planting your hands either side of his head, arching your back making sure your mouth spilling moans was close to his ear.

“Aaah, Miss you feel so good, don’t stop” he pleaded

“Do you want me to cum bunny?”

“Please my queen, I want to feel your body shake on me” you stopped with no words

“Fuck!” he exclaimed in surprise, you felt his muscles hold their breath beneath you as he adjusted to the freezing block of ice draw a picture across the outline of his pectoral muscles. When the ice cube had been diminished to a small pebble you put it in your mouth. Your mouth cold and wet enclosing them around his lengthening nipple. Where the water had trickled down his skin it had left a field of goose bumps. The way his body reacted to your torment filled you with such drive you had to restrain the urge to fuck him until his tears were streaming down his face.

“Please touch me my queen” he fidgeted under you furthering his desperation. Granting his request you relieved him of his boxers

“Is this what you want my Kookie?” you breathed teasing your fingertips down his shaft.

“Yes Miss” his head rolled back into the sheets drunk with anticipation. He angled his hips to try and put more of himself in your hand. You hand struck his face, his high pitched whine had your pelvic muscles clenching around noting.

“I need to ride you first” you stopped all contact with his cock.

You resumed rocking your hips steadily over his thigh again. Jungkook couldn’t stop the frustration seeping onto his face in beautiful creases. Beginning to feel that slow ascent in your stomach muscles.

“How bad do you want to feel me Kookie?” you panted.

“So bad, please let me be inside you, I want to fill you up and feel you tense around me” he begged saturated with desperation. You could easily just cum sometimes from the way he whined and begged for you

“I’m going to ride your cock until I cum all over it but you my prince are not to cum!” you strengthened the end of your words conveying your seriousness.

“Oh fuck, I love it when you ride me” he grunted as you sunk down onto him followed by a low guttural growl. You began lifting and lowering yourself onto him balancing your hands on his v-lines.

“How do I feel baby?” You fished.

“Incredible, I get so lost in you” he was panting his words. Arching your back, flinging you head back, one hand rapidly circling your clit. Your legs jerked tighter around his waist as you cried out through your release. Your walls pulsing sweet bliss with passing second.

“Agh, princess feels…so...good” he stuttered. You struck him firmly across the face with the palm of your hand, he exhaled a pained cry; his dick twitched in contradiction.

“Sorry...my queen” he corrected.  

 Drowning in the aftershocks you leaned forward and untied his which dropped thankfully to the bed, you also gave him back his sight. Slipping the blindfold of his moist forehead, strands of hair clinging to his face mercifully.

“There you go my king” as soon as you gave up this code word signalling equality he pushed himself up and had you in his lap still inside you, brushing your hair out of your face.

“What are you going to do with you free reign baby?” you were still breathless, heart rampaging in your chest. Sloppy kisses showering you before he breathed in your ear

“I’m going to fuck you hard, you’ll be crying out my name” your body shuddered at the thought. Within seconds you was on your back legs wrapped tightly around him, his cock teasing, lined up to your entrance. You winced as his teeth bit hard on your neck, your nails leaving half-moon crescents littered on his side. He sucked ferociously and slammed into you; you almost screamed with some of the lingering sensitivity.

“Shit Jungkook” you cried. His pace unrelenting, crashing into your g-spot each time.

“You gotta be louder than that Y/N” he managed through his own guttural grunts. Somehow his thrusts grew harder and faster, his hot breath rolling down your neck where his head nestled.

“Jungkook… I” your orgasm smashed into you out of nowhere light a freight train, your scream higher almost in shock. His hips staggered and jerked as the pressure of your walls clenching around him sent him exasperatedly exhaling as he came and joined you in riding out your orgasm.

He peeled off you and slumped back beside you both panting, both lost in the afterglow.

“Hey you two kids had better be finished. We’re all trying to sleep here!” Jin hammered on the door sounding more amused than annoyed. You giggled and buried your head amongst the sheet like a shy school girl.

Jungkook rescued you with a delicate kiss on the forehead.

“I love you baby, I’m going to miss you so much” His bunny smile comatosing you in sweetness where you lay.

“I love you too Kook, you’re always so good for me and I’ll see you at the wrap party when you get back”

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

A Clockwork Orange, Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, Treasure Planet, West Side Story, Sunset Blvd

A Clockwork Orange

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

You can’t deny that this movie is a work of art.  Kubrick’s direction elevates the movie to a whole new level.  And the performances are fantastic...Malcolm McDowell gave a career defining performance as Alex.  But the movie is not my favorite...I like it a lot more than I did when I first saw it, but it’s not one I sit down and watch every year.  I do think it’s one of those movies that has to grow on you....so maybe the next time I watch it, I may like it even more!

Wizard of Oz

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I loved this movie so much as a kid!  I used to watch it all the time!  It’s interesting, I can’t remember the last time I watch it....though I do have it on Blu-Ray.  Judy Garland’s performance is iconic and she will always be remembered for it.  The cinematography for both Kansas and Oz is fantastic, particularly the bright, saturated colors of Munchkinland...it really does knock you out of your seat when they switch to color.

Sleeping Beauty

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

This definitely is not one of my favorite Disney movies.  Aurora is probably my least favorite princess, just because she doesn’t really have a character.  And it’s funny, because I sometimes have to play her for parties!  But I do like the dynamics between the fairies and Maleficent is an awesome villain.  Also, using the music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet was a really interesting idea, and I think it worked great!  And the animation is beautiful!

Treasure Planet

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I’ve heard sort of mixed reviews on this movie....some people seem to like it, while others think it’s awful.  I do think it’s an interesting idea, and especially it being a movie from the Disney Renaissance that did not have a princess was a bit of a risk!  And I think the animation style looks cool, from what I’ve seen!

West Side Story

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

Why are they remaking this???  I feel like anything that has won Best Picture should be exempt from getting remade.  Because this movie is a fucking masterpiece....another one that I watched all the time as a kid.  I wanted to play Maria so badly, but I knew that was impossible as I am not a Latina and look so Irish that I couldn’t even attempt to pass for Puerto Rican (and I am so thankful that my high school had the good sense to not attempt this musical).  But I love this movie and re-visit it every so often.  The only thing that knocks it down from perfection for me is that the majority of the main cast were dubbed.  But I will say that some of the dubbing is so perfectly matched to the actor.  When I was young, I thought it was just Natalie Wood who wasn’t singing, but when I found out that Richard Beymer wasn’t either, I was shocked!  And the dancing??  Some of the best dancing ever put onscreen!

Sunset BLVD

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

OK, so I’ve only seen this movie once!  And it was back in high school, so I feel like my opinion would change if I watched it again today.  I remember liking the scenes with Norma Desmond, but was bored by the scenes where she wasn’t around.  But it’s clearly an iconic piece of film making...I’ll need to put this on my list to watch again!

[slurpingsoba]

Game Over

Relationship: Shigaraki x Spinner

Word Count: about 1.9k

Notes: What started out as me trying to connect back to my childhood gamer days quickly became more Spinaraki propaganda. I think I wrote this a month ago, but I never finished it, mainly because I thought it was trash. I still think it's trash, but I slapped an ending on it so hopefully, it sounds better than it did before!

Also, this picture is the setting of the story. Sometime after Kamino

“Shigaraki”

Spinner called out his leader’s name quietly, not wanting to startle him. Shigaraki was currently cowering near the far edge of his bedroom, his eyes a bit puffy and his body curled up; the disembodied hands he held were overflowing in his arms.

He looked like he was trying to make himself as small as possible, but that was something hard to achieve with his lanky figure. Even in his own chamber, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

Shigaraki grunted as a response, and he shifted his weight from his right foot to his left foot, to his right foot again. His jittery, uncomfortable energy was seconds away from spreading to Spinner, who picked at his scales. 

“Shigaraki,” he called out again, a little louder this time. Shigaraki grimaced and dropped one of his hands to the floor.

Spinner cringed as well when the hand hit the ground. It was hard to watch Shigaraki with his face on display. You could see the intense anger and hopelessness oozing out of every expression he made. With saturated features, Shigaraki bent down to grab the hand on the floor but dropped the ones he was holding in the process. He fell to the floor along with his prized possessions. 

“Stop sulking in the corner like a fucking loser and get over here, for fuck’s sake!” Spinner’s voice cracked a bit. 

He caught a glimpse of Shigaraki’s eyes, and for a second, Spinner was scared for his life. Nobody else was in the room except for them, so Shigaraki could get away with murdering him if he wanted to. But Shigaraki was above killing his own allies, right? Right?!

Shigaraki, as lethargic and languid as he could be, got off the floor at a snail’s pace. He left the hands where they were. Spinner thought he heard some of Shigaraki’s bones crack as he inched himself up.

“Christ, it hurts to see you like this.”

“Then why don’t you leave? Everyone else did.”

Shigaraki’s tone made it seem as though everyone’s departure was a form of betrayal. He was aware that they had lives outside of the League, but he hoped that they would at least stay and comfort him in his time of need. 

Spinner’s heart felt heavier, aching in his chest as he sympathized with Shigaraki. Honestly, Spinner didn’t have any place better to be, but in order to spare Shigaraki’s feelings, he fabricated a white lie.

“I didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave you when you’re… like this.” Spinner motioned to the pile of hands on the ground, and the mess of a man standing among them.

Spinner changed the subject. “I assume you play video games, right? With all the gaming terminology you use.”

“I do.”

“Okay, so let’s play one.” Spinner pivoted on his feet and made his way towards Shigaraki’s monitors. Part of him didn’t want to know what dark and bizarre things lurked on Shigaraki’s computer, but the other part was curious. He pressed the power button on one of the monitors to boot it up as Shigaraki slithered over like a shadow.

Spinner rubbed his eyes, unaccustomed to the brightness emitting from the computer screen. It was the only source of light in the room, and he wasn’t used to using electronics in such poor conditions. 

Shigaraki, appreciating the juxtaposition between dark and light, stretched before taking a seat in front of the screens. After typing in his password, he clicked on an application on his desktop. One resembling a dirt block.

“Minecraft? Seriously?” Spinner was expecting Shigaraki to pick a horror game or at least something more on-brand. But Minecraft...

“Yeah? And what about it?” The only reason Shigaraki was playing it was because All For One bought it for him. He said the game would help him think creatively and collaborate with others in a controlled environment. Not like Shigaraki used the game constructively, anyway.

From the loading screen, Shigaraki clicked on multiplayer and went through his saved servers. After some contemplation, he selected Mineplex.

“Have you ever played?” 

“Yeah, of course. You can’t call yourself a gamer unless you’ve played Minecraft.” Spinner spoke without an ounce of sarcasm in his voice.

“I hope you’re not serious about that.”

“And what if I a- oh shit, look at that Gamertag!” Spinner interrupted himself, crowding Shigaraki’s personal space in order to get a better look at the screen.  

“‘I_Sucked_Stains_Nuts’? The Hero Killer’s groupies are fucking horny, aren’t they?” 

“With a tongue as godlike as Stain’s, why wouldn’t they be?” Spinner licked his lips. With wide eyes, Shigaraki gave Spinner a judgemental look.

“You know he stabbed me.” Shigaraki navigated his way into a mini-game. Survival games, to be specific. He entered a lobby.

“You probably deserved it.”

An exasperated expression settled on Shigaraki’s face. With a huff, he took his hand off his mouse and folded his hands. Spinner took the opportunity to seize control of the game.

“‘HeroKillerLover <3’, ‘xx_DaddyStain_xx’... would you look at that?! Stain’s quite popular in the gaming community.”

“One Minecraft server does not equate to the entirety of the gaming community. Now, give me back my mouse.” Shigaraki right hand reached towards the mouse but got swatted away.

“You know what? Fuck it. You control the mouse and I’ll control the keyboard.”

“Sounds good to me. Queue up the chat log.” Spinner said, ogling over the game like he’s never played it before. 

Oh, Shigaraki thought, a lightbulb going off in his head. Perhaps Spinner never played Minecraft before, and his earlier statement was just him trying to seem cool. 

Shigaraki found this amusing, and for the first time in a while, he cracked a smile. 

Meanwhile, Spinner read over the chat log, soaking in the nonsensical lingo that made the log incomprehensible to him. He was too old to understand the slang that tweens used. However, one thing on the log caught his attention.

A girl with rainbow hair and the Gamertag ‘Detroit_smash_me_69’ was crouching and un-crouching rapidly in the middle of the screen. She was typing in the chat.

“‘Yo, yo, Minus_U1tra_4, answer me. I like your skin,’” Spinner read out loud to himself. “What’s your Gamertag, Shigaraki?”

“Minus_U1tra_4.”

“Huh. I was expecting it to be ‘I_Hate_All_Might_’ or something.”

“That’s a bit too self-incriminating, don’t you think? My name is perfectly edgy.”

Spinner screwed up his face and raised an eyebrow. “Sure it is. Anyway, the rainbow-haired girl is trying to talk to you. She said she liked your skin.”

“I’m using the default skin.”

“Okay well still, reply back to her.” Spinner had a goofy grin on his face. He had a feeling this would be a funny encounter.

“Alright, if you say so.”

Hovering his fingers over the keys before typing, Shigaraki decided to type ‘i like urs to’ into the chat.

“That’s the wrong ‘to’. And you spelled ‘yours’ wrong.”

“I’m typing a message, not a fucking essay,” Shigaraki responded.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t use proper grammar.”

Shigaraki ignored him and read ‘Detroit_smash_me_69’s new reply. “‘Thx. Wanna smash?’”

“Whoaaa, wait a minute. Hold on a second.” Spinner backed away from the monitor in disbelief, pacing in the space behind Shigaraki’s computer setup.

“Dude, I think she’s just referencing her username. Calm down and get back over here.”

Spinner, after taking a few deep breaths, returned to his former position. “What are you gonna say now?”

Shigaraki typed into the chat window, chuckling to himself. Satisfied with his message, he pressed enter. 

‘I’ll Detroit smash you any day darling.’, showed up in the chat log under Shigaraki’s Gamertag. 

“You don’t realize how creepy that sounds-“

“Shush, I’m ~flirting.”

“She could be twelve.” Spinner attempted to reason with Shigaraki. It’s as if he’s never talked to a girl before, real or virtual. 

“‘She’ might not even be a she. Besides, what twelve year old has a Gamertag like that?”

“You know this is public? Like, everyone in this waiting room can see this right now.”

“I don’t give a shit, I’m enjoying myself. I don’t even remember the last time I’ve been able to sit down and play a game like this.”

Shigaraki’s comment caught Spinner off guard, but it reminded him that Shigaraki has been a villain for most of his life. Spinner didn’t quite grasp the twistedness of Shigaraki’s relationship with his master until now, and Spinner felt sad knowing Shigaraki never got to experience a normal life. 

“Well, I’m enjoying this as well. Even if you’re being a freak online.”

“I’m a freak offline too, you know.” Shigaraki turned around in his chair to look at Spinner. He was smirking and seemed to completely forget about the game he was playing. 

“Oh?” Spinner wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but he would be deceiving himself if he said he didn’t want to find out. He and Spinner were kindred spirits, gamers starving for justice and murder, so he didn’t dismiss the prospects of growing closer to Shigaraki in a more than platonic way. 

“Especially in bed.”

“Oh?” Maybe the Hero Killer fanatics on Minecraft weren’t the horniest people after all. 

Shigaraki stood up and advanced towards Spinner.  “To think I was moping around earlier, when I could have been doing this.”

Spinner had no choice except to walk backward. He continued until his legs hit the side of Shigaraki’s bed and he was forced to fall onto the worn comforter. With Spinner’s back pressed against the blanket, Shigaraki bent over him, trapping him between his arms.

“...doing me?” Spinner squeaked, his cheeks heating up. Spinner was an avid gamer, and therefore a virgin, so he didn’t know how to react to the predicament he was in. Sexual intimacy was new territory for him, but he wouldn’t mind exploring it with-

“Kurogiri said you guys can’t use the WiFi. With All For One gone, nobody’s here to pay for the internet anymore.” Dabi interrupted Spinner’s train of thought. 

Dabi’s voice made chills run down Spinner’s spine. He left Shigaraki’s room about an hour ago, so Spinner was surprised he was back so soon. Why was he here? Why did he have to be such a cockblocker??

“Shit,” Shigaraki exclaimed, not moving from over Spinner. 

“Why don’t you nerds try going outside for once? I heard the graphics out there are incredible!”

“Why don’t you try minding your own damn business for once? I’m about to get some.” Shigaraki barked back at Dabi.

“Yeah! I’m about to get some!” Spinner echoed from under Shigaraki, his every word dripping with excitement. Somehow, Spinner felt breathless already, although Shigaraki hadn't even touched him yet. 

“Gross,” Dabi muttered before walking out of Shigaraki’s room and closing the door behind him, leaving Spinner and Shigaraki alone again. 

Faint sounds from Shigaraki’s computer provided a distraction for Spinner, who was too overwhelmed to function. He looked into Shigaraki’s ruby eyes and found himself starstruck by the man he called a loser just a while ago. Reality was so much better than fictional worlds at times, and this was one of those times.

“Guess I wasn’t that bad of a flirt after all,” Shigaraki said, before leaning down over Spinner’s trembling form.  

Stain’s nuts weren’t the only thing getting sucked tonight.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

That behind closed doors vid eh? I took the time to change the angle/darkness on them for my own viewing so by comparing them to the other videos, my screengrabs might seem a little different, but that’s just bc i changed the pitch and yaw settings and adjusted the brightness.

spoilers technically bc this wasn’t released to the public by gearbox, so venture forth at your own risk. nothing story-wise, as far as i’m aware, though.

alright it took me a while to get things settled as i had to keep adjusting the saturation and stuff for different scenes but i am here and i am ready to ANALYZE

as we pop into sanctuary-III we notice a new quest which I am like 40% sure is named “Going Rogue” which... is a pretty interesting name. “Being Reguo” is what I actually see but I don’t think that’s it.

we also have a couple of guns in the vending machine

+3- Weapon Charge Speed so we know Maliwan guns have charge time so I’m glad there are perks to reduce that.

a sniper sold by Amara

more reduced charge speed + melee damage

Jakobs Assault Rifle! Bonus crit damage (hoping ARs are actually viable this time around), weapon accuracy, melee. 

I can’t read it, but I am assuming this is the rare spawn notification

this seems like a hub for the rare enemy missions! that is so awesome

2 of the rare enemies we can fight i am assuming

some more. i actually thought the far left, 2nd over was zer0

“I know it sounds impossible, but you’re going to have to stop the Unstoppable”.

In-Game friend’s list

5 tabs, one of them looks like a key, maybe there are friend codes across consoles? Idk what the first tab is named, but they have 7 friends online. I believe the bottom one (Moze) is you and the top one is the person you’ll be joining? It shows what quest you’re on under your name. And for some reason there’s an icon of claptrap at the top, that very well may be the current player’s icon (as it’s also above Moze and it says gunner in the box). You can edit your status apparently, but idk what status means. there’s also a button for View Inventory.

viewing the inventory rn

edit group button below ur icon/profile

new area

the unstoppable man goliath himself

more of the new area

1 (one) fear: The Unstoppable

he can apparently throw shit at us like Bullymongs did

F in chat for Zane

You can also shoot them out of the air

“Don’t leave empty [handed?]”

zoomer is so fucking cute

he threw the tire thing and it flew behind him instead of forwards

lmao

also i 100% just noticed this but zoomer is red instead of the normal yellowish, might be bc of a perk or maybe zoomer conforms to zane’s skin as well? could’ve sworn he was wearing the basic bitch outfit tho

moze and ib

can’t tell if this is a skin or not lmao the quality is too terrible

the quest called Sanctuary

i think that is a new skin? it looks black instead of blue but again that may be the quality of the video

oooo that’s different!!!! QUEST TO CUSTOMIZE SANCTUARY FOR THE INHABITANTS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE 

THIS IS ALSO DIFFERENT!!!!

vs the sanctuary-iii demo below

the behind the doors demo ^

the sanctuary-iii demo v

that’s a different list on the floor!!

the mail menu/tab!!!!!!

New legendary pangolin shield gives nova, storage, and health. does more weapon damage while shields are depleted

“I said bitttttttcccchhhhhh”

Also, those fucking names are brilliant. “Amara (as Amara), CalypsoKilla86 (as Zane), Fl4k (as Moze), MC Hammerlock (as unlisted), Moze (as Moze), SkagLord9000 (as Moze), Captain_Fuzz_Lipp (Offline - picture is Rhys), and Maya (Offline - I think the picture is Maya)

Maxxed-Out Sureshot++

“Thrown weapon MIRVs into 3 projectiles”

“Are you sure? Are you sure you want to send this item? Sent mail cannot be returned.”

EDGELORD ZANE FLYNT AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

GRANDPA NEVER GREW OUT OF HIS HOT TOPIC PHASE TGSHDTJYRUKJETHYRWTEQ

Moze heads! cool top hat skull

Moze skins

spooky scary. reminds me of Zer0′s pirate skin from captain scarlett

MOZE COLORS AND IT’S REAL WE GET TO PICK OUR COLOR SCHEMES THANK YOU OMG

GEARBOX ACTUALLY LET ME BE GAY IM YELLING

Moze emotes

it looks like there is a wheel for emotes!!!

so far we see finger guns and a little heart. we also know there’s a wave and we’ve seen amara do the chicken dance.

Amara, and some of her heads

birb

her hair holy shit that’s gorgeous

is that a crimson raider helmet? that’s badass as fuck goddamn

marcuS?

oh no Amara’s a furry now

drop from the rare enemy we see in the moze gameplay, maybe?

psycho cultist mask

warfstache?

Amara skins

spooky. guessing there will be a halloween skin event?

Fl4k!

i think this is their VIP reward head

Fl4k skins that change patterns

looks like a hawaiian shirt pattern on their jacket

camo

glow?

idk but it looks awesome

looks wintery to me, idk, maybe a floral print?

Zane heads

Soldier 76 reference i am guessing? I don’t play overwatch, im talking about the gay soldier guy with the visor lmao

space dandy fucked dirk im-

there are also gun charms

amara’s arm

buttstallion’s tail iirc

claptrap charm!

... eye of the destroyer? i think? needs more teeth

i have no idea lmao

fl4k’s doggy bowl!

helios hmmm

jack’s mask D:

moxxi’s hat

psycho mask

RHYS’S MOUSTACHE LMFAO

?????

tina’s bunny

a toaster? finally i can go swimming with my guns-

gearbox logo

weapon skins:

more eden 6:

is that is that an atlas building i see? or maybe thats SUPAMAX MFG!! they said we’d find a lot of crashed ships on Eden-6 (hey shoutout to my one post that said that the ship with bugs in it was gonna be the B-Team’s crashed ship that stranded them there, I WAS SO CLOSE)

may be supamax mfg

TINA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

looks they they’ve been living in the abandoned center (Jakobs? is it actually?)

Jakobs manor in the background

“Issarians” “Sarians” I dunno but they’re lil dinosaur thingies

more jakobs manor

i like the mix of old-timey shit and holograms/neon lights

this place is fucking huge omg

there’s like a library and everything holy shit

and it all goes to shit when the CoV get in there and hang people with TVs for heads (3rd trailer)

looks like its a basement or smth

volcano?  volcano? volcano? volcano?

(also from the third trailer ^) ARE WE GONNA BLOW UP THE VOLCANO? FUCK YEAH

Jabbers! cat monkey things. they are smart and can use guns

dome - reminds me of the atlas biodome of which cassius is from

(from TFTBL ^)

but it's just empty :|

some of the abandoned ships!

definitely thinking that abandoned factory like area we see (Tina Brick and Mordy in) is SUPAMAX MFG. these ships are SUPER similar to Sanctuary-III

THAT’S SO COOL??? this is straight outta skyrim holy shit. that giant skeleton on the tree holy fuck

looks like some sort of factory area? pump/mining maybe?

omfg lmao

this looks awful lmao but they said there is a gas giant in the sky so i gotta believe them

moze standing in what looks like the main menu

“[Iron Bear] is a little bit scuffed up - she’s seen some action”

they go on to talk about stuff we’ve already seen: about Moze’s action skills (hardpoints) and her skill trees

a better look at Amara’s phasegrasp

The quest is

“Bandit Jabber Hunter Spy”

Zane and Amara running ahead

You can target your missiles to one or multiple enemies at once. that’s fuckin awesome

more of Amara’s phasegrasp

Zane’s clone in action

“Lair of the Harpy”

And that’s it so far. That’s all we got. but holy shit was it a wild ride. I’m soooooo happy we get to pick our own colors for our skin designs. Seriously. So fucking happy. 

[woozifi]

how would you rank seventeen mvs by aesthetic?

ok, first off, please note that i spent like an hour watching and rewatching all 19 official mvs as noted by wikipedia, including unit mvs, so i can be certain that this list is correct. with that being said, i AM correct, this list is valid, and constructive criticism is absolutely NOT allowed.

Q&A: did i say 19?? haha just kidding this is a 20-MV LIST, i refuse to not include the best collab song and the most aesthetic mv svt has ever done. the colourful and sometimes almost too-bright (dare i say…highlighter-bright?) studyblr aesthetic that also meaningfully plays into the song and how the boyfriends feel like they’re being “quizzed” on their relationship skills? the absolute PEAK bf looks brought by a trio so iconic pledis’ coward ass has never put them together again ever since? jihoon’s fucking brown carpet sweater? ailee wasn’t in the mv because they knew i wouldn’t be able to take the sheer, potent perfection of it all in only 4 minutes.

AJU Nice: ok, the only reason this beats out clap is bc of that one bit with jihoon’s “heart” exploding and he’s falling backwards from the piano. let’s be real, it’s aesthetic enough that we’ll be giffing/editing that single shot for the rest of svt’s career. i can argue that this song, mv, aesthetic, and era in general is one of of svt’s most defining vibes. the suspenders really tied the whole thing together with a little bit of sexiness/maturity without taking away from the fresh youthful aspects that were so integral to svt’s concepts at the time, and the exploding confetti “hearts” were just so iconic!

CLAP: need i say more? the minimalist blocks of bright, solid colours in the background, the boys and their props purposefully smaller/centered to give everything a very “set”-like feel, which ties in perfectly with the mv’s entire meta filming concept. the computer glitches, the editing effects, the callbacks to the previous unit mvs in cute little dioramas?? excellent.

Change Up: YEAH WE FUCKEN KNOW IT!!! trust me, you’ll see me gushing about my love for svt’s solid blocks of colour and purposefully empty set design in a lot of these lists. y’all get the picture.

Adore U: shut up, this is a crazy aesthetic mv, and we can all thank pledis’ low-ass bankrupt budget for it. the shitty green-screen effects, up to and including that weird retro sci-fi bit, the blank and empty sets… god, even the pink and blue lighting that feels even more symbolic now thanks to our official rose quartz & serenity colours is aesthetic! adore u deserves this spot, and anyone who disagrees is free to fight me anytime.

Call Call Call: does it deserve to be this high in the list? probably not. did i put it up this high because i’m still not over how hot jihoon looks in this mv? probably yes. but ok, it is aesthetic, with the vibes & concepts of each of the 3 groups instantly recognizable and identifiable, it almost felt like 3 different aesthetics were used for each group.

Home: IT’S AESTHETIC!!!! that one purple set with all the lamps is already so fucking aesthetic i can barely stand it. i also lose my shit every single time in that one scene where the walls move. jeezus. so good.

Check-In: do i even need to say it. the gorgeous scenery, the chill vibes, mingyu’s aggressively orange hair? it’s ~*a e s t h e t i c*~

Pinwheel: i can’t say much bc every time i see their beautiful faces in this mv (and also jihoon’s really awful but still kinda attractive haircut) i feel like crying. anyway. it’s aesthetic.

Holiday: maybe it has the advantage of being filmed by wonwoo, but the aesthetics for this one are so soft and comforting. smth about the lower quality and occasional shakiness, the black border bc of the camera’s smaller screen, seeing the boys just playing around, going shopping, interlaced w/ shots of the scenery … it’s all so very natural and genuine. if it wasn’t for the purposeful scenes of them lipsyncing to their lyrics or dancing to the music, you could almost forget this is a music video!

Oh My!: the sleepy, dream-like quality of this mv is so unbelievably cute!!! and the clouds? the wonderland tea-party-like table with the sunflowers? ugh....so good. the only criticism i have is that the lighting feels slightly off in some of the sets, like it’s shining too much on their faces and making it hard to make out their features. and not being able to see svt’s beautiful faces is never aesthetic.

Mansae: okay, look, school concepts are always aesthetic. as usual, svt was on top of their fucking game with the bright blocks of colours, and their early eras were sooo good at sacrificing realism for hyper-funky-fresh sets and scenery. also, i just loved how they had their names in huge-ass labels on their school uniforms, it was a very clever idea for a new group with so many members.

HIGHLIGHT: okay, i could say that it’s because of the way they used lights, the flashes of deep red, the minimalist set to help emphasize perf unit’s dancing abilities … but in all honesty, i saw them in suits and my brain just blanked out. so here we are.

Trauma: the same themes of empty, minimalist sets and blocks of colour, albeit muted to suit the concept of the song! not my fave mv, but certainly an aesthetic one. side note: i don’t remember vernon looking so fucking hot in this mv.

Thanks: actual sets and scenery? in my svt mvs??? ok in all seriousness, the use of lighting was great in this one, with the ultra warm glows and the more realistic fluorescent ceiling lights ... bruh, it’s good.

BOOM-BOOM: one of the only mvs that has any coherent semblance of a plot, and immediately it’s the sort of fun, lighthearted, ocean’s 11 type of heist concept that svt can pull off easily. in terms of aesthetics, it’s not that great, but the use of colour and set design was really great.

Pretty U: it’s distressing having to rank one of my fave eras so low, but look….pretty u was kinda aesthetic but it wasn’t aesthetic enough. i mean, this was the era with the outrageously cute pink and blue suits and the fucking unbelievably entertaining musical-inspired choreo!!! and for some reason, the official mv couldn’t even let us see any of that? not to mention the camera seemed to love jumping from one member to another or filming their backs as they ran around, it was difficult to even really see any of their faces. the one aesthetic bit was the glow-in-the-dark bowling scenes, and nothing else.

LILLI YABBAI: look it’s just…it’s too BRIGHT. that being said, the saturation of the white and blue was great, and as usual performance unit looks like they’re about to single-handedly restore my faith (and attraction) in men, but i’m gonna argue that this mv…is not aesthetic.

Getting Closer: you fools, this mv isn’t aesthetic. the boys just look super hot. don’t get confused.

Don’t Wanna Cry: this might get some people mad at me, but listen…the aesthetic was a rooftop and a desert. like…..that was it. thank u, next.

looking back now, i realize i probably should have included shining diamond, but wonwoo’s hair upsets me in that mv so i didn’t want to.

[armory-rasa]

Long tutorial time: How to Take Product Photos That Don’t Suck

If you’re trying to sell your handcrafted work online, then your photos matter so much -- I daresay almost more than the work itself.

“Upcycled” items that are literal trash (but attractively photographed!) can sucker people into paying actual money for them. And on the flip side, the best-quality leatherwork in the world is going to look dubious af when the product shots were obviously taken in someone’s kitchen, lit by fluorescent lights and a camera flash.

You will get more sales and you will be able to charge more for your work if you have professional-looking product photos -- not fair, maybe, but true. So today I am going to show you how to create decent-looking stock photos, ie, a picture of just the thing itself on a backdrop.

(The cat is unrelated -- clickbait, really.)

I’ll admit upfront that I am very, very far from being a photography expert, and I'm sure an expert could do better than me, but I can't afford an expert and probably neither can you. And this isn’t about the mechanics anyway, it’s about the setup, and just making these small changes can seriously up your game.

Step one: camera

Unless you've already got a good camera, your best bet is going to be a smartphone -- and make no mistake, smartphones are a close second, not a distant one. Modern smartphones are phenomenal, they’re far better than even slightly-dated digital cameras. They can't get you the soft-focus background that an actual, professional camera can (the lens simply isn't long enough), but you can approximate that effect with photoshop if you want to, and the set-up I'm demonstrating here doesn't need a fuzzed background anyway.

The only critical feature is that your camera can take sharp, in-focus pictures.

If you don't have a good smartphone, find a friend who does and beg/wheedle/blackmail/bully them into letting you use it for a bit.

Honestly, I've got a good camera, and half the time I still wind up using my phone because I’m too lazy to bust it out.

Step two: backdrop

There are a lot of artistic things you can do if you're taking pictures of a product in situ -- action shots, still lifes, pictures of it worn by models -- and all that will help your customers visualize themselves using the item, but it's also vital to have pictures of JUST the thing, pictures that cleanly and clearly show exactly what the customer is going to be receiving in exchange for the money they throw at you -- aka stock photos.

And for stock photos, you don't want to get creative with your background. In fact, if you can use the same background for many/most of your images, it will contribute to an attractive, coherent look for your shop. That means finding a neutral-toned backdrop that will work with any color item you put on top of it -- white, black, grey, beige, basically.

White can mean a lightbox...

(And there are a million tutorials online for how to rig up your own DIY lightbox)

...or another popular alternative is a white table pushed up against a white wall; the seam between the two is visible, but discreet enough that the eye glides right over it.

Black, you can do with cleverdick manipulation of the settings on an expensive camera, or you can find a non-reflective black backdrop -- which is easier said than done. Fine, dense, matte black velvet (think theatre curtains) is the go-to black backdrop, just make sure you run a lint roller over it before taking pics.

Any other color is going to depend on the backdrop you choose -- I personally have had excellent luck with some warm-grey velvet (?) yardage that I picked up for pennies at a goodwill a million years ago. (I’m not sure what it is -- it has the pile of velvet, but shorter?) I didn’t buy it for that purpose, but it’s since proven to be an incredibly versatile backdrop, and I’ve taken to using it for everything:

etc.

And even if you’re not stumbling onto a super-good-deal at goodwill, a yard or two of your chosen fabric will generally do you fine.

What I don’t recommend is:

- shiny fabric (anything shiny is overall more difficult to photograph -- and shiny spots will draw attention to themselves, rather than your product)

- vivid colors (limits what color items you can display on it; will often clash if the item is close-but-not-quite-the-same color (and what looks fine to your eye may not look fine on film); can distract from the item you’re showcasing)

- patterns (again, distracts from the centerpiece; draws attention to the background; moreover, is hell to clone-brush)

Here is all three of them being the perfect storm of not-a-good-stock-photo:

Which is not to say you can’t do something artistic with it...

...but it’s not very versatile, and it’s not exactly “stock photo” anymore.

One of the reasons I really really like velvet for a backdrop is that there’s nothing in the world easier to clone brush. Which happens, for instance, if I get my roll of photos transferred to the computer and realize there’s some lint I neglected to brush off, or if I was too lazy to iron my backdrop so it’s got wrinkles/creases in it, or if the angle I had to take the photograph from clipped the edge of the backdrop--

--it is super fuckin’ easy to clone all that out. (It also takes the burn tool really well, to darken the edges and point the viewer’s attention toward the middle of the picture, see above.)

Other backdrops that can work are fur (or faux fur):

The great outdoors: mulch, leaves, dirt, sand, etc--

(That was taken at my shitty old apartment complex, so I had to carefully remove the cigarette butts from the shot first. -_-)

(I admit I’ve mostly stopped using these kind of outdoor backdrops -- they’re harder to pull off than wood/concrete/fabric -- but in the hands of someone with an eye for composition, they can definitely be used to good effect, so I’m including them here anyway. You just want to make sure that the background isn’t distracting from the item, which you can sometimes do in post by darkening/fuzzing the background relative to the focal object.)

Concrete:

And wood:

In short, there are many things that are (1) unobtrusive and (2) neutral-colored that will make excellent backdrops.

Professional photography backdrops (essentially, the velvet I have) are close to true neutral, not affecting the “feel” of the picture at all, and there are tons of tutorials online to make your own DIY photography backdrops.

Conversely, you can also use a specific backdrop to help create the mood you want to convey for the piece -- concrete for gritty and urban; fur to evoke a rich and sumptuous feeling (or a primitive one, depending on what you’re selling); wood or rough-spun cloth for something rustic; dirt and leaves to take it back to nature.

I’m not going to say the sky’s the limit, because we’re talking stock photos not ARRRRT!!, you gotta rein it in a bit, but you do have a lot of options -- anything that’s not going to clash with the mood or distract from your product.

Step three: lighting

USE THE FUCKING SUN.

Don’t ever, ever use a flash for product photography, seriously, are you some kind of SAVAGE?

Cardinal sin right there; go straight to hell, do not pass go, etc. Lighting like that, your product looks like it’s drunk at a frat party.

Moreover, unless you are a wildly over-funded professional, and possibly not even then, there is no light source superior to the sun. Sure, if you finish your project at midnight and can’t wait to share it, take some snapshots in your shitty studio light and send them to your friends--

--but do not make that your product listing photo. You can do so much better.

(And notice the color difference too -- natural light tends to be much better at capturing color that is true-to-life. The second picture is far more accurate to the actual item.)

*

That said, direct sunlight is a HELL NO go. The shadows it casts are way too stark, and details can get lost because the camera has trouble navigating the gap between the super-dark parts of the picture and the super-bright parts.

And it turned out that I’d never bothered to keep any of the photos I took in direct sunlight (because they sucked), so for the purposes of this tutorial, I had to take a couple of my WIPs outside and go make some.

Direct sunlight:

The glare and the obvious shadows make these photos look strikingly amateurish. It draws attention to the background, highlights the fact that the bracers are just sitting in some lame dead grass. These photos look like someone finished making the bracer, carried it ten feet out into their backyard, and snapped a picture.

Which, yeah, is what we’re doing, but it doesn’t have to look it.

By contrast, indirect sunlight, when I move it four feet over into the shade of the house:

Right away, the diffused light (sort of soft-focus?) is more in line with what you see in professional photos. They still need editing before they’d be ready to roll out -- fiddling with contrast/saturation/white balance; clone-brushing out some of the distracting elements in the background; darker shading around the frame to center attention on the product -- but they have the potential to be decent photos now, instead of being critically flawed from the get-go.

When you’re using sunlight as your source, you’re usually going to be setting up either outside in the shade, or inside next to a window.

The context for some of these shots can also be hilariously un-sexy when you zoom out:

*

Sunlight tends to be much better at retaining the textural details of your work too, because more light means your camera can take a much quicker shot (low light = camera compensates by leaving the lens open longer to collect more light = blur).

If you want to really capture the fine texture of an item, natural light coming from one side (like through a window) is perfect, because of the shadows it casts:

On that note: if you’re trying to use a window as your light source, you may have trouble with the far side of the object being completely lost in darkness:

Which can be artistic, but doesn’t make for a great stock photo.

The solution is not to use another light source, but to use a reflector -- my go-to is white foam-core posterboard:

Which can fill in the shadows that are obscuring parts of your work:

Mirrors or foil can work for this too, but they tend to cast stark/uneven light, whereas the white board diffuses it, and diffusion is pretty much always what you want.

*

On the subject of diffusion: overcast days are your BEST FRIEND. They basically turn the whole sky into a lightbox for you. You get soft, beautiful light from all directions, muted enough to reduce glare, but there’s still more than enough light to keep your camera happy and your details sharp. 

(Man I wish there were more clouds where I lived.)

Here’s an interesting little contrast -- this one was taken on a sunny day, but in the shadow of my house, using a white reflector to move light around:

And then the very next day we had rain, and I was like, hell yeah, and took it outside for more pics:

Obviously both have had the contrast increased to bring out the details, but the mood difference between the two is 100% the weather.

*

And that is FAR from everything there is to say on the subject of photography lighting, but for the purposes of amateur product photography, those are the important bits.

TL;DR:

- Natural light

- Diffused light

*

Step 4: post-production

This is also not something I’m an expert in, I’ve learned just enough to get by and called it good enough. (It’s why I lean on overcast days whenever I can, because it eliminates a lot of the lighting problems that I don’t know how to fix in post.)

But here are some of the things that you will find yourself needing to know, and should be looking up how-to’s on for your graphics editor of choice:

White balance/saturation

Light comes in different colors, but the human eye automatically compensates for it, so often times something looks good to your eyes, but then comes out way funky on film.

Indoor lighting tends to be yellow-hued, because that’s what feels warm and comfortable to humans, but it looks nasty in photographs:

Natural light tends to be white (which is why it gives you more accurate colors), getting more blueish as it heads toward evening:

You can compensate for both by adjusting the white balance, in which the program figures out what white is supposed to look like, and then calibrates all the other colors in the picture accordingly.

Brightness/contrast

Is it bright enough to see the details? Is the contrast high enough to make the details POP, instead of blending together into a muddle?

You can apply brightness/contrast adjustments to the full image, and then (if necessary) go in by hand with the burn/dodge tool (brightness up/brightness down) and add extra highlights.

(Don’t go overboard on this though -- this isn't art, this is a product photo, and if you take it too far from the real object, you are lying in your advertising.)

Blur/sharpen

Are the focal points sharp? Sharp areas of an image are what draws the eye, so if your photos are blurry, they’re no good and there’s no fixing them -- grab your camera and go take some more.

Is your background less sharp than the foreground? A too-sharp background will distract from the central point, so sometimes you can put a very subtle blur on it to trick the eye into ignoring it. (Dropping the brightness and the contrast are also both ways to make the background less eye-catching.)

Clone brush

Basically a mini copy-paste tool, you grab parts of the image and copy it onto other parts. This is good for tidying up your background -- coloring in corners that your backdrop didn’t cover, or removing distracting irregularities.

Again, this is one to be used sparingly, because this is product photography, it needs to be accurate, not idealized. You don’t get to scrub off the imperfections and make it look like you’re better at [whatever] than you are.

The only time I consider it acceptable to use the clone brush tool on the actual product is for editing out flaws in the leather itself. It’s a stock photo; customers are not going to be getting the exact item shown in the photo. I’ll be making a new one for them, one that’s not going to have those exact flaws. (It’ll have excitingly new and different flaws! Such is the nature of organic materials.)

Edge gradients

A subtle shadow around the edge of your picture brings the whole thing together, makes the background recede a bit, and directs the eye toward the centerpiece. Too heavy a hand with this will still look nice, but more staged; it alerts the viewer that you’ve been photoshopping and kills the “I woke up like this~” illusion.

Relatively natural:

Dramatic!

Watermarking

You want people to be able to find their way back to you when your work inevitably gets cross-posted without the source (fuck you in the face, pinterest), so it’s not enough to put your initials or abstract logo or illegible signature on it, you need your google-able name or company name.

At the same time, people have been known to crop out (or clone-brush out) watermarks that are big and tacky, so it’s in your best interests to make your watermark tasteful and inoffensive. (Also: ugly watermarks just bring down your whole image, seriously.)

Some of the pictures above are old enough that they’re sporting my older & less professional-looking watermarks, but what I use at the moment is this:

(But, y’know, smaller.)

Best way to do watermarks is usually to create another layer over your image and blend the two. For dark logo/light background, the settings for the new layer are 1) blend mode: multiply, 2) opacity: 85% (adjust as needed). For light logo/dark background, the blend mode is probably going to be “soft light.” And then just paste your logo in the corner of the new layer -- the blend mode means your logo doesn’t have to be transparent, the program just ignores the parts that are lighter/darker than the background.

*

And that, I believe, is the end. o_O I had no idea I had so many opinions on the subject of product photography.

Again -- I’m not a pro. I don’t know how to use 99% of my camera settings or 80% of my graphics program. (For fuck’s sake, my go-to graphics editor is the bootleg version of Paintshop Pro that I acquired in 1997.) This post represents the sum total of my knowledge on the subject.

But it just goes to show that you can do a lot with only a little, and that your composition and sense of aesthetics are far more important than what gear you’ve got.