#and also figured I should redraw this old piece from last year!!!!

[dilutedbeanibeans]

YOUR SPEED MEANS NOTHING IF ITS DEATH THAT YOURE RUNNING FROM

redrew my first piece I posted onto tumblr! He holds a very special place in my heart<3333333333

[boymeetsweevil]

in your court

Grouping: Reader x B-ball player!Jaehyun (feat. BFF!Hyuck)

Word Count: ~10.8k

Warnings/Themes: Two idiots in love, oc is scary when mad, hyuck is crafty always, jae is a bit intense but he’s just trying his best, gratuitous descriptions of dimples, a kiss!!! sfw!

Prompt: “awkward!oc with his basketball teammate jaehyun. Honestly anything with bff!haechan.”

“Make sure you don’t make it look shaky.”

Donghyuck puts the phone camera close to his face so he can better see your handiwork through the video call. He looks a bit like a fish, but you can’t see him because you’re focused on the mirror in front of you.

“Remind me why I’m being forced to do this?”

“Because I’m your best friend and I deserve a sign just as much as Jisung and Johnny.”

You have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes so you don’t mess up the number 14 you’re drawing carefully onto your cheek in eyeliner. Although you hate to see good makeup go to waste, you’re trying to be a better friend while also trying not to accidentally write the number backwards. It’s Donghyuck’s new number this season and he begged you to show some team spirit despite the fact that you normally mix with sports the same way oil mixes with water. The last time you showed up at practice was the first day of the season and you fell from the third courtside bleacher after Donghyuck called you over to introduce you to a cute new walk-on team member. If anything, just being around sports is dangerous for you.

A minute later, you sneeze while holding the pencil and draw a huge line straight through all your hard work. Donghyuck literally screams and you hang up the call to focus. When you finally finish redrawing on the side of your face, there’s half an hour left before the first home game of the spring season starts. You grab the matching construction paper sign you made earlier, complete with a huge gold glitter 14, and head out the door.  Taeyong is supposed to pick you up so you can make it to the gym on time. He’s the only other friend you have who is remotely associated with sports and that’s only because he’s dating one of the players, Doyoung.

The ticket Donghyuck gave you days ago places you near the court’s side with a near-perfect view. You settle in and wait for the game to begin. The team is already out on half of the court, doing some light warmup tosses and making the occasional mean eye at the visiting team practicing on the other half. You catch your best friend’s eye and he lights up when he sees the sign and eyeliner drawing.

“Check me out, Hyuck!” 

You turn to give him a full view of your profile, subtly proud of your skills.

“Look at you,” he drawls as he jogs over to you, “You know, I think this is the best your eyeliner has ever looked.”

“God, you’re so annoying.” 

You try your best to cast an elbow at him without disturbing the still slightly wet glitter on the sign. When you nearly take out the old man sitting directly in front of you, you settle for flipping him off.

“Wait,” Taeyong peers at the sign, “Aren’t you—”

“I think Doyoung said he was looking for you. Something about wanting a good luck kiss.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes but still stands up to go look for said boyfriend. Doyoung’s not the nervous type, but he’s also not the type to say no to some pre-game affection. You watch Taeyong disappear towards the locker room while Donghyuck steps over some of the fans already seated and takes the now open spot next to you.

“Hey,” he says with no trace of humor in his voice any longer. “Promise you’ll still be my friend after this game?”

You place the sign on your lap and turn to look at your friend. Lately the coach has been pushing him harder and you suppose it’s starting to wear down his usual confidence. With the hand that’s not covered in little golden glitter flecks, you reach down to rub his shoulder.

“Of course I will, Hyuck. And even if you guys don’t win tonight, I’m still taking you to get food after. My treat.”

It was supposed to be a rare moment of sincere friendliness. But this seems to distress him further because he looks down at your hand on his arm and then groans before covering his face in his hands. You’re confused but you don’t have any time to ask him what’s up. A few of his teammates walk over then.

“Sorry to break up the love fest, but Coach wants us to do some stretches before the whistle,” team captain Johnny says, gesturing to the other side of the gym where some other players are already contorting themselves. 

Behind Johnny stands that new walk-on. The one you fell on your face in front of. He takes in your temporary face tattoo and overly detailed sign and smirks, allowing a dimple to wink at you. You can only hope to every deity in the universe that he doesn’t remember the way you first met.

“Hey,” he smiles good-naturedly. “Glad to see you made it here in one piece.” 

“Thank you,” you say with way too much sincerity.

It’s enough to knock Donghyuck out of his bad mood and make him snort loudly beside you. The new guy smiles a bit wider, revealing a twin dimple. You look away.

“Don’t get too friendly, Jung,” Donghyuck says with fake menace in his voice. “There’s only room for one Dream Team member in her life, and that’s me.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you guys were—”

“We’re just friends,” you blurt out before looking down at the fascinating liver spots on the old man’s head in front of you.

“Yeah, she wishes.”

“I definitely don’t,” you snap.

He sticks his tongue out at you. “Well, I’m glad you don’t.” 

“Guys, come on!” Johnny calls a moment before the coach’s whistle blows to give a final warning.

As they walk over to the side of the gym you curse yourself for acting so weird in front of that Jung kid. If he didn’t think you were a dope when you tripped over nothing the first time you met, you’re certain he thinks you have the charms of a 13 year-old boy by now. The only thing that snaps you out of it is the fact that Donghyuck is in a time of distress and clearly needs his friend. 

With squared shoulders and a new sense of duty, you try your hardest to be the world’s best cheerleader. You’re not really sure how sports work, basketball included. The game itself turns out to be really fun. Even though you’re not quite sure what’s happening. Taeyong sends you a text with a picture of your own mildly confused face contorted into a pout as you raise your handmade sign a moment too late, after everyone has already sat back down. But eventually you figure it out after enough times of standing when people around you wearing school colors stand up first. You know enough to cheer every time Donghyuck takes the ball to the basket and boo loudly every time he gets knocked down or his shot misses. In fact, you get so into it that you catch yourself cheering for other players. You even make the mistake of cheering once for new kid Jung but immediately stop when he catches a glimpse of you in the stands and shoots you a beaming smile. 

They win by a small margin, thanks to a 3 pointer Johnny shot in the first half of the game. By the time that happens, you feel like you have a good feel for the game. You don’t have to wait for the other fans from your school to stand up when the last buzzer rings, and you instinctively run out onto the court with the rest of them as the final score settles. There’s adrenaline and joy pushing you into Donghyuck’s arms. He’s genuinely surprised but welcomes the greeting, spinning you lightly while he laughs.

“Congrats on the first win of the season,” you shout when you finally pull back. He lets you squish his cheeks in excitement. Doyoung ambles over then, looking for Taeyong. You offer him congratulations as well.

“Thanks,” he smirks a bit as he takes in your large sign and the slightly smudged 14 on your cheek. “Shouldn’t Jaehyun be the first to hear it, though?”

You raise a confused brow.

“Shouldn’t I be the first to hear what?”

You can’t help the way you stumble back against Donghyuck at the deep sound of Jung—no— Jaehyun’s voice. He looks pleased. Probably with the outcome of their first game.

“I was just saying you should get the first ‘congrats’,” Doyoung explains, nodding in your direction. Jaehyun blinks, but takes it in stride.

“I’d be glad to receive it,” he says with a grin. His dimples pop out even more than usual under the sheen of sweat and the glow from the fluorescents. “So, what’d you think? How’d I do?”

You have no idea why but your heart is beating like it’ll fly out of your chest. It takes everything in you to muster up a cool and natural response.

“You throw good.”

Donghyuck, the traitor that he is, gets sent into a cackling fit. If you listen carefully, between the gasps for air and the hyena-pitched giggles you can hear him calling you a dork. You’d turn to yell at him, but he’s right. Doyoung barely covers up his own laughter while leaning on Donghyuck’s shoulder to try to disguise the sound as a series of coughs. But Jaehyun merely smiles down at his shoes as if he’s somehow moved by your clunky words.

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“No, I feel like I did well today thanks to your little sign.”

“The sign? Oh. Actually, this is for—” 

In that moment you realize two things. The first is that Jaehyun’s jersey has a big 14 emblazoned on the front of it. Just like the one you spent 10 whole minutes drawing onto your right cheek. And the one you spent 2 hours glittering the night before. The second is that you aren’t nearly as observant as you thought you were. Then you realize a third thing: Donghyuck is slowly creeping away from you as it all clicks together in your head.

When you turn to face your friend, the color has already drained out of his neck. He can see the wheels turning in your head and he raises his hands in a placating gesture, but you cut him off before he can even start. Grabbing at his jersey you make him turn around until you can see the white number 6 emblazoned on the fabric. It’s the same number he had last season, and the season before that.

“Just to clarify,” you begin with an unsettlingly calm voice, “When you asked me earlier if I would still be your friend after the game, you were talking about this, right?”

Donghyuck’s eyes go wide and dart around anywhere but your face. “You know what? I think you’re thinking of my brother, Hyongduck. We look a lot alike, so it’s an honest mistake.”

The coach calling him over in that moment is the only thing that keeps you from eviscerating him on the court with so many witnesses. You let him go, but not without him having to un-pry your fingers from his jersey. Jaehyun watches on with amusement in his eyes and you remember that he saw you nearly Hulk out on your friend.

“So, you actually didn’t know my number was 14?”

You shake your head, “I thought it was Hyuck’s.”

“I see.”

He tilts his head again, with eyes narrowed he looks you over before looking past you to where Donghyuck has finally made it to locker room safety.

“Well,” he fiddles with the chain around his neck, “I’m kind of sad the sign isn’t actually mine.”

“Oh. I mean, you can keep it if you want.”

Jaehyun’s head ducks down a second time, shaking his head at the ground like he heard something funny that you couldn’t hear. He does take the sign out of your hands though. With slow hands, he wraps the construction paper up until all the remaining glitter is safely tucked away.

“What about that one?”

“What do you mean?”

He points at his own cheek to mirror yours. You had forgotten all about the 14 you drew on your face to go with the sign.

“I don’t—I don’t know if you can wrap this one up, you know” you laugh stiltedly.

“Yeah. But I could always take a bit for the road. May I?”

All you can do is let out an eloquent ‘huh’ before he’s reaching out then and swiping away at some of the eyeliner that had moved around during the game. The drag of the pad of his thumb across your cheek should be completely harmless. Donghyuck has been infinitely rougher with his handling of you; one of the privileges of close friendship. And yet it’s this soft touch that has your breath leaving you like he punched it out of you. You swear the corner of his mouth raises, but it could be a trick of the light.

“What are you doing after—”

“I gotta go, sorry. Good game,” you toss over your shoulder before pulling your phone up to your ear like you’re taking a sudden phone call. 

No one has to know that you spend the next few minutes dunking your head under one of the running faucets in an empty locker room to cool your heated face.

---

Nearly 20 minutes later, Donghyuck is tiptoeing out of the men’s locker room. He doesn’t notice the shadow waiting for him. When he deems the coast all clear, he opens up his messaging app and shoots you a text asking for your whereabouts.

“I’m right here.”

He jumps nearly 3 feet in the air before letting the scream that built in his throat turn into a whine. You’re just barely visible in the dark corner of the gym. If he squints you look a bit like his sleep paralysis demon.

“You scared me,” he says as he takes a step back only to hit a wall.

“Funny how that happens.”

You pull out your phone, stilling standing in the dark, and let the light from your phone cast eerie shadows across your face. Donghyuck gulps audibly as he watches you type slowly in response to his text. The sound of his phone notification moments later sounds deafening in the otherwise silent space.

You (21:39) - Run.

“Look, let’s talk this out like adults.” His hands come up, palms exposed like you’re a feral animal.

“I knew you weren’t number 14,” your voice is steady and devoid of emotion as you take a step towards him.

“Then you shouldn’t have fallen for it—shit. Wait!”

He trips in his haste to get away from you and falls. You foot lands dangerously close to his face as you come to stand in over him and he grimaces.

“Please don’t kill me, I’ll do anything.”

“Why did you tell me your number was Jaehyun’s number? Make it good and maybe I’ll let you live.”

“I just felt like it.”

“What the hell!”

“I’m serious.”

“Wrong answer, Hyuck.”

With that, you wriggle a foot free from one of your sneakers and shove your socked foot over his nose. You’ve been wearing the shoes all day and, because you forgot to do laundry the night before, the socks are recycled. The sound of Donghyuck’s cries for help make you slightly better and you smile softly to yourself.

You would think that Donghyuck would have learned his lesson about not causing chaos in your life after a face-full of foot. But you should know that it’s practically his job description after knowing him for as long as you have. Sometimes you love that about him and sometimes you kind of hate him for it. This time, you hate him for it. 

Donghyuck prefaces the outing as a way of apologizing for tricking you. Normally you would have been slightly more critical. The first thing to tip you off should have been the fact the “apology" in question was coming almost two and a half weeks after the fateful jersey swap accident. The second thing should have been that the “apology” was coming in the form of a trip to a very specific tea house you don’t frequent because you’re not a tea person. And Donghyuck knows this. Because he knows everything else about you. Like which sweatpants you wear when you’re feeling bloated or when you just need a hug. But mainly you should have known something was up because it was Donghyuck. When he feels like he should do something, there’s no stopping him.

“What do you want to order,” he asks while holding the front door open for you to pass through. 

“A smoothie.”

“It’s a damn tea house, order something normal.”

“A smoothie is normal.”

“Do you order hot dogs at seafood restaurants too,” he pins you with a tired glare. You mirror the glare and add crossed arms.

“If they don’t have a smoothie, then I don’t want anything.”

You take a look around at the interior of the shop. It’s the polar opposite of the shops you usually frequent, which are all trendy with their mixes of dark, unfinished woodwork and sleek minimalist furniture. This place is almost cottage-like in the ornateness of the older architecture and the collection of kitschy antique pieces. You’re not surprised to see that a good deal of the patrons are older, some verging on elderly. There’s only a handful of people who look like they could be your peers. One of them looks oddly familiar. You can’t put your finger on it, but there’s something familiar about the way he stands and the delicate gold links laying across the back of his neck.

“Jaehyun,” Donghyuck calls a bit too excitedly, “Hey, man is that you? What are you doing here”

“You told me to meet you—” Donghyuck cuts him off with a dramatic gasp and a glance at his bare wrist.

“Aw, would you look at the time. I actually have somewhere to be right now, so I can’t stick around.”

“But you drove us here,” you whip your head around to look at him, but he coughs suddenly and looks away.

“Yeah, sorry. No time to drop you back off at your place, so I guess you have to figure that out yourself. Jae drives though. Maybe you can figure something out.”

Neither of you really know what to say. You watch silently with your mouth open in disbelief as Donghyuck turns on his heel and struts out of the tea shop exit, whistling contentedly. You suppose that if you’re the god of chaos reincarnated, all of this would feel like a good day’s work. You berate yourself for recently washing your socks.

“Good to see you again,” Jaehyun says after a beat. He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Thought I had scared you off after...yeah.”

“Oh, right. That.”

The air feels both too thick and too thin at the same time. You want to leave, every fiber of your being is screaming at you to leave before you do something weird in front of him again. But you can’t move. So you stand there, 3 feet away and not saying anything as Jaehyun looks over the large chalkboard menu hanging above the head of the older woman who is manning the front counter.

“What are you getting?”

“Me? Uh, I don’t know. I’m not really a tea person.”

“Well, what kind of person are you?”

Given the context, it’s a harmless question. But there’s a sing-songy lilt to the way he asks the question. It’s so blatant that curiosity gets the best of you and you stop purposefully avoiding looking at him. One of his dimples is out and he’s very nearly poking the tip of his tongue out at you, like he knows you’re suffering and he thinks it's funny. Almost like he’s flirting. Almost.

“I’m a smoothie person,” you finally say. “But there’s no smoothies on the menu.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“But doesn’t it say ‘no customizations’?” 

There’s a sign on the edge of the counter that says just that. Despite the fact that it’s written in beautiful, looping cursive, there’s an ominous tone to the message. Like the little old lady behind the counter might actually make you into tea if you asked for a frappe or something. You’re a little worried for Jaehyun’s safety. He must sense some sort of hesitance because he brushes it off and gestures toward the rest of the shop.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it, you can go grab us a table.”

The way he says ‘us’ so casually has you tripping slightly over nothing. He’s somehow there in the nick of time to grab at your elbow in a gentlemanly fashion to help steady you. Perhaps you yank yourself out of his proximity a little too quickly. But it’s only because you really want to find a good table and you can’t do that if Jaehyun is distracting you by grabbing at your limbs. 

In actuality, though, the tea shop is fairly vacant. There are a variety of tables with pressed white tablecloths and dainty tiered tea trays housing pastries. You pick one at random and sit down. Part of you really does wish you’d left when Donghyuck did. But the other part is curious to see what Jaehyun’s like when he’s away from his team and truly outside the context you usually find him in. So you compromise and watch as subtly as you can.

He seems fairly similar—all charming smiles and pretty hair while approaching the counter to talk with the lady you assume is the owner of the shop. She looks stern as she polishes some dainty bone china, but brightens when he comes to the counter. You watch in quiet awe as she reaches a hand up to pat fondly at the side of his face, most likely pinching a cheek from the angle you’re sitting at. You see him run a hand over the back of his neck which grows red after he says something to her that she must not like. Her brow grows heavy and her lips purse but he says something else then that has her directing her sharp gaze at you. You gulp and pretend you were merely admiring the tea sandwich tray on the table as opposed to spying. A wave of sudden embarrassment comes over you and you open up your phone to text Donghyuck

You (15:38) - this is a shit apology just so u know

You (15:38) - come get me plz

Hyuck (15:40) - sorry suddenly cant read dont know what that says :)

You place your phone face down onto the table and cross your arms with a huff. While trying to plan an escape that makes you look the least asshole-y possible, Jaehyun returns with the drinks. More specifically, he returns with a tall water glass in one hand that’s filled with a pale tea with fruit chunks and mint leaves sprinkled throughout. The other hand is encased in a floral appliqué oven mitt that holds the prettiest squat little teapot you’ve ever seen. It’s blue, so it doesn’t match the pastel green teacups organized on the tablecloth, but it’s still a lovely sight.

“What’s this,” you stir at the fruit in the glass with an elegant teaspoon.

“It’s a chilled fruit tea,” he explains while casually pouring himself a steaming cup of black tea. “I tried my hardest with Mrs. Li, but there was no way I was gonna get you a smoothie. This is the closest thing I could get.”

“You really didn’t have to go to all that trouble. I would have been fine with just a water. I don’t want to get you in trouble with the owner.”

“Don’t worry. I think my reputation is fine for now.”

It’s weirdly fascinating to watch him fix up his tea. As a member of a basketball team, you would have never thought he’d be a tea drinker. Let alone a tea drinker who takes heaping spoonfuls of sugar to go with a tiny splash of milk in his tea. He hums a little to himself as he stirs it all with a silver spoon that’s been crafted to look like roses are growing up the stem. When he looks up a moment later, he catches you staring at him. His eyes crinkle and they look like they did when he looked at you after shooting a 3 at the latest home game, full of quiet joy. Both then and now you’re not sure what the smile means or why it seems to be for you. You look down and realize his lips are moving.

“What?”

He chuckles at how far away you sound. “I said ‘how’s the tea?’”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know yet. I got distracted. I was...thinking.”

“Mhm.” There’s smugness practically oozing out of his thoughtful hum.

You take a sip to appease him and frantically search for something to say that won’t make it obvious that you aren’t a fan of tea, but then you stop yourself. It’s no smoothie, but it really is the next best thing. The tea is cold like a smoothie, providing the same reprieve from the sticky heat of Spring. The tea with all its macerated berries and mint leaves is sweet and thick much like a smoothie.

“This is amazing,” you peer down at the cup like you’re not sure where half the glass went.

A light weight lands on your shoulder then. “That’s very kind of you, dear. High praise coming from a non-tea-drinker.”

It takes a lot of effort not to scream and even then your eyes open comically wide and you jump in your seat. Jaehyun has to disguise his laughter at your reaction by turning away in his seat as you turn in yours to face the old lady who was at the counter.

“I’m sorry for any trouble you went to so you could make this, Mrs. Li, Ma’am. I told Jaehyun that I wanted a smoothie and he was just trying to make me feel comfortable.”

“Oh, I know. Jaehyun’s been coming to the shop since I opened it, so he should know all about my ban on requests.” Mrs. Li eyes Jaehyun as he takes an innocent sip of his tea. “He’s always been courteous about it, so I thought he must have a darn good reason for breaking my rule this time.”

Jaehyun’s hand slips while pouring a second cup, but he doesn’t say anything as Mrs. Li continues to expose him. 

“Now, that reminds me. Jaehyun, my boy, I’m sorry to tell you that Kevin won’t be coming to his sessions this week. He has a dentist appointment and it can’t be helped,” she sighs and waves her hands.

“That’s alright. As long as he practices a little every day he should be in good shape and we can pick up right where we stopped.”

She nods and for a moment the serious expression on her face morphs into something softer. Patting the back of his chair, she looks over the table and then at you.

“Alright. I hope everything is to your liking, but if something does come up do feel free to tell Jaehyun. He’s a very capable young man and he knows the shop like the back of his hand. I’d better get back to work now. The silver won’t polish itself.”

You wait a few beats to be respectful, but as soon as Mrs. Li returns to her post behind the counter you gulp down the rest of your tea and lean in. 

“Who’s Kevin?”

“Her 9 year old grandson. I teach him and his younger brother piano on the weekends.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s nice,” you nod coolly. At least, you hope it appears cool. Internally you’re scrambling.

Of course your best friend’s basketball teammate teaches piano to young kids. Of course he helps the elderly tea shop lady with her store. Of course he drinks sweet tea out of blue floral teacups. Of course.

He’s finally ready to go after a third cup. You’re not sure where he’s putting it all, but it seems to be a regular occurrence for him. He takes your glass from you before you can argue about your own ability to do it and walks back over to the counter. Now more than ever you wish you could read lips. He goes around the counter to wash the glass in the farmer’s sink in the back and then stops briefly to say something to Mrs. Li. She says something back with a smile that has his cheeks flaming. He leaves a bill on the counter and comes back mumbling about his tea being too hot when you stare at his face. You’re not sure how true that is given how fast he downed those cups.

When you emerge from the tea shop, the sun is shining from a different angle and the temperature has mellowed out.

“My car is a few blocks that way,” he points in the direction of the parking lot nearby. 

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Even with his soft tone, his voice is firm and you don’t try to fight him on it.

But it’s strange walking with Jaehyun silently. It feels entirely too companionable despite the fact that you don’t even know him. 

“Do you...want to play 20 questions?”

He stops in his tracks, clearly not expecting you to talk without him coaxing you out of your shell. But after the initial shock fades, he nods.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“White,” he says immediately. “What’s your major?”

“Studio art. Do you play other sports?”

“Nah. Is Donghyuck your best friend?”

“Yeah, Hyuck’s my best friend.”

“Is he...protective?”

“Protective? Of what?”

“You, I guess.”

“Hyuck?” You let out a snort because the thought is just hilarious. “On the right day I’m pretty sure he’d sell me to Satan for a fresh order of sweet potato fries.”

“I see,” he purses his lips like he’s in deep thought before returning back to the present moments later. “You get two since I asked two.”

“Do you like it here, now that it’s been a while since you transferred?”

“Yeah,” he looks you in the eyes. “I like it here.”

You swallow a bit too audibly but power through and keep asking questions. It takes nearly half an hour to walk the two and a half blocks leading to the parking lot. Even after that, Jaehyun takes a scenic route back to the main campus. When he pulls up outside your dorm, you’re not sure what to say, but it feels like something should be said. The sun is near setting and he’s haloed by the dying rays as he leans on the steering wheel to make sure you make it inside.

After giving a little awkward nod, you drag yourself out of the cabin of his car. There’s only a few steps left until you reach the door when he calls out. You turn.

“So,” he trails off, drumming his hands on the steering wheel before adjusting the mirror even though he’s in park and no one is coming. “Donghyuck has, like, a million fans.”

“What?”

“I just mean that he’s been on the team for years, he has a fan base. But I’m just a transfer student, so I don’t have that. And, you know, it’s really nice to have someone to cheer for you.” He tests the waters and looks at you hesitantly before continuing. “I still have your poster.”

All you can do is blink as you realize what’s going on. Or, you think you know what’s going on. And it makes zero sense to you, but you have a habit of overthinking things anyway. You kick at a pebble near the toe of your shoe, taking some time to muster up the courage to be presumptuous in a way you’re not used to.

“I can...I can make you another sign. If you want. Or like wear your number.” He grins and in that moment it seems to outshine the fading sun. “So you don’t feel left out.”

“I’d like that.” He starts the car up then, still grinning as he looks down to shift gears and adjust all his mirrors yet again. “Tell Hyuck he doesn’t need to set aside tickets anymore.”

“Okay,” is your witty reply before turning once more with a too warm face.

He waves at your retreating back before putting the car into drive.

Everyone on the team knows that every once in a while Donghyuck likes to come to practice a lot earlier than is probably normal. It’s not strange to come in when there’s 30, 40, even 50 minutes before practice starts and find him practicing footwork or doing layups on the court alone. 

Jaehyun hedges a guess that he’ll find Donghyuck in the gym a good hour before practice starts one day and is pleased to find that his intuition was correct. There’s music blasting from a portable speaker and Donghyuck is doing some of the drills the coach likes to run, but done with his non-dominant hand.

When the ball rolls to a stop and Donghyuck moves to get some water, Jaehyun announces himself.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” 

“You quitting already?”

“Not yet,” Donghyuck takes in the serious set of Jaehyun’s jaw and shoulders. “We can do a 1-on-1. If you’re up for it.”

Jaehyun nods and sheds his outer layers on the sidelines. Donghyck wonders if he’s angry about something, perhaps that about practice a few days ago where he went a little too hard on Jaehyun and bashed his cheek with an elbow during a scrimmage. He braces himself for some incoming aggression, knowing he may deserve it a little.

They settle for leaving the ball on the ground in the paint since the equipment cabinet is still locked until the coach arrives. Both of them sprint from the freethrow line, with Jaehyun grabbing the ball first. Donghyuck moves into defense easily, having been in game mode for who knows how long. Jaehyun isn’t nearly as tough in his offense as Donghyck expected. In fact, he’s playing surprisingly light.

“What’s up with you,” Donghyuck says after the first basket.

Jaehyun catches the ball after it falls from the basket, jogging it back to the starting position. Donghyuck waits for him back at the freethrow line, brows raised but otherwise silent.

“Nothing’s up. Nothing big, I mean.”

“You’re a pretty bad liar.”

The words catch Jaehyun by surprise and he stumbles a bit coming off the line. Donghyuck uses the momentary shock to his advantage and steals the ball. The point comes easy as he basically runs a circle around his competitor.

“Since I won that point, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”

Donghyuck doesn’t bother going back to the freethrow line and instead goes back to dribbling practice. His rhythm is slow with his off hand, but steady. Better than Jaehyun’s with his off hand.

“Do you believe in bro code?”

Donghyuck snorts. “I guess. You’re not gonna ask me for my mom’s phone number, are you?”

“No. Not your mom’s,” Jaehyun trails off.

Instantly Donghyuck knows what this is about. Or who. Your face flashes in his mind and he has to bite his own cheek to keep from laughing. Being your best friend gives him exclusive access to just how awkward you can be. But the fact that Jaehyun resorted to all this buildup is kind of hilarious.

“Aw, you guys are cute.”

“What?” Jaehyun’s cheeks grow pink. “Why is this cute?” 

“Look, you don’t need to ask me first or do whatever this is. I’m not her keeper. And I’m not gonna sabotage you, either.” Jaehyun’s shoulders lose some of their squared off edge.

“Okay,” he nods. “Thanks, man.”

“I could use a favor, though.”

“Oh. What is it?”

“I have a meeting with Coach after practice today. But I also really need to pick something up at the stationery store before tomorrow. Can you go pick it up for me?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Cool. I’ll text you the details later.”

---

Jaehyun arrives at the stationery store with his phone in hand. The note from Donghyuck mentions some special set of paints with a foreign-sounding name. As he walks through the aisles of the little store, Jaehyun wonders who the paints are for. The note also mentioned that they were a gift for someone, but it doesn’t say who the someone is.

It takes a few laps around the store, and by the time he spots the little nook for the brand, the store owner's voice had already sounded through the overhead speakers to say that the shop would be closing soon. He grabs the last box left and quietly rejoices. Donghyuck had bartered your number for the price of running the errand. If Jaehyun could get the paints, then he could get the number. The odd part was that Donghyuck had mentioned something about Jaehyun possibly not even needing to ask him for the number if he played his cards right. Originally he had shrugged the comment off, but it did raise the hairs on the back of his neck a bit. There’s something about Donghyuck that feels akin to a cartoon villain, but Jaehyun can’t put his finger on it.

“Checking out?”

“Yeah,” he hands the shop attendant the container of paints.

The attendant tries to scan the barcode, but a strange sound comes from the machine.

“I think something’s wrong with the barcode. If you can wait right here, I’ll go get another one to scan and give you that one instead.”

“Oh. That was actually the last one left.”

“I see.” The attendant presses some keys on the computer before nodding. “I think we should have a reference code in that backroom. I can go get that and punch it in manually if that’s okay.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, that would be great.”

The attendant assures him it’ll only be a moment before leaving the counter and disappearing into the back of the store. Jaehyun waits patiently while leaning on the counter when the bell to the front door of the shop rings. Another customer has come in right before closing, and the sound of their labored breathing makes it clear that they know they’re cutting it close. The footsteps fade out and then grow louder once more after a few minutes. He takes a glance over his shoulder to see you standing a little bit behind him.

“Oh. Hi. H-hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Jaehyun turns completely and sets his phone on the counter. “What brings you here?”

“I’m just grabbing some paint. I ran out a few days ago and I have some big projects coming up.”

“That’s funny. I’m doing the same thing.”

“Do you paint,” your eyes grow a little bigger with the prospect. At the sight of your small smile, Jaehyun wishes he could paint for the first time ever.

“No, but I’d like to learn.” And it’s never been true before, but he means it in that moment.

“Well, I could—”

“Sorry for the delay,” the shop attendant comes jogging back from the backroom. “Another employee had the reference book, so I had to spend some time to hunt it down. But you should be all set now.”

Jaehyun sends an apologetic smile your way before turning back to finish checking out. Once he’s done, even though he’s on a tight schedule with this favor, he hangs back.

“—I’m sorry but we sold out of the Neo Color Technology paints. If you’d like, we can give you a call when the next shipment comes in, but there’s a two-week wait.”

“Ah, really? Okay.” 

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek as you think about what you’ll do now. The idea of continuing some of your projects with a new set of paints that could have a completely different set of hues makes you nervous. You just perfected the shade of green you needed at the base for your huge forest study. Now you’d have to start from scratch.

Jaehyun is trying his hardest not to eavesdrop, but the odd paint name catches his attention. It’s the same one he just bought, per Donghyuck’s request.

“You can have mine,” he blurts out. “I’m the one who bought the last ones. But I obviously don’t need them like you do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please, take them.”

Jaehyun hands you the bag. The smile you offer him in return is brilliant.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“God, no. Don’t worry about it.”

“Then, let me buy you a tea or something at least.” You hand him your phone. “Here, put your number in and you can pick a day. I’ll pay.”

So Jaehyun takes your phone and inputs his number. A moment later he gets a text from you, clarifying that it’s you. He feels victorious for a moment and then confused. Here he is, getting your number without having to ask, just like Donghyuck himself had mentioned. He’s getting this number because he gave you, Donghyuck’s friend, some paints. Paints that Donghyuck asked him to buy, as a gift to a mysterious friend. 

Maybe Donghyuck is less like a villain and more like a twisted fairy godmother.  

This little dance you keep doing with Jaehyun is strange, to say the least. 

It felt odd to copy the number 14 onto your cheek for the first time knowing who it would really be for. And it felt weird to get so used to doing it that you can now copy the stencil in with practiced ease using the face paint you bought specifically for the occasion, no longer worrying about accidentally writing it backwards. All the while, you can barely make eye contact with him after a game, although you can practically feel the weight of his gaze when you make a beeline for Donghyuck after the last buzzer rings. And you can see the way his hand tugs at the gold chain around his neck as he approaches you cautiously. And you can hear the disappointment in his tone when he asks if you’re going to the house parties thrown by one of the players that typically follow the games only to hear you say no each time.

Another few weeks later finds you trying to make it through midterms. Donghyuck being a literature major means his midterms schedule is always different from yours. This time his midterms end much earlier, a few days earlier to be exact. You’re left to suffer through late night crunches to finish up paintings for one of your crits. Photoshopping some pieces for your digital art class leaves you so busy you don’t even register what’s going on around you.

“It’s my turn to host the post-game party,” he says after letting himself into your apartment one day. He drops the spare keyring reserved for him in the dish near the front door.

“Mhm.”

“But I feel like it would be a nice change to have it here.” When he makes a big show of dropping the takeout he brought you, you don’t even flinch at the sound of it hitting the table you’ve taken over.

“Sounds good,” is all you say as you try to find the one layer out of the 25 you had that you were looking for.

“Great, so I’ll probably stop by on Friday with stuff before the game to set up and then the team can just come through afterwards.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t hate me,” he places a kiss on the top of your head before wrinkling his nose when he smells your unwashed hair. “And don’t work yourself too hard, either.”

“Yeah...definitely.”

Friday comes by and you’re still working, so you have to skip the actual game itself. In the brief window of free time you had that morning, you wonder if you should text Jaehyun again so you can tell him you won’t be coming or bringing your little hand stenciled 14. But you decide against it. It’s a big game and he doesn’t need to be bogged down by unnecessary texts.

You’re actually away at your first crit when Donghyuck stops by again, this time with party supplies. When you come back, you barely register the mountain of beers and cheap wines sitting in your kitchen. All you want to do is sleep like the dead for a few hours. As you zombie walk to your room, you swear you hear him call to you to ask if he can store his balloons in the sink. With your last two brain cells you figure he must have said something else and you were just too tired to actually comprehend it.

Hours later, bass blaring through the thin walls of your place wakes you from your slumber. The details of your conversation with Donghyuck a few days prior come flooding back just as you pick up your pepper spray to drive out what you thought were home intruders. You leave your weapon behind and open your door just slightly. The music washes over you, louder now that the seal to your bedroom has been broken. 

There’s plenty of voices coming outside that accompany the music. Even a few errant screams make it inside and to your ears. Courtesy of Chenle, no doubt. A few more brave steps outside your room and a glance out of the hallway window lets you know that you didn’t mishear Donghyuck. You see several of the guys chucking water balloons at one another on the grass outside. The pile of little teardrop-shaped balloons is admirably large and it becomes clear that they’ll be doing this for a while.

You’re not in the mood to get soaked or get mosquito bites just so you can seem friendly. After all, the party is being hosted in your apartment complex. That’s friendly enough, you reason. Once you’ve done a quick sweep through the rest of the apartment to make sure nothing is stolen, stained, or broken, you return to your room to get ready for bed properly. It takes a while because you have to wash your hair on top of everything else after receiving a very strongly worded text from Donghyuck.

While in your bathroom, brushing your teeth and watching a video Taeyong sent you, there’s jumbled knocking on your door. Barely any time passes between the last knock and the creak of someone leaning on your door as they open it. You curse to yourself before spitting in the sink.

“Hey, the bathroom for guests is actually—”

Jaehyun stands in the middle of your room, squinting at the tapestry you have hanging over your bed. The sound of his teeth chattering despite it being the peak of Spring is actually alarming enough to stop you from being mad that Donghuck didn’t think to put a clear sign towards the bathroom for the general public.

“I always thought your room would have candles in it,” Jaehyun drawls. He looks around once more like he’s hoping a candle will jump out of a hiding spot. All his movements are slow and sleepy.

“Are you drunk?”

He grins with eyes that droop closed. “Yep.” 

“Great,” you mumble. When you take a step closer you realize the dark red sleeveless tank he’s wearing is actually dark from being saturated with water. “Why are you wet?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. We played water balloon tag. I lost the last round.”

Jaehyun places a clumsy finger to his lips and stage-whispers a loud “shh”. For some reason you mirror that back to him. He nods, satisfied with your reaction.

“Don’t tell the others, but I...” he hiccups “I got cold, so I came inside.”

“What’s wrong with telling them you’re cold.” He hangs his head in shame then. Clearly you’re missing something important.

“Hyuck says bad bitches never get cold.”

With his shoulders slumped forward in such a pitiful fashion, you actually feel bad for wanting to laugh. It’s surprising. Super surprising actually, considering Jaehyun’s presence in your room means Donghyuck forgot to do the one thing you ask of him when he hosts parties at your place—put clear signs for drunk people to follow to the guest bathroom. You usually don’t want to deal with drunk student athletes, but something about Jaehyun makes him exempt from that.

“You can warm up here.”

As soon as you say the words, you cringe. It sounds like the awful beginnings of a bad porno, but your intentions really are pure. There’s something too sad about watching him nearly doze off while standing up like a newborn colt. So you go and find the best hoodie that you have in your clean laundry and you risk going to the kitchen and getting hit with a runaway water balloon so you can put water on for tea. Hopefully it will warm him up while also sobering him up a little.

“Is this Hyuck’s shirt,” he asks as soon as you return with a steaming mug.

“Uh, I think so.” You take a moment to appraise the hoodie. “Yeah, it’s his. It’s from one of his basketball camps from when we were younger, I think.”

He purses his lips but gratefully takes the mug with swaying hands. After taking a large sip, he hums and lets his head loll back with a smile.

“This is Mrs. Li’s blend.”

“Yeah.” 

It doesn’t seem right to tell him that you’ve been back there a couple times now and have started trying to get into tea. You take the time to put some distance between him and you. You walk to your bed and fluff a pillow that doesn’t need fluffing. The thing is that Jaehyun being in your room feels...weird. He looks all too content and comfortable in the space. That’s not to say he doesn’t suit the environment well. Somehow he looks like he belongs in your room with his soaked tank top and damp hair. You fluff the pillow harder.

“You must be tired,” he says after a long silence. He’s finished his tea but his eyes are still glassy.

“What?”

“Donghyuck told me ‘bout all your projects. Told me you had to draw him for one.”

“Oh, yeah I did. People actually loved that piece the most. But it took me the shortest amount of time.”

“Next time,” he begins ambling across the room, coming to place the empty mug on your bedside table. “Next time, you can ask me to model. If you want.”

“I mean, I only asked Hyuck since he was watching TV and he was there. Plus I know his face so well that it doesn’t even matter if he talks while I paint. The company is kind of nice.”

“Well, you can do it with me next.”

He’s drunk, you remind yourself. He doesn’t realize how strange what he’s saying is. And yet, your face still heats up. The sound of his teeth chattering lightly again reminds you how he got to be in your room in the first place. Jaehyun hugs himself as he continues to check out your room with a small smile on his face. He looks content.

“Do you want to get in,” you offer before your brain can process what your mouth has just done. His eyes go wide.

“Excuse me?” 

“Not—I mean, you just...look really cold and tired. Plus I heard you guys lost the game tonight, so the coach had you hauling ass after.” At the sight of his mildly amused face, tongue nudged between his teeth you add, “I don’t mean you should stay the night. It could just be for a bit and then you could, like, get up and call a cab home. But I get it if you’d rather not. Actually, I can just go see if Hyuck is around. I think he brought his—”

“No, no, stay,” he replies quickly to keep you from jumping out of bed. “I could use the rest.”

He turns around to shrug off the wet tank and pull on the hoodie, mumbling something about ‘not wanting to get your sheets wet’. Internally you wonder if you’re being laughed at by the gods while staring politely at nothing in the other corner of the room. You scoot over from your position in the middle of the bed to the side opposite him. He rewards your kindness with a flash of a bright smile before moving to pull back the covers.

His face lands directly in one of your pillows and you panic when you realize your sheets aren’t fresh out the washer. Jaehyun doesn’t seem to mind and lets out a sigh before shivering a little. With the hood over his hair, you can barely make out his eyes but you can tell they’re trained on you.

“You sure this is okay,” he whispers. 

“Yeah.”

The bed shifts minutely as he turns a little to get more comfortable. It feels hot in the bed all of the sudden. Despite the fact that you have on weather appropriate pajamas and your most lightweight Spring bedding on. Despite the fact that you’re not laying close enough to him to be able to feel any body heat. Maybe it’s warmer outside than you thought. That’s probably it.

---

When you wake up several hours later, it’s to the sound of clanking in your living room. The other side of the bed is empty and you try not to read into it. It wasn’t supposed to be a full night over, after all. You swing your feet over the edge of the bed only to squeal when your foot hits something cold in the little rug you keep there.

“What is it!” Donghyuck crashes into the room while holding the trash bag he was collecting loose beer cans with. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just—oh.”

You look down at the rug and see something shiny and metallic as opposed to something wet and slimy. With your index finger and thumb, you pick up a medium length golden chain. It shines even in the low lighting of your bedroom. You both squint at the jewelry, trying to place it.

Donghyuck’s eye grow wide and he looks around the room in disgust suddenly.

“Was he in here?”

“Uh, yeah,” you grumble as you rub your eyes.

“What for?”

When Donghyuck raises an inquisitive eyebrow, your mouth drops open.

“We just slept—”

“You slept together?”

“Hyuck, not like that! What’s your problem?”

“Still, why is he sleeping in here? You never have guys sleep in here.”

“You sleep in here all the time,” you point a finger at him.

“True,” he cedes immediately, pointing a finger back. “Well, you better return that. I think it’s his lucky charm or something.”

“Can’t you do it?” He laughs before returning to the living room. 

“He didn’t leave it in my bed.” 

“I–fine. I don’t need your help anyway.” 

At that, he snorts.

“You do, but I’ll let you keep thinking that you don’t, because I’m a good friend.”

“You’re annoying, that’s what you are.”

You pull on a sweater before coming out of your room with your phone in hand. There’s a companionable silence that falls over you two as you attempt to draft a text to Jaehyun about his chain while Donghyuck picks up the remaining trash from the party.

“How’d everything go,” you ask once the message is sent.

“It was fine. Jae was so gone that we thought he had flushed himself down the toilet for a while. But I guess that’s not what happened.”

Your face heats up at the teasing tone he uses.

“Hyuck, I have something to tell you.”

“God, what? Are you pregnant?”

“No! What the hell? Are you?” You try to swipe at his butt from the back of the couch.

“No! But...can you just say what you’re gonna say? You’re making me nervous.”

He even goes so far as to put the trash down and come around to sit with you on the sofa. You take a deep breath.

“I have a crush on Jaehyun. I just thought you should know.”

He stares at you, not blinking for a few seconds. He opens his mouth and then shakes his head to himself and closes it again.

“I see,” he finally says.

“It’s been going on a while, and I didn’t want to leave you in the dark.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Nope! I don’t mind being in the shadows. I do some of my best work there.”

“Do you think it could go anywhere?”

“What do you mean,” he throws another can into his bag.

“Like, do you think I have a chance with him?”

Donghyuck turns to stare at you, deadpan. “Do I think you have a chance with Jung Jaehyun? The man who slept in your bed a few hours ago?”

“Yeah.” Your face is completely open and imploring.

He sighs, “I think you might have a shot, sure.”

“Why, though?”

“I don’t know. Just a hunch.”

The next game of the season is a big one. The team coming in to play is an old school rival, so it draws a crowd that contains even the less sport-inclined students. You manage to get a ticket set away, but it’s still tough trying to find a spot to sit. It’s first come first serve with seats since the gym isn’t big enough to have labeled arena seating. 

Initially you had planned to use the extra time you had before the start to return Jaehyun’s chain, but it took you so long to make it from the parking lot to the gym and then to an open seat that there wasn’t any time left. Somewhere in between, you nearly get knocked over by the heavy current of fans from both teams flooding the space. The chain, once clutched in your hand, ends up around your neck out of fear that you lose it permanently.

You end up in the nosebleeds for the rest of the time. The players look like ants and if it weren’t for the large printed numbers on their jerseys, you might not be able to tell all of them apart. You text Donghyuck your location, and you see him looking towards the back rows at the beginning of the game, but he has to stay focused. You try your hardest to focus as well. At this point, you’re just about fluent in the sport that is basketball. But tonight’s game is hard to follow despite this. Jaehyun grabs your attention instead. He plays especially rough tonight, you note. He pushes hard across the court, even gets a couple warnings for defending like he’s on offense. There’s a fair amount of goals with his name on them as well. It’s exciting and you just wish your cheers could reach him.

More annoyance comes when the game finally ends. It’s a last minute shot by one of the other players who walked on this season that tips the game in your school’s favor. The crowd is deafening, even the ending buzzer is muted by their shouts. The bleachers shake under you with the force of fans running to meet their favorite players and generally gloat in front of the other team on the court. The shaking underneath you is terrifying enough to keep you seated until things have died down. There’s still probably a minimum of hundred people gathered on the floor, but you can at least step over empty concession bags as opposed to being stepped on by the supportive members of the hockey team.

It takes forever to find a single person you know. Of course it’s Donghyuck, who is in the middle of talking with some friends from off the team.

“Hyuck,” you begin to run over. When he sees you, you give him a big smile.

“No,” he responds simply as you get closer.

You slow down and let confusion wrinkle your brow. He offers no further verbal explanation but does give you a swift head nod in another direction. You follow the gesture and find Jaehyun at the end of the path. He looks a bit lost despite being with Doyoung and Johnny.

The fact that the others are there makes you freeze up at first, but the feeling of the chain laying delicately on your clavicle reminds you of what you need to do. Luckily, he sees you before the others do and he steps aside under the guise of getting a fresh towel. He waits for you to catch up once he’s out of their line of sight.

His voice is low, like he’s worried being too loud will make you change your mind about talking with him. But there’s an undercurrent of sincere happiness.

“There you are.”

“I was at the top row. I got here too late to sit where I normally do.”

“Ah. I thought maybe you couldn’t make it.”

“There’s no way I would be able to miss this one. Hyuck threatened to shave my head if I did.”

“That...sounds like him.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. The nerves are getting to you a bit. You’ve never confessed your feelings to anyone before, and you’re not sure if Donghyuck was right about you having a shot.

“So, what are you doing—”

“I’ve been meaning to tell—”

You both start talking at once and then immediately clam up when you interrupt each other. 

He gives the floor to you. “You go first.”

“Okay.” 

You reach for the back of your neck and watch as his gaze follows the movement of your hands only for his eyes to light up in recognition.

“I wondered where that thing went.”

“You left it at my place. I put it on because I was scared I’d lose it for real. Sorry.”

He reaches out casually to thumb at the chain around your neck. “Don’t be. It looks good on you.”

“It looks better on you.”

The chain slides off cool against your skin and your fingers shake as you carry the chain over to him. Wordlessly, you reach up and loop your arms around his neck to reunite the chain with its rightful owner. Sweaty palms make it difficult to redo the clasp without being able to see it. It puts you right in his personal space for an awkwardly long time.

“I’m really sweaty,” he whispers.

“Uh, that’s nice?”

He laughs and it puffs off your temple.

“I don’t want to get you dirty, but I really want to kiss you right now.” The clasp finally snaps into place

“Oh.”

The way he leans in, the way his arms come to cage around your waist, the drip of the sweat from his temple down the hinge of his jaw. All of it is slow. As if to give you the space to withdraw if you wanted. But you surge forward into him. And for once it’s not awkward. You don’t know how long you stand there necking like hormonal high schoolers in a sea of people on the gym floor at a school dance, but—just like at the school dance—someone is bursting the gossamer thin ambiance just when Jaehyun’s fingers graze the back pocket of your jeans.

“If you look to your left, boys and girls, you can see two local horndogs engaged in a seasonal ritual” He karate chops a hand down the space between your faces, cutting the kiss off abruptly and nearly bruising Jaehyun’s nose. Meanwhile Taeyong snickers loudly from behind Doyoung.

“Do you have a death wish,” you turn to him with fire in your eyes. He backs up slightly, but attempts to stand his ground.

“Do you know how hard I’ve been working to set you two up?”

“What are you talking about?”

You turn to Jaehyun, who looks just as confused. The gears turning in your heads are practically visible as you and he put 2 and 2 together slowly. The random lies, the weird errands, the sudden party. The blank stares from Donghyuck every time the two of you were in the same room but refused to talk. It all adds up.

“You owe me sweet potato fries for the rest of your life. Maybe longer, I’m not sure yet.”

Donghyuck puts his arms around you and Jaehyun, pulling you with him as he heads out of the gym and towards the exit that leads toward the cafeteria.

“I can’t believe you...puppet-mastered us,” Jaehyun’s voice is airy with disbelief.

“I can’t believe you guys didn’t realize what was going on,” Taeyong snickers on the walk over. Doyoung snorts while lacing their fingers together.

“Yeah, the whole team was in on it.”

“You guys are one to talk.” Donghyuck turns back to give the two boys a humbling once over. “Don’t get me started on how hard it was to get you two losers together.”

Doyoung stops in his tracks, nearly tripping Taeyong in the process. 

“What?”

[sailorspazz]

10 Dance Vol. 6 Special Edition overview

Volume 6 of the 10 Dance manga was released in Japan on March 18th, 2021. As with volumes 4 and 5, there are both regular and special editions available. In this post, I will provide an overview of the release, including observations on changes that were made to the chapters compared to how they were printed in the magazine, plus summaries and select scans of content from the special edition booklet.

It is often the case that when chapters come out in the manga magazines, they aren't always fully polished, and since I became highly familiar with this run of chapters from the summaries I made, several things immediately jumped out at me as I went through the book. First of all, though chapter 29 was split into two parts and released in subsequent months in the magazine, these two halves were combined into one chapter, with no indication they had ever been separate. I assume that they were always intended to be one chapter, but since the full chapter was not completed before the deadline (and it was a month when 10 Dance was being given the cover image, so not possible to delay its release), it was simply split over two months instead.

For visual changes, the most common alteration was scenes that originally had little or no screentone having it added in:

There were also some instances of either slight panel redraws, or complete replacements with new panels. None of these were from particularly important scenes, so it could just be Inouesatoh or someone on her team didn't like the look of the original panels and wanted to change them. The following example has a bit of both, with Suzuki in the upper left corner being replaced, and his eyes being redrawn in the lower panel:

Personally, the most amusing addition I noticed was when Max was thinking about throwing a party. Originally, we didn't see what he was envisioning, but in the volume, an addition has been made in the background: the New Year's piece Inouesatoh drew with sexy men dressed as cows, except now they're bunnies!

As for dialogue, it appeared to be almost the same in both versions throughout. Some minor exceptions include a spot I found where the dialogue was put in a different order, swapping Sugiki’s lines between this panel and his first line on the following page (in addition to another altered panel example):

As well as in this shot of Suzuki describing how they tug at the thread that connects them through their dance. Whereas before it put the word “dance” next to the part about tugging on the thread to specify what was meant by that, it was deleted in the volume. And while it was originally described as “affirming that we’re connected”, this was also tweaked a bit to be, “affirming our connection”.

There were a couple instances of character names being different from when they appeared earlier in the story. In this volume, two characters who were last mentioned back in volume 2 (Lucas Calvo, one of the champions at the table in Blackpool, and Deeks, who Ernie said hated Sugiki because he "stole" his girlfriend), either from typos or intentional changes, weren't the same as before. Lucas' last name was written with a 'g' sound (ガルボ) instead of a 'c' (カルボ), and this change carried over to the volume. On the other hand, Deeks' (ディクス) name got transposed as Disc (ディスク) in the magazine, but was fixed in the volume.

There was a typo that unfortunately made it through to the volume (but could perhaps be fixed in future printings). In chapter 34, when Norman is testing Suzuki's skills, he flashes back to Sugiki taking the national title from him several years earlier. The text in this scene, written in English, incorrectly states that Suzuki won the championship, rather than Sugiki.

The volume also includes the usual additions that are not present in the magazine, such as the under the cover flap comic, and Inouesatoh’s notes about each chapter.

The cover flap comic (which looks very much like a sketch, compared to previous ones that have had more complete art), features the Shinyas during a practice session earlier on in the series in December, where Suzuki complains that Sugiki’s Latin just isn’t sexy. Sugiki suggests that he can practice being sexy by wiggling his butt around to write a message in the air. Suzuki worries that if he starts writing out “love” or something, he’ll have to run away and escape. Sugiki gets started, and Suzuki calls out each letter that he can make out from his elegant butt bouncing. After figuring out he’s written “M-E-R-R-Y”, Suzuki guesses that he’s writing “Merry Christmas”. Sugiki gets mad that he said it aloud before he finished writing his message, and says he’s going to leave. Suzuki says, “Wait, I love you,” as narrative text says that this somehow turned into a love story in one panel.

And here are some tidbits I found interesting/amusing from the chapter notes:

She thinks readers who are fans of pecs will like Saichi.

She’s not sure if readers will love Max or hate him, but she personally likes him (sorry Sensei, I kinda hate him lol)

As of chapter 32, a portion of the art is now done digitally.

The epic “last dance” scene from 33 was something that she had planned since the beginning of the series, and it ended up being 8 times the cost for a typical chapter.

Special edition booklet:

The special edition comes with a 48 page hardcover booklet that includes a variety of different extras, divided into 8 sections called “heats”.

Heat 1 is a newly drawn, 12 page parody manga. Back in September 2020, Inouesatoh put out a request on Twitter for fans to send in their suggestions for an erotic side story. Putting the characters in a high school setting was the most requested scenario, so she chose this idea as the basis for the story. The title is “And All That Jazz” (the premise makes this somewhat confusing to summarize, so keep in mind that I’ll mostly be describing their actions based on the soul rather than the body, but will use quotation marks if it’s about other characters and who they think they’re addressing. It’ll all make sense, I promise...I think :P)

(The title page actually depicts the ending of the story, so I’ll come back to it later). It starts with Suzuki narrating his introduction, saying that he’s a transfer student to the Standard Academy. He really doesn’t get along with a guy named Sugiki, but for some reason, the two have now switched bodies with each other. Sugiki opens his shirt and inspects his new physique in front of other students, as Suzuki yells out asking what the hell he’s doing to his body. They look at themselves wearing each other’s expressions, Sugiki seeming surprised his mouth can gape open like that, and Suzuki wondering what happened to his body’s facial expression muscles. The bell rings and Sugiki heads off to class, as Suzuki is baffled that he can act so calm about this.

Sugiki perfectly reads a passage aloud in English class, something everyone (including the teacher, who looks like Norman) find unusual coming from “Suzuki”, as they wonder where his usual hearts are. Suzuki makes the decision to enjoy living as Sugiki for a bit, and is shown getting flirty with several girls. He notes that the more serious personality in his regular body is also strangely popular, though with a very different crowd.

A student named Alberko (Alberto in a girl’s uniform) shows up and says that “Sugiki” was supposed to have lunch with her(?) today. Suzuki says that he thought Alberko was going out with Dorou (a masculine alteration to Dolores’ name). Ernie and Suzuki watch as his harem falls apart with Alberko running amok. Ernie comments that both “Sugiki” and that transfer student have been acting weird all week, and he asks if something happened. Suzuki internally reflects back to one week earlier, when he was relaxing in bed in the infirmary. Sugiki comes in and accuses him of skipping class, and Suzuki tells him to mind his own business. He thought this would turn into one of their usual fights, but he can’t believe that actually happened instead...

After school, Sugiki asks Suzuki if they can go home together today. As they’re walking, Suzuki asks if Sugiki realizes what it was that made them switch places, and Sugiki says he does. Suzuki says that in that case, they know how they need to fix it, and they should go over to his house. Sugiki asks for clarification of whose house exactly he means by that.

As they start to get undressed, Suzuki says that he always thought his mom and sisters were annoying, but after a week apart he really misses them. Sugiki promises that he’ll make sure he can see them soon. Suzuki claims that he’ll be the one making Sugiki come, and Sugiki asks how he can talk like that when he was the one who looked like he was about to cry when Sugiki first touched him in the infirmary.

Sugiki peeks into Suzuki’s pants and wonders if he won’t get hard unless he touches him. Suzuki thinks it’d be weirder if he could get hard while looking at his own face, and wonders if Sugiki has AI in his crotch or something (Sugiki contends that it’s not his body). They fool around with each other until they finish, and Suzuki wonders why they didn’t change back yet. Sugiki suggests that maybe it needs to be just like the last time to count as a complete set, when they went at it until they fell off the bed, so both agree that they need to go for one more round. This then ties back to the title page, where they’ve finally managed to get back into their old bodies, but have now sprouted cat ears and tails.

Heat 2 of the booklet is 8 pages long, and contains short comics and illustrations that were not previously included in the volume releases. The comics include “How to 10 Dance”, a one-page comic with the Shinyas demonstrating the tango. Their privates end up touching, and Sugiki seems highly amused, gleefully asking Suzuki how it feels. Suzuki says that he was the one who got all bent out of shape over that back in volume 1, and tells him to lay off the sadist mode since they’re not dancing Latin right now. The second comic is “2nd Step”, and shows a glimpse of how the Shinyas were with each other after Suzuki gave the go-ahead for kissing. In fact, Sugiki ends up kissing him so much that Suzuki’s lips get sore and swollen. Sugiki then tries to kiss his neck as an alternative, but Suzuki’s not having it. The third comic depicts Suzuki’s first time in a public bath, where he realizes that Japanese people aren’t fully shaved everywhere like he is. Some of the old guys talk to him and slap their balls with their towels, and Suzuki, seeming a bit confused, gives his own balls a slap, too. After the comics are a selection of illustrations that were never used in the volumes, including this one from a Real 10 Dance event in 2018:

Heat 3 is 18 pages, and contains a variety of colored versions of both chapter covers and scenes from the manga, a couple of which I’ll share below:

Heat 4 includes 3 pages of insight from the professional dancers who consult for the manga, in which they explain the moves shown in specific panels.

Heat 5 is a single page look at Inouesatoh’s work space.

Heat 6 is 3 pages worth of advertisements that have been used to promote the series, including things like ads that were posted in subway stations:

Heat 7 is a single page look at the storyboard for chapter 1 of the manga.

Heat 8 is a single page showing the covers for foreign editions of the manga (Taiwanese, Korean, North American, and French).

Finally, there’s one last page with a thank you message from Inouesatoh, including an absolutely precious illustration of the Shinyas in happier times.

And that’s that! This really is an incredible release, and I’d definitely recommend picking up the special edition if you can. CD Japan offers direct international shipping, and I’ve also seen that Kinokuniya lists it as “available to order” currently (though they don’t appear to have stock on hand, so might take longer).

[circularexorcisms]

Making a Quasi-1895 Skirt in One Weekend!

Hey friends! Jessie’s here, with some more badly taken pictures from her trashy phone! So for my drama class we’ve been studying American Theatre, most specifically, Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

For our assessment we were asked to preform a short extract from one of the three acts. My group chose the cemetery scene and I chose to play Mrs. Gibbs. Lovely woman.

We were told that Mrs. Gibbs died while visiting her sister, which means she’d be wearing simple travelling clothes. Which means old travelling clothes (The story is set in small town Massachusetts, I doubt she’d have a bounty of new travelling clothes). Which means my mum begrudgingly let me make a new skirt.

I used the pattern found on this website. It’s free, if a little weirdly measured. I had already cut out my pattern pieces in November of last year, wanting to wear the pattern to a dinner I was to be attending. I’d also found this gorgeous periwinkle fabric Mum had planned to make into a sheet but never did to cut out of. 

The Process:

I started by drawing a thread to cut one 160cm length from the 3ish metres I had (That doesn’t sound like a lot but this fabric is

really wide

). I neglected to take pictures, however. The process is simple enough, you cut a slit in the cut edge of your fabric, select one thread to grab from your fabric and pull on it. In my case, I slid the fabric off it, but po-tay-to, po-tah-to. You keep this up until you reach the other side with a gap in the fabric enough to cut a straight line from. Your thread will snap, you will want to give up ten minutes in, but you simply hunt down your thread and, in my case, engage yourself in some D&D with Discord friends.

Once the fabric had been cut enough to start drawing on my pattern pieces, I did just that. Kicking my brother off of the table, I lay my fabric atop it, weighed my pattern down with my laptop and got to tracing.

I should note that pencil outlining is strongly advised, as pen will want to bleed through your fabric and will stain once washed.

I gave myself about an inch of seam allowance because I’m still deathly terrified of felling tiny seams.

Then it was the simple matter of connecting the dots and cutting out!

I did not, in fact, film the cutting of the pattern.

The cut pieces! They’re all doubled up, please don’t ask me which is which.

And then I pinned the front and side front panels together, just to get a feel for the outfit.

Boy am I glad I did that! Look at this!!!!

That’s probably an entire inch out of alignment! I originally just tried to redraw the pattern to fix it but! Through the power of re-arrangement, more pins, Gryla and her Yule Lads, I figured out I just had the panels the wrong way around. The pattern was still unaligned, but this time not as badly

I’m super sorry about the blur, but if you look closely you can see that the pattern matches up much better now.

Once that had been figured out, I tacked the panels together it and it was time to hit the sewing machine!

My dad had suggested that instead of lugging out our 7 kilo 1990′s Janome, I use a tiny sewing machine we were given by a neighbour a few years ago. It’s so cute!

Sadly, we couldn’t get it to work and got the old Janome machine out.

Sewing sewing sewing.....

I’d gotten all the pieces together rather quickly and was able to start getting the hem worked out by about 7pm on sunday.

(Again, sorry for the blur) Here I also got to pinning up the excess fabric that would be cut away in my trueing of the hem. Seriously this pattern is whack. I’m not sure if it’s my fault for being bad at counting tiny squares or whoever drew the pattern for making it so whacky.

The First Try-On!

At this point I was actually super happy with how it was coming along! I liked what it looked like, and even though it needed a bit of manipulating, the hem was looking really great as a trapezium when I moved it around a little. I’m going to need to starch it in future but it’s looking great so far!

This is the amount of fabric I’m going to have to gather. Yeesh.

Okay upon further reflection it’s not that much. I sewed two lines of running stitches close to the top edge and pulled them to gather the fabric. Two lines of stitching is so much neater than just the one and not to mention easier to attach a waistband to.

Here are the two back panels gathered and held together. this actually turned out to be not enough gathering! But at the time I was struggling to tie a knot close enough to the gathering and getting stressed about it. There was no way I was doing the gathering again.

Here’s where we had a crisis.

See, Mum had told me she had a strip of pre-cut and ironed bias binding to use as a waist band. I was overjoyed because I didn’t have to try and fail to make my own bias binding. It turned out i didn’t have enough. It was too short.

Cue half an hour of stressing and ransacking every sewing stash I could find in my house. That ended up fruitless because making bias binding really isn’t that hard.

I cut 4 inch strips from some scrap fabric, pinned them thusly:

(You have to pin the edges in an A shape otherwise the strip won’t come out straight)

Sewed them:

Ironed the edges inwards, then ironed it in half and folded it around the top edge of the skirt. 

Sewed that on, ironed and sewed the hem and she was done!

Here she is! Mrs Gibbs in her full, mistakey glory! I borrowed my brother’s old shirt and an earring from my mum, so I look kinda trashy but I’m really proud of how it turned out in just three days!

Seriously there are so many mistakes but I’ll probably make a second post when I finally get around to rectifying them. I need to re-do the gathers, the hem and finish the seams. First, it needs a wash because in my rush to English class it got a bit muddy.

But that’s for another, assessment free time. Goodbye for now my lovelies!

[mxtxbang]

About

MXTX Bang is an event where writers and artists will collaborate to create new fan content for Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (墨香铜臭)’s novels and all adaptations of their work: The Scum Villain’s Self-saving System (人渣反派自救系统), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Zu Shi (魔道祖师), and Heaven Official’s Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu (天官赐福).

If you have any questions/concerns, please use this form: http://bit.ly/32fSGFY or send an ask through Tumblr.

Rules

Be respectful to all participants and mods. 

Discussions should stay within their appropriate channels.

If a member expresses that a topic is making them uncomfortable, please be courteous and change the topic.

All ages can participate, but if it is found that a minor has lied about their age to gain access to the NSFW content areas, they will be kicked from the Discord server and banned from the event.

Since there will be a Discord server, please be aware of Discord’s rules (see Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.) They should be followed at all times.

Requirements

General Requirements

Artists and writers of all skill levels are able to participate.

All ages can participate and members will be asked to report whether they are above or below the age of 18.

Writer Requirements

Writers can choose which tier level they want to do, but must be aware that once they submit their fic summary check-in, it can no longer be changed. 

There is no maximum word count for tiers.

Only new fics are allowed; certain exceptions will be made. More info can be found in our Writer FAQ.

Chapter fics are fine as long as it’s finished by the final check-in and completely posted on the assigned date.

Fics should not be posted prior to the assigned date.

Ensure that the work progress is updated to the beta reader in a timely manner and completed by the final deadline.

Writers must list any and all warnings/tags for their fic and whether it’s SFW or NSFW. Please see Common Warnings/Tags.

Artist Requirements

Artists can select which tier level they would like to complete, but once fic claims are made and team pairings are assigned, it can no longer be changed. So, even if the writer’s fic fits the next tier level, it does not mean that the tier has changed.

Artists will need to make original content as they will be drawing scenes from their partner’s story. The artist cannot use a previously created artwork of theirs that coincidentally is similar to a scene in the story nor can they steal, trace, and/or redraw other people’s original artwork.

Artwork should not be shared outside the Discord server until the assigned posting date. 

If an artist decides to draw a NSFW scene (sexual content, graphic violence, etc.) they must use privatter.net so that only 18+ can see the full artwork, while 18- can only see a cropped SFW version.

Please see our Artist FAQ for more information.

FAQ

General FAQ

What is a Bang?

A Bang is a fandom event where writers and artists collaborate to create new content for the fandom. There are different types of Bangs: Baby/mini Bang, Big Bang, and Reverse Bang.

A Baby/mini Bang and Big Bang are similar, however, Baby/mini Bangs tend to last 4 months while Big Bangs can last 6 to 10 months. Baby Bangs also typically have lower requirements for word count, such as a 5k minimum word count and one completed art piece. Meanwhile, Big Bangs tend to have a minimum word count of 20k with two completed art pieces. For both Bangs, writers submit their fic summaries and artists claim which fic they want to draw.

A Reverse Bang is where artists submit their WIPs and writers claim which art they want to create a story for.

For further clarification, this bang isn’t a Big Bang. Rather, it’s a mix between a Baby Bang and a Big Bang because there are tier levels, which allows participants to choose what their minimum goal is. That’s why this event is called MXTX Bang, not MXTX Big Bang. If anyone wants to create a MXTX Baby or Big Bang or another similar event with their own themes and guidelines, they are free to do so.

What can I sign up as?

You can sign up as a writer, artist, and/or beta. If you sign up for more than one role, please be aware of how much work will be required for whatever tiers you choose. Additionally, if you sign up for more than one role, please complete all forms for your chosen roles. For example, if you want to sign up as both a writer and beta, please fill out a writer and beta sign-up form.

How will this work?

Writer sign-ups will close a week before fic summaries are due, allowing any writers who sign up last minute to have enough time to at least get enough information down so an artist knows what to expect with their fic. A form will be sent out to artists for them to claim fics. This claim form will only show the fic summary, ships (if any), and any warnings. Artists will not know who the writer is until after team assignments have been made.

Artists get first-come, first-served claims, meaning that most will get the first writer they picked. However, if someone else claims that writer, the artists will be given their 2nd or 3rd possible pick. Once claims end, the moderators will send out emails about the pairings.

Writers and artists will need to communicate with one another and decide on what scenes to draw. There will be check-ins for writers and artists so that mods can know everyone’s progress. Please try to turn those in on time.

Moderators will send out a form so that writers and artists can decide on when they will want to post their work. Since it’s a collaborative event, the pairings will need to talk about when they want to post it.

What happens if there are more writers than there are artists or vice versa?

If there are more writers than artists, the artist sign-up period will be extended in the hopes that new people will join. However, if the numbers still aren’t enough, artists that signed up as pinch hitters will be asked if they would like to take on any of the unpaired writers. More leeway is given to these pinch hitters; the moderators will allow them more time to complete their art.

If more artists than writers sign up, moderators will give them the option to wait and see if any artists drop out, or they can choose to partner with a writer who has an artist already. This means some fics might have up to two different artists.

Will this event have a theme?

Due to the responses in the interest check, there won’t be any set theme. The majority of votes chose to keep the theme general, so participants have unlimited freedom in what theme they want to work on.

What are the adaptations, and do we need to specify which one we are creating for?

MDZS is the only novel with adaptations so far. The adaptations are the donghua, manhua, audio drama, and live action (The Untamed). Participants do not need to specify which adaptation they are creating for, only which fandom they are writing for.

If I’m under 18, am I still allowed to participate? 

Yes, all ages can participate.

How will minors be kept away from the NSFW content? 

All NSFW content will be kept in separate channels that only allow access to those who state that they are 18 years old. If any minor is found to be lying about their age to gain access to these areas, they will be kicked from the server and banned from the event. The mods have taken several precautions to prevent any minors from accessing NSFW content.

What if I want to do a ship that isn’t popular?

Side ships and non-canon ships will be accepted for this event. However, please be aware that it may be harder to match with an artist/writer.

For further clarification on shipping, please see “Side and Non-canon Ships and Rare Pairs.”

Are there any banned topics and content?

Content such as underage characters (minors) in sexual situations will not be allowed for this event. If an author decides to age up underage characters such as the junior trio, then this rule does not apply as long as it is portrayed that their personality has matured as well.

Incest will not be allowed for this event. Filial relationships such as student/teacher do not constitute as incest. These are allowed as while these relationships are family-like, the moderators consider it different from conventional incest. The ban on incest apply to pairings such as Jiang Fengmian x Wei Wuxian, where one part of the ship was actively raised as a child/son-like figure by the other. The exception to including incest in your fic will be any canon-based content, but again, these events should not be the main focus. Bestiality is also not allowed in this event.

As for content that feature non/dub-con, it is allowed as long as it is only briefly shown or only hinted at or alluded to in regards to the plot of the story. The content should not be explicit and graphically written out/depicted in the story or artwork. For further clarification, the moderators do not define “rape” and “rape kink” as the same. Rape kink is allowed in the event because it is a roleplay between two consenting adults.

If you’re still unsure whether or not your ship is allowed, please contact one of the mods. 

Writer FAQ

What is needed for the fic summary check-in?

Writers will be given a form that will ask for: 

Fandom (SVSSS, MDZS, and/or TGCF)

Title (Optional)

Rating

Tier level

Ship (including background ship) or no ship

SFW or NSFW

Warnings

Summary

Any additional notes for the artist, so they can be more aware of the story’s content.

Please have some kind of notes or outline that will help your artist so that they can get ahead on drawing scenes for your fic!

Note: It’s best to start writing your outline/plots once you sign up and enter the Discord server because it’ll help you estimate which tier level fits your fic.

Can I write a fic that has chapters?

Yes, you can write chaptered fics. However, it must be completed by the final check-in and all chapters must be posted on the assigned posting date or by the end of the posting dates.

Can I continue a fic that I’m working on?

No, you cannot continue a fic that has already been posted. However, if you want to write a sequel or prequel for a completed fic that can be seen as a standalone fic, then yes you can.

You cannot add on to a work in progress (new chapters of an ongoing fic). However, if you have a fic that you’ve been working on but haven’t posted or shared anywhere, then you can use this for the event.

Can I expand on and/or change the idea of a fic I previously wrote?

Yes, as long as your bang fic’s idea is different enough and can be read by itself without having to read the previously written fic, the moderators will accept it. If you’re still unsure, please contact a mod for clarification.

Can I translate a complete Chinese fic into English for the bang?

No. All participating writers are expected to make an original fic for this Bang. Translating a fic that is already completed goes against the spirit of the event. Additionally, this event is English only.

What genres/warnings/ratings are allowed?

Since NSFW themes are allowed in this event, participants are given more freedom. However, everything must be properly tagged with its correct warnings and ratings. You can find more on Common Warnings/Tags.

Reminder: Not all NSFW is sexual content. It can also be death, extreme violence, gore, etc.

Are AUs/crossovers from other fandoms allowed?

Yes, since this event has a general theme, participants are free to choose whether their work is an AU or crossover from another fandom.

Does my fic have to be betaed?

Yes, it does. It needs to be fully betaed by the final deadline. Writers will be given a list of beta readers who signed up for the event, along with the content the beta readers are comfortable or uncomfortable working with, for the writer to reach out to and ask. Beta readers are allowed to decline the request. Writers should not harass beta readers who choose to decline their request and move on to find another who is more amenable to looking over their work. If writers still have difficulties finding a beta, please contact a mod. It is allowed for a writer to have a beta reader who didn't sign up for the event to beta their story. Please inform a moderator on who it is so that it can be added in the documentation and credit can be given.

What are the tiers available in the Bang for writers?

Tier 1: 5K minimum word count

Tier 2: 10K minimum word count

Tier 3: 20K minimum word count

Tier 4: 30K minimum word count

Tier 5: 40K minimum word count

Once writers select their tier and fic summaries are turned in, they are locked into their selected tier. This means that even if you exceed the minimum word count for the next tier, you are still considered as the tier you selected, and your artist need only to meet the selected tier’s requirements. For example, a writer locks in at tier 3 but exceeds tier 4’s minimum word count. Their partner artist only needs to meet tier 3’s requirements.

Note: Writers and artists will be paired based on the preference of the artist during the blind claim period. The moderators will attempt to pair within the same tier level, though it is possible that an artist with a higher tier may be paired with a lower tiered writer. If at all possible, a lower tiered artist will not be paired with a higher tiered writer. Either way, the artist is not required to create more pieces than what they originally selected.

Beta Reader FAQ

What does a beta reader do?

A beta reader is an unofficial editor for an author. They provide feedback based on the author’s requests, which can include proofreading or pointing out plot holes or inconsistent characters. They can also point out where there might be confusing passages or transitions of thought from the author, who already know what they mean but did not provide a clear picture for the audience. Beta readers are another pair of fresh eyes for the author.

When and how are writers and beta readers paired?

Writers will be given a list of beta readers on November 10—along with what content the beta readers are comfortable or uncomfortable with—and they will be the ones to contact that beta reader. When writers ask the beta readers, they must inform the beta readers of the contents of their fic, so that the beta reader knows what to expect.

What if I don’t want to partner with a writer who asked for my beta skills?

Beta readers are allowed to decline a writer’s request if they are uncomfortable with the content of the writer’s fic, they do not have time to read through a longer fic, or wish to decline due to other reasons. Writers should not harass beta readers who choose to decline their request. Writers should move on to find another beta who is more comfortable looking over their work. If a writer is harassing you, please inform a mod.

Artist FAQ

If I sign up as both writer and artist, can I claim my own fic?

No, you cannot claim your own fic.

What if I want to draw a NSFW scene?

You can draw a NSFW scene if you choose to do so; however, when posting you will have to give a cropped SFW version of it while including a link to privatter.net for those who are 18+.

What size do art pieces need to be?

There are no requirements on the artwork’s size; it is up to the artist’s discretion. It is recommended that you take into consideration the optimal sizes for Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, or whichever platform you use if you wish for your artwork’s preview or post to be cropped well. There are several resources available for recommended social media image sizes, and it is encouraged to do your own research. If you wish to make prints of your work, you should also take into account standard paper sizes.

Can we draw traditionally for the bang?

Yes. Artists can submit a traditional drawing if they choose to do so. However, it must be a high quality scan or photo, and all details must be clear.

What are pinch hitters?

Pinch hitters are artists who are interested in helping out in case an artist participant drops out. If this happens, the pinch hitter will be responsible for their original team piece in addition to the new assignment. Because of this, pinch hitters have the option to accept or deny any requests. The mod team will never force someone to be a pinch hitter or to accept requests they aren’t comfortable with.

What are the tiers available in the Bang for artists?

Tier 1: 1 flat-colored piece with no background or shading required

Tier 2: 1 colored piece with shading, no background required

Tier 3: 1 full, simple piece (coloring and shading; simple background - a simple pattern/design or hints of scenery that doesn't have to fill the composition)

Tier 4: 2 full, simple pieces (coloring and shading; simple background - a simple pattern/design or hints of scenery that doesn't have to fill the composition)

Tier 5: 1 full, simple pieces and 1 complex, detailed piece (coloring and shading; complex background that fills the composition - clear perspective and how characters occupy the space)

Note: Writers and artists will be paired based on the preference of the artist during the blind claim period. The moderators will attempt to pair within the same tier level, though it is possible that an artist with a higher tier may be paired with a lower tiered writer. If at all possible, a lower tiered artist will not be paired with a higher tiered writer. Either way, the artist is not required to create more pieces than what they originally selected.

What if my writer exceeds their tier and fits more into a different tier? Ex: Writer chose tier 3 but exceeds tier 4’s minimum word count.

Once writers select their tier and fic summaries are turned in, they are locked into their selected tier. This means that even if they exceed their word count, you only have to meet the requirements for the original tier. Using the example above, if the writer exceeded tier 4’s minimum word count, you only need to meet tier 3’s requirements.

Schedule FAQ

How do check-ins work?

Emails will be sent at the start of each check-in with a form to check progress levels. There will also be an announcement in the Discord server and on all social media. Please inform a mod if you can’t complete or need an extension.

How does claiming work?

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For politeness and to promote a safe, equal environment, the moderators request that you appropriately tag all creative works. If unsure on what topics to tag, a list has been provided below:

Abuse (physical, mental, emotional, neglect, verbal, sexual)

ABO/Omegaverse

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Please remember that this is not a list of banned content. This is simply so authors have an idea of what warning they may need to tag in their fics. The only content that should not be in this event is underage sexual content and incest or rape situations outside of what was mentioned in “Are there any banned topics and content?”

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The moderators do not restrict most side and non-canon ships. Our only exceptions are content that feature underage characters in sexual situation and incest and/or rape as covered in “Are there any banned topics and content?” Crossover pairings between novels are allowed, but it will be more difficult finding you an artist. It will also be harder to match you with an artist if you wish to feature a rarer ship/pair.

Rare Pairs

The moderators define rare pairs in three ways. 1) Rare pairs could be characters who have had a limited yet meaningful interaction or have an interesting dynamic in canon to justify a developing relationship, even in canon divergent settings. 2) Conversely, rare pairs could also include characters that have an adversarial, vitriolic relationship and are unlikely to develop a stable, good-natured relationship in canon. 3) Rare pairs can also be classified based on a quantifiable amount of AO3 fics featuring that relationship. If it’s not even on the dropdown list of top relationship tags on the AO3 page, it’s most likely a rare pair.

Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing would be considered a rare pair because although they do not have frequent interactions, they met under circumstances that hugely affect Jiang Cheng and his development in the novel’s canon. The live action adaptation also gives this pair a setting where they met even earlier than in the novel, during his student days in the Cloud Recesses. They also do not have a sizable amount of fics on Ao3.

[feroluce]

TatST - Ch 1: Secrets

For Day 1: Secrets of Ritshou Summer Week by @shouritshou! Please enjoy the first chapter of Together at the Same Time!

Warnings: Major character death, violence, injuries, blood, concussions

Shou is acting weird. Like, weird even for Shou.

Ritsu wakes up to the smell of meat cooking in his nose. 

He fumbles for his phone, something that's become the first part of his daily routine since he convinced his parents to get it for him last year. A quiet chime plays as it unlocks, Ritsu sleepily rubbing at his eyes until his ceiling looks less blurred. He can already see out his glass door that it's going to storm later...maybe he'll just stay in bed for a while longer. He can still smell breakfast cooking and it's making his stomach growl, but he doesn't want to leave his warm bed yet. Ritsu pulls the blankets up to his ears as he rolls onto his stomach and tries to ignore the little pang in his heart when there are no new messages from Shou. Because really, it shouldn't be that much of a let down. He's probably not even awake yet. Shou tends to stay up late and sleep in late, doubly so on weekends. So it's completely normal to not have a new message and he shouldn't be so disappointed. Ritsu's phone signals a new text message and he snatches it up to check his notifications in record time. Dammit. Damn Shou and his handsome face and his cute freckles and the new pang in Ritsu's heart that is the exact opposite of disappointment but just as unwelcome and painful. Shou: We're going somewhere today! I'll come pick you up! Shou: And don't skip bfast it's bad for you The first one isn't unusual. Shou is restless and he is always finding something to do. The second text, though, is...oddly specific. Ritsu widens out his psychic senses just to make sure Shou isn't hiding somewhere with his invisibility (which also isn't unusual). He can't Feel Shou sneaking around anywhere, although that doesn't always mean anything. His ability to hide his presence rivals Shigeo's and supposedly Reigen's.

Reinvigorated with the promise of an adventure, Ritsu rolls himself out of bed and drags his feet across the carpet. He wonders if he should bother to bring an umbrella or not. It might just be in the way.

Shou: Don't bring your umbrella btw you'll just lose it

Shou: And wear shoes without laces

Ritsu sticks his head into Shigeo's room on his way by, just to make sure Momozou hadn't come by to visit without him knowing. There's only one futon on the floor, though, with one head of black hair poking out. Telepathy and invisibility make for a horrifying stealth combo.

Me: Why are you being so specific.

Shou: Just a feeling

Shou: Don't worry about it

Ritsu is torn between not worrying about it and knowing better until he walks in on Shou in the middle of picking his outside door’s lock.

“Ricchan! Lemme in, we're going somewhere today and we need to get going!” Shou looks up at him from where he's kneeling and his stupid grin is so bright that Ritsu wonders for a moment if the storm clouds cleared up. And he considers it, he really does…

“Why should I?” But sometimes Ritsu feels like being difficult.

“C'mon, I came all the way out here! Don't be a dick.”

“Impossible. I'm always a dick.”

Shou snorts at him. The sound doesn't carry through the glass, but Ritsu knows the face he makes when he does it. “Yeah, well, y’are whatcha eat, I guess.”

Ritsu pulls the curtain shut.

The indignant “Awww, c’mon, it was funny,” is muffled by the thick fabric. Ritsu had just recently reset that lock, he reasons he has at least a couple minutes before Shou gets it figured out. He's just barely finished stepping into his shoes, though, when the door slides open and Shou breezes in, bringing in the smell of rain. He's getting too good at that.

"So where exactly are we going?" Ritsu always asks when Shou just shows up to whisk him away like this, but he had stopped caring about an actual answer over a year ago. Shou can make even mundane, boring things exciting. He could say they were just going to the corner store and it would still be fun. So it doesn't matter what the answer is, because Ritsu will follow along regardless.

"Places." Ritsu side steps to make room for the eventual circuit that Shou will make through his room. Even though they see each other almost every day now, Shou always walks by his bookshelf to look at the framed pictures sitting there. Or maybe he just scans the book spines, trying to figure out which one might be Ritsu's journal. "I found some pretty cool abandoned stuff past Mud Boat Mountain. Like they just half bulldozed some tourist places and then left them!" Shou stops in front of Ritsu's desk, leaning back against it with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. He doesn't pace, doesn’t play with any of the pens on Ritsu's desk, doesn’t even look at the shelves.

The sudden break in routine is more than enough to remind Ritsu of the strange text messages from that morning. 

Shou is acting weird. Like, weird even for Shou.

And he only realizes it more and more as Shou babbles about whatever he's found out in the mountain ranges. There's something off about his rhythm, about the way the words roll off his tongue. And Ritsu isn't sure of exactly what it is, but he can pick out that it's wrong. It maybe wouldn't be wrong coming from anyone else, but it's wrong for Shou and at least to Ritsu, Shou isn't just anyone else, he's Shou.

And Shou does eventually move, but it's only to steal a jacket out of the closet. The one that's changed hands so many times between the two of them that Ritsu can't even remember who it belonged to first.

Something like unease settles into Ritsu's gut, twisting up his insides.

It only gets worse from there. When they both leave the house, Shou keeps finishing Ritsu's sentences or answering questions before he's even done asking them. And this isn't unheard of, Shou can read Ritsu like an open book after so much time, but it's never been to this extent. Part of it makes Ritsu nervous simply because it's something new with no obvious explanation, but the other part worries that this means Ritsu is just that obvious. How much as Shou figured out about him recently? Does he know about Ritsu's Secret and that's why he's acting strange? Does Shou know that he likes him? "Yo, Earth to Ritsu!" Right. The convenience store. Snacks for on the way. It's not until they're back on the route to Mud Boat that Ritsu realizes he hadn't grabbed the salt water taffy he always brings home with him. He really is preoccupied. "Hey...Shou, hold on, I forgot Nii-san's candy." "Eh? Isn't he gone for the weekend, anyway?" Ritsu has just opened his mouth to answer that no, where did Shou even get that idea, when his phone trills in his pocket. Shige: I'll be gone when you get home. Shishou needed help and Serizawa is still out of town. Be back Monday. Ritsu's blood chills, bits of it clogging up his brain and trapping his thoughts in a clotted-off loop. Something is wrong. Something is really, really, wrong.

"Shou... Shou, how did you-?" "Peach ring?" When he looks up from his phone, Shou is suddenly a lot closer, holding a piece of candy up to his face. His eyes have gone from warm to overbearing, something that burns so hot and bright the flame has gone blue. Ritsu knows when he's being told not to ask. He opens his mouth again only to bite the peach ring out of Shou's fingers. ○●●○●●○ Now that he knows Shou is keeping Secrets, too, Ritsu goes on high alert, his feeling of everything being off-kilter only multiplied from before. "And so then- Then I told this guy that if he didn't speak- If he didn't start talking, I was really gonna light a fire under him-" "Shou, oh my god." It's a little hard to concentrate on that, though, when Shou is holding his hand because touching makes it easier to keep them both invisible. This didn't used to rile him up nearly as much as it does now. His only comfort is the fact that Shou can't see him, either. When the bus finally pulls up to the last stop at the base of the mountain, they both drop down to the ground without breaking hold, Shou kicking against the window and cackling when the people inside startle. Ritsu wonders if Reigen is going to get a call on Monday about evil spirits riding on top of public transport and messing with the passengers. The bus pulls away and Shou drops the invisibility and Ritsu drops their hands and turns before Shou can notice if his face is as unbearably red as it feels.

"...C'mon, it's not too much farther now." Ritsu is pretty sure he's just imagining the disappointed tone in his voice. Shou guides him up the mountain side, occasionally grabbing his sleeve to stop him from taking specific paths because trust me, Ritsu, you'll just give yourself a concussion like a dumbass. Ritsu bites his tongue and doesn't argue against it. When they float up the last bit of cliffside, they're greeted by a few run down old buildings, sides caved in and toppled by time and creeping vines. Their walls spill out like entrails, littering the ground with wood and glittering broken glass. "Pretty cool, eh?" Ritsu has to admit, it is pretty cool. They both walk forwards and it takes Ritsu a moment to place why the act itself is so weird. He's grown familiar with the sight of Shou's back, he could redraw the freckles on the nape of his neck almost as well as he could the ones on his face. Because Shou is always leading and Ritsu is always content to follow wherever Shou might lead him. But now Shou is all but glued to his side, shorter legs working to keep pace. He's keeping him close, keeping an eye on him, and Ritsu doesn't know what to think about that. And the longer they go on exploring their new discovery, the more antsy Shou seems to get. He's always energetic, always doing something, but it's never with this uncharacteristically nervous or paranoid feel to it. Shou keeps checking the time on his phone, he turns towards any sound that he can't immediately see the source of. His nerves are fraying like old rope. "Ritsu." He startles, because Shou hadn't said anything in a while and his jumpiness is starting to rub off on him. "Be quiet a sec. Don't move." They both go perfectly still until Shou's head whips towards the ceiling. Ritsu's eyes follow and then he can hear it, too, creaking along the old rubble. Footsteps. "Ok..." Shou's voice drops to a whisper. "Ritsu, put up a barrier. Thick as you can. On my mark. Three..." Ritsu tenses up, aura manifesting around them both in refractile bluepurplepink. "Two..." Shou drops his stance, reaching out and grabbing Ritsu to pull him closer until his concentration nearly stutters. "One!!" Ritsu's barrier balloons around them and too many things happen all at once for him to keep track of them all. Something drops in from the ceiling and something else swings in from the window and- Shou suddenly has Ritsu behind him backed in a corner and the desk near them flies open and stuff comes pouring out the drawers- And the entire desk goes hurtling across the room and someone screams and glass shatters and wood splinters- Something collides with his barrier and it pops like a bubble and then- And then Shou is being ripped screaming out of his hands- And suddenly there's a fist in his face and it isn't Shou’s because Ritsu knows what Shou’s fists look like, especially when they're right in his face, and this one isn't Shou's- Ritsu is dragged out and away through a hole in the wall and halfway through the woods all at once before he can get his bearings, but he lashes out as soon as he does. Practiced weak spots, eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus, hands wreathed with aura and one fist shoved up under the ribs before both hammer down onto the back of the person's bowed head. Ritsu sends them flying, maybe into a tree, maybe over a fucking cliff, he doesn't care, it doesn't matter as long as they're not in the way because he needs to get back to Shou. He races back to the old building and Shou is standing close to where they'd been before, visible through a massive hole blown in the wall of the second floor, Ritsu isn't even sure it was there before, but oh thank god he's still standing and he's alright. Shou pulls the hood of their jacket up one-handed right before he sways backwards and plummets. It's such a short fall that Ritsu only barely manages to grab him with telekinesis right before he crashes into all the debris below and that in itself scares him even more, because Shou doesn't even try to catch himself, he just falls and he's completely limp as he dangles in the air. Ritsu eases him down as gently as he can, but he can feel his heartbeat in his ears and it's making his control shaky. It isn't until he has him laying flat on the ground that Shou's eyes peer open again. "Shou! What happened, did you get hit? Are you bleeding? Where does it hurt? Is your head alright?" And Shou just blinks up at him like he's trying to recalibrate, turquoise irises rolling like compass needles until they realign with their true north and settle on Ritsu's face. "Ritsu...you did it. I knew you'd pull through on your end." When he smiles, his teeth are stained pink. "They have a bad habit of...of underestimating you." Shou's arm comes up and pats his cheek, but it's only the left one. His right stays crooked on the ground. Ritsu's eyes catch on the red starting to pool under his back, under his head, and the sight tangles in the spokes of his brain until the wheels grind. "Don't." Shou's hand, the only good one left, grabs Ritsu's wrist before he can reach the zipper to get a look at where the jacket is soaked to his skin. "Ritsu, just...just trust me. Don't." He doesn't stop Ritsu from calling an ambulance at least, even though he's starting to fear there's no point in it. Shou's teeth are starting to chatter and Ritsu's heart and lungs are starting to spasm and he's bleeding out all over the ground and- "Listen to me. L-Listen. Ritsu." Shou stops to grit his teeth and spit blood. "Ricchan. It's all...everything's gonna be ok. I can do this. I'll do...I'll get i-it right next time. I was so close this time. Ricchan, it's gonna be ok." "...You knew." Shou had been acting weird all day long. Like he already knew everything that would happen. "Shou, you asshole, you were keeping Secrets, you knew, and you still- You still...!" "Which is why...I know that everything's gonna...gonna be ok." Ritsu finally makes himself look Shou in the eye. He still looks dazed, his pupils mismatched in size. Concussion. "C'mere. My head is...it hurts. I...pillow." Ritsu manages to get Shou's head on his lap, desperately trying to ignore the sticky wetness seeping into his jeans. He figures it's the least he can do. "Ricchan. Tell me-e-e...tell me a, uh, a story." "You seriously want...?" "Mm. Tell me...haha, tell me about the time...about when Kamuro and, and Tokugawa tried to...catch Momozou ditching." "I...Shou, you already know that story. You were there for some of it." "I know... It's, uh...a good memory. I love...like the way you, you tell it." Shou settles in while Ritsu recites something from back in middle school, Kamuro and Tokugawa deciding tardiness was their new target and Momozou was the worst in Salt Mid. "So Shinji is still hanging halfway out the window and... Shou. Sh-Shou, stay awake." "Mm." He doesn't open his eyes again. "Keep...going. Still listening..." Ritsu closes his eyes, too, because that way he can almost pretend this is just another night where one of them had a nightmare and went crawling into the other's bed and he doesn't have to watch his vision swim. "And...and Hikaru is trying to, to pull them both back in, but Momozou is so d-damn big and heavy that...th-that..." Ritsu squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He's not sure he wants to see.

"Shou...?" Nothing answers him but his own hiccuping breaths. "Shou, c'mon, you shouldn't...you're not supposed to sleep with a concussion. You can't..." He can't do this to him is what he wants to say, but he already knows it's pointless because there's no one there to hear it, because Shou is a fucking liar and he had said that everything was gonna be ok and Ritsu didn't even get to tell him his own Secret and nothing about this is even remotely ok. One hand clenches in the sleeve of their shared jacket and the other clamps over his eyes until it makes kaleidoscope patterns on the inside of his eyelids. He and Shou weren't supposed to be separated, they did everything together, they were a pair, he doesn’t want to imagine having to look forward and not seeing Shou's back like always because Ritsu is the only one he trusts to watch his back. They weren't ever supposed to be apart. Something bright burns beyond his eyelids and it's the only reason Ritsu peeks out between his fingers. Orange, yellow, and pink, an aura he knows almost as well as his own, but now in the shape of a person. Two wide white eyes slowly open across its face, meeting his gaze head on. Shou's ghost is sitting in front of him, staring at him. Ritsu watches, partly mesmerized and partly horrified, as he cups his hands together and something builds there, crackling with energy. Shou's eyes crinkle up like they do when he smiles and suddenly everything starts to pull. Nothing looks like it's moving, but Ritsu can feel it, like he's being sucked in, like his very soul is being forced out of him through a straw. Everything is compressed, crushed, crumbled down to crumbs as it's drawn into the tiny black hole held carefully in Shou's cupped hands. He can feel the world condensing into a single point, the preparation for a new universe because the best thing about this one was dead and gone. And Ritsu swears, just at the last possible second before the big bang, that he feels Shou's heart jolt beneath his fingertips.

[rielzero]

Cleaning up my deviantart gallery can go from a quick organization task, to an addictive ‘’ok lets just do a lot’’ task.

I basically remove old pieces from gallery, by deleting them. No worries, I still have the original files on my drive. I don’t permanently delete my own work, I just remove old and outdated stuff from viewing, to make my deviantart more recent looking and presentable.

Since I do love these 3 particular pieces, I just wanted to make a blog post about them.

The 1st Image, as seen above is called ‘’Looking for ghosts’’ its from June 2019, late in that year I managed to draw again. I literally hadn’t drawn from around summer 2018 to somewhere in May 2019, all though I did draw FAIRLY little, and mostly sketchbook doodles.

I had been on hiatus as a result of depression reaching its peak. I do not remember 2018/2019 very well, unfortunately. But honestly, its also peaceful not remembering it. It was a very dark time for me. And I feel much better not living in the past of it.

I still need to redesign Moon, the OC depicted in this piece. I made this when I was still figuring out photobashing for backgrounds. It was the first of its kind, I think. Hence, its importance to me.

Most 2019 drawings are gone from my deviantart by now.

This drawing is titled ‘’No Suprises, Kenshin.’’ Which was supposed to be a cover image of a short comic I wanted to make to practice drawing comics. It ended up being thrown into the trash as my lore was still being developed for their world, and it is shelved for the time being as I’m working on Man Made Fire.

It was made in late 2019, when I had my confidence back. And published in late january, 2022. I still think this shows some of the things I should practice more today. Which is character interaction and reactive expressions. The idea of the comic was to explore a character gimmick, were Kenshin’s lip would curl if he was hiding something. Usually a surprise or gift, which annoyed his girlfriend. Mizuki has the sixth sense to detect if someone is being dishonest. She’s not a living lie detector by any means, but she can sense something is up or being kept from her. It sets off her alertness, and as a wilderness demon, Mizuki being on high alert is stressful for herself.

I do need to redraw this sometime soon. On the to-do-list you go?

The last piece is, ‘’Double edged blades that talk for you’’ which is a piece based on one of my ‘’poems’’ They’re not really poems, but more written like song lyrics. Unfortunately since I have neither a voice, or a musical talent of any sorts, that is what it remains to this day. A lyrical poem that is not sung.

I like this piece. This was the first? Drawing I did of ‘’vampire riel’’ or just an alternative more pale version of my persona that looked more tired and had red eyes. The Halloween doodle I do every year.

He does have his own separate gallery and refsheets now: https://toyhou.se/7705074.riel-zero/8703178.sven-salvatore But in 2020 he was just a doodle of my OC persona looking quite different.

One particular note of this drawing is that I was starting to improve on the chin/ear parts of my facial anatomy. I was slowly starting to get a better grasp on hairline and eyebrows. My style does look quite different now. I was still using design doll for a lot of my artwork in 2020. I haven’t used that software after getting used to clip studio’s 3d models better.

That’s about everything I have to say, I think. It’s good to empty my mind and just write. I feel relieved? Or some sense of peace. Perhaps Tumblr will be a good place for these kinds of posts. If not from someone else, mostly for myself. Like an online diary in the internet void. 

Perhaps people will look at it and and see some kind of ghost of me in the far future. Dunno. I just want to leave some of my thoughts online. Somewhere. I fear being myself openly, because I info-dump and have too many thoughts.

The poem has the same title as the drawing, below.

''Speaking in Blades'' (by me)

Worry later, for the night is made for dogs Soundless they’ll sniff you out Tugging on your clothes Have you got the gold? Ask me how, ask me when I’ve got nothing on me but silver knives Meeting death glares in their eyes

Entranced, but never here to last Stick around, surely next morning its gone Wonderful melodies that don’t sing quite along They’re talking lonely, speaking in absolute Like Double-edged Blades that talk for you

Crush on the moon, crush on my very soul Lie to yourself and take a pill Oh so innocent, something you’ve got to kill Before it underestimates everything you own Everything you are, everything you will-

Oh, oh no

Worry for naught, worry for no wonder Playing in the dark, dance underwater Swimming in drags, drenched with their livelihood Bloody brides and torches alight Cross the border, we’ve got ghostly dreams Asking for things, oh so many things But I’ve got nothing but my silver knives

Entranced, so many that never last Stick around till dawn has left its only hour Wonderful melodies that you can devour They’re speaking lonesome, singing in absolute Like double-edged Blades that talk for you

Crush on the moon, my lonely soul Lie to myself, it's a choking mood No one’s innocent, murderers in disguise Take it all, leave nothing alone Before you can’t even keep all you own Isolated, leave nothing alone Singing songs, very desperate ones

Keep me tied to the ruse, the lies, the coldest blues I’ve got nothing but silver knives, threatening Jade eyes Like double-edged Blades that talk to you

Lonesome Melodies, and tales of blood

[two-halves-of-reylo]

A Curse of Snake

The Boy didn’t dare to look at the Monster. He kept his head down and counted the seconds while waiting that the anguish that knotted his stomach disappears. He wanted to cry. But he could not. He should not. So, he chewed his lower lip nervously to hold back the tears, as he did when his parents scolded him after a mistake. Except that his parents didn’t scare him.

Never.

Not always.

Or not willingly.

The boy didn’t remember very well. His memories were confused, broken. He had become unable to tell the difference between reality and nightmares. And, anyway, it did not matter. Not anymore. He was alone. In his room. In the dark. Nobody wanted him, except the shadows that wrapped around his mind until its choke him.

Maybe the voices were lying, saying that his place was with the Monster. Maybe the voices were wrong. Or not. He was tired of trying to understand. He just wanted to have peace. The control. No longer breaking things for no reason.

You are a monster ! A voice suddenly shouted. A voice he didn’t know.

No. Voice was lying. Voice was wrong. The Monster was in front of him. It was someone else. In his head. And what was living in his head had nothing to do with him. Isn’t it ? Even if it visited him every night and prevented him from sleeping. Even if he desperately needed to join him.

Look at me. Look at you. You are powerful. You are weak. You are a disappointment.

The Boy trembled. The Monster touched his face now, leaving a burning but invisible mark under his left eye. He was too terrified to back off. To say no. Because the Monster had always been there when he felt lonely. And he could never get rid of it. So he had to live with it.

Suddenly, the room became darker, bigger. It was not really a child’s room anymore, but a sort of cave. The smell of the sea was strong, outside, the waves were smashing against the rocky walls.

Now, the voices murmured in an unknown language, and the Monster forced the Boy to raise his head.

There was a mirror in front of him. A strange mirror. Old as time. Living. And it called him. But it was not reasonable to approach it. Not until he receive the order.

Which didn’t stop the Boy from being fascinated. Because the shadow, the figure facing him, was not his. She was smaller. More frail. And oddly, he knew she was a girl. Even if he could not see her face.

“ Who are you ? ” She asked.

He hesitated to answer. The Monster might not appreciate it. And because he didn’t want it to hurt him, he decided to keep quiet. A minute passed, every seconds marked by the beating of his heart.

“ So ? What is your name ? ” Repeated the girl.

She had taken an impatient tone. Almost imperious. But not bad. She was just curious. So, despite the fear, the Boy was curious too.

“ I am B…uh…Kylo Ren. And you ? ”

He heard her sigh, thought understood she was disappointed. But the Monster was jubilant. So, he persuaded himself that he had given the right answer.

The Girl sighed again, put her palm on the mirror, an invitation to approach.

“ I'm… ”

Before she could say her name, the mirror began to melt, turning into a kind of transparent lava that flooded the floor of the cavern, of the bedroom. Surprised, the Boy tried to back down. But the Monster’s hand rested on his shoulder, squeezing it so hard that the pain spread throughout his body.

Look again, look better, young apprentice.

The Monster was angry. The Boy obeys. He didn’t want to be punished. Not again. He didn’t want to feel the burning of lightning on his skin anymore. Tears were still threatening to flow. He held back a sob.

The puddle that the mirror had become began to shake, then to boil. Soon, it was no longer transparent, but black. Black as a starless night. Like the Darkness that held out its arms to him.

Something loud, a hoarse breathing, was heard. And, like a corpse coming out of the ground, a creature, the melted mirror, rose slowly taking a humanoid form.

The Boy had barely blinked as a man stood in front of him. A man with a mask. And a mechanical breathing. Painful. Beside the Boy, the Monster made a sort of laugh. A squeaky laugh. Vicious. Horrible.

The Man walked towards them. With a slow step. Threatening. Like a predator. The Boy knew immediately that he was preparing an attack. But, for the second time, curiosity was greater than fear, and the words of the Girl came back to him.

 _ Who are you ?

The Man froze, surprised by the question. Then, he quickly pulled himself together and lit his Lightsaber. Red like blood. Unstable.

_ I am a monster.

At these words, the Man threw himself on the Monster and sliced it in two, freeing the Boy. But it was not to save him. They both knew it.

While the Man in black turned his weapon towards him, the Boy rushed to the door of his room, crossed the hall, ran down the stairs and ran out of the house. Except that it was not the vast plains of Chandrila that awaited him. But the desert. A burning desert that smelled of metal and death.

It didn’t matter. The Boy thought only of fleeing. Where to go was no longer a relevant question.

He ran for what seemed like an eternity. Until the desert becomes a green forest. Until the green forest becomes a snowy forest.

He never turned to see if the Man was still following him. And never the Man did seem to catch up with him.

The Boy could not stop running, even though he was short of breath. Even if his lungs and throat burned him. Even if the world around him narrowed with every step. Even if he saw less and less where he put his feet.

He had to continue, to run, he had to. To not be caught. To not be outdistanced.

He thought he saw a glimmer in front of him. A piece of white tunic. Someone was running too. Someone was still running.

His prey.

He stumbled over a root he had not seen, swore in silence, and removed his mask. A mask that prevented him from seeing clearly. Which creature would want to remain blind during a hunting, because of something so trivial ? On one impulse, he sent the helmet crashing against a tree. He didn’t need that. Not anymore.

The Boy no longer existed. And the Man, Kylo Ren, was a monster.

But, for who was he the monster ?

That of the figure running in front of him? The Girl ?

Impatient and galvanized by this pursuit, Kylo Ren resumed his race, taking care not to let himself be slowed by snow or trees.

The Girl.

He had to capture the Girl.

No.

Not capture her.

Kill her.

He didn’t want to be seduced by the Light anymore. Darkness called him in such a soft voice.

So he went faster. Gained ground on his prey. He had been running for too long after freedom, peace. Days, months, years. The hunt was finally going to end.

Kylo Ren was only animated by hatred when the Girl stopped abruptly in the middle of a clearing. She was turning her back on him, and seemed barely breathless. She had grown up, like him. And he didn’t feel her scared. Not anymore. She was waiting for this moment. He knew it.

The conflict was inevitable.

But she was not armed. And she did not intend to defend herself. Despite this, he preferred to stay out of reach. Ten meters away.

_ Do you know who you are? Do you know who I am ?

He didn’t answer. What he knew concerned just him. And it didn’t matter now. Rey seemed to have the talent of asking questions out of context.

_ Yes, you know. Ben.

She let out a small laugh. Charming. Nervous. The Bond between them was silent. Like the forest. And time had stopped.

Rey finally turned to him. For a second, her thirst for blood reflected his, he watched it dancing in her eyes. But her fury dissipated faster than a mirage. She didn’t want to fight him. However, he felt that he had suddenly lost the advantage.

Because she began to walk towards him without fear.

Because she was crying silently.

Because she was smiling kindly.

Because her Light was marrying his Darkness without destroying them.

For a moment, Kylo Ren was frightened.

When Rey was so close to him that he could see the green that speckling the gold of her eyes, he firmly adjusted the grip of his fingers around his Lightsaber. He would not fail. Not this time. She was his last obstacle before deliverance. His last chance.

_ Do it, Ben.

He didn’t understand why she refused to defend herself. He was wondering where the trap was.

Rey took advantage of his confusion to cross the last meter that separated them.

She hugged him without hesitation as he activated the Lightsaber, as his blade crossed her belly.

Rey was scarcely shaking, despite the pain. Her smile was beautiful. Full of hope. And it was surreal. It was too much.

A suffering without name suddenly burst in the Kylo Ren’s chest. It was so violent that he had to struggle to stay standing.

Rey hugged him harder. As if to reassure him. This didn’t make sense. He was her enemy. Her murderer. A monster.

But she was not afraid. Not by him.

The veil of fury that blinded Kylo Ren slowly disappeared. And despair took hold of him, when he realized what he had done.

The cold began to creep under his skin. And it also began to rain. He looked up at a sky as empty as his soul. There was not a cloud. It was not raining. Not really. It was he who was crying.

Something touched his cheek. Rey. He lowered his eyes to meet her stare. Her caress was soft and warm as she was redrawing his scar.

Then, without warning, she kissed him.

Ben froze. He didn’t know how to react.

He could not even turn off the Lightsaber. His body refused to obey him.

He felt himself dying.

No.

He felt her.

It was Rey who was dying.

An unnamed terror overwhelmed him. He wanted to go back. But it was too late.

Rey breathed her last breath against his lips. The next moment, she was gone.

Ben fell on his knees. The snow around him had turned red. It began to swallow him slowly. Suddenly, he heard the laugh of the Monster. A laugh like snake whistles. And he recognized other voices. But he knew now. He could not lie to himself anymore. There was no Light. There was no Darkness. There was only the Force. Only Rey.

And you killed her.

He could not think of anything else. The pain was unbearable. Before the snow had completely consumed him, he heard someone scream in sorrow. Of suffering.

He didn’t understand that this voice, this last voice, belonged to him.

*

Ben awoke abruptly, trembling so hard that his muscles were painful. He had not had such a violent nightmare for almost two months. A hand over his eyes, he gradually regained his breath, mentally repeating to himself that Snoke had been dead for three years.

This old thing would never come back, even if the voice in his head wanted him to believe otherwise. And he was no longer the Jedi Killer, or anything else in connection with the First Order. He was free, and happy with his new life.

When he was calm enough, Ben searched for Rey in the bed. He knew she had been with him in the nightmare. Really there. He had felt her. Sometimes, thanks to the Bond, they shared their dreams as if it were visions. They had learned to live with it. Most of the time, it was pleasant and good. Not this night.

Rey was not here. For a brief moment, Ben panicked, and quickly left the bed, frightened at the mere thought that she had disappeared from his plane of the existence, as at the time, when light-years separated them and that the Bond united them for few minutes, before he found himself alone with contradictory feelings.

But his fear was short-lived. Because it was stupid. Rey was still there. With him. At their home. She just needed to move away to regain control of her thoughts. And he didn’t have to use the Force or the Bond to know where she preferred to go for regain her calm.

As the spring nights were fresh on Chandrila, and that Ben was certain that his dear Scavenger had gone outside without worrying about the cold, he provided himself with a shawl before going out through the French window still open.

The garden that bordered their bedroom was vast, lush. It was a private place where they loved to relax, meditate or practice, enjoying each other’s company in quietude.

Rey was there, arms crossed, standing among the flowers and plants they had planted together. She stared at the sky, at the stars, and persisted in turning her back on him, even though she had felt his presence. Because she was crying.

Her hair was not tied, she was barefoot, like him, and she wore nothing more than a semi-transparent nightie. Usually, Ben would have found this vision very seductive, especially since the night was clear and gave her body an almost mystical aura. But Rey shivered a little, so he hurried to join her to cover her shoulders with the shawl. Then he stood next to her, put a protective arm around her waist. She snuggles against him, letting out a sigh that’s close to a sob.

_ I killed you Ben…you didn’t even want to fight…you left me do it…

_ Everything is fine Rey, it was just a horrible bad dream…

_ I know…I know…but it seemed so real…and you saw it too.

Ben bit his lower lip, pushing away the vision of what he had done in his dream.

_ Not really. For me, the roles were reversed, and I would have preferred it otherwise.

His voice was hoarse and trembling slightly. Rey turned to take him in her arms. He responded to her embrace, pressed her against him, leaning his chin on the top of her head.

_ Do you think these nightmares will stop one day ?

He sighed. He didn’t want to lie. They both knew that demons would never really disappear. Even if they had fewer nightmares than before, they would probably do it so until the end of their lives.

_ I am sorry. You make this kind of dreams because of me.

_ Please, don’t apologize Ben. Not for that.

A comfortable silence settled between them. The minutes passed, during which they finally relaxed completely. The anxiety provoked by the nightmare had passed.

Despite the warmth of their embrace, Rey began shivering again. They had remained too long without moving, and the return of tiredness made her more sensitive to the cold.

_ We should go home, otherwise you will end up getting sick.

She laughs a little, and stroked his back with her fingertips. Then, she pulled away from him to point to his naked chest.

_ You too.

Ben raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to remind her that it was not he who should follow the advice of their doctor. This would only provoke a battle of arguments. And anyway, Rey knew her physical limits, though sometimes she was not very reasonable. So, he kept his opinion for himself, even though she had probably guessed it.

They didn’t really want to go back to bed, even if there were a few hours left before dawn. However, they wanted to find the comfort of the sheets, the pleasure of sharing a reassuring embrace.

Ben knew he could not sleep more, so when Rey snuggled up against his chest with a discreet yawn, he decided to watch over her sleep for the rest of the night.

While waiting for Rey to fall asleep, Ben soothed her by stroking her arm, then her belly. She was not hurt. She was fine. They were fine. She and the small presence he felt flourishing under his fingers. A small bump, round, soft. A small presence in the Force, which would soon be four months old...

Submission by @til-lyanae

[tape-hiss]

Death and Aetheri

Hello! This month's Tape Hiss post is going to talk about Aetheri and death: attitudes towards it, practices and superstitions surrounding it, and so on. I'm going to talk pretty plainly about it! If talking about death makes you uncomfortable, you may want to sit this one out,

I quite honestly ran out of time to do any extra illustrations this month (I'm in crunch mode trying to get chapter 1 redraws done) but I will probably include some relevant photos just to give you something to look at. Below the cut!

So I've talked a little here and there about funerary practices in Aetheri but we're going further into depth now. Let's start with context: spirits live for a long time, about a thousand years. They don't perceive this as being an especially short amount of time the way we humans might perceive our own lifespans--I've also muttered some about spirits' perception of time being such that they experience time as either strangely contracted, i.e. whiling a way a Sunday afternoon without realizing how much time is passing, or as literally a series of what they perceive as separate lives. A thousand years is not particularly short to them; life does not feel short to them.

On the other hand, Aetherian spirits were once a prey species (and presumably other spirit communities on Eoroe still are.) Life does not feel short to Aetherians, but it does feel impermanent and fleeting nonetheless, because it could end quite suddenly at any moment. The relevance of this is that Aetherians have two entirely separate conceptions of death: that at the end of a long life, and that which happens dhalura sii dyra, or before one's time. The former has its own name, netdh-tnaas, and is regarded as something benevolent, an entity of relief. The later is called dreitha-thyal, and is a malevolent entity, something to avoid inviting.

A note: I have also rambled before about Aetherian spirituality. To expand on that some, Aetherians don't have an organized religion and aren't prone to deifying entities, but they do personify things like death, luck, love, joy, and so on. These personifications are not gods, but are usually spoken of as though they were more or less random forces of the universe that cannot be asked to do things the way one might a god-figure. Aetherians might conduct little rituals or hold superstitions in the hopes that the universe will align itself with their wishes, but they have rather a different attitude about it than a sort of 'if you pray, God will provide' thing. Different, but maybe not a hell of a lot so. Whether by culture or because of species hard-wiring, spirits seem pretty okay with the lack of certainty involved in all this.

Another important note is that while Aetherians personify death, it is ultimately a state of being. They don't think of it as a place that someone can come back from, or an entity that can be negotiated with or fought off. There is nothing in Aetherian folklore of heroes journeying to an underworld to save someone or tricking the grim reaper into staying his hand; these would sound very foreign to Aetherians. There is no conquering death, merely avoiding it for a while. Aspiring to conquer it--as humans might--is something Aetherians regard as both arrogant and pointless. Spirits live for about a thousand years, and most of them consider that long enough. Most of them look on humans who are so set on finding ways to counter aging with pity.

This is maybe a weird attitude to take given that spirits have a pretty good idea of what happens to a person after they die, which is: ostensibly, nothing. Perhaps death leaves a ghost behind, but that is just a footprint, which eventually goes away. The prospect of this alarms most humans, I think, but spirits on the whole don't seem to be that bothered--maybe because this has never been new information to them, and they've never expected anything else.

On the contrary, 'nothingness' is viewed as the final state of consciousness. It's referred to as muunn and carries a connotation of absence, of inertia, of stillness. It's a state of being cooled and slowed to a stop. It's a spiritual echo of the concept of absolute zero wherein all molecules have stopped moving entirely. Life is movement at all different speeds and noise at all different levels; death is stillness and quiet and a state of rest. The genesis of life is seen as a collection, a formation, of muscles and bones and elements and magic; the natural end result is the dissipation of these things in death. Life and death in its most simplistic form is seen like a building of pressure, and then a release. Part of the reason netdh-tnaas is viewed as positive when compared to dreitha-thyal is that it completes the arc of life, so to speak, rather than cutting it short.

This symmetry is reflected in funerary practices in Aetheri as well. One lives their life in community, with others; it's very unusual to live alone or in isolation, even though there's plenty of space to do so. When one dies, ultimately the remains end up outside cities and towns, on the moors. Remains are not kept in the same places where people live, not because of any distaste for death or superstition, but because the moors and prairies of Aetheri are reflective of the quiet and solitude and stillness that go with death. It's merely appropriate.

(The exception to this for a long time now has been the royal family. There is a crypt for the d'Escala, just outside the bounds of the palace, far below the ground. Still out of the realm of society, but closer to home, closer to the place they dedicate their lives to.)

Prior to the last war, when Aetheri was largely forested, traditions were a bit different. Most people would be buried for a decade at the base of a large tree at the edge of civilization, and then the skeletal remains would be exhumed and placed in an ossuary far from town. Ossuaries held many remains and were extremely well-hidden, both because bones are good for use in some nasty magic and because the species of predator that preyed on spirits would not turn down a snack of bone marrow.

Traditions post-war have changed somewhat, but not much. The decade of burial is still in place--it's referred to as rudh-ieir and is the transition from being to not being, from the person that one is to truly no longer being that at all. It's also the time during which it's traditional to mourn, but I'll get to that in a moment.

After rudh-ieir the skeleton is still exhumed and wrapped in nilaqudh--which is the 'marriage' cloth I mention in this post--or another shroud if no nilaqudh exists. The skeleton may then be placed in an ossuary, but they're starting more and more to go out of fashion. Instead often the skeleton is placed in a reed chest or clay jar and buried on the moors, wherever the loved ones think seems like a good spot, often somewhere particularly scenic or peaceful--sometimes alone, sometimes in proximity to the remains of other friends or loved ones. The burial spots are often not marked at all, and when they are it's never by name but by a small landmark. Knowledge of where the grave is is ultimately kept by the family or friends, almost never recorded. It's kept deeply private and personal and is rarely visited--partly to preserve the peace of the deceased, and partly to discourage grave robbers, who can make a nice profit on selling bones on the black market for spell materials.

This may sound terrifyingly lonely, but it isn't as though people are just simply forgotten. Aetherians regard the bones as the most long-lasting physical part of a person, but the memories of them as the longest-lasting part overall. Typically someone who mourns the death of a loved one will keep an object of the deceased's either on their person or in their home for the rest of their lives--this could be anything, like a piece of clothing, a letter, a favorite toy. These are things which have no meaning beyond what the deceased ascribed to them in life, and they're things that would lose that meaning if the mourner did not remember it.

We have actually seen an example of this: the blade mounted on Helly's wall in chapter 6 belonged to Karida, Numair's mother. It's not a particularly special blade, it's just the one she used. Helly is remembering her in a very traditional Aetherian way.

Yoshi is doing something similar with the household shrine to his mother, but the method here is sort of fused with the idea of the butsudan in that it also functions to honor his mother rather than just display an object of hers. I imagine Shinobu does something like this as well, and probably introduced the idea to Yoshi in the first place.

Mourning is generally considered a private thing in Aetherian culture, as are a lot of shows of emotion, really. The actual funeral service is generally a quiet, simple affair; it involves a few clothes friends and family members, a few stories told to each other about the deceased, a quiet moment. Public displays of grief are not looked on kindly, not traditionally, anyway. Some of this is beginning to change with the younger generations of spirits as they absorb cultures coming in from other worlds, but deep emotional repression is still the norm in many facets of Aetherian life.

Following this, public memorial is sort of rare in Aetheri, and then it's only for the truly public. The founders' statues are the best example of this--they were all erected after all the founders had died, to mark a turning point in Aetherian history that should well and truly be remembered. The statues are not just to the founders as people, but to the fall of the old royal family and the rise of the current, to the destruction of the forests in Aetheri, to the worlds destroyed in the war.

There is one major exception to funerary tradition in Aetheri, and that's for criminals. Not just regular criminals, but the universally reviled, those who Aetheri has agreed are best forgotten. They are cremated, and only people like this ever are--fire represents destruction to Aetherians, and destruction so complete that it destroys the bones of the deceased is the Aetherian way of erasing someone's existence. The ashes are afterwards scattered completely.

As you can imagine, death traditions are one of the biggest points of conflict in Aetheri right now, between old traditions and the new ones brought in by immigrants. Cremation is a pretty innocuous thing in a lot of cultures, even preferred by some, but it's something you'd only do to someone you hate in Aetherian culture. Graveyards and interment are also pretty common in many cultures, but Aetherians find the practice of having graveyards so close to the living and visiting them frequently to be an intrusion of the living space by the dead, and vice versa. Funerals with loud wakes or long processions are seen as unnecessarily dramatic. Embalming is seen as ghoulish.

There's been quite a bit of argument in the nearly hundred years now that Aetheri has had immigrant cultures on where graveyards should be allowed--in cities, or outside of them--or if they should be built at all. Funeral homes that performing embalming or cremation have difficulty staying open in parts of Escalus, because traditional Aetherians find both practices so detestable. Even caskets are sort of difficult to come by, since wood is such a luxury good in Aetheri--most are made out of pressed and hardened reeds. As it stands right now, there are no graveyards in Escalus--the few that exist are just outside the city, which is still too close for most traditional Aetherians. Funeral homes exist and funeral processions and wakes happen and are protected by law, but are sometimes vandalized or crashed by particularly shitty traditionalists. So, there is still some work to be done.

And that’s the gist of it! Thanks for reading! Got questions? Ask ‘em!

[brandonrucker]

Note: this is a re-posting of an interview I had published nearly five years ago on a different website (that web archive is no longer available, making this re-post necessary for posterity, if nothing else). The following Q&A session was drafted October 17, 2012.

Patrick “Patch” Zircher [pronounced: zer-ker] is the artist and co-writer of Valiant’s all-new SHADOWMAN series, launching November 7, 2012 from the resurging publisher. Co-written with Justin Jordan (THE STRANGE TALENT OF LUTHER STRODE), the new Shadowman series is about New Orleans’ worst nightmare coming true. As these dark forces begin to claim the Big Easy as their own, Jack Boniface must embrace the dark legacy he was born to uphold as Shadowman. He will become the only thing that stands between his city and the legions of unspeakable monstrosities. Zircher, Jordan and Shadowman are poised to not only occupy the darkest corners of the revised Valiant Universe, but perhaps shine some light and hope there as well.

Zircher, In Passing

Earlier this year I met Patch Zircher somewhat in-passing at my local comic shop. I didn’t know who he was at the time until an old former colleague at the store informed me. He was there mainly to purchase comics for his preteen daughter (trade paperbacks of Marvel’s Runaways, I recall), but was also there searching through the back issue bins for some oldies-but-goodies. He, the store staff and I geeked out in a brief conversation about when exactly the transition from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age of comics supposedly occurred. As we departed the store I was left with the impression that Zircher’s a humble, laidback and rather approachable fellow (the kind I suspect would talk with you forever should you meet him in Artists Alley at a comic con someday), and was jazzed that this awesome artist is a fellow citizen living locally in a suburb neighboring mine. A few Twitter conversations eventually led to the following interview you are about to read.

Hey Kids, Meet Patrick Zircher!

BRANDON RUCKER: Are you a native of our ‘great state’ of Indiana? If so, where did you grow up?

PATRICK ZIRCHER: I grew up in Ohio and Arizona, but moved to Indiana when my kids were born.  I actually missed fall and winter.

RUCKER: How did you get your start as an illustrator of comics? How we’re you finally discovered?

ZIRCHER: That’s hard to answer because there were a lot of stops and starts. Right out of high school I was published in paper and pencil role-playing games, then inked, wrote, and drew comics for smaller comic companies like Eclipse, Blackthorne, and Caliber. Art became a full-time job when I started drawing Green Hornet for Now Comics.  Back then, I sent art samples (photocopies) in the mail.  I would draw on the envelope to get submissions editors to notice. A few years later I was hired by DC at the San Diego Comic Con and a short time after that by Marvel for New Warriors. This is all in the ‘long ago and far away.’

RUCKER: I’ve seen your early pages for this new series, and Patrick, I have to say that I’m blown away. Admittedly I’m a latecomer to your work having discovered it at Marvel the last couple of years. You’ve recently alluded that your work from 5-6 years ago is not worthy of your name. In what ways do you feel you’ve improved? Do you feel like you turned a certain corner when you went digital?

ZIRCHER: I was joking a little, but I do try to improve each year. I’ve never been satisfied with having a ‘set way’ of drawing.  As far as improvements, I think my storytelling and panel compositions are stronger, as well as anatomy and gesture, spotting blacks and contrast.  Ha, everything I guess.  To be honest, improvement came when I began inking my own work.  It isn’t that other inkers aren’t talented, but inking is, to some extent, redrawing for me – a second chance to improve on the pencils and layout.

RUCKER: Since I’m a follower of your Twitter feed, I’ve come to realize that you are a kindred spirit when it comes to music. What positive affects does music have on your artwork?

ZIRCHER: I’m a music geek, as a listener – I can’t play at all – and tailor what I listen to with what I’m drawing.  Drawing involves long hours at the board so I’ve been putting together a ‘mix tape’ with hundreds of songs that keep me in the zone when working on Shadowman.  It’s how I justify my passion for “Daemon Lover” by Shocking Blue.

RUCKER: Do you have any favorite artists among your peers?

ZIRCHER: Many.  But listing them only makes me regret the ones I left out.  I will say the overly-flashy art, the absurdly detailed art, the no-attention span- jumbo-figures-on-every-page kind of guys usually leave me cold.  I’ll take a great storyteller who can frame and compose panels, pages, and sequences over the loud guy every time.

RUCKER: You recently said on Twitter: “Never say never, but that’s my last Marvel piece [AVX Consequences #1] for a very, very, very long time.” I assume that this, well, one: refers to your exclusive contract with Valiant, and two: you’re as happy as a fat kid in a candy store at Valiant.

ZIRCHER: I love working at Valiant.  I was unhappy at Marvel.  It happens.  As far as exclusives, as I said, I love working at Valiant, but I just don’t sign exclusives anymore.  I’m working exclusively for Valiant because I want to – not out of a contractual obligation.

RUCKER: There’s a huge boom in creator-owned comics these days, perhaps the most ever in the history of the medium. Do you have any interest in possibly doing something creator-owned in the future?

ZIRCHER: Yes, but co-writing and illustrating Shadowman is a full plate.  And the plate’s full of good food.  There are so many projects at Valiant I’d be happy to be a part of that making a creator-owned book isn’t a priority right now.

Shadowman #1, pg. 1

Shadowman #1, pg. 4

Shadowman #1, pg. 5

RUCKER: What was it about the Shadowman character that attracted you? Were you a fan of the 1990s version as well?

ZIRCHER: I was a fan.  Like a lot of fans though, sometimes you’re as much in love with a character’s potential as you are their actuality.

RUCKER: With all due respect to all the previous creators who worked on the character, what is it about this new iteration of Shadowman that you think makes it just as good as, if not better than the original?

ZIRCHER: Well, first, I admire the talents of the book’s previous creators.  Bob Hall wrote and drew quite a few issues and you can see he put a tremendous amount of energy into the work.  Comics have evolved a different style of storytelling since then and the work Justin Jordan, myself, and colorist Brian Reber are doing on the book reflects that.

RUCKER: The return of Valiant Comics is obviously great for fans of the characters and the industry overall. What was the main aspect about the all-new Valiant that attracted you to the point where you decided to stop working for Marvel?

ZIRCHER: I’m very attracted to working at a company that’s really in touch with its talent.  Everyone at Valiant is excited and enthusiastic and I wanted to work with people who felt that way.

RUCKER: The Valiant re-launch has been executed very methodically and with great care and precision. Given your relationship with Warren Simons, were you (and writer Justin Jordan) hand-picked for the Shadowman series, or did you two have to pitch against other creators in consideration/contention?

ZIRCHER: I was under contract with Marvel at the time Valiant was putting together its initial titles so we didn’t get together until later.  Fortunately several of my favorite Valiant characters were in the early (re-) developmental stage.  Warren and I wanted to work together on something with equal enthusiasm so we discussed a variety of characters.  Comics is a business, but I think it’s a key element, an often neglected one, to match talent with titles and characters they want to work on.  As far as Justin, he’s a writer both Warren and I really wanted.  We had read Luther Strode and both saw a personality in Justin’s work that would enliven Shadowman.  When Warren told me Justin had pitched for Shadowman, I couldn’t believe the serendipity of it.

RUCKER: Did you, along with Justin, have a lot of freedom to revamp and re-design the character and his world according to your shared vision?

ZIRCHER: I think so. It’s a team effort that includes editorial.  Valiant is building a cohesive universe and an editorial perspective is part of that.  Personally, it’s thrilling to be in the early stages of comics universe-building.  Co-writing is a fascinating process because, in many ways, a third writer is born, with a style that is different from the individuals and yet, not.

RUCKER: Have you had to do any specific research for this new series, perhaps research on New Orleans, or jazz culture or what have you?

ZIRCHER: A lot of comic creators research and I’ve been doing that for years.  With New Orleans, so many clichés are used in comics based in the Big Easy that we’re purposely taking it easy on the New Orleans-specific references.  They’ll come, you just won’t have Mardi Gras, the French Quarter, jazz, the bayou, voodoo queens, and above-ground vaults all thrown at you in the first issue.

Shadowman #2, pg. 2

Shadowman #2, pg. 4

RUCKER: In your own words, how would you pitch the new Shadowman series to prospective new readers – the on-the-fence fan or the naysayer?

ZIRCHER: Shadowman is about a guy named Jack who is bonded to a supernatural spirit.  After that, everything in his life changes.  I’m having a crazy, good time making the book and that DOES show in the pages.  If you’re on the fence after seeing the previews there probably isn’t a whole lot I can say.  Justin’s dialogue could charm a cat out of a tree.  Brian’s colors are gorgeous.  If you want a very good comic, you’ll find it here.

RUCKER: For those unfamiliar with your work, what of your previous work would you recommend people check out prior to Shadowman’s release –something you’re proudest of?

ZIRCHER: Captain America Vol. 3 [trade paperback of Ed Brubaker’s recent run], or Batman: The Man Who Laughs with Brubaker.  Terror Inc. with David Lapham; Mystery Men with David Liss; Hulk of Arabia with Jeff Parker. Or pick up Thor: Ages of Thunder with Matt Fraction. Warren [Simons] gave a copy of the Thor book to Valiant’s publisher, but his son took it so he had to get another one.  That’s as strong a recommendation as I can think of.

UPDATE: Currently Patrick Zircher’s work can be found on the DC Rebirth Action Comics series from DC Comics where you can find him having a ball drawing Superman and Lex Luthor-Superman, plus a dastardly host of supporting characters and villains.

Patrick Zircher: Into the Shadows, Man | Q&A Note: this is a re-posting of an interview I had published nearly five years ago on a different website (that web archive is no longer available, making this re-post necessary for posterity, if nothing else).