#and since i mostly do sketches... it was a challenge to even find stuff for the first picture | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lumini-317 · 4 years ago

Text

Hello!

This will be my official “introductory” post!

My real name is Erica, but I go by many names. My nickname repertoire includes but is not limited to: Lumi, Lumini, Cricket (I have a habit of rubbing my feet together, lmao), Jinx, Eri, Er, EriJoy, Sunbaeby, and Aceir (my real name but in alphabetical order).

This is my first ever Tumblr blog. I’ve had it for a while but have rarely posted anything, that along with the fact that I’m on mobile is kind of a mess so I apologize for mistakes and all that.

I have 3 older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother.

I’m an ambivert. Sometimes I love hanging out with bigger groups of people, other times I dread it.

I’ve taken the “16personalities” test 4 times and all 4 put me in the “Diplomat” category, however I got “Advocate” (INFJ) 2 times, and “Protagonist” (ENFJ) and “Mediator” (INFP) 1 time each.

I am LGBTQ+. I’m asexual, aro+panromantic flux, and while I feel like I’m genderfluid, the changes are very subtle and so I sometimes just go with agender, gendervoid, or neutrois. It’s a lot less complicated that way. I’m ambiamorous, and also pronoun apathetic!

I love whump. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember but only found the whump community maybe 3(?) years ago.

I also love K-Pop, C-Pop, J-Pop, and Asian dramas, mainly K-Pop and K-Dramas, though.

I’m a HUGE multistan. ATEEZ, SKZ, TBZ, EXO, BTS, Red Velvet, SHINee, iKON, MONSTA X, TWICE, TO1, WANNA ONE, SuperM, X1, MIRAE, Ciipher, Golden Child, Purple Kiss, BAE173, SF9, IU, ONEUS, ONEWE, The Rose, PIXY, LUCY, STAYC, WEi (which I pronounced as “way” for an embarrassingly long time), Dreamcatcher, Brave Girls, TXT, ENHYPEN, SNSD, KARD, AKMU, SHAUN, Gaho, NCT, GHOST9, 1team, SE7EN, Cross Gene, D1ce, AB6IX, CRAVITY, BLACKPINK, CIX, VIXX, f(x), 4Minute, CLC, YEZI, B.I, Wonho, (G)I-DLE, EVERGLOW, SEVENTEEN, BROOKLYN, Ha Hyunsang, DAY6, GOT7, Teen Top, BAP, TREASURE, UNIQ, etc! It goes on, far longer than I can list. I am also very much against fanwars, they disgust me.

I’m also a HUGE animal lover, and a big softie. I can’t even squish insects. I don’t care that they can’t feel pain and don’t experience emotions, I just can’t bring myself to. I make it my mission to save any type of animal I come across. I find toads in our koi pond and immediately pick them out and take them to a safe place. I help turtles across the road. I got a mouse out of a puddle and revived it, releasing it when it was healthy enough. I saw a snail on a piece of wood that was going to be thrown on a fire and carefully pulled it off and put it somewhere else. So far I’ve found 5 stray cats (Piper, Toothless, Felix, Kai, and Kit Kat—all were found as skinny, sickly kittens) and took them in, raising them as my own. I rescued a chipmunk from certain death-by-cat. I’ve even saved a few baby raccoons, ducklings, lizards, spiders, and snakes in my time. And I’ll keep doing so for as long as I live.

I love writing, drawing/sketching, and painting, however I’m not confident that I’m good at any of those things, lmao. I mean, I don’t think I’m the worst, but my finished “works” often leave me unsatisfied with my “skills”. But of course, that won’t stop me from trying to improve!

I’m a maladaptive daydreamer. This can cause issues in some places while helping me out in others. On one hand, it makes doing chores and such kind of difficult. Like one time I had to take care of my dad’s pigeons while he was fixing our shed and one time he pointed out how slow I was with the chores. His words were something along the lines of, “I’m already almost done with what I have to do and you’re still working with the pigeons.” Also, it (and maybe ADHD if I do have it?) made school a nightmare for me. But it’s also helpful because then during church it’s really easy to keep myself occupied while the pastors go on about their Magical Sky Daddy™’s son throwing a tantrum and killing a figtree because it didn’t have any figs and how that story should “challenge” us or something.

The characters in my daydreams are weird, though. They merge and separate with each other to make different characters depending on the situation. Most of them don’t have definite genders. Only a handful of them have names because they’re always merging and separating like some kind of Shadow Clone Masters or something. Stuff like that.

One of my characters is for sure a demi-boy, though, and his name is Kyler.

I brought this up because I was watching The Andy Griffith Show and Andy was giving Opie a lecture on how many poor kids there are in the world and used the ratio “one and a half boys per square mile”. Opie then says that he’s “never seen a half a boy before”. Kyler just sort of pops into (fake) existence, jumps off the couch, and throws his arms in the air while saying, “Half a boy, right here!” I burst out laughing. Thankfully it didn’t seem weird, since my parents started laughing at Opie and thought that I was just laughing at it, too.

Any-who.

If I daydream while I’m standing, I’ll often pace and gesture with my arms while moving my lips. Sometimes I’ll even whisper. If I’m sitting down, I usually fidget a lot (such as pick at my shirt and rub my feet together), stare into space, and move my lips or whisper. My family sometimes ask me, “Why are you whispering?” Or, “What are you grinning about?” And I just shrug because I don’t know how to explain it to them without risking them calling someone to pray over me, lmao. I mean, I wasn’t even allowed to have imaginary friends because that was “evil”. When I was about 7, I told my parents about my imaginary unicorn friend and they gave me a lecture and “prayed over me”. It was embarrassing and awkward for me.

I’m suspicious that I might have ADHD, but don’t have the money to actually get a professional diagnosis. I’m also too scared to ask my parents about it.

Speaking of which, my family and I don’t see eye-to-eye. I mean, they don’t know it because I’m good at hiding it, and they think I agree with mostly everything they do but boy, is it a mess.

You see, they’re evangelical conservative Christians. “LGBTQ+ people are going to hell”, “ThE LeFt ARe eViL AnD ARe TrYiNg To BrAiNwAsh OuR ChiLdrEn”, “Trump was sent by God”, “Intersex is fake”, “Women must submit to men”, “You should get married no later than in a year or ‘the temptation’ to have sex might become too much”, the whole bit.

Meanwhile I’m over here with my (imaginary) pride flags, just existing as an agnostic leftist who wants everyone to have equal rights, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, and would rather redo my horrifically atrocious kindergarten closing program role than pray to a god who (if they/he/she/it/whatever exists) gives cancer to kids and killed millions of innocent animals and people in the Bible.

But they have no idea that this is how I feel and now expect me to be baptized within the next month to show that I have “accepted Jesus Christ as my savior”. Yeah...that’s gonna be an awkward discussion...

Anyway, that’s just some things about me. Sorry that I got sidetracked a few times, lmao!

I look forward to posting more and maybe even making friends!

Thank you for reading (:

82 notes · View notes

not-xpr-art · 4 years ago

Text

Art Advice #3 - Drawing tips!

Hi everyone!

As you may know, every week or so I’m writing blog posts with art advice hints and tips for artists of any skill level in the hopes of helping some people out a bit! The tag is here so feel free to check out some of my other posts!

This week’s post is going to be some drawing tips I’ve picked up over the years that could hopefully be useful for beginner artists!

(this is about 1800 words altogether btw)

Drawings tips!

I’m going to split this post up into little sections which will hopefully make it easier for you to scroll to find certain advice you’re particularly interested in!

Part 1 - How to get started?

I’m a firm believer that anyone can be an artist, regardless of what materials or equipment they have. So when it comes to my advice on what kind of materials I recommend for beginner artists, I’d mainly say ‘whatever you have’.

But if that’s a bit vague, I’d essentially recommend you have a set of pencils which you can usually get relatively inexpensive online or in craft/art shops which range from 6B all the way to 6H (’B’ being for softer, darker pencils, often good for shading, and ‘H’ for the harder pencil leads which are best for much lighter shading or if you want a really faint sketch. Something important to note about ‘H’ pencils is not to press too hard with them since they’re a lot more likely to leave indents in the paper than ‘B’ pencils! For general sketching I personally use 2B or 3B pencils since they have the perfect balance of soft & hardness in my opinion!)

Of course, you can just draw with whatever pens or pencils you already have, so definitely don’t feel you have to go out of your way to buy something new or expensive just because your favourite artists use a particular brand of pencil or pen... Of course, often higher quality pens or pencils (especially colouring pencils) will have better pigment payoff than the cheaper alternatives, but as someone who’s been using the same WHSmith pencils they got when they were a child, I definitely think that as long as you have something to draw with, you’re all set to produce masterpieces of your own!

A lot of my art education got us using charcoal for a lot of our drawing practise. It’s not a medium I’m particularly fond of personally, but it is a great way to practise being a lot quicker and expressive with drawing, so definitely if you’re up for the challenge you can try some charcoal stuff! Only piece of advice is that I wouldn’t really recommend those ‘charcoal pencils’ you can buy in some shops, since they mostly just break apart every time you try and sharpen them... Regular charcoal is messy, though, and smudges very easily, so if you are interested in using it I’d say to do a little bit of research before hand!

(Or feel free to send me an ask if you want any further advice on using it!)

If you’re wanting to get into digital art, I’m planning on making a post discussing my tips for beginners to digital so... keep an eye out for that in the near future lol!

Part 2 - Getting over ‘Drawing Anxiety’

Drawing can be a daunting thing, particularly when artists who are already pretty good at it can seemingly produce a perfectly proportioned face out of thin air. But these artists weren’t magically born with this skill, of course, so with practise and some perseverance, I can assure you that you’ll be at that stage one day!

So my first piece of advice here is to be patient with yourself. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect straight away.

Second piece of advice is to sketch constantly!! I notice a lot of people who haven’t been drawing long are really careful about how they draw, almost like they’re afraid to be rough with the pencil. So I’d really recommend just starting to sketch a lot: be rough, be messy, draw things you can see and things from your imagination!

Observational drawing is another thing I think is crucial in improving your drawing skills (and I’ll go into more detail with this in a bit), but honestly just sketching things you like is such a great way to help you grow as an artist! And yes this includes drawing anime fanart or drawings of your original characters!

Below is some comparisons of my attempts at drawing Freema Agyeman from 2013 to 2019... Is the latest version of this perfect? Of course not. But I just want to show what constant practise can achieve!

Part 3 - Observational drawing

I honestly think that observational drawing was one of the most important things I learnt in my years of art education.

Observational drawing can take on many meanings. Perhaps it’s drawing a still life of a fruit bowl, or a life drawing class with a naked dude in front of you, or even drawing from a photo. The point of observational drawing is to improve how you translate the world around you onto a 2D surface, essentially.

And you don’t need anything fancy to do observational drawing either! Just placing an array of things in front of you and trying to sketch them (try and focus on a mix of textures and surfaces for the objects. So, for example, including a cup along side a woolly hat will help you get a handle on how to create texture with your drawing, and drawing anything with a reflective surface like cutlery is both challenging and interesting to do! Basically just use what you have around you!)

If you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how fond you are of seeing naked people lol) enough to have the chance to do life drawing, I would honestly recommend it! Often the final results aren’t great, but it’s a really good way of practising your observational skills! And even if you don’t have the opportunity, just trying to sketch a friend or family member from across a room, for example, is something that can really help you improve!

Top tip: a teacher once told me that when you’re drawing something like a face, for example, a way to improve how you draw is to see the face not as a ‘face’, but instead as a collections of shapes. Because our brains have a preconceived idea of what a face looks like that we end up drawing what we think we can see rather than what we can actually see!

There’s a lot of art snobs who believe that drawing from reference images is ‘cheating’ in comparison to life drawing, Of course, this is bs, and I’d say I’ve learnt just as much from using reference photos for the basis of my art as I have from drawing from ‘real life’. For more information about my thoughts on references and how to use them, see This post!

Part 4 - Drawing from references: Tracing, Grids and Freehand (which is best?)

Tracing in the world of art is a ... Contentious subject to say the least. And I’m not really interested in getting into the ‘moral’ implications of whether it is ‘cheating’ or not.

Instead I want to focus on the pros of using something like tracing when you’re starting out. I think particularly if you’re trying to improve how you shade things, colour things or how to get better at blending, then I do think that tracing can be a useful tool! Even I used tracing in the very start of my delve into digital art, but soon found that tracing wasn’t really something that was helping me in the long run so moved onto freehand stuff.

Overall, I think tracing is good as a starting point when you’re still learning about art, and also if you’re not too comfortable with your freehand drawing skills yet. I’d also recommend you mention if you have traced a piece if you share art to social media. Of course, no one is obligated to do this though!

This is an example of an artwork that I traced (it’s from 2013, hence why it looks... like That lol)

But if you’re someone who perhaps has used tracing in the past and found it doesn’t really work for you, or if you don’t want to start with tracing at all, then a good ‘next step’ I’ve seen other artists get into is using grids.

Now I have to admit, I’m not the best person to talk about grids since I’ve actually never used them lol... But I know a lot of artists who do, particularly people who do a lot of traditional work, since it makes it a lot easier to translate the reference image to your piece of paper or canvas.

And in a way I would recommend grids more for people starting out in drawing than tracing, and this is mainly due to the fact grids force you to use a lot more observational drawing skills than tracing! If you’re interested in getting into using grids I’d recommend doing a bit of research yourself!

The final technique of drawing from references I want to talk about is freehand! Now this is the one I’ve been doing for the majority of my art ‘career’ and honestly is probably the most ‘difficult’ to do of the three techniques.

But I find freehand drawing particularly rewarding with the ways it can make you reimagine an artwork in ways you never intended! Like what I mentioned in my Reference advice post, I have found that making ‘mistakes’ in freehand drawing can actually lead to more interesting and unique works of art than tracing or grid work could ever do!

I also think that freehand allows you to create your own characters or concepts in a much more free way. For example, my Spirit of Somerset piece was something I created from a variety of references (I seem to remember I used Isak from SKAM’s mouth as a basis for the girls’ mouth?) and the dragon was based on a real mishmash of references, which is something that I I feel I couldn’t have done if I’d have been using grids or tracing!

With this I’m not trying to say that freehand is the ‘best’ way of drawing, it is just the one that I personally have found to fit me the best, which is the entire point of this post! All of my advice is just pointers I think could be useful for new artists, it is up to you to find which ‘path’ in art suits you best!

And of course, I’ve phrased these techniques as separate purely for the sake of explaining them easier, but the fact of the matter is that you can use a combination of these in your art if you wish!

If you struggle with drawing the outlines of hands, perhaps use tracing as a way to get a handle of the shape and then maybe use freehand to fill in the colour of them! Use a grid to draw a tree but freehand the leaves and bench below it!

Remember that your art is your art, and no one can tell you how to draw things!

I think I’ll leave this here for now! But I may do a part two at some point in the future! & my ask box is always open for anyone who wants any specific advice!

I really hope you found this at least moderately helpful, and a massive thank you to everyone for the constant support of these posts and my art!

#art advice #drawing #drawing tips #art advice for beginners #drawing advice #artists on tumblr #art #i SWEAR i am trying not to ramble in these i just... have a lot to say lol

55 notes · View notes

purplerose244 · 4 years ago

Text

Idea scenario for episode 10 (because putting thoughts down makes me less anxious 😅)

Langa gets Reki to fix the skateboard.

They are awkward at first but then they talk and they laugh like they used to. Reki promises the board will be delivered for his final challenge. It looks like they are mostly back to normal but then Langa finds out Reki left S and they fight again. Langa tells him he can't skate without him because he makes him feel alive, Reki tells him he can't skate WITH him anymore because Langa will leave him behind. Langa tells him he's sorry he broke their promise, Reki tells him he's sorry he left Langa. Langa confesses that he loves to skate when Reki is there, because he loves Reki. Reki admits that he wants to skate with Langa because he loves Langa (possible kiss because WHY NOT ❤💙❤💙)

Despite this Reki says that until he is strong enough to be by Langa's side, he won't be back to S. Langa says that until Reki is back he won't skate but Reki doesn't want that. He says that Langa loves skateboarding, that it's what united them and it will be what will bring them back together so he needs to keep going for the both of them. Langa promises that he will keep skateboarding. They leave with another "don't be reckless" from Reki, that Langa uses back saying "you too" (possible other kiss because YA KNOW ❤💙❤💙)

There are tears as they leave each other.

(I'm guessing that the finalists will be Shadow Langa Adam and Tadashi, sorry Miya. I don't know if they will make a battle royal or a pre final to decide. For the sake of this theory I'm gonna go with Adam vs Langa again)

(I do think there will be a confrontation between Tadashi and Langa though. An Eve and the Snake situation 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️)

Adam cannot wait to dance with his Eve. Langa can't believe Reki won't be here again. He wants to run away, he wants to leave, he doesn't want to skate without him again. But he made a promise, and this time he's going to keep it. Like back in his challenge against Miya the skate is delivered a little late. Not by Reki, but by manager Oka. The skate is the same in the structure but the sketch is different: it's Reki's signature gear symbol, fused with a snowflake all over. Manager Oka says Reki is cheering for him, no matter where he is.

Heartbeat.

Langa's heart flutters. It's here. The feeling. Even when Reki is not here, he still somehow is. The challenge starts, Adam tries to play his tricks, to seduce his Eve, skating and being a creep dancing. But Langa isn't looking at him, he is beyond. The feeling he has experienced at his first challenge against Adam was a raw, dangerous excitement, that had felt like the strongest emotion he had ever experienced. He was wrong. This one feeling was honest, vivacious, protective. It was pulsing, bright, warm. It was all Reki was, it was all his love for skateboarding and him. So Langa skates, he skates like never before, because he loves this and he loves Reki and everyone needs to know.

Adam doesn't understand what is happening. He's loving Langa, he's loving him with all of his heart. And he is... rejecting him? He isn't supposed to, how can he reject his love? Adam has been loved his entire life and he has never rejected the love his aunties have inflicted on him, that was natural! Why was his Eve being like this? How could he?? Adam starts to get more aggressive, showing more of his "love" trying to make Langa "understand". It's all in vain, and Langa smiles so sweetly, looking at something that Adam cannot see. That he cannot touch.

The police arrives again, this time they know something is up (Idk maybe Tadashi did something or the investigator is that good I don't have a clear motivation for this one). Adam is too caught up with forcing himself onto Langa (it sounds very bad but honestly can you not believe when it's about him? 😑) to even care. They get to the very end, Adam is out to do anything to get Langa, even hurting him as badly as he always did, with everyone else. But Langa is too far from him.

Langa jumps.

Snow appears, the reason why he got his name in the first place.

But there's something else, a light, making every single snowflake glimmer. The sun, there is the sun and it's making his figure shine even brighter. Adam is so caught up with his inferiority that he falls and doesn't even finish the challenge.

Langa is victorious. The others celebrate him for a moment, only to be taken by the police for interrogation. In the place where Adam had fallen there is no one. Adam is gone.

It takes a while to clear up the situation and to reconnect everything to Adam as the organizer of S. It is solved quickly since the focus is on Adam and his real career anyway. But the S has been discovered and that era is now over. Joe and Cherry have a conversation about how the world changes and where are they going to skate now (it probably ends with them arguing while admitting they can't skate without the other). Miya's qualification for the nationals gets postponed because for the S mess and everyone wants to know about that. He gets to make new friends, while the old ones that rejected him slowly start to go through "redemption" to get back into the "hero's party". Shadow, with his alter ego without a place to be, takes all of his courage to ask his boss out (on this one I feel either they will start dating on a slow pace, or the girl understood that they are hanging out as friends and nothing more. Sorry, I feel like this is Shadow's fortune 😅)

Langa goes to Reki's house to tell him about S (and get some smooch- what wait who said that ahah). Reki's mom tells him that Reki won't be home for a little while, he went to meet someone in another city. Langa is sad about that but he will wait for him.

In the dark, running away from justice that keeps looking for him, Adam can't get over how his Eve has left him. How Eve betrayed him, destroying the paradise they used to have together. He is restless, he wants to go back to that place and get Eve to love him again (because Eve loved him before, suuuure 🙄). In a way, he will make everything perfect, a new paradise for them, better than before. And Eve will never leave again.

Days go by, Langa meets the others at night to skate. Sometimes Miya even brings some friends (the ones that pushed him away in the past gets a very harsh treatement from Shadow 😉), and a few schoolmates of Langa finally got curious and are trying. Joe and Cherry are severe but very good teachers. In all of this, Langa thinks that this is a really nice moment to live in. He hopes that Reki will be back soon.

In another city, in another house, Reki takes the deepest breath of his life. He makes sure his headband is right, holds onto his skateboard (it has the same snowgear symbol on it but with inverted colors) and knocks. A second later a woman welcomes him and leads him in. Reki opens another door, where a guy with medical machines around is onto the bed. He looks up from a book and smiles.

"Kyan Reki. It's been a while pal, here on vacation?"

Reki smiles back.

"I actually have a request. It might be a lot, and I know you don't skate anymore... but you taught me all I know, and I want to get better. Will you teach me how to be the best?"

The guy looks surprised. There is a photo on the wall, them on skateboards having the time of their lives. He looks at it, then he grins.

"You're having dinner with us tonight. We start tomorrow. Get ready."

Reki exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding. He looks down at his skate, hoping that what they have is real, and that this is going to be enough. But even if it isn't, he isn't going to give up. Especially not on skateboarding. Especially not on him.

He closes his eyes, a hand on his chest.

Heartbeat.

He can't wait to get back to do his best. He can't wait to learn new tricks and improve himself. He can't wait to go back to skate with Langa.

When I was a kid, back when I watched heroes on TV and stuff,

The hero said:

"What is your happiness?"

He absolutely hated ending without knowing what happiness was, he said.

... and I think I understand better now. When you fight for something, or someone, you wanna know why.

Hence the meaning of that happiness.

It still doesn't change how the world see it.

To become rich?

(Scene with Cherry closing a suitcase filled with money, leaving his room)

To be popular with girls?

(Scene with Cherry getting into Joe's restaurant while a few disappointed girl clients leave at the same time. They smile at each other while Joe put the "We're Closed" sign on the door and get back in with him)

To get into a good school?

(Scene with Miya running through the courtyard of his school with his old and new friends, looking happy)

To be respected?

(Scene with Shadow teaching his boss how to skate and her being an adorable klutz and so impressed by him)

Of course, I'm sure... I know, that for many that's what happiness is.

And I know I thought I knew what my happiness was myself.

I even thought I've lost it at some point.

I was wrong. I never found it, and I never lost it.

I'm discovering it right now.

(Scene with Reki walking left towards the kitchen of the house he's in with a smile. Scene with Langa in the place they used to train in, sitting to watch the sunset, turning towards right with a smile)

And I'll get it.

Soon, I will get my happiness too.

65 notes · View notes

fappellmoan · 4 years ago

Text

happy hawkins holiday hiatus to @mikewheelerthepaladin !! here’s a lighthearted fic + a playlist of songs i listened to a lot while writing, i hope you enjoy 🥳

& a big thank you to @sevensided for putting this together, it’s been super fun <3

It’s the first time he’s been in over a year, really, but he’d entertained the thought of asking Will over the summer, for one last challenge before he left. It never happened, everything went by too fast; and, honestly, Mike didn’t know how to talk to him with the goddamn weight of everything - hi, we’ve barely spoken in the last year and we just almost died, again, and now you’re moving away forever - wanna hang out?

It’d never been that hard.

And it sucked. The whole thing. Now that Will is gone, it gnaws at him daily that they could have had more time together. Or a proper goodbye, at least. Instead, he spent a lot of time last summer sitting around, figuring out how to approach El and his feelings toward her, and most of all, alone.

But now the Byers are coming home for Christmas. And staying with The Wheelers, on top of it all.

So, seeking some sort of cryptic universal answer to his life problems, Mike returns to the place of a lot of younger memories, of crowding around machines with Lucas and Dustin and Will, a conglomeration of shouting and booing and cheering when one of them topped a high score, of frantically patting down their pockets for a few extra coins.

All of these wistful memories come to halt, however, when he finds a familiar redhead occupying one of their favorite games.

Max glances at him through the screen. “What do you want?”

“Uh, to play?” Honestly, he doesn’t care; he’s not sure he could focus enough to win much anyway. “Kicking your ass would be a plus.”

“Yeah, as if.” Her gaze fixes back on the colorful pixels dancing in front of her face.

Okay, well, she’s not moving anytime soon. He could probably just walk away, but a part of him wants company, even if it’s from someone hellbent on disagreeing with him.

Even when the Party hangs out now, Mike finds himself bickering with Max over what movies to see, where to eat, nearly anything, even when he doesn’t really give a shit. It’s the principle of the thing, and she gets under his skin.

Maybe it’s a good thing.

Mike sighs, leans against one of the neighboring games, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t really know why I’m here.”

“Well, if you’re looking for me to throw pity money at you, it’s not happening.” After a beat, and losing the level, she kicks at the machine and turns to him. “Now look what you made me do. All your moping and talking - I could’ve beaten that if you would just leave me alone.”

He offers a quarter.

“Forget it.”

“I’ll buy you a pop, then.” She glares at him. “Seriously, okay, this is the first and only olive branch. Take it or leave it.”

After a moment of scowling at him, her arms folded, she slowly concedes, a smug look taking over. “Okay. I’ll take it, Wheeler.”

“So, you’re stalking me at the arcade because… of nothing?”

Mike presses his lips into a line. “I’m not stalking you,” he says, “and it’s not - it’s not nothing. I was gonna ask Lucas or Dustin to come, but… I felt like I needed to be here alone.”

Max sips on her drink. “That didn’t work out.”

“Guess not.”

“So you did need to talk to someone.”

“Guess so.”

God, this is borderline painful. Sitting in a shoddy little booth across from Max, whom he never once intended to have a heart-to-heart with, is a new level of desperation. But here they are.

With the most grandiose sigh he’s ever heard in his life, Max straightens in her chair. “Well, I don’t love giving advice to annoying teenage boys, but I’ve been told I’m good at it. Advice, you know.”

Mike raises an eyebrow. “Was it El who said that, by chance?”

“Bite me.”

Amused, Mike smiles, and he slides the near-empty cup between his hands like a little game, something else to focus on. “Okay, fine, give me some advice.”

Max frowns at him like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. “Maybe give me a situation to work with?” She mutters something under her breath that he doesn’t bother with.

“Well, the Byers are coming home and staying with us, and I wanted to come up with something really nice to do, you know. I know that they’re really nervous because it’s… the holidays have been rough, the past few years.” He finishes his drink and stares at the lid. “They almost refused. So, I dunno, I figured I could do something to make them feel like it’s still home.”

“Oh,” Max nods, finally breaking into a slight smile, “well, cool, you could set up something really romantic for El! She’d love it.”

Right. The girlfriend.

He had no clue where the hell they left things when the Byers moved. About a month ago, Mike called to tell her the distance was confusing and they might need to take a break. He figured she would’ve told Max because, from his understanding, they spoke on the phone on an almost daily basis.

“Sure - yeah, yeah, that’s - it’s a good idea. For sure.”

Max falls back into a confused squint. “Was there something else you had in mind?”

Mike isn’t sure how to get it out without sounding like a total airhead. So he copes with it the best way he can. “You know what, this was dumb. I’ll figure it out myself.” He grabs his jacket and stands to leave.

“No, no, Mike - I want to help.” She’s looking up at him with a genuinely nice expression, holding out a hand to stop him from fully up and leaving. “I’m really good at this stuff, just let me know what I can do. No judgment. I swear.”

“I have to get home tonight anyway,” Mike says cautiously. “Told my mom I’d help with dinner.”

“Can I come over tomorrow?”

He frowns, and something digging at his stomach makes him respond with, “Why do you care?”

Max’s jaw sets. She stands up to meet his eye level and sets a look on him. “Even if I didn’t, even if I couldn’t care less about you, Mike, I care about El. And Will. And I want to be a part of their homecoming. So maybe you could figure out a way to not be a dick about it.” She snatches her drink cup and storms off from the table, leaving Mike to scramble after her with more apologies.

He’s gotta get better at this whole ‘girls’ thing.

He catches up to her outside. “Okay, listen - come over after school tomorrow. We can meet outside by the stairs.”

She barely turns to him, says, “Fine,” and then hops on her bike and rides away.

That’s how Mike ends up with Max in his basement, slowly walking and examining his things, but not touching any of them, thankfully.

It’s going alright, thus far. A part of him feels like he should reach out to Lucas and Dustin, too, since they’re also Will’s best friends. But something about this… works. He and Max can’t seem to stay entirely civil in each other’s company, but she gets something. And she hasn’t brought up El even once since yesterday.

“So, I’m gonna come up with a really cool campaign - well, I’ve been working on it, and I can tell you about it - “ Max lifts herself on tiptoe in his peripheral vision, “ - but anyway, we can pull an all-nighter, if everyone’s up for it, and make snacks and drinks and stuff, and we can have movies on for you guys, and I thought I might even look for some costumes because I really think Will would get a kick out of it. I can put lights up, too - “

“You draw?”

Max’s back is to him, as she’s looking over his wall of posters and pinned pictures. As he steps closer, he realizes her eyes are fixed on a sketch that definitely bears some resemblance to him.

“No, Will sent me those,” he says quickly, not wanting to seem like a giant narcissist, because Will’s drawing is - how can he say it - beautiful. “He’s been using charcoal a lot recently, he told me he got some new art stuff. I think he wants to send one of all of us.”

Max turns to him, and he can’t tell if she’s tearing up for some reason, but she quickly wipes any sign of tears away. “That’s so neat,” is all she says at first. There’s a small silence between them, and she’s just looking at him, and he has no idea what the hell he should say. “He’s such a good person,” she adds quietly, “I wish I got the chance to really know him.”

Mike’s breath hitches for a few seconds. “Yeah. I mean, he mentioned hanging out with you a few times.”

A smile lifts the girl’s cheeks. “Yeah, to bitch about you, mostly.”

“Hey!” he protests, but he can’t help but smile too, this time. This might just be their most pleasant interaction to date. “He never mentioned that.”

“I don’t know how he could, all you freakin’ do is talk.”

“Whatever.” Mike messes with some Christmas crafts on the table, holding them up in his vision to see where they might fit in the basement. He clears his throat. “You know, El and I, uh - we split.”

Max nods slowly. “She said you guys don’t call much.”

“No, we didn’t. I mean, I don’t even call Will, we just write.” He leans against the table, eyes glazing over as he looks over years of memories, dorky craft nights, and shitty school projects that he or his mom made a point to keep. “It’s too hard to talk - to either of them, you know. I didn’t think I could hear their voices without…”

Max cuts him off. “I get it.” She crosses over to the table, helping him pull apart old paper snowflakes. “I’m just the opposite. I’m scared if I don’t talk to them, I’ll convince myself it was all fake. And maybe it’d be for the better, but I’m glad I knew them. Even if only for a little while.”

Mike bites down on his lips, attempting to bury all the emotion threatening to spew out of him. “Yeah.”

Max finally looks up at him, and though they seem to have shared a moment, she snaps back out of it. “All offense, Mike, these are ugly as shit. I’m helping you make new ones, okay?”

“It’s for the memory!”

“No more living in the past.” She raises her eyebrows at him, and he pinches his face in annoyance, so she says, “Okay, you can put them up, in like, little corners, but we’re making new ones. Surprise. Work with me here, Michael.”

“It’s my basement, Max.”

“Did you or did you not ask for my help?”

Mike blinks. “Not really.”

She throws a crafty paper star at him. “Shut up, you’re glad I’m here.”

He shakes his head and moves on, but though he may never admit it, a part of him really is glad.

Weeks pass in what feels like a span of days or maybe hours, with Mike and Max sorting out their surprise plans with a typical amount of bickering - but hey, they get it done. Max has lots of opinions about decorations and music that make Mike roll his eyes, but she’s got a good eye and she offers to help with baking, which is not a strong suit of his. Yes, they throw a lot of streamers at each other, and threaten to storm out every other hour, but it gets done.

And the day is finally here.

Mike pulls himself into his best festive sweater and eyes himself in the mirror. He messes with his hair, though the long, wavy curls never seem to fall exactly into place - maybe growing it out was a mistake - and tugs at the creases of his sweater, letting out a huffy breath. None of it is working with him. When he can’t stand looking at himself anymore, he dashes down to the kitchen to help his mom with desserts.

She smiles when he plops into a seat. “You okay, honey? You seem a little tense.”

Mike jolts. “Uh, yeah, just excited.”

“Good! Joyce said the kids haven’t stopped talking about the trip for weeks.”

Great. “I hope we live up to the hype.”

“Oh, Mike. You know you don’t have to try that hard.” Karen stops frosting for a moment to look at him. “Will’s your best friend. El is excited to see you,” she nudges at him, and he coughs out a nervous laugh, “and Joyce thinks you’re an angel-”

“God, mom-”

“I’m serious. Don’t worry so much.” She leans forward on her forearms. “I know you think every problem in the world is on you, but it’s not. It’s enough just to be around the people you love. If anything, you’ve gone overboard.”

Overboard. Hopefully, it’s not too much.

Finally, he caves, exhaling slowly with a simple, “Okay.” He stays beside her, tapping his fingers, and eventually ruining a gingerbread man’s face until she notices and smacks his hand away.

There’s a knock on the door, and while Mike hops to his feet, his mother calls out, “Come in!” earning a panicked look from him. She mouths, ‘Chill,’ but he still half-jogs to the door and throws it open.

Nancy calls down the stairs, “Who is it?”

It’s Max, brandishing a few small wrapped gifts.

“Hello, sunshine,” she says. After a moment, “It’s great to see you too, Michael, allow me to invite myself in.”

“It’s just Max,” Mike calls back. He steps aside, and Max brushes past him, dropping her gifts by their tree and running into the kitchen.

“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler!”

“Hey, Max, Merry Christmas!”

Mike’s mom seemed to think Max was one of the most charming people on the planet, something they frequently disagreed on, but he can’t be mad at their pleasant chatter right now.

Especially not when the next knock comes so soon.

Probably just Lucas and Dustin, dragging their feet as usual.

Mike opens the door, prepared with a quippy remark for his friends, but his stomach drops immediately.

It’s Will. Holding a bunch of luggage.

Mike is caught up in everything about him. He’s taller. New, floppy hair, tousled and messy in the biting snowy winds. His forearms exposed as his bags push against his jacket. Will.

The boy smiles at him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Mike manages.

Will looks past him with a tiny wave, and Mike turns to see Max beaming and waving back, and then Max slips back into the kitchen and Will returns his gaze to Mike. “Can I come in?”

“Hey, Mike!” Joyce interrupts from the car, straining to grab something in the backseat. “Merry Christmas, honey!”

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Byers!” Mike, finally catching up his brain-to-movement reactions, moves to let Will in. “Yeah, come in. I’m gonna, uh, go help your mom.”

“Cool.”

He immediately forgets why he’s moved and attempts to step out as Will crosses the threshold, almost knocking him over, so Mike grabs his arms to stabilize with a, “Sorry - uh - whoops, haha, don’t fall,” and Will chuckles and shifts a bag to his shoulder, saying, “It’s alright,” and Mike spends his walk to the Byers’ car trying not to curse himself out.

“Oh, Mike, thank you, sweetie,” Joyce grunts, pulling a heavy tote bag from the floor of the car. “Can you carry this?” Mike nods and takes it from her easily, offering his arms out for extra luggage. Together, with Jonathan, who greets him with a, “Merry Christmas, man,” they manage to get everything inside in one trip. Mike hardly notices El rummaging through the trunk until she comes stumbling along with a basket full of gifts.

Finally, they’re all inside, and only a beat goes by before Nancy comes bounding down the stairs to greet Jonathan, and Joyce is grinning around at everybody, and then Karen rushes in from the kitchen with excited greetings.

“It is so good to see you,” Joyce says, opening her arms up to Mike for a hug. “You’ve grown so much-'' she looks at Karen and mutters, “-so much-” then looks back at Mike. “We’ve missed you all.”

“I’ve missed you guys too,” Mike says, “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“We couldn’t miss it. Figured it’s best that we’re together, you know.” Her expression falters, but she takes a breath and carries on with moving bags and ‘Merry Christmases.’

Joyce and his mom wind up chattering, and Karen takes off her apron to help transfer some luggage to the spare room. Nancy takes Jonathan’s hand and heads upstairs, grabbing one of his bags from the ground.

Will seems to have disappeared into the kitchen with Max, leaving his things behind, so it’s just Mike and El.

Mike takes in a deep breath.

It wasn’t an ugly breakup; honestly, El seemed unfazed. Their calls were little more than small talk about their days, most of the time, and even though he thought they might hold onto their past, everything they’d been through… it seemed to work best that they didn’t.

“Hey, Merry Christmas.”

El smiles easily. “Merry Christmas, Mike.” She lifts the basket slightly for acknowledgment. “Can these go by the tree?”

“Yeah, yeah, go for it.”

El nods and slips by the couch over to the tree, carefully laying out the gifts. After a few moments of Mike awkwardly leaning against the couch arm, thinking up something to say - thank god she didn’t seem too focused on him - Max walks in, her mouth stuffed with a truffle.

“El!” She darts over to the tree, and El jumps up, eyes bright, immediately throwing her arms around the girl’s shoulders. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” El giggles. “I brought you a gift.”

“You too. I can’t wait for you to see it. But first, you have to try one of these sweets Mrs. Wheeler’s making. They’re like frickin’ heaven.” She holds out the last bite of her own, and El takes it from her hand, eyes lighting up mischievously as she bites into it.

“It’s amazing.”

“I know. I think we should go sample some of the others.”

Mike calls out to their backs, “You guys better leave some for later on,” and in response, hears Max mimic him. He rolls his eyes and stands up from the couch.

And then it’s just him and Will, who’s beaming at him, seemingly amused by their banter.

Okay, Mike, now or never. “Uh, I’ll show you downstairs.”

“We’re not staying in your room?” Will asks simply, crossing over to retrieve his duffel bag.

“We totally can, I just have something I wanted to show you.”

Will nods. “Oh, okay, cool.”

Mike assists with a smaller bag and leads him to the basement door; before he runs down the stairs, he catches Max’s eye, and she gives him a thumbs up and mouths, ‘You got this.’ Deep breaths. At that moment, he’s incredibly thankful for her presence.

He watches as Will follows him down, slower, glancing around at the familiar surroundings. His eyes catch on everything Mike and Max put together over the past few weeks, and his footsteps grow slower as he takes it all in.

Streamers of all festive colors and off-balance fairy lights hang along the corners of the basement, phrases of ‘Welcome home,’ hand-cut and pasted on the front wall; at the table, a game mat and figures sit in wait, silly hats placed in front each chair; even the TV is prepared with a Santa hat, the couch covered in blankets and pillows, a few sleeping bags folded on the floor.

“Mike,” Will says quietly, stepping in a small circle, “what is all this?”

“Your homecoming party.” Mike is all jitters; he leans against the wall and shoves his hands in his pockets to disguise any visible shakes. “You like it?”

Will finally looks straight at him, an indiscernible look painted on his face. “Yeah,” he says, nodding rapidly, “yeah, it’s great - but we, uh,” he swallows and shakes his head, “we don’t, um, have to play D&D. I mean-”

“I don’t know, Will,” he ventures to step away from the wall, taking slow steps over to the table. Will follows every move. “I mean, I was really excited to have you back, even just for a little bit. We all were.” He reaches the table and leans back on his hands. “Figured having our cleric back warranted some festivities.”

Will shakes his head, runs his hands along his face, and turns away. The bit of confidence Mike has slowly starts to trickle.

“Is it okay?”

Will shakes out of his stupor and chuckles. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. You’ve truly outdone yourself, Michael.” He lifts himself on tiptoe to look at decorations on top of Mike’s shelves. “Are these from our big craft night, like, years ago?”

The horrible crayon work makes Mike smile - they made half of the snowmen evil, citing a Great Abominable Snowman War, and gave them wicked frowns and smiles, claws on their stick hands. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you kept them.”

“I keep everything.” An awkward chuckle breaks from his chest. “Not everything, like, a hoarder or whatever, but - “

Will simply smiles and pushes himself forward toward the back wall, brushing past Mike, to his different pinups. He fixates on the sketch of Mike that he’d sent about a month back. “You know, you should probably take this down. I don’t think you’ll hear the end of it from Lucas and Dustin if you don’t.”

“Screw ‘em.”

“Right.” Will quirks his eyebrow and moves to sit in his designated chair, right next to where Mike is currently resting. “So, they know about D&D?”

“They know.” Mike smiles, and looks at the floor, right where their legs brush up against each other. “They seem pretty excited to have the party back together. To remind you of how badass your first one was,” he adds.

Will peers up at him for a moment before quietly saying, “I never joined another one.” Mike meets his eye for a moment, then, threatened by the silence that follows, clears his throat and distracts himself with a particularly interesting notch in the wood paneling. “Did you guys find someone else?”

“No, no,” Mike assures him. “We haven’t touched any of this stuff. It’s not the same.”

A silence settles between them, one that neither seems to know how to navigate. But Will keeps his gaze steady on Mike, trying to breach some barrier, to fall back into their usual ways.

Something is different, though; it’s not uncomfortable, it never could be, but it’s something intimidating. Will seems more comfortable, at least; he’s not shying away from anything Mike throws at him.

And he tries to break the silence first. “Y’know - “

“Will,” Mike cuts him off, and he’s not sure what he’s saying, or where he’s going with it, but he knows he’s supposed to say this. His name. “I need you to know that I missed you.”

Will blinks at him, cocks his head. “I missed you too,” he says matter-of-factly.

The words are eating at him, right there on the edge of his mind, and Will looks almost concerned and now Mike just wants to drop it because that’s not what he wanted. But he can’t, not now. “I missed you the most.” It sounds so juvenile. “More than everyone else. I missed you before you even left. I just didn’t know how to say it.” He breathes in and out, focusing on Will’s cheeks, the tip of his nose, anything but his eyes. When Will doesn’t say anything, the rest just spills. “I missed you when our first first day of school apart came and passed, and I didn’t even call. I missed you at homecoming. And,” he licks his lips, not really sure where his speech is heading, “I know you had to go, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out. But I feel like we haven’t been on the same page in a long time. So, I missed you, and I love you, and that’s that.”

Will looks at him funny, and then his face softens into something like laughter, and Mike is genuinely about to run and throw up somewhere, but then the boy closes his eyes and says, “I love you too.”

Mike blanches. “I don’t think I said that.”

“Oh, you definitely did.”

“Oh,” he nods, mind spinning, “well, you know…”

Will stands to be at Mike’s level, leans forward on his knees. Mike stops breathing. “I do,” he says, “but tell me again.”

Mike swallows down a breath of courage and suggests, “I think I might like you.” His eyes flit to Will’s lips, then back to his eyes. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll allow it,” Will says, a bright smile causing lines near his eyes. Mike smacks at his arm, nervous laughter coming out with a quiet, ‘Shut up.’ Will moves so he’s resting his fingertips on the table. Inches away.

“Same page, then?” Mike asks.

“Same page, yeah, for sure.”

Mike nods absently, distracting himself with the strings on Will’s sweatshirt. “So I don’t sound crazy?”

Will laughs. “I dunno. I always counted on us going crazy together. Figured we might have a few extra years, but hey, I’m all in.”

And then Mike is flashed back to a night on his couch just over a year ago. Knees knocking together, shared smiles. A promise.

So much has changed.

He wants to know what Will meant. A future of being in each other’s lives, maybe, getting old and senile and batshit crazy. Always being there.

He never dared to think about it before.

“So what now?”

Will shrugs. He dips his head to meet Mike’s eyes with his own. “What do you want, Mike?”

And finally, he thinks he might know.

Or maybe he’s always known.

He scoots forward, takes Will’s face in his hands, and kisses him. It’s just a quick press of their lips, but in that moment, he knows a few things for sure. His heartbeat is going a mile a minute, and Will must be able to feel it; it’s absolutely exhilarating, surreal, insane that he’s kissing his best friend; and, he is definitely in like, or maybe love, with Will Byers.

He’ll probably love him forever.

When Mike pulls back and his eyes flutter open to see Will, flushed, blinking back at him, slightly dazed, he doesn’t want to pull away at all. He did that. Mike’s hand remains on his jaw, lax, and he runs his thumb along Will’s bottom lip, curious to see his reaction, curious about a lot, now.

Will lets out a breathy chuckle. “Wow,” he mumbles, “that’s new.”

“Yeah.” Mike exhales shakily, takes one of Will’s hands, and says, “Merry Christmas, Will.”

“Yeah, Merry Christmas.”

The world doesn’t seem to fall apart like Mike thought it might if he ever got to this point, so, that’s nice.

“So…” Mike begins carefully, “you’re gonna have to be slow with me here. This is sort of a lot for me.”

“Me too,” Will replies simply. He squeezes Mike’s hand. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“Totally.”

Will takes his cheeks in his hands and smiles into a very gentle kiss, his fingers curling into the hair at the nape of Mike’s neck. It’s soft and sweet and lingering - but not for too long, as moments later the door upstairs busts open and shouts of, “BYERS!” from their dear friends sound through the air, and Mike and Will jump apart, equally startled and laughing.

“Down here!” Will calls out. He looks at Mike, smiles, offers, “To be continued?” and as he walks past, he leans in, just to leave a quick peck on Mike’s cheek.

And all Mike can do is laugh and shake his head and run after him to meet their friends; Lucas and Dustin are horribly late to the surprise, but they collide into Will the second they see him, shouting over each other, ‘What’s going on, dude?’ ‘Merry Christmas!’ ‘You’ve missed so much,’ and everyone is grinning and chattering, and it’s awesome.

Max approaches him, watching all of the madness, smacks a hand to his shoulder, and says, “You did good, Wheeler.”

“Yeah, I did.” She punches his arm lightly, laughing, so he adds, “thank you for everything. Seriously.”

“I think we should work together more often.”

Mike scoffs into a laugh, and says, “Yeah, guess so.”

Max rolls her eyes, but at least now they’re actually laughing in each other's company. It’s great progress from just a few weeks ago.

After a minute of watching the boy’s shenanigans, Max smiles. “Well, Merry Christmas, anyway.”

“Merry Christmas,” he responds, and he watches as she jumps up onto a kitchen stool, chatting and giggling with El.

With everyone back together again, finally, Mike feels really alive; so, he jumps in with all the excited shouting and group hugs and bickering, and celebrates the merriest Christmas he can remember in a long time.

#stranger things #hawkinsholidayhiatus #tuserjake #byler #byeler #mike wheeler #will byers #fanfiction #playlist #ik it might be a lil cheesy/dorky BUT i hope it makes u smile it was written w a lot of love <3 #mine

70 notes · View notes

clumsyclifford · 4 years ago

Note

lashton prompt: luke falling asleep on skype and ashton taking the opportunity to draw him, bonus if someone else finds the sketches before ashton shows them to luke

meghna this prompt is from almost a full calendar year ago. i am proud to report that after all this time i did in fact manage to set it in spideyverse because that’s how determined i am. more info in ao3 notes but it takes place in the summer before their senior year of high school, so after the events of everything else in spideyverse so far

read here on ao3

Ashton will have to thank Maya later for the tip about the Fine Arts Room. He jimmies the door handle and, as promised, the door swings opens to reveal a darkened room full of half-finished projects. They must really take the decency of humanity on faith here. Anyone could come in at any time and sabotage any of this work.

Ashton has less nefarious plans.

He sits at his usual spot but doesn’t turn any lights on; the big windows shine just enough moonlight into the room that Ashton can see the silhouettes of the furniture, and his laptop will be on in a moment anyway. Careful of the scattered pages over his workspace, he opens his computer and loads up Skype.

Just in time for an incoming call.

Ashton fumbles with his headphones and plugs them in with one hand while he accepts the call with the other. The screen fills with Luke’s brightly-lit, highly pixelated face. Chin in his hands, elbows propped on his desk, hair a ruffled mess (from the mask, Ashton knows) — the sight of him fills Ashton with warmth.

“Hey,” Luke says, smiling his usual cheeky smile. They’ve been texting sporadically, but seeing Luke’s face — hearing his voice — gives Ashton a fluttery feeling behind his sternum. Calum would call that anatomically impossible, but he’d do it with a smirk. “I can barely see you.”

“I’m sitting in the dark,” Ashton explains. His voice is a hushed whisper even though he knows it’s absurd to be paranoid. They’re supposed to be confined to their bunks by now, and the staff and counselors will all be asleep. The only reason he and Luke are calling now, past midnight, is because now is the only time they’re both available. “I’m in the Fine Arts Room.”

“Ooh, can I see?”

“I don’t want to turn on the lights,” Ashton says. “There are windows and stuff.”

“Are you not supposed to be there?” Luke raises an eyebrow and grins. “Ooh, is Ashton Irwin sneaking around?”

“Well, if we weren’t calling at the middle of the night, I wouldn’t have to.”

“Don’t they lock the buildings?” Luke suddenly looks concerned.

Ashton shrugs. “Maya told me that if I jiggle the handle, the door will open. She was right.”

“Go Maya,” Luke says. “I like Maya. Who’s Maya?”

“My new friend,” says Ashton. “She mostly paints. We’ve got a challenge going on about whether she’s better at drawing or I’m better at painting, since neither of us really use those mediums. Hannah — one of the other campers — is going to find something for us to both paint slash draw and then there’ll be an unofficial panel of judges. It’s pretty stupid.”

“You’re smiling a lot,” Luke says, and Ashton realizes he is. “Doesn’t sound stupid to me. You think you’re gonna win?”

“No,” Ashton says honestly. “I’m pretty awful at painting.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you think. How hard can it be?”

“That’s very rich coming from you, Mr. I-Can’t-Draw-A-House.”

“Hey, fuck off! I can draw a house, thank you very much.” Luke looks down at his desk and his focus shifts, and Ashton watches in bemused patience. As he waits, he draws a blank piece of paper towards him and grabs the nearest pencil lying around. His hands move almost unconsciously, drawing lines and curves and sketching the outline of something Ashton hasn’t quite decided on yet. Luke finally lifts his head up. “Here, see?” He holds up a piece of paper to the camera, where he’s drawn a box with an isosceles triangle on top for the roof, complete with a little chimney sticking out. “House,” Luke proudly declares. “Boom. Get fucked, Irwin.”

“I stand corrected,” Ashton chuckles. He hums. “They’ll probably just find us equally talented because painting is different from drawing and blah blah blah artsy hipster bullshit.”

“Stop dismissing the artsy hipster bullshit,” Luke says stubbornly. “I’ll have you know my boyfriend deals exclusively in artsy hipster bullshit.”

“You think my drawings are artsy hipster bullshit?”

“No, babe, I think you are artsy hipster bullshit.” Luke grins widely and then gets cut off by a yawn. Ashton bites back a very cheesy comment about how Luke should web himself up for being criminally cute.

“You know what, I’m gonna let you have that one,” he says instead. “Since I am at an artsy hipster bullshit summer camp.”

“I miss you.” Luke pouts. It’s a funny look on him. Ashton tries to imagine Spiderman pouting and completely fails. Sometimes it’s hard for him to reconcile Luke and Spiderman being the same person. That this adorable six-foot-and-change beanstalk who yawns on Skype is the same person who can do a double-backflip and land on his feet on the rooftop of any building. Ashton’s boyfriend stops crimes. What the fuck.

“I miss you too,” he says. “You seem tired.”

“I’m not tired.” Instant karma is a bitch. Luke immediately yawns again, this time much wider. “Okay, I’m a little tired,” he admits, smacking his lips like a child. “Summer break is deceptively boring. I…I run out of things to do all day, so I just kinda��keep patrolling. I might be wearing myself out.”

“Jesus, Luke, take it easy on yourself. Queens goes the entire school day without Spiderman’s protection during the school year. You can handle a break.”

“Yeah, but I might as well patrol,” Luke counters. “I have the time, and it’s not like I’m doing anything else.”

“I thought you and Michael were working on new specs for the suit.”

“It’s mostly Michael. Also, I think he’s kind of annoyed about the whole 24/7 patrol. He can’t work on the suit if I’m wearing it.”

“That is true.”

“But he’s been spending a lot of his time with Calum, anyway,” Luke says coolly. “So I figure he’s probably got other priorities.”

“Well, if you keep blowing him off to obsessively patrol the city, I can’t possibly imagine why he’s making other plans.”

Luke stares through the camera. His shoulders slump. “Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Ashton chirps.

Luke sighs deeply. “You’re not here, Ash.”

Ashton purses his lips and frowns. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, but I’m just saying. I miss you. I wish you were here.”

“Yeah,” Ashton says. He misses Luke too, more than is probably healthy. That’s what he gets, he supposes, for only having a handful of close relationships; Luke and Calum are his whole life, and not being able to hug either one of them for even a week has been pretty challenging. “But look, it’s only another week, and then I am all yours, I swear.”

“Don’t enable me,” Luke says, affronted. “You’re supposed to say things like… ‘You don’t own me’ and ‘I’m my own person’ and stuff like that.”

Ashton blinks, confused. “Uh…well, yeah, but we both already know that. I’m just saying I miss you too. But if it’s any consolation, Maya has ruthlessly mocked me for all the drawings I do of you. Like mercilessly. It’s actually kind of embarrassing.”

“That is super embarrassing,” Luke says, with a small, bashful smile. “You’re so fucking lame, Ashton.”

“Wow,” Ashton says. “You even sound like her.”

Luke giggles, which turns seamlessly into a yawn. “Hey, I came first. Maya sounds like me.”

“Luke, babe, just go to sleep,” Ashton says. “We can talk another night. Maybe one where you’re more well-rested.”

“I’m super rested,” Luke says in a monotone. “King of restedness, me.”

“Wow, I’m suddenly convinced.” Luke makes a half-hearted face at him and Ashton makes one back. The sketch under Ashton’s pencil has revealed itself to be Luke, yet again. Shocker. It really is embarrassing that Ashton defaults to drawing his boyfriend. If they ever break up, Ashton will be fucked.

“Are you drawing?” Trust Luke to notice. Although the fact that it’s taken him this long to notice means he must be slower on the uptake than usual.

“Yeah,” Ashton says, because when is he not.

“Drawing what?”

“Guess,” Ashton says dryly.

Luke gives a sleepy smile. “At least you’re predictable.”

“Luke, I’m begging you to get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow or this weekend or something, okay?”

Luke yawns yet again. “Okay,” he agrees, right hand propping up his head. His eyes flutter shut and then open again. “Okay, fine.”

“And please let Michael look at your suit,” Ashton adds. “You know he’s only going to make it better.”

“I know, I know, I just…” Luke’s eyes fall shut again. It seems more out of tiredness than distress. “If I give it to him, then I can’t use it.”

Ashton’s pretty sure if Luke’s hero complex gets any bigger he’s going to have to start renting out rooms. “It’ll be two days, tops,” he says. “Take two days off.”

“I wanna wait ‘til you’re back,” Luke mumbles. “Spend ‘em with you.”

“You spend most of your time with me,” Ashton says gently. “Spend them with Michael. Hell, spend them with Cal.”

“But I want…” Luke yawns. He lists sideways a little. “I want you.”

Ashton chews his lip. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he says. “You won’t be able to get rid of me.”

Luke hums absently. “‘Kay, g’night,” he slurs, but makes no gesture to hang up the call. He probably expects Ashton to end it. If Luke is as asleep as he looks right now, Ashton kind of has to.

The graphite on the sketch paper is smudging a little. Ashton glances down at the half-assed likeness of his boyfriend and has an idea.

Quietly, he grabs another blank page, moves his laptop back a little, and starts to draw.

They’re up bright and early the next day, and after breakfast Ashton follows a decidedly more lively Maya into the Fine Arts Room, where she takes her place diagonally from him at their table. They’re both mid-project; Ashton stacks and sets aside his scratch papers and pulls forth the drawing he’s currently working on.

“So? You talked to Luke?”

Ashton blinks and looks up at Maya. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks for the tip, I meant to say.”

“Hey, don’t thank me, thank Cupid,” Maya says airily. “I’m on the side of love, baby.”

Ashton snorts and rolls his eyes. “Let Cupid know I say thanks.”

Maya hums. “Cupid says you’re welcome.”

They’re quiet while Maya gets herself set up — she has to put all her acrylics back every evening only to set them back out every morning, another reason Ashton prefers pencils over paints — and Ashton picks up his pencil and starts to draw.

“Is this yours?” Maya asks, peering at Ashton’s discarded stack of sketches.

“Yeah,” Ashton says without looking. “Just sketches and stuff.”

“Wait, this is so cute.” She’s leaning over the drawing on the top. Ashton glances up.

It’s Luke from last night, soundly asleep over Skype.

Ashton had ended the call after about ten minutes of silence, enough time to get the rough outlines of all the important shapes. The video quality wouldn’t have lent itself to a good sketch anyway if Ashton had been chasing authenticity, but fortunately he knows Luke’s face well enough — both from drawing it and gazing at it in real life — to pretend the call had had a crystal-clear picture. None of it is colored in, but it’s as obviously Luke as all of Ashton’s other drawings. Somehow, though, this one feels more personal.

“Did you draw this last night?”

“Uh,” Ashton says, reaching for the drawing. He shuffles it between several other papers so an innocuous collection of doodles is now at the top of the stack, and Maya clicks her tongue in disapproval.

“Hey, I was looking at that. It was cute.”

“Yeah, it’s— it’s just nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, it’s adorable,” Maya says. She fixes him with puppy-dog eyes. “Pleeeease can I see it? I won’t show anyone. I’m studying so I can kick your ass in our competition.”

Ashton sighs. “It’s just Luke. You’ve seen millions of drawings of him.”

“But those were obviously from memory,” Maya points out, taking his non-answer as an affirmative and sifting through the stack. Ashton doesn’t bother trying to stop her. It’s not like he has anything to hide — or at least not anything Maya could figure out by looking at the drawing.

And in her defense, Luke does look cute as fuck in the drawing, because he’d looked cute as fuck in real life.

“For all you know, this one is also from memory.”

“You drew the screen, Ash, it’s clearly from last night.”

“Well,” Ashton says diplomatically. Then he abandons diplomacy, because Maya has located the drawing and is grinning and aww-ing. “Well do you blame me? He fell asleep on our call. It was adorable.”

Maya giggles. “You guys are so fucking cute,” she says. “Y’know, most people would be insulted if their boyfriend fell asleep on a video call with them.”

“He’s been really busy lately,” Ashton says. “And it was the end of the call anyway.”

“One day, I will have someone to draw me when I fall asleep on our Skype calls,” Maya says wistfully. “I’m putting the vibes out into the universe so it’ll happen soon.”

“Maybe you’ll be the one drawing them,” Ashton points out.

Maya finally sets down the Luke drawing. She dips her brush in red paint, clearly intending to put it into her work, but at Ashton’s words instead brandishes it threateningly at him. “I won’t be drawing anyone, buddy.”

Ashton laughs. “But you’d date someone who drew instead of painted?”

“At this point?” Maya sighs theatrically. “I’d date just about anyone who did anything.”

Ashton laughs again. They work quietly for a few minutes. Ashton starts shading.

“Why do you only ever draw Luke?” Maya asks. “You said you’ve been together for less than a year. Who were you drawing before then?”

Ashton shrugs. “Uh, anyone, really,” he says. “People. There are a lot of pretty interesting people at my school, and besides, I’m from the city.”

Maya snorts derisively. “You’re from Queens.”

“Queens is in the city.”

Another derisive snort. “Queens is in the city the same way using ink stamps is painting.”

“That’s not even a little bit the same thing, at all.”

“You’re not a city boy.”

“I am literally a city boy!” Maya waves him off, but Ashton ignores her. She’s from Massachusetts. She has no leg to stand on. “My point is that there are lot of interesting people near where I live, too.”

“You didn’t ever, I don’t know, draw your friends? Calum, didn’t you say he’s your best friend from home?”

“Ah, yeah,” Ashton says. “Calum. Didn’t like when I drew him.”

“What, seriously? Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Ashton says, and it’s true. “He just asked me to stop drawing him one day so I did.” He hesitates. “...Mostly. Sometimes I still do. But if you knew Calum you’d understand why. He’s extremely good-looking.”

“Of course he is,” Maya says. “Any chance he’s single and/or interested in women from several states away?”

“No to both questions,” Ashton says sympathetically. “But good try.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Maya says good-naturedly, and they lapse into silence again.

It’s broken by Maya, again. “Do you show Luke the drawings you do of him?”

That’s a complicated question. No, Ashton doesn’t actively show his drawings to Luke, but Luke usually sees them anyway. Some of them are more private; Ashton keeps the one of Luke in the Spiderman suit sans mask folded up in the bottom of his socks drawer where he’s pretty certain no one ever looks. There doesn’t seem to be a point to showing it to Luke now, so long after he’d actually done it. But for the most part he’s not hiding his art from Luke; Luke sees what he sees, notwithstanding Ashton’s intention.

“Sometimes,” Ashton says.

Maya nods at the drawing of Luke asleep on Skype. “You gonna show him that one?”

“Uh, probably not.”

“What, why? It’s so cute.”

“I don’t know, maybe because it makes me seem like a ridiculous lovesick borderline creepy idiot?”

“Guys love that,” Maya assures him. “Or so I’m told. C’mon, why hold out on him when he already knows you’re basically obsessed with drawing him?” She taps the drawing. “And when he looks this adorable?”

Ashton breathes a laugh. “You have a point.”

“I always do,” Maya says, and she flips her hair dramatically.

Maybe Michael would let Ashton draw him. That would be a nice change from always drawing Luke and never drawing Calum. Maybe Ashton could just do it and then ask Michael what he thinks. It would be nice to have new muses. Ashton has spent a lot of time on Luke; maybe it’s about time he branched out again.

“Hey,” Ashton says, struck with inspiration as he watches Maya make brushstrokes across her paper. “Can I draw you?”

“Hell yeah, go for it,” Maya says. “I’m not sitting still for you, though.”

“I’ll live,” Ashton says dryly. Maya grins and laughs. A fresh page before Ashton and a new pencil in his hand, he studies Maya’s profile carefully and then brings his pencil to the page.

“Did you break into the Fine Arts Room again?”

“I don’t think it’s breaking in if it’s technically unlocked,” Ashton points out.

Luke squints but evidently fails to argue with this logic. “How’s artsy hipster bullshit camp?”

“Really good,” Ashton says, cracking his knuckles. His parents have told him repeatedly that doing so will give him arthritis, but Ashton suspects that’s more of a scare tactic than a fact. At this point he doubts even rehab could get him to stop. It’s the only thing Ashton can think to do with his hands when he’s not drawing. “By the way, remember the other day when you fell asleep on our call?”

I fell asleep at the end of our call,” Luke corrects him. “We were done talking.”

“Okay, weirdo,” Ashton says, shaking his head. “Well, anyway, Maya convinced me that I should show you this because maybe you’d think it was cute, or something.” He holds up the drawing of Luke.

Luke leans closer to the camera. Anyone else might have trouble discerning what’s on the page given how dim it is around Ashton, but not Luke. Luke has super-senses. His visual acuity is, like, a thousand. (Rough estimate.)

So when Luke’s face splits into a grin, Ashton knows he’s seen exactly what’s there. “Oh my fucking God, you sap,” he says. “I thought you just hung up straightaway.”

“Nope,” Ashton says. “I’m just saving moments. One day I’ll have enough for a flip book.”

Luke’s expression goes all mushy and heart-eyed. “You’re unbelievable,” he says, fond and endeared. “I can’t believe you’re not bored of my dumb face yet.”

“Are you kidding? Have you seen your dumb face?” Ashton laughs. “It’s impossible to be bored of it.”

“Ashton,” Luke says, his eyes crinkling so much that the blue all but disappears. “I love you.”

And everything makes sense.

“I love you too,” Ashton says, struck by the realization that he does. The drawings, the midnight Skype calls, the death-defying trips around the city with only his faith in Luke to keep them afloat, the fluttery feeling — all of the colors lock into place, and Ashton can see the rainbow clear as day in front of him. He’s never been in love; of course he couldn’t tell. But there’s nothing else it could be.

“Oh, good,” Luke says timidly. “I was a little worried you wouldn’t say it back.”

Ashton glances from the drawing in his hand to the look on Luke’s face on the screen, and he cracks a crooked smile. “Then you, superhero, have not been paying attention.”

18 notes · View notes

copperpieceharlot · 4 years ago

Note

Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

33 notes · View notes

dakt37 · 4 years ago

Text

Avengers Assemble - Feral Outlaw Stony

So I've been expanding on this concept I doodled before Christmas, where Steve goes with Tony into the no-tech dimension at the end of season 3. Probably a lot of stuff isn't canon-compliant (beyond the obvious change that is), but "It's an AU so I do what I want" rules apply. Anyway.

The tl;dr is: The two of them spend a little time puttering around the weird no-tech dimension, and then get absorbed into Battleworld. They become explorers, helping people out and falling in love along the way.

(Once again, I feel like someone must have had this idea already, but I’ve never looked.)

Cut for excessive rambling.

~~~

Not all the areas we see in the show are present in Battleworld when Steve and Tony first arrive, so the boys spend most of their time traveling around, mapping the place out as it expands. A lot of my ideas rely on them still having little-to-no access to modern conveniences. Obviously someplace modern has to show up for them to get their hands on a pickup truck and a motorcycle, but I’m picturing a post-apocalyptic junkyard that’s been picked clean of anything obviously useful. They get the vehicles working by sheer force of “I’m Tony-fucking-Stark.” But like that fully functional NYC area is way too convenient, so it’s not around yet. (tbh I’m not even sure if it’s an alternate NYC or theirs, in which case it wouldn’t show up until the other Avengers do anyway)

They get the low-down on the "Battleworld" concept by eavesdropping on one of Beyonder's* welcome speeches. They realize that they are uniquely off the grid, because Beyonder didn't know they were in the no-tech dimension when he added it to Battleworld. They decide it's advantageous to maintain this secret status, but they're still Avengers™️ so they can't NOT help out wherever they can. But they don’t stick around any one place for long. Basically, they become vagrant vigilantes in addition to surveyors. They get a lot of their “stuff” (clothes, tools, toiletries, etc) as payment for odd jobs, or gifts from grateful locals they rescue. They get some food from populated areas as well, but also rely on foraging and hunting while on the lam. They have definitely eaten dinosaur at some point.

(*He doesn't get the nickname "Beyonder" until the other Avengers show up. In this AU Steve and Tony refer to him as "The Entity" or "Suspenders." You can probably guess who tends to use which.)

On top of the survival story, it's also a getting-together story. Steve and Tony flirt and pine and bicker and flirt some more, until a squabble turns into a confession and they finally start kissing. There’s plenty of time for “it’s cold in this wasteland and we only have one blanket, oh no,” but they’re firmly established as romantically involved by the time the other Avengers show up and they have the final showdown with Beyonder.

Anyway a lot of the AU notes I've been making are about the functional side of their Big Camping Adventure. So here's a bunch of lists about vehicles, gadgets, and navigation.

Vehicle stuff:

If Tony is riding passenger on the motorcycle, he can clip his repulsor boots into special footrests that reroute the energy and give the bike a speed boost.

The bike has a tow cable. Steve can harpoon things using a spring-action firing mechanism, including cliff faces to help him scale steep terrain. The cable can also be uncoiled manually, like when Tony takes flight while holding the end so he and Steve can clothesline hostiles.

Steve can stick his shield several places on the bike depending on what’s convenient. On the front as a windscreen/battering ram, on one side for easy grabbing, and even on Tony’s backpack so Tony can snuggle in properly while riding passenger and keep both their backs protected.

They probably don’t even need a ramp to get the bike into the bed of the pickup. Steve just picks it up and puts it there.

The evolution of Marsha (the truck) into a full Hulkbuster-style mech takes a long time. For the majority of their time in Battleworld, it’s just a truck with an ever-increasing number of weird add-ons.

Marsha can function as a tiny camper home. The cargo bed liner is a false bottom, which can be pulled up and rearranged to form a cover/roof. Underneath the liner, the actual truck bed is about a foot deeper, with most of that storage space taken up by a mattress and bedding.

Tony can pull a cable out of Marsha’s steering column and plug it directly into his arc reactor. This unlocks extra features and weapons. He generally has things balanced so that Marsha drawing power doesn't affect him any more than his armor drawing power would. But on rare and desperate occasions, he can overclock and hurt himself. Steve of course hates when he does this.

Turnabout is fair play though: at least once, something else damaged the arc reactor, so Tony plugged into Marsha to draw power from the battery for his electromagnet while he repaired the arc.

Gasoline can be difficult to procure, so both vehicles are hybrids. Tony just keeps adding new power conversion elements as they go along, based on what they can find.

F in chat for Tony’s armor:

Tony dismantles the armor he’d been wearing when they first went into the no-tech dimension.

Obviously he keeps skeletal versions of the repulsor boots and gloves in-tact enough to function.

He also keeps most of the helmet, for when he’s riding with Steve on the motorcycle. Mostly because Steve insisted. It's gutted of tech though, so if the faceplate stays as part of the design, the eyes are just holes (like in the classic comics).

The rest of the pieces are kept in a large packing trunk.

Tony repurposes some parts into useful gadgets for himself and Cap, plus the odd toy for other Avengers (like Widow’s new stinger gauntlets) because he’s optimistic like that.

Electronics use precious metals like gold and copper, so Tony scrapes some out to pay for things in certain areas of Battleworld, like the cowboy town or the pirate area. He might also barter with other general bits like wires and screws, but he avoids parting with any actual full tech.

Plug-n-play Gadgets

Since the power draw for Tony's electromagnet is actually fairly minimal, Tony makes use of the arc reactor as a charging station, mostly when he sleeps. It's not like there's a corner store they can drop by to get a pack of batteries. Things he charges include (but are not limited to):

Flashlight for Steve. The bulbs for it came from the eyes in the Iron Man helmet. Note: Tony doesn't need a flashlight himself because he can turn up his arc brightness apparently, lmao.

Camp stove. Steve questioned Tony building one for a hot second because hello we can build campfires to cook over? But then it’s raining and they're in a cave and Tony is like, "if you fill this space with smoke I will divorce you before we're even married." And Steve is like "camp stove wow yes okay." Also they had camp stoves in WW2 so honestly it was simply a Himbo Moment to disregard the virtues of one in the first place.

Walkie talkies. I know they had Avengers comms but I like the aesthetic of walkie talkies more. Maybe the comms relied on satellites that they obviously don't have anymore or something.

Navigation:

Speaking of a lack of satellites, the GPS in Tony’s armor is rendered useless. Steve is real smug about it and pulls out his old-fashioned compass. But Battleworld also doesn’t have proper poles, so it just spins wildly for a few seconds and then points at Tony’s electromagnet. Not to be deterred, Steve declares, “Well, you’re never lost if you can find Polaris.” They look up and realize that the night sky, despite having stars and a moon, is not at all arranged the way it is on Earth.

Tony takes this as a Challenge. He builds a sextant, then spends the next several nights in a row muttering math under his breath as he painstakingly creates a hand-drawn star chart. This, combined with landmarks, becomes the primary way they orient themselves as they roam around Battleworld.

Many nights, Steve and Tony lie in the bed of the pickup together and make up constellations named after other Avengers and friends. Steve makes a copy of Tony’s star chart and sketches artistic renditions of the constellations on top. To close this post with an interesting visual, here’s an example of what Tony’s star map might look like vs what Steve’s would more resemble:

#avengers assemble #avengers assemble AU #battleworld AU #Feral Outlaw Stony AU #stevetony #dakity yaks #Dakt rambles about Avengers stuff #long post

67 notes · View notes

askfallenroyalty · 5 years ago

Note

Hi! I'm a really big fan of your art style with comics, and I'm just starting to draw comics myself after a few years of regular pieces. I was wondering if you could share what kind of outline you do when you draw bodies or poses? They look very lively when you draw them, and I was wondering if you had any tips on how you do them? Sorry for the bad English

your english is wonderful! no worries <333

i wrote a post a while back on my main that covers my introduction material i recommend, and some general advice.

I’ll try my best to go over how I pose characters! here’s the end result (minus the goop on susie, for visual clarity)

Here’s the line art:

now here’s the sketch:

wow what a jump in quality! what happened?

i pushed the line of action! to give the illusion of momentum, Susie’s hair is falling behind her and her body is pushed forward. she’s posed in a < shape, using the consistant line of action. note how the face, elbow an hair all have the same ( shape, while the other arm and hair follow that shape outward

meanwhile feylow has a similar situation, the hair, face, (even the horns!) and arm all flow to point in the same triangle shape! its a very static, closed off mountain like pose. You can almost imagine a surprised jump, or gasp from the character. so always keep in mind the line of action and general shape of the character

i can’t quite remember where i first saw this, but i remember this was from spongebob’s staff that was given to storyboard artists to help push clarity in the artwork. to keep it simple, imagine your character in silhouette and if you can still tell what they’re doing/holding, than you did it right!

muah. line of action. it’s a beautiful thing. the hair is still flowing as if still in movement (notably, susie’s is still moving forward even after her body is in the process of stopping. this is called follow through, and it’s an animation technique that implies time and physics. when move your head, your hair starts moving, but when you stop, since your hair weighs less, it’ll keep moving for a moment later.)

the two characters are connected by the arm, and the line of action is almost the exact same line (only broken by susie’s stretched out arm for visual clarity.) to even further it, the leaf foliage above continues this curve!

also! use curves and straight lines! contrasting the two creates for a much more dynamic drawing. if you look at your arm, it’s not just a tube. it’s got lines and curves that give your arm shape and form.

actually, here’s a great resource and where i first really started to learn some of this stuff. (granted, doing figure drawing is the best way to go, learning from real life is the most valuable experience you can get in art) but having some simplified, easy to understand tutorials like these will help a ton!

and lastly, i recommend reading a ton of comics -i mostly grew up with Fullmetal Alchemist and Calvin and Hobbes, having a variety of inspiration and different influences will go a long way. hell, even trace the comics! study them! do anything you can to soak in that good good knowledge. the scott mcloud books i recommend also go into detail in learning not just how sequential art works, but also how the human body expresses itself and how to best show it

i wish you (and everyone else reading this!) the best of luck with your art! i know it’s a bit of a challenge to get into comics -after all, it can be daunting to learn so many things at once! but with persistence you will find yourself improving before you know it! happy drawing! ^_^

#Anonymous #doodles #save tag

165 notes · View notes

wandercrss · 4 years ago

Text

‹ kathryn newton. cis woman. she/her. muse 1q. › cassandra ‘cass’ mitchell is back in rochdale for the summer. they’re currently twenty two years old and are known as the lot soul of the rioters, especially after they were constantly skipping classes and smoking during school hours. they graduated in 2017 and since then they’ve been nomadically moving from place to place working odd jobs. they decided to come back for the summer because she’s alone and secretly feels like the rioters are the only family she’s ever had. let’s hope they have the summer of their dreams! ( jess. she/her. 24. est. )

trigger warnings: death, abandonment, drug mention

full character page here

G E N E R A L

FULL NAME: cassandra elaine mitchell

NICKNAME(S): cass

TROPE: the lost soul

B A S I C S

AGE: twenty-two (22)

BIRTHDAY: november 1, 1998

NATIONALITY: american

ETHNICITY: caucasian

GENDER: cis-woman

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: panromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: pansexual

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: liberal

RELIGION: atheist

OCCUPATION: moves from job to job / currently looking for something new

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

PARENTS: kristen mitchell (mother - estranged), biological father (unknown)

SIBLINGS: penelope mitchell (older half-sister - deceased)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): none.

CHILDREN: none.

CLOSEST FRIENDS: tbd.

RIVALS: tbd.

ENEMIES: tbd.

P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S

FACECLAIM: kathryn newton

EYE COLOR: blue

HAIR COLOR: blonde

HEIGHT: 5′5

BODY BUILD: slim

NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: eyes

AESTHETIC/STYLE: casual (punk undertones...yes, i’m making that up)

P E R S O N A L I T Y

POSITIVE TRAITS: brave, determined, adventurous, loyal

NEGATIVE TRAITS: resentful, secretive, deceptive, isolating

TYPICAL MOOD/EXPRESSION: neutral

ZODIAC SIGN: scorpio

MORAL ALIGNMENT: lawful evil

ENNEAGRAM: type eight - the challenger

MBTI: entj

HOGWARTS HOUSE: slytherin

M I S C E L L A N E O U S

SKILLS: getting out of trouble, making something you’d least expect an adventure, thought-out pranks, ‘hangover cures’

HOBBIES: sketching/photography, pulling a prank on friends, smoking/drinking, more to come

FEARS/PHOBIAS: being left completely alone, losing those she loves

FAVORITES: iced coffee, burritos, thunderstorms, sunrises over sunsets

B I O G R A P H Y

cassandra elaine mitchell, mostly known as cass, was the second child born to kristen mitchell on november 1, 1998. cass’s upbringing was known to be rocky, at best. kristen was a single mother to cass and her older half-sister, penelope. cass and penelope were almost seven years apart in age, but that couldn’t get in the way of their bond.

from a young age, penelope felt very protective over cass. part of that was out of necessity. see, kristen wasn’t exactly committed to the whole mother-gig. penelope and cass weren’t apart of her plan, just byproducts of drunken one-night-stands. kristen often had trouble holding down a job and seemed more invested in finding herself a relationship to dive into. when it came to being a mother, though, she often didn’t even try. she relied on penelope a lot as the girl got older, even leaving the young child in charge for days at a time as kristen went off on another bender or to another party. penelope tried to shield cass from a lot of it, but that wasn’t an easy job.

when penelope turned 19, kristen was even more of a mess than usual. she had lost her job completely, their home was about to be repossessed, and the woman just couldn’t handle it all. so, she disappeared. packed up and left, leaving cass under penelope’s care.

it was less than ideal for a 19-year-old to now be on her own taking care of a 12-year-old child, but penelope and cass were closer than anything. they knew they could make it work. now that it was just the two of them, they didn’t have to worry about their mother coming in and screwing things up. penelope began working two jobs in town so she and cass could rent a tiny one bedroom. it was tough, but it brought penelope and cass together.

with penelope at work so often, cass was suddenly on her own more and more. it was lonely and isolating, so she decided she would find adventure for herself. cass was always an explorer. a wanderer, as penelope would often call her. she liked to dive into unknown territory, discover new things, and jump off high places just to see how it would feel. it drove penelope crazy, but it made cass feel alive.

cass always prioritized herself over school. it wasn’t that she wasn’t smart. it was that she hated the idea of being cooped up in a classroom for eight hours every day. she became known for her skill in cutting classes.

when cass was in high school, she started to make more and more friends. eventually, she found herself apart of the group known as the rioters. other than penelope, cass had never really had a family. and slowly but surely, the rioters really became to feel like one. she was their very own sarcastic, jaded, adventurous lost soul. some of her best memories ever were with the rioters.

as high school came to a close, cass had to decide what was next. most of her friends were off to exciting things, but cass didn’t have a plan. neither did penelope. but the older girl was exhausted all of the time, having spent half of her 20s just working to put a roof over their heads. so, the two decided to leave rochdale behind and actually see what else the world had to offer. after graduation, they jumped in their car and were off.

they spent many years travelling...setting up shop in small towns where they could earn some money, spending nights eating one-dollar cheeseburgers and sleeping in their car. it was far from glamorous. but it was exciting. all they needed was each other. cass would take photos, documenting their journey. they would pick up jobs in retail during the holiday season or waitress at a local diner for a few months until they decided to move on. they lived their lives month-to-month. week-to-week. minute-to-minute.

eventually, penelope felt like they should think about settling down somewhere. as much as she enjoyed the adventure with her sister, she craved stability. cass didn’t agree. this was the life she liked. nomadic. impermanent. nowhere they could hang around too long and risk getting hurt. they fought about it. weeks went by, and the two still couldn’t agree. hurtful things were said, accusations were made. cass and penelope had finally found the thing between them they just couldn’t settle.

one night, cass stormed out of their motel, having had enough of her sister. little did she know, penelope went after her. she drove around all night looking for her sister, but it was no use. penelope was starting to feel tired behind the wheel. she decided to go back to the motel, thinking perhaps cass had returned. on her way back, penelope was drifting, trying like hell to stay awake. she didn’t even realize when she had run the stop sign. then...crash.

the police were already at the motel when cass decided to head back. she found them there, lights flashing, waiting. they told her about penelope and the crash. they told her about how her sister, her person, died instantly from the impact. and that day, something inside cass broke.

as soon as she could, cass packed up her stuff and left. she was full of anger and resentment. she hated the world, but mostly, she hated herself. cass continued to travel around, now on her own. she spent a lot of time in colorado, working on a horse farm. but she couldn’t let anyone get close to her. she was incredibly lonely. after almost a year of life without penelope, cass felt herself drawn back to rochdale. for how long? she didn’t know. maybe just the summer seeing old friends would do her some good. but she was afraid to admit the truth. she needed them. the rioters. the only family she had left.

C U R R E N T L Y

cass has just come back to rochdale for the summer. she is looking forward to seeing her old friends again, but she is more than scared to admit how much she feels like she needs them. she intends to play it cool...exercising her usual bit of not letting people in. at least, not enough to see the pieces of her she keeps hidden away.

having been on the road for a long time, cass isn’t used to staying put, so she might start to feel a little restless. despite her loss, she still craves adventure and maybe even a bit of recklessness.

C O N N E C T I O N S / P L O T S

partner in crime: i would love for there to be someone who was cass’s ride or die, her partner in crime while they were in the rioters.

on-again-off-again: cass is bad relationships, but there could have been someone she was in that classic on-again-off-again relationship with. she probably cares about them a lot, but just couldn’t let her go there.

unrequited love: come on, she would also be the type to have head a friend that was like in love with her or something, but she never knew or never wanted to admit that she knew.

frenemies: someone she bumped heads with a lot. maybe they got in each other’s way or just couldn’t stand each other.

exes (flings, hook-ups, brief relationships etc): anything like this i’m totally game for.

hateship: am i a sucker for a hateship/enemies-to-lovers trope? perHAPS

anything at all: i am truly open for anything. please don’t be afraid to ask if you think she fits something you want for your character too. i can be bad at asking for plots so please don’t hesitate to hit me up!! :)

#backhomeintro #death tw #drugs tw #abandonment tw #cass mitchell — ( intro. )#open for plots come at me !!#also i proofread 0% of this thank u

11 notes · View notes

alaraxia · 5 years ago

Text

Process Breakdown: Starfall

Since I got some positive responses to my question on process stuff I’m gonna do a behind the scenes breakdown for my most recent piece to help people see the process I use and how I problem solve. I didn’t plan to do this initially so I won’t have a ton of process shots but I did save a handful. There’s a few scattered hyperlinks to other pieces I reference too. Just a warning this is mostly train of thought so it’s super verbose.

So base sketches were mostly focused around me defining the shape of the girl since she was the focal point and building the environment around her. Going in the things I knew I wanted were a girl precariously balanced on top of a massive capybara catching a falling star, while surrounded by smaller sleeping capybaras on rocks. I layered out a general forest scene surrounding it but didn’t really commit to much in the sketches. Messed with the angles of the large capybara a few times to make it feel less flat and more 3D in the space, used a lot of reference photos of capybaras and sorta simplified them to what I thought was cute/ what stood out to me as their defining features.

Skipping ahead a solid amount is midway through the initial lineart, with some areas just colored in to define them as separate. Initially this piece was supposed to be in a similar style as my “Stratosphere Dreaming” art, with a single uniform line thickness, bright colors, and no gradient shading at all, but I realized pretty soon after I finished the lineart and started coloring that I had done what I tend to do a lot and made it too complex to pull off successfully in that style so I had to pivot to using gradient shading and other non-cell style techniques (though you can see a lot of those methods still in the coloring of the girl). This caused an even bigger challenge as I was drawing on a large canvas with high DPI in Procreate which resulted in me having a cumulative 50 layers to work with at any given time (hell).

Now once I made that rendering style pivot is when the really hard part began, and why on top of my persistent arm injuries this took me about two months to finally finish.

1.) I had an extremely difficult time trying to figure out the color pallet for the piece. I had an idea of the values and general colors I wanted (you can see some pallets and random base color tests in the image above) but I just couldn’t get them to look right and I became extremely more aggravated as I kept trying new and different things. My biggest mental block was feeling like I was stuck trying to make the initial pallet idea work, but eventually I was able to bump it to a slightly adjacent pallet and it worked far better. Essentially a lot of angry experimenting and testing.

2.) I made the piece too complex for its own good when it came to the foliage and scene. After finding success with a very specific way to render foliage in one of my favorite pieces I started to use it as my standard, but that standard started to show cracks when I had foliage heavy scenes like in my Hollow Knight piece from last year. The rendering style became insanely too time consuming, and incredibly distracting when used in abundance, taking away from the focal point. I knew this but I still attempted to use the same style to render the foreground foliage MULTIPLE times in increasing states of frustration until I stepped back, evaluated it wasn’t working, and tested out a very similar style with the same effect but that I could throw together twice as fast without the aggressive distraction and minuscule details that were irrelevant in the scheme of the art. This frustration in the rendering not working was only exacerbated by the color pallet indecision making a lot of the attempts just look bad both color and style wise.

Due to the limited layers I had to finish rendering out the girl very early and merge her together to free up layer space, and couldn’t keep my lineart layers as separate as I would have liked to allow for quick line color swaps. She ended up being a key point in defining the rest of the color pallet of the piece. The dress shape was indeed inspired by the Lirika Matoshi strawberry dress, but with my own twist.

Once I got a more solid color pallet down the rest started to come a lot easier and I was able to begin filling stuff in and doing general color adjustments to make the backgrounds darker and give it more depth. I don’t have any more process shots beyond the initial color pallet exploration unfortunately, but the last hurdle I hit was at the very end once I was doing final touch ups. I found that with the only light source/ lighter color being the falling star that it washed out a lot of the rest of the pieces and made the details I spend so much time on feel unnoticed. I found though that adding the bright orange stardust specks into the trees, the girls hair, and falling from the star itself gave the last bit of color I think it needed without completely destroying the atmosphere. Originally (you may see it in some of the process shots) there were going to be jars with stars already in them illuminating the bottom of the piece, but after multiple trial and error iterations it just didn’t work out and ended up taking the focal point away from the girl and the star too much so I scrapped it.

Finally once I got everything done I made a copy of the entire art file to save as a backup, then with one of the copies merged all the layers together. Once all merged I made a copy of the fully merged layer, and went and adjusted the entire layer copy using a Gaussian Blur, reduced the opacity of the blurred layer to a super low percent, and put it on top of the original merged layer. This gave it that ethereal sort of feel that is difficult to notice unless you zoom in but really helps soften the piece and make it more dreamlike overall. Then I merged that blur layer down, and turned on about a 3% noise layer on it all to give it a bit of texture.

But that’s enough rambling from me, hope this helps give a bit of background to my process and decision making and it wasn’t just a wall of random musings.

My last piece of advice is if you’re looking to do art professionally, do commissions, or make a lot of pieces in a short period of time I would highly advise against directly copying techniques I use. Because while I’m always working to improve I do only do this as a hobby rn so I have the luxury of being able to invest a lot of time, energy, and details into higher complexity pieces that would take way too long in a professional environment. I can put a lot of time into making a single piece exactly as I want it since I’m not reliant on art as my sole income. As I improve I can make things faster, but it’s still an overall slow process and I just end up moving my quality standards up with any level of improvement anyway. Use stuff I do as inspiration but I cannot stress enough to learn as many shortcuts as possible (I’m still struggling with this myself).

If y’all have any questions about bits feel free to dm, if I do something like this again I’ll try to get better screenshots during the process n try to be less verbose.

#tutorial #behind the scenes #alaraxia process #process breakdown #starfall

52 notes · View notes

zazuizme · 4 years ago

Text

Smosh gone downhill

I said it. I prefer the content Smosh made under Defy. I understand that they are now happier and their wellbeing is much better now without a corporate overlord breathing down their neck but I believe their content has gone down in quality and variety. I saw a Smosh video in my subscription feed and realised that I haven't watched their videos in a while or as regularly as I used to do when Smosh was under DEFY.

I’m honestly getting really bored of post-DEFY Smosh and Smosh Games content. It’s the same five shows every time. I getting bored especially with the Games channel. They just play casual games. No competitive games and punishments like before. It's either try not to laugh, eat it or yeat it, unfunny sketcher, ebe and the games channel. I used to love the games channel and the Smosh Pit channel, I wasn't really as much of a fan of the main channel stuff but I still watched the videos that were posted on it. So I want to break down what I think is going wrong.

Cast members I am obviously happy that some of the members are in a much more happy and healthier place. With some of the cast members like Noah, Keith and Olivia being able to be part-time and pursue other things. The personal downside was that they were more of my favourite members of the cast. I like Courtney two but I am not a fan of Shayne or Damien because they're too loud and I don't like Damien's humour or find him funny at all and comes off as trying too hard and cringey weeb. (Bruh that anime quiz he did was full of such mainstream normie anime which are all the same, just personally dunking on his taste in anime) So in the early Mythical days, it was mainly just Ian, Court, Shayne and Damien that we were seeing so for someone like me I was only really here for Ian and Courtney. Since we have had Kimmy and Jackie who I think are refreshing additions to the channel and bring something new. But one of the reasons, why I love the old videos, is that more people means more different dynamics. It gets pretty boring quickly watching the same three people interact so it makes it refreshing when someone is a guest as it changes up the dynamic. We don't get to see Keith and Court goofing off, or Shayne and Olivia killing it. With more people there's a chance you'll like someone. So if you like Shayne for example you may get bored seeing him interact with the same people all the time because of seeing one or a few person take up all the screen time instead of dividing it up more. Things like the old squad vlogs were so much fun because you have five people bouncing off each other and make simple games like the psychic word game so much fun. Now it just feels like Shayne and Damien featuring Courtney third-wheeling and sometimes Ian. We also have the controversial figure of Matt who I was fine with at first and enjoyed him as a ref except for Red Light, Dead Light, but as he had more time on screen the worse part started to creep in. I do like Sarah however. It also made Smosh Summer/Winter games so special because we saw everyone together or when they did TNTL on the SG channel with the SG crew.

Smosh Games channel So when they announced that the Smosh squad would be more involved with the Games channel and that cast wouldn't be confined by a single channel it lit up a red flag immediately for me. Obviously, it was kind of necessary with so many of the SG cast leaving but the Squad members like Court, Shayne and Damien can't handle that channel. They are obviously being overworked having to run three channels with multiple things a week which is one and the jokes and dynamic gets stale. Two: the only 'hardcore, real' gamer there is Damien so if they put on competitive games with no shots spared he would easily dominate. I getting bored especially with the Games channel. So we get more casual games with gimmicks like seeing them play Jackbox for the 100th time and loses the competitive element of the old shows like gamebang had so it's now just 'friends playing games'. We have some dumb shows like the crocs thing which was so anti-climactic. They have a Twitch which I don't use or watch. Board AF which I've heard isn't as good as before.

Lack of fun shows On the Smosh Pit channel we do have some fun shows like Bee-kini wax but it’s so infrequent but because of how limited the contestants are having to lay on the bed it relies on verbal humour which sometimes isn't enough if you are bored of the same 3 people. Eat it or yeet it which feels like a discount put it in my mouth which is also limiting because the cast is sat down and relies on a single gimmick. 2 Truths, 1 Lie and True Confessions which are good fun and challenges the cast members acting skills. I big things like Smosh Live and the energy the sketches had. We then have low-quality content videos like reaction videos to old videos, ‘trying TikTok life hacks’ which are rarely funny like the auditions reaction one. EBE is getting exhausting and doesn't seem to be as funny as before. I miss squad vlogs and field trips of them all playing board games once in a while or spin the bottle. Fun challenges are rare such as the drawing ones and acting out fanfiction. There is Smosh cast but it was mostly fun when they split tea about Defy. I dropped off around episode 8 and there’s too many to catch up. I don't even know which TNTL video they are on and even had a tour centered around it with only Shayne, and Damien with third wheel Court and Ian. I don’t know if the cast members are burnt out but I definitely am. We’ve gotten 40+ damn episodes. If the person doesn't laugh it gets awkward and they just laugh anyway. We had some interesting shows like Day Jobs, Show with no name which is way more fun and faster pace than Smoshcast, the animal show, PIIMM and Courtney's pilot show, Smosh and Order, squad trips and vlogs. It feels like the same five shows every time. I assume that the view count is going down.

Maybe Defy did know a bit of what they were doing. Putting stuff through a filter stopped every below-average video being posted. I honestly don't know if they will realise and try to fix it but I'll probably end up drifting completely if I end up not seeing any people I want in the thumbnail or clickbaity thumbnails I want to see, but it seems to be a trend among fans here from what I've gathered.

#smosh #smosh games

27 notes · View notes

sophi-s · 4 years ago

Text

Cost of Kindness

Chapter I: Chance encounter

By: sophi-s

Fandom: Darksiders video games

Words: 6,471

Characters: Original female character (OC), Raphael

Warnings: Graphic description of corpses, blood and injuries, disturbing imagery, swearing

Summary:

Life of a human after the apocalypse is difficult. The world seems to always be against them. Still, they keep on living. But one day something unexpected happens to one of the inhabitants of Haven. A woman named Nicola discovered something... or rather someone... who seemed to be in equally as sorry state as her entire race put together. Nothing was the same ever since. It's curious how one seemingly random event can change everything...

--------------------------------------------------

Nicola got lost again. All the promises she made to both Ulthane and Jones have gone into trash when with a pang of worry she's suddenly realised she does not know where Haven is. It was supposed to be a short supply run, a little trip to some ruined store in search of food and maybe some medicine if luck wished to be on her side and it turned into a whole day long journey. She hadn't been careful enough and ended up getting spotted. She was too fast for that Trauma to get to her before she disappeared into a narrow alley but she successfully lost her orientation.

Navigating through the city used to be so easy before all this apocalypse nonsense. Nicola knew her way around better than anyone honestly. Now everything looked different. What once was her home now seemed sinister and the animosity could be felt in every, even the tiniest speck of dust. All streets, previously so familiar to her, looked exactly the same, often cut in half by obsidian spikes and pits of boiling magma which made moving around even more troubling. In short words, the entire place was a wreckage. With each moment of aimless wandering, her panic was growing. Inwardly cursing, thinking about all the reprimanding she would get after she somehow finds her way back and the fact that she's most likely going to get grounded forever, she tried to move through the street as quietly as possible, without causing any unnecessary noises. Becoming an evening snack for a pack of Goreclaws or a Trauma wasn't a very attractive fate. The latter could still be around here somewhere and the blood spilling from a cut on her forehead she got when she accidentally ran into a wooden beam protruding from a wall wasn't going to make it harder for it to eventually find her again.. It was very unlikely that the Trauma could've gotten stuck in that alley after it tried to get to her. They are dumb. But not that dumb. Though the mental image alone was quite hilarious now that she thinks about it.. To some extent imagining a Trauma helplessly shuffling to try and unstuck itself from a narrow pathway made her feel a tad better, even crack a little smile. Still, she had to think of something. She'd already lived through too much to just die at this point.

Evening? Clutching a shotgun in her shaking hands, Nicola looks out at the amber sky and her heart hastens when she realises that it really is getting late. The last rays of sun were slowly sinking behind the horizon, slowly turning the sky from warm orange to indigo as the tall buildings bathed the city in deep shadows stretching over the ground like dark omens. Just perfect. There was no other choice for her than to hide somewhere and wait until dawn and resume her search tomorrow, hoping someone will start looking for her. Going anywhere after the dusk was an equivalent of a suicide. Demons and the Wicked tend to be especially active after the nightfall.. Nicola would rather not bump into one of the Suffering either, those things are especially nasty. Hulking, four-armed abominations melded with bodies of the dead, bringing back all those poor souls who weren't lucky enough to get away… she shudders at the thought and hastens her pace.

Most of the houses were already destroyed and usually infested with all kinds of detestable creatures she'd rather avoid - from Wicked, through all kinds of demons and Duskwings, to enormous spiders ready to cocoon any unfortunate passerby for a snack - unfit to be a shelter. But honestly, what wasn't crawling with Hellspawn these days? They were everywhere, as far as the sight can reach. Heaving out a long suffering sigh, Nicola decided to hide underneath the city, hoping she won't find any monsters there.

That was not one of her most brilliant ideas but in truth whatever she chose, it would be just as bad and she hardly cared at this point. Her legs felt as though they went a couple of inches up her arse from all day of walking and running and her empty stomach growled hungrily as she didn't get a chance to stop and eat a sandwich hidden in her backpack. It didn't take long to find a lid of a well leading to the sewers below. Just in case, Nicola dug some new shells out from her backpack and shoved them into her pocket to have easy access to them before pulling the lid out and uncovering a stinking hole in the pavement. The strong "aroma" that drifted out hit her like a brick to the face.

"Ugh.."

Nicola groaned, pinching her nose. Even after the literal armageddon, she still found sewers to be one of the grossest things ever. Like, come on, that's where all the piss and shit goes and a person who enters the sewers for even a minute comes out coated in this stench. Oh well.. It can't be worse than getting torn to shreds by a Goreclaw, can it? Up here was definitely worse than below. Everything she'd met so far - except for Ulthane, Yarin and Elanya - was trying to kill her lately. At least there was no sign of the Big Bad anywhere… Nicola had seen the so-called Destroyer only once and it was enough to last her a lifetime, considering how close she'd been back then. The fact that he didn't spot her, she probably owed the fact that she was somewhere to his right and from what she'd seen his right eye wasn't exactly in good condition. Though, she couldn't deny that the dragon did look sick as Hell - she cringed inwardly at the bad joke her mind produced - and if she wasn't scared shittless and in danger of getting eaten or burned alive, she probably would've taken out her notebook and tried to sketch him. Not often does one see a dragon up this close and Nicola had a habit of drawing anything even remotely interesting she sees. And the more challenging the thing is, the better. In her sketchbook, she already had Ulthane and his younger companions, Vulgrim, some other demons and a Fallen. The last thing she did see pretty damn close. Too close for her liking.

Pulling her stained, dark-blue neckerchief up to her nose as a mostly useless mask against the foul smell, she crouches down and with a loose piece of a brick scratches out a message on the ground, hoping either Jones or some other survivor will find it.

I'M IN THE SEWER

NIKA <3

Just to make it clear, she tears a piece of her already ragged sleeve off and places it under the aforementioned brick next to the message. It's not much but it has to be enough… Without further ado, Nicola slid inside the dark hole and closed the lid above her head. Utter blackness immediately closed around her like a thick coverlet. A quiet sound of dripping, echoing through the tunnel was all that she could hear.

Plip. Plop. Plip. Plop.

Should've thought about taking out a flashlight before cutting off the only source of light.

Grumbling under her breath, Nicola jumped down from a small ladder. But instead of landing on the hard and straight ground, her feet connected with something soft and uneven. With a small yelp, she lost her balance and fell flat onto the actual floor with a wet "Thwack!". Please just be regular water… She begged the puddle underneath her as she scrambled to her feet and pulled the backpack from her shoulders. For a few minutes, she blindly searched through her things, probing for the light source. When her fingers found the flashlight and she turned it on however, she nearly screamed.

That thing she landed on wasn't a mound of garbage like she previously assumed but a body. Body of a dead Phantom General. Its skin was in an unhealthy pallid shade, misty eyes were bulging out of their sockets. And the squishy bit she landed on was its face. Nicola nervously laughs to herself

"Maybe the stench killed him?"

The thought of a large demon dying in a sewer just because it smells bad was kind of amusing and a little comforting. But then she realised that if that was the case, then there's nothing to laugh at. What if there are some poisonous gases in here? Hydrogen sulfide, for example? If it killed a demon, undoubtedly much more hearty, then why shouldn't it do so with a human?

"Shit.. I hope not…"

Nicola curses and immediately presses the neckerchief closer to her face like it would do her any good. Well, no point in wondering about it now. If she were to get poisoned then she probably already was so… Father would be so disappointed if he found out she died in a sewer by inhaling toxic gas. I should've paid more attention to chemistry lessons… Anyway.. Standing here will not make it any better. She might as well find herself a place to rest for a while or forever. Unless healing shards work on that stuff, she had nothing on her to help should she get poisoned. Flinging her backpack over her shoulder, Nicola turns away from the corpse and peers into the dark pathway which opened before her like a gullet of a gargantuan monster waiting to swallow her whole. Having absolutely no idea that this choice would change her miserable life forever, she takes a breath and bravely moves onward.

The Phantom General wasn't the only one. As Nicola walked deeper into the dark, stinking corridor, she noticed more bodies. Goreclaws, Wicked, Phantom Guards, even a couple of Duskwings and - this was the most unsettling discovery - the serpentine Shadowcaster… all of them pale and wizened. An unnerving feeling grew in her stomach. Nicola had seen much death as of late but this… this was horrifying. It was like walking through a tomb or a mass grave. Up close she could see something she hadn't noticed before. Something that made her mouth turn sandpaper. All of the bodies seemed… dried for the lack of a better word. As though something had drained them of their blood, leaving only shriveled husks behind. But there were no wounds, no markings. Nicola gulps at the thought that whatever killed them might still be down here with her.

Backing away, she takes a turn into another section and curls up in a corner by a metal grate blocking the way ahead. Nicola turns the flashlight off and hugs her knees to her chest, trying to control her fearful breathing. Climbing down into the sewers wasn't such a good idea after all. What if… what if there are things far worse down here than the demons she'd already seen? Her parents often scared her with stories of monsters lurking in the dark pipes and winding tunnels when she was a child but those were only supposed to keep her away from the sewers. The true reason was always the toxic miasma drifting through them. Or so she thought as she grew older. Now it seems that the former turned out to be true… And if it murdered a Shadowcaster just like that, then it was a creature to be reckoned with, no doubt.

Whatever it is that hides in here, Nicola didn't want to meet it. Whether it was a classic sewer monster, grotesque, with teeth and tentacles, or something else it didn't matter. Looking down at her left wrist, where her blessedly still working electrical watch with sun batteries was, she squinted at the numbers it showed.

7:48 P.M.

This was going to be a long night… If she survives this, she would get out and return to the Tree, and tell Ulthane she will never leave again. Essentially, she'd ground herself for him. If she could find her way back, that is.. And this might prove rather tricky. Maybe if she could find a Serpent Hole and bribe Vulgrim to take her to Haven, it would be much easier. But then again, she will have to give him something. Aside from her soul, she had nothing he would be interested in and that she could still make use of. Damn it, why is it so cold in here? Pulling the zip of her vest up to her chin, she curls up even more and hides her hands in her pockets to seek any warmth she could find. The stench wasn't even phasing her anymore. Nicola got used to it after the first few minutes. Besides, her fear was what she was mostly focused on. At least she didn't feel anything that would hint at being poisoned.. Whatever deadly stuff was down here before must've dispersed some time after the apocalypse after the disuse of the sewers. And thank God for that..

Meow…

Her head snapped up at the echo coming from the tunnel she backed out from. It was very weak and quiet but she definitely heard something that sounded vaguely like a cat. A very small and very scared cat.

Meow…

There it was again. This time accompanied by a barely visible flash of light coming from the tunnel further down. Cursing her innate curiosity, she pulled herself up to her feet and snuck towards the entrance to her little hidey-hole. The light appeared again before slowly fading. It looked a little like… like someone was coming here with a broken flashlight. Could it… could it be someone from the Tree? Maybe another survivor lost their way in the sewers? Picking up her shotgun, she decides to check it out, the thoughts of a monster not forgotten per se, but definitely pushed to the back of her mind. Wary of every step she makes, she follows the light and the sounds of a distressed animal. Sleep was never an option anyway..

As she walked onwards, the lights were getting brighter, the meowing louder and the pounding of her heart faster. There were more corpses in various states of decay and skeletons strewn about the further she headed but she decided to stay brave. Should anything attack her, she has the shotgun at the ready. Something in her head laughed at her hysterically. How can she be so naive to think that if there's a monster down here her pathetic shotgun can do it much harm? It didn't have a problem with killing all those things. Why would it have a problem with Nicola and her weak human weapon? Besides, even if she did manage to defend herself, one shot from that thing would bring half of the city down on her head. And that was something she definitely wanted to avoid.

Meow!

Another flash. Her surroundings were slowly starting to change. The bodies were left behind and she started to notice wooden crates lying here and there as though someone meant to hide the passage further down. Was this a hide out if some sort? Flash again.

Meow!

And then…

"Hush, little one… I won't let them hurt you again…"

Nicola's heart hastened when a shaky voice reached her. There really was someone down here! However, she doesn't let her ecstasy control her. They don't necessarily have to be friendly. Everyone is permanently scared and paranoid since the apocalypse and if she jumped out from a dark sewer without a warning she's more likely to receive a bullet to the face than a warm welcome. A flash, very bright this time. Before, she didn't notice it but the light was actually… green? Soft, soothing shade of green. Who uses a green flashlight? Someone who didn't have any other. We're in an apocalypse, for God's sake. Shrugging, she sneaks up towards the turn and carefully peeks into the new corridor, unable to take the anticipation any longer. And she freezes.

There were many things Nicola expected to find. Even the sewer monster was higher on her list of possibilities. But not this. Before her, approximately fifteen feet or so, in a makeshift shelter made out of ratty curtains and wooden boxes sat a humanoid figure. They were wearing some sort of metal shoulder pads on their ragged, dark green clothing, worn and stained, once undoubtedly fine knee-high boots, and a tattered and dirty hood. The gilded edges of their pauldrons were smudged and tarnished, as were the clips of the belts on their hips and across their chest. A pair of disheveled, dusted grey, feathery wings was closed around them like two shields protecting their sides and keeping the warmth in the resulting heat cave. Through a gap between the feathers, she noticed strands of long, white hair in the similar state as the wings spilling from under the hood.

This was one of those… those angels who came as the apocalypse began. Only… This one didn't seem like the rest. They didn't look like one of the warriors. And were unarmed at that, she realises once she doesn't catch a sight of any sort of weapon nearby.

Meow!

Nicola heard it clearly now, and trying to track down the source of the sound, her eyes wandered to a hand of the angel, one which they held close to their chest. And there, on their large palm rested a tiny ball of fluff with its fur clogged with blood. The angel was hunched over a wounded kitten, and from time to time they brought up the other hand and gently ran their trembling fingers wrapped in stained bandages over the jagged claw mark along its spine. The green light flared up from angel's fingertips as gradually the wound was stitching itself. A sorcerer then. If meeting Shadowcasters was any indicator, then it would be better not to mess with this one.

Meow!

The kitten cried again and the angel, now she was pretty sure it was a male, spoke with a soft and calming, but shaking voice that reached to the depth of her soul.

"Fret not… it will be over. Soon enough."

In honesty, Nicola really had to stop herself from making a loud "awww" noise as she watched this angel treat a tiny injured kitten. How did he get here in the first place? Shouldn't he be with the rest of his buddies? She honestly never thought one of them would ever fall so low as to hide in a sewer of all places. Unless there was no other option. He must've gotten lost or something.. She thinks, almost snickering at how similar to hers this situation was.

To make no mistake, she didn't want to approach the angel, especially after what she'd seen during the apocalypse - most of them didn't give two shits about what happen to her race - and so Nicola decided, even if slightly disappointed that it wasn't another human survivor or someone looking for her like she previously assumed, to go away and leave him be with his kitten. The angels the apocalypse has shown to her were hardly the kind and thoroughly good creatures the image of she grew up with.. But then, nature decided to play a cruel prank on her and a horrifyingly loud sound of her stomach rumbling was carried over the immediate vicinity.

Nicola cursed inwardly at her stupid stomach - really, she would've eaten that sandwich but the smell of the server was very unappetizing - when the angel quickly looked up before gently placing the cat down on a piece of folded cloth and snapping his fingers to produce a small wisp of normal, white light. Now, his face wasn't obscured by the shadow of his hood. It was just like a face of a human, especially with all the grime smeared over it, just more… how to describe it? Features were more apparent, simultaneously sharp and smooth. Like those of a sculpture. Almost overly perfect. However, he looked ill, emaciated with his cheeks collapsed like this and sunken eyes, seemingly too large for his head. His eyes… brilliant white with faint silvery pupils, glowing like two wisps, opened wide in an absolutely blank, emotionless stare, not unlike that of a man in feverish delirium. How long had he been down here?

"Who.. who's there..?"

His lips barely moved as he spoke, his wide eyes darted around in panic as he searched for intruders. Not that she could blame him. Her stomach sounded like a starving demon and as far as she's concerned, his kind isn't really fond of those.. The angel looked a little like a terrified, wounded animal that had been cornered by predators with no apparent way out. It was… sad somehow. Since she'd already been heard, Nicola carefully stepped out of her hiding spot. The reaction she got however, was far different from what she's been expecting. The angel gasped, his wings shot up like two enormous flags as he lifted his hands. Green magic crackled along his slender fingers with most of the nails broken and bloodied as she froze where she stood.

"G- get away! Back off, foul creature!"

He stuttered but didn't attack just yet. Swallowing a lump of fear Nicola forced herself to very, very slowly and carefully take a few steps closer to enter the illuminated area around the scared angel to make him realise this is a misunderstanding and she means no harm. She even left her gun on the floor not to make him feel threatened and kept her hands up, palms forward where he could see them. He squinted but this hollow look in his eyes remained. Disturbing… Even more so when he started to mutter nervously to himself, rubbing his eyebrows with his thumb.

"No… not a demon, nor an angel, a human perhaps…? Yes, yes… has to be… But that's not possible.. They're… they're all gone. Dead, killed, stone dead… Who is this and what do you want? Your tricks won't work on me.."

"I- I'm not trying to trick you, I swear! I am a human. I'm Nicola.."

She assures the angel, hoping that giving him her name will make him feel a little less threatened. A quiet sigh of relief slipped past Nicola's lips when the magic in his hands faded as he curiously - a little like a small, inquisitive puppy - tilted his head to the left.

"Nic… ola…"

He breathed, mulling over her name, testing it on his tongue but his wings still remained aggressively flared above his head. The kitten meowed again, too weak to stand up from the bedding the angel made for it. He seemed to calm down a bit as he glanced down at it and with a flick of his finger made the animal lazily blink before it curled into a ball and immediately fell asleep. The wound on its back wasn't so large anymore and it wasn't bleeding so the black fluff with white feet and collar wasn't in any immediate danger. Angel's attention shifted back to her. But Nicola was the first one to speak.

"Who are you? How'd you get down here?

"Don't know… Human… a human. How did you get in my study? You really shouldn't be here. What is it you want from me? I'm working on improving my shards…"

"I-... Wait, your what ?"

Nicola's face scrunched up in confusion. Get in where? Working on improving his what??

"No, this isn't right… they need more energy…"

At this point she had absolutely no idea what the angel was rambling on about but she could clearly see he was completely out of his mind. Frankly speaking, she wasn't actually sure if he knows what he's babbling either.. There was only one thing that came to her mind when he spoke of shards and so she dug into her pocket, trying to find the one she'd been carrying with her just in case as he clutched at his head, tangling his fingers into his hair under his hood…

"It worked… I did it, I can… but it hurts… Creator, how it hurts… Cold.. so cold…"

His voice was starting to break as his unsteady breathing turned into something akin to sobbing but no tears were shed and he started to rock back and forth, still muttering something unintelligible. Something in Nicola's gut squirmed - or maybe it was the hunger again - as she looked at the scrawny angel mercifully. Whatever happened to him, it must've been horrible. It takes a very traumatic experience to bring a human to such a state but an angel is a different story. Seeing anyone like this saddened her. Finally, her fingers found what they were searching for and she extracted a small healing shard from her vest.

"You mean like…"

At the gentle, green glow the shard was emitting, the angel looked up astonished and let his mouth fall open. He stopped shaking and grasping his head.

"Yes… yes, my shard. I need… My blade. Where's my blade? Who…? My name? My name… I remember, I swear."

This talk of a blade was mildly unsettling to say the least but something in her chest twisted with pity and all fear left her. A little more bravely, Nicola approached the murmuring angel who attempted to scratch something out on the floor beside his knee but only successfully broke one of his nails again and hissed quietly. What happened to you, you poor thing? When she crouched next to him, he stared at her as though he'd seen a ghost when she realised he isn't looking into her eyes anymore. But at her forehead.

"You're… injured…"

He stated as matter of factly. Oh. Right. That was true. It barely hurt anymore though… and wasn't even bleeding. She's certainly had much worse. It will heal on its own in no time.

"Let me just-"

Suddenly he leaned forward to grab at her, making her heart leap up to her throat as she cried out in fear and jumped away from him. Instinctively, Nicola booked it for the tunnel she came from when she heard a heavy thud and a pained groan behind her.. It was her good hearted nature what ultimately made her stop in her tracks and look over her shoulder. To see the angel on the floor, weakly propping himself on his elbows and breathing heavily. He was very weakened. It's unclear how long he'd been down here but it certainly has taken its toll. Nicola looked out into the dark tunnel. Whatever awaited her in this darkness and out in the city surely isn't nicer than this poor sod behind her. She wasn't even sure if he actually meant to hurt her or not. It was a reflex. Then she turned to look back at the angel shivering on the wet floor.. Her throat tightened. God, she couldn't just leave it like this, could she?

"H- hey… are- are you okay?"

Nicola approaches the angel warily and squats before him as he lifts his head to look at her. And in his eyes she sees pain. Horrible, unimaginable pain, somewhere deep within, that made his crusted lips tremble. Such a sight would be enough to break even the coldest hearts. And definitely more than enough to break hers. He eyes her hands when she hesitantly takes him by the arm - careful when she notices a rag stained with fresh blood above his left elbow - and tries to pull him up to his feet or at least to a sitting position but he doesn't recoil. He simply kept staring at her hands in bewilderment. To her surprise, he was much lighter than he looked, probably because of how thin he was, and she managed to do what she intended but she could see that his legs won't uphold his weight as meager as it is. The angel glanced at the cut on her head and once again, albeit far more cautiously, reached out towards it.

"I can… I can heal it. Just hold still.. It will take a second.."

And in spite of herself, Nicola gives him a chance this time. He extended two fingers and as their tips started to glow with green, he gently tapped against her damaged skin. It felt… odd. It wasn't painful but still strange. The edges of the wound grew numb and prickly as the patch of comforting warmth fell over her forehead. And what was even odder, the angel smiled slightly, whispering

"There… It is done.. I.. remember. Was it…? It was, wasn't it… Raphael?"

"Wh- what? What are you talking about, who's Raphael?"

Nicola asks, probing the new, thin scar that was now formed in place of the cut. He really did heal her. Curious. And it did take a second.. For a moment, his face scrunched up in confusion but only for this second before he brightened and some of the strange mist fell from his white eyes as he brought both of his hands up and repeatedly poked his chest with all of his fingers.

"Me.. Raphael is… it's me! And you…"

He extended one finger and aimed it at her head.

"You are Nicola. "

"Y- yeah. Nice to meet you, I guess…"

She hesitantly replies as the circumstances of this meeting weren't exactly "nice". In a dark, damp sewer filled with stench and corpses with a possible monster lurking nearby? Far from nice if someone would ask her.

"What.. huh. What is this place?"

Raphael unexpectedly asked, looking around with his large, white eyes, blinking in confusion. Nicola pulls a face, unsure how to tackle the odd angel.

"You… don't know? You've been living here."

"Have I? Hmmm.. Strange…"

He murmured thoughtfully, scratching at his white goatee also painted with blood that surely spilled from the cut on his lower lip. Then his face shifted into concern as he tried to pull himself up with a strained grunt, clutching at an old, but not healed yet, gash over his ribs.

"I… I have to get back.. they need me in the White City…"

As she was expecting, he collapsed back onto the floor with a tired sigh not even a second later. Where and what was the "White City" he spoke of, she had no idea. What she did know however, was that in his condition Raphael isn't going anywhere. Even if he managed to get up, she could bet her right hand that he would make ten steps at most before collapsing again. Nicola winces and tilts her head to the side.

"Pal, I don't think you're in shape for walking or flying right now.."

"No, I suppose not… they cannot see me like this. I cannot return.."

At this point she wasn't surprised that Raphael kept muttering to himself about things her human brain couldn't hope to comprehend. Nicola got long used to this however. Ever since the armageddon there were very few things she could understand. It wasn't a normal day if something new and weird didn't happen to her or one of her remaining friends. Any hostility the angel showed before has faded now, his wings folded back around him as he leaned over the sleeping kitten to continue treating it. The gentleness he did it with, the uncertain smile on his face were making Nicola's heart melt. Raphael didn't seem like his friends indeed. He was different somehow. Kinder, softer. Less aggressive. More fitting the image of a stereotypical angel. But also definitely not quite… right. Up in the head.

Oh, well. Who is totally normal these days, honestly?

She wants to chuckle to herself when something gives her a pause. A horrifyingly familiar sound coming from the tunnel behind her. Panting, scraping and growling. Inevitably getting closer and closer. Her heart plummets to her heels. This sound… she would recognise it everywhere. The sound that haunted her dreams ever since the demon tore her twin brother, Nicholas, to shreds. This demon.. a Goreclaw, as Ulthane called it. Whipping around, she just managed to spot the quadrupedal monster - the size of your average Caucasian Shepherd (which was still awfully large for its kind), with long, lashing tail and sharp fangs constantly bared in a disturbing grin - appear in the entrance, cutting off the only escape route.

It must've heard Nicola's startled scream and followed it all the way here, hoping for an easy prey. Her breath caught in her throat as she stands paralyzed by the blood-hungry glare of multiple red eyes. This ugly mug, covered in blood of her sibling was still fresh in her mind, keeping her absolutely petrified. Unable to do anything, she kicks herself for leaving her shotgun behind. Now it was resting between the clawed paws of the demon who screeched in excitement as it prepared to pounce at her. Though honestly, with how rigid her body turned, she doubts she'd be able to aim, not to mention pulling the trigger.

This is it. She thinks, feeling blood leave her face. I'm gonna die. After all she's been through.. Killed by a single Goreclaw, ripped apart in a stinking sewer like an ungrateful little shite. Ulthane did so much to rescue her from the claws of that Fallen and now all his efforts are going to go to waste.. Crying out in dismay, she shields herself from the oncoming attack with her arms and shuts her eyes.

Something shifted behind her as the demon jumped at her and… nothing happened. Opening her eyes, horrified and shocked, Nicola almost gags when she sees the Goreclaw standing before her and just… gawking with its jaw slack as though it got hit on the head with something heavy. Faint golden light running around its body like tiny veins didn't escape her attention. That's when she noticed that the demon was trying to move, straining with its own stiff muscles and growling. But couldn't. It was completely paralyzed. A quiet, barely audible thrumming filled the air around Nicola and she began to feel something strange. Something she could only describe as magic. The arcane static began to nip and the bite at her skin like miniscule locusts when a green haze enveloped the Goreclaw before her. The same light fell onto her back, laying her quivering shadow out at her feet. A realisation hit her.

Raphael. He's still there.

After the apocalypse, Nicola had no delusions that angels, even the kindest ones, are ever defenseless. Before she could turn to face the angel, her would-be killer suddenly let out a soul-rending shriek that yet again almost made her drop dead or simply puke out of pure fear. Freed from the paralysis, it fell to the floor, writhing, clawing at its own chest and screeching the most ungodly noise Nicola had ever heard. What's happening?! Absolutely petrified, she watched as the demon's skin seemed to dry and wrinkle as its eyes were nearly popping out of its skull. Life - and color - was frighteningly quickly seeping out of the demon as it squirmed in agony, wailing, unable to fight the power that got a hold of it.

All this looked like taken straight out of a horror movie. And Nicola, on the contrary to Nicholas, was never a fan of those… It all took merely a few seconds of unimaginable torment before the unfortunate Goreclaw wheezed and eventually fell still with its jaws opened and tongue lolled out, wide eyes dull and unblinking, and didn't move ever again. Dead. The memory of all those corpses she has found passed through her head. The Goreclaw looked just like them… Afraid to move a muscle, she stared at the light that moved away from the dead demon, following its movement to the sight that made her back up aghast.

Raphael. The same seemingly gentle angel who healed a small, hurt animal - who healed her - was suspended in midair, tattered robes and disheveled hair billowing, with his wings flared and bristled. This soft smile was replaced by an absolute lack of any expression whatsoever as his wide eyes burned with the whitest white of unbridled anger she'd ever seen. Green streaks of magic - the same green she found so soothing before, now ominous and frightening - bathing the surroundings in brightness, were swirling around his arms, hands with fingers curled into vicious claws. For this moment he looked much stronger, a little younger… and far more dangerous than he seemed before.

"As long as I live.. I shall not stand suffering !"

Raphael bellowed at the corpse at her feet even though it was long dead and already turning cold, caring very little about how horrified she was. He didn't even seem to care how much suffering the demon had experienced before it blessedly lost its hold on life. Not that Nicola thought it didn't deserve that but still it was… pretty gruesome.. Raphael's wounded and weakened body absorbed the life-force drained from the demon and only then did he slowly descend onto the floor and landed on his feet, breathing out with relief. The magic gradually dissipated along with the sharp prickling sensation until only the tiny golden wisp hovering next to Raphael's head remained. His wings fell into their place against his back, this furious light faded out of his bright eyes before he turned to Nicola to shoot her a disarming, awkward smile as though nothing had happened at all. This tiny smile was hardly comforting.. Quite the opposite in fact. It chilled her to the bone like the coldest winter wind.

Oh fuck.

Swallowing thickly, Nicola looked up at Raphael, now standing on his own legs, clearly revitalized by the stolen energy, and felt a little fearful tear roll down her face. Then she shifted her gaze to the demon. Then back to Raphael, who seemed so small and weak before but stood at least two, maybe three feet taller than Nicola - her head reached the bottom of his sternum. I was wrong. She realises with a pang of panic, feeling a little sick in the stomach at the mere thought that this kind healer was as capable of killing her where she stood as any demon up above her head. All he had to do was flick his wrist and look at her and she wouldn't have been able to do a thing to defend herself. It suddenly made sense. There was no sewer monster down here. No beast that would threaten her. No foul creature that could suck the blood from her body and leave ber as a mummified corpse. All this death, all these bodies… The horrifying monster Nicola was expecting to find...

It was him.

--------------------------------------------------

So yeah. That was the chapter I. I'll try to make more but I don't promise anything XD

The moral of this story? Don't piss off/spook angel sorcerers. Especially the crazy ones.

Also, the art at the end was once again inspired by @coloredgravity 's rendition of Raphael (I drew this mostly out of memory 😂). In addition I gave him a symbol of virtue from Darkest Dungeon over his head. He's mad, true. But he still tries to hold it together :3

#darksiders #darksiders 2 #darksiders 3 #my fic #fan fiction #darksiders oc #nicola #darksiders raphael #raphael #my art #fan art #I suck at summarizing XD #Cost of Kindness #CoK

21 notes · View notes

salenakingston · 4 years ago

Text

Mystery March Day 6 - Games

(I’m not entirely happy with how the second quarter of this writing came out, mostly because I don’t know the first thing about Grim Fandago. I did a little research, but still not as confident about it. Hope it still turned out good regardless.)

Vivi and Lewis sat together on the couch of Vivi’s home, chilling music haunting the space around them. It sounded like a mixture of sirens and someone banging loudly on metal. In a way, it reminded them of some of the noises Arthur made when he busied himself with his work. Whether it be at Kingsmen Mechanics, or on his downtime, the clang of metal always seemed to be ringing.

Still, it was a nice combination, certainly befitting of the atmosphere. Well, at least in terms of the game being played. Her friends always seemed to be surprised by the kind of stuff she enjoyed. Who would think that the sweater and scarf wearing, blue haired girl with more general excitement for the world around here would be interested in horror and mysteries?

She certainly didn’t look it, but then again, looks could be deceiving.

Lewis was content relaxing at her side, watching her as she played. Truth be told, he couldn’t really follow a lot of what was happening. It wasn’t that the game was poorly designed, but rather that it seemed a lot of things were not told to whomever was playing on the surface level. Characters in this story spoke far more cryptically. They spoke like cult maniacs, and they would know. A couple too many close calls, crossing the wrong path.

It made him feel a little uneasy, at least until recognizing that at least in the current situation, it was only a game. They had done their best to steer clear of any other dangers. Arthur was probably the most thankful for that.

His arm reached over, pulling the bluenette closer to him, her offering a smile in turn. She took her eyes off the screen, long enough to turn her bright gaze up at him, “Enjoying yourself Lew?”

He smiled back down to her, “I’m always enjoying myself when I’m with you.”

“Didn’t take you for much of the ��sit down and watch their girlfriend play video games type.’”

“Well then you don’t know me all that well.” He planted a kiss along her forehead, letting her get back to playing. She seemed to be in some otherworldly hospital, nothing but the color of rust covering the screen. The path her character walked on was nothing but steel grating, feet ‘clanging’ with each step she made him take. The hospital itself seemed to be more like a maze than what a normal layout would be like. Some of the rooms he could pick out as ones he had seen her go into earlier in the game.

A sudden thought crossed his mind, “Why didn’t you invite Arthur over?”

“Oh, you know how he is with,” she set the control down, making air quotes with her fingers, “scary games.”

“But it’s not even that scary. I mean sure, some of the places look unsettling, but it’s not like the graphics are super detailed.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem like his type of thing. I’m sure he could find something to get scared at.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Vivi leaned over again, offering him a quick kiss on the cheek, “Besides, it gives me some time to spend with you.” Yes, and he was never going to turn down an opportunity like this. His smile grew, nearly ear to ear as he heard her shout, “Take this you nurses!”

----

Arthur and Lewis sat together at the desk in the latter man’s room. The Peppers seemed like the kind of people that didn’t have much in the form of technological entertainment, and Lewis seemed to follow suit, well mostly. Phones were kept to allow for easy communication. Since the three friends started their little “hunts,” the computer was a good source in terms of research. Each member had one of their own, though the various content on each one was vastly different.

The Pepper son carried an extra chair into his room, giving his friend a place to sit that wouldn’t create distance between them, nor would force him to stand. It seemed like a good idea at the time, to have the guys handle searching for stuff while Vivi checked through books. Guess that was a bonus to having a girl that worked around all kinds of books for a living.

There was only so much the two of them could take before they needed a break. Maybe it was just that the bluenette was able to help keep their focus, something they were lacking here. The blond’s came with sparks of inspiration, and the two friends figured a little down time would do them some good.

Sometimes it almost felt hard to come by with how ‘gung ho’ Vivi could be. Even so, they both still loved her.

Arthur had begun going over some sketches he had made when the voice acting kicked in. It was obvious to all of them Lewis loved cooking, so much so to helping his family any chance he got. And of course, something they bonded over was gaming. Each one of them had their own specific genre, and a game to pair with it.

Come to think of it, when was the last time he had poked around with games his taller friend liked? What did that say about him as a friend? Maybe…?

Arthur leaned over, eyes peering at the screen. Well, it certainly wasn’t anything he was expecting. Oh no wait, once it began to go more in depth with the world, he began to understand. He had no doubts the slight spanish inspired nature of the game attracted Lewis to it.

He kept himself quiet, content at his friend’s side as he watched. It was some kind of adventure based game, lots of collecting items and using them in other places to get more items. Not exactly his type of game, but he could see the appeal of a puzzle based game. Putting the three friends’ heads together, they could work out just about any one. Each of them brought a unique perspective, looking at a situation from all angles.

Even if he felt that his portion was nowhere near the level of his other two friends.

Lewis’ head turned, taking notice of the blond observing. He found his smile again, or rather the one that he gave to his friends. There was something softer to that smile, inviting the warmth shared between them, “You alright Artie?”

“Yeah. Just watching.”

“I thought you only liked action games.”

“I never said that.” Suuuuure. It wasn’t hard to tell the blond was backpedaling on the accusation.

“Do you uhh, mind if I keep watching?” As if he even needed to ask.

“Of course not.”

----

Arthur Wins!

Vivi tried not to toss her control to the side in annoyance. She probably should have seen this coming. What on earth was she thinking when she agreed to partake in his favorite game? There was a reason it was his favorite, and the one thing he could always count on to beat them at. A wide grin covered his face, falling back against the couch. The three of them decided to come over to his house for a change.

And when he proposed the challenge at some rounds of Smash Bros… it was almost like he was baiting her into playing with him. Who was she to turn down an offer when he was acting so smug about it.

Oh, she was going to wipe that grin right off his face.

She huffed, facing away from her gloating opponent. A playful nudge was what she received in return for this sulky gesture, “Aww come on, don’t be a sore loser Vivi.”

“You’ve won every round we’ve played.”

“I’ve warned you every time we do this.” He has, but it never seemed to make a difference. There had to be another angle she could tackle this problem from. It couldn’t have been the character she was using, as he would either have a good counter for whomever she picked, or she was just confident she might be able to throw him for a loop with someone new. Spoiler alert, it didn’t work.

It couldn’t have been the stage. The three of them played enough times to have them memorized, and Arthur probably knew just as much, if not more. So what could she do?

Oh wait. She knew.

The bluenette raised her arm along the back of the couch, “Lewis, can you come here?”

“What are you doing?”

The Pepper man stepped through the doorway, “Yes Vivi?”

She was quick to pass him a controller, “I need your help.”

“W-Wait!”

“Alright.”

One round later… Vivi wins!

Now it was the blond’s turn to sulk. Of course, when she couldn’t win alone, she had to recruit someone else to help her. A huff escaped from his lips, turning a bit away from her now. Salty. That was how someone might describe him right? Vivi leaned over, a smug look on her face as she gave him a little nudge, “Don’t be such a sore loser Artie.”

“You only won because Lewis helped you, and then he let you win.”

The man in question gave a shrug of his shoulders, “I don’t know what you’re talking about Artie.”

“You know what, one more game. I’m going to beat both of you this time.”

His two friends just gave an endearing laugh.

----

It was late at night, the only light coming through the home was the dim of the television screen. The Yukino household was near silence, Vivi already having gone to bed, as well as the rest of her relations… so then who could still be up at this hour?

A human with spiky red and black hair relaxed along the couch, controller in hand. The screen displayed a white wolf, a disc with flames hovering just above its back. The wolf’s body was covered in black markings, the graphics making it look like the markings themselves were alive. The landscapes of the game were in a similar style, flowers growing behind the wolf as it ran.

A smile formed on the human’s face.

He set the controller to the side, letting the game’s music quietly echo in the room. The volume was turned down low enough that it would not wake anyone else in the household. It gave him a sense of longing… or perhaps better a sense of nostalgia. It reminded him of home, the soft tunes taking his mind back to a time long in the past. Everything was so different now.

A soft clearing of someone’s voice made him turn his head.

Vivi’s grandmother staring at him.

His smile faltered, especially when she began to step closer to him. She had always been wary of him, from the moment Vivi brought him home, and that feeling only grew when she declared she was keeping him. It was no surprise she had little to say about his sudden change in appearance. So then what was he bracing himself for? A scolding? Her trying to throw him out? Threats?

She might be old, but she still had a lot of fire left in her.

Instead, she found herself settling down on the couch, right next to him. That was unexpected.

The music continued to play as the two sat in silence. What was he supposed to say to her? Any thought he had became blank, red eyes drifting over to her form every now and then. After a while, he head raised up, “音楽はいいです.”

Mystery blinked, head turning back to the game. Did she miss their hold home as much as he did? His hands found the controller again, finding more investment, if only to give both of them a sense of home, “はい。はい、そうです.”

----

(Translations in order: The music is nice / Yes. Yes it is.)

#MysteryMarch2021 #mystery skulls animated #my writing #my submission

9 notes · View notes