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millipede-menace · 1 year

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The bands back together! And they’re old lol

Art Notes/Rants below ⬇️

⚠️Warning⚠️

it is very long, I got a lot to say apparently lol

❗️They’re all aged up btw! In case you’re all wondering why i’m even redesigning them lol

🐱Chizu Mini Rant: I hate Chizu’s design in the show. Not the clothing more so the body model. I hate that they made her the stereotypical curvy cat girl with a tiny hourglass waist and tiny hands and feet. Really weird proportions, Like we’re going back to the betty boop era but no one else in the show looks like this? (Also, No hate to people who are curvy btw love you) It just doesn’t feel like it belongs in the show. Maybe if she were shorter, it would work better? Idk Also she’s like the only one in a full skin tight suit (like I get animation, but they didn’t even bother giving her implied loose clothes or armor like the other ninjas? Maybe bc she was undercover? but then she should’ve been wearing something closer to the bg character models) It’s like they’re trying to make her sexy but like why?????? for why????

I really liked the concept art of Chizu. She’s got a more sharp/rigid and square silhouette but still some curves (w/o it being weird). She still has tiny hands but her head isn’t the size of a watermelon and her face isn’t super tiny, the proportions are good. She’s all power stanced up lol She looks mean and menacing, someone not to trust or mess with. It’s literally spot on. ✨chef kiss ✨ It’s also probably why they didn’t really go with it, they probably rounded her out to be more appealing for the reveal? or she was hard to animate cause she did have baggier pants idk. Who am I, but a rando with a hard boiled egg for brains.

Art Notes: I took a lot of inspiration from the comics and I did want to keep her iconic red so she was still recognizable & stand out from the neko ninja. I made her a regular black cat! (with the idea of black cats being less likely to be adopted & be strays) (;-;) (I know she was kidnapped but still!! The stray cat vibes!!!) I gave her a more lean and tall figure, kinda like the comics but also to play off of Kistune’s height and it give scrawny stray cat vibes . . . again lol. It’s also a body shape I don’t see a lot in physically strong female characters (or maybe I do and just don’t remember? Idk but she can definitely kick your ass & she’s not here for anybody’s bullshit lol) I gave her the iconic ponytail from the comics along with the comb Kitsune usually wears. I wanted to give her green eyes (bc black cat & red and green) but i just kept them yellow. Maybe i’ll go back and change them. Her outfit is mostly inspired from Karai (bc she’s a ninja from eons ago & the gang is a little more traditional) just (pretend cuz i’m lazy) with traditional Japanese patterns. Chizu definitely got kunais and stars up her sleeves, but bc she doesn’t have to be a ninja anymore, I imagine her more into wearing pretty dresses with patterns and cute things. Stuff she never got to wear/ enjoy as a kid, you know. The show really wants to push her to be a bad ass girl boss who hates everyone and everything and is too cool and edgy for games but idk. I like to think she left the ninja stuff behind her and started living her own life based on exploring things rather than just being the cool ninja with an edgy backstory. I think she uses ninjitsu as a means of self defense but doesn’t like being connected to it b/c of the kidnapping and stuff. (We also see how she doesn’t really care about the tradition of ninjitsu cause during the show, she has no fucking clue what to do with the neko ninja, she just wanted them to stop hurting people and wanted to free the babies lol) Usagi and Kitsune are the ones who indulge her childish side. She wears a lot of red but her favorite color is pink. Kitsune def hypes her up and goes feral when she wears pink.

🦊 Kitsune Mini Rant: I hate Kitsune’s clothes in the show. Idk it just doesn’t look right on her. It’s got no shape it’s got no hiding spots for stolen goods. It’s not Kitsune. I like the concept art fit, it’s really cute. (She looks like a mini tank who will fuck you up in a cute way) but still #1 thing missing. Hiding spots for stolen goods!!! She needs some loose sleeves or flowy clothing like in the comics. (btw: I know it would be harder to animate in the show therefore I accept what they gave her but still!!!)

Art Notes: I’m not too sure about Kitsune’s fit tbh. I’m still workshopping it. She just needs something with loose sleeves! (Like she for sure is stealing shit and putting it up her sleeves, you can’t tell me i’m wrong/ it’s also where she could keep her fans!) I think i’m obsessed with her sleeves cause I imagine her gambling or playing a game of cards with a bunch of dangerous criminals and someone accuses her of cheating and she goes “What?! Me?! No, no. I’m just that good or maybe . . . you’re just that bad-” Then all the stolen cards fall out her sleeves and she just goes -fuck. and it turns into this picture vvv

ANYWAYS!!!! I gave her short hair bc idk, a girls gotta change it up sometime 💅 I actually liked her hair mimicking a fox tail but I feel like she would get bored of it and chop it all off one day. She's definitely the one who cuts and dye’s her hair at 1am then cries about it the next day. She’s got visibly longer ears and sharper face. Kitsune and Usagi wanted to get piercings together cause they’re besties and want to be edgy (she lowkey got it on her left ear to match Chizu) and so they did and Usagi’s Auntie was so PISSED lol. They got chewed out. Her hands and feet should be a little darker but i forgor. Also she’s got dark teal wrappings so it would be hard to tell anyways. I gave her the crop top with buttons from the concept art and the sleeves from the comic. They have the same maple leaf print from her comic too (i’m just lazy) and the cuffs are just lined to mimic the layers she had. She’s got her little pack, she’s also got some more smaller ones on the back (kinda like Leo). She also made a comment about not having money to buy herself shoes so . . . she’s got no shoes lol. It just wrappings under her shin guards. (no shoes just like Leo smh) It helps her be more sneaky tho >:)

Oh and they’re dating but i feel like that’s a given lol. I saw people shipping them at first and it literally went -> *sees ship* Oh they’re shipping the only two main female characters together again- yeah that’s greeeat- *Watches the show* oh. nvm I retract my sarcasm, they’re def gay for each other, thats nice. This is nice -w-

which is pretty funny, cause I think they don't like each other in the comics? (from what I saw in the singles panels I used as a reference at least) Chizu’s legit ready to kill Kitsune lol

Post Note: I totally forgot Chizu chose a bow and arrow as a weapon so now she’s just the stereotypical tall archer . . . i’m gonna go now ;-;

Gen Mini Rant: Holy Moly dudes, he was sooooo hard to draw ;-; I don't hate his design at all, actually it's one I like the most. I just don't like that there's not a lot of contrast on the 3D model and he kind just blends into a purple blob. (for me at least) I defiantly didn't do him justice but that's the best it's gonna get (from me that is.)

Art Notes: Don't look the feet . . . for any of them but mostly Gen lol. I don't really like the purple I chose but every color combo I did just looked bad idk. I can't do color, don't look at me man. Me and purple do not mix. He's still a bounty hunter so I wanted to keep his armor but I wanted him to have a long tail-coat/cape-ish jacket cause he would look cool as hell with one of those >:) (prob not practical but still) I wanted to add elbow and knee pads, but he's a rhino, he can take it. Also how can bad guys hurt him if he's too busy beating them up with his brass knuckles? He's still got his clubs but he likes clanging his fists together. lol His horn grew back! He's also got a goatee and everyone makes fun of him. The gang always threatens to shave it off in his sleep. I took more inspo from the show than the comic cause I don't really know Gen in the comics and what I did find was just miyamoto usagi but purple ;-; (clothes wise)

I wasn’t kidding, I had a lot to say, any survivors?

Feel free to suggest or critic my designs!! :0 Im not a design person and its mostly just for fun, but i looooove hearing people’s takes, especially hot takes >:) i like poking brains, its fun ^^

#samurai rabbit #usagi chronicles #samurai rabbit: the usagi chronicles #i am cringe but i am free #my art #no flirting with the lifeguard #lifeguard au #chizu #kitsune #murakami gennosuke #gen #rottmnt #at least I tried idk #rottmnt redesign #sketch

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magnifiico · 10 months

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H-hi your majesty. Uh, I have a question. What are your magic abilities besides wish granting? Can you shape shift into things? Specifically small animals such as mice or kittens? Cuz let's say future issues contain of somebody stealing your wishes and bringing it to their house. It wouldn't be a good idea to just barge into their house as yourself and threaten them to give them back cuz then you'll be forced to fight them and if you're not able to fight them then that would cause other issues like them sucking you into a magic artifact. Don't question how I came up with this scenario. Anyways, I think it would be a good idea if you shapeshifted as something that people mostly trust like a kitten since kittens are usually harmless. If you go into the thief's house as a stray kitten, the residents will most likely let their guard down and they would leave you on your own for a while. That will give you time to get your wishes back and go back to your castle without the residents of the house knowing. It's just a suggestion but it might not work cuz I don't know your magic capabilities or limits. I don't know if shapeshifting for too long can drain your energy or anything. The house in this scenario is relatively far from your castle so if you can't keep yourself as a cat for long then that might cause problems but if that's not the case then that's good. Also if you don't know how to shapeshift, please learn or try to. I just saved you from the future, your welcome. Bye your majesty.

*jumps out of the broken window that I came in the castle out of*

cut to me sweeping up the shards of broken window in the bg u-u

“Why, this is all… very specific.” Or, rather, concerning might be the better word, but King Magnifico masks any such apprehensions behind a calm smile. “I do think I ought to ask precisely where this exact scenario came from; that’d be an interesting conversation for later.” He knows where all his loyal subjects live, after all—should he have a sudden inclination to grace a curious citizen with a visit. (An intimate and proper discussion, naturally.)

The consideration is neatly filed away.

“For the sake of humoring innocent curiosities, I’ll raise you this: would it not defeat the very purpose of shapeshifting—in this case, at least—if I told you it’s a talent of mine?” His hands tuck behind his back. Expectantly—practically challenging—he arches a brow, and a momentary pause dares his subject to utter another word. Truly, Magnifico welcomes it.

But eventually, a shrug rolls through his shoulders. “I’d not spare these worries another thought. The wishes are safe,” he says simply, and despite the pleasant curve on his lips, something less cordial flashes through his eyes. “I guarantee any threats will be dealt with in whatever means are most effective at the time.”

#˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 《 answered 》#all i'm saying is sleep with one eye open bc magnifico saw you vent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sus amplifies #but in less-cringey lingo it IS actually a curiosity i've had myself :0c #since magic in this universe isn't really ELABORATED #not that it ever really is bc of time constraints in these movies but still #makes it seem like he could practically do ANYTHING just as long as he practiced and put the effort into learning #i do appreciate the ruminations here bc it has been equally interesting to me #what CAN you do magnifico ? or perhaps the better question is what CAN'T you do ;))))#thanks for this long and involved ask! x'D

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cal-kestis · 3 years

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hi!! i am absolutely obsessed with your mulan edit (and the rest of them like. holy shit they're all fucking incredible. but that one in particular) and i was wondering if you'd mind sharing how you made the fifth gif? if you're not feeling it or don't do that sort of thing, no worries, it's just so unique and i think i can parse it but i really would love to hear about your process! regardless, thank you for sharing it and i hope you have a lovely day/night!

Hi there!! Thank you!!! 🥺 I'm always happy to talk about gif-making! 💙 (I also just made a new tag for tumblr/photoshop help and some of my other mini tutorials)

I used a few techniques in this gif. So, I'll quickly talk about the typography + shapes and multiple blended gifs. But I'll go more in-depth on the delayed fade-in transition since, I think, that's the most unique aspect of this gif (I haven't seen anyone do it before, but I'm sure I didn't break ground here either lol). I didn’t expect to get so detailed but hopefully that’s a good thing. 😅 More under the cut!

If you’re not here for the typography and if you already know how to blend, skip to the end for the delayed fade-in transition effect. But since I’m not sure what you already know (and because I hope this can be helpful for others too), I’ll try to explain in as much detail as I can.

PART 1: TYPOGRAPHY + SHAPES

Here are all the specs for the typography and shapes!

The pen tool is my best friend for interesting typography. Just click to create a point and continue clicking to connect the dots with straight lines! To create a curve, you just long-press and drag your cursor until you get the curve you want. You can also use this tool to create paths, like wavy lines, and write text on them (I did this in the second gif of the same set).

PART 2: MULTIPLE BLENDED GIFS

There are lots of tutorials about how to blend gifs so I’m mostly just going to talk about the details for my gifs.

For context: I use the Timeline method — so I make my screencaps, load into stack, convert frames into smart object, sharpen, etc. [For any blending beginners: When you use Timeline to blend, it’s important to have the same amount of caps for each scene, otherwise, your gif will create duplicate frames for one scene while the other scene continues to move. This makes the animation look choppy/not smooth.]

Start with your base gifs as sharpened smart objects, then put them all into one canvas. If you don’t have a clear idea for your composition, my advice would be to make sure you have “Delete Cropped Pixels” unchecked when you use the crop tool. This will preserve the cropped out parts of your gif, so you can still use them if you decide to move things around. Do this all with the upper gif layers set to Screen, so you can see how the gifs will intersect and blend. Now, let’s talk about the coloring and blending modes I used.

THE BG: Let’s start with the background gif. I’m going to call it the BG (the one with Mulan grabbing Mushu from the sword and running away). I colored the BG as I normally would on its own. Since this was a rainbow set, I also made the blue pretty saturated. Whenever I blend, I always put all the layers per scene into groups. So I put the adjustment layers and the gif into a grouped folder. Keep this group below everything else and leave the group’s blending mode set to Pass Through.

THE FIREWORKS OVERLAY: This is the wide shot gif at the bottom. I colored this so the lighter portions (the reds and yellows of the explosion) were as vibrant as possible and the darker portion (the sky) was as black as possible. When you set the blending mode to Screen for blending, it’s important to have this contrast to make the blending as seamless as possible. The light portions are most visible when it’s overlaid above the BG. And because I made the sky super black, I didn’t have to erase the edges with a layer mask to blend it into the BG.

THE BW OVERLAY: Next is the black and white overlay gif (the one that fades in but I’ll go over that later). Color this however you like to do black and white coloring. I like gradient maps and levels. But remember, like before, creating contrast is crucial. Set this group to Screen as well and you can always go back to your adjustment layers and tinker with them until you like how the gifs blend! Here’s what it looks like broken down with the frames on their own and then blended on top of each other:

PART 3: DELAYED FADE-IN TRANSITION

So, this idea came about because I didn’t like how all the light areas of the smoke blocked Mulan’s face in the BG as she was running off screen. So, I thought, if the overlay explosion happened later, just as Mulan’s face goes off screen, it wouldn’t overlap!

Now, before I get into how I did it... remember how I said you need to have the exact same amount of caps per scene when blending, otherwise things get choppy? Well, that all kind of goes out the window here for two reasons:

Problem 1: We’re moving one smart object gif. Once you move a smart object gif layer away from the beginning of the timeline, the frame synchronization can go wonky if you’re not paying attention.

Problem 2: We’re using Timeline’s fade tool. It’s such a handy tool, but when you convert back to Frame Animation (which you absolutely MUST do if you do the bulk of your work in Timeline), you’ll see it: revenge of the duplicate layers.

I’ll go over how to mitigate these issues as I continue explaining. I’m going to reference the different colored lines and boxes in the screenshot below as we walk through the steps I took.

1. First, I moved my BW Overlay gif so it started a little later than the other gifs. You can see I moved it almost to the halfway point of the BG, where I placed the playhead (the vertical red line).

2. Problem 1 — If you were to export your gif right now and if you were lucky enough to move your gif to the perfect spot on the first try, your gif would look smooth. But if you didn’t move it to the perfect spot, you’d notice some choppy animation. Timeline does a weird thing with frame delays. You see this when you convert back to frames: some frames are at 0.07 sec and others are at 0 sec or something (that’s why we always have to reset the frame delay before exporting). I don’t know how to explain why this happens, I just know it does. But because of this, making gifs start at different points in Timeline creates gaps. The way I fixed this was by zooming in on the Timeline as much as possible. Then I kept clicking the next frame button while moving my BW Overlay over one frame at a time until all the gifs were all moving at the same time and stopped at the same time. It’s really just trial and error, and you keep nudging things til it’s in sync and the animation looks smooth.

3. Now, if I had only done these two steps, my BG and Firework Overlay would have just stopped and you would have seen the BW Overlay blended over nothing. See the vertical pink line? That’s where the gifs all stopped before I did Step 1. They wouldn’t be moving behind my BW Overlay. They wouldn’t even be visible. That’s where the green boxes come in. I labeled those green boxes “Freeze Frames” because they’re the very last frame of each gif, frozen. So, it’s as if the original gifs simply stopped on the last frame for an extended amount of time. You can have your BG continue to loop instead, but to minimize the distraction as my BW Overlay faded in, I decided to make them still frames. (You can make a freeze frame by duplicating your layer, moving the playhead/red line to the last frame of the scene, right-clicking, the layer and selecting “Rasterize Layer.” Move the freeze frame so it’s after your gif.)

4. Problem 2 — The easy part here is adding the Fade transition. The annoying part is the magically appearing duplicate layers. To do this simple Fade transition, just click that square in Timeline with the diagonal split. Then, I dragged the Fade effect (yellow box) over the beginning of my BW Overlay (other yellow box). The Fade effect is indicated by the right-angle triangle. All looks fine and dandy until you finish the rest of your gif, convert back to frames, adjust your frame delay, and see choppiness due to some duplicates. Luckily, the duplicates only pop up where the fade transition is. Again, idk how to explain why this happens, it just does. And to fix it, I simply go to the spot where the fade starts and delete all the duplicate frames until I get to the end of the fade. Once the duplicates are gone, it’s all good and the animation should be a lot smoother!

And ta-da! That’s pretty much how I made this gif:

I’m sorry this was so long a;slkdfjs 😅 Please feel free to ask any specific questions if I made something unclear!! I hope this helps!

#cosmiccas #ask #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #completeresources #allresources #resourcemarket #onlyresources #resource #photoshop help #tutorial #nik.help #resource*#gfx*

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meruz · 3 years

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once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous)

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL.

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close.

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

#ask #trying this new thing where i tag people in the body of the post instead

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25th · 4 years

Text

tutorial: animating eyes in after effects

requested by anon, based on this graphic

under the cut because it’s quite long :’)

open a new composition on after effects. you can set the dimensions to anything, but i’m using 540 x 300px for this tutorial. the duration i set to 5 seconds, but we’ll probably have to cut it down after we finish animating it.

1. select the pen tool (G) and draw the basic eye shape. this is going to be the whites of the eye, so set the fill to white.

you can set the stroke to any color if you want a border around your eye, too.

to help with drawing the eye shape, i recommend turning on the proportion grid.

to draw the eye, i

(1) start with the left corner and set an anchor point (click), (2) go to the top-middle, click and hold shift while dragging the handle to the right to fill 2 boxes, (3) go to the right corner and click, (4) go to the bottom-middle and hold shift while dragging the handle to the left to fill 2 boxes.

hopefully that wasn’t too confusing??

this is the basic shape, so you can adjust it however you want depending on what you think looks best! i’ll be keeping it this way here.

2. draw the pupil of the eye, all you need is the ellipse tool. at the toolbar on the top, you can either click and hold the rectangle tool to get to the ellipse, or you can press Q three times.

be sure to press shift while you draw the shape so that it’s a perfect circle!

you can set the fill to anything, i’m making it black in this tutorial.

center the the pupil to the white of the eye by selecting both of them, going to the align panel to the right, and selecting these two buttons:

i turned off the proportional grid here, too, bc you don’t really need it anymore.

3. animating: moving the pupil

here, you can make the eye do whatever you want but i’ll just be going over the basic animation!

- select the pupil layer and press P to bring up position.

- click on the stopwatch to bring up a keyframe.

this is the starting position of your pupil. you can place the pupil anywhere, but i’m placing it at the center.

- move a couple of frames forward (here i moved 5 frames forward) with the current time indicator and copy and paste the first key frame. this is so that the eye will stay at the center for a few before moving on.

- move a couple of frames forward and move the pupil anywhere. i’m making it go to the right.

i want the eye movement to be a bit jerky, so i’ll be copy and pasting this keyframe a couple of frames forward before moving the pupil to another place (here, i’m going to the left).

- repeat the last 2 steps until you’re satisfied. i’m only moving the eye three times here (center --> right --> left).

i also cut the composition time here to 1 second long. move the time indicator to 1 second and hit N to cut your work area down.

so far, your animation might look a bit like this:

which is honestly a bit boring.

so, i changed the path of the pupil a bit. right now, the path is all straight lines. instead, i’m going to be curving the paths.

- select the anchor point to get to the handles and drag the handles to create curves. play around with them until you’re satisfied!

now, your animation might look like this:

getting better! last thing i did was add easy ease to the keyframes. it just makes it flow a bit better.

select all your keyframes and either hit F9, or right click > keyframe assistant > easy ease. it’ll turn your keyframes from diamonds to hourglass shapes.

now it looks like this:

and that’s the basic animation!

one more thing: it’s not noticeable on the gif above bc the bg is the same color as the pupil, but the pupil is actually spilling over the eye right now. (i actually made this mistake on my gfx, too, haha!)

changing the bg color to gray so that you can see:

all you have to do is set a track matte.

- duplicate the white and move it on top of the pupil. (cmd/ctrl + D)

- set the track matte of the pupil to alpha matte. you might have to toggle switches/mode at the bottom.

and it should be fixed now!

4. animating: opening/closing the eye

- select all of your layers and pre compose them. (right click > pre compose). your eye should be all in one layer now.

closing the eye:

- select the pen tool and your precomposed layer. draw a rough eye shape around the eye. no need to be exact.

- move to just a few frames before the end of the composition. press alt/option + M to create a keyframe for mask path. move to the end of your comp and drag the first top point of your mask downwards to close the eye.

(i changed the bg color back to black so you can see better :’))

i also added easy ease to the keyframes afterwards.

opening the eye:

- just copy and paste the last two keyframes and put them in the beginning, but be sure to reverse the order. that’s it!

if you’ve been following this tutorial pretty closely, there’ll be timing issues in your animation. here’s how it looks for me right now:

imo, it’s too fast right now.

5. fixing the timing

- first, i extended the time for the work area to 1 second and 15 frames instead of just 1 second.

- double click the precomp layer to bring up all the separate layers from step 1-3.

- because the eye opens after 5 frames, i’m shifting all of the pupil keyframes to the 5th frame of the comp.

- go back to the main composition where the only layer is your precomp. i’m going to be bringing the last two keyframes (the ones where the eye is closing) a bit before the end. (here i chose 5 frames before the end)

- i still felt like the eye opens and closes too fast, so i extended the work area time to 1 second and 25 seconds.

and finished!! here’s the final product:

if u have any clarifying questions, pls feel free to shoot me an ask! i’ll be happy to help :-)

#after effects #tutorial #after effects tutorial #photoshop #photoshop tutorial #mine #mine:tutorial #i hope this makes sense !!#i'm pretty sure you can do this in photoshop as well #tho i'm not sure how it would look bc i never tried it before #pls excuse the awful header at the top :')

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parkersloths · 3 years

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Hi ^^

First of all – your Art is INCREDIBLE!!!

I especially love your use of colors and textures :) Everything is so bright and colorful, but still cohesive. And your images are so clear without being overly detailed! It’s all literally perfection!!!

I like to draw digitally as well and your art-style is a huge inspiration for me. So I wanted to ask if you have any work in progress videos or pictures? Or if you could explain your process in general? Like, are you using a sketch layer underneath, with how many layers are you normally working, what kind of brushes do you use or any tips overall to improve digital painting?

Of course you don’t have to answer this (kinda a lot of questions, sorry 😅 ). Just know that I adore your art and that you’re helping me on my own art-journey just by sharing your work with the world – so, thank you!!! <3

Hey!! So first of all thank you so much for everthing you said about my art, I really appreciate it! But also omg thank youuu for this amazing ask like this is for real the kind of ask I've always wanted to get, where a total stranger is interested in my process XD So yeah don't worry about asking a lot of questions, they were great and I loved them!

Also I'm super flattered that my art has inspired you in your own digital art journey and I hope the stuff I say here can also help somewhat! This will get pretty long so sorry in advance everyone for making you scroll so much cause for some reason the read more option doesn't work on mobile :/

But anyway to answer your questions!

Sadly I don't have videos but I do have some pics I'll share. This is actually my second attempt at answering this because before I was going to use some WIP pics of the Majid drawing as example but then I didn't want to because it was in black and white and color is kind of one of the main things I like to emphasize in my art so I wanted to talk about it in the example XD Then I started a couple new drawings and was taking pics of those but I got super artblocked, but luckily I just finished one out of the blue that I can use. Okay so... I started answering this, again, and it was getting way too long and rambly so I'm gonna try to keep it simple this time and maybe I can elaborate more another time if you're still interested/ if anyone else wants know X'D

My process in general: I always start by making a simple basic background to work on, just fill it in and add some blotches of color. Then on a new layer I just start painting the subject, no sketch, so again just laying down some colors (I usually take whatever color in the bg is closest to skin tone and adjust the new color from there) and I just start blocking some shapes in aproximately the right places to start defining where things will be and how they fit together and just go from there. It's hard to explain it more cause that's kinda it, I just paint until things look like they're supposed to or at least visually appealing enough XD I add or adjust whatever colors seem necessary along the way (in this particular drawing I left the darker values until way too late which I don't recommend) and just refine and refine and refine things and add as many or as few details as I feel like, working on everything simmultaneously bit by bit.

Layers: like I mentioned before there's no sketch, and I try to use as few layers as possible so usually I'll have about 3-5. One for the basic background, one to three (though sometimes I merge them) additional layers for more background effects/colors/value fixes that I usually add later in the process, and I try to have just one for the subject. Sometimes I have one or two more if I'm feeling too hesitant but I always merge them in the end.

Brushes: I only use one brush at 50% opacity the whole time for everything. It's a squarish/rectangular brush that has some sort of jagged edges and a bit of a watercolory texture.

Tips: so this part is especially hard cause like.. I feel like any tips I could give are only applicable to drawing portraits and even then it'd be for doing it in the particular way that I prefer.. Like for example I could say it's best to work on every area at the same time and never spend too long one thing before moving on to the next but.. some people actually prefer finishing the eyes completely before moving on to the nose for example you know? So honestly the main thing I'll say is kinda to just experiment with a lot of methods and styles and see what works or doesn't work for you. Something that I think always helped me a lot was watching speedpaints of people who were more skilled than me and had a distinct style, just literally watch how they did their thing and every once in a while I might notice something I'd be interested in trying for myself and yeah with practice and experience you just kinda figure out what kind of things you not only like seeing but actually want in your own art. Like years ago I used to sketch but then I saw enough videos of people painting without sketching that I wanted to try it and I realized it's just more fun and makes more sense to me that way. So yeah try lots of different things and see what works for you and what you want to incorporate into your own art style!

Some more standard digital art tips I could give I guess are like.. the thing I said about not spending too much time on just one area (if it applies to your prefered process XD). Flip the drawing every now and then to catch stuff that's off. Stay zoomed out as much as possible and when you do zoom in for details always keep an eye on how the bigger picture's looking. Take your time finding or arranging a good reference pic that really inspires you cause it'll save you time and frustration later. And aaa idk I could say more but I don't think it's that informative or helpful, and all of this is probably really basic obvious stuff anyway and this is long enough as it is so yeah I'll leave it there...

I hope any of this can help in some way or that I've at least answered your questions in a satisfying enough way haha And finally here are some of the WIP pics I took. Where you can see some parts of the process. I did a lot more after that last pic but yeah at that point it's just about fixing little things, refining and adding details, but there you can see the color adjustment thing I usually do as the very last step (though not for this pic). I don't always have to do it, and there are probably times when I shouldn't, but I almost always like to do it anyway and that's why my colors look so exaggerated and bright XD I usually make the midtones more red and/or magenta, the shadows more blue, and the highlights more yellow (and sometimes a bit cyan) but if you wanna try something like that it's definitely fun to experiment with the different color possibilities ;u;

And yeah that's it for now! I'm sorry this is so long, and this was the short version lol I hope you like the answers at least a fraction of how much I loved the questions X'D

#asks #asks and stuff #sorry for the late reply #ugh this is so long sorry #but seriously I love questions #feel free to ask me stuff lol #I apparently also love to talk X'D

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blancamz · 4 years

Text

“It’s Over Isn’t It” Reanimation progress

Honestly one of my favourite parts about animating is posting the WIPs online. Here’s the step-by-step of how I went about doing my reanimation for the end section of “It’s Over Isn’t It” from the Steven Universe episode Mr. Greg.

1) Idea and Prep

I was flicking through Steven Universe: Art & Origins. I think at the time I must’ve been between jobs or bored or something, because it came into my head to do a bit of animation based on the pilot style SU. I’ve always been quite fond of the pilot style, especially Pearl’s David Bowie / LaRoux look. The little tux design by Hellen Jo was quite snazzy as well, so I decided to have a go at doing a segment of “It’s Over Isn’t It”, using these designs.

I traced the turnaround from the book in Clip Studio Paint and approximated Jo’s design to it. At first I had the colour turnaround, but did the low-colour turnaround with the heads to give me a better idea of where the lines are and proportions of the body. I also get a clip of “It’s Over Isn’t It” and trim it down to the section I want to do.

This is a long one so strap in.

2) Sketch Pass

I’ll be using gifs that show the first 100-130 frames of the animation, because the full segment is 22 seconds long.

Very very loose animation of what I’m going to be doing with this segment, done in Adobe Animate. I have a video of the real segment in the corner of the stage and audio in the timeline, and closely reference them for layout and acting.

I’ve decided I want to go really nuts with the animation. Lots of angles on her face, smooth movement, secondary animation / follow-through on her various clothing elements. Technically her earring’s supposed to be on the other side but I want to animate that flailing around dangit, so I change it so it faces the camera.

3) Rough Pass

I tidy up the rough I did somewhat. It’s still very rough, but Pearl is better proportioned and the motion is more complete. I get a better idea of how she moves by focusing on drawing keys (the most important drawings) and breakdowns (drawings that help you figure out the motion a little bit, without full animation). I have Pearl, her suit, ruffles and earring on separate layers so I can turn things on and off or lower their opacity as needed.

4) Tiedowns

At some point between the rough and tie-down phase I realized that I’d been animating at 30fps instead of 25fps like I’d meant to, so I had to end up shifting all the roughs I’d been doing. Bad news: having to wrestle with getting the timings I’d so carefully planned out in the rough to still look good. Good news: I have to animate and clean up 5 fewer frames per second, so that’s 110 fewer drawings to worry about. Yussssss. For reference, the above clip has now gone from 132 frames to 107.

During the tiedown phase, I go over the roughs and more carefully try to match the proportions in the turnaround. I keep a flattened version of the first frame of animation to use as reference thoughout to prevent morphing. Sometimes when you’re animating, things will get bigger or small as you re-draw them, so it’s good to have a base drawing to refer back to and make the sizes stay consistent.

At this point I’m way more aware of reasons behind the big design change for Pearl between the pilot and the show. She’s so dang skinny and tall with that extra poof of hair up top that she’s really annoying to frame up. If you want to keep all of her in the frame, there’s going to be tons of empty space.

I also find that my turnaround isn’t enough reference for Pearl’s awkwardly-shaped head. I snap me a bunch of screenshots of pearl’s head from different angles and collate them into a big sheet.

5) Inbetweening

Inbetweening, aka filling out all the gaps in the timeline between the keys and breakdowns. If you’ve done your keys and BD’s well, inbetweening can be a pretty straight-forward.

But I’ve got like a million bits of secondary animation to content with, which means this still takes a significant amount of time. The hair and ruffles have to move a little later than the rest of the body, and some parts of the ruffles have to move at a different rate from the rest. I’m trying to animate like there’s wind since Pearl’s on top of a tall building. I keep animating until it feels good enough.

This is what my timeline and stage look like in Animate by this point. The animation is mostly on 2s, with some 1s, 3s and 4s thrown in when needed.

6) Cleanup and Colour

I did the cleanup in Toon Boom Harmony. As a program, I like it was more than Animate, even though it isn’t without it’s flaws. But it’s also really dang expensive. Fortunately, by this point I’d been working on the upcoming Deadendia series for Netflix. What with the pandemic, we were working from home and the studio gave me a license for Toon Boom. So I exported my frames from Animate, put ‘em in TB and started cleaning up.

I’ve found that cleanup is something that’s often offloaded to new or less experienced artists at studios because blah it’s just tracing the rough animation. But you’ve got good cleanup and bad cleanup, and a good cleanup artist will compensate for flaws in volume and have a good, clear and natural line.

I’m not terribly fond of doing cleanup myself. I feel I tend to end up rushing, which leads to sloppy work. I tried really hard to keep up a standard here.

7) Comping

a.k.a. Compositing, the final layering of the various elements before exporting a film. Another stage I don’t quite care for because of its nuances. Also drawing backgrounds.

I admit that I’m not very good at drawing backgrounds or environments. I tried to do the one for the second shot of this animation, since it was acutally really important. In shots 1 and 3, you don’t really see the ground or even the railing that Pearl is leaning on, but 2 is a wide shot. My first attempts at it were unfortunate. Fortunately my husband @joe-sparrow is both good at backgrounds and good at imitating the style and colour palette of the show. He volunteered to do the BGs and I accepted. See mine vs. his:

So yeah, get me some nice backgrounds, put the animation on top, then fiddle with a couple of elements in the comp to give things a little bit more depth. During this stage, errors that had happened during the animation progress that I hoped would just go away became annoyingly obvious, so there was a fair bit of going back to fix them.

So that’s how I done made this animation. I started April 2018 and posted in on January 1st 2021, so that’s over 1.5 years it took me to do these 22 seconds of animation. However, I wasn’t working on it continuously through that time. Sometimes I’d be working on it every day, other times I’d not touch it for weeks or months at a time. It really depended on how busy or whatever I was at the time. I think if I’d been working on it non-stop, it still would’ve taken me at least like 2-3 months to finish it.

If you made it to the end of this post, I hope you found all this information interesting.

Happy drawing.

It’s over, isn’t it.

#animation #wip #art #Flash #toon boom #fanart #steven universe #pearl

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actualaster · 3 years

Text

Oops it’s been a damn month because my ability to watch anything dropped off the face of the planet but I’m trying to play catch-up on the anime now lol.

Don’t have the energy to go back over Ep 4 and do a proper look at it like I was doing, so I’ll just... Maybe re-address that later, but for now just looking at Ep 5

I don’t have the energy to do the “watch then post” thing so I’ll be putting this together as I go, and probably will do that from now on.

First up Asshole Jesus starting things out being a little shit, just look at that smile, his face is so punchable. (affectionate)

Yeah I see you on your phone, Asshole Jesus, texting Neku a fake mission and then acting like you weren’t doing anything lmao

Trying to advertise for Mr. H’s menu lol

I see you neatly dodging the answer to that question, Josh.

Does a really good job of conveying his whole “the Game is amusement for me” attitidue, though

The game pretty strongly implied it as well, but I feel like the anime goes even further to all but say that Joshua “I See Dead People” Kiryu killed himself to join the Reapers’ Game.

No, Neku, you haven’t, he’s Asshole Jesus for a reason

Mmm, more of that wording that makes it pretty blatant that Josh offed himself.

Nice callback to the game itself with the style of the error message! It’s how, like, memes look when you get them and other various selectable options and stuff appear in-game.

Neat way they handle it being a smartphone now, using apps instead of a camera hardware upgrade. Also that triple star app, that reminds me of the Fusion Pin for Shiki’s lvl 1 and 2 fusions in the game

Would it kill ya to be a less of a mysterious dick, Josh? Yeah actually it probably would.

Lol sounds like Mr. H is speaking from experience. He has known Asshole Jesus for a while so that makes sense.

Heh. They’re having an entirely different conversation than the one Neku is aware of.

Mmm, can’t have him going down that way until you’re good and ready, eh, Josh?

Heh. Looks like Neku’s not entirely sure he trusts that “it’s because the signal from Scramble’s weirder” thing

Oh, that’s not ominous at all (/sarcasm)

Mmm, feels like this part was handled a little more... Flatly than the game did, like it’s less of a big deal as a possible theory in the anime?

I see that Gatito brand logo in the BG with this convo, nice and subtle.

Oh! They include the Mic Incident?

Something I noticed is interesting--you can sort of tell in the previous screenshot the lighting seems... Not bright and sunny.

You can also see it here

I just think it’s interesting that it’s cloud and then we get to this shot, very dark in general, you can see the extremely dark clouds in the background, the lighting in general much more washed out the way you get on a very cloudy day... And Players, fighting for their lives against the black-and-silver Taboo Noise.

I just think that’s a really neat visual thing.

askdjfjakdsf THE SPEECH BUBBLE WITH THE IMAGE OF THE MIC!! I’M!! oh I love that so much lol

sad.fjasdlkf THEY KEPT THE LINE. bless

Changed up the scene with Nao and Sota, misses the sweet “totally be an entry fee for each other/play the game as many times as needed” part but I did love the way Sota tried to stop Neku from going to the Taboo Noise infested area to keep him from getting killed. Flow of the scene works well for the shift to anime, though, so makes sense they’d change things up a bit. Speaking of... They cut the Tin Pin stuff, didn’t they? Shame but it makes sense because... I can’t see that flowing well in the anime lol. Maybe if they made a spin-off anime only about Tin Pin Slammer... XD

sadjkflaksdjfas LOOK AT HER GUN TIP LMAO THEY ACTUALLY SHOWED A REASON WHY HER ENERGY BULLETS ARE WEIRDLY SHAPED LMAO

okay that’s fantastic I love that so much

Fusion attack, nice

Josh just. LOVES being a little shit, doesn’t he

Oh, this ENTIRE SCENE is so much more dramatic, it’s amazing to see it brought to life in animation.

No seriously this is a lot more what I’d expect from somebody who just discovered the dude they work with very probably murdered the fuck out of them

The way Neku stumbles back with that horrified gasp (seriously the sound he makes--props to the VA that conveyed the emotion of the scene so damn well), that terrified expression on his face, his entire body language of “person receiving a horrific shock” is so well executed here.

Plus, can’t really catch it with screenshots but the way the screen is shifting and sort of “shaky cam” really helps convey it

That facial expression is so perfect, you can see him breaking.

Look, you can pinpoint the exact frame where he shatters!

Aaaaand then we got Asshole Jesus looking like a smug fuck, as usual lol. Solid spot to end an ep, though.

#twewy anime #kage watches twewy #twewy spoilers #the world ends with you #twewy #suicide mention tw

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di-kut · 4 years

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Please give us more backstory! I will eat it up! Even if we don't fully delve into reader's background I would like to know what lead to her meeting Mando! She obviously worked before but what exactly made her turn to crime?? Had she been in trouble before? Like petty theft and stuff? She obviously saw the consequences of her actions but continued on. Why did she side with the Empire first? Was it because that's all she knew? Was it easier than accepting the alternative? Please gimme, gimme!!

Ask and you shall receive! This was originally written to be the beginning (or near the beginning) of this story however it was abandoned long ago. It doesn’t fit the storyline or the mood of the rest of the story very well but... well! Here it is. Thank you @namay for always showing this story so much love and support! 💕

Rated: T

Summary: A series of paths crossing when our Reader meets the Mandalorian for the first time while working in a mech shop on Batuu. This is not their full backstory but it is a little piece of it.

Batuu is a warm planet, but that day is a particularly hot one. The suns are beating thick and heavy through the market outside and through the canvas covering over the back room of Staf’s shop. You can hear the sluggish sounds of the day from the street. The crowded street moves like through oil, slick and slow. Three years was enough for you to acclimatise to warmth, but sweat stings your eyes and collects in a salty line alone your top lip. You can hear voices from the front of the shop where you sit, separated by crumbling walls and a curtain. You stare at a light patch against the plaster where Staf had drilled off the old Imperial insignia, listen to the whirring of BG-719 in the shop with the customer. Fight the temptation to close your eyes and lean back against your work bench.

The curtain pushes back. You glance over at the droid as he comes through it, track his progress out of the corner of your eye. He stops in front of your workbench and waits as you place the part you are rewiring down on it.

“There is a Mandalorian here looking for you.”

You stare at BG-719 blankly.

“There’s a – ”

“A what?” You say.

“A Mandalorian.” BG puts his hands up like goal posts. “They are a warrior race native to – ”

“I know what a Mandalorian is.” You lean around him to try and peer into the front room but the curtain has fallen back into place. “What do you mean, there’s a Mandalorian looking for me?”

“It means on the other side of this curtain there is a heavily armoured man with a very large gun who is asking for you.” The droid whirred slightly, a gimmick which has developed into something of a sarcastic sigh in the time you’d known him. “He’s asking for you by name. Not your normal name, it’s a different name. He says you’re the same person.”

You stomach drops. “Are you sure?”

“Well let me just go and check, shall I? I’m sure he’s the kind of man used to repeating himself. Won’t be a minute.” BG-719 drops his hands and turns like he will make good on his threat. You catch him by the arm and haul him backwards. He whirs again as he stumbles. His armature is hot, you think vaguely, you need to talk to Staf about installing a better cooling system in the front for the droids.

“How does he know my name?”

“Your real name? I didn’t even know your real name. I didn’t ask him.”

“What does he want?”

“I didn’t ask him that, either.”

You sigh and drop your hands to your sides. “Great.”

“Do you think he’s here to kill you?” The droid asks.

“I hope not,” you mutter. Can’t really be sure, because you know your bounty doesn’t require you to be alive for the credits. Hope he isn’t here for the bounty but know there is only one way he got your real name. “Kriff.”

“If you would like me to go and question him, I will put in a request now that the repair works on my head after he’s shot me be done by you, and not the WAC units, please.” BG doesn’t move again though. “I don’t think he likes droids.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“He threatened to shoot the WAC units. And me, not that it seems to matter.”

This time you rub your grease covered hands down your face as you sigh. “I won’t let him shoot you.”

“I doubt you’ll have much say in the matter, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

The Mandalorian is waiting for you in the front room when you finally emerge. The WAC units are nowhere to be seen, but there is a hovering durasteel orb which certainly hadn’t been there that morning. The Mandalorian steps in front of it as you approach the back of the counter. His armour glints in the shaded shop, brushed smooth and meticulously maintained. Beautiful, or it would have been if it wasn’t so terrifying. He seems to take up the whole room. Your eyes slip between him and the dome. He just stares at you, or you assume he does, unnerving in his silence. You note the handle of a rifle which peaks over one shoulder, another holster on his thigh. You feel the weight of the small blaster you had tucked into the back of your trousers against you spine. It takes you several long moments to build up the nerve to speak.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there, silent and imposing. You run your gaze the length of his armour, taking stock. You can see catches in the metal, almost invisible indentations. They aren’t poor workmanship, any mechanic worth half a credit would be able to see it, they are buttons. You know enough about Mandalorians to know you don’t want to be in the firing line if he decides to push any of them. You work your jaw, tap against the countertop for something to distract yourself from the buzzing in your fingertips.

“You threatened to shoot the droids,” you say.

His helmet tilts slightly. A nod, maybe – you aren’t sure.

“Well.” Your tapping grows faster.

He just – keeps standing there. Staring. You can’t see his eyes through the visor of his helmet, can’t guess at the shape of him beneath the armour. But you can feel him looking at you, feel the assessment happening beneath the surface. Some sort of conclusion being reached. Your hands twitches towards your blaster.

“Are you here for a repair?” You try. You point at his floating dome. “That, maybe – ”

“That’s fine. That’s not why I’m here.”

You jump. His voice crackles slightly through the vodocor in the helmet, but it is deep and calm. You feel the hairs along your arms stand in response. “Oh. Oh okay. I just – ”

“I’m looking for information.”

Immediately you are wary. You step back from the counter and fold your arms in front of you. “Information about parts?”

“Information about Empire records. You are ex-Empire, aren’t you?” He doesn’t expect an answer. Already knows the answer. You think of the fob somewhere with your name on it. Your face projected in blue above it. Some miniscule number which defines your life’s worth. Traitor. Your punishment for aiding the rebellion. The Mandalorian just stands there, waiting. “I’m trying to find a planet.”

“Maybe you should try a map,” you say. Sharp. Testy.

“The planet I’m looking for isn’t on a map.”

“Sounds like you’re in trouble then.” You lean back against the workbench behind the front counter and uncross your arms. Try not to make it obvious you were thinking about reaching for your blaster. Your heart is beating so fast it almost hurts. “If there’s no mechanic work I can help you with, then I’ll be getting back – ”

He does know your name, as it turns out. Not the name you had told people on Batuu. Not the name BG-719 called you when a customer needed help. Not the name Staf had stared dubiously at on your holochip when you’d given it to him, looking for work, three years ago. Not the name you had boarded ships under, heading for some forgotten planet in the outer rims where you thought the remnants of a dying Empire wouldn’t look for you. You hadn’t heard the name the Mandalorian calls you in years, but it feels like dropping out of hyperspace too fast when you hear it through the modulator in the empty shop on Batuu.

You know, suddenly, even if you manage to get to your blaster first there was no way you’d beat him. “What do you really want?”

“I’m not here to turn you in for the reward, if that’s what you’re asking.” The Mandalorian says. “I don’t do Guild work. Anymore.”

“So.” You grip your hands together so hard your knuckles turn white. “What do you want?”

“I’m trying to find a planet.”

You don’t know the planet he needs. Have never heard of anything like it. But you worked for the Empire, and on Batuu, and you hear things. You tell him about a small planet on the edge of the outer rim, close to the unchartered territory. Tell him there is an alien there who may be able to help him, untouchable by even the Empire and the Republic before that. A keeper of reliquaries and ancient knowledge. You tell him you only handled weapons orders for the Empire and you don’t know anything about finding lost, ancient planets. But that maybe this alien will. You send him with a warning to be careful and feel silly for it the second it leaves your mouth. He tilts his helmet, and you think he is amused beneath it. He offers you a small bag of credits. You refuse it.

“Why?” He asks.

“Didn’t really do anything, did I?” You shrug, keep wiping down a greasy piece of engine.

He stares at you, this time you see the helmet move as he scans you up and down. And then he is gone. You think you will never see him again. And your life goes on in much the same way as it had. You rise before the suns can begin to bake the ground hard and make your way to Staf’s shop. BG-719 doesn’t mention again that the name the Mandalorian had given for you was not the name you went by, and the whole thing is better forgotten. You wonder, one day weeks after meeting him, if he had ever found his planet. And when you dream that night you dream of gleaming armour somewhere deep in space, of death and blood and the smell of smoke. The next morning you try your best to forget it.

It is almost two months later when he reappears. Is inexplicably leaning against the wall outside the shop before it opens. The street is pale in the early morning light, and in the grey he looks almost like a ghost. You stop before him, close enough that you could touch the Beskar if you wanted. He just watches you, the same as before. There’s the scoring of recent blaster fire on his chest plate. He seems otherwise exactly as you remember him. Calm. You stay there, toe to toe outside the shop. You don’t say anything and neither does he. You just punch in the code to the shop and stand back, hold out your arm to gesture for him to go in first. He stares at you a moment longer, like he is trying to place some thought, and then steps out of the street. You pause at the door behind him. And then you follow him inside.

“He’s back.” BG is powered up and looks at you accusingly around the bulk of the Mandalorian.

“I know,” you say.

“Why is he back?”

“None of your business,” the Mandalorian snaps.

BG whires in distinct irritation, picks up his tray of parts and sets them down firmly on the front counter. The Mandalorian’s hand twitches over his gun and you roll your eyes. “I’m not leaving,” BG-719 says. Incensed.

“You don’t have to. If any work comes for me just leave it out the front, I’ll come and get it in a while.”

“Trust me,” the droid has begun to aggressively unscrew a broken piping cover from what looked like a shot hyperdrive. “I won’t be coming near him.”

“Good,” The Mandalorian says as he follows you through the curtain.

You pull out a measly breakfast from the shelving unit in the back room. Your tiny quarters in the block of rented rooms further back from the main streets of the market come only with a bed and a toilet, and barely enough room for that. And Staf didn’t seem to mind you keeping some personal items out the back, so. You stare down at the wrapped fruit and dense bread and then offer them unsurely up to your companion. You aren’t sure if he can eat in front of you, but it feels too rude not to ask. He shakes his head and leans back against one of the walls, crosses his arms in front of him.

“So,” you sit at your workbench. Start into your breakfast.

The Mandalorian tilts his helmet ever so slightly. “I have a job for you, Gotabor.”

“I don’t want work. I have a job.” You tear a piece of bread off the loaf and chew it slowly. Narrow your eyes at what you can sense is a name. A title maybe, from the way he says it. The word is unfamiliar. “I’m not supposed to take under the counter jobs. Staf doesn’t like it.”

“It’s just once.” The Mandalorian pushes off from the wall and walks towards you. Pulls out a holodisk from the pack strapped to his side and holds it out for you. You can’t see his eyes, that hasn’t changed, but you can still feel the lifting sensation along your shoulders of his eyes on you. When you don’t take it from him and places it down on the only clear part of the bench, right next to your breakfast. “Can you get into this?”

You eye the disk. “That’s Pre-Empire records.”

“I know.”

“Super illegal.”

He tilts the helmet again. You think he might be laughing at you, is he hadn’t been so still. He sounds like he’s smiling. “No Empire anymore.”

You know you shouldn’t ask. You should just give the thing back to him. You should ask him to leave. But. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” He backs up until he is against the wall again. Leans back, crossed his arms and sits into one of his hips, crosses his legs at the ankles. “That’s why I’m here.”

“And here I thought it was for BG’s company.”

You aren’t surprised when he doesn’t laugh. You pick up the disk, inspect it briefly, and put if back down. You shake your head at him. “I don’t want another job,” you say, but you haven’t looked away from the disk. The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything. He just lets you sit there and wrestle with your better judgement. You look at the disk, then back to him, and then down to the disk again. “This is a bad idea. You know some of these had trackers in them.”

He still just infuriatingly stands there.

“I might not even be able to get into it. I never dealt with the Pre-Empire stuff. That was a different level of classified.”

Silence.

“And there’s all sorts of ancient coding and programming in this. I mean look at it. It’s a relic.”

The Mandalorian shrugs his shoulder slightly, rolls them back. A silent yawn.

You groan and swing out of your chair. “I’m not doing this,” you mutter. You dig around in the mess of found parts and tools. You will have to make something to hook the old Republic system up to a holopad, so you could read in the information. You toy with the idea of trying to just convert the file system onto a new holodisk, but you aren’t even sure how the data output would work. “I’m not doing this.”

“How long will it take?” The Mandalorian asks.

You throw your hands into the air. Wave the tools you were collecting at him. “I’m not helping you.”

“I have to get supplies. My ship is running low.” He moves towards the curtain, places a small bag of credits on the table. “This is for last time as well.”

“You might want to move your ship to long term docking,” you ignore the credits. “I’m assuming you have a ship.”

“It’s already in long term docking,” he calls as the curtain swings back into place.

You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth. It should be in irritation, but you can’t stop the small smile. Shake your head. “Confident.”

He returns late that night, after the droids had powered down. You had planned to be home already. But he finds you there anyway, hunched over your work table in the back room. He lips under the curtain into the dimly lit room and lowers himself into the chair opposite you. You don’t look up from the work you are doing, two pliers in your hands, holding back wiring from the inside of the old holodisk. It isn’t as complicated as you had suspected, but it would be slow and tedious work to extract the information without corrupting the whole disk. The Mandalorian watches you for some time, so still that you think maybe he had fallen asleep.

“I hope you didn’t break that lock on the way in, Mandalorian.”

“I didn’t, Gotabor.”

You hum sceptically, continue to work. Ignore the new name. “I think I can do this. But I’m not sure. I’ve never done this before, not with a disk this old.” You cast a glance over towards the silent warrior. “It’s still gonna take time.”

He nods and leans back into the chair. Shuffles to get comfortable and seems content to just sit. You watch him, take him in, hulking in the tiny room, seemingly completely at ease. You are surprised how easy you feel with him. How comfortable. You feel him watching you back and wonder if he is thinking the same. You break and look away, shake your head. Return to trying to piece apart the holodisk in front of you. You see his helmet tip back out of the corner of your eye. He strikes his legs out straight in front of him and crosses them. You scoff slightly and settle into your work. You stay there together late into the night.

It takes you three weeks to finish the task the Mandalorian has given you. The days are reserved for your work at the shop. Staf visits you to check up, he takes his time going through inventory with you. Checking through the WAC unit work. He doesn’t bring up the Mandalorian until the end of his visit, when you are standing alone in the front room. Staf is a small man, wiry with something of a gut, and no hair. He is missing an ear from what looked like blaster fire, but you had never asked. It wasn’t the kind of thing your asked about on Batuu.

“I heard there’s been a Mandalorian coming in,” he says. You feel your arm jolt at the comment, but do your best to keep your hand steady screwing a bolt out of a fuel covering. You shrug, can’t tell from his tone whether he is suspicious or not. Know he is paranoid about you skimming the tills. “Mandalorian’s get talked about, you know.”

“His ship is busted,” you decide to play dumb. Not mention the holodisk.

“And he doesn’t want it worked on at the yard?”

You shrug again. “He doesn’t like droids.” You hope that lie will cover it. You have not asked the Mandalorian where his ship is, what kriffing model it is. You wish you had thought to now. “It’s mostly the hyperdrive anyway. Unwired it, brought it in. I thought he was gonna shoot BG.”

“He pay good money?”

So it was the money. You feel the relief instantly. You aren’t sure exactly why you are so worried about Staf finding out about the disk. Not sure what you’re protecting yourself from, the Mandalorian from. Staf doesn’t care about Empire laws, defunct after the collapse and never really enforced in the out rim besides. But whatever instinct which had told you to trust the Mandalorian told you not to spread knowledge of the disk. You don’t even really debate the lies before they start.

“It’s alright. I figure a guy like that can afford to pay a bit above average though. With all the Beskar. Looks real new.” You finally get the rusted screw loose, drop it into the tray on the counter. “He gave me credit chips. Here.”

You step out the back. Have to close your eyes and breathe for a moment before you retrieve the bag of credits. You dig around for the bag of credits he’d left there, glad now you had never moved them or given them back to the Mandalorian. You push back through the curtain and toss the bag to Staf and let out a shaking breath. Your hands are miraculously steady as you retrieve your fuel covering and begin on removing the next screw. Staf makes some sort of pleased noise and you hear him pull the drawstring of the bag closed again.

“Well you just tell that Mandalorian he can bring in any part of the ship he likes. You know what, if he wants, if he doesn’t like the droids are the yard that bad,” Staf rubs a hand over his jaw, “you just tell him we can send you out there to work on it for him.”

You look at your employer. He’s pocketing the bag of credits and rubs his bony hands together. “You know I don’t like working out of the shop.”

“You will for money like this. I’ll give you a cut.”

You shake your head, make a show of being unimpressed. Staf walks around the shop a few more times, patting the jingling purse of credits in his pocket all the while, whistling a tuneless song and not listening to anything else you say. You even bring up a cooler for the droids and he makes some noncommittal answer. He doesn’t stay long afterwards.

Later, when it is dark again, the Mandalorian returns. He sits in his usual place across from you, has his hovering durasteel dome with him. You want to ask about it but resist the urge. The Mandalorian is more relaxed, lets you get close enough to it to touch. You have barely finished your work from the shop, but he has brought you food from the stalls in the market. A spiced meat and a tough, flat bread. They are warm still, and delicious. He assures you he ate before coming.

“Eat, Gotabor.” He insists.

“What does that mean?”

“Eat? It means put the food in your mouth, chew and swallow.”

You shoot him a look. “Not that.”

“It means Engineer.” He says. He has his feet stretched out again, propped now on a box of spare parts. Seems tired. He had cleaned the armour after the first day he had reappeared, so it had been free of wear and the signs of blaster fire. But it sports new, different marks now. “Eat.”

You do, and you enjoy it. Even think you will ask him which stall he had bought it from. Instead you ask, “How many credits were in that bag?”

“What?”

“In the little bag you gave me. How many were in there?”

“You didn’t look?”

You shove another piece of bread in your mouth and pull the holodisk out from the compartment under the false bottom of your tool drawer. “Didn’t get a chance to.”

“Where is it?”

“Staf – he owns the shop – he came sniffing around because he heard about your visits. There’s a Mandalorian coming in,” you attempt a terrible impression of your employer’s nasal tone. You shrug. “So I told him you were paying me extra to fix the hyperdrive ‘cause you didn’t want the droids at the yard doing it.”

The Mandalorian drops his feet off the box and leans forward in his chair. Braces one of his forearms across his knee. You can feel his gaze again. He’d been in enough times now, not all nights but most, that you know he is studying you with some forcefulness behind it. You get a tingle ripple across your shoulder blades from the attention.

“Where is your ship, by the way?” You have almost finished rewiring an old ship holodisk reader to accommodate the technology sitting on your workbench. It had been a lucky find, one of the droids Staf sent out scavenging brought the whole console back. Pre-Empire. It even had an old Republic logo emblazoned over the top, some old embassy vessel long abandoned. Your mother would have said the force is with you. You were just relieved. It meant you could fix the temperamental wiring in the holodisk and not try to extract the information. Not risk corrupting it. “I should probably know,” you continue. “Since apparently now I am fixing your hyperdrive, if anyone asks. Staf said I could go work at the ship in the yard after I gave him the bag, so I figure there was probably a bit in it.”

“You just gave it to him?”

You can’t place if he sounds relieved or angry. Maybe somewhere in the middle. Certainly sounds disbelieving. “Yes? I figure it’s the best way to keep his nose out of your business.”

The Mandalorian shakes his head. “And now you’re coming to work on my ship?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Thanks.”

“No offence. I don’t like working out of the shop.”

The Mandalorian hums quietly and relaxes back into his chair. “Why did you give him the credits? Did he ask about them?”

“No. He asked about you.” You inspect your work carefully. Bite into the bread again and put it to the side. You still have your goggles around your neck and you pull them up over your eyes. Tuck a spare rag up underneath the bottom edge of them to protect the lower half of your face. The soldering required was small and quick, and the final touch to finishing. Soon it won’t matter if Staf sent you off to the Mandalorian’s ship, because it would be long gone and his holodisk with it. “There.”

“Why not tell the truth?” The Mandalorian asks. You pull the rag down. “That is going to catch fire.”

“I’m careful.”

You pull the goggles down as well and hold your work up to the light for a last check. Twist it back and forth before giving a small satisfied nod. The charges should all match, the circuit is closed. Everything was where it needed to be.

“Why not tell him the truth?” The Mandalorian asks again.

You replace the covering on the reader. “I don’t know. Seemed like a bad idea. I figured the less people who know the better.” The holodisk fits perfectly into the waiting slot. You pull it back out again and find the portable generator under your bench. Plug the reader in. You hold your breath as it flickers to like. The projector unit at the top takes longer, whirring slowly until finally a rim of blue lights around it. You hold the disk up to the Mandalorian. “You ready?”

He pushes himself to standing. You insert the disk slowly, heart in your mouth, knowing if it doesn’t work or the system shorts you will be left with nothing but a melted pile of metal and a ruined disk. The whirring is awful. For a few terrible seconds you think it is blown, and then there is a gentle hum and the projector plate flickers to life. Blue light bounces around the tiny room, static balls of light hover through the air, numbers and letters appearing beside them. You scramble for the shop lights, the detail of the projection are too pale to make out, and once you turn them off the projection begins to slowly rotate. The Mandalorian stand the in the centre of the room, a tiny galaxy turning around him.

“It’s a map,” you say together.

You move slowly, weaving through planets and star systems. Each one has a floating label beside it, but in an unfamiliar alien language. There are numbers too, but what they represent you aren’t sure. The Mandalorian has begun pacing, occasionally prodding at some planet or other. Some respond, longer paragraphs of the same alien language appearing beside them, until the Mandalorian touches them again with a gloved finger, and they blip back out of existence. You try the same to some of the planets near you. Nothing gives any signifier of which part of the galaxy you are looking at, which systems. You wander through your floating galaxy for what could be hours, until finally slumping back into your chair.

“Know what it means?” You ask him.

He heaves a heavy sigh. “No. But it’s something.”

“You think one of these is your planet?”

“Maybe. Don’t know.” He presses the power on the projector unit and the tiny galaxy disappears. The room goes black without the floating blue light, and you swear and fumble for the switch. When they flicker on you feel suddenly drained. Are tempted to put your head down on the bench and sleep. It must be well into the early hours of the morning. “I’ll find someone who knows.”

You nod. Too tired to do more.

“It’s time for us to move on.” He says. “We’ve been here too long.”

Your stomach drops. Only hours ago you had been glad at the thought of him leaving, and taking the threat of outsider eyes and Imperial trackers with him, fallen Empire or not. And now you are nervous. “When will you go?”

“Soon as we can. Tomorrow.” He taps the projector unit. “Can I take this?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve got no use for it. It’s for you.”

He nods, rests his hand on top of it. Looks back towards his floating dome. You had forgotten it in the excitement of a breakthrough. He stares at it for what feels like an eternity. And then, “You could come with us.”

You blink at him. “What?”

“I’ll pay your for the work. And I could use someone who knows how to do repairs on the Crest. And this,” he turns away from his dome, back to face you, and taps the projector unit again. “Whatever that piece of Bantha shit boss is paying you I can promise it’ll be more.”

“I – I’m – ” You close your mouth and try to gather your thoughts. “Go with you?”

“Yeah.”

“On your ship?”

“Unless you have your own and want to follow us.”

You spare him a look. “Out there?”

“Sure.”

You stare at your reflection dumbly in the helmet. As dark blur against the shining Beskar. You think about it, briefly. Living on a ship with the Mandalorian. Stuck in there with him, in space. Travelling to strange planets. The centre of attention everywhere you go, next to him. You know the talk circulating the markets on Batuu every day he stays, think of the greedy way Staf pocketed his credits. About the danger. He doesn’t wear his weapons for nothing. Of the new smudges of blaster fire on his chest plate. You shake your head slowly.

“I’m… No.”

He tilts his head. “No?”

“No. I – I mean. I’m sorry. But no.”

He stare6s at you, more intense even that the first time you’d met, so that the tingles which normally live across the backs of your shoulders spread out along your spine and around you ribs. You wonder if he’s ever been denied something like this before. Then wonder if he’s ever asked anyone. You swallow thickly. He shrugs, finally, and you let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay.”

You don’t sleep the rest of the night. You stare at the dark ceiling of your room and strain to hear the sound of a ship taking off in the distance. You hear nothing. He’d walked you back to your room, through the empty market. A quiet walk. When he turns to leave, the last time you know you will ever see him, you almost catch his arm and say you’ve changed your mind. That you do want to come with him. But you don’t. You watch him turn and leave. His hovering dome following behind him. You watch until he turns a corner and is gone.

You lay there until the suns begin to peak over the horizon and colour the world in pale grey. You force yourself back out of bed. Dress slowly. Fold your night things. Make your bed. Pass through the motions of your morning and make your way to the shop with dragging feet.

The droids are still powered down when you arrive, and you leave them, glad for the time alone. You pass into the back room and reach for your breakfast. Slump into your chair. You don’t eat anything. Just wrap it up again and replace it on the shelf. The sounds of early arrivals in the market begins to fill the air around you, the sounds of life continuing on, marching ahead and pulling you with it.

You knock over a nearly empty box and it crashes to the floor. You rub at your forehead and bend to pick it up. The generator is where you left it, under the table, but the projector which you had been keeping on top of it is gone, but you have no time to grieve the loss of the Mandalorian, whose quiet company you realise you looked forward to every night. Because in place of the projector unit there is a gleaming welding mask, staring up at you. You stare at it. Hesitate to reach for it and lift it towards you, crouched on the ground behind your work desk. Something falls from the back of it and lands at your knees with a heavy thunk. You scoff and then find yourself laughing. The sound has an edge of hysteria to it. You pick up the bag of credits. It is bigger than the last one, much heavier. You slip it into your pocket and turn back to the mask. It has a proper strap and padded interior and a switch next to the visor.

That rag is going to catch fire.

Your eyes well with tears. You know it is from him. Have no idea when he would have found the time to conceal it there. Wonder if the whole night he had been hiding it and placed it there without you noticing, or if he came back later. The mask a work of such fine craftsmanship you do not know where he would have found it on Batuu. It gleams in the brightening early light. It reminds you of the Mandalorian’s Beskar.

Tags: @btillys @vercopaanir @absurdthirst @sistasarah-sallysaidso @adikaofmandalore @babyomen @purpleeeslurpppp @fleurdemiel145 @hdlynn @sinnamon-bun @toilet-keeper @dartheldur @no-droids-allowed

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windscattered · 3 years

Text

Previously

Orlando stared at the text on the screen. Dozens of questions popped into his head, so many that he didn’t know where to start.

Me: What happened? Where are you? Are you okay?

The bubble on Daniel’s end bopped for quite some time.

Daniel: Im being held as a prisoner

Daniel: Someone I knew found me and moved me into her house

Daniel: I have a broken arm and i cant leave

Daniel: She tried to manipulate me into staying with her

Daniel: She adopted a kid

Daniel: Jesus christ she adopted a kid to make me think he was mine

Daniel: Im terrified bg

Ya Ali, that was a lot.

Me: Where are you?

Daniel sends him an address. It was on the topmost levels. Shit.

Me: I’m coming over

Daniel: No

Daniel: Not now shes home

Daniel: Shell see you

Me: Okay. When can I come, then?

Daniel: She leaves for work at eight and comes back at six

Me: Okay. I’ll come tomorrow at nine. Is that okay? Can you hold on until then?

Daniel: Yeah

Daniel: Thank you

Me: Of course, habibi. Do I need to bring anything?

Daniel: Idk

Daniel: Maybe something to carry my clothes in

Daniel: Boxes for my stuff

Me: Okay, I can do that

Me: Anything else? What else can I do for you until tomorrow?

Daniel: I dont know

Me: I could keep talking to you to keep you calm, if you want

Daniel: Thatd be nice

Daniel: Thank you

Me: Anytime, habibi

Orlando then continued texting Daniel throughout the day. Daniel ended up telling a little more about his situation. Fang was with him and she was fine. Daniel also mentioned someone else being there, but not by name. Orlando had to wonder who the third person was, and if Orlando would have to take them along.

The next day, Orlando headed out to the address first thing in the morning, armed with a few backpacks and a cardboard box. Not wanting to be caught on security cameras, he used a few unofficial routes to get to the top levels. He arrived at the house and sat outside for a few minutes, to monitor the situation at first. He took the liberty of hacking into one of the least secured devices in the house, to see how many people were in it. He wasn’t about to run in blindly. He’s been taught better than that.

Only two people. That must be Daniel and the third person Daniel alluded to. Orlando pocketed his phone and pulled his hood up to obscure his face. He found a window that he could feasibly fit through, picked its lock and let himself in.

Without a sound, he rolled onto his feet on the floor, closing the window behind him. Both of the figures in the house resided upstairs, so that was where Orlando headed. Just as quietly as he had gotten in through the window, Orlando walked up the stairs. He blinked his cybernetic eye, enabling the x-ray vision to see through walls. One figure, sitting on a bed, playing guitar. Too small to be Daniel. In the next room, a bigger figure with a smaller, dog-shaped figure. Daniel and Fang. Excellent.

Orlando sneaked to the door and let himself in.

As soon as the door opened, Daniel jolted, whipping around. Orlando had never seen the expression on Daniel’s face in this moment. Eyes wide in alarm, with the undertone of resignation and despair. The expression shifted to utter relief when Daniel saw Orlando.

“Beej,” he breathed. He stood up and strode over to him, so quickly that he staggered a little. “You came.”

Orlando also stepped towards him, ready to catch him in case he fell. His hands landed on Daniel’s elbows, mindful of the cast on his left arm. “Of course I did,” he whispered. “I couldn’t leave you after you asked for help.”

Daniel stared at him for a moment, eyes bouncing between his. His lips quivered and he nodded, looking down.

Orlando was quiet for a moment. “Let’s start packing your stuff,” he said.

Daniel nodded. “Let’s start with my microwave and coffeemaker.”

“Alright.” The two proceeded to pack Daniel’s microwave oven and coffee maker into the collapsible boxes Orlando had brought with him. Then they packed Daniel’s clothes into the backpack. Or as much of them as they could fit.

“Can you take these by yourself?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah, it’s not a problem,” Orlando said. “I’m going to have to ask you to turn the security cameras off at the front until I’m gone, though.”

Daniel nodded. “Alright.”

The two moved to the front door and with some fiddling, Daniel managed to turn the cameras off.

“I’ll come back tomorrow for you,” Orlando said.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “I’ll wait.”

“Delano?” a voice Orlando didn’t recognize spoke up.

Daniel (or Delano? Was that his real name?) froze, looking alarmed for a split-second, but then relaxed.

A young man with a bright red mohawk appeared. “Who are you talking to?” He froze when he saw Orlando. “Who’s this?”

“A friend,” Daniel said. “He’s going to help me out of here.”

The young man looked surprised, then sad. “Oh.”

“You can come with me,” Daniel said. “I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“What, like, now?” the young man asked.

“No, tomorrow.”

The young man hesitated, rubbing his arm.

Feeling like he shouldn’t be hearing this, Orlando spoke up: ”You can talk about that amongst yourselves. I have to go.”

Daniel turned to him. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Orlando left the building and went straight home.

***

Adriano rubbed his arm, avoiding Delano’s eyes.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Delano said. “Or even tomorrow. You can text me anytime you want out and I’ll come help you.”

Adriano nodded. “Can I still text you? Outside of that?”

“Of course,” Delano said. “If anything good came out of this shitshow it was meeting you.”

“Yeah,” Adriano said, with a thin smile. “I just… I just wish we met in any other context.”

Delano shrugged. “Life’s a bitch, then you die.”

“How optimistic,” Adriano said dryly.

***

The next day arrived. Orlando arrived at the same time as yesterday. Quickly and quietly, he and Daniel packed the last of Daniel and Fang’s things. After they had finished packing, the two (and Fang on a leash) left for the door. The young man came by to see them off.

“Be safe,” the young man said.

“I’ll do my best,” Daniel said.

Just as Orlando turned to the door, it opened. A middle aged woman stepped in with a stern expression.

“Delano,” she said with a faux-sweet tone. “I’m really disappointed in you.”

#drabble #ic: delano #ic: orlando

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fan-clan-fun · 4 years

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Canon Clans Suffixes (with name changes)

Because I find it fun to scrutinize “The Sacred Texts” with a scalpel and a magnifying glass, I like to revamp little things like naming. So here’s my attempt at giving some iota of consistency to this messy world we love. My goals here are to stick to traditionalism, but also throw in some suffixes I personally love and give them meanings. I’ll also include some canon cats whose names I’ve changed to fit this system.

Lovely! Its always helpful to see personal interpretations and preferences for suffixes, everybody has a few they really like!

-claw: a skilled fighter. Classic pick. Cats who get this include Tigerclaw, Hornetclaw (Bramble-), Lionclaw (-blaze), Shrikeclaw (Ivypool), and Juniperclaw.

I see you are changing a lot of the prefixes as well! I do admit I like Shrike and Hornet as prefixes, and Shrikeclaw does seem to fit her quite well.

-cloud: a calm, easygoing cat. Also a classic. Whitestorm has been renamed Whitecloud to fit this and Tree’s clan name is Ashcloud.

-face: a particularly handsome or beautiful cat. I gave this name to Amberface (Berrynose), Tipface (Stemleaf), and Mothface (-wing)

Honestly giving Berrynose a name with the -face suffix would help to explain a lot of the stuff involving him lol.

-fang: good fighter and good hunter. From what I heard, Sparkpelt seemed to need this suffix, so she’s renamed Sparkfang. I don’t know who else would earn this though.

-feather: a medicine cat skilled at reading omens. This is my standard pick. It also lets me keep names like Goosefeather and lets Jayfeather keep his suffix (but he’s renamed to Juniperfeather). Shadowsight also gets this suffix, becoming Shadefeather.

An interesting choice, though I am curious as to why this one was chosen (besides name consistency), what is the reasoning behind it? Do omens often come in the shape of birds? What connects -feather to spirituality?

-flower: a nurturing cat. Many cats get this name. Cloudflower (Moon-), Snowflower (-fur), Willowflower (-breeze) Goldenflower, Aspenflower (Ferncloud), Whiteflower (-wing), Daisyflower, and the one notable tom case, Rockflower (Fernsong).

Pretty standard, although I do like that you give Fernsong a -flower name. I may not have read the arcs past Omen of the Stars but he does have that reputation of being a nurturer.

-foot: a fast cat, also a classic. Spiderleg becomes Spiderfoot and Harespring becomes Harefoot.

-fur/pelt: a cat with nothing really notable about them. Alderheart, Tigerheart, and Kestrelflight become Alderpelt, Adderpelt, and Kestrelfur respectively. Bluestar’s warrior name is still Bluefur.

-heart: a cat with strong morals. Rookheart (Hollyleaf), Rimeheart (Bristlefrost), Mudheart (Hawkfrost), and Smokeheart (Cinder-) all get this suffix, as does Fireboy over here.

I am so glad that you have given both Holly and Hawk the -heart suffix, I think it really does fit them quite well. I will probably fiddle with names a bit when the times come as well for my own writing and giving these two the -heart suffix is one of my plans.

-leaf: a medicine cat skilled in the healing aspect of their job. Spottedleaf got this one, as did Speckledleaf (Brambleberry), Fireleaf (Flametail), and Willowleaf (-shine). I think they may shake things up a little with -root and/or -berry and/or -bark.

Out of curiosity, why would only medicine cats shake it up a little with suffixes? It seems like none of the other suffixes have any of the same meaning.

-nose: an intuitive cat skilled in tracking. Only two notable characters get this, Dovenose and Maplenose (Leafpool).

I actually think these name changes work quite well, and do fit Dove’s power and her abilities.

-path: a cat with an affinity for mentoring. I noticed Rosepetal had five apprentices, so I gave her the name Rosepath.

I’ve heard whispers that -path was used by some people as a mentoring suffix, which is really cool!

-storm: a cat with a turbulent disposition, also classic. Crowstorm (-feather) and Beetlestorm (Breezepelt) get this, as does Dapplestorm (Blossomfall).

I mean the suffix sure does fit those cats.

-stream: a strong swimmer. Silverstream gets this obviously. Not sure who else would get it though because I’m only including it for traditionalism’s sake. It’s not one I’m particularly fond of.

Thats interesting, Im curious as to why? Maybe another suffix like -creek or -leg would be preferable if you dont like the sound?

-stripe: a tabby with distinct stripes. Graystripe gets this and so does Honeystripe (-fern). There’s also -speck and -spots for the other tabby types

-tail: an agile cat, very classic. A lot of cats get this. Cherrytail (Squirrelflight), Birchtail (-fall), Wisteriatail (Twigbranch), Honeytail (Heather-), and a bunch of bg characters with -spring, -leap, or -flight in their names.

-throat: a skilled orator, linguist, bard, storyteller, or just a well-spoken cat. This is a very rare suffix and no notable characters get this.

So I am actually very curious about this, because if a suffix is so rare, that you cant name a cat in the series at all to have it, why is it on the list? Would any cat even remember it if isnt in use? What kind of requirements would you have to have for this suffix, since I cant imagine that there would be many (if any) teenagers/young adults who could be considered masters of speech or storytelling at the 12 moons most cats get their warrior names at. I would suggest if you want to keep a suffix on the list, it should have at least one usage in the clans, else they would forget about it.

-whisker: a prudent hunter. I can’t think of anyone I changed to -whisker on the spot.

And here are some other suffixes I’m indecisive on.

-pad or -shade could be a stealthy cat. Even if I accepted one or the other, it’d be hard to pin down who would get this.

Personally I do think that having a stealth suffix is a pretty good way to expand a more traditional system, because its also a very useful skill. While it can be used in hunting (and some might say a whisker cat is by nature stealthy), a stealthy cat has a separate but partially overlapping set of skills. It does seem like you havent gone through all the names in the many many books so far, so I am sure there are a few cats somewhere who could have qualified for this suffix if you choose to keep it.

Considering -ear or -eye to mean a skilled scout, but that’s overlapping a lot with -nose’s territory, so I’m hesitant in including it.

I agree with you when it comes to -nose, and since -nose already seems to be uncommon, I would think sticking with nose is sufficient.

I considered -stone for the meaning of “a very loyal and dedicated cat”. Not sure about it.

I do like -stone as well, but unless you have a specific cat in mind I probably wouldnt include it.

I’m thinking -pool could be for a wise cat, but I’m not sure about that.

-shine is a cute suffix, but it’s rather hard to work with because it doesn’t mesh well with a lot of prefixes. I could use it to mean “upbeat and cheerful” and give it to Briarlight, but it’s not exactly easy to work with.

-frost is an amazing suffix, but it’s sort of the opposite of -shine. It sounds good with a lot of prefixes, but it’s hard to pin down a meaning for it.

I really like -light as a suffix but dang if it isn’t a monster to work with. It has -shine and -frost’s problems, but I really like it and don’t want to give up on it.

-breeze is a pretty solid suffix, but I’m afraid it’ll be redundant. -foot is pretty solid and I can’t really change that because traditionalism. Maybe it’s like -fang? I’m not sure.

Similarly, I like -thorn and -blaze as suffixes, but they’re pretty hard to work with when you already have names that fill their niches and have the “one suffix per meaning” rule that stricter traditionalism has.

Yeah I see your concern for most these last suffixes. As lovely as they are, unless they have a good solid place in you writing, and cats you can immediately think of using for their names, I wouldnt be too worried about incorporating them into your clans.

Anyway, there’s my suffix list! I hope you enjoyed! And if you have any suggestions, please let me know because I am not bright. Thank you!

#warrior cats #clan culture #warriorsworldbuilding #submission

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adcres · 4 years

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howdy hey , pardnerrrs :> i’m rox ( she / her ) ‘n i’ll be playing yr residential sullen broodin’ boy , nico . i didn’t have the time to write out a whole new intro , given that i have back to back classes again today :-’( , so please forgive me for recycling his old intro akawodkgrsd ; . that being said , i did tweak around some tingz and i updated his wcs for him , so if yr down to clown around just hmu on my discord : 𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱 𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔫𝔦𝔞#2854 ! okie okie , i’ll shut da eff up now ♡

BASICS.

༉‧₊˚✧ kim taehyung , cis man , he / him / his — did you see that nicholas “nico” yoon was trending last night ? the twenty three year old street artist has been getting a lot of press lately . i think it’s due to them being so + quixotic & + free-spirited , but i always thought they seemed - withdrawn & - sybaritic . their fans always say they remind them of soft smoke rings spun in a dreamy haze , silver-ringed fingers rapping against polished oak , and waning light refracting against broken glass though . i wonder if they’ve found out about REDACTED yet … i guess we’ll have to wait and see . [ rox , 22 , pst , she / her , none ]

PINTEREST & PLAYLIST .

01 and 02 .

PERSONALITY .

at first glance , nico reads as this aloof , arrogant type that doesn’t like to associate w the common public . always keeping the majority of people at a comfortable distance , nico moves almost exclusively within his own social network , and doesn’t like to deviate from what he knows best .

not so much pretentious as he is lazy , making an effort to socialize with complete strangers is simply something that nico would never do . hehe ... he’s kind of shy like that .... ♡ though he’d literally never admit it ♡

despite giving the impression that he’s some intimidating and chronically indifferent kind of guy , nico is genuinely a sweet boy — ‏‏‎ one who’s in a constant state of confusion as to why people seem to be so scared of him . it always comes as a shock when close friends of his admit that they thought he absolutely hated their guts when they first met him .

b/c tho he’s p smart , nico is very oblivious at times , and he’s 100% the kind of guy who’ll walk away from a conversation thinking he did a rly rly good job trying to make a friend ... when in reality he prob said four words in the span of thirty minutes smh .

overall , nico’s a private person , especially with what he’s thinking ... and it’s really hard to get a clear read on what’s on his mind . sharing his feelings has never been one of nico’s interests b/c he just genuinely doesn’t think whatever he has to say is rly worth mentioning . so he usually just shuts da fuck up n lets other ppl talk so he can mentally gain the strength to continue socializing .

push nico’s buttons enough tho ‘n you’ll catch this mf speaking in full sentences .

lastly , it should b noted that nico is a romantic through n through ... this mf probably d*ed in the victorian era ‘n got reincarnated b/c he’s got that ‘ lets share furtive glances across the room but never say a thing to each other ‘ thing on lock . mr. darcy headass

and while nico might play the role of long-suffering , ever pining lover to a T , he’s more in love w / the idea of love than he is w / any single person . and he literally cannot hold down a relationship w/o fucking it up for himself in some shape or form .

kind of sarcastic ... v much the teasing type ....

can b very impulsive at times , loves to go on solo adventures at night , prefers his own company tbh ...

overview : melancholic , reticent , noncommittal , humble , mild-mannered , romantic .

a mix of : josh from clueless and j.d. from heathers

more here .

MORE AESTHETICS.

the chill of silver jewelry against flushed skin , forgotten graffiti on porcelain sinks , flickering motel lights , kisses sticky with vodka , eyes ringed with lavender , sleepless nights surrendered to the dull buzz of television , obscure art house films , sun-kissed cheeks , the surprise of summer rain , chest aching with lost loves , scattered baby’s breath and rosemary , and a shared smile between perfect strangers .

CHARACTER DISSERTATION.

nico was born on a brisk wintry morning in the fashion district of los angeles ( january 21st , 1997 ) to a family of six .

as the second youngest child , and the only male son to boot , nico grew up with his only inheritance being a generational kind of hunger , one that demanded for more than what his struggling parents could offer

the arts stole nico at an early age ... ushering him into a world of creation and freedom beyond the four bleak walls he daily occupied . from spending lonely summers tucked away in some forgotten corner in the library to practicing on a borrowed violin from dawn to dusk , nico knew that even with nothing at his disposal , there was always something to be made w/ the tools he’d been given

despite not having the money for private tutors to hone their son’s growing artistic talents , his parents did whatever they could to support his dreams , whether that meant working double shifts back to back or scrounging for loose change underneath the sofa cushions to pay for whatever materials nico needed .

it was in this strange way that nico grew up p spoiled . somehow having nothing while also having absolutely everything at the same time .

very much a family man , the first big purchase nico made once he broke out in hollywood was a house in beverly hills for his parents . now that he’s finally at a place where he can take care of his family , nico makes sure that his parents and sisters want for nothing

while he showers everyone else with generous gifts and obscene amounts of money , nico doesn’t particularly feel comfortable doing the same for himself . he’s a simple man through n through . one who’s content to spend his time walking his dog late at night , listening to a podcast on his airpods , instead of going out to a club w/ other well-known socialites .

a true artist at heart , nico refuses to conform to the current trends of hollywood , instead insisting on wearing thrifted clothes to important galas — ‏‏‎much to the frustration of his PR team and the chagrin of his stylists . but none of the choices nico makes seems to surprise anyone anymore . driving flashy cars and wearing designer clothes has never really been his style , after all . and it’s important to him that he remain authentically himself despite everything .

WANTED CONNECTS.

pr relationship ( open ) : someone that nico is contractually obligated to date ... i could totally see there being drama ‘n tension from having to pretend to actually like each other ... would b better if they rly did not like each other at all ...

fwb ( open ) : buddies who bump uglies sometimes ... they both agreed they’d never catch feelings for each other but we’ll see ...

frenemies ( open ) : someone that grinds nico’s gears but they’re a friend of his friend ... so they’re forced to keep it civil . i can see them exchanging hateful comments in the back of their friend’s car while simultaneously posting pics of each other on ig to keep up the rouse .

unrequited crush ( open ) : likely nico would not realize if yr muse had a crush on them ... but it’d be fun to play it out like a kdrama anyway heh heh

a close friend group ( open / any ) : i thought it’d b so cute if there was like a small group of friends , maybe 3-4 ppl , that do stupid shit like ditch going to celebrity after-parties to break into abandoned buildings , get real high , ask stupid ‘ would u rather ‘ questions , and do sum main character type shit ... yk what im puttin down ... ‘n nico is def the type to open up in the presence of extroverts so i think having a group of wild outsiders of diff bgs would b v inch resting ..

enemies / rivals ( open / any ) : tbh nico prob rubs ppl the wrong way since he has resting bitch face ‘n never wants to talk to anyone .. so im sure there r ppl who just do not like this mf ... and rest assured that the feeling is mutual ...

bad / good influence ( open / any ) : nico’s known to mount his high horse often ... mr morality over here ... so i just know he prob would butt heads w/ the residential troublemaker . tho nico’s artwork can be controversial and out of the box at times , his art style and his personality are at constant odds , and it’d b interesting to have that bad influence / good influence dynamic w/ someone .

family friend ( open ) : someone who grew up w/ nico in dtla ... couldve gone to the same public school as him ... or their families couldve gone to the same church ...

ok my intro post has become a fucking behemoth so im going to stop here ‘n just say i have so many more wcs in mind so if u wanna plot lets just talk hehe :>

#lavish.intro #okie gotta blast i have class in 5 min

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vgsiwoo · 5 years

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hello! i’m heather (19, she/her, cst) and i’m going to be playing both yang “seven” siwoo and choi “na yubin” chanwook. i will get an intro posted for yubin soon (sometime tomorrow), but in the meantime... allow me to introduce you to the tragedy that is vain glory’s tower canon. his profile page is here, but i don’t have a plots page for him, so i’ve just included some ideas at the end of this post. if you want to plot, then go ahead & like this and i’ll hit you up asap.

( tw for physical abuse, murder & drug overdose. his whole history is filled with it, so go ahead and skip alllllll the way to the bottom if the plot ideas are what you’re looking for! )

siwoo was an accident conceived by two people who were more fuck-buddies than they were an actual couple. his mother was very in love with his dad, but had never told him this; and when she became pregnant with his child, he ghosted. he promised that he’d get back in touch after he had some time to think, but 9 months passed and suddenly she was giving birth and he was who knows where.

she had no money, and the man she would come to meet had no money. siwoo was raised in the slums of gangnam.

she met another man shortly after siwoo was born, and siwoo grew up thinking this other man was truly his father; no one ever told him different.

this man was insanely abusive both to siwoo and his mother. even as a baby, he hurt siwoo; if he cried too loud, he’d burn him with cigarettes. he has a lot of little scars from this all over, especially on his chest, stomach and back.

the abuse only got worse as he got older. new bruises and injuries were added on before the old ones could completely heal, and siwoo thought he hid it well, but he really didn’t. everyone pitied the powerless boy, but no one did shit to save him.

anyway he started taking taekwondo classes when he was pretty young, and he had a natural talent for it because of his own pent-up rage from being abused & also because of his determination to be good at something, yk? and he really enjoyed it.

he continued on with taekwondo for years, which also made him strong enough to actually stand up to his father and fight back. still got his ass beat more often than not, but??? tried to hold his own, and that’s gotta count for something.

i didn’t specify in his bg, but he was between 13/15 when his little brother was born and at this point, his parents (both hardcore druggies by now) had stopped paying the bills and quite frankly, siwoo’s prize cash wasn’t enough to make ends meet. so, he did the only thing he could think to do -- he started stealing placebo pills from local pharmacies and would replace his parents’ drugs w fake shit. and then he’d sell stuff to classmates and people on the streets.

started drawing police attention and basically ruined his life without even knowing he was ruining it Yet. got caught Once by his stepdad and got beat within an inch of his life (literally) and still has insane nightmares about it but doesn’t talk about it. also didn’t stop selling their shit LMAO.

he was 17. preparing for college entrance exams. feeling pretty good about his life & his opportunities, thinking about how to take his mom and little brother with him when he left. how to save them. and then he came home from studying one night and found his father dead on the floor with a stab wound in his gut and his mother dead not far from him with a needle jammed in her arm. fun fun fun.

threw away all of his plans for the sake of raising his little brother and trying like HELL to make things better for him. he didn’t even finish his education, despite having less than a year left, and cut off all contact w/ national taekwondo team representatives (i forgot to mention this earlier but here it is...... he was in talks to be recruited into the team. would’ve been super cool. but he had to give it up).

worked lots of odd jobs. mainly did mechanic work, but also did some electricity/wiring stuff, would paint fences/houses/whatever, would train people in taekwondo and also still sold drugs on the side when he could get his hands on some.

word started spreading underground that he was Really good at taekwondo & people thought he’d make a great fighter. and they also knew that he desperately needed money. so, somehow or another, passive drug-dealing turned into cage fights and he hated it. hated hurting people like that, like his father had hurt him, hated seeing their blood and his blood and hated waking up sore but he sure did love the lump-sums of money. plus, it’s not as easy to get out as it is to get in, so....... suddenly he was a fighter?

it’s 2020. his lil brother is somewhere between 13 and 11 (again...... i never specified..... idk man) & he would do!!! literally anything!!! to keep him safe and happy. his brother is pretty much.... his only motivation to stay alive anymore.

siwoo’s super melancholic. he always seems to be sad about something. he’s pretty nice, when he can be, but he knows that he needs to seem tough if he doesn’t want people to fuck with him, so he tries??? to seem tough????

always smells like cigarette smoke nd..... regret.

if your character only knows him through his fighting, it’s VERY likely that they don’t know his real name and only refer to him as seven!!! he tries really hard to keep his real name secret.

wears a heart-shaped locket that his mother always wore before she died. holds a pic of his mom & his birth dad as teenagers, but he could never get it open so he hasn’t seen it. holds the locket really dear to his heart and will fight anyone who says shit about it.

for plots..........................

ex gf who got him through a lot of tough shit and his lil bro lowkey feels super safe around her, so she still hangs around from time to time...... no feelings left, but they’re still present in each other’s lives. (female lock)

people he’s done odd jobs for and they Swear that they know him but can’t put their finger on where. (anyone)

someone who’s super patient (which him at least) n just..... nice to be around. he starts catching feelings like a dumb bitch. (slow burn, male or female)

peoples whose dogs are friends w his dog. wholesome dog-walking threads. or maybe your dogs run into each other, and you’re like??? really??? you??? fuck this. (anyone)

you tried to pick a fight with him and he beat your ass and you still hold a grudge. (male lock)

he picked a fight and you beat his ass. he’s scared of you. (male lock)

really anything. these are all dumb and messy because i came up with them in the moment, but i’m down to discuss anything!!!!!

#vg:intro

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