#i was messing around with foregrounds and blurring

[lapdogss]

i really like haley’s design

[doodlemcjazzhands]

do you have any tips on drawing backgrounds. I struggle with them so much and can’t always make them cohesive with the drawing yk

Oh man, yeah. I do indeed know, all too well U_U Backgrounds are a STRUGGLE

Here are some things I’ve picked up, that have helped make them a little less difficult (feel free to take what you think might be helpful and then scrap the rest!):

1. Map out your Composition, Tones and Colors in a Rough Thumbnail

-I think the main thing that helps me, is planning. If you’re gonna do a background, don’t think of it as an after thought. I find it’s helpful to plan out the background at the same time you’re planning the character pose, rather that just slapping in a background, once the character is already finished. It’s like a little dance, making the environment work to accommodate the character while simultaneously making the character work to accommodate the BG.

-I usually do a small thumbnail and color key before I actually go into the drawing itself

-I like to think of the thumbnail like a little roadmap that I can always refer back to when I’m stuck. It's something that is easy to experiment with and will help me keep the big picture in mind, while working, rather than fussing over all of the small details.

-you can plan how you might want to use light and other elements of the bg to frame important things, or point and lead your eye to the focal point, or divide up the frame.

When I’m working on the actual drawing, I’ll always keep my thumbnail visible off in the corner of my workspace, just as a reminder of where I want to go with the piece, and to keep it available to color pick from, when I want to.

2. Try Sticking to 1 or 2 Dominant Colors and try not to stray too far, unless it’s an intentional accent

I usually choose 1-2 main colors and then paint bucket fill the canvas with those colors as a base, before I even start on the "cleaned up" linework. Then when I start painting, for real, I choose my colors based off how warm or cold they are, compared to the main color(s).

So say, for example, I want the dominating color of the illustration to be red, if I’m coloring an apple (that is naturally red) I would keep it the same hue, but might change the tone or saturation. However, if I’m painting a carrot (that would naturally be orange) I might just shift the hue to be a warmer red, rather than a full blown orange. Conversely, if I wanted to paint a naturally blue sky, I would shift the hue from red to be a bit colder, maybe more of a purple, but not necessarily a true blue.

*sometimes the saturation can mess around with a perceived color as well, (like how a desaturated yellow, will often look green), so I find there’s a lot of trial and error and messing around to be done with color, which I guess is half of the fun :P

(obviously this isn’t the only way to approach color, but I find it helpful for reigning myself in and keeping things a little more cohesive)

3. Add Depth

-Think of your environment as a 3D space with overlapping elements. Consider what your foreground, midground and background elements might be, to give depth to the drawing.

The further away something is, the less details the human eye can make out, and atmosphere will create a sort of hazy look to things that are set far away. So to mimic this effect for things that you want to recede into the distance, you can use less saturated colors, less contrast, do less detail, less line work (maybe even go lineless) and use slightly cooler colors. Maybe even add a little gaussian blur if it looks good. Conversely, for things you want push forward, just do the opposite (higher contrast, higher saturation, heavier line, more detail ect.)

4a. Study and Play with Lighting

I think lighting can be a big factor in helping make a character feel like they fit and belong in their environment. Study how light works and interacts with the world and think about how it might effect every element of your environment. How does it break apart when it’s going through something translucent? Is it going to cast harsh or soft shadows? Are there multiple light sources? Are they different colors? different intensities? Is the light source visible or not? Is it a controlled beam of light, like a laser, or more open, like the sun?

4b. Make use of Reflected Light and Color

So, when light hits an object, that is near another object, some of it’s color can be reflected onto the nearby object, if the angle is right. So for reflected light, I usually add a clipping mask layer to the affected object and add a gradient coming from the first object, using a color that has be color picked from the first object. Then I’ll turn down the opacity to my liking.

^(Ok, this first example of reflected light is super subtle on Sirius’s jacket, but it’s a little clearer to see the reflected light from the tub reflecting onto Sirius’s face and Remus’s arms, in the second example)

5. Add a Little Bit of *Spice*

If by the end of my coloring, I still want to do some tweaking, these are my general go to’s:

-Edit with filters and/or gradients. If you’re working digitally, play around with blending modes. You can make a new layer, fill it with a color or a gradient, then see what different blending modes and levels of opacities will do to it.

-Color your lines so that the black isn’t so harsh against the other colors in the scene. Sometimes I like to go completely lineless in some areas, if it's an area blown out by light, or is maybe pulling your attention away from the focal point

-You could add a little bit of grain and noise (to do this in photoshop, make a new layer, fill it with a grey colour (or experiment with other colours) then go to filter>noise>add noise>ok and turndown the fill and maybe change the blending mode)

-Adjust the levels, if you’re still not fully satisfied with the contrast, you can adjust the levels (ctrl +L in photoshop)

-Adjust the Color balance if you're not fully satisfied with the saturation and colors (ctrl+ B in photoshop)  

Ok, gosh, there’s so much, but I think I’ve rambled on long enough… hope this helps and wasn't too obvious or convoluted!

Good luck!!

[pixelplayground]

Heyy, I want to ask if you have any tips on the ”DOF” setting in reshade. I find myself struggling to edit the setting and want to find a good balance, right now it makes everything blurry and it’s a total mess! I love how in your photos it’s perfect and not crazy like i have it now. Not sure when you are gonna see this but Happy new year! <3

Hello nonny, I always go for a subtle bokeh versus the super blown out look. Ideally, I'm trying to emulate the focal lengths of an actual camera. I also use 4 different DOF shaders that can be layered on top of one another depending on the scene. Two of them are mouse driven auto focus, and the other two are static blur for items in the distance.

In general you want to focus on adjusting the following areas to control which parts of your image are subject to blur:

Near Blur Curve (amount of blur in foreground, i.e. objects closer to the camera)

Far Blur Curve (amount of blur in the distance, i.e. everything far away from the camera)

Generally, 0 = no blur, and 1 = blur. DOF shaders are quite sensitive. I do not like any blur in the foreground therefore, I usually have this set to 0 for my non mouse driven DOF shaders.

Then for the actual blur strength effect, I leave this very low too, usually around 5-10 at maximum.

Hope that helps!

[breakfastwithbeb]

hii! this is the mac/vanilla anon. may i know how did you make your build/gameplay screenies looks so pretty, vibrant and looks like they have dof? your screenies straight up look like you have reshade on and im so. WOAH<333 sorry if this ask sounds so weird but i play on mac too and my game looks so atrocious HSJFKEJFJ

oh my gOD thank u so much that is the nicest compliment i could ever receive 😭<3 i totally understand the game looking like pure garbage it's tough out there for mac players 💔 here's my

~editing process of a sad mac user~

i use Photopea to edit everything. free and online, what's not to love!

oil paint filter with a radius of 0.8 to 1, lighting off

smart sharpen with a radius of 1.4 (these first two steps don't often do too much but can smooth out the edges of the pixels without having to play with edge smoothing on)

i like a bit of chromatic aberration so i go into channels, select red, and apply a lens correction filter of 3 (go back to regular channel afterwards)

to fake DOF - i use the quick selection tool and mess around with it until the foreground or preferred focus of the image is selected (doesn't have to be totally perfect, often times people won't be looking that close). then inverse the selection and apply lens blur, typically with a radius of 12 to 15 ----- (the selection part can be a real bitch - sometimes there just isn't enough contrast between the foreground and the background for Photopea to understand which specific section ur trying to select. in cases where it rlly refuses to work i've had to go in and use the polygonal lasso select tool and manually trace what i want to be in focus akjsdhfj)

apply photoshop actions to adjust colours - lately pretty much the only one i've been using is wooldawn's warmerfalls sometimes combined with intramoon's bright and saturated

sometimes i will apply a gradient fill layer (often the purple to orange one) and set the blending mode to luminosity, opacity 12 if there's a light source that i want to emphasise a little more. it also just adds a nice softening effect

for funky rainbow effects - look up "rainbow light leak overlay" and download any u like the look of. open and place them on top of ur image, fit them to size, change the blending option to exclusion, lower the opacity to desired outcome. to make the colours of the rainbow *pop* a lil more i like to duplicate the layer and change the blending option to overlay, though u may have to lower the opacity of this layer even more as it darkens the image quite a bit

i add a film dust texture over a lot of my posts! i downloaded a set a while back but i don't remember where from, sorry :( there are a bunch out there if u look it up i'm sure!

and that's about it! it seems like a lot written out but i'm self taught and technologically inept so it's all actually pretty basic when u know where all the buttons are in Photopea heh ;D thanks again for liking my posts!! it means the world u have no idea <3

[herotheshiro]

Spoilers for weak hero webtoon ch 267 but...

SHOOK that the author actually had stephen wake up AND have stephen and gray reunite. I mean i suspected stephen would wake up at one point bc why put him in a coma instead of killing him off then, and i also suspected he would wake up/they would reunite at the very end bc it makes sense narratively for gray to "finish" all his eunjang shit before meeting stephen again... but still. Having all that actually happen fr still surprised me.

I wonder how much the drama adaption influenced the webtoon or vice versa bc they had stephen working at a cafe (food place) where gray meets him again... either the author liked suho working his odd jobs or it was in the author's plan all along and the drama writer just low key "spoiled" it when adapting.

Anyway, i did go and read that last ch, and reading it made me kind of have a better idea of what the drama will look like... based on the fact they could p much summarize the main points of the entire story in 1/3 of that ch means they could reasonably adapt the entire webtoon in the 2nd season (w some story adjustments/cuts obvi) and end w suho and sieun's reunion in the very last scene. Yes it would be kind of rushed or they would have to remove a ton of stuff to have the pacing feel more natural but they could feasibly do it... otherwise if they follow the pacing of s1 then i can definitely see them adequately adapting in 2 more seasons (so a total of 3 seasons). Also the story summary had a shot of gray driving a motorcycle... i can totally see them bringing that to the drama since suho's key character trait was him biking around everywhere... drama!ben being like woah you know how to work a bike? And sieun being like yeah... i learned from my friend

Anyway while we're imagining drama scenes... i can totally see a way they could do the reunion scene in my head.

Sieun enters a korean grilling place similar to the place featured in s1 (i'm p sure there's a korean term for this kind of restaurant but i'm too lazy to look it up rn). Sieun looks out over the restaurant, a voice calls out "welcome!" camera pan or cut to suho's back (or a shot of sieun at the door w a blurred suho in the foreground), he's clearing a table and not looking at the entrance. He tells sieun over his shoulder to sit down and he'll get to him. Sieun stays rooted, silent and comprehending that suho is awake and moving around like he had never been in a coma. Suho finally turns around, wonders why the customer is just standing there, then has whiplash when he realizes who he's looking at. The scene could finish either 1 of 2 ways - 1. hyunwook and jihoon's comments abt their reunion could be used, w sieun hesitatingly (or sarcastically) asking "do you remember me?" and suho cheekily is like "ya i'm not stupid, weirdo. how have you been?" While sieun smiles at him and the scene cuts to an aerial view of the restaurant w the eunjang bros milling abt (similar to webtoon) OR my original thought of 2. suho looks at him in silent shock, sieun smiles at him as the camera zooms in closer to him and he says "hey, it's been a while" cooly and then hard cut to credits.

Anyway so if the author goes w realism, then that means stephen must have woken from his coma p soon afterwards? Bc technically the longer someone is in a coma, then the more messed up they are upon waking up... he's working fine (assumingly) and also seems to remember gray or at least the feeling of gray... technically we know it's likely been over a year since stephen went into the coma since i think gray transferred to eunjang abt the same timeline sieun did and the ending ep had someone talk abt how the school yr had finished... the webtoon has the benefit of stephen getting transferred away so gray couldn't keep up w him, but as i said in my prev post, the drama will likely also similarly transfer him away in s2 to get him out of the picture for sieun's further development... or maybe not? There's a couple ways they could go about it i guess. But anyway yeah this confirms choi hyunwook will be coming back at one point lol. Idk i convinced myself they wouldn't bring him back, that they would effectively write suho off but i mean as i said. He's in a coma, not dead so.

Also that webtoon ending scene is gonna adapt so well in the drama if they choose to use it as the ending... it will truly be a full circle w the drama starting w suho and sieun's story and then ending w suho and sieun's reunion. However it does kind of make the vibe different bw the drama and webtoon... w the webtoon focusing more on gray's character and his impact on a larger social network while the drama focuses on that first friendship sieun has and how it shapes him to face his later struggles (and then he is able to return to that friendship in the end, changed for the better (?)). Maybe i'm talking out of my ass since i've barely read the webtoon but again it's interesting to see the changes bw source and the adaption.

[m15018liamarmstrong]

Camera Basics:

White Balance/Colour Temp:

Setting white balance = showing the camera what white should be in the image

Different light sources require different white balances

Whites can appear very blue or orange (depending on light sources)

Setting the White Balance:

Most if not all typical cameras like those on phones automatically set the white balance, which is often wrong. 

Canon Camera White Balance Setup:

1. Put a pure white object up to the camera 2. Position the camera so that the light bounces off it and into the lens 3. Take a photo 4. Tell the camera to use that photo as the light balance

Exposure:

Exposure is how much the camera lens is exposed to the light, i.e. how open the lens is. Expose too much and the picture will be too bright, expose too little and it’ll be too dark.

^ ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed

Shoot in Manual mode or the camera will automatically change the way the image appears via settings

In order to gain the correct exposure, balance these three settings until the indicator shows at the middle of the levels meter.

ISO (Film Speed)

ISO is the speed at which light is reacted to by to film stock.

ISO film (100) = bright sunshine

ISO film (200) = daylight

ISO film (400) = overcast

Digital cameras copy this system but allow for much higher ISO levels (3200 - 25,600) but at the cost of the image looking grainy. Images like this are able to be captured in low light with minimum flash.

Aperture:

Aperture is how much the camera lens widens to let the light in. They are measured with a function called “f stops”

- Low F stop (2.8) = aperture fully opened, lets in a lot of light and it’s easier to gain depth of field + higher shutter speeds can be utilized - High F stop (32) = aperture opened slightly, barely any light enters camera and depth of filed is not possible + low shutter speeds required

Shutter Speed:

Shutter speed tells us how long the shutters are open for before taking the picture, and are measured in fractions of a second.

Shutter Speed for Video: - 2x frame rate - 25fps = 1/50 of a second

Focal Length:

Distance between the lens and the sensor on the camera and is typically measured in mm. It’s important to note down what lens and focal lens that I have used in order to enter that data into Nuke. 

- 18mm = wide angle, takes in more of the scene within the frame, and no blur - 70mm = narrow angle, less of the scene is within frame and there’s a large contrast between foreground and background focus, combined with lower aperture an extreme depth of field can be achieved.

Camera Movement Notes:

- Keep movements small - No zoom - Storyboard affectively to avoid sloppy camera movements - Locked off shots make it easier to apply visual effects - Justify each camera movement - Mess around with the camera tripod, be creative

Recording Audio:

Use what equipment you have available to you, if you have an audio level control adjust the incoming sounds to be louder or quieter

[scarletttjphotography2022]

Week 10 Photos: Still life as a portrait of me and my family

This week I photographed spaces around my home, trying to focus on areas that my family had left their mark on- half-drunk coffee cups, food scraps, mess. Even though there are no people in these scenes, I could see my family and myself in all of them. The food we eat, the untidy habits we have- our spaces say a lot about us. I’ve tried to photograph images that contrast with the cloudy portraits I have been taking. As well as giving clues about my family, these photos show the facts of life- the messes, the chores to be done. I have shot all of these in colour because unlike the self portraits which represent my precarious and personal sense of self, the mundane aspects of life- crumbs to be cleaned, rubbish to be emptied- are something we can all relate to and are constant in our day to day lives.

Below: Some of my favourite images from this shoot.

Editing

Below: I took this image at sunset. It was really dark inside, but the lights was really intense outside, so only the window and the light showed up brightly in this image. It captures the drama of a sunset. I used a shorter shutter speed to keep the shadows dark, and a higher aperture to keep both the window and the light in focus.

Below: I love the contrast in this image, so using camera raw I increased the strength of the whites in the image and darkened the shadows. I also cropped the image tighter to draw the focus in to the two lights. 

Below: 

Some technical challenges I faced with this image were lighting and balancing ISO with other settings. My house is very dark, so this image was hard to light. I didn’t want to use a lower f stop as there is nothing in the foreground of the image so I wanted a medium-deep depth of field, and as the subject is stationary I didn't want blur in my image, so I used a faster shutter speed. My best option for gaining light without compromising the key features I wanted in the image was to use a higher ISO. I tried to minimise the grain this caused by shooting at the brightest time of day and using artificial lighting as well. I used the shade white balance setting to warm the image up. This emphasises the afternoon sun and brings out the gold tones in the chair, vase and tablecloth.

I took this image in the late afternoon of my dining room table. By using the flowers as a framing device, and following the rule of thirds, focus is drawn to the chair. It’s a mysterious photo, because the chair is empty, and you have to guess at who this chair belongs to. The piano and music book are also open- details like this make it seem like a scene which has recently been left. They hint at the people who live here- my family. This is my brother’s chair. He always leaves crumbs at the table and pulls the tablecloth off a bit when he eats. My mum sometimes plays songs from an old Disney songbook and my brother loves to sing along. They were doing this before I took this photo. 

Below: In my camera raw edit of the image, I turned the exposure down a fraction to strengthen the shadows in the image. I also put a slight vignette on the image to minimise the patch of white light from the window on the right. I’m unsure whether I prefer the image with a vignette or without. I think both have an appeal. The image without a vignette seems more candid, and the vignette image seems more theatrical. On the one hand I've been trying to keep my photos candid and natural, but on the other hand I like the idea of adding some drama and a sense of monumentality to the everyday. My mum and I are also avid op shoppers , and my house is full of all the things my mum has collected over the years. I think the aesthetic of my house really lends itself to vignettes, because its full of little scenes and collections which speak to different parts of our lives.

Below: The dirty dishes on my bench. The afternoon sunlight creates strong shadows in the image, and artificial lighting highlights the bananas. The gold in the flowers on the window, the bottle, the bananas, the plate, the jug, and the bird egg cup bring the image together. I used

Edit: to emphasise the saturation and high contrast in this image, I adjusted the curves on camera raw, bringing the lights up to about +10.

[armoricaroyalty]

shooting your sims story like an a24 movie: Creating a Split Diopter Effect with GShade/ReShade and GIMP

YOU NEED: GShade or ReShade, a preset with a depth of focus shader, photo-editing software (I use GIMP, which is free and open source), familiarity with the rule of thirds.

YOU WILL BE ABLE TO: use layer masks to edit together two screenshots to create a split-diopter effect.

WHAT IS A SPLIT DIOPTER / DUAL-FOCUS?

A split diopter is a special kind of lens that can be used to produce a dual-focus effect. A dual-focus effect means a shot with multiple planes of focus.

Like this. Both characters are in focus, despite being on opposite ends of the frame. The empty space between them is out of focus.

The human eye can only focus on one thing at a time. To demonstrate this, hold your hand up in front of your face. Focus first on your hand, and then on the wall behind it. While you’re focusing on your hand, the wall behind it is blurred. When you’re focused on the wall, your hand becomes blurred. In this example, your hand and the wall represent two different planes of focus: the near plan (your hand) and the far plane (the wall).

Like your eyes, a camera lens can usually only focus on one thing at a time. A split diopter shot allows you to keep both the near and far planes in focus simultaneously, with an out-of-focus band in between.

WHY USE A SPLIT DIOPTER/DUAL-FOCUS EFFECT?

Because your puny human eyes can only maintain one plane of focus at a time, a frame with two planes of focus produces an unsettling effect akin to the uncanny valley. You can tell something is wrong even if you can’t put your finger on why. A split diopter shot messes with the viewers’ ability to parse what’s going on in frame or where things are in relation to one another. For this reason, these kinds of shots show up most often in thrillers and horror movies, where the disorienting effect contributes to the overall mood and tone.

Split diopter shots essentially combine the strengths of the close-up and the long shot. It lets us see the emotions on an actor’s face and the chaos going down behind them. In a horror movie, we can see the injured protagonist frantically tending their injuries while their boyfriend is mauled by a werewolf in the background.

One of the most famous split diopter shots of all time is in Jaws (1975) where a conversation between our protagonists is interrupted when the swimmer in the background is attacked by the eponymous man-eating shark.

Pics taken moments before disaster.

Use a split diopter effect to create tension and unease. They’re useful for fitting a lot of visual information into a single frame or compressing the space between two distant characters.

A split diopter will undermine the mood of a happy or straight-forwardly romantic scene, but it can add drama and tension to an argument or betrayal. If you want to subtly signal to your readers that someone is lying or something is not quite as it seems, you can use a split diopter to contribute to that feeling of unease.

HOW TO CREATE A SPLIT DIOPTER EFFECT

You can create a split diopter effect by layering two screenshots with different planes of focus.

Step 1: Set up your shot. Our split diopter effect depends on being able to take two pictures of the same scene with different focal distances. Arrange your sims and objects, one in the foreground and one in the background. In my experience your foreground and background objects need to be at least 2 - 2.5 tiles apart. The further apart your near and far subjects, the easier it’ll be to compose your shot and create the effect.

I’ve decided that my near subject will be the sim and the canvas, and the still life will be the far subject. The canvas and the still life are approximately 2 tiles apart diagonally.

Step 2: Position your camera in tab mode. Enter tab mode. Zoom the camera around with the WASD keys and move it up and down with the Q and E keys. You want to find an angle where your near and far subjects are both positioned comfortably in frame with no overlap. Use the rule of thirds to help compose your shots: your near and far subjects should be centered in the first and third vertical thirds with an empty middle third. If you’re having trouble composing your shot, try zooming in and out with the Z and X keys. Zooming out a few clicks creates a fish-eye effect that will exaggerate the distance between your subjects and make it easier to get the screenshots you’ll need.

Step 3: Choose your preset. Open your GShade/ReShade control panel and choose a preset with a depth of field (DOF) shader. Make sure the shader has options for mouse-driven autofocus.

Step 4: Take 2 screenshots with different planes of focus. Once you’re satisfied with the position of your camera, click once so you can move your cursor without moving the game’s camera. Hover over the near subject, allow your DOF shader to bring the near field into focus, and take a screenshot. Then, without moving the camera, move your mouse to the far subject, wait for your DOF shader to focus, and take a second screenshot with the far plane in focus. Your two shots should be identical, except for the plane of focus.

Screenshot 1. The near plane is in focus. We can clearly see the canvas and brush, but the bottle is blurred.

Screenshot 2. The far plane is in focus. We can clearly see the bottle, but the canvas and brush are blurred.

Step 5: Open your screenshots in GIMP. Open your first screenshot GIMP, and then click ‘Open as Layer…’ and open the second image as a layer in the same file. I like to have my near subject on the top layer, but it doesn’t change the process or the end result.

Step 6: Add a layer mask to your top layer. In GIMP, I do this by right-clicking the top layer and selecting ‘Add Layer Mask…’ You want to select the second option, “Black (full transparency. Layer Masks allow us to make parts of our canvas transparent, and we’re going to use this function to create our split diopter effect.

Step 7: Add a gradient to your top layer. Find your software’s gradient tool. (In GIMP, you can bring it up by hitting the G key.) Use the color picker to set your main color to solid black (#000000). Then, with the layer mask selected, draw a broad gradient all the way across your screen, from the near subject to the far subject (make sure your main color is solid black). This will turn the layer partially transparent, fading from solid to see-through.

Move the cross-hairs around to see if you can create the effect.

Here's the end product of a fade-to-transparency gradient produced with a layer mask. You could also do this to recreate the nuclear annihilation montage from T2.

The end product. Both the canvas and the bottle are in focus, but the entire middle plane is out of focus (look at the light stand and the carpet pattern in the middle of the frame). As a result, the image feels somehow like an optical illusion. Your eyes move back and forth between the near and far subjects; you're not sure where you're meant to look. The overall result is just a little spooky, a little unsettling. It looks like a still from a David Lynch film.

[softpine]

omg i love kennie jd!! and i need to make a mock youtube channel for elaine, she would absolutely have one! i feel like she would post whatever the hell she wants with no regard for the algorithm, so you’ll get like a makeup tutorial, a true crime video, a boring vlog, a video essay about a random cartoon from the 70s, in no particular order lol

this one?

that’s all thanks to reshade!! i have two different dof’s set up - one for distance blur, one for foreground blur, which i toggle on/off depending on the look i’m going for. i think cinematic dof is the one i use for foreground blur but you’ll have to mess around with the settings.

but if you have some extra time, you can do it in photoshop too: use the lasso tool to outline the tree branches, delete everything outside of that, and shape blur :)

lmao of course!!! and thank you 🥺💖

fjksdjs that’s her daily breakfast tbh

i’ve been hearing lots of people feeling the same type of way as you lately and it makes me so sad because i genuinely wish i could just impart a feeling of confidence and peace into all of you 😭 so many good stories that have made huge impacts on me would never exist if the creator had been too nervous to share them – and that’s not me trying to guilt trip you, that’s me commiserating that writing is hard and every writer would agree!! you’re sharing a piece of yourself in everything you write, and you’re opening yourself up to criticism, and it’s scary as hell. but ultimately it IS worth it, it really is. i hope you find the courage to post your story anon, i would really love to read it 💖

hey!! you're not annoying at all! i make all the lots myself, and for poses i'd say it's about 3/4 mine and 1/4 other people's poses these days. but i started doing this VERY gradually. i started out almost entirely using preexisting lots, poses, cc, etc. but as time went on, i wanted more control and more customization, so i learned how to make cc and poses, which opened up a world of possibilities. this actually made me MORE motivated to work on story posts, because i have so many fewer limitations than i did when i was reliant on other people. so if this doesn't apply to you, i don't think i have too much advice for staying motivated honestly :( different strategies work for different people, so you may just not be the type of person who wants to do everything yourself, and that's 100% okay!! there's still a lot you can do! (also if you need any specific pose, i would be more than happy to make it for you because it took me forever to learn how to make poses and i remember how frustrating it was to have a great idea but be unable to make it come to life!) 💖

[owlidoodles]

so i do a lot of shading like this in my art (or try to) and i asked if anyone in my discord server wanted a tutorial.... and they said yes!

so im gonna do my best to explain how i shade things under the cut....

(i use clip studio paint but honestly this should work in any art program i think)

1. FIRST- have your drawing. have Layer. I usually have three layers at LEAST when im doing this- and i keep them stacked in this order: top is lineart, middle is flat colors, and bottom is the background.

the purple circle shows the icon for making a layer into a clipping layer- IMPORTANT

the pink circle shows the icon for locking transparent pixels- helpful! it makes sure you don’t “go outside the lines”

(in case you’re curious this is my csp layout)

2. create a new layer above your flat colors, and press the two little squares. this makes a clipping layer! it basically makes a mask of the layer below it, and you can draw whatever (in this case shadows) and it only follows the filled in areas of the layer below it. so if i drew a bunch of yellow stripes on the clipping/shadow layer, it would only follow the form of the werewolf flat colors and not anything else. i hope that makes sense!

3. decide where your light source is coming from! ngl i totally draw a little sun to remind myself where the light is coming from in a piece.... in this case the green shows where i think the light would be hitting the werewolf, and therefore i would draw shadows opposite/adjacent to that. im not the best at explaining lighting though, so heres a good reference. 

heres another.

4. SHADING TIME..... so for my shading i just use the default pen tool in clip studio. g-pen, i believe. Stabilisation!!! between the two pink stars!!! use it. its so good for lineart, and for drawing smooth, non trash lines and shapes. it has Saved my life. the higher the number, the ‘slower’ your brush moves, and the smoother your lines become. i tend to keep mine around 60-70 but play around with it....

i usually shade with a bright annoying color so i can tell what im doing. (purple usually), as shown in box one. thats your foreground color. 2 is your secondary (background) color, i dont usually mess with it and leave it white. hitting box three turns your current pen into an eraser version of itself... i use it a lot! dont forget about this box

i usually tend to think of shadows as shapes.... in the werewolf’s eyebrow/spot/thing you can see where ive drawn a line.....

and then filled it in! i dont normally use the paint bucket to fill in areas... just the pen. it gets too hard

hair/tufts are the fun part!!! you can see that ive drawn solid chunks of shadow in the werewolf’s mane....

...then i click square three to turn my brush into an eraser and carve out little details

here are some more examples of that... i use it a lot. A LOT.

go wild. go crazy. sometimes i dont think my shading follows like TRADITIONAL physical rules of the laws of light but just. dewit

5. SO YOURE DONE SHADING..... if you refer back to your Layers window, you’ll see a drop down box that usually says normal and a slider.... knock that slider down to like. 50, or 30 (what i usually do). this lowers the opacity on the shadows layer so you can see through it kinda. the drop down box is the layer styles... play around with it!! you can do some really cool stuff with overlay/multiply/etc and make your shading layer super funky.....

if you hit the lock transparent pixels button, you can color your shadows differently if you want! sometimes ill duplicate the shadow layer and color it differently and run it through the gaussian blur filter... it can make it look a little softer and less hard.

usually in my art, when im done i merge all the layers together so you just have one layer left. i duplicate that layer, run it through the gaussian blur filter and drop the opacity down to like.... 20 maybe so everything looks soft. on this picture, i duplicated the werewolf layer (without the bg) and did a motion blur on it to make it look like he was moving....

.... and here he is after dropping the shadow opacity/adding other little details and running it through 5000 filters

i really hope that gave you some kind of idea on how cel shading works!! i am by no means the master, but if you have questions or tips please don’t hesitate to ask me ;a; im really not good at explaining things lol

thank you for reading!!! <3

[waxesnostalgic]

Making Normal Channels in GIMP (with njob)

Hello everyone! I was explaining how to do this in the Sims of History discord server and realized how much of this process I learned through trial and error. There isn’t really a good step-by-step tutorial about how to do this in GIMP, only in Photoshop (at least no text-based tutorials). While I use both Photoshop and GIMP for various things, I prefer to make my normal channels in GIMP. This tutorial will walk you through the process and hopefully demystify normal channels in GIMP.

Normal channels (bump maps) add additional depth beyond your mesh, which is useful for things like folds, painted on pockets, and buttons.

This tutorial is particularly for how to make Create-a-Sim items, not objects, but a lot of steps should be transferable.

You will need (all free programs):

GIMP

njob

Sims4Studio and/or CAS Tools

First, open your diffuse texture in GIMP. I often try to use the light/base texture rather than one I have colored already, but if you have already colored it and didn’t save a base, don’t worry, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Don’t use an image which has a pattern applied to it, as that will create a bump on the pattern and appear like applique or something along those lines (unless that is your goal).

I recommend doing this step after you have tested your diffuse texture image and mesh (if applicable) in the game. If you have any last minute changes to either of these, you will probably need to re-do your normal from scratch.

If your image is in layers for recoloring, or not, choose to flatten the image.  Transparency isn’t helpful in making normal channels, so get rid of it so you won’t have to worry about it later.

Once you have flattened it, the background usually turns either black or white. It doesn’t really matter which one, it won’t make much of a difference in njob.

Now, select the crop tool. You can see the current dimensions of the image in the “aspect ratio” box. For a CAS items, the original will be 1024:2048, which is 1 x 2. We will need to crop the image into a 1 x 1, or perfect square.

To have your normal channel as high quality as possible, you should use 1024:1024. This will work for clothing items like full body outfits, tops, bottoms, gloves, socks, and tights (basically anything mapped in this bottom portion of the UV map). For all of these items, you must use a square and cannot crop it to be smaller. For shoes, this means a very large blank area.

For accessory items like jewelry and hats, the cropping is different. For instance, a hat would be 512:256. If you are unsure of the dimensions to use, export the normal channel on the maxis item and copy its dimensions. The following instructions will assume you are making a clothing item and not an accessory item.

Click anywhere on the image while you have the crop tool active, then adjust your dimensions in the box to the left. You can manually type it in or drag the box and follow the size in the box as you drag.

The box should be perfectly aligned with the bottom and have no space below. If you have space below, just drag it as far to the bottom as you can. GIMP will stop you from dragging it outside of your current dimensions. If a little is sticking out at the top, that is okay. Nothing can be mapped outside of the 1024:1024 dimensions, so it is probably just bleed over or space filler that you are cropping off.

Press “Enter” on your keyboard to complete the crop.

Optional Step: If you desire, you may want to decrease the brightness and increase the contrast on your image so there will be more for njob to pick up. If you already have a lot of contrast, you may not need to do this.

Next, export your image as a PNG or BMP. Be sure to not overwrite your original diffuse texture.

You can now close GIMP, though you will need to open it again later.

Open njob, then your saved, cropped image.

Maximize your screen so you can see what you’re doing.

Go to Filter > Diffusemap > Heightmap and select that option.

The screen will pause to load for a bit before opening up a new box.

Your image will convert to black and white and may look a bit strange. The first step is to change your “Course Detail” setting to the lowest (or close to the lowest) setting and your “Fine Detail” to the highest setting. I generally play around with the “Mid Detail” and “Scale” until I get what I want. Try to have what you want to be visible stand out, while folds should be soft and fuzzy but still somewhat distinguishable.

Once you have what you need, click OK and go to Filter > Heightmap > Normalmap

There are two settings, “Scale” and “Blur Radius.” Neither of them have “ideal” settings, so you will need to adjust as you need. “Scale” controls the depth of the contrast and “Blur Radius” impacts the softness of the image. If your edges are too harsh, your normal map may look odd in game.

You will probably also have lines in areas in no texture. This is normal, and I will go over how to remove those later.

Once you are satisfied with how things look, save the image as a bitmap.

Now, open your bitmap image in GIMP. It is time to clean up the image and get rid of the artifacts. Unfortunately, unlike a specular, a normal map doesn’t have a mask to prevent bleed over onto skin or other textures. The unused areas need to be a midrange, solid grey. It is easier to edit at this step before you create your transparency.

Select a midrange blue color from one of the blank areas with your color selector and make it your background color by using the arrow button between the foreground and background colors.

Select the areas that should be blank and delete them, which will replace the lines with a solid blue color. This would be areas around the neck, wrists and ankles, and also places like the filler beneath skirts and tops that doesn’t need texturing. Be sure to select the odd lines around the image, which are usually a bright teal or hot pink color. Those can be very visible.

Sometimes, you may need to take your paintbrush and clean up the artifacts if they are in curved or very small areas. If anything looks too sharp, you can also use the smudge brush to smooth it out (very lightly). But don’t move anything around too much.

Once you have cleaned up your image, export it again as a bitmap. This is just so you can go back to it if you make a mistake later or need to modify it. Usually I save it as a new image, but you can overwrite the old one if you are feeling confident.

I have to point out that sometimes you can get away with not cleaning the artifacts from your image. But I have had too many issues with it in the past to skip this step.

Now it is time to make the normal map. Finally!

In the layers area, right click on your single layer and add an alpha channel to it. There is also a small button at the bottom you can use to add an alpha channel. You will need this transparency for the next step.

Next, go to Colors > Components > Decompose.

A small box will open up. Change your color model from RGB to RGBA to enable the alpha channel as a separate channel (layer).

Now, a new image will open that is your bitmap but greyscale. You will see four layers on the side called red, green, blue and alpha.

Select the red layer and click CTRL + A on your keyboard to select the entire layer. Then, click CTRL + C to copy the layer. (If you don’t have a keyboard, you can do “Select all” and “Copy” but this takes longer).

Now, go to your layer named alpha and press CTRL + V (paste) and CTRL + H (to anchor the layer). Now, you have replaced the alpha channel with the red channel.

Next, go to the green layer and select and copy it. Paste and anchor it into the red and blue layers, just as you did before with the red layer and alpha layer.

Your image won’t look too much different right now, it will just look like the green alpha channel rather than the visible red alpha channel when you opened it. Go back to the top bar and choose Colors > Components > Recompose. This will alter your original image, so the one you have open in layers will stay open. Go back up to the top and select the original image to go back to it, or close your layered image.

Now, your image should have changed from mostly blue to a transparent, mid-range gray with only a few elements visible. This is how it is supposed to look. If you don’t have transparency or it looks very different, then you probably messed up somewhere. Generally, I find it easier to go back to the original cleaned up bitmap (that you saved for future use) and start from scratch rather than trying to figure out where I messed up. That is usually faster.

Next, export your single-layer image as a PNG or DDS file (your preference). You will need a DDS plugin to save DDS files.

Open your item in Sims4Studio and import your new image file in the normal texture category. You will see a small preview in the box, which will probably show more details than you were able to see in GIMP. If it looks correct, save it and go to check it in game or in CASTools (which has a feature for previewing bumpmaps that can help you check for alignment problems). CASTools can be particularly useful if your computer doesn’t open the Sims quickly and you want to preview multiple bumpmaps. The only issue with CASTools is that it doesn’t really look much like it will look in game.

In CASTools. You have to select to see the bumpmap in the Previewer tab.

In game.

As I have only been making normal channels for a few months now, it’s possible I have missed some things, so if you know an easier or better way let me know and I can update the tutorial. I hope this is useful to you!

[wild-moss-art]

okay i love that lineart trick, but now i've gotta ask how you do your colouring, it looks so cool especially how you do your shading and how you blur your colours !!

OOoh I'm so glad you liked it!! :D Here is how I do my colors(sorry it turned out rly long lol):

Step 1: First, I think it's important to never color on a white background. Personally I think that really limits the range of colors and nuance that looks good, so I always change the background to gray or another color just to make my flats more vibrant. Then, I just pick colors I like and fill in the flats. I try to tint my blacks and whites with blues because I think straight blacks and whites look bad. Here is what it looks like at this stage:

Step 2: Shading! I like to shade with warm colors, I think cool colors can wash out a piece too much. It does vary, but usually I will pick a bright maroon for shadows and a pale pink for highlights. I create a multiply layer to put the shadows on and an add layer to put the highlights on, then use selections to limit where I’m placing the shadows and highlights. For this step I use a hard round brush with pressure transparency control. Sometimes, I will make another add layer for additional highlights in another color, because I think painting lights is fun. Here’s what it looks like at this stage:

Step 3: Once I’ve filled in the shading, I’ll add a simple background if I haven’t already sketched one in(If I have, I’ll just color that). This next trick I learned from @phinniasart (if you dont know their art please check it out!!) and basically what you do is copy the figure(I only copy the figure or foreground of the piece, essentially only the things I want to stand out), blur the copy, and set the layer to hard light mode. Depending on how it looks I’ll make this layer somewhat transparent. This effectively saturates the colors and softens up the lines. Here’s what it looks like:

Step 4: Lastly, filters! I learned everything in this section from Marc Brunet on Youtube. First, I copy the whole canvas and paste it on top of everything. Then, I mess around with the curves/levels to back off any colors that are too strong, or emphasize any colors that are too weak. In this example, I backed off the reds and blues and emphasized the greens. I also used the alpha channel to brighten the entire image. Next, I add a very slight chromatic aberration effect to the entire canvas; I keep it slight so it’s barely visible, just enough to add a little depth to my colors. Lastly, I add a noise filter on top of everything, at around 5-10% just to make everything a little bit crunchier and more cohesive. I think the filters someone uses are a huge part of their overarching style so I’d mess around with random filters until you find something you like!

That’s how I color! I hope this helps n I love sharing tips and tricks, so I’m happy to answer any questions. Also love learning about other people’s tricks, so please feel free to share yours with me!

[alaraxia]

Process Breakdown: Starfall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theletterwsartflap]

Making the Screenshot/TV look

I ended up compiling this for a Discord server but I’ll share it here too.

Imgur version: https://imgur.com/a/LREsOA9

alright so you got your drawing all nice and finished up but you wanna give it that tv look for an extra pop, eh? This tutorial will be for Krita but the majority of the techniques can be applied to other programs. I'll try to include the workarounds for the odd Krita specific thing. 

As you could see, I had things segmented into quite a few layers. To make things easier on yourself, group things up based on how close they'll be to the viewer/camera. In this instance, closest was the ground (labelled Ground Merge), then Elec Man (char merged), and then lastly the backdrop (bg merged). While layer naming isn't necessary, it'll save you a lot of headaches further down the road. What I've done is duplicated the components and merged the duplicates, and put the originals all in a folder labeled Master. Some of my filtering requires merged components, and some requires individuals, and this'll make it easier to grab them as they're needed.

First, you'll duplicate your character merges 3 times. In Krita, apply each of the Copy layer types to them, normally found in the Misc category. I've moved them to favourites because I use them so much. 

You also move each layer in a different direction, I generally move the CR and CG layers 1-2 px to the right and left, and then the CB layer 1 px down. You want it to just be visible to give that sort of screen burn look. While I haven't made new layers for this tutorial, you will end up with a particularly sharp looking image. 

To remedy the sharpness, on each one you'll be applying a 1-2 px Gaussian blur, depending on your canvas size/dpi. You want it just to start looking out of focus. ( Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur)

ALTERNATIVE METHOD: Some time after I started doing it this way, Krita added in a filter that does more or less the same thing in the G'MIC-QT filters. I'm not sure what other programs also feature this, but I know there are a few. (Filters > Start G’MIC-qt)

Navigate to the Degradations drop down and select Chromatic Aberrations. You'll prolly want around 2px for each of the values so it just shows like the long method I mentioned above. Again, you'll want to do this on a single duplication of your merged character. You will also apply the small Gaussian Blur to this layer as well. For other programs which are unable to do either method, I -believe- what you can do is a triple duplicate of the merged layer, set each one to Exclusion, shift them so the colour distortion becomes visible, then remerge. It's been awhile, but I -think- that's what I used to do in Photoshop. 

To solve the out of focus issue, re open your Master files and duplicate JUST your ink layer. Move said duplicate to be above the burn layers, and drop it to around 75% opacity. Sometimes setting it to Overlay makes for a more optimal look, usually with overall darker lines. You can experiment with a 1ish px blur if you find it's too sharp, but I don't usually find that necessary. 

These methods are then also applied on the background elements. To push for a feeling of distance, simply apply a heavier blur on the Copy/Chromatic layer(s). 

These were also duplicate layers, each with a different blur applied to them. I don't mess with my base duplicates as it makes it easier to continue duplicating off them instead of remerging the master copies each time. 

The bg DOF (Depth of Field) layer had exactly that applied to it, then dropped down to 60% range opacity. I wanted it to gradually fade off and not overpower the background as a whole. This can also be achieved by using layer masks and a Gaussian Blur... whatever suits your fancy. I also applied this to a duplicate of the foreground concrete he's sitting on. 

If your character has any cool glowy bits, you can put these in here. I place it above the filtered layers and use an Airbrush to get the effect. Usually a more intense version of the colour I want glowing with a lighter core. I tend not to use whites/near whites unless I really want it to come off as piping hot or frigid cold. 

Next, you'll either take a circle gradient or your airbrush in a dark colour (I tend to use blues as I find black to be a bit flattening) and darken the edges. You can set this to either Multiply or Overlay, depending on what kind of vignette you want. This helps sell a camera look, or perhaps an old tv. I rarely leave them on 100% opacity and it's completely fine if you find yourself fiddling with the value to get it just right. I shouldn't have to say it, but I hope you've saved at least a couple times at this point. 

Create a new layer folder and set it to Pass Through, or whatever allows it to apply effects to things below it. Folders simply allow you to turn on and off clumps at your will, which is exactly what I've done to make this image into a tutorial instead of redoing the whole process ;). Create a new layer and fill it with white, and use your HSV (Hue Saturation Value) Adjustment window to drop it to exactly 50% gray. Common Shortcut is Crtl+U. Set the layer to Overlay and it'll basically disappear... you want this for your Noise/grain layer. (Filters > Other > Random Noise)

I tend to leave it at the default settings and use the Opacity to dictate how intensive it actually is. I want it visible in this case, but not so much it feels like an eye migraine. However, there are some cases you may want stronger ones. 

Next, plop a big ol rainbow circular gradient over your image. The width of the loops doesn't matter too much. 

Set this layer to Soft Light (in this case I used Photoshop's Soft Light specifically, though it doesn't matter too much. It's just whatever one I happen to click on.) and drop it to a very, very low opacity, usually under 20, if not 10%. This adds a slight colour distortion over the image, something subtle you don't even usually notice on older TVs. 

For subtitles, type them out in white Arial, centered formatting. 

Then simply add a black outline, either through a Stroke layer style - which I don't believe was actually working at the time I made this image. I instead duplicated the white text layer and flattened it, lowered the value to pitch black and expanded the fill by a pixel or few to get the outline. Whatever suits your workflow. 

And sign your work, you’re done!

sidenote: While I didn't use scanlines on this image (or film streaks), they're really quite simple to do. You can make a pattern with one 50% gray pixel and one white, vertical and apply that, then resize as needed. Setting it to Overlay will make the gray pixel invisible. If you feel the need, you can blur it a bit so they're not quite so harsh... it all depends on how exactly you want it to look. Experiment! For vertical running film streaks like you'd see in really old cartoons, I just use the Krita Filter. 

These methods aren’t concrete, this is just my workflow to achieve the effect.

[thegoodprincess]

Together We Are Apart, but Apart We Are Together | KTH Ch. 5

Author: thegoodprincess

Pairing: Kim Taehyung | Original Female Character

Genre: romance, fantasy, action, forbidden love, human KTH | angel of death OC, supernatural au

Word Count: 2.9k [series, ongoing]

Rating: N/A

Warnings: Extremely brief mentions of blood. (Taehyung sadly doesn’t appear in this chapter 😭.)

Summary: After admiring a handsome boy from afar, an Angel of Death reluctantly rescues him from his own demise. As a result of going against her better judgment she inadvertently invites him into her world.

Together We Are Apart, but Apart We Are Together

Chapter 5. Revelations

“I chose you even before I met you.”

I was both physically and emotionally exhausted by the time Malachi put the boy to bed, yet I still found myself pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. The air around me felt thick with tension as I began to recognize the gravity of the situation that had unfolded tonight. I found myself wringing my hands out of habit to get the pent up jitteriness out of me. My shoulders ached. I was acutely aware of how the pain started in the base of my neck and gradually crawled down my spine. It only stopped to settle when it reached my lower back. But even the pain couldn’t distract me enough from the twisting knot of anxiety in my stomach.

I stopped pacing to stare absentmindedly into the fireplace. Narrowing my eyes I fixated them on the way the flames licked around the edges of the firewood. They vaguely reminded me of the way the blood-tinted-water curled around the boy’s body as he sunk unconscious towards the bottom of the river. Upset at the memory, I dug my toes into the fibers of the Persian rug beneath my feet. But to no avail, it only spurred an entourage of other images. I unwittingly began to recall every minute detail of tonight’s events. Harrowing flashes of sights, sounds, sensations, smells and even tastes replayed over and over.

If I closed my eyes and focused hard enough I could see the panicked expression on the boy’s face when he’d realized he was falling, the bright red droplets of blood splashing against the backdrop of white snow, and the pale white translucency of his ice cold skin. I could clearly hear the sound of the bullet exiting the gun, the boy’s body breaking through the ice, and the way he gasped, panted, and gargled when his breathing became labored. I could feel the painfully icy water stabbing through my skin, how the feeling was amplified greatly by the frigid night air when we broke to the surface, and his heart beat gradually slowing as he got closer to death. I could still smell the metallic scent of his blood mixed with the faint undertones of his cologne. I could even remember the bitter tang left in my mouth from all the stress. It was almost too much for my reeling mind to comprehend. The memories only seemed to momentarily cease whenever I noticed that some of the stray cinders escaped the fire to create smudges on the rug.

I was unsure I had made the right decision saving the boy. As much as I didn’t want to admit that Malachi was right, there was undoubtedly going to be some sort of consequences for my actions. I was also uncertain of their severity. Maybe it was best to just have let him die. It wouldn’t have complicated things so much. Moreover, it wasn’t like I only saved him once. I had stopped death from claiming him during three different instances; the first time being when he fell into the river. He should have drowned as a result. The second and third times could have happened separately or together simultaneously while he was bleeding out from his gunshot wound and experiencing hypothermia after I rescued him. I was beginning to understand and accept that I had messed with the delicate balance of life and death. It made me uneasy to think that it was going to come back to haunt me one way or another. However, I couldn’t say I entirely regretted saving the boy. Something in my gut told me this wasn’t his time to die. There was something more to it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I was vaguely aware of Malachi’s presence when he entered the room. He must have sensed my mental turmoil brewing behind my far-off gaze. After I heard him purposely cleared his throat, as to not startle me, he placed his ashen fingers on my tense shoulders to gently turn me to face him. Worry swam in his eyes as he stared at me. I broke eye contact first, as I didn’t have the energy to endure another lecture. Taking a second to collect his thoughts, he sighed out before speaking.

“Mistress, if I may on my behalf express to you my thoughts,” he hesitated as if to ask for permission.

“You may,” I curtly nodded, anxious yet genuinely curious of his opinion.

“What is done is done. And it is rather foolish to harp on such occurrences that we can not change.” Trailing his hands down my arms, he grabbed both of my hands. “While I do not entirely agree with involving ourselves with humans,” he trailed off almost sounding repulsed, “If you truly believe you did what was right, then I faithfully stand by you in your decisions.” He gave a reassuring squeeze to my hands.

Surprised I jerked my head up towards him and stared wide eyed. I was in disbelief at the sincerity of his words. His reaction was not what I was expecting. He only kindly smiled at my bewilderment.

“You’re not disappointed with me.” I timidly whimpered out. A few stray tears escaped my lash line and rolled down the apex of my cheek, feeling relieved as my emotions bubbled to the surface.

“I have grown too fond of you to ever be disappointed by the decisions you hold dear to your heart.” At a loss for words, my mouth opened and then immediately closed a few times before I just settled for abruptly hugging Malachi.

“Thank you,” were the only words I could muster as I whispered the sentiment into the crook of his neck. It took him a moment to realize I was embracing him before he returned my affection wrapping his arms tightly around my waist and shoulders to pull me even closer into him.

“You are very welcome,” he said before letting go of me. “Now have a seat. I will make you some tea with fresh herbs from the garden. In the meantime please refrain from staring at the fire so intensely. It almost looks as if you will burn a hole through it, not that that is really possible since it is already set ablaze, but you understand what I am alluding to. Relax.”

I giggled at his playful demeanor and nodded, walking around the coffee table to take a seat on the worn sofa. Once he left the room, I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of the sofa. The grandfather clock settled next to the fireplace ticked rhythmically in the foreground. I syncopated the noise of the swinging pendulum to my breathing, focusing on it to momentarily distract me from the topic of the boy currently residing a few rooms away in my bed.

Sometime later Malachi returned holding a tea tray containing two crystal glass teacups and a freshly brewed kettle of tea. After sitting in a love seat adjacent to me, he gracefully poured the piping hot liquid just short of the brim into a cup, he then carefully handed it to me.

“Here, this will help to calm your nerves. But do be careful it is quite hot,” he quickly warned me before I could even think about taking a sip. As I brought the cup up towards my mouth, I noted its flowery vanilla aroma before the taste of the liquid washed over my tongue.

“Mmm, thank you. It’s good,” attempting to make small talk in a bid to distract myself I continued, “But I thought you were going to use some of the herbs we have. Instead you used roses. I hope you didn’t use too many. You know my rose bushes are precious to me,” I teased.

“Do not worry, I used only a few. They smelled too fragrant to pass on the opportunity. Plus they give the tea such a lovely color.” He said looking keenly into his own cup, admiring the way some of the stray petals swirled about it when he slightly rotated his wrist. Noticing the juxtaposition between Malachi’s daunting appearance and the delicacy of the tea’s ingredients was something I found quite comical. I chuckled softly to myself. It was then that Malachi broke the phlegmatic atmosphere.

“Mistress,” Malachi addressed me but didn’t say anything else. I could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Hmm?” I encouraged him to continue whilst casually sipping my drink.

“Forgive me, but that boy,” he paused again unsure, “Why did you save him? And do not say that you do not know, because I know that you must have had some kind of a reason. You do not usually act so rashly without one. So tell me the truth, please.” He pled with me.

My smile suddenly faltered. “Uh, well, ” I stuttered. Finding it easier to just start from the beginning I spoke, “The first time I saw him I immediately noticed him. It was like my eyes immediately found his. I couldn’t look away… and I didn’t want to. After that I kept seeing him. It was almost too easy to pick him out of a crowd. Over and over he kept appearing before me. And it wasn’t like I was always seeing him in the same place around the same time; it was multiple different locations anywhere from early in the morning to late at night. They didn’t seem like coincidences,” I reasoned. “The harder I resisted looking, the more I wanted to. It’s like his presence demanded my attention. And the funny thing is when I do see him it feels like a kind of sixth sense,” I said as I exhaled dramatically, “A tingling takes over my whole body and immediately a voice in my head tells me, ‘hey look up, look up now,’ and suddenly he’s there in front of me. It’s like time slows down and the world becomes a blur. Almost like I’m hyperaware of the moment, so that I can take in every detail of our depressingly short encounters.” I didn't want it to seem like I only liked the boy for the way he looked. He had other attributes that I appreciated as well.

“And it’s not just because he’s handsome. Yeah, he’s beautiful; but he’s also kind and considerate and smart. He’s always looking after the well being of his friends, he’s respectful to strangers, and he acts so sweet towards his dog. Not to mention he has such a unique outlook on most things if you take the time to really listen to what he has to say.” I began to fidget with a loose thread that had come undone on my nightdress. Spinning the fiber between my fingertips I continued, “There’s more there hidden in the depths of his eyes and the way he smiles wide, and how his voice excitedly pitches and his eyes light up when he tells a story,” my passive face formed a smile as I remembered. “He looks… like… someone worth knowing. Like I could share all my secrets with him, lean in close and whisper in his ear and he’d listen intently but wouldn’t repeat anything aloud.” I stared dreamily into the fire, lost in my thoughts. “I want to be his friend. I want to make him smile and be there for him when he cries. You know I saw him once wandering around the streets of Seoul late at night with red eyes and tear stained cheeks. All I could think about was hugging him tight. I don’t even know what made him upset. I wish I could have asked what was wrong so I could make it better in any way I could. But I know I can’t -,” I trailed off catching myself in the middle of a an exceedingly long rant.

Embarrassed by my blabbing, I abruptly stopped. I tried as best I could to articulate my feelings but I found I was unknowingly speaking in an unfiltered rush. It felt like what I was saying didn’t even make that much sense, considering I didn't even properly know the boy. Malachi was considerate enough to not interrupt me though. Instead he only stared with a pensive look in his eyes, trying to make sense of what I was saying. He could tell I was struggling. Frustrated with my inability to properly give a direct answer, I pulled a seam in my dress and inadvertently created a tiny hole.

“I… feel like there is some sort of connection between us, like he came into my life for a reason.” I picked at the edges of the hole. “Or maybe I came into his life for a reason. ” Drawing a shaky breath I uttered, “Perhaps it was love at first sight.” My voice was just above a whisper by the time I spoke the last word. Overwhelmed and a bit scared by my own admission, my trembling fingers caused me to clink my cup against the plate when I set it down on the coffee table. Malachi solemnly nodded his head once as if to convey to me that he understood, even though I knew he didn’t.

“What is his name then?” He asked with a stoic expression, the orangish hue of the light emitting from the fireplace reflected on his pale face.

“I don’t know.” I felt silly for even entertaining the thought that I had feelings for the boy when I didn’t know something as simple as his name.

“You do not know,” Malachi repeated, his features impassive.

“No, Malachi, I don’t,” I retorted. I was being unreasonably defensive, “Shall I go and try to wake him to ask?” I was unable to hide the scorn in my voice.

“You know that is not what I am referring to. I was just -.”

“You just what?” I impudently interjected, “May I remind you who is in charge here, because you are beginning to agitate me.” I pinched the bridge of my nose as my blood began to boil in my veins. “Know your place,” I snapped at him. As soon as the bitter words left my mouth I saw a drop in Malachi’s shoulders. Feeling regret for my vile temper I quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just -,” I paused before meekly continuing, “Would you please kindly drop the subject? I’m exhausted and I need time to think things over.”

“Yes, of course Mistress, my apologies for upsetting you.” Malachi responded sounding dejected.

Looking towards a mirror hung on the left wall of the room, I then remembered something. Before the boy had fallen into the river, the gunman had deposited his wallet into the snowy bank to hide it.

“I don't know his name,” I whispered astonished that I hadn’t remembered this from before. Malachi confusedly furrowed his eyebrows. He was probably questioning why I was bringing up the topic again after I had told him to drop it. “But I know a way we can find out.”

“What are you suggesting then?” Malachi inquired, trying to catch on to what I was referring to.

“His wallet. It was left on the side of the river. I’m sure it contains some sort of identification in it. That is, if I can still find it. It was snowing when you rescued us… probably even harder since we left. I’m sure it’s buried by now. It’s worth a try though.” I rose from my chair, to walk over to the mirror. Taking a moment to focus on where I roughly remembered the gunman hiding the wallet, I then channeled my energy into the mirror to show Malachi the location I pictured in my head. Suddenly the scene in the glass shifted right before us from merely reflecting myself to showing a view of the Han River from where I was previously standing tonight to witness death’s doing. “See right along here is where it should be located.” I pointed to a particular area of snow. “If I can just -.”

“No, you have been through enough tonight,” Malachi cut me off. “I will go retrieve it.”

“Thank you, “ I whispered grateful Malachi was volunteering to help me. But just as he was about to teleport to leave, I called out to him. “Wait!” Malachi stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. His face was void of emotion, but he raised his eyebrows as if to silently question why I had stopped him. “The man that shot the boy, what… what do you think will become of him?”

“Hmm, karma probably. Those who commit such heinous crimes, their actions are bound to catch up with them at some point in time. If you are not referring to prison while he is still alive and breathing, the Shadows will surely drag him to Hell once he reaches the afterlife.” Malachi spoke matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” Malachi’s candid input put me at ease. Angels of death usually escorted the souls of the dead to Heaven or even Purgatory, while the Shadows delivered those found unequivocally evil straight to Hell.

“Hey, do not ruminate too deeply on the virtue of others, or you will begin to develop wrinkles.” He made his way back over to me and gently rubbed out the worry lines in my forehead. “I will return as soon as I locate the boy’s possessions. Make sure you finish your tea,” he advised nodding towards my abandoned cup. He then turned on his heel and disappeared from sight only leaving the remnants of a shadowy fog were he once stood.

[bang-to-the-tan]

Vessel Euphoria Chapter 8

► SciFi!AU

Thriller

Warnings: Major Character Death, Mind Control, Upsetting Themes Throughout, Alien Parasitism

↳ Summary: 6 months ago, the crew of the space vessel “Euphoria”—destined for a scientific study on a distant planet—dropped out of all communication. You and your fellow crewmates are inbound to reestablish communication with home base, but things are not as they seem and the fate of the mission is placed in grave danger.

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Years of training. Months of preparation. 

Months of flying through the endless void of space in a tin can, towards people you revered as idols. Hoping to help them. All for nothing. All wasted. 

You’re sitting on the floor, staring at the panels on the far side, watching your thoughts swim desperate circles around your own head, trying to pull back into your body, but everything is static, disconnected, you can’t move so much as the tips of your fingers. Dimly, you’re aware that your breath is short, harsh. 

It’s all over now. 

At least two of them are dead. Dead? Tears bubble in your eyes, memories of the men on the tapes. Smiling, excited Taehyung. Confident, methodical Seokjin. Gone. Why? How?

And what about Namjoon? 

“You have to take me back.” Jungkook’s voice comes through the intercom, crackled and static, and it brings with it a wash of anger in you. 

You don’t answer, jerking suddenly to the side, blinking at the water in your vision that blurs the world, cascades down your cheeks, forces you to sniffle like a child. Your fingers fumble for the button on the quarantine room, scrabbling at it. Why won’t it go down?? This is the last thing you need. You don’t need this. Your world is teetering on the edge of breaking and he’s only going to complicate things if you keep listening to his madness. 

“There isn’t time,” he insists, frustrated, choked. 

“I have to shut you up,” you snap. “And then we’re going to wait for Hoseok.”

“We can’t wait. We can’t. Fever. You said fever.”

“Shut up.” Your fingers slip, scraping fruitlessly against the button, and a growl looses itself from your lips that sounds almost feral. “Just shut up, Jungkook!” 

“You. Jimin. Hoseok. Teams of four. The fourth has a fever.” He’s chattering, breathless. “The fever. The flowers. We can’t wait. It isn’t safe.” 

No matter how you pick at it, coax it, the button won’t yield, stuck down permanently. Logically, you know that’s not entirely unexpected. The Epiphany is an older model of space-faring vessel, frankensteined with scraps of decommissioned tech. Sometimes she develops quirks. But illogically, it’s another nail in your coffin and you can’t bear it. You can’t do it. You won’t. Furious, you rear back and hammer your fist against it, wincing at the pain, but go to stand anyway on shaking legs.

If you can’t fix the button, you’ll leave the room.

You’ll go look after Yoongi. Make sure he’s okay. Wait for Hoseok. Everything will be fine. Eventually.

“What are you going to do when it starts talking like him?” Jungkook shouts suddenly. Ice reaches down your spine, coiling in your legs, freezing you to a standstill. 

You shouldn’t stay here. You need to leave. But your head cranes, looking to the stranger in the cell. He looks how you feel. Eyes red rimmed and teary, hair in disarray, hands against the one-sided glass like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. 

“Because it will. It will, and you’ll miss him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But we have to go. Before it’s too late.” 

You watch him, realization dawning in the pit of your stomach, making you feel vile.

‘It’s my fault.’

 “...Kim Taehyung and Kim Seokjin.” you croak finally. “You knew they were dead.” 

He stares into nothing, face falling as if you’d stabbed him before he nods slow. “...Yes.” 

“You apologized to him. Taehyung. You said you ‘didn’t have a choice’.” You take a long breath that does nothing to calm the battering of your heart against your ribs. “What choice?” 

He doesn’t reply. 

You aren’t afraid of hearing the answer. You’re afraid that you already know it. 

“What. Choice.” You repeat. 

“You don’t understand,” Jungkook whispers. He rests his head against the glass and you can still see the droplets falling behind the dark curtain of hair obscuring his face. “We have to go back. Namjoon—”

“Did you hurt him?”

“No! No. No, I would never, I would never. I would never.” He sobs. 

“Did you hurt your crewmates, Jungkook? Did they get ‘infected’?”

“I—” his voice cracks. 

“Namjoon recalled the logs for months. Why would he do that?” You’re stepping forward now, anger, anger coursing through you, fire in place of blood in your veins. “If for months everyone onboard the Vessel Euphoria was still alive and making logs?” You pause. “Unless someone was sick. Someone he cared about. Someone, convinced that something was replacing his crew members.” 

A fresh wave of tears threatens to drown you, rising into your throat. 

“What did you do, Jungkook?” 

He shakes his head, his entire body shivering. Slowly, he starts to drift downwards, and you can hear the muffled, crackling sounds as he cries in earnest through the speaker. 

“Please. Please,” he sobs. “We have to go back.” 

“We’ll go back. We’ll go when Hoseok and Jimin come back. And then we’ll go home. And from there...” It’s a struggle to clear your throat, your words sticking to the roof of your mouth. “From there, central will figure out what’s best for you.”  

You turn on your heel with an artificial sense of finality, striding towards the hall even as every step feels like you’re sinking into sand. Try not to speculate. Try not to speculate. You’re doing your best. You’re trying. It’s hard to pretend you don’t hear Jungkook crying and pleading at your back, or that you don’t feel your heart break a little with every inch of distance you put between the two of you. 

The hallway leads you to the med bay before you’re even really aware of the direction you’re going. When the doors slide open, you’re relieved beyond any speakable measure that Yoongi is still where you left him, sleeping peacefully on the cot. 

In desperate need of something to do, some way of calming the twitching in your fingers, the caged energy thrumming behind your eyes, you start meandering about the room quietly, picking up the mess he’d made on his exit. Occasionally, you throw glances at the mechanic, almost afraid that he’s going to rise up like something out of a horror film and start spouting gibberish like Jungkook. 

Instead, he just sleeps. He looks so peaceful. 

Gone is the guy who rigged your alarm clock to go off at 2 am as retribution for you putting salt in his coffee. The thought occurs to you and a wry smile tugs at your lips at the memory. In the end you had to completely dismantle it. He’d fixed it so it wouldn’t turn off and instead kept blaring, waking the entire crew. Oh, he was so smug when you confronted him with a jumbled heap of wires and plastic that had once been your alarm. You almost fed it to him. Looking back, you have to stifle a giggle. Hoseok almost had both of your asses, threatened to throw you in quarantine until you’d ‘developed more professional attitudes’.

...Yoongi would know what to think. If he were in your position. 

Level-headed, pragmatic Yoongi. He said from the start that things were fishy about the Euphoria mission...You wish he was awake. Just one good conversation would be enough to ease your mind, at this point. One short chat, with an awake, self-aware, grumbly Yoongi Min.

 ‘What are you going to do when it starts talking like him?’

A frown slowly replaces the smile on your face as you stare, Jungkook’s words rising to the foreground of your thoughts completely unbidden. 

As if deep in a trance, your hand reaches out. You brush a few strands of hair back from Yoongi’s face, tracing his relaxed brow, feeling for the skin, resting your hand on his forehead. A beat passes. Two. 

He’s warm under your palm, but the fever has cooled significantly. By the time he wakes up, it might have gone entirely. Your whole body sags with relief at the very thought. 

He’s okay. 

He’ll be okay.

‘It will. It will, and you’ll miss him.’

You won’t miss shit. He isn’t going anywhere. 

You finish tidying, making sure to keep as quiet as possible, and slip back out of the ward. For a moment, you hesitate in the hallway, glancing briefly at the quarantine room. 

No. 

No, that won’t do. 

You walk past it.

Rummaging through the kitchen, you consider digging into a few snacks, but your mind inevitably drifts back to Seokjin and Taehyung and suddenly you’ve lost your appetite. You do some of the washing up, putting away clean dishes and making sure everything is set right. For a short while, you go to your room and try to nap, but your mind whirls so brightly, so worriedly, you can’t manage to eke out any peace from it. 

Time passes as a sludge. A haze. It doesn’t march, it oozes. You try not to watch the clock, but it’s impossible, as you sit and count down the minutes before your crew returns.

An hour. 

Two. You’re impatient, waiting, ears peeled for the automated message from the doors. The crackle of radio. Nothing.

With every minute over the two hour mark, your anxiety mounts until you’re having trouble catching your breath, chest tight and palms sweaty. 

Why aren’t they back?

They should be back. 

If they were within range of either of the towers, they would have radioed in. 

You’ve started pacing around your small room, checking your comm. The seconds can be marked by the thud of your heart in your chest until finally you can’t stand it anymore and you start towards the communications room. Again, you have to pass by quarantine. Again you hesitate. But your feet are moving without you, propelling you forwards with haste fuelled by concern. 

You swing your body into the worn, ripped captain’s chair, brushing over the buttons and switches with all the deft awareness of someone who’s been through the lifetime of training you have. The system takes a moment to itself to boot properly, but displays its startup checks in due time. Everything’s green. Everything’s go. You take a deep breath and press the button to transmit to nearby towers, making sure to amplify the signal enough to reach just that little bit past their respective ranges. It’s not very far, but considering their two hours are up, either they’re close to the Epiphany’s range, they haven’t left Euphoria’s or they’ve taken a detour in the opposite direction on top of a barren planet—unlikely, considering that neither of your crewmates are stupid. 

“This is Communications from the stationed Vessel Epiphany, requesting contact with Officer Jung Hoseok and Specialist Park Jimin. Please confirm copy,” you intone. 

There’s a silence broken only by the painful thudding of your own heart in your ears.��

Again, you press the button. 

“Repeat, Officer Jung and Specialist Park, confirm copy.” 

Nothing.

You want desperately to throw yourself backwards and shriek, scream into the void. Dig your fingers through your hair until you pull it out by the roots, kick out with your legs and wreck the hulking pile of garbage in front of you.

“Godammit, guys, pick up your fucking comms.” You’re spitting down the line before you can stop yourself, your hand shaky where you hold the microphone steady. 

Still you receive no answer. 

You’re biting back tears for what feels like the millionth time in the past few hours. Jimin and Hoseok out of line and out of time. Yoongi in a coma. A boy locked in quarantine that may or may not have committed some act of violence against his crew members. And you. Just you. Your body leans forward, leaning your forehead against the desk, being sure to avoid the important switches.

“Please pick up.” You murmur, even knowing it won’t transmit without your finger on the button. “Please pick up.” 

You don’t know how long you sit there waiting. Your breath eventually evens itself out and you slip into this state of suspension, poised to answer at the slightest hint of a reply. But still nothing happens.

You lift your head, blearily watching the lights wink.

What could have happened to delay them? Where could they have gone? You have two options. You wait here, for any sign, any communication. And in the meantime, they could be hurt. Stranded, somehow. A malfunction with the buggy. A wire tripped with their communicators. The flowers, perhaps reclaiming a pivotal turn in the road somewhere, leading them off-course. It isn't like either of them to just...not check in. Especially not after their discovery. Hoseok’s announcement. The failure of the mission. 

The thought of staying here for much longer, doing nothing, is enough to make your skin crawl.

Right. 

So the second option, then.

You shove yourself off the console, standing, stretching, casting one last grim look at the system before you shut it back down and leave the room, heading determinedly towards quarantine. 

Jungkook’s fallen to his knees at the window, head against the glass, arms by his sides. He looks like he’s fallen asleep, but the staccato of his breaths tells you otherwise. 

The buggy won’t have enough fuel for multiple trips. You’ll have one shot out there, to reach primary and look for Jimin and Hoseok, refuel there, and come back. And you’ll need Jungkook, if you’re going to get the fuel you need to go home. 

“You said you know where the fuel cells are kept,” you begin. “Were you telling the truth?”

He shifts, barely, leaning his cheek towards you. His breath fogs the glass when he murmurs a quiet reply. “Yes.” 

“If I take you there, we can grab a replacement cell.” 

He perks up at that, turning to stare again at where he approximates you might be, struggling to unsteady feet.

“And open the tower,” he adds. 

Your mouth purses into a firm line. “The tower,” you echo.

“The tower.” he repeats, emphatic. 

There’s a moment of silence. “What’s in the tower, Jungkook?” 

He doesn’t answer. 

You don’t like that. You don’t like that at all. If you’re going to make the only trip to primary, you have to knock out as many objectives as possible. Search for Hoseok and Jimin on the way there and back, recover the fuel tank, and complete your original mission. Find out what happened to the communication of the Euphoria. Logistically, you need to get inside of that tower. 

But why is he so keen on it? 

“...I’ll tell you what. Give me the code.” He’s already shaking his head. “And we’ll both go to the primary base.” 

“No,” he mutters. “No, you’ll leave me here.” 

He’s right. You watch him grimly through the glass. 

“You’re going to have to answer for what happened on Euphoria, Jungkook. You know that. You can’t outrun it. Please don’t make this difficult.” 

“What happened,” he enunciates clear, slow, suddenly drawn bitterly through a snarl, “was not. My. Fault.” 

“Then tell me what it was.” 

His nostrils flare. His eyes water, brows drawing close over his forehead. Again, he shakes his head. 

“I can leave you here anyway,” you press. “I can just leave you here and go myself, go looking myself.” 

“You’re wasting time. Time for all of us. I have to go back. I ha—have to fix it.” 

“Fix what?” 

“...The tower.”  

He’s lying. He’s lying through his teeth. You can see it in the way his eyes flit away from yours, staring holes into the panelling to his right. But he’s being purposefully obtuse. And unfortunately, he’s right. Every minute you sit here and argue with him is another minute you lose to uncertainty. To inaction. 

“I need your word that you aren’t going to attack me. I’m going to keep sedatives with me, and if you so much as blink in a way I don’t like I’m knocking you out and we’re coming right back here.” 

“I swear I won’t attack you,” he breathes, eyes wide. 

“Swear on your life.”

He hesitates, a sigh leaving his chapped lips. “I swear.” 

“...Okay. Alright. I’m going to get supplies first. I’ll be back in a minute.” 

“Hurry.” 

What are you doing? What are you doing?

You’ve lost your mind is what you’ve done. What you’re doing. But it’s already been an hour since Jimin and Hoseok should have been back, and your stomach is doing somersaults just thinking of what might be keeping them. Your body is already in motion, desperate to reassign some of that anxious energy to movement, grabbing the sedatives and stowing them away in the pocket of your jumpsuit. It’s never been a habit of yours, praying, but you send out a quick one that you won’t have to use them. You’re packing a spare charger for your comms, making sure the spare suit is good enough for Jungkook to wear, ignoring the apprehension trying to cloud your vision.

Your heart rises into your throat when you step to the hangar, for a brief moment thinking that maybe you missed their arrival. Maybe the buggy is already there. Maybe you’ll see it speeding over the horizon just as you go down there and you’ll be able to call this whole madness off. But no. The space where the first one was is empty, and through the thick glass on the outside of the hangar you can only see the persistent waving of thousands upon thousands of bright red flowers. It’s only about noon—the suns are high in the sky, bathing the landscape in bright yellows and a warm blush. You can’t even see where the flowers had been burned away anymore. 

Checking the fuel tank confirms your suspicions. You won’t be making more than one trip in this thing. That’s fine. That’s fine. For better or worse, you can manage it. For your crew. 

Lastly, you go back to the sick bay. 

Thankfully, Yoongi is still sleeping, and continues to slumber as you skirt around him and pick up a paper and a pencil. You scribble out a quick note, keeping one eye peeled for any sign that he’s being disturbed. 

Min— 

Gonna go get the fuel cells & teammates. 

Door locked to keep you from sleepwalking again. Code is the date of our 1st mission.

See you soon. :) 

When you’ve finished, you reach out on a whim and circle a comforting hand around his upper arm. 

“Be right back, Min,” you whisper. “I’m gonna go grab those other two idiots and then...then we’ll head home. Alright?” 

You tuck the paper gingerly underneath one of his hands. 

“Read the note before you start wandering off again, you weirdo,” You add with a faint scoff. 

You stand, heading to the outside of the doors. One last look at the mechanic as he rests, before you’re keying into the panel on the side. Should be simple enough. If he’s still feverish when he gets up, he probably won’t be cognizant enough to both read the note and remember the date. There’s also a chance he’ll wake up, forget it, be pissed, and then try to contact you to whine about trapping him unfairly in the med bay, but you’ll take that any day. 

You head to quarantine. Jungkook is more alert than you’ve ever seen him, attention captured easily by the sound of the doors sliding open, eyes scanning his side of the mirror. 

“Okay. All set.” you tell him, moving to the door button. “I’m going to open the door now. You’ll follow me down to the hangar. We’ll get in the buggy and make the trip up to the primary base, keeping an eye out for my crew. We’ll grab replacement cells and bring them back.” You pause.

“I swear to god, if there’s any funny business, I won’t hesitate, Jeon. You don’t know me but I know you. I’ve seen your logs, I’ve studied your file.” 

It’s a bluff. Even Jimin could barely keep a handle on him. You aren’t sure you have the guts to back up any threat you make, much less the musculature. But it’s a necessary bluff. 

“No funny business,” he mumbles, casting his gaze at the door expectantly. “I swear.” 

The keypad chimes as you press the buttons, the door jolting once before finally sliding to the side, and for a minute, you’re afraid he’s going to leap out at you, hands raised, eyes wild. Instead, he steps out gingerly, with all the uncertainty of a newborn deer, clutching at the frame for support. 

It occurs to you, as he stands before you, making eye contact once and nodding, firm, that it really is just the two of you right now. If anything were to happen…

You banish the thought. It’s all going to go according to plan. As you half-turn to start leading him down the hall, your hand brushes past the sedatives in your pocket, and you feel determination rise in you. Determination to make this work. It’s all gonna be okay, dammit, and it’ll be okay because you make it so. 

“There’s enough to get us out to secondary. We can refuel there, head back, look for them on the way.” You begin to explain as the two of you walk to the hangar. You pause, turning to look at Jungkook. “You’re sure you know where the spare fuel tanks are kept. You can get us to them and out. Quickly.”

He nods, shrugging to the side, watching the far doorway. “Yes.” 

The two of you get suited up in silence. For a moment, you consider offering to help him get it on, but though his eyes glass over with the aftershocks of some memory, he still slips into it with the ease you’d expect. He doesn’t offer any comment but another short nod when you ask if he’s good. You both clamber into the buggy. You press the buttons for the opening sequence to activate, listening to the hiss of air as the doors behind you seal shut. 

Garage 1 opening, the overhead voice drones. 

You tighten your grip on the steering wheel, looking to Jungkook for a brief moment. He’s sinking into his seat, eyes wide, fixated on the dashboard. His whole body is curling in on itself, his expression deeply, deeply uncomfortable. 

“Alright?” you ask. 

He shuts his eyes tightly, bowing his head until the bottom of his helmet rests on his chest, bouncing once in an approximation of a nod. You’ll take it. The engine kicks into gear when you rev it and you start your descent down the ramp, into the field of gently waving flowers, aiming for the metal waypoint on the horizon that points towards primary. 

Your companion doesn’t speak again, only inhaling sharply every so often when the vehicle hits a bump and jostles the two of you. 

You don’t either. 

You’re too deep in thought. 

The locked communications tower. 

Hoseok and Jimin found Taehyung and Seokjin. Not Namjoon.

...What if Namjoon is alive? After all, Jungkook managed to survive this whole time. 

The cynic in you doesn’t want to hope. You set your jaw and continue on, grimly aware of one fact. 

If Namjoon is alive—and God, you hope he is—then you have to assume the worst. You have to assume the worst about the person in the seat next to you. 

You keep an anxious eye on the scenery, scanning for any sign of Jimin and Hoseok and praying that you’ll find it.

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