#the scanner cropped it for some reason lol

[feketeribizli]

you asked him if he has games on his phone

[yumeka36]

I got a copy of the new Frozen 2 book “Explore the North,” but rather than do my usual thing of taking mediocre quality photos of each page with my phone, I decided to do something different and make some hi-resolution scans with my scanner. I didn’t scan every page, just areas of certain pages that I thought were notable (the pages are larger than standard size paper so I couldn’t scan full pages unfortunately).

If you want to repost my scans or use them for something else, I don't mind, but it would be nice if you gave me credit...I did spend a lot of time trying to get them to look as good as possible 😅 (which wasn’t easy with the flaps messing things up!)

First off is the gorgeous cover (I know I’m not the only one who thinks Anna’s jacket looks great!)

The first scene shows everyone hanging out at the Northuldra camp, including this nice image of Elsa and Bruni.

First he’s cool...

...then he’s hot!

I’m not a Honeymaren fan but I thought this image of her riding a reindeer looked kinda cool.

The Ahtohallan scene is lovely!

An interesting but kind of weird scene of the characters exploring the ruins of the dam and finding Arendellian artifacts.

My favorite scene, Anna (in her new outfit) overlooking everyone enjoying themselves in the forest...

...then Elsa and Gale surprise her with some icy and windy magic!

New friendships being forged - Mattias and Yelena, Kristoff and Ryder, Olaf and Bruni (and yes, Olaf does go off the page a bit). Also Nokk seems a bit lonely over there. Maybe he’s trying to figure out how to be a nice horse after being angry at everyone for so long 😆

Back in Arendelle...looks like the statue unveiling scene at the end of the movie (except Anna doesn’t have her crown until you open the flap).

Overall, this is a nice book and it’s great to see new 2D Frozen 2 art after so many of the initial kiddy books recycling the same artwork over and over. But Explore the North is kind of a weird hybrid of being post-F2 and yet not. A couple of scenes, like everyone including Snow Queen ver. Elsa, hanging out in the forest together definitely seem post-movie, but then other scenes like Kristoff’s failed Northuldra-style proposal and Elsa in her Dark Sea outfit in Ahtohallan, are definitely not. Then there’s the scene where they’re exploring the ruins of the dam, which contradicts the movie because it shows the dam only half destroyed (plus Anna is in her travel outfit).

Buuuut it’s a little kids book so I should not be reading so much into it, lol. It’s not a story book, just a little activity book for the kids so no reason for the author to worry about staying perfectly consistent with the movie; they wanted to include familiar scenes from the movie plus a few new things for novelty. We’re already seeing some post-F2 books and comics cropping up (in other languages only...c’mon US!) so hopefully Explore the North is just the beginning of seeing what direction our beloved franchise will take from here on~

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki SSL Valentine’s Day Special

*sigh* I finished psychedelica of the black butterfly recently.... and geez I thought it was more tragic than ashen hawk (I really liked hikage’s and kagiha’s routes.... though i feel that by playing ashen hawk beforehand i knew that something was off at the start from the intro, and with kagiha given what happens). i’m probably going to translate the 2015 otomate party drama for it in the future since I have it in Chinese (provided no one else is planning on doing so)... unfortunately it’s like the Hakuoki drama that i just finished in that I don’t have text and will involve snipping the subtitles off a video....one day though.

Anyway. This translation is from the Dengeki Girl’s Style Magazine in the 2014 March issue. Felt stupidly long to do.

Translator notes will be located at the end for this.

also, i just wanna say it feels like Section 31 was involved in the Mars incident in Star Trek: Picard. 

enjoy~

Hakuoki SSL Dengegki GS Valentine’s Day Special March 2014

Translation from KumoriYami

Principal Kondou Isami: Speaking of February, Valentine's Day comes to mind/you'll immediately think of Valentine's Day!! This has nothing to do with being a warrior?......Everyone doesn't have to be so brave? This month, we interviewed 10 very popular men from our school about Valentine's day. People who want to receive chocolate from girls must read this carefully!

Questions

What type of chocolate would you like to receive, if you received chocolate on Valentine's Day?

What are you going to do on White Day?

Recently there have been many names of the types of chocolate that people have been giving to others, for example, friends chocolate, giri chocolate, boys/men to girl/women chocolates, and so on, what do you think of this trend?

Vice-principal/ Classical Literature teacher / 2nd Year Class 1 Homeroom teacher/ Disciplinary Committee Supervisor Hijikata Toshizou

If someone wants to give me chocolate, ordinary chocolate is fine. But, nothing too sweet.

......Is this really necessary? Since it's a return gift for chocolate, then getting the other person something to eat is fine.

I feel that these people are following a trend. If you really want to have it made, getting honmei chocolate is enough.

2nd Year Class 1/ Kendo Club Okita Souji

Bite-sized milk chocolate is good. It has the right sweetness that I like.

Ah~ White Day. Are you looking forward to this holiday/celebration/ festival?

Isn't it nice to receive/good enough to get a bunch of chocolates? Though that has nothing to do with me.

2nd Year Class 2/ Kendo Club/ Disciplinary Committee Saito Hajime

Since this is considered an important matter for someone to give...... regardless if it is bitter or sweet it must be received.

 It's best to go with hand-made chocolate. Starting with the ingredients..... No, first learn how to practise making it. 

Although this deviates from the original purpose, as it can disrupt discipline. If needing to send something, one is enough.

2nd Year Class 1/ Kendo Club Toudou Heisuke

Well...... I'd like to get biscuits and chocolates or something.

If it's for a normal return gift, I might give candy also gummies [says soft candy] or something.

Eh......How many types are there? But, it doesn't matter as long as you get to eat chocolate.

Health and physical education teacher/ Year 1 Class 1 Homeroom teacher Harada Sanosuke

If it's a gift from the heart, a hand-made cake made for dessert would be nice.

That...... perhaps I might give her a special lecture. [pfft.....LOLLLLLLL]

 Although there are many ways to express one's feelings...... it is best to cherish your relationships.

Year 3 Class 3/ Student Council President Kazama Chikage

Of course hand-made chocolate is proof of my wife's vow of love for me.

I intend to prepare gold powdered candies for my wife to eat for a lifetime.

This trend is wrong. Anything used to convey one's feelings should be returned in the same way [???]. 

School doctor/ accountant [when was Sanan an accountant?] Sanan Keisuke

Although I won't eat it, chocolate mixed with a red liquid should be pretty good.

Due to the meaning/significance of that day, I'd like to give the other person something memorable/unforgettable as a gift. 

Expressing love isn't limited to only one method, [though] doing that really isn't bad.

Math teacher/ 2nd Year Class 2 Homeroom teacher Nagakura Shinpachi

As long I can receive something, it doesn't matter! Just bring it!

Yes, after receiving a gift one must give something in return...... Excuse me/sorry, is it alright/possible to give something a bit smaller?

It's just a trend...... I don't want to cater to this trend at all.

1st Year Class 2/ Disciplinary Committee Nagumo Kaoru

Chocolate? To be honest, I don't care for Valentine's Day.

If it's necessary to send a return gift...... how is that possible!

Che, this trend is indeed sad. If you want some you aren't allowed to go buying it.

2nd Year Class 2/ Health Committee Yamazaki Susumu

If I receive chocolate, I hope to receive the type that is easy is convenient and easy to carry anywhere to replenish energy. 

Something healthy/Something good for your health. If possible it would be best to give the receiving party food with low amounts of calories.

I always think that there is something wrong when trends deviate from their original intentions....... In short, remember to brush your teeth after you finish eating.

Principal Kondou Isami: How about it? Can this be used as a good reference? I'm very curious about how much chocolate everyone will receive!

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

TN since I’m not really familiar with Japanese chocolate names (probably cuz the manga I read isn’t really school life oriented): 

friend chocolate translation says "友人巧克力" literally "friend chocolate". so that might mean tomo chocolate

Giri chocolate is chocolate given by women/girls to men/boys who are usually just friends. kinda in the 'thanks for taking care of me' sense

the boys/men to girls/women chocolate might refer to gyaku chocolate

honmei chocolate is chocolate given from women to their significant other usually

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

i had to go and look up way more info on Japanese chocolate terms than I’d like for this translation.... also i find harada’s response to Q2 very interesting :3 lol.

pic at the start is from the 10th anniversary book. be content and suffer like i have from beating black butterfly as i refrain from posting the rest of that image! also im taking out my anger from doing that stupid defeating 1000 enemies quest in fire emblem heroes by grinding rival domains on you all! so suffer! suffer as i have! mwhahahahahaaaa!

lol.

i’d say jk but im really not posting that image til way later since still have yet to crop everything from that page (im procrastinating plus my queue is full for images til the end of march xD) plus i tend to want to post my scans as grouped by original release origin, the pages they’re scanned from (only reason y that ssl pic was with the others in the last batch), or by book (or by whatever i feel like lol). will still be posting more scans later today.... and with my other translations for the foreseeable future til i run out of images that i have saved on my comp.... Also I’m really annoyed right now since my scanner isnt connecting to my laptop for some stupid reason.

[jaderimehardt]

I’m gonna show something I used to do, that I still do rarely, or use as a fork in the road? Not sure how to explain it in words 😅

So, this is a photo from my phone, of a sketch on paper. It’s not meant to be pretty, it’s just meant to get an outline from one media to another media (I don’t have a scanner and even if I did- this is from a huge glue-bound sketch book and it’d be awful to scan). In short, it’s just easy to snap a photo and send it to my google drive.

Opening it in Photoshop CS (which is totally free btw), and going to layer > selective color, messing around with Grey/Neutral in the drop down, I can make it look like this. The reason why this is nice is because......

... This is where I create layers over it and draw over it. As if my photo was the warm-up sketch beneath it all along. I know it’s silly but sometimes I’m out and about, or I’m running around the house and I only have 5 minutes to pull out a _real_ sketch book to doodle something. That’s not enough time for me to pull out my tablet, lol.

Or maybe people have old sketches, or, just bought a tablet after many years and want to revisit that old art 💡✨ Whatever the reason 👆🏻

And the fork in the road thing- tablet or no, you can use the pen on the tablet and freehand over the photo on a new layer, or you can use the pen tool and fill (without a tablet) on a new layer (or many layers). That second option may take a long time though- trust me, I’ve done it in my pre-tablet days.

My post wasn’t meant to just be a ‘Turn photos into Digital Art!’ thing 😅

For the past two-days I’ve been working on Octopus art. Anyone who knows me, should know I love Octos 🐙💝 I have a Naruto-verse OC with Octo Summons, irl my room is filled with Octopus plushies, on Twitter I retweet Octopus things when I feel it’s appropriate 🙃

They are Friends! Not food!

I’ve been wanting to try and share my process a bit? I think I mentioned that in some previous posts? Although I don’t think I’m the best person to learn from tbh 😅

My lil Octo here was intended for something, and I also had a good idea how I wanted to color him. You can see I added a ‘palette’ to my art space- I manually do this. I use the color picker to pick up colors from my palette as necessary and add more colors to it when I desire to. It helps me tremendously.

I don’t know if anyone reading this is familiar with RedBubble’s tutorial but it says something like ‘know what you’re designing for’. Basically implying you should be aware of area, dimensions, product, etc- so you can design for it appropriately.

It’s actually more difficult than one may think. I end up making around 5-8 separate image files to cover most of their products because of it 😓 I think I also do this to give people a variety of options. So it’s possible it’s entirely a me thing.

This is my finished Octopus Art 👆🏻 slightly cropped here in my thumbnail.

There are details you cannot see from it being shrunk- that’s a lil saddening, but it is what it is 😞

Scrolling up and down the entire post for spelling and grammar errors before hitting ‘post’, I’m seeing my handwriting in that first and second image and it’s like 😬

[hannahindie]

Dreams on Fire

Characters: Reader, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester (brief) Word Count: 3,660 Warnings: There’s some angst. Lots of alcohol use. General shenanigans. A/N: I wrote this for my 800 follower song prompt challenge. My dear, sweet @pinknerdpanda requested the song “Burning House” by Cam. (Linked for your viewing and listening pleasure) It’s a little different than what I’ve written before and I really loved writing it. This song is hauntingly beautiful, and this just popped into my head.

Beta’d by my wonderful waterbear, @trexrambling: “A perfect, raw, beautiful ache in my chest.” Thank you for your support and lovely direction, love.

And @pinknerdpanda (yes, she beta’d her own request. I have no chill and couldn’t wait to share it with her lol) : “I’m just....I can’t.....this is....evdbendbdnnd.” Sorry I have no self control, but thank you for giving it a once over. And thank you for such a wonderful request.

The aesthetic was made by myself.

As usual, tags are at the bottom. If you’d like to be added, please let me know!

Orange and red flames. Black smoke, swirling in choking tendrils. Unbelievable heat caressing my skin. Stinging eyes, burning and blurry.

I know he’s here. He’s always here, and I always arrive thirty seconds too late. Maybe this time will be different.

A long form, lean legs and strong arms melting into the floor. Chestnut hair, burnt ends curling gently around the smooth shell of his ear.

I’m too late. I can’t leave, regardless of the options. I lay beside him and pull him close. I close my eyes and, just like always, the two of us go up in smoke.

I jerk awake and feel the sweat running down my back, cooling quickly in the chill November air. For the third night in a row, I have watched him die. Usually, the dreams change; he’s in a car, passenger seat with the window down, glimpses of what looks like a fortress, a blue eyed man that constantly looks concerned, and a broken hearted one with eyes the color of moss in a sun dappled meadow. Until recently, when the same nightmare began plaguing me over and over again.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed as I drag a shaky hand over my face, palming my sweat damp hair out of my eyes. I blindly reach out for the bottle I keep next to my bed only to find it empty and useless.

Of course.

I stumble from my bed to the kitchenette, and groan as the bright light from the fridge hits my eyes. Empty. I go through the cabinets to find the same nothingness staring back at me. I start to wonder how long I've been on my liquid diet, then realize I probably didn't want to know judging by the amount of bottles strewn around my studio apartment.

I shrug on my jacket and grab my keys; it's time for a milk run.

The high-pitched whine of the liquor store’s fluorescents makes me cringe as the one above me flickers. The light has been like this for weeks, and I keep waiting for the sudden pop of it giving up the ghost. My eyes roam over the selection in front of me before I finally settle on one of the cheaper bottles of whiskey; no need to break the bank since I’m not looking to savor it anyway. The moment my fingers curl around the smooth bottle, the label contrasting roughly with the glass, a blinding pain shoots through my eye sockets. The whiskey hits the floor with a deafening crash, but I barely register it. I press my palms against my temples in an attempt keep my skull together, and suddenly the world is nothing but orange and red.

My skin is on fire, and I can’t do anything but scream, my eyes squeezed shut. I choke on acrid smoke as it burns my esophagus and fills my lungs, and when I’m finally able to open my eyes, I see him. He’s facing away from me, struggling to open a door as the flames surround him. He turns to face me, but he doesn’t see me. He is scared, burning. He falls to the floor, and I’m by his side. I wrap myself around him, my fingers comb through his singed locks. He looks at me, but he’s looking through me, his hazel eyes glassy and terrified. The flames swallow his pupils. I’m too late.

I gasp, the crackling of the fluorescent, annoying before, now comforting after the roar of flames.

The cashier is looking at me, an eyebrow raised, “You alright?”

I uncurl myself and shake out my cramping arms, “I don’t know, Zack, do I look okay?” I glance down at the floor, jagged shards of glass swimming in cheap liquor, glittering like some kind of alcoholic’s version of Starry Night. “Sorry.” I grab two more bottles off the shelf and step over Lake Kentucky Bourbon. I slam the bottles down on the counter and Zack lazily scans each bottle. “Go ahead and scan that again, I’ll pay for the broken one.”

He purposely lays the scanner down and bags the two surviving bottles, “Don’t worry about it. No one drinks that kind anyway, it’s basically rubbing alcohol.” I throw a wad of cash on the counter, grab the bag, and leave without thanking him. He’s used to it.

This is a first. The dreams are an every night thing, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced one while I was awake. It’s become apparent that whatever it is I’ve been trying to run from, whatever thing has burrowed into my mind for most of my adult life, is trying to tell me something. And all of it has to do with the shaggy haired giant with the sad eyes.

I make it upstairs and pull one of the bottles out of the crumpled paper bag it was so carefully concealed in, then slide the window up and climb out onto the fire escape. It's too early to try to find the bottom of this bottle...or maybe it's just late enough. Time hasn't meant much to me for awhile. I crack the seal and wince down a gulp of liquid fire.

“Little early for that, isn't it?” I glance over and see my neighbor leaning out of his window, and I purposely take another swig, locking eyes with him as I do. “Mature, Y/N. Real mature.”

“I don't recall asking you, Max.” I look down at the street, heads bobbing as they quickly walk to some unimportant destination, their eyes inevitably trained on the ground in an effort to avoid conversation. Same old, same old. I hear the creak of extra bodyweight as Max crawls out of his window and onto the fire escape next to me.

“You had another nightmare.” It isn't a question, just a simply stated fact. I have lived next to Max for a long time, and despite my obvious attempts to push him away, for some reason he's still around. Although exhausting, it's also oddly comforting.

“Yea, but it's entered a whole new level of suck. I had one while I was awake.” I take another deep gulp of whiskey, hoping that it'll burn out whatever is inside me. There's only one explanation for this, especially now that it's leaking into real life, and it isn’t a pleasant one.

“You were awake?” Max’s question is quiet, almost not even a question rather than a repetition of disbelief.

“I didn't stutter,” I grumble, immediately feeling a twinge of guilt. Max doesn't deserve my shit, and yet here we are. I sigh, “Am I going crazy, Max? Is that what this is?”

He shrugs, “You've been crazy. Maybe it's all that turpentine whiskey you drink. It's rotting away your brain.” I flip him off and sit the bottle down with a dull clink as glass meets metal.

“Was it the same nightmare?”

I nod. There are some differences, but in the end it doesn’t matter. The result is the same, and I still don’t even know his name.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to find him. I mean, I guess I could just let it go, and he’ll eventually die, and then maybe this will stop. But what if it doesn’t? What if the dreams go away and I just have to live with this horror show for the rest of my life? I can’t do it.” I grab the bottle and stand up, my hand on the window frame as I try to steady myself.

“How are you going to do that? Do you even know his name?” His voice is steady, but his eyes look heavy, the only thing holding up his concerned eyebrows being his thick eyelashes. Max is a handsome man, and I often wonder why he wastes his time with me.

“Nope,” I say as I straddle the window, one leg still outside, the other barely holding my weight as I slip back into the apartment, “but I’ve got other ways. Don’t worry about me, Max. I’ll be alright.” I trip over the window ledge and fall into the apartment, not giving him a chance to answer as I slam the worn window shut. It’s better this way; if I don’t come back, and I wager I probably won’t, there isn’t any burning confessions he can cling to until I reappear, healed and healthy, and not out of my mind.

I grab a bag and shove clothes, toiletries, and various other necessities into it. I pause at my desk and slowly slide open the top drawer. There it is; the only thing that will even remotely help me piece this together. If I have any hope of finding the man haunting even my waking moments, it'll be in this journal. I grab it and stow it carefully in my purse. Time to go.

Hazel eyes, wide and sparkling, deep dimples forming as his smile widens. His hair is longer now, his face older, but it's still him. He looks tired, and a little sad, but whoever the green eyed man is makes him laugh, and a beautiful woman with short cropped hair pats him on his arm. I feel a restless kind of jealousy at that innocent gesture, the intimacy of which I will likely never experience. At least not with him. It's a happy scene, a rare one for this hauntingly beautiful man.

His smile starts to fade; his eyes change from hazel to yellow, and then suddenly he is consumed by fire. The man and woman seem unfazed as he screams silently, clawing at his arms, then his face, in an effort to put it out. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t move, I can only watch as he collapses into the floor, melting into it as he ceases to exist.

My eyes snap open, and at first I can’t remember where I am, except that I’m surrounded by darkness and dim, flickering lights. I pull my jacket closer, the leather backseat of my car taking on a chill that I should be accustomed to by now. I look down at the book I’m still clinging to, the binding broken and frayed from how often I open and close it.

The rest stop light makes the pages of my journal look yellow as I flip through them yet again, my fingers tracing over the swirls and crosshatches and shadows, recreations of my addled visions over the years. His face has followed me since I was twenty-two years old, always silent, but ever present. It’s like watching a silent movie; I can see how his lips curl up slowly when he’s trying not to laugh, the dimples that form when he allows himself to actually smile, but I can never hear the sound of his voice. I imagine his voice is deep, his laugh like the low, wooden wind chimes my grandmother used to have.

The first time I saw him, he was young, around my age, both soft and sharp at the same time. The dreams came every night at first, and each one was a different scenario. He wasn’t always happy; I remember seeing something else burn, but that was soon replaced by visions of a shiny black car with a roaring engine, and a cocky green eyed man who seemed to be everywhere. The dreams...visions...whatever they were, would come in waves then recede like a tide, leaving me alone and wandering. Those nights, yellow eyes filled my mind, always searching for me, angry and violent. The eyes terrified me, but he...he was comforting.

I turn the page, my fingers resting gently on the most recent sketch. I’ve always known he was okay, because he ages along with me. I’ve seen him hurt, angry, devastated, happy...but he is always okay. I’ve come to look forward to seeing him; he’s been the only constant in my life for a very long time. These nightmares are a warning: How do I save someone when I don’t even know their name?

I’ve made a decision. I’ve never tried using my...gift...to find him, it always just happens while I’m asleep. But since it has decided to start invading my mind, even when I’m awake, maybe I can use it to find him. I flatten my palm against the last sketch in the book and close my eyes. I focus on him, I think about his broad shoulders and how his hair curls gently around the collar of his shirt. I imagine his hazel eyes and the way he chews on his lip while he thinks. I reach out, and I can almost feel something expand from me. Pain explodes from behind my eyeballs, but I force myself to keep my hand on the picture.

A hotel sign. Whispering Pines Motel and Lounge. A bronze 13. The house, a two story brick with a wrap around porch. A mailbox with the familiar black car as it pulls up to it. 1124. Two well dressed men walking up the sidewalk, pausing at the porch, the taller of the two listening intently to the shorter one before they knock on the door. A jukebox. A flickering neon sign. Hank’s Bar and Grill. Empty beer bottles and a pine tree shaped keyfob.

I gasp, deep and painful, and the vision is gone. It’s not an address, but it will do. I wipe the blood dripping from my nose, which is new and different than my visions from before, and climb into the front seat. 

There are more Whispering Pines Motel and Lounges than one would think. Luckily, only one place also has a Hank’s Bar and Grill, not to mention personalized pine tree keyfobs for their motel. It didn’t take much more searching before I was able to find the brick two story at 1124 Maple Street, Livermore Falls, Maine. After debating on whether I should go to the motel to warn him or go straight to the house, I decide to go to the house. He doesn’t know me, and how do I explain to him how I know what’s going to happen? “Oh, sorry to bother you, but I’ve had dreams about you for, like, thirteen years now. It’s not really seemed that important, except I’ve seen you die several times now, and I thought I should maybe warn you.” Yea, no. But if I go to the house, then maybe I can stop it.

It’s a long drive to Maine, and I’ve already wasted too much time researching. I drive through the night, trying to ignore the pull of the whiskey bottle nestled in my bag, and instead opt to mainline coffee. When I finally make it to the house, it’s dark. It doesn’t appear that anyone is home, and I begin to wonder if I should have gone to the motel first. I fiddle with my keys as I fight with myself; stay here and wait, or go there and risk being completely wrong.

My decision is made for me when the black muscle car pulls up to the mailbox and two men climb out. They aren’t wearing suits this time, but it’s them. It’s him. I watch as they circle the house and disappear into the dark back yard. My keys are in my pocket and my car door is open before I realize what I’m doing. My boots hit the ground, and despite my fear of why they’re creeping around a house this late at night, I quietly follow after them. By the time I get to the backyard, they are gone. I notice that the back door is ajar and, despite my better judgement, I find my hand pushing against the rough wood so I can slip inside.

The house is dark, but I know where I need to go. I carefully climb the stairs and head to the bedroom from my dreams. Just as I reach it, I hear a shout, then a crash. I run into the room to see a figure staring down at the shaggy haired giant, and when he looks at me, his eyes glow yellow.

Asmodeus.

I cringe as his voice echoes through my mind, an icepick driven through my brain, and before I can move, he snaps his fingers. The door slams shut behind me and flames begin to lick along the curtains, blocking any escape through the window.

You finally listened, Y/N. You finally came.

I press my palms to my ears, knowing that it isn’t going to block out his voice, but trying anyway.

You are the last one, child. The only one that still embraces the powers my foolish brother gave you. Generally speakin’, I think his ideas were absurd and pointless, but now...seeing you...I could use you. Oh, I could use you.

“What...do you...want?” I ask through gritted teeth, my eyes locked on the still form on the floor.

I want you...to finish him. I can make this torture go away, my dear, but I need you to use your powers to end him. You used your powers to find him, didn’t you? Use them now.

I look at the man that I have seen grow up, and how vulnerable and innocent and tired he looks. My eyes shift back to Asmodeus and I can feel it; the same power I felt when I was trying to find the mysterious man bubbling outward, far more powerful than before. I steady my stance, “I will not.” Laughter, piercing and sharp, echoes. It is taking over every part of me, and I want nothing more than to scream.

You will. You will or more people will die. That blood will be on your hands, will it not? You will have to live with that. So the question you need to ask yourself is if you can handle that.

“I’ll take my chances.” I take a deep breath, then throw my hand out. The blast that comes from me pushes me backwards, and my boots scrape along the hardwood floor. It hits Asmodeus full in the face, and he screams. It’s deep and guttural, and I can feel blood dripping from my ears, but I don’t stop. I will not stop until this man is safe and whoever Asmodeus is is gone.

Suddenly, Asmodeus is gone. I’m not sure where he went, but I’m pretty sure I just succeeded in pissing him off more than I hurt him. I drop to my knees next to the man I had been dreaming of for so long. He’s more beautiful than my dreams have ever conveyed. I can see the worry lines in his forehead, the scattered gray hairs in his soft, chestnut hair. There’s a deep bruise already forming along his jaw and around his eye. I reach out to him, my hand hovering above his hair. I’m afraid to touch him.

I realize that this is the scene from my nightmare, and that it never really mattered if I came to save the day or not. We were both meant to end up in the room and never leave it. I lay down next to him and curl myself around him. I put a hand on his cheek, feel the roughness of stubble, and smile to myself. I can feel the goodness, but I can also feel the kind of darkness that I try to hide every day. It makes me wonder what his secret is, but this isn’t a time for that. The smoke is getting thick, and it’s getting harder to breathe. My eyes are trying to shut, but all I want is to look at him, to memorize every line and scar.

“I’m sorry. I thought I could save you. I guess it wasn’t about that. It was just about not dying alone.” I rest my head on his shoulder and I wonder what it would feel like for him to hold me. Doesn’t really matter now.

I hear a loud banging coming from the bedroom door. Strange, since we’re the only ones here. Another crash and mumbled cursing. I look up and I can see the knob shaking, but not giving in.

“Sam! Are you in there? What’s going on? SAM!”

I look at him, my eyes wide. His name is Sam. His name is Sam. For whatever reason, it gives me an extra boost. I send one more wave out, concentrating on the door opening, and it explodes, wood shards flying everywhere. The green eyed man that is always with Sam runs in, his eyes wide when he sees me.

“What the hell?” He looks confused, which is fair, but he doesn’t have time for that. I can’t tell if Sam is even breathing, and if this man isn’t careful, he’ll be trapped in here, too.  

I want to answer, but I can’t. There’s too much smoke in my lungs, and I keep choking. Instead I roll away from him and wave at Green Eyes to help Sam. This part is different, and I feel a sense of relief when I realize I saved him. I saved Sam.

I have not given much thought as to what would happen if I saved him. I haven’t given much thought to anything, lately. But as my eyes slip shut, I see Sam’s eyes open. They widen when they lock with mine, and I swear there’s a flash of recognition. I smile and take one more deep breath.

I changed the story. I find comfort in that, and I let the smoke take over. I’ve heard going this way is like falling asleep, and I can see it. Once you quit fighting it, it eases in, filling the gaps. It’s warm and inviting, and it occurs to me that this is an ending after all.

This is my ending.

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[maiji]

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Part 3)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 

Read the pages for part 3 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post)

In Parts 1 and 2 I went through the transitions between idea, script, thumbnails and final art in quite a bit of detail. This time I’ll share script and thumbnails and point out some of the biggest changes, and then talk about how I scan and clean the final artwork.

Script and thumbnails

Biggest changes:

Dialogue changes every-freaking-where. Changes in word choice, moving things around to make the dialogue flow better, rewriting to make things flow better up to the umpteenth hour (i.e., right when I’m inking). 

Page 24 “It is enough to know the letter has been delivered” - this thought has been transplanted onto the next page. I was also running out of space on each page for so many wordy words. Looking back now I’d probably like to move Hokushin’s “I can read it, not that she needs to know that” earlier in the sequence of panels, but it’s too late and whatever.

Page 25 split into two pages because 1) the dialogue started growing on the first of the 2 pages and I wanted to give more emphasis to the woman dropping her “tee hee I’m matchmaking” bomb and Hokushin’s “lol get me out of here” expression.

The last page with Raizen did not exist in the script or the thumbnails. I tacked it on at the last second because the previous change increased the page count to 9. I’m drawing 2 pages up on an 11x8.5 sheet of paper (so each page is about 5.5 x 8.5), so this meant I was left facing an empty page. I impulsively threw in a “meanwhile, Raizen’s shenanigans” for fun.

As an aside, this level of dialogue is what I was anticipating the hypothetical “let’s separate Hokushin and Raizen with some random NPC offering a job” scenario to involve (see Part 1 process and wip discussion). You can see why I was so eager to ditch that idea and find something simpler and more efficient.

I feel like "I was (too) careless!" is such a stock (shounen) manga phrase. Therefore I must work in "Seems like I underestimated [...whatever thing they underestimated]" and "Impossible!!" into upcoming parts of the story lol.

Inking

Part way through inking I actually ran out of ink in my new cartridge. I had started the comic with 0.3mm Muji black pen, and it ran out a while back. I switched to 0.4mm (because that’s all they had in stock at the time)... and then actually ran out of the ink part way through on these pages. @atorier lent me a 0.3mm refill so these pages mix both thicknesses in the art. I can’t really tell the difference though... can you?

Part 3 was super fun to illustrate because it’s 90% subtle facial expressions, one of my favourite things to draw. The downside is WAY TOO MANY WORDS BEING SQUEEZED IN EVERYWHERE. I’ve never been very good at managing my speech bubbles - drawing them, positioning them, and fitting words in them. I never give them the time needed for proper planning and I often write rather impatiently, as if I am jotting down a note, instead of carefully lettering each word. They’re simply very sloppy, which results in a lot of mistakes...

It used to be that when I made a mistake in the later stages of the art (mainly, inking) I’d cry and throw everything out because I’m a complete failure, this is all worthless, etc. Nowadays I’m like uhhh... #@^&^#$!!! Oh well. Depending on the mistake I still have moments of I’M A COMPLETE FAILURE, but then I just redo it on the side or add a note to myself to fix it on the computer for the final version. Here you can see a whole bunch of mistakes around lettering and placement of things.

And this is just to make it more legible. It’s still ugly lol. (That’s why I use a font for my webcomic...)

Scanning / editing

Long Limbs is drawn in black and white which makes it a hell of a lot easier to scan/clean/prep final art. I use an old Canoscan LIDE110. I’ve upgraded once or twice but always to another Canoscan (basically whatever the latest version of this series is). It’s a cheap workhorse and lots of other scanners use Canon’s scanning technology so it’s always suited my purposes very well.

For black and white lineart, I scan at 600 dpi black and white. These are my settings as they show up in the default scanner software:

For clarification, the only parts I really pay attention to/change is Color Mode (black and white) and output resoluton to 600 dpi. Most of the other stuff was already calculated or set.

Industry practice is generally 1200 dpi for black and white line art, with 600 being a “if your computer can’t handle it and is gonna blow up... this is sufficient”. I rarely bother going up to 1200 mainly because I don’t usually have applications where I need it for output (this comic is not intended for print, for instance. And even if I ever do someday print it for whatever reason, it’s not likely to be bigger than a small comic). Scanning in black and white mode also conveniently kills most of the pencil lines I still have left so that post-scan cleanup work is minimized to a degree.

Here’s a shot of the page that was scanned.

Oh god look at all the mistakes that need to be fixed hahaha.

On the computer, I crop the individual pages and save them separately. Then I blow up to 100% and start selecting/deleting unwanted dust/artifacts/dots etc. Sometimes I also just use the eraser for cleaning fine details, but select+delete is faster for large patches.

This is also the opportunity to make corrections. To be honest, there’s not much retouching on these pages because I am lazy and trying to get them out as quickly as possible, so it’s mostly getting rid of artifacts, a few stray lines from ink smearing if I smudged or erased before it was fully dry, cleaning the shapes of a few letters to make them more legible, deleting errors and pasting the fixes over where the errors used to be, and any really stupid mistakes I’ve made - like drawing the fixes to Hokushin’s hitatare in Part 2. For redrawing/adding new parts on the computer, since the art is in black and white mode at such a high dpi, almost any brush will work great and look indistinguishable from the scanned lines when scaled down.

I save a high res TIFF for my archives. Then I convert to greyscale (better for maintaining details when I resize, since black and white can drop things that aren’t 100% black or white), and resize to 72 dpi at 700 pixels wide. 72 dpi has long been the standard for on-screen viewing - nowadays screens can display higher resolutions (e.g., retina) but this looks fine to me so I’ve long stuck with good ol’ 72. I arbitrarily picked the 700 dpi width - it seemed a good balance of “not too small” and “looks big enough to let you see the art nicely” on Tumblr. Below are my settings to resize:

Again, the above I mostly only pay attention to width and resolution. All the other stuff is mostly default or autocalculated. All my pages are different heights, which I don’t really care about since I’m just posting them on tumblr and pixiv. Finally I save as JPG for posting. 

 Ta da!