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demonic0angel · 1 month

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Haunted Paintings Sketches!

Part one

I hope you enjoy the sketches I made of the paintings!

Also! You’re free to use my ideas (please give credit ofc) if you’d like, bc I REALLY don’t think I’ll write this one, no matter how much I want to. It’s just too much and I’ve already got 3 unfinished fics and several other series to write for. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or send me a submission! You can also DM if you’d like!

TW: mentions of suicide, murder, depression, mental illness, just really dark, creepy stuff bc these are haunted paintings and they torment people :/ no scary drawings tho! I only described them (click for clarity)

Jazz:

Description: Jazz is sitting at a table in the middle of a flower garden with a book in one hand and a teacup in the other. She looks tranquil and is dressed formally. On the table are a few plates, a plate of cookies, a bookmark, an opened envelope and a bloody butter knife, and a teapot that is slightly out of view.

Use of mediums: gouache paint, watercolor, and pencils

Focus: Jazz amidst the flowers

Inspirations:

• The Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland”

• Galna from “Mairimashita! Iruma-kun”

Location: She used to be in the home of a random crime lord in Gotham for intimidation purposes. She was kept in the crime lord’s office before being relocated into Wayne Manor, where she sits in the hall across from the library.

Extra facts:

+ Her scary form would be one where her tea is filled with blood and the roses would be replaced with decapitated heads. The sky would turn dark red and the ground would be a pool of blood. Jazz would smile and look at the viewer with shark-like fangs and hollowed out eyes.

+ The tea she drinks is Darjeeling and the cookies are chocolate chip.

+ Although Jazz is the weakest painting, her effects are deadlier, more painful, and longer lasting than the others if her victims survive.

+ She causes paranoia and dizzy spells. Her effects are rather weak compared to the others, but when spending enough time with her, victims can also display symptoms of scurvy, which cannot be cured.

+ She was the first one I drew and also the easiest to plan. I just love her so much, she’s one of my comfort characters so it’s not hard for me to find ideas for her 😭

Valerie:

Description: Valerie stands in the middle of a dark, foggy forest, wearing a long dress and pressed close to a tree as if she is about to hide behind it. A branch covers her face and the trees around her curve into a circle with multiple holes within them. There is a Fenton thermos in the background on the floor and an axe in front of Valerie, sticking into the tree and oozing something.

Use of mediums: pencils and watercolor paint

Focus: Her hidden face

Inspirations:

• The Son of Man by René Magritte

• The Beast from “Over the Garden Wall”

Location: She was kept in the back of an art museum, but the director has been hoping for someone to buy her and get rid of her, since he cannot handle the strain of having her inside of the gallery. Now she stands near the door to the entrance of Wayne Manor, a silent and deadly sentry.

Extra facts:

+ Her scary form would have her surroundings to turned into the entrance to a mouth or an intestine, red, fleshy, and bloody. There would be bones littering the floor everywhere and Valerie herself would become bloody and stained, with her face still hidden. Tortured faces would be seen through the fog.

+ The holes on the trees sometimes leak a mysterious substance.

+ Valerie is not the weakest, but she is not that powerful. However, she does amplify the others’ effects to fatal degrees.

+ She causes paranoia and auditory hallucinations, often causing her victims to feel as though they are being watched relentlessly, which cannot go away. Eventually, her victims will shut themselves into their rooms and starve to death from the fear.

+ She and Tucker had switched ideas, but I had to trash them. I never got the opportunity to draw those ideas because I struggled so much with Tucker that when I eventually got inspiration for Valerie, I just went with it. I’m quite happy with Valerie’s portrait now.

Dani:

Description: Dani, dressed formally, sits at the head of a table with a large painting and curtains behind her. She holds a fork and a knife over a pig head. Her gaze is downward and she looks like she’s frowning softly. The dinner table is messy with three other dishes and a knocked over bottle of wine.

Use of mediums: oil paint and oil pastels

Focus: Dani holding the fork and knife

Inspirations:

• Rosie’s Tea Party by Mark Ryden

• “Spirited Away” (specifically that one scene where Chihiro’s parents eat the food)

Location: She was hidden by Vlad and kept safe with him. He keeps her in his office, where he can watch her. He only recently found her again, and he was determined to watch over her. Now she stays in the Wayne Manor's dining room, but often changes her position to be next to everyone else in the bedroom hallway.

Extra facts:

+ Her scary form would be one where all of her food dishes would be replaced by very obviously human parts, especially with the pig head becoming a human head. The curtains would turn to blood dripping down the wall and Dani would be smiling, taking a direct bite of the human head that was in front of her with her fork and knife.

+ The dishes she eats in the painting are: pig head, vulture thigh, lamprey eels, and sheep brain.

+ Her at the dining table is meant to signify greed and gluttony, 2 of the most simplest sins.

+ She causes great feelings of hunger and paranoia in others. When spending too much time with her, some victims turn to self-cannibalism to sate their never ending starvation.

+ Originally, both her and Dan’s ideas were switched, so Dan would’ve been the one feasting and Dani would’ve been the one looking at her reflection. However, I switched them around because I felt like it would’ve been spookier. I even finished the drawing with Dan and everything, but then I just erased him and drew in Dani 😓

Dan:

Description: Dan is standing in front of a mirror, glancing behind his shoulder, while his reflection shows something different: him looking at everyone else and the door behind him by looking at the mirror. The party guests are all wearing masks and there are chandeliers on the ceiling. The party looks vaguely fancy, but messy with secrets.

Use of mediums: Oil paints

Focus: His reflection

Inspirations:

• Jeff Lee Johnson and his art

Location: He was kept in a locked safe within a rich person’s house in Italy. He had to been wrecking havoc on the nerves of everyone around him, but he is now safe and happy in Wayne Manor, where he is kept in the office to the entrance of the Batcave.

Extra facts:

+ His scary form would have all of the party guests dead, but their eyes would face the viewer. Dan's reflection would also be dead, but his actual self would be the same, only with an eerie smile as his eyes follow the viewer. In the doorway would be the figure of Danny. Blood would cover the entire floor and walls, but nobody would react to it.

+ Dan keeps his own masquerade mask in his pocket.

+ The woman who is directly staring at him is supposed to look like Maddie.

+ He causes viewers intense mood swings and long, often violent mania episodes or mind-numbing depression episodes. Those who keep staring at him will gain the feeling of being watched and haunted, often with visual hallucinations, resulting in losing their mind from fear and then killing others in their terror and panic.

+ I tried so hard to make Dan as handsome as possible. I think I pulled it off bc I’m a little bit in love with him ong, but I also kinda have to be bc I draw him so often

Tucker:

Description: Tucker is in the back shot of a desert, with his back towards the viewer, staring at a large skeleton that is seemingly climbing over a large sand dune. The skeleton has flowers in its eyes, and its hand reaches over the horizon. There is a single sun in the sky and an arm holding a pocket watch sticks out of the sand close to the viewer.

Use of mediums: gouache paint, pens, and pencils

Focus: The large skull

Inspirations:

• JT Music (specifically their JT album covers)

• The Giant God Warrior from “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind”

• “Dune”

Location: He was originally kept in one of the rooms within the GIW headquarters. Now, he is kept within Wayne Manor, and stays in the theater room, where he whispers to the Wayne residents what movies he wants to watch. Sometimes, he moves to the garage.

Extra facts:

+ His scary form is one where the skull becomes covered in meat and flesh, oozing blood and tar while the sand turns red. The scene turns to darkness, and more limbs would sprout from the ground. Tucker would be nothing but a pile of flayed skin, crumpled into the sand.

+ GIW agents were unable to experiment on him, since he would purposefully cause machinery to misfire and slowly corrode his surroundings.

+ His painting is meant to be a little comic book-esque with one of his mediums being ink, but I felt like that wouldn’t be a PAINTing, so nvm

+ He causes visual hallucinations, hypovolemia, headaches, blindness, and osteoporosis :). Often, when his victims are autopsied, sand and salt can be found within all of their organs. He emits so much radiation that he can wear down the materials of the place he is stored in.

+ I DREW HIM THREE DIFFERENT TIMES OML, FIRST IT WAS HIM IN A WORKSHOP, THEN IT WAS HIM IN A MARSH, THIS IS THE FINAL PICTURE I CANNOTTTT IM DONE

Sam:

Description: Sam stands on top of a small, grassy hill with a path leading to a grave and an angel statue on top of it, close enough that she is blocking it. Around the hill are pomegranate trees and hanging corpses. There is no sun, but there are clouds as Sam stands with her back to the viewers in a long goth-styled dress.

Use of mediums: paper, glue, acrylic paint

Focus: Her standing on the hill

Inspirations:

• This Reddit picture of a liminal garden

• A mix of weirdcore and dreamcore aesthetics

Location: She was tossed into the ocean by her parents when they first saw her, but she later washed up on an island and now the animals and plants there act erratically and strangely. Finally, she was relocated to Wayne Manor, where she hangs on a wall within the greenhouse, happily watching over the plants there.

Extra facts:

+ Her scary form would be one where eyes would replace all of the pomegranates, staring at the viewer. The paper used to make her would become flesh textured and bloody, and Sam would appear abnormal, broken into pieces and cracked, turning around and smiling at the viewer with shark-like teeth. The grass would become hairy skin and the sky would become red, with swirls and more eyes.

+ Sam's "painting" is actually made of mostly paper, since it is a collage. It is a bit touched up by paint and all of the materials used are vegan and ethically sourced, though they do change.

+ The flora and fauna in the island she landed on have mutated so much that they’re basically mindless. They protect Sam relentlessly.

+ She causes general insanity and relentless symptoms in her victims, such as paranoia, intense episodes of mania and depression, itchiness that can result in self harm, and violent, unexplained behavior in animals and plants. She also emits so much radiation that she can cause sporadic DNA mutations, resulting in several forms of cancer and mental instability, often resulting in victims becoming inhuman and monstrous forms of themselves.

+ Originally, Sam’s portrait was supposed to be in a garden, but I wanted it more “liminal space” themed, and I think I got it right. I think it’s really simple, but I also feel like if I was able to create it in real life, it would be more interesting because it is a collage of paper and paint.

Danny:

Description: a picture of black blotches and scribbles with muddy and red stains. Any features besides the ornate frame is hidden underneath the stains.

Use of mediums: pencils, ink, charcoal, tar, blood

Focus: His crying

Inspirations:

• SCP-035 (“The Possessive Mask”)

• The Anguished Man by an unknown artist (it’s a haunted irl painting!)

• Bendy and the Ink Machine

Location: He was cloning himself in order to jump through universes to find his family. In the current universe, he was with the League of Shadows before he was found and brought back to the Wayne Manor. He is in the hallway with the bedrooms of the Wayne residents.

Extra facts:

+ His scary form is technically his normal form because he cannot turn it off. Once he is happy again, his normal form would be one with him and his family, smiling and happy. Until then, he haunts the minds of others and ravages their sanity.

+ He’s been traveling all over the multiverse in order to find his family. Coincidentally, they’ve all been in the same world for some time.

+ He screams all day and night for his family. It’s so bad that Danny has destroyed thousands of worlds in his grief.

+ He causes the worst of all symptoms, often causing the viewers who look at him to go insane and kill themselves or others, even if it is only a few seconds. Even those who stay in the same room next door to him are consumed with suicidal thoughts and intense moments of psychosis. Those who have survived encountering him and have some semblance of mind left say that he “cries” relentlessly. His paintings leak a black substance that corrodes the place around him.

+ Literally all I did for this picture was scribble in my notes app, take a screenshot, and then scribble some more on photos LMAO

Extra notes:

+ Jazz, Dani, and Dan showing their face while Sam, Tucker, and Valerie hiding theirs is intentional. Danny is a mix of both, because he actually IS showing his face, but you can’t see it past the black and red.

+ Every painting has a flower inside of it, specifically a carnation, which are often funeral flowers, and can mean gratitude, remembrance, love, and affection.

+ Every painting also has a mention or appearance of Danny in it.

+ I also tried to put hints of bad omens or signs of death within every painting. Some examples are Dani’s painting with the chopsticks sticking out of the bowl (a sign of bad luck and death), or Dan’s painting, where a woman is being strangled in the background and another is being killed.

+ All of the paintings generally have an ability to teleport to places nearby and can actually snatch up viewers to shove them into their domain. This can be a defensive mechanism (the paintings protect the Bats) or an offensive ability (they pull victims in and kill them). They also all have weapons on them that are hidden or not so hidden.

+ I struggled a lot with ideas and how to get started on some characters because I just had so many, and I wanted it to be creepy, but not noticeably creepy, like most paintings. I’m sad to say that I wasn’t able to use some of my planned ideas from inspirations of actual haunted paintings.

+ Discarded inspirations: The Rain Woman by Svetlana Telets (my favorite!! Please look it up if you can!!), this picture I saw on Reddit of a sheep being stuck under ice with its back exposed, a workshop idea with Tucker, and Dani and “Daughter of Evil” with mirrors and everything.

+ The world where Danny and co., come from is different from the world they’re currently in. It’s like a world where some people are the same, but others are not. Example: the GIW, Maddie, Jack, and Vlad exist, but Danny and Jazz never made it past their childhood. So basically a What-If world or something.

+ Their backstories are somewhat undecided, but basically, something dangerous happened to them in their home dimension and it was so bad that Danny captured all of their souls and put them into paintings so they would live (with the help of Clockwork). However, by doing this, he scattered their souls and paintings throughout the universes and he went crazy from it, and turned himself into a painting too so he could find them. Now his cloned paintings travel and sends itself to other worlds to find his family again, often leading to their destruction from his power.

Or something? Lol

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 6 months

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You Call It Madness But I Call It Love

Chapter 8: Jealousy Doesn't Look Good On Anybody Except...

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy. This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter eight of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 4.1K

Warnings: References to sex, Cursing (a few times), Drinking, Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, a little OOC,

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

The song they dance to is "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" by Russ Columbo and this should take you to the song. It's the song I named the series for, because I believe it encompasses how both the reader feels, but also how Soldier Boy will feel in a few chapters. I also believe that the song House of Memories by Panic at the Disco, fits the more modern parts of the series.

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

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Philadelphia 1938

The lights twinkled along the ceiling of the dance hall as the gentle swell of jazz floated through the air. Couples swayed on the dance floor clinging to one another as the soft tones of the music soothed the dull throb of the whispers of rising tension overseas. It was a Saturday night, and you and a few of your friends from the Dawson School for Girls had slipped away to spend the evening twirling in the arms of whomever caught your fancy.

Well, at least that's what your friends wanted to do. There was only one particular man who'd caught your fancy, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The Dawson School for Girls was the answer to your mother's prayers, a boarding school in Boston, far away from Ben's "corruptive influence" as she put it. Ben was currently at boarding school number ten in Upstate New York. The last time you’d seen him was when you were on break and Ben had just left boarding school number nine for fighting with other students, but he wouldn't say what for. You’d sent him a few letters to tell him how bored you were including a few sketches and watercolor paintings, with minimal response, but it was like him not to write back.

You hadn't mentioned that Howard Stine had been coming on the weekends to take you out. Your mother was pleased with him, he checked all the boxes: wealthy, not Ben, educated, not Ben, from a nice family, not Ben, and of course most importantly, not Ben.

She was practically making wedding invitations and choosing the names of your children after only three months. However, it was nice to see her happy for a change, kept her from sniping at your figure now that someone was interested. Well, not sniping that much.

Howard was… nice, but he was one of the most boring people you'd ever met and he never understood why you always carried a sketchbook with you. When he'd taken you to Franklin Park one weekend, you stopped along the pond to sketch some of the ducks that were waddling on the bank, but Howard told you he didn’t have time to wait for you to draw them. Instead of telling him that he could just leave, you shut the sketchpad and continued to walk with him and quickly learned that it was better to leave your sketchpad at the dorm whenever he was in town. You also found yourself talking less and less, allowing him to fill the silence with his talk of the stock market crash and how the United States economy recovered due to the efforts of President FDR.

You hated that. You didn't recognize yourself when you were with him. You didn't feel like you.

And every time he was here all you could do was compare him to Ben. Ben would never tell you to stop drawing, yes he would tease you about it, but he always sat next to you while you were sketching, watching you work. You never understood that. Ben was so impatient with everyone else, but he was willing to sit with you for any inordinate amount of time if you were drawing while making you laugh the whole time.

I miss him so much.

"Can I get you a drink?" Howard puts his hand on the small of your back, leaning in to whisper in your ear. You try not to flinch at his touch. He had already been in town, walking you home from a dinner that was dominated by awkward silence and the clicking of utensils on plates when you'd run into your friends just as he was walking you back to the dorm. They had rounded the corner giggling and begging you to come with them. Despite your insistences for him to stay in and relax for the night at his hotel, he refused.

It meant that now you were stuck with him while all your friends got to twirl around with men that made them warm and giddy. Howard made you feel like you'd swallowed a lemon.

"I'm fine, but thank you." You force a smile.

Howard shrugs, before he walks away towards the crowded bar on the other side of the room and blessedly far away from you.

Your thoughts drifted to Ben. You missed your friend more than words could comprehend. Not just because you were far from your family in another city, but because it felt like you were missing apart of yourself when he wasn't there. You briefly wonder if he felt the same way when he wasn't with you.

Probably not.

You turn away from Howard's retreating figure, to watch the couples on the dance floor. You sway to the music, holding your arms around yourself and feeling your dark green dress swish around your ankles, one that you'd picked out yourself, not a monstrosity of pink tulle, but something that you believed accentuated the natural curves of your body that your mother used other dresses to hide. Your mouth turns down into a frown remembering how Howard had reacted to seeing you in it, when he tried to give you his jacket to cover up, but you refused.

You had wanted him to be stunned by how you looked in it, or at least, wanted someone to be. The same someone that was miles away and probably tickling the skirt of someone who caught his fancy.

"One of the most attractive men I've ever seen in my life is at the bar." Your friend Pearl stated looking behind you with wide eyes.

I've got you beat. You think to yourself to a sigh, wishing, again, that you were here with Ben instead of Howard.

"Very funny." You roll your eyes, thinking that she’s making fun of where Howard is sitting probably flagging down the bartender with both hands to catch his attention.

"I'm not talking about Howard. This guy is seriously a looker. And he's staring at you." Pearl says again.

"Sure." You continue to watch an elderly couple sway back and forth to the smooth jazz that ebbs from the band on stage.

Must be nice to be with someone for that long.

You watch how effortlessly the couple moves as one, how the man stares down at the woman with more love than you can comprehend. It makes your heart sink in your chest.

The way things were panning out, you were going to end up with Howard and you couldn't imagine looking at anyone like that other than Ben.

"You're about to see, because he's coming this way." Pearl takes a step back from you as if anticipating the stranger interrupting your conversation.

"He's not-" You begin to say, but you feel someone place their hand on the small of your back, turning you towards them.

"Fancy meeting you here." Ben smiles down at you, a playful smirk tugging at his lips.

"Ben!" Your heart soars when you recognize your friend and you can't help but hug him so tight he laughs, the movement of his chuckle makes you feel alive for the first time in weeks. The sharp smell of whiskey and the familiar spicy scent of his cologne greets you.

"Guess you missed me." The rumble of his voice vibrates where your cheek rests against his chest.

"I did." You pull away from him reluctantly. "What are you doing here?" You can't help but smile at him, probably wider than what was attractive.

"Thought I'd stop by and visit on my way back to Philadelphia. Saw you walk into this place. " Ben shrugs. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Looking for trouble." You smirk.

"You found him sweetheart." Ben leans down towards you making your throat get unusually tight.

"Hi." Pearl says interrupting the conversation.

Ben turns his smug smile on her. "Hi."

"I'm Pearl." She looks from you to Ben as if trying to decide that it's okay for her to introduce yourself.

"Benjamin." You watch him slip into the cool and smooth Ben, the one that charmed whomever caught his eye.

You can't help but feel a prick of jealousy against your skin. It was familiar, but every time it happened, it didn't make any of this easier. You knew that you shouldn't be jealous, you didn't have a claim on him, you were friends, just friends, only friends, best friends…

And now you were with Howard.

You let out a soft sigh watching the way that Pearl looks up at Ben and the way he leans towards her with the confident smirk you love so much on his face.

"Would you like to dance Benjamin?" She asks.

"I would." Ben's smirk turns into a smile.

Pearl steps forward to reach for his hand, expecting him to take it, but he doesnt.

"Come on sweetheart." Ben reaches out and takes your hand, twirling you ahead of him onto the dance floor.

"Ben-" You giggle, head spinning with the movement, but when he twirls you back into his chest, you feel your breath catch. This wasn't the first time you'd been pressed up against him and it wasn't the first time you recognized how perfectly you fit together. Your soft curves molding against the hardness of his muscles as you sway back and forth to the music. When you were pressed up against him, you didn't feel like you were too big, you felt perfect, because of the way you fit against him.

"You know I am here with someone-" You say, before you get too wrapped up in how good it feels to be with him.

"Yes. Howard Stine. Though I do believe you said he stepped on your toes." Ben smiles at you, eyes twinkling in the light.

"That was four years ago, and he's… sweet?"

"Hmph." Ben rolls his eyes. "You can't even say it with a straight face sweetheart."

"I have never said anything bad about your companions."

"Missy-"

"Besides her." You frown.

He laughs at your reaction, the hand clutched in your right seems to warm with his smile. "You've never said anything about them period."

Because I hate thinking about how many of them there have been. Because I hate that you don't see me as someone who could be with you.

"I try not to dwell on your numerous escapades."

"You sound a little jealous doll." He smirks at you.

"What was that you were saying about Howard again?" You tease, holding on to his shoulders as you sway back and forth to the music.

"Can't be jealous of someone I've seen get chased by a duck." Ben's eyes trace your body for a moment. Your cheeks blush under his gaze. "You look nice. Not one of your mom's I'm guessing?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You don't look like a cupcake." He spins you away one more time before bringing you back into his chest.

"No. I think she'd probably have an aneurysm if she saw me wearing this. Howard also thought it was a bit much-"

Ben's hand tightens on your waist. "What?"

You shrug, leveling your eyes on his chest to distract yourself from his hand placement. "He tried to get me to wear his coat."

"He what?"

You shake your head to dissipate the self-doubt and body-shaming conversation that was about to unfold in your head.

"It's nothing." You raise your gaze back to his, but you're surprised to see the anger that burns behind his green eyes.

"It's not nothing. He had no right to-"

"Ben." You soothe, rubbing your thumb over his shoulder to comfort him.

The song shifts to something softer, forlorn, a song that reminded you of the heartache you felt with Ben, but also a melody that eases your soul somehow.

"I don't understand why you're with him." Ben sighs, but you can still feel the tension in his shoulders beneath your hand.

"My mother is happy-"

"But you're not." The look in his eyes is unfamiliar, almost earnest, as if he's trying to get you to understand something that he can't say.

"Ben." You breathe.

"Fine. I don't want you to think about him when we're dancing to our song anyway." The look in his eyes shifts back to the playful green they'd been before.

"Our song?" The words make your heart skip a beat and you can't help but smile at him.

You couldn't remember the last time you'd smiled this much. Probably the last time I saw him.

"Yes." Ben dips you back, before bringing you up against him, the playful look in his eyes becoming softer as you come back.

You know that your own gaze is filled with love and you remember watching the elderly couple. The way they looked at one another warming your heart as you gaze up at Ben. The three little words tiptoe against your tongue, the three little words that you'd been trying to say forever, but you can't. You don't want to lose him, don't want to live in a world without him, because you know that it won't be worth living.

So instead you lean forward and lay your head against his chest, in the space between his neck and shoulder as the song continues. You think that you feel Ben's arms tighten around you, pulling you further into his embrace, but you chock that up to wishful thinking.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" You hear someone yell, and all of a sudden someone's hand is on your wrist jerking you away from Ben.

What?

Howard is standing there his chest pushed against Ben’s, trying to look intimidating, but Howard's inability to reach Ben's shoulders made it difficult for him.

You rub your fingers over your wrist, where Howard’s bright red handprint stands out against your skin.

Ben’s eyes shift to notice your ministrations, darkening with the force of his anger at the thought that Howard hurt you.

“I think I was dancing with my girl.” Ben’s eyes narrow, skating back to Howard.

Your heart skips a beat when he says that, but you shake away the thought, knowing that Ben is only saying that to make Howard angry.

“Your girl?!” Howard sputters, his face growing red. “She’s not your girl!”

“Howie, buddy-“ Ben’s confident smirk slips over his features but you still see the anger beneath the surface. “Calm down, you’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

“Just because you think you have some claim on her because you’ve been stringing her along with the harem that usually follows you, does not make her your girl!” Howard fumes. “She’s with me.” Howard grabs your wrist again and drags you towards him.

“Hey wait a minute-“ You begin to say.

Ben grabs the front of Howard's tailored suit, rumpling the pristine fabric. “Don’t you dare touch her like that.”

“I will touch her however I damn well please! She's mine-"

The grip on your wrist is so tight that you know it’ll leave bruises. “Howard wait-“ You try again to diffuse the tension, bringing your free hand to rest on his forearm to make him let go.

“Shut up.” He snaps, eyes flashing back to you.

Ben’s temper flares and the sharp crack of his fist against Howard’s face echoes through the room. Howard stumbles away, letting go of your wrist as he reels backward to the welcoming hardwood floor that catches him when he falls.

“Don’t you ever speak to her that way you arrogant son of a bitch!” Ben shouts taking a step forward. His shoulders are tense, fists clenched at his sides and his jaw is tight, as his anger burns through the air.

By now the band has stopped playing music and all the couples around you are watching with wide eyes.

I have to do something before he kills him.

You put yourself between them, your hands firmly planted on Ben’s muscular chest so your back is to where Howard stands fuming. “Ben. Don’t.”

But he’s not looking at you, his gaze is locked with Howard’s, eyes blazing, muscles tensing beneath the palms of your hands. You try to ignore how good his chest feels beneath your touch.

Damn it.

“Ben.” You say his name again.

His eyes snap back to yours. The soft green has hardened to an emerald with the force of his rage, so different than how he looked when the two of you were dancing. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Please.” You whisper. "Stop."

Ben looks from you to Howard, before he finally exhales. “Fine.” He mutters, and he turns and vanishes into the crowd of people without another word.

A minute passes and the music begins all over again, the band on the stage starting with a lively tune that makes the couples around you to move back on to the dance floor, but the tension of what just happened remains in the air.

Because what did just happen? Did Ben do that because he was protective of me? Or did he do that because he was jealous?

Your eyes trace where he vanished, longing for him to come back, but when he doesn't appear, you're left to deal with the aftermath.

********************************

After numerous apologies to Howard, he finally relented and took you back to your dorm, leaving your group of friends at the dance hall. You knew there would definitely be a conversation about what just happened between you all when they got back, but even you were confused. Ben was always protective of you, but what happened seemed over the top. You think about how Ben called you “my girl," the way he said it sending a thrill down your spine. He’d never done that before and you wondered if it was because he wanted to get a rise out of Howard or because he believed it.

Not like he’s tried to do anything about it. You think to yourself stroking one finger against your bruised wrist. The discoloration was more prominent now, black and blue marks beginning to sprout like flowers in spring. Howard’s eye didn’t look much better when he dropped you off. You were surprised that he’d been forgiving enough to continue to see you, not that you wanted to see him, but you didn't think you could handle a letter from your mother.

Then again maybe she would pull you out of this ridiculous school.

A small tap at your window causes you to raise your head to look out the glass. Ben is sitting there, but he doesn’t smile like he usually does. Your dorm room was on the first floor, which meant that Ben didn't need to shimmy up a tree to get into it like he did when you were home. Then again this was the first time he'd showed up here and you wondered how he knew where your room was. You also weren't thrilled at his appearance because you didn't know when Pearl would come back and you weren't sure what your roommate would do if she came back and found Ben in your room. She was a stickler for the rules and despite your friendship, rooming with her was one of your least favorite things about the Dawson School For Girls.

“If they find you here I’m going to be in so much trouble.” You say helping him through the small window, putting your hand on the back of his head so that he doesn't bang it against the glass. "You might like getting kicked out of boarding schools, but I don't."

“They won’t find out.” Ben rolls his eyes. He glances at Pearl’s empty bed on the other side of the room. “Roommate not back yet?”

“No she was still dancing when I left.”

Ben frowns. “Where’s the asshole?”

“Ben-“

“What?”

“He left. And I don't exactly invite him up to where I sleep."

“Good.” Ben flexes his fist.

“How did you know which room was mine?” You ask. Ben had never come to see you before at boarding school and the fact that he was here probably meant that boarding school number ten was out.

“I might have guessed wrong.” He smirks.

“Uh-huh.” You sigh, but all you can think about is how he acted earlier. Your feet shift back and forth “Why did you hit him?”

Ben’s eyes darken. “He shouldn’t have touched you like that or said that to you.”

You stand there for a minute observing his reaction.

“He kinda deserved it." You say slowly.

You knew it was true. When Ben showed up Howard shouldn’t have lost it like he did, he definitely shouldn’t have grabbed you like that or called you his-

You stutter on that thought. But maybe he is right. I am Howard’s. We’ve been going steady… The thought of being his makes something curl up in your chest and die. There was only one man that you wanted to belong to.

"Yeah.” Ben sighs.

"Why did you call me your 'girl'?" You ask.

"Um." Ben shrugs. "Felt right in the moment."

"What?"

"I mean you are. You're my friend-"

"But that doesn't mean friend Ben." You say it gently trying to catch his eye, but Ben won't meet your gaze.

"Fine. I just wanted to mess with him a little bit." Ben frowns. "But I didn't like that he called you his, or the fact that he hurt you."

“But Ben I am his.” You whisper even though you don’t want to. “We’re going steady-“

“That doesn’t make you his!” Ben snaps, eyes flashing. “Just because he feels the need to say it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“But Ben-“

“And I never want to hear you say it.” He continues loudly.

What is wrong with him? I've never seen him this angry about anything.

“Why?”

“Because that means he has some claim on you. You’re not his, you’re my friend.”

"You're being ridiculous. You're saying that he can't have some claim on me but you're possessively calling me your friend!" You shout back frustrated.

Why is he acting like this? Does he really hate Howard that much?

"I am not! I'm just saying that you're my friend and you're not his!"

“I can’t be both?” Your words hang in the air between the two of you and you mentally beg Ben to answer. He was acting like he wanted you to be his, like he believed that he had some claim on you and you couldn't remember another time that he'd acted this way. Sure he teased Howard, but this was more than that.

It was almost possessive and it kinda scared you how much you liked it.

Ben doesn’t answer your question. His shoulders are tense, hands clenched into fists at his sides, while something lurks behind his eyes that you can’t identify.

“Ben?” You say it like a question, ignoring the urge to press your hands against his chest like you did earlier at the dance to calm him down.

His gaze drops to your arm, where Howard grabbed you, tracing the bruises and clenching his jaw together. Ben’s right hand comes to delicately pick up your bruised wrist, running his thumb over the discolored flesh with a frown. “Does it hurt?” He rumbles changing the subject.

“No. Does that hurt?” You breathe noticing his bruised knuckles and gently probe your fingers along them.

You hated the though that he was hurt and for you, no less.

Why did he have to intervene? Why did he hit Howard?

“It was worth it.”

You both stand there for a minute, with Ben holding on to your wrist, touch surprisingly gentle.

“I just don’t like that he hurt you okay?” He mutters raising his eyes to yours. You weren't prepared for the soft look in his eyes. You expected him to still be angry over Howard, but he almost looked, worried.

“I'm okay Ben." You whisper back.

You want him to answer your question. You think again about telling him those three little words you wanted to say when you were swaying on the dance floor together but you can’t.

He nods once before he looks around the room, eyes falling on your sketchpad where it lays closed on your bed. "Got any new ones?"

You knew it was Ben's way of asking if he could stay, trying to tell you that he didn’t want to go back to Philadelphia that night, and you didn't want him to either.

"A few. If you're not too tired-"

"I’m never too tired for you."

You feel your heart beat rapidly in your chest. “Okay.”

The whole time you sit together on your bed, Ben doesn't drop your wrist, in fact he continues to brush his thumb against it while you look through your sketchbook. And in a few hours when Pearl finds you and Ben curled up in bed together, you’re not embarrassed, because deep down you’re starting to believe that Ben cared for you more than he was willing to admit.

*******************************

Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series, please let me know :)

Taglist: @roseblue373 @anundyingfidelity @cheynovak @cassiecasluciluce @muhahaha303 @deans-spinster-witch @kayleighmeister @demodemo909 @fruitfacess @bobbobbobinogs @bughill126

#soldier boy x you #jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy/ben #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic #jensen ackles #soldier boy fanfiction #soldier boy x y/n #the boys series #the boys tv #soldier boy fic #the boys season 3 #the boys s3

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alizalayne · 7 months

Text

Hello! this will be a quick process post so that you can see how I needlefelted a fursuit head!

I began by following the "bucket head" tutorial by Matrices, then added a layer of polyfill so that I wouldn't use as much of my merino wool. This is how I typically make a doll head, my "core wool" is often polyfill because it really likes to clump together and fuse.

Overall, this project took about two months of my spare time. This is the first fursuit head I have made, but not my first needlefelt project.

I would really like to encourage other people to try making masks this way! You can do any kind of subtle color with wool and the wool fiber is very cheap. If you wanted to make a fursuit head with the entirety of starry night flowing over it, or a head with tons and tons of complex colors, I think wool might be the best material. I also did not need to know how to pattern or sew in order to make this-- it was sculpture rather than sewing, which I am bad at.

The rest under the cut!

Another angle where you can see that I am building up the structure of the head.

I then made the ears, which are translucent because they're felted, just like real ears!

I wasn't happy yet with the proportions at this point, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out and deciding where and how I'd be placing the eyes.

I made a pair of sculpey follow-me eyes by using a little soy sauce dish as a concave circular mold and tried a foam clay nose and teeth. The sculpey eyes could be more successful, they took a lot of shaving and adjusting to get right and they eventually cracked from the strain I'd put them through while making them more shallow. For a while, I intended to make wefts of white wool to use on the sides of the head, but I ended up preferring a domestic shorthair head shape because it reads the most clearly as a cat vs any other animal.

I originally intended to have the eyes behind clear plastic domes and used "shaker domes" that people use to make greeting cards to cover the eye, but in the end they made the eyes too dull. I made foam clay housing for the eyes and painted it pink with acrylic paint. I used stick-on car window tint to create the pupils. My visibility inside the head is really good!

Finally, after fiddling, one of the eyes was deeper than the other and I had to re-set both to account for it. I added spot glitter on top of the acrylic paint on the eye using some gold watercolor paint I had, which was silly because I'll need to wash the head at some point. I will probably seal the eyes before washing and hope for the best. I intend to spot clean the head until it absolutely needs to be washed, at which point I'll remove some pieces or find a way to protect them while soaking the head in a cool dr. bronner's bath.

I glued down a layer of felt fiber on top of the foam clay "tear ducts" and then felted new fiber over the tear duct skin and cheeks to blend them into the face. I also removed the teeth and closed her mouth because I didn't have time to adjust the teeth as much as I wanted before the con that my friends and I attended. I would like to modify this head so that she can open and close her mouth.

Lastly, I added wire whiskers with little glass beads looped onto the ends and paper eyelashes that I also watercolored and sealed, like the insides of the eyes. Like I said before, it's gonna be a problematic wash, but I'm confident I'll figure it out, and I can always repair her or replace her lashes if something goes wrong.

Last thing, to keep the inside of the head nice and cool and prevent fogging since in the end I closed the mouth and had sealed eyes, I made a snorkel out of a snorkel mouthpiece fitted into two collapsible auto funnels.

I would say that realistically this entire project cost me less than $150. I had some materials lying around, like the wire and the beads and the sculpey.

I added two ear vents on either side of the head so that I had options on where to feed the snorkel out. If you look at the other pictures on the blog of me wearing the head, you mostly can't even see the snorkel mouth. However, it was a little problematic to let go of the snorkel to talk. it would be perfect for a silent suiter, but I'm lucky that so many people wanted to talk to me. I'd like to try and replace the snorkel mouth with something I can talk in, but I'm not sure what to use. It should be something that can create a seal to keep my breath out of the head. it's possible that I will be able to make something with a painter's mask.

I hid the "seam" between the head and my body with two yards of tulle tied into a big bow and sewn down onto the neck so that it wouldn't move around.

I hope that if you try making something similar you'll show it to me!

#fursuit #fiber art #needlefelt #sculpture #dolls

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mistydeyes · 1 year

Note

Hey, Hope you're having a good day or night wherever you are.

Can I request a headcanon about 141 with a female reader who likes to draw and sketch a lot? Platonic ofc.

thanks anon, hope you have a good ____ as well <3 i used to be a sketch/artist girl so this was so cute to write :)

an artist’s touch

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

summary: When you aren’t on the field, you are an avid artist of multiple mediums. It isn’t brought up much but once it is, the 141 has plenty of questions (and even some requests).

pairing: Taskforce 141 x platonic!fem!reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of blood/violence

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

tbh when you first joined, they didn’t know much about your hobby (being part of a specialized task force is busy yk?)

but it was revealed when you finally were granted leave and you discussed your plan upon your return home

“my first stop is going to be to cass art :)”

immediate cacophony of “you draw?” “you’re an artist?” “have you ever drawn us before!”

after a few minutes you quelled all of their questions (“yes, yes, and i literally joined 4 months ago and haven’t had access to a pencil”)

ghost comments, “make sense why you’re so good at stabbing people”

“god you’re so morbid ghost”

when back on base, you were shy to show you’re talents but you eventually relaxed the more you were with your teammates

eventually you began to bring out your sketchbook or paints out when you were relaxing after a mission or training session

once in a while, someone will tell you your work is amazing but if you’re in the zone, they’ll leave you alone

one time price accidentally left his mug too close to your paint cup and you ended up swirling your brush into it

queue a long lecture about how you should pay more attention (but who am i kidding that coffee is so strong he probably didn’t notice)

you humored soap and drew what you thought the real simon riley looked like

ghost snuck a peek and one of the drawings was surprisingly accurate

speaking of which, you may or may not have used your teammates as drawing references but you’ll never tell

gaz just has such angular features which makes drawing his figure so easy

mans looks like a walking drawing figure

it’s relaxing to let your mind wander and hands do the work as you fill a page or canvas

painting at home in your studio helps you to unwind from the grueling job

once, you sketched a few designs for gaz when he mentioned wanting to get a tattoo

“i don’t know gaz this is permanent” “i’ve seen your sketches and they’re amazing! just send me a few designs”

he landed on a cool watercolor piece you had made months ago

after your design, you would all joke about how you would redesign ghost’s tattoo

“Lt. that shit is heinous, just let me draw you a coverup” “no.”

while you don’t accept commissions anymore, you did gift your captain a painting of his favorite secluded lake scenery

he has it hanging in the foyer of his elegant flat

while you don’t really exchange gifts, everyone knows what they would get you

ghost has taken special attention to the brand of pencil you use and the gouache paintings that litter your quarters

everyone likes to joke w you on the comms

“hey do you think you could paint a picture with the blood of your enemies?” “jesus! soap…but yes i could”

#task force 141 x reader #task force 141 #cod x reader #call of duty modern warfare #cod mwii #modern warfare 2 #simon ghost riley #call of duty #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #madebyizzie #141 headcanons #mw2 headcanons #mw2 #izzie is writing

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tojisbbg · 1 year

Text

𝙤𝙝, 𝙞 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣

❝oh.. cara mia, how i love him.❞

♡ rin itoshi ♡

a/n: first time writing for blue lock!! ugh, guys, the brainrot is very severe. they’re all my babygirls fr.

content: rin itoshi x reader, sprinkle of sae in it (if you squint), fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, childhood friend to strangers to lovers, rin’s a little mean, unresolved feelings cause sudden confession, small little tweaks of events, not edited.

---

“rinnie!” your six-year-old self screamed loud and proud for your best friend in the entire world as you ran inside the itoshi household. your parents were left behind at the door, chuckling with the itoshi’s parents because of your excitement.

you tightly gripped the coloring set to your chest, climbing the stairs as fast as you could upstairs to rin’s play room that he shared with his brother sae. you opened the door, seeing the familiar ravenette sitting on the child size chair, focused on drawing.

“rin! you were supposed to wait for me.” you whined, your smile now becoming a small frown as you sat in front of him on the empty chair. rin looked up at you, finally acknowledging your presence.

“ah! y/nie, you’re here so soon.” he gave you a bright smile, his eyes shimmering at your company. suddenly, you even forgot that you were mad at him in the first place, his smile being so contagious as you returned one yourself.

“look! papa got them from his business trip last week and it has crayons, markers, paints and so much more!” you showed him the coloring kit, making him awe from amazement from the variety.

“so cool! hey, can we share?” rin asked and you eagerly nodded your head, laying out your coloring supplies on the table freely.

“who are you drawing for the project?” you asked, beginning your masterpiece, which would consist of cutely drawn stick figures.

“i’m gonna draw big bro, i wanna be just like him in the future. he’s just so cool, he’ll become the best striker in the world and i’ll be the second best.” rin spoke with such passion in his tone, his eyes holding a loving adoration at the thought of his brother.

“nice, i wanna become like my mama. i want to make food as delicious as hers so that i could feed the people that i love.” you chirped, dipping your paint brush in a little bit of water before swirling it inside the watercolor paint palette.

“even me?” rin asked, making you look at him with a slight dust of pink shading your cheeks.

“of course, rinnie. you’re my best friend and i’ll always love you. i think you’re more awesome than sae.” you whispered the last part, making him giggle as he shook his head.

“hm? talking about me?” you suddenly hear a voice behind you, your eyes being covered as you yelp in surprise.

“sae!” you finally peeled his hands away from your eyes, eyes meeting another pair of emerald ones. sae chuckled before ruffling your hair.

“hey! you’re messing up my pigtails.” you huffed, trying to fix your hair that slightly ruined, straightening the bows that were a little crooked.

“sorry, sorry, cutie.” sae raised his hands in defense, making you hum as a response of accepting his apology. he sat on the ground, eyes watching what you and his brother was doing.

“look, big bro! this is you and me when we win the world cup together.” rin eagerly showed his finished drawing, earning a proud grin from his brother as sae ruffled rin’s hair.

“we’ll be the best of the best, together.” sae said, warmth spreading inside rin’s heart from satisfaction.

“yup!” rin nodded.

“hey, what about me? i don’t know how to play soccer.” you pout, feeling left out from the itoshi’s conversation.

“i offered to teach you but you didn’t wanna.” sae replied, pinching your cheeks teasingly as you winced.

“yeah ‘cause soccer is for boys not for girls.” you fake gagged, making sae roll his eyes from your overdramatic reaction.

“you can cheer us on, you’ll be in the front seats watching us.” rin suggested, making you think hard on if that’s the job you wanted to play in the itoshi brothers dream.

“okay! i’ll be your good luck charm.” you gave them a thumbs up, making them both agree.

“my, my! aren’t you three just so cute. let’s take a picture!” rin’s mom cooed, pulling out her phone as she ushered both brothers to stand by your side. you dropped your paint brush, holding your colorful hands up with a bright smile that made your eyes disappear.

you felt rin and sae bent down, placing a kiss on either of your cheeks as a pose.

“1...2...3... awwww!” your parents were in the middle of having a stroke from cuteness overload. on the other hand, you were combusting with happiness from how lucky you were to have two of the greatest friends ever.

---

change is something inevitable.

seasons change and so do other forms of life such as plants, animals and humans. it’s just the cycle of life that we must go through.

the world was still too big for your liking at the age of sixteen, afraid to dip your toes in waters that seemed too cold and foreign.

you were afraid to change.

and perhaps that was one of the reasons why you let the two most important people in your life slip out of your grasp. sae became a hotshot in a small period of time, hitting the news which spread like wildfire. of course, this alone made your and rin’s hearts soar from happiness.

but that was two years ago.

things were different now, so different that you don’t even recognize the itoshi brothers anymore. sae was absolutely no longer in the picture, frequently traveling to places like spain and his visits back in japan lasted no more than a couple of days.

and your best friend, rin, has become nothing but a total stranger. he still lived within close premises, yet his aura felt like someone splashed you with cold water. that warmth that once resided within him was gone.

you quickly barged into rin’s room, your face now becoming pale with horror as you saw him go berserk. his eyes were dark, smashing every single trophy, medal and picture frame him and sae owned.

“i hate him! i hate, hate, hate, itoshi sae!” rin bellowed, not even caring about your existence that was terrified by the door. your shaky hands went behind you, closing the door as you slowly tip-toed your way to him.

“rin?” you meekly called out his name, trying to catch his attention as he was heaving from frustration. he looked at you with a sharp glare, making your throat go dry.

“what.” he spat out with so much venom, making you mentally wince.

“sit down and talk to me.” you grabbed his arms, pushing him back until he sat on the bed and you stood in front of him. your hands were on his shoulders, grounding him on the mattress to make sure that he wouldn’t get up to do anything else.

“there’s nothing to talk about. itoshi sae ruined my life by teaching me soccer, and i will get my revenge on him.” rin spoke with so much hate in his voice it made your stomach churn.

“that’s crazy talk, you both are supposed to become the best together, remember?” you frowned, cupping his cheeks as you tried to somehow make this hateful glint of his disappear.

until he swatted away your hands.

“we’re not kids anymore, y/n. it’s time that you grow the fuck up and realize that this stupid dream the three of us dreamt of was never going to become reality. even seeing you makes me angry now.” rin harshly spat out, making your mouth agape from shock, looking at him with glossy eyes.

“rin, the hell is that supposed to mean?” your voice croaked, your heart feeling like it was on the verge of cracking into two.

“i hate you too, y/n.”

those were the last words that were ever exchanged between you and rin, the last time you both were even near each other. every time the both of your parents would try to organize an event together, you would make some lame excuse to not join them.

but, today it seemed that no matter how significant or desperate you tried to make your excuse look like, your parents didn’t buy it.

“what happened between you guys? you all used to be such good buddies.” your dad asked out of the blue, looking at you through the mirror as he drove. you shrugged, playing with the hem of your dress.

“we just grew up, i guess. besides, the both of them are pretty busy people so i don’t wanna butt in.” you quickly dismissed, not wanting to talk about this whole sibling rivalry they both had going on which eventually wrapped you into it as well.

“yeah, it’s a shame. but, the itoshi brothers are doing very good. sae has gotten into nationals and rin got into some bootcamp place called blue lock. we’re going over for dinner because the brothers are gonna be off on their own path tomorrow.” your mom informed you, making your eyes go wide like the size of two full moons.

it was bad enough that you’d be seeing both sae and rin after two years, but the fact that now even more distance was being created left you unsettled. there was no more hope in restoring whatever friendship you guys had.

you didn’t care much about sae, but rin? he was your best friend, your person, the only person who could actually turn your frown upside down.

what probably hurt the most was the stupid crush you had on him that never died down. you know him like the back of your hand, and you know that the itoshi rin right now is not the sweet rin you befriended and fell in love with as a child. yet, a piece of your heart knew that somewhere in those ferocious green flames of his, your rinnie was still there.

the dinner party was like usual, a bunch of rich people all in one place. you felt stuffy and suffocated, deciding to go up to the balcony to get some fresh air. you noticed a tall figure leaning on the rails, peering down.

“shouldn’t you be hosting your own party?” you snickered, standing beside him as your voice rang a bell in his ears. rin straightened his posture, easily towering over you as your mind couldn’t process how tall he has gotten within the span of two years. his body was more fit and muscular, yet his face was stoic and bored like the last ever time you had seen him.

“tell that to mr. famous, he’s the hot topic of the table.” rin grumbled, stealing quick glances at you with a side eye that you failed to notice. he couldn’t help but notice how you’ve gotten even prettier within the years, his heart fluttering upon the sight of you.

you grew up so well, yet you still reminded him of the old y/n he knew.

“hm, well, congrats on getting in blue lock.” you awkwardly said, rubbing your bare arms as you avoided eye contact with him.

“thanks.” he dryly responded and silence fell between you both.

“so, you’re gonna go away for a long time?” you asked, trying to stir up a conversation with your best friend whom your heart ached and yearned for.

“don’t know.” rin simply shrugged, his resistance making your blood boil. he was acting like it was your first day meeting him and that every single memory between you both never existed.

“alright, i’m fucking done.” you said through gritted teeth, making rin look at you with a cocked eyebrow. suddenly, you grabbed him by the collar, pulling him down to make at eye-level with you.

“the fuck is your problem, huh? i don’t know what went on between you and sae, but that shit does not involve me. i don’t give two flying fucks about soccer, i just want my best friend back. so stop being such an asshole!” you screamed in his face, your eyes pooling with tears that began to sting. rin looked into your eyes, his lips thining into a line before his larger hands peeled your fingers away.

“are you fucking deaf or dumb, huh? that weak and pathetic version of rin itoshi you so dearly hold in your heart is dead. my dream is no one’s but only mine. only i will become the best of the best in the world, the best striker. i will defeat itoshi sae and make him eat his damn words.” his hands balled into fists, making you crouch down as you held your face in your hands, sobbing.

“then why.. why am i looped into this shit?! did you mean what you said to me last time?” you asked, praying to whatever god up there that you overthought everything those past two years.

“of course i did, y/n. you mean nothing to me, right now, the only thing important to me is soccer. hell, i’ll even put my life on the line for it. anything and anyone who gets in my way is nothing but a fucking pain the ass.” rin glared down at you, each of his words feeling like a few hundreds of knives stabbing your heart.

“you fucking jerk. i hate you, itoshi rin! i hate you, i hate you, i hate you! go to fucking hell.” you yelled, getting up with tears in your eyes as you ran inside the house. you tried to navigate yourself to the bathroom to fix your face which was probably streaked with black remains of your mascara.

you bumped into a hard chest, making you groan in pain as you mumbled a quick ‘sorry’.

“y/n?” the familiarity of the voice sent chills down your spine, looking up to see none other than sae. his hairstyle changed completely, his eyes dull as he looked at you with an undecipherable look.

but for some odd reason, his presence made you furious. a part of you couldn’t help but blame sae for the reason why everything went down the drain for the three of you. you roughly shoved him off, catching him off guard.

“do me a favor and go back to spain so that i don’t ever have to see your face again, itoshi sae.” you said in a monotone, not even wanting to look him in the face as you walked away.

a beautiful friendship that you once molded with both brothers turned nothing but into puddles of sorrow and agony.

---

“come on, y/n! it’ll be fun, i promise.” your friend whined, trying to convince you to attend soccer match between u-20 and blue lock today.

“eh, i don’t know. i’m not really a soccer person.” you nervously laughed, trying to shoo her away. but, your friend was persistent.

“come on, pretty please? didn’t you say someone you know goes to blue lock?” your friend narrowed her eyes, making you look at the side as you tried to come up with a lie.

“well, uhm, yeah? but like, i don’t know if he’s still playing in it.” you scratched the back of your neck, trying your best to decline her offer as politely as possible.

you knew that these tickets were hot and porbably costed a lot of money, yet her friend who is playing in the match gave her two.

“well then, i guess you’ll find out!” she said and you sighed in defeat.

“fine.” you mumbled, taking the ticket from her hand.

you both were now outside of the stadium, the lines were making you feel all sweaty and suffocated. you texted your friend, getting annoyed that she was running late and you felt a little stupid standing in the middle of all of these die-hard soccer fans.

“ah, sorry! i’m here.” you friend waved to you at the distance, running over as you rolled your eyes.

“i was gonna go home if you didn’t show up within the next minute.” you gave a small empty threat, making her chuckle.

“hey, no worries. getting inside won’t take too long, let’s get jersey’s!” she sang out, dragging you the stand where they were selling the shirts.

“i’ll get number eleven for blue lock please.” you friend said, pulling her wallet to pull out the money. you read the name on the shirt: isagi yoichi. it was most likely the friend that gave her these tickets.

“what about you, y/n?” she looked at you and your eyes scanned the shirts for both u-20 and blue lock but the summer’s heat was making you feel dizzy. so you just went with some random number that popped inside your head.

“uh, i don’t know, number ten?” you asked more than said. the man gave you a judgemental look which made you a little embarrassed.

“for which team? u-20′s number ten is itoshi sae and blue lock’s number ten is itoshi rin.” the man informed you, making your heart drop as those two names rang loud and clear in your ears.

no way that this could’ve all just been pure coincidence. you were broken out of your thought as the line grew, deciding that no one would even see you anyways from the distance. so, you’d cheer him on behind the scenes.

“blue lock’s number ten, please.” you said with a small smile.

after purchasing the jersey, you and your friend went to the bathroom to change into it. after you both were done, she guided you through different doors in which security people guarded it.

“vip tickets.” you friend eagerly showed them both your and her ticket to the man before they gave her a brief nod. they opened the red rope barrier and allowed you two to enter.

“hey, this is so close to the field.” you said in awe, looking at the huge green field before you.

“of course, dummy. we have first row seats.” she gave you a wide smile, making your heart thump. you both took your seat, waiting for the match to start. the announcer people did their little speeches, making you bored. until, the doors opened and the players began to walk in.

you watched how u-20 walked in, the familiar red head leading the team. your gaze fell on his jersey, it was number ten, itoshi sae. the door on the opposite side opened and the blue lock players walked in and it felt like time had stopped when your eyes fell on the person’s jersey whom you were wearing.

itoshi rin.

you noticed how rin’s eyes held a different glint in them, it was filled with determination and the will to devour. he was finally going to play against his brother whom he once dreamt of playing together with side by side. the more you remember that old childish dream that you three dreamt of, the more your heart ached.

you could only wish that it could go back to that.

the match has been going for what felt like an eternity, but you couldn’t help but have your palms get sweaty. it was intense, both teams filled with bery talented and skilled players. this was your first time watching rin and sae play soccer, as you’d always skip out on their practices in the past because it was boring to you.

but now after witnessing it live, you were nothing but dumbstruck from amazement. their speed, intellect, strength, stamina and overall talent was unremarkable. you would be liar if you denied the fact that you were proud of both of them.

yet, your heart was rooting for blue lock to take home the victory. unfortunately, things weren’t going towards your liking as u-20 was in the lead. one more goal in for u-20 sent the whole crowd roaring and cheering for none other than itoshi sae.

however, your eyes not even once fell on him. you were more focused on rin, his every move was sharp and hypnotizing. you watched him pant from exhaustion, until a different aura replaced him.

you looked at him and your heart dropped to your stomach, recognizing that look from before. it was a look as if a demonic entity has taken over him, his eyes darkening as his tongue slipped out in focus.

fuck.

you watched him go berserk, zooming past all the players and strategically knocking down everyone’s skills with his own. that was until he was now head on head against sae now.

you noticed how his movements waivered for a little, but he shrugged it off and continue to get in his shooting range without being interrupted by sae. the crowd grew quiet as they began to whisper and murmur about the sibling rivalry.

you heard them badmouthing rin, taking sae’s side just because rin wasn’t as well known like sae. you couldn’t take it anymore, leaning over.

“you could do it, itoshi rin! make that fucking goal, rinnie!!” you screamed at the top of your lungs, your voice catching both brother’s attention. rin looked at you with shock, sharing the same look with sae. you gave rin a hopeful smile, giving him a thumbs up.

“i believe in you, rin! you can make that goal!” and with that being said, it was as if his mind was being possessed by your voice, your words guiding him as his body acted on its own.

rin surpressed sae, who didn’t even notice because he was startled by your sudden appearence amongst the crowd. and in a matter of seconds, rin’s leg swung and like fire the ball hit the net.

“fuck yeah!!” you jumped from your seat as the announcers flooded everyones ears with compliments towards rin.

blue lock won.

---

“holy shit, that game was insane!” your friend babbled, making you chuckle as you nodded your head in agreement.

“yeah, it was.” you smiled, the events of rin’s amazing goal and overall play rewinding in your mind.

“hey, i’m gonna go catch up with my friend. i’ll text you when i get home.” you friend quickly excused herself and you nodded your head, wanting to leave as soon as possible to avoid bumping into either brothers.

you were finally able to leave the stadium, now outside as you saw the sun was slowly setting. you leaned against the fence, taking in the breathtaking sight.

“running away from me so soon?” a voice spoke out, sending chills down your spine. you turned your head only to see the 6′1 striker walking towards you while drinking water. he was out of his uniform, now wearing nothing but sweats and a t-shirt.

“rin..” you said under your breath, your voice already half gone from your screaming. you haven’t seen rin face to face for a while now, especially after that night. he made your heart tremble, your knees weak and you always grew nervous.

“never expected you to show up to one of my games.” rin blurted out, making you scoff.

“why? ‘cause you think i don’t know anything about soccer since you’re a hotshot player and i’m not?” you taunted, making his lips curl a little upwards into a small smirk.

“you’re the one who said soccer was boring.” he argued, making you tsk.

“well, it’s not as boring when watching you play it.” you mumbled under your breath, but your words were as clear as day to rin and it made his heart swell with pride.

“is that so?” rin asked, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear. his skin softly grazed your face, making your cheeks grow warm. your eyes remained on the ground, not being able to meet his intense eye contact.

rin let out a sigh, grabbing your chin before forcing you to look up to him. he looked down at your flustered face, looking over every feature that he has memorized in his mind. you were still the same, the only difference is you’ve matured as you’ve grown.

your adorable doey eyes that would look at him like he’s the most interesting person ever to exist, your cute button nose that would scrunch up in excitement, soft and chubby cheeks that would blush whenever he kissed them and plump lips that would say the sweetest things to him.

you’ve never left itoshi rin’s mind.

“why did you come today?” he asked, looking into your eyes like he’s trying his best to search for the truth.

“my friend had extra tickets.” you admitted, watching his eyes droop a little and lose their shine.

“oh.” his voice sounded disappointed.

“the man in the jersey stall asked me if i wanted u-20′s number 10 or blue lock’s number 10. i chose you, rin.” you said before cupping his face, getting tired of knocking on this hard wall rin has built around his heart.

rin could feel his heart hammering against his chest, the unfamiliar feeling of this weird fuzz made him confused. you were rooting for him from the beginning?

“but why? sae is still a better player than me, i got that goal in by luck because he was distracted.” rin frowned, dropping your hands from his face as you heavily sighed.

“even if everyone in that entire crowd cheered for sae, i would still be your number one supporter and wear your number and scream for you loud and proud. whether you won or lost, you’ll always be the one that i would root for, rinnie.” you gave him a ceshire smile, that beautiful shimmer in your eyes returning just like how you’d have it when talking to him as a child.

suddenly, you grabbed his neck before pulling him into your chest, hugging him tightly. you didn’t want to fight against your feelings anymore, you no longer cared.

“i’ll always choose you, rin. i love you, i love you so, so, so damn much that it hurts. all these years of being away from you made me become nothing but miserable. come back to me, rinnie, please.” you begged, tears streaming down your face as you sniffled.

and it took only those few words to have that wall itoshi rin built around his heart to come crumbling down. he tightly wrapped his arms around your waist, lifting you up as you wrapped your legs around his waist.

“i missed you so much, y/n. i’m so sorry. i-i don’t even know what to say.” he stammered, as you felt him sniffling against your chest. your hand came down to his cheeks, wiping away his tears as you shook your head.

“it’s okay, i know it was hard on you. you suffered a lot on your own.” you kissed his forehead lovingly, feeling him tighten his embrace.

“but still, i was such an asshole to you because i was so consumed by my hatred. i’m so sorry for hurting you, y/n. i felt so guilty, i couldn’t even face you because i knew my feelings would conflict with me.” rin admitted, making your heart skip a beat.

“i love you too, y/n. i always have and i always will.” he said, leaning away from your chest to meet your gaze as his eyes softened. you giggled in content, your hand going behind his neck to pull him into a kiss.

it wasn’t anything too much, a soft yet savoring kiss that you both shared. rin could taste the sweet fruity gloss you used on your lips, humming at it’s sweetness. you smiled against his lips before pecking them multiple times. you cupped his cheeks, squishing them as a pout forcibly formed on his lips.

“ahhh, you’re so cute, rinnie! i just wanna eat you up!” you squealed, continuing to pepper his face and pouty lips with smooches. rin’s face noticibly grew warm and red, but he liked getting this kind of attention from you.

you both spent the next few minutes just hugging and pecking each other, enjoying each other’s close company that you both ached for all those years.

“we got the whole week off, so uh, do you wanna go on a date?” rin asked, averting his eyes from you. a teasing grin danced on your lips as you decided to play with him a little.

“hmm, i don’t know. let me think.” you pretended to think hard, making him scoff.

“y/n!” rin whined, playfully smacking your thigh as you chuckled.

“just kidding! of course i’ll go on a date with you, rin. but, only if you first ask me to be your girlfriend.” you asked with a cheeky smile, making him pinch your nose.

“now you’re asking for too much.” rin teased, making you scoff.

“hey, i was your lucky charm that helped you make that goal. the least you can do is ask me to be your girlfriend.” you roll your eyes, sending him a small glare.

“now why would i give you any credit for that goal.” rin tilted his head, making you huff.

“jerk, fine, then go on that date by yourself.” you said in a petty tone, squirming out of his release before walking off. rin chuckled to himself, knowing that you were right. your voice was the only thing that put him in that trance to make that goal, so yes, you were his lucky charm.

rin lightly jogged behind your before engulfing your figure into a back hug. he snuggled his face in the crook of your neck before kissing your temple.

“be my girlfriend and go on that date with me.” he said, pressing a tender kiss on your cheeks. a girly smile was now plastered on your face and you hummed.

“if you insist, okay then!” you exclaimed, your stomach filled with butterflies.

“good, i can’t win my games without my lucky charm.” rin breathed out in content, wrapping an arm around your waist as he held you close while you both walked.

from a distance, the other itoshi watched, tightly clutching onto his duffle bag. an overwhelming amount of sadness washing over him as he watched his once beloved brother and childhood friend walk away together.

sae let out a heavy sigh, walking in the opposite direction as a bitter smile was on his lips. in a way, the dream you three have dreamt came true today.

the itoshi brothers played together in an intense soccer match while you were in the front rows cheering. only difference was the molten sea of hate and complicated feelings that made things more different.

you only cheered for rin, completely ignoring sae’s existence and perhaps that why this feeling of tightness in his chest prevented him from even caring about what rin had in plan next during the match.

although you and rin found each other once again in the same world, itoshi sae realized that he was way far gone from you both.

he could no longer dream the same dream as you and rin.

itoshi sae has lost his brother and his childhood best friend and he knew that he couldn’t blame anyone else but himself.

973 notes · View notes

junvibing · 2 months

Text

Artfully Yours

pairing: art major renjun! x fem!reader; youtuber!renjun

warnings: lots of art and ramen, renjun is very much in love, college

summary: Renjun wants to get you something special for your birthday. He has two problems though: 1. there's not much time left, 2. he's a perfectionist. But hey, at least Chenle gave him the perfect idea. Now, he only has to finish in time and hope you'll love it.

wc: 12.5k

a/n: I've been working on this on and off for around a year lol. Anyways I really like it and I hope you do too! Leave me feedback haha this is my first long fanfic and honestly it's special to me :') <3

song recommendation: Like we just met - nct dream

credit for art inspo: matlagesilke3 on pinterest

The second Renjun got home, he prepared to spend the rest of the day working on a drawing. Since it's due for tomorrow's Drawing II class, he really needs to put his energy into finishing it today. His art projects are often accompanied with him staying up into the nights to perfect them. Sometimes while painting his thoughts drift away and he starts thinking about other things. This tendency surely adds to him staying up late but for today he hopes he’ll be able to finish before midnight. That’s why Renjun starts gathering his materials quickly before sitting down at his desk. His room is a little messy but college is stressful and an art major is no exception. Especially since he is somewhat of a perfectionist but he couldn’t imagine studying anything else other than art. For as long as Renjun can remember, he was always interested in it. The way colors dance on the paper, the way they blend into each other or how he can create anything he wants and get lost in the process - he just loves it. One of his favorite things is to try out different art mediums and see how they work, how comfortable he could get with them and if he’ll resort back to them in the future. Over the years, he discovered that he loves painting with oil paints and watercolors the most as they bring him great joy and the best results. Both mediums can be tricky at the beginning and it wasn’t much different for him when he started out but proper practice helped a lot. However, Renjun also enjoys drawing on his tablet, which is especially useful if he wants to post his work online.

In his opinion, art is meant to be shared and what better way is there to reach lots of people than sharing it online? That's why he had started to post his art on Twitter when he was still in middle school. Whenever someone retweeted his art, he felt so elated, it pushed him to continue sharing his work. In high school he even started exploring with posting videos on YouTube, all related to art of course. Jisung, his classmate and one of his best friends, had encouraged him to just go for it and soon enough his other friends had joined in. Thinking back to his very first YouTube video, Renjun lets out a chuckle. Dang, I was so nervous. Shaking his head, he continues sketching. The thing is he never used to show his face on Twitter, it was all about his art and creativity but with the encouraging words of Jisung and his other friends, he dared to show his face on YouTube, alongside his art of course. The first video Renjun ever posted was of him drawing Moomin fan art. Over the years, his channel actually gained quite a bit of attraction and while in high school, he would often daydream about making money with his artwork even though he knew his parents wouldn’t really support him in pursuing such a career. As far as Renjun knew, his parents wanted him to get a “real” career. But he spent most of his free time either with his friends or sketching, drawing and painting.

I still do that. Renjun sits at his desk, room dimly lit and pencil in his right hand. But y/n’s in the picture as well now. He grew up with art and it accompanied him throughout his ups and downs. He loves being creative, that’s why he had decided to go through with applying for a fine arts major when the time came around. However, his parent’s opinion and support was important to him. So at the time, he had a serious talk with them. Renjun knew they only had his best interest at heart. Naturally, they want him to be successful in life and it’s important to his parents that their only child has a good and comfortable life. They imagined for him to pursue a high paying, high status job like being a lawyer. His parents couldn’t picture how studying art would provide him with something like that. To them, pursuing an art career was too unstable, too risky. But Renjun managed to show them different ways in how he actually could be successful with it. He would do internships, could go into graphic design, could become an illustrator or go as far as to become an art instructor. There are different paths he would be able to take that would pay him well and hearing that eventually convinced his parents. Of course, Renjun had been overjoyed about that. He still is actually. All his life, art was one of the things that brought him the most happiness and his parents supported him in pursuing it as a career. What else could he wish for?

Turns out, there really was something else he could have wished for. He only knew it after you entered his life though. Renjun occasionally thinks back to how you two met. Out of nowhere, his mind sometimes drifts to the first time he saw you. Just like right now. The window in his room lets little light shine through, the sun is almost fully set at this point and the only other light source is the lamp on his desk, illuminating a bottle of milk and a few pieces of fruit. Renjun’s project for tomorrow is a still life, an art depiction of inanimate objects. It is pretty normal for him to drift off when he was monotonously sketching away, which is exactly what he is doing right now. His pen glides easily on the paper in front of him while he thinks back to his second semester. Renjun never really used to be a person who obsessed over relationships. His mind was filled with other things like ideas for art videos. In fact, he actually used to be the type who didn’t believe in love at first sight, which Jaemin thought was crazy by the way. But you kinda proved Renjun wrong.

He still remembers the day clearly. It was fall and Mark invited you to come hang out with the boys. The dreamies, as Haechan likes to call their friend group, were still great friends even if they didn’t see each other everyday like they did back in high school. Mark actually mentioned your name before, it wasn’t your first time hanging out with the boys either but the few times you were with them, Renjun couldn’t make it, so he only officially met you in his second semester. Crazy, almost two and a half years ago. He can still remember exactly how he reacted to seeing you for the first time. The second Renjun’s eyes landed on you, the things and people around him somehow were moving in slow motion. To say he was intrigued by you would’ve been an understatement. You looked so mesmerizing, smiling at whatever Jisung was saying while the evening sun hit your face in the most beautiful way. Renjun felt like he was looking at the prettiest painting he ever laid his eyes on. All the beautiful, intricate art he saw over the years didn't compare to you and he immediately wanted to introduce himself. From that day onwards you joined his dear collection of things he loves to draw the most.

It actually didn’t take long for Renjun to ask you out as there was no way he would be able to let you slip through his fingers. Over the years, your relationship has been going strong. Just like art you've become a constant in Renjun’s life that he wishes to never lose. With time, he even introduced you on his YouTube channel. It took a little convincing but after a while you were able to put your shyness away and join him in a vlog. Renjun smiles, thinking back to your first video together. Back then, he had decided to participate in the challenge of drawing under a blue light and you tagged along in his vlog at the beginning. It was fun for both of you and Renjun’s subscribers enjoyed seeing you guys together. The comments were flooded with how cute the two of you were and requests for you to join him more on his channel. But for today, Renjun's plans don’t include any art challenge. It’s time to finish this still life. He needs the day tomorrow for something else, something more important.

The next day, with a fresh mind and his still life finished, Renjun prepares for a different project. There is still a bit of time left before he needs to get to class, so he wants to use it to start before it's time to turn in his still life. Renjun has something special planned for you. Your birthday is just around the corner and he had been unsure on what to get you. Last year he got you a beautiful necklace with a butterfly charm. “To show you my appreciation” is what he had said when putting it on you. Renjun never wanted to stop feeling warm and fuzzy inside when he was with you. For this year’s gift, he was thinking about decor for your dorm room since you moved recently. Yet for some reason, whenever he was strolling through stores, keeping an eye out for a suitable gift, he felt like nothing fit perfectly. You don’t really need a new rug or pillows. Your room is already decorated with various plants. Just getting you a few scented candles like Mark suggested was too plain. Getting a mug was out of the question as it’s not special enough for you. Not to mention a mug technically isn’t decor. Although it could be. However, Renjun wanted to get you something special, something that shows he put thought into it and when speaking to Chenle about it the other day, he suggested the perfect idea: painting you a picture.

Naturally, Renjun drew small pictures for you over the course of your relationship and you cherished every single one of it but he never created a proper painting for you. Almost outrageous, how come he never did that for his girlfriend? Even Jeno did it at some point for his girlfriend. Or tried at least. Nevertheless, she loved it and Renjun still remembers your reaction actually. You and her go way back, having met during middle school. Naturally, you only ever wished the best for your best friend. So of course, seeing her that happy about Jeno’s gift, had put a smile on your face. You even laughed a little, seeing her show it off to the others. Thinking back, that should’ve been Renjun’s first clue to paint you something for your birthday. But at least he came around now, even if it is a little overdue. As soon as he had decided to paint you something to put on your wall, he had brainstormed for ideas. His still life project got in the way so he couldn’t start earlier but today is finally the day he can turn his draft for your gift into the beginnings of a painting. Last week, Renjun sat down and thought about what he wanted to paint for you and since the painting is supposed to fit your room well, he had decided to go with an enchanted forest. He feels like it would complement the various plants in your room nicely. A dark forest with colorful sparks throughout would be the perfect eye catcher for your plain white dorm wall. He had decided to draw two particular trees to accentuate the centerpiece of his painting: a magical path that’s curving to the right. Renjun feels very confident about the idea, so much so that he had decided to film a YouTube video around it: “Painting for my gf’s birthday”, where he documents the process of his painting and captures your reaction to the present.

That’s why he sits in his chair right now, camera on his desk and films himself. His subscribers will surely enjoy seeing this. “Hi painters, so my girlfriend’s bday is just around the corner and I’ve been struggling quite a bit with finding a gift. I can’t just get her an ordinary gift, you know me. So I was thinking and searching and man almost gave up but my friend literally saved the day.“ Renjun salutes to the camera. “谢了, 哥们.“ ”So anyway, I decided to go with his idea of painting for her, hence this video. I was brainstorming in advance and already did a vague sketch of my idea.“ Renjun holds his sketchbook into the camera so his viewers can see the enchanted forest. “You can see it’s supposed to be a forest. I wanna add different colored sparks to it and make the path here a blueish white to give it a fairy, enchanted type of feel.” Renjun traced the path with his finger and then mentioned two particular trees. “The big trees in the front that bend over and form a heart accentuate the magical path nicely. I also added a little pond. I really like it and I think y/n will like it as well.” Renjun adjusts the camera to show his canvas and him. For the next thirty minutes, he hunches over his desk, sketching his draft carefully onto the canvas. Since this is supposed to be the centerpiece of your wall, Renjun bought a big canvas last week. It is supposed to be an eye-catcher after all. As the time passes and he finishes sketching, he stands up to look at his work. “Okay that’s good enough.” Renjun looks into the camera. “I’ll stop for now cause I have class in about forty minutes. But I’ll see you later tonight when I continue. Y/n’s bday is literally in 9 days and you know how it goes with oil paints, long drying times. So I need it to be done one day before her bday, meaning there’s no time to slack off.” Renjun takes the camera into his hand and smiles before moving his hand in front of the lens. “Only the best for my babe.”

Hours later, Renjun is setting up his camera again. After his last class for today, art history, he got some lunch with the boys in the dining hall. Mark and Haechan had class though, so the group wasn’t complete. The boys catched up a little but Renjun didn’t want to spend too much time eating. There was still a project awaiting him at home after all. That’s why he only had a small chicken salad. Jaemin talked about how his professor has been kicking his butt with reading assignments for class and to be fair, Renjun could understand. There was just something unpleasant about having to read two 15 page papers about the causes and consequences of the French revolution. But Jaemin chose to major in history education. Although Renjun knows it’s not Jaemin's fault for having an unpleasant professor. Chenle, however, hadn’t been that interested in his friend’s distress. “Glad I don’t have to deal with that”, is what he had said. “Yeah, you need to deal with statistical models dude, gross” Jaemin really doesn’t like math. But, the boys were all able to agree that college workload is a lot, whether one studies education or economics. “Chill guys”, Jeno had taken a bite of his pizza slice, “Jun, how’s it going with y/n’s gift?” Well, Renjun still has lots to do, which is why he had used that opportunity to briefly explain his progress and bid his friends goodbye to go straight to his dorm.

“I’m back, people. I turned in a project and I had art history today which wasn’t so great. It has the touch of being boring sometimes but it’s okay, let‘s continue.” Renjun turns his camera to show the sketch he made earlier today. “This is what we’re working with. It’s time to bring some color into this. I don’t wanna waste much time, so let’s begin.” He pulls his easel out and places the canvas on it. The camera is pointing at him and the canvas again but this time he is standing in the middle of his room. After opening a window, he starts with mixing light gray and dark brown. Oil paints don’t have the nicest smell, so it’s good to have a window or two open while painting. This way, Renjun can maximize the time he is able to paint before getting a headache. “Since I don’t have much time for this painting, I’ll use a fast drying medium. Hopefully this way the painting will be dry on time for y/n’s bday.” Renjun starts with a medium sized brush to paint a thin layer of light gray on the middle of his canvas, where fog would later shine through the trees. The next step is to use brown to block in the general shape of the trees. The two bend trees forming a heart take up quite a bit of space on the left and right side of his canvas. Later on, he wants to spend time on the details to tie everything in. Renjun, like most artists, finds it better to start with the general shape of things and work himself up to the smaller, more detailed parts of a painting.

After almost two hours of painting, he takes a small break to get a snack. I should still have a pack of ramen left somewhere. Of course, only if his roommate Jay didn’t eat it. After locating the ramen and preparing it quickly, Renjun places his camera in front of him. “As you can see, I took a break guys. I’m sitting in the kitchen right now since I don’t want to expose myself to the smell of the paint unnecessarily. I only have a little bit of the background left. So, I think I should be able to finish in about twenty minutes or so.” Renjun turns his camera off to continue eating. Conveniently enough for him, you video call him while he's still eating. So, he wasn’t rushed to get out of his room to hide his painting from you. Renjun answers your call while positioning his phone against the fruit bowl on the table. “Hi babe, hold up.” After his phone is stable, he smiles at you. “How was your day?” Seeing Renjun after a long day makes you sigh and smile at him. You just wanted to see him and hear his voice for a while to feel better. “Exhausting, I had so much class today and work was a mess.” You pout. You work at a coffee shop downtown a few days a week to save up some money. Sadly, more often than not, you have to deal with difficult customers. “I’m sorry to hear that, love. Did you just get home?” You nod. It is way past nine in the evening and you were ready to go to sleep in a bit, ideally with Renjun cuddling you but that won’t happen today. “Jun, how come you’re eating at this hour?” You know he doesn’t usually eat this late as he doesn’t like to go to bed with a full stomach. Renjun quickly tries to come up with a plausible answer. He doesn’t want to tell you that he spent a good portion of the day painting your gift. “I had a bit of a light lunch today, went out with the boys but didn’t eat too much.” That technically wasn’t a lie either. During lunch he was eager to go back home to paint your gift but the boys insisted he ate at least something before spending hours on it. Renjun and you spend the next ten minutes talking, before he sents you a kiss through the camera and you hang up for the night.

After washing his bowl, he goes back to his room. He could feel a headache approaching but was determined to finish the background today. Soon enough, around thirty minutes later, Renjun picks up his camera again. “I’m finished with the background guys. This is how it looks so far.” He turns the camera to show the canvas in detail and zooms in a little. At this point, it looks like a simple foggy forest with tall, leafless trees. Renjun will worry about the details later, for now this is good enough. “Quite simple but that’s fine for today. Hopefully it’ll be dry by tomorrow so I can continue after classes. See you then.” Renjun quickly changes into his pajamas and brushes his teeth to go to bed but not before making sure to keep his window open.

Wednesday morning comes around and Renjun wakes up in his chilly room. He doesn’t mind it that much since he needs to get to class soon anyway. His Wednesdays are usually packed with classes. But thankfully, they are ones he mostly enjoys, Ceramics, Contemporary Art, Digital Media and lastly Painting II. After quickly eating breakfast and getting dressed, he was ready to start the day. Today, Renjun and you are actually planning to get lunch together. Wednesdays and Fridays were set dates where you would either hang out in between classes and snack on a few things or eat lunch together. Renjun loves doing small, simple things with you like snacking on sandwiches together. Since you’ve been busy lately with your part time job at the coffee shop, he hasn’t been able to spend lots of time with you. He made an effort to show up at your workplace every other day or so but seeing you for fifteen minutes just wasn’t enough, which is why he looked forward to today. As soon as his fourth class finishes, he makes a beeline to the door.

You were supposed to meet next to the library and just as agreed he sees you standing there, smiling down at your phone. You’re wearing one of his hoodies and jeans, quite simple but you still manage to look great. As if you had a feeling he was coming your way, you look up. Renjun kisses your cheek, “Hi love, missed you.” He holds out his hand for you. Putting your hand in his, you start walking towards a convenience store nearby campus. “Junnie, how was class? Did you manage to finish your charcoal drawing from last week?” A few weeks ago in Painting II, Renjun's professor introduced the topic of shading with paint. His professor gave a deadline of one week to turn in a small charcoal drawing and today they had the first hour of class to finish it. The assignment was only intented to be a supplementary technique though. It would help to understand contrast and value as a basis for shading with paint. Charcoal isn’t a medium Renjun uses often, so he chose a somewhat simple object to draw, a vase full of your favorite flowers, tulips. “Yeah, I managed to finish it within the last ten minutes. The shading was a little tricky though. I’m not too satisfied with it but you know my perfectionist self.” Renjun smiles sheepishly. You know he takes his art seriously and has a tendency to focus a little too much on the details. Sometimes he would ask you to have a look at this work since your input helped him and over time he learned that looking at his art with a fresh set of eyes always worked. Nevertheless, in your opinion, he always manages to create something that was beautifully executed.

On the way to the supermarket you tell him about your day, how boring class was and how your professor gave you tons of reading material for the next class. Renjun knows you have a thing for reading, hence your English literature major but he never understood how you were able to survive reading so much for your degree. He enjoys reading from time to time but having to read pages upon pages of who knows how old literature and analyzing it all in class never had much appeal to him. Nevertheless, he listens attentively to you and after you both get some snacks that Renjun kindly carries, you walk back to campus to your favorite spot near the economics department. Just a few minutes away from the main building were a few benches looking out at the gardening club’s flower field. You and Renjun love to sit on one of them and enjoy the beauty of different flowers together. Thankfully, one of the benches isn’t occupied so you both can sit down and enjoy your break together. Every year, the gardening club arranges their flowers in different themes. A few months ago in summer the theme was “beach sun set”. For this, their flower field basically consisted of flowers in three colors: blue, orange and yellow. Since the season has already changed, a new theme is in place at the moment. This winter, the gardening club focussed on winter themed food by using white and red roses arranged in a way that looked like a candy cane and so on. Renjun likes the idea of different themes, it was nice to see the club have fun with being creative. In a way they're creating their own art.

An hour later, Renjun walks you to your next class and squeezes your hand lovingly before making his way home. He is happy that he got to spend some quality time with you, even if it wasn’t very long. While walking back, he is mentally preparing a list of what he needs to paint next for your gift. Since the background was finished and hopefully dry, the next step would be to go into more detail by giving the trees more depth, properly outlining their roots and branches. Renjun also wants to add more color accents to the trees by painting green and slightly bluish leaves. He wants to mimic moon light shining through the forest. It would cast onto the leaves of the trees and give them a light blue tint. As soon as Renjun arrives home, he continues filming his painting process. “Hi painters, I’m back for the next round. Right now it's Wednesday afternoon, meaning I have exactly 6 days left for this painting to finish, so it can still dry in time. Let's go!” The next hours of Renjun’s day consisted of his open window, the smell of oil paints and color on his fingers. At one point, he did actually take a small break to eat, even his roommate Jay made an appearance. Renjun gets along just fine with him but both prefer to stay in their respective rooms, meaning they don't see each other often. He literally is just his roommate, still a cool guy though. One time Jay even asked him for some art advice. Renjun didn't really imagine him to be the type of guy to be interested in art, but turns out he wanted to try out something new. Of course, Renjun was happy to help and advise. Maybe this time for his painting he would ask Jay for his opinion.

Thursday flew by him it seemed. Renjun got in and out of class, worked on another assignment and met up with the dreamies. He didn’t continue to paint on the canvas because it was still too wet. Time is worrying him a little bit since the paint takes longer to dry than he likes and he still needs to do quite a bit. But he'll push through. Renjun is determined to finish your gift one day before your birthday and there's no way he'll give you an unfinished painting.

The next day, your Friday lunch break falls short because of an essay you have to finish. However, this gives Renjun more time to perfect his painting for you, which he feels like he really needs. He spent so much time working on it, yet he still isn’t satisfied with the outcome. In fact, he feels like the painting was nowhere near being finished in time. There is something about the way he placed the sparks that he doesn't like. The thing is, he can’t really pinpoint why exactly he doesn't like it. They just aren't really “flying” in the air well enough. Some are too close together, others too far apart. In a way it doesn't look natural enough, but that in itself doesn't make any sense, cause no normal forest has such sparks flying through it. Renjun was expecting them to deepen the magical feeling of the forest, but for some reason he couldn’t portray that feeling onto the canvas in a satisfactory way. Regardless, a few spots shouldn't be enough to give him the feeling of not liking the placement of the sparks overall, right?

To be frank, he is very frustrated. So, at one point he decides to vent to his camera. “I know I’m too nitpicky. But I just want it to look perfect for y/n. I also know she will like my painting regardless. Heck, she probably wouldn’t mind if I doodled her something as a present. But I want it to be deserving of being in her room. I want her to love my painting and me to like it as well.” Renjun wipes a hand down his face. “Maybe I’ve been on this for too long. It’s already past 7 pm and I’ve been working on this painting since I ate lunch. Or maybe time is just stressing me. There are only a few days left and I still need to work on the details.” Renjun decides he needs a break, a fresh breath of air. Maybe the oil paint smell is messing too much with his ability to create. Whatever the case is, he decides to go by your workplace and see you. Your smile would definitely help him feel better.

As soon as you see Renjun walking through the door of the coffee shop, you have a smile on your face. Your work day is slowly coming to an end and even though most customers today weren’t that difficult to handle, working a long shift naturally tires your body out, which is why it's a pleasant surprise to see your boyfriend. “Junnie, what are you doing here?” Seeing you standing behind the counter smiling at him, gives Renjun a warm and comfy feeling. It was like all of his worries evaporated into thin air as soon as your beautiful face smiled up at him. “Hi love, came to see you. I needed a fresh breath of air.” You walk around the counter to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, the rag still in your left hand. As expected, his insides are feeling fuzzy again.

You’ve always had that effect on him. Renjun didn’t really mind holding your hand in public or you leaning on him, but kisses, even if only on the cheek, are something intimate to him, so he only really initiates them in public if he really misses you. Otherwise they are kept for when you two are in private. “Trouble with painting again?” Renjun smiles sheepishly. Of course, you would figure him out. But he doesn’t mind and fortunately, you don’t know what exactly he was painting. “Yeah, I think I’ve been on it for a bit too long. You and a nice cup of tea will surely help.” Renjun isn’t a big fan of coffee, he preferred drinking tea over coffee any day. Whenever he comes around the coffee shop you work at, he either orders tea or just some pastry to snack on, sometimes both if he feels like looking at you a little longer. Often Renjun thinks about how pretty you look and about how he could watch you for hours. He realizes that thought might be creepy but you didn’t mind when he told you about it one day. It’s him after all, not some stranger.

You quickly wipe down the table before going behind the counter again to prepare his drink. Today, Renjun chose to drink lemon tea. Being the nice girlfriend that you are, you gave him a small cookie on the side as well. Sadly, he can’t spend much time talking to you as new customers come in. That‘s why he sits down at a table and enjoys his tea and the cookie. How nice it would be if we could just sit on my bed and talk. Or rather on her bed, can’t have her seeing the painting. Occasionally, he looks over to see you wiping down tables and you wink at him. He was right, a tea and you definitely help to calm his mind. Renjun spends about twenty minutes in the coffee shop before he gets up and gives you a sweet goodbye. It is time to return to the dorm and continue his painting.

For now, he plans to continue with a few details of trees. Maybe having a fresh look at the sparks tomorrow is a better idea. Not counting today, 5 days were left till your birthday, which meant he effectively has 2 to 3 days left to paint since oil paint, even with a quick drying medium, still needs comparatively long to dry. After working for about half an hour on the details of the trees in the back, Renjun feels a little better about his painting. He takes this as an incentive to end the day with a positive feeling and grabs his camera again. “Okay guys, I’m calling it quits for today. It’s about 8 pm already. I think it’s better to tackle the sparks tomorrow. ” Renjun quickly shows the current state of his painting before he turns off the camera.

The next day is a Saturday, meaning Renjun has all day to paint and he wakes up with a good feeling. He quickly eats breakfast and immediately wants to get to painting, so he sets up his camera to further film his painting process. It’s time to focus on the sparks. The ones he already painted were in different colors, namely pink, yellow, blue and red. But looking at his canvas with a fresh set of eyes, he realizes they were not bright enough for his liking. They aren’t really sparkling. Maybe the feeling he got last evening of them not “flying” in the forest nicely was caused by that. He needs to paint in such a way that they look like they were actually sparkling. Renjun has the revelation that he needs to add highlights to the sparks. Adding highlights to them would ensure that the sparks stand out more against the forest, making them more interesting and giving the painting a more refined look. He likes that approach. Maybe he can even place the highlights in such a way that it would have the effect of letting single sparks look more apart from others. This way his problem of the placement of some sparks would be solved, at least to some extent.

For the next hour Renjun works on adding enough highlights and blending around the sparks. He also adds a few more sparks to the forest. Taking a few steps back from his canvas, he regards the result. This time, Renjun definitely likes it a lot more. The sparks look nice against the dark forest and shine in different colors. It felt realistic and he was happy with the outcome so far. He grabs his camera, “Finally guys, I managed to paint the sparks in a way I’m satisfied with. I had the realization this morning that I needed to add highlights to them and I'm happy to report that it was a good idea.” Renjun shows his viewers the current state of his painting. “I’m thinking of continuing with the details of the two bent trees in the front. I only have a few days left to paint and I still need to work on the details of the pond.” Renjun puts his camera back on his desk again, before facing the canvas. These two trees still need leaves and defined roots. He wants to make them look like they are quite old.

Basically, Renjun spent the rest of his day painting, except for the occasional toilet and food break. After hours in front of his canvas, his head hurts. His bedroom is cold because of the opened window, yet he still feels the effects of the oil paint. Whatever. I need to continue at least a little bit more. At this point, the two trees forming a heart are finished. Renjun added a few bushes to the forest as well and moss around the pond. Since he had decided to make the path leading to the pond a blueish white, he worked on that as well. This way, it seems like the moon lights it up. Of course, he also needs to add highlights to the crown of the trees. He thinks about whether to make them a different color, but ultimately decides to go with the same blueish white since it ties in better with his concept of the moon shining down on the forest. Renjun wants to finish that part today, before calling it quits for tonight. It should take him under half an hour to finish this detail and then he can enjoy a bowl of ramen before going to bed.

The following day, Renjun can’t really continue working on his painting since it needs to dry, so he mainly spends the day working on his art history essay that is due for Tuesday’s class. He already had planned it ahead, which is why he had mainly focused on his painting for you yesterday. Since it needed to dry for him to continue, Renjun can use today for his assignment. He needs to write an essay about the way leadership and power gets depicted in art. For that he had to choose a picture to analyze and write about. Renjun knows he is pushing it a bit late but since he doesn’t plan to work on anything else today, he figures it’s fine. He’s sure that he can finish the assignment today and if not, he still has a bit of tomorrow left. It is only supposed to be four pages long anyway. How hard can that be, right? Well turns out a little harder than he had thought. Renjun spends around three hours in front of his laptop before he decides to take a break. I really should eat something. After all this writing his brain needs energy and a break. Standing up from his desk, he turns around and his gaze falls on the canvas in his room. Renjun inspects it carefully from a distance and actually likes the result. Of course, it still isn’t finished. He definitely needs to add a few more details. The bend trees need to look more interesting and realistic. A few more details on the trees in the back would be good. Maybe I also should add a few more sparks-– his finger twitches. There is nothing more that Renjun wants in this moment than to grab his brush and continue painting, perfecting your present. But right now is not the time. He shakes his head lightly. Still needs to dry.

Trying to get his thoughts away from the painting, Renjun decides on what show to watch while he eats something. Surprisingly, he has been enjoying a Chinese drama you recommended lately, but maybe watching the next 40-minutes episode isn’t such a great idea with an unfinished essay sitting on his desk. So he decides to just watch a YouTube video. Twenty minutes later, Renjun sits at his desk again and continues with his essay. That’s basically how he spends his whole afternoon. Around 6 pm he is actually almost finished with the essay. That’s why he decides to get up and go into the kitchen to make some ramen. He knows that he ate a little too much ramen throughout the week but they are really just so convenient when he doesn't have much time to cook.

However, on the way to the kitchen, his doorbell suddenly rings. Renjun isn’t expecting anyone, his roommate might have but Jay doesn’t come out of his room to open the door. So when the bell rings a second time, Renjun opens the door. To his surprise, it’s you. You stand there, smiling at him, dressed in an oversized jacket and plaid pajama pants, a small handbag on top of your right shoulder and a plastic bag in your left hand. As usual, you look cute and cozy but Renjun can’t really concentrate on that. He only stares at you. Why is she here? Did I miss something? And then it hits him. He curses in his head, you’re here for the movie night you both agreed on last week. Seems like amidst all the painting and college he forgot about it. Good going Renjun. You tilt your head a little to the side, “Baby, are you going to let me in?” Renjun’s mind immediately goes to your gift. Damn it, the painting’s still in my room! He can’t possibly let you see it. In panic, Renjun turns his head back, looking into the flat. He needs to come up with some kind of excuse right now, on the spot, “Love, babe, give me like 2 minutes okay, my room’s kinda messy”, he looks at you, his hand already resting on the door to close it. “Jun, you know I don’t care about that”, you step forward, laughing a little but he holds his ground. “No really, just give me like 5 minutes”, Renjun doesn’t give you any time to properly react and closes the door.

Quickly jogging into his room, he looks around. He only needs to hide the canvas, his paints and brushes aren’t a problem. But where should he hide it? Behind the closet? No way, too risky. The kitchen, no it’s right next to the front door. And then it hits him. Jay! Carefully grabbing the canvas, Renjun quickly goes across the hall and knocks on his roommate’s door. “Listen dude, my girl’s just outside the door but I can’t have her see this painting. Can I please hide it in your room for a few hours?” Fortunately, Renjun and Jay get along well. “Oh yeah sure” Jay points to the corner next to his dresser, “you can put it there dude” Renjun quickly puts the painting down and thanks Jay like three times before he goes to get you. “Okay love, you can come in.” “Thank you for being so gracious, your highness” You jokingly bow down before entering, Renjun shakes his head, closes the door and grabs your hand. You do sometimes have this amusingly bizarre streak. “How come you suddenly felt the need to tidy up your room for me? Hiding something?”, you tease him. Renjun almost scratches his head. Surely, if he would’ve done that you would be more suspicious of him. “It’s just messy babe. I want you to be comfortable.” Humming, you decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. It sure seems like he didn’t expect you to come over today though. “Did you forget our movie night, Junnie?” Renjun smiles apologetically and nods, “Sorry love, promise, next time I won’t forget.” He squeezes your hand. Renjun normally isn’t the person to forget your dates. Spending time with you is one of his favorite things to do but even he can sometimes forget. You don’t mind, he’s also just human. Besides, you know Renjun had a couple of deadlines lately.

Entering his room, the familiar sight of art materials, a few soda cans and an easel greets you. Renjun keeps his room mostly tidy except for whenever exam season hits and he has to deal with many art projects at the same time. Renjun’s habit of spending too much on details leads him to making full use of the deadlines, which in return stresses him out so much that he doesn’t bother a lot with cleaning. To you that’s fine, you aren’t much different in that aspect. Besides, why add more stress to exams by worrying about whether your room is clean or not. You make your way to his bed and put your handbag down, your gaze finding the empty easel in the middle of his room. That usually means he's working on something. “Jun, what have you been working on?” Renjun’s gaze quickly follows yours. Dang, should've put that away! Okay, just say something. Quick! “Ahh love, you know I have a few projects due soon. I’ve been spending a lot of time painting.” Renjun sits down next to you, nodding as if he was trying to reassure himself that he wasn’t caught by you. But technically he didn’t lie. Quickly trying to change the subject, he grabs your plastic bag. Before coming over to Renjun’s place, you quickly got a few snacks at a convenience store. “No movie without snacks right? Oh and I got you some ramen as well, Jun.” He looks inside the plastic bag, it contains chips in two different flavors, some gummy bears, his favorite ramen and pretzel snacks. “Thank you love, I should still have some soda in the fridge for us.” Renjun stands up and takes a step in the direction of the door but halts as you grab his wrist. “Jun, can we prepare the ramen now? I’m actually quite hungry, I haven't had dinner yet.” You’re hoping he agrees as the last thing you ate today was just a piece of toast a couple of hours ago. After your eight hour shift at work today you worked a little on an assignment before buying the snacks for tonight. Renjun immediately agrees, laughing a little. “Sure, I’ve literally wanted to make myself some ramen before you rang the bell.”

After cooking the ramen and grabbing two soda cans, you’re sitting on Renjun’s bed while turns off the lights before he grabs his laptop. Since he knows how much you like to have a few scented candles lit up while watching a movie, Renjun also does that before sitting cross-legged next to you and putting his blanket over you both. Turning on the third Harry Potter movie, you cuddle up to him and enjoy the evening together. Three weeks ago, Renjun and you had decided to rewatch all HP movies and so far you both enjoyed it very much. It’s been years since the last time you watched them, so you figured doing it together would be fun. That’s why you’ve met up with Renjun once a week for movie night, snacking away your worries and college stress for at least the few hours that you spend together with him. Sitting together under the blanket and just spending time together with him is one of your favorite things to do. It doesn't matter if you watch a movie or drink tea together, you just enjoy spending time in Renjun’s arms. How can you not? Renjun is just so good to cuddle. That’s why you always end up putting your head on his shoulder, hugging him and it’s no different today. Your head is resting on his shoulder and his arm around you.

From time to time Renjun gives your body a little squeeze and feeds you snacks. He also sneaks a few glances at you. Seeing you so comfortable around him, makes his insides feel warm. So cute. He might love you a little more every time he sees you like this. You aren’t wearing any makeup and aren’t dressed up, yet you manage to make him attracted to you nonetheless. There is just something so attractive about you being your true self around him, not caring about how you look in your pajamas or how much you snack. Suddenly, Renjun feels the urge to kiss you. If only you weren’t so focused on the movie, “My love”. You hum as an answer, eyes still glued on the laptop screen. “Look at me please.” You lift your head off his shoulder and Renjun just looks at you lovingly. While you slowly sit up, he can only think about how you really are the most beautiful woman he set his eyes on. Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, he slowly leans in. Renjun believes there is nothing better in the world than moments like these. Moments where everything fades into the background and only you two seem to exist. Moments where he can be very close to you and his lips can meet yours in a loving and intimate way. Your lips are soft and smooth in such a way it feels like kissing the clouds. Your hand naturally finds its way into Renjun’s hair. His right hand cups your cheek while his lips move slowly against yours. His other hand rests on your waist and after a loving moment, Renjun tilts his head a little more to the side, deepening the kiss. His lips still taste a little of the ramen you two had earlier but you don’t mind. Kissing him is always great. In a sense, kissing him is like drinking a cup of hot cocoa on cold winter days. Renjun’s kisses give you comfort, warmth and a sense of belonging like you’ve never felt before. Even in very passionate moments, where kissing him stole your breath away, Renjun is caring and gentle. Just like now as he holds you a little closer, loving you a little more. His hand, previously on your cheek, moves down, stroking your waist. Slowly he pulls away, hands still on your waist. “I love you.” Truly, you’re one of the people that make him the happiest. Smiling, you lean into him to place your lips on his one more time, portraying your love for him. “I love you too.” Putting your head on his shoulder again, you notice the movie is still playing. Both of you return to watching and enjoying it further.

Around halfway through the movie, the cozy atmosphere and dim lit room actually make you sleepy. You did have a long day today and after a while, Renjun notices your lack of comments and snacking. Turning his head to look at you, he sees you fast asleep on his shoulder. Not wanting you to be cold, he places the blanket further up your body and tightens his arm around you. Renjun is unsure about waking you. Since you don’t need to work tomorrow morning, you could sleep over today. It’s been quite a while anyway since the last time you slept over at his place. To be honest, he kind of misses falling asleep with you next to him. However, if you are to sleep over, the painting will need to stay in Jay’s room for the night. I guess I could ask him. He probably wouldn’t mind. Renjun decides he would ask. So he slowly begins to move your head from his shoulder, hoping you won't wake up. He really tries to be careful but apparently isn’t careful enough since you slowly start to wake up while he tries to lay your head down onto a pillow. Slowly sitting up, you quietly mumble his name. Your hooded eyes find the laptop screen still playing the movie. “I’m sorry love, didn’t wanna wake you” “It’s okay. When did I fall asleep?” Renjun smiles, “I’m not sure, some time ago.” “Oh” “Yeah, oh” He laughs a little. “Do you wanna sleep over, love?” You nod, you can just leave in the morning since you don’t need to work until the afternoon shift begins. Renjun and you decide to just wash up and relax in his bed. He doesn’t need to finish the movie and you’re so tired, you probably would’ve fallen asleep again anyways. Closing his laptop, you make your way to the bathroom he shares with his roommate. Renjun always has a toothbrush prepared for you even if you didn’t sleep over most nights. It’s pretty cute and someway along you also started to pick up that habit of his for whenever he would sleep over at your dorm. That didn’t happen so often though since you share your dorm room with another girl. It’s definitely more comfortable to sleep at his place since he has a room to himself.

While you’re in the bathroom, Renjun quickly makes his way to Jay’s room and knocks quietly. In hindsight, he could’ve also just sent him a text but whatever, Jay already opened the door. “Hey man, y/n’s gonna sleep over. Is it okay if the painting stays with you tonight?” Jay doesn’t have a problem with it. It’s just in a corner anyway, so the painting doesn’t really bother him. Having solved that problem, Renjun makes his way back into his room and starts to put the snacks away before getting you a shirt and sweatpants to wear for the night. Just in case she wants to get out of her pajama pants. Shortly after, you enter. “Here love, you can get changed if you want while I brush my teeth”, Renjun points to the clothes on the bed that he neatly laid out for you. You’ve always liked sleeping in his clothes, somehow it’s another kind of comfy. Maybe it’s because they always smell like him and how is a girl able to resist that? “Thank you Jun”, you quickly kiss his cheek before he leaves the room. Looking around you notice that Renjun already blew out the candles and sorted out his bed. After quickly changing your clothes, you grab a corner of his blanket and slip under it.

Not even three minutes pass before he opens the door to his room. A soft smile makes its way onto Renjun’s lips as he sees you already comfy and ready in bed, waiting for him. Seems like the tiredness is slowly creeping up on you again. My poor baby. It's not even 9:30 and she’s ready to call it a day. Renjun quickly turns off his light and gets in bed next to you. You turn around to face him and his arm automatically wraps itself around your waist, pulling you a little closer. You place your hand on his chest while your head rests on his arm. Renjun slowly strokes your hair, soft eyes looking at you in the dark. After a few minutes, you snuggle a little closer to him. Cuddling him like this makes you even more sleepy. You nuzzle your face into his chest, giving him the perfect opportunity to lay a sweet kiss on top of your head. Renjun rests his cheek against the top of your head. Little words are exchanged as you welcome the comfortable and sleepy atmosphere. Except for your breathing, your heartbeats and the occasional sound of the blanket shuffling, the room is silent. You love moments like these. You love when Renjun cuddles with you, when you can feel his arms holding your body closely and his soft breath against your hair. You’ve always had a soft spot for his hugs anyway and being so close to him that you can listen to his heartbeat while feeling the warmth radiating from his body gives another level of bliss. You actually want to stay awake a little longer, want to consciously feel his body for some time more but it’s getting progressively harder for you to stay awake and Renjun sees how you struggle to. He murmurs against your hair, “Close your eyes, love. I know you had a long day” You feel another kiss on your hair and mumble an “I love you” to him before closing your eyes and letting sleep take over you. You barely manage to hear him say it back before you fully fall asleep.

Opening your eyes the next morning, Renjun’s sleeping face greets you. His hair is kind of messy and his shirt got pulled down a bit, exposing part of his collarbones. Renjun’s arm rests on top of your hip and your feet are touching. Watching him for a few minutes, you get lost in your thoughts. There’s just something different about him in this relaxed state. It's like all the world’s stress and pressure can't get to him, like he can truly be undisturbed and there’s nothing in the world less than peace and happiness that you wish for Renjun. You know he has tendencies that make his life, especially his college life, a little more difficult than it needs to be. But honestly who knew an art major could be so demanding? You used to have this picture in your head of an art major being easy. After all, the students only need to paint stuff, right? Yeah, not exactly. Because of Renjun, you were able to glance beyond surface level and it turns out, studying art is harder than it seems. Renjun has written exams, almost weekly mini art projects for his classes, he needs to hold presentations and when exam season comes around his room is piled up with different art materials for his creative projects. It truly seems like you have to love art to study it or else you will drown. Renjun gives his all for college and you love that for him but him being a perfectionist adds another layer of difficulty to his degree. Sometimes he really needs to relax. That’s why you like seeing him resting so much. He can shut the world out and doesn’t fry his brain with details of his unfinished projects. You get to see him recovering from all the work he puts into his passion.

You regard Renjun‘s sleeping state for a little while longer. The sun falls beautifully on him, partly on his face and hair. It highlights his slightly puffy face that he tends to get in the mornings. Your hand unconsciously reaches out and begins to stroke his hair slowly. Feeling your hand caressing his hair, Renjun stirs a little and sighs. It’s a very cute sight. Slowly opening his eyes after a few minutes, he smiles at you. Tightening his arm around your waist, you exchange a small kiss. Spending the morning with Renjun is usually a calm and loving experience. He likes to take his time in the mornings whenever he can, especially when he’s still a little sleepy. So you both spend a while wrapped in each other's arms with quiet murmurs to not disturb the morning quietness, taking in the warmth of one another before slowly getting out of bed to get ready. After eating breakfast together you need to leave to go home. Since you didn’t plan on spending the night, you plan on making a stop at your dorm, changing into a different outfit and maybe reading a little before going to work today.

As soon as you left, Renjun got his painting from Jay’s room. Today is the last day he can work on it since the painting needs to be dry for your birthday. After spending the last evening with you, Renjun feels quite good this morning. He feels like he can finish the painting in time and that he’ll like the outcome. The painting still needs details to the pond. It hopefully won’t take more than two hours. After that, Renjun still needs to add finishing touches to your gift. He starts with the pond by adding light blue highlights and a few branches that touch the water before letting the paint rest a little. In the meantime, he moves on to the finishing touches of other parts of the painting. Renjun had planned on spending the majority of today to finish your gift. Unfortunately, he can’t varnish it yet because it needs a few months to properly dry before he can put the varnish on top to fully seal it. However, for your birthday it will be enough for the painting to be dry to touch. After adding a little more detail to the trees in the background and defining a few of them a bit more, Renjun continues with the two main trees forming the heart. He decides to add some moss to the tree barks.

However, after regarding the thin layer of moss he painted, he isn’t really satisfied. It seems a bit too flat for his liking, so he decides to try a different approach and goes to the kitchen to get some coffee. Maybe adding a few sprinkles of ground coffee into the paint will create a more natural finish. After trying it out on a paper and liking it, he uses his mixture of paint and coffee for the moss on the canvas. Looks pretty good. Being satisfied with the moss, Renjun takes a few steps away from his canvas to have a look at the pond. It doesn’t necessarily look bad but there’s still something he doesn’t like. He feels like it's kind of looking boring, which probably is because of a lack of details. That’s why for the next hour or so he spends his time perfecting the pond. In a spur of inspiration, Renjun also decides to add shadows of little fish inside the water.

Just in time for a small food break, Renjun finishes with the painting for now. He decides to come back to it after eating a bowl of ramen to regard it one last time before deciding if it’s really finished or not. Twenty minutes later, after he finished eating, Renjun stands in his room with crossed arms in front of the canvas. The window is open again, still his room very much smells like oil paints. His shirt and hands have paint on them, he truly looks like an artist in this moment. To him, there’s something strangely satisfying whenever he gets lost in painting so much that his hands and clothes show the proof. Renjun is satisfied with the outcome. It looks great. Exactly how I envisioned it. Finally. The forest looks enchanted, mysterious and doesn't have too much or too little detail. It looks like a forest one could stumble upon in a fantasy world and that’s what he was going for. She will surely like it. Smiling, Renjun starts to collect his art materials to clean them.

But suddenly, he gets a thought. I totally forgot to film! He quickly gets his camera and presses record. “Hi painters, it’s the last day of painting. Tomorrow is just for drying and then it’s y/n’s birthday. I actually already finished the painting but forgot to film it. Sorry about that. It's around 5 pm right now. Last night, y/n stayed over so I couldn’t wake up extra early to finish it. But it’s okay, I finished anyway. Have a look at the result.” Renjun turns his camera to show the canvas. “This is the finished product. I added details to the pond and some finishing touches today and I made some spontaneous decisions that turned out really well actually. ” He zooms in on the moss. “For the moss I added ground coffee into my paint. It gives it a more realistic finish, maybe give it a try some time.” Renjun laughs a little, “I think I might use this hack more often.” He turns the camera to show himself again, “I’m super satisfied with the result and actually very happy that I got finished in time. Although I wouldn’t recommend that you guys start a project this size in such a short time frame. Honestly, it was quite stressful. But I’m glad I was able to pull it off and I know for a fact that y/n’s gonna like it. Thank you guys so much for watching!” Turning his camera off, Renjun let out a happy sigh.

He didn’t immediately start editing the video though. It’s really time to take a break. Renjun just finished a big project and wants to celebrate. That’s why he quickly cleans up his room and video calls the dreamies’ group chat. Haechan is the first one to pick up “Look who came back from the dead.” Renjun laughs dryly and right after Mark joins the video chat, “Yo whats up?” Soon enough all the dreamies join and Renjun tells them about how he’s finally finished with the painting. Of course they want to see it, which is why Renjun switches to his phone’s back camera. “Dude, that looks so cool!” “I think she’s definitely gonna like it” “How come you never paint me a pic like that?” “Are you my girlfriend?”, Renjun deadpans. Haechan sulks a bit, “No.” “See. Now anyways, do you guys wanna hang out tonight?” It’s been a while since all of them hung out together anyway. “Yeah, we could try out that new Mexican restaurant near my place.” Renjun likes Jeno’s idea and everyone agrees, except for Jisung. “Guys, I have to finish an assignment by Wednesday. Can I join a bit later?” Mark reassures Jisung that his assignment was more important. “For sure dude, work on your assignment. We’ll save you a spot.” An hour later, the dreamies are sitting in the restaurant, going over the menu. Renjun thinks it’s nice to spend time together again, catching up and joking around.

After Jisung joins, the whole group is complete and they spend the evening eating delicious food and talking. Renjun knows that he shouldn’t spend too much money there but stressful days of assignments and the painting is coming to an end and he wants to enjoy himself. That’s why he goes for dessert even when he was kinda full already. It’s okay, I deserve it. Soon, the relaxing evening comes to an end and the boys part ways. The day after tomorrow they’ll meet up at Jeno’s place to celebrate your birthday. You know it's a bit strange to celebrate your birthday at Jeno's place and you were a little hesitant at first. Of course you and Jeno are friends because of Junnie and your bestie, but not that close. Originally, you had planned to just hang out somewhere in the park but the weather has been kind of on the colder side lately. But, Jeno assured you that it’s fine. He's living alone, meaning he has enough space to host your small birthday get-together. Having some people over is nice anyway and he knows most of the people you invited. Besides the dreamies and your best friend, only two other friends of yours were expected to come. So it’s really fine for Jeno. Not to mention, his girlfriend, your bestie, would probably be somewhat upset if he said no to you. You were the person to introduce them after all.

The next day Renjun slept in. His to do list doesn’t include much for today, mainly getting some nice wrapping for your gift. He also plans on visiting you at work again. It’s going to be a pretty simple day but he likes that his day doesn’t include any stress. Tomorrow, the day of your birthday, he’ll buy you some flowers and your favorite chocolate before meeting up with Mark. He was so nice to offer Renjun to put the painting in his car and drive to Jeno’s place together. This way he won’t need to take the painting on the subway. Renjun is pretty excited for you to see his gift. Of course he knows that you would like it but he still looks forward to your reaction. Since Jeno’s place allows for more room, Renjun plans to show up a bit earlier to decorate the place tomorrow. He excluded you from decorating on purpose and had said he was gonna handle it and so you let him. That boy can be stubborn. Renjun wants to keep his painting out of your sight for as long as he can.

So when he and Mark arrive at Jeno’s place with your gift on the day of your birthday, Renjun puts it in Jeno’s bedroom. He knows you aren't gonna go in there, so it’s a safe spot to hide it. After making sure the painting isn’t gonna slip while he’s away, Renjun starts to prepare snack bowls and places your cake into the fridge, before helping Jeno and Mark with some balloons and a happy birthday sign. There wasn't much to prepare since you just want to spend your birthday relaxing with your friends. So soon enough, the three of them finish and around 6 pm everyone you invited is gathered on the floor around Jeno’s couch table, playing some board games and catching up. Throughout the day, Renjun films a few moments of your get-together. He wants to include your birthday party but especially your reaction to his present in his video. As the evening passes you turn to karaoke, singing songs from ABBA to Little Mix. At one point Renjun even starts to serenade you. He puts on quite a performance, singing Hot by Avril Lavigne and you totally enjoy it. It’s pretty funny actually, he’s pointing in your direction and dancing around. It’s nice seeing him so carefree. You’re kinda tempted to join and serenade him but he won't let you outperform him anyway. Besides, Renjun really has a lot of energy to spend. It’s already 8 pm, gifts still haven't been exchanged and he’s excited but also somewhat nervous for your reaction. He hopes you’ll love the painting as much as he does. However, there’s a part of him that fears he chose the wrong thing to paint but he tries to ignore that voice. You’re gonna love it, he just needs to keep on reminding himself of that.

To say your reaction didn’t disappoint would’ve been an understatement. Renjun actually managed to hold himself in check till he was the last one left to give his gift. You really like the gifts you got this year. From a new book to new skin care you’ve been eyeing for a while, your friends put thought into them and that’s what counts and makes you happy. Two of your friends left half an hour ago, cause it’s kinda late already. The boys spontaneously had decided to sleep over at Jeno’s place, so it’s only you, your bestie and the dreamies left. “Okay, time for the finale”, for some reason, Haechan is very excited for your reaction to Renjun’s gift as well. He secretly plans to take pictures of you two. Earlier today, he also appointed Jisung to take a video. “Give me a minute, love. I’ll get your gift” Renjun squeezes your hand, giving you a smile. You look over at the boys and they just have smiles on their faces. It’s obvious that you’re gonna like the painting. Really, Renjun doesn’t have anything to worry about. A minute later, he comes back with the painting in wrapping paper. He chose one with a leaf print on it. It looks nice and maybe it could give you a bit of foreshadowing on what the gift entailed. “Happy birthday, love” Renjun sets the painting down, holding it in place and signals for you to open it. “I hope you like it”

It’s clear that his gift was some kind of painting. Knowing Renjun, you guess that he actually painted it. “You painted for me?”, you place your hand on the gift. There was a certain smoothness to the wrapping paper. Renjun murmurs a small yes and the thought alone that he had painted you something this big was enough to make you tear up. He must’ve spent hours on this, hours just to make you happy. Sometimes you question how you were so blessed to have someone like him love you. Renjun really is giving his all to make you happy. Slowly, you unwrap the painting. Piece by piece different colors shine towards you, greens, some darker and some lighter, brown and little colorful spots. As soon as you unwrap the gift completely, you have a proper look at the painting and almost can’t believe your eyes. It’s so beautiful and perfect. You would’ve never expected such an amazing gift from him. You can’t believe Renjun would spend so much effort just for you. He put so much detail and love into the painting and it feels like you could see that from a mile away. This was the most thoughtful gift anyone ever gave you. You couldn’t possibly describe the meaning this holds for you. It’s so mesmerizing, the way the colors dance on the canvas, how he managed to portray feelings into his painting and really make it come alive. In a way it feels like the gift expresses how much Renjun loves you.

You’re so overwhelmed and touched by the painting, the hard work and love he must’ve put into it that the only thing you can do is let out a sob. Renjun definitely didn't expect that reaction. His eyes widen and he starts to panic inside. No no no, she hates it? I should’ve chosen something else, damn it! Your hand naturally finds its way onto your mouth, more tears rolling down your cheeks while you admire the painting for a few moments more. You know Renjun has always put thought into the gifts he got you, but this really is on another level. The amount of devotion he put into making this is unbelievable. You've never seen more beautiful art than this painting and he did it with his own two hands.

Renjun’s wide-eyed gaze finds Mark’s but he also doesn’t know what to do. It’s like Renjun’s worst nightmare comes true right in front of his eyes. How could I be so stupid! Damn it! I was so sure she’s gonna like it. “Baby-”, Renjun’s ready to apologize and go buy you a better gift immediately but you don’t even give him time to finish his sentence. Throwing your arms around him, you hug him tight. “Thank you, thank you.” Four simple words and Renjun’s world stopped crumbling. He is beyond relieved. It’s like all his panicky thoughts leave his body instantly. He lets out a small laugh, hugging you back and smiling into your shoulder. You actually like it, like really like it. “It’s so beautiful. Thank you so much” Your heart almost can’t handle the thought of Renjun giving you something so precious, so beautiful. “Baby you almost gave me a heart attack.” You lean back a bit, mumbling a small sorry before placing your lips onto his. Renjun’s lips were soft and smooth like always. His kiss makes your stomach flip. He’s truly yours, not going anywhere and loving you like no other guy ever has. Renjun’s arms tighten around yours before you tilt your head a little, deepening the kiss and soon enough you hear a mixture of complaints from the boys. “Okay, what the heck” “Ew, leave that for later guys” Renjun blushes a bit, pulling away slowly. He really isn’t used to doing that in front of the boys. Pecking his lips one last time, you loosen your grip and just smile at him. “Dang,” Haechan looks at the pictures he took of you two kissing, “I really need to learn how to paint”.

a/n: excuse any painting process parts or art major parts that might be inaccurate haha, oh and if you wanna request something, I'm open to hear your idea :)

#nct dream #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #nct dream fluff #nct renjun #nct dream x reader #renjun #renjun imagines #renjun fanfic #nct fanfic #nct dream fanfic #nct dream fic #huang renjun #nct dream renjun #renjun fluff #nct x reader #nct dream scenarios

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billythesimp · 2 months

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Never Judge a Film By Its Cover

⋘ 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎...

Thank you for the request Client_Clover! I hope this is too you liking, I've never done work like this when it comes to basing interactions off of aesthetic/genres.

Wise w/ gothic-alternative-sweetheart! reader

𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡...⋙

Tagging: ☘️ anon

tw: none

⋈ Wise is used to all kinds of people in both kinds of works, whether it’s helping a client in the hollows or approaching a customer to recommend a new tape they figured would be to their liking. No matter the person, he is able to adapt to their personality and knows that better than to judge a person by their looks. He has an eye for these kinds of things, picking up on the littlest details of his customers which makes him a great salesman when it comes to film options.

⋈ When he started taking an interest on one of the regular at the shop, he was thrown for a loop when he first laid his eyes on them. In a way, they reminded him of Ellen a bit, a very low energy personality who looked around the place with hooded eyes and a ‘Don’t approach me’ attitude. Their clothing choice was also interesting to say the least, wearing different monochromatic articles that could run from looking like a mess of nets and off-shoulder tops to high waisted skirts paired with long trench coat vibes.

⋈ Of course, the many times they come by they only view the tapes and even are with a group of friends from the looks, everyone being the complete opposite of what they seem like, cheerful and bubbly they stand out with a serious case of RBF. [Resting-Bitch-Face] But that makes him even more intrigued, who is this person and what are they like. How do they attract such bright people despite their gloomy-gothic approach? He figures this out one day when they come into his shop looking for something, walking out of the staff only room to find them at the counter.

▿

“Oh, sorry for the wait. Could I help you with something?”

They only scratch at their cheek, eyes wandering away from Wise’s gaze before presenting a film in hand. “Uh, yeah. Could I rent out this tape?” He only looked down at the tape in question, the genre surprising him to say the least. “Oh sure. Just Oh~ Sweetie today?” The nervously nod, a faint blush painting their cheeks like dapped out watercolors. He rang it up, smiling to himself before handing over the tape.

“Alright, you’re all set. The return policy is usually a week from today, but feel free to drop by anytime before then. There’s a fee for late returns, but feel free to call the store if you have any questions. Thank you for your business.” Their eyes gleamed in excitement as they held the case in hand, Wise could almost see the sparkles emitting off of them before they waved him bye with a sheepish smile blessing his vision. Once out the store, he could only stare before smiling to himself again.

⋈ Since then, he is always greeting them while also discussing new films that would be to their liking. Mainly ranging from rom-coms to fantasy-adventure, he has gotten to knowing them to the point where they’ve become close friends. Wise enjoys their conversations as they always mention their favorite part of the tapes; he recommends them with childlike innocence, glowing brightly with a cheerful disposition. They invite him out sometimes when he’s clocked out for break, treating him to noodles or listening to some new records across the street. Another place they are a regular at, learning more about their interesting taste in music that fits their aesthetic.

▿

He’s asked about your lifestyle once, giving him a nervous response while twiddling with your fingers. “Ah, well, I get that question a lot. I always had a fascination with gothic fashion and the aesthetic as a whole, so I wanted to express my love for the art form by wearing what I found comfortable. People are surprised when I mention that, but many people I’ve met say that it’s really cool, so I continue to express myself freely- sorry, I’m probably rambling now.” Your yapping slowing into a nonsensible muttering which Wise assures them that he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“Well, I think you're pretty- neat! It’s pretty neat, so I can’t argue with you on that.” He nodded along, seeing how they only skipped beside him with renewed confidence. “Thank you, Wise!”

⋈ Whenever he’s out and about, should he spot them in their usual circle or looming over a display alone, despite the aura they have hovering over them he still makes it a habit to call out to them. The moment before and after they spot him makes his heart flutter, how they look over with a subtle glare before perking up and grinning cheekily and waving him over. Really, it’s a sight to behold.

⋈ Maybe one day they’ll be more than friends, but neither of them would admit it. No number of soft touches and gentle smiles will push them to confess their little attraction to one another. So for now they’ll cuddle up on his bed while watching another film. As friends, yeah really close friends.

#zonelist #zenless zone zero #zzz #gn!reader #wise x reader #wise #headcanons

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zuccnini · 2 months

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☆ Shop: Etsy

☆ Tips/Shop: Ko-Fi - All my new art is posted here first, any tip, commission or shop orders grant you access to that art early!

☆ Commissions: Ko-fi │ Etsy

Mini Painting [Pokemon] │ Mini Sculptures │Sketch/Watercolor

Other places to find me:

Twitter │ IG (Inactive) │ Blusky │ Cara

Craft Blog @zuccninis │ Sketch Blog @squashni

Miscellaneous info below:

-Business Contact: [email protected] [Don't send me unsolicited trash]

-If you wish to contact me for other matters most of my DM's are closed, Best places to contact me is Etsy for order issues, or Ko-Fi. Don't ask me for my Discord that's for friends only.

-If You see my art getting reposted, report it, the only accounts I post on are included above. Anywhere else I'm being impersonated. Please don't support low quality repost accounts that steal art from actual artists. Many times these accounts screw over actual artists since they love to monetize and sell stolen work.

-I schedule posts both here and twitter! Schedule is Mon-Wed-Friday, Usually bonus posts are Tues-Thurs. I try to make weekends OC focused when I can.

-On that note: Dont tag my OC / Original Character art with "pokemon" or any other fandom tags, This is NOT a pokemon blog this is my illustration blog.

-As for Fanart: People are free to draw my OCs, feel free to tag me in it! I do ask no nsfw without my permission.

-Mediums: I'm a traditional artist and my main medium is watercolor. I'm not being paid to promote any specific brand, but here is what I use:

Watercolor: Renesans Half pans & Holbein watercolor tubes,

Brushes: 0.5, 1 & 2 Foldable travel watercolor brushes, and those waterfilled brushes.

Paper: Fabriano Hot Pressed Watercolor paper, I usually bind these into my own books.

Other Mediums: Microns, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Posca Wax pastels, Paint markers, Tombow water based markers, Ballpoint pens, Acryla Gouache, and Crayola crayons.

That's most of the info I can think to include for this.

Extra-Curricular art:

[18+ Obviously]

nsfw twitter

#Text Heavy post #Pinned #Character: Mr Dinosir

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hansooyung · 4 months

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hansooyung's coloring tutorial & ctiys: alma time! 🍒

hello everyone! though i've been meaning to for a while, i've finally gotten around to making my first manga coloring tutorial! i'll be going over cleaning panels and screentones, choosing base colors, and finally shading and lighting.

this will also be a color this in your style challenge, so if you're willing, feel free to post your colored panel and tag me in it!! i'd love to see all the results :)

find details under the cut! 🦋

DISCLAIMERS:

this is just how i personally color! i know for a fact that some of my other friends follow other methods and have such beautiful colorings <33

for colors specifically, i play around a LOT. if you don't like your color scheme for the time being, mess around with it! i don't use psds since i like to mess around by hand with color palettes, but maybe i'll look into it for the future.

i explain a lot just bear with me gang 🙏

TECHNICAL STUFF:

software: ibis paint x (on iphone). i use ibis since it is FREE for all phones and it worked on my chromebook as well.

while this tutorial is made for ibis paint x, everything works on other softwares except the brushes, which i've provided alternatives for below.

brushes: i will be using dip pen (hard) which is automatically included with ibis, and two other brushes i made myself which you can find here and here. for more brushes, @/bkdkdh was incredibly helpful and posted her awesome set here!

for other softwares, you can use similar brushes. dip pen (hard) can just be the default brush, while wet edges is just the default brush on lowered opacity (and more of a rectangle/marker shape?). watercolor pencil is a watercolor brush in the rectangle/marker shape as well. if you can't get the shape, you can always smudge your lines into shape as well, so don't fret too much! a bunch of people only use one brush for coloring everything (which is insane to me, personally, they are so talented!)

fun fact: the first brush listed that i made was originally called "aki tao watercolor smooth" 👍

ok here we go guys!!

STEP ONE: CLEANING THE PANEL

i think of this part as setting up the panel for coloring! usually it's pretty exhausting cuz it's all b&w but it's all worth it i swear. the panel i'll be coloring is this beautiful one of alma from chapter 2:

imgur link here (x)

a lot of people redraw their lines to avoid screentones, which is extremely helpful. however, i work on a phone and my fingers are not steady even with the stabilizer turned all the way up T~T. i do it this way, but a different (possibly easier) way may work for you!!!

your first step will be to remove all the white, giving us a transparent background to work with. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY I USE IBIS PAINT X.

when you upload the image to ibis, a popup comes asking if you would like to "extract line drawing". this creates a lineart of your image. click yes, and your work is like 90% done.

if you're not on ibis, you can redraw your panel, put lineart layer on screen, etc. or you can just extract line drawing from ibis and upload to software of your choice

for those of you not on ibis, i've included the line drawing here (x) if it looks black, don't worry and set your background to white.

omg i was not kidding when i said i explained a lot. ok now onto the three main steps of cleaning the panel:

cleaning background

removing screentones

repainting black lines

for cleaning the background, we're going to clear off all the extraneous stuff. this includes the text in the speech bubble, the gradient screentones behind alma, and the panel line on the left side. just use your eraser tool and go crazy! (i forgot to save the panel at this point of the coloring OTL)

for removing screentones, we're going to remove all those "dots" that mangakas use for shading. these are used to show value for b&w art, but since we're coloring we don't need them—a lot of people have really cool ways of incorporating screentones in their colorings though, and it looks amazing! i used it on nana's hand in my bnha coloring.

remove the screentones from alma's hair and jacket with your eraser tool. this will take time, but it's worth it in the end!

for portions with a bunch of lines, you can create A NEW LAYER and redraw some of the lines. that way, you can erase indiscriminately from the original layer but the lines you drew are still there. again, like i said, my hand is really shaky so i don't do it a lot, but it's extremely helpful for smaller parts where i have control! i used this on alma's jacket, and here's a screenshot of the process:

(i made his jacket purple so i could distinguish between layers easily).

it should look like this when you're done:

for the final step of cleaning, i like to erase all the things colored black (the collar and strings of the jacket, along with the back part of his hair). that way, i can color them in with dark colors and it adds to the whole look of the coloring.

i've circled the parts i'm going to erase below:

and it should look like this when you're done!

ok everyone cheer we're ready to color now!!!!

STEP TWO: BASE COLORS

CROWD CHEERS ok lets go!

this part is the most important to me, because it sets the tone for the whole coloring. i like to use three-four main colors in my colorings, and it's usually background, skintone, hair, and the secret fourth color. the secret fourth color is usually whatever color fits the character's vibe, or if the character's color is the bg, it'll be an accent color.

for example, with my nagi coloring, i used white for the hair, i had my skintone, i had blue as the main coloring vibe (as nagi's color), and black as the accent color.

for alma, i chose his main color to be red! it's the color of his hair and his jacket, so i wanted it to be vibrant and stand out. since blue contrasts red, i went for a greyish-blue shade for the background. (i went for grey rather than solely blue because then it would clash rather than complement).

disclaimer please please please take your device off night mode warm mode f.lux whatever you have. this has screwed me over more times than you may think :(

i like to make my vibrant colors closer to the right end of the color square. for alma's hair, i chose this color:

i dragged it down from the corner a bit but kept the saturation since his hair is kind of dark. we can use vibrant colors to shade it though, so don't worry!

here's his hair and the background together:

now from here, play around with skintones until you find one that matches the hair!

i usually drag around the wheel to the orange-red intersection, and have it on the lighter, more saturated side. here's the color i chose for alma's skintone.

i thought his original skintone looked a bit too orange, so i pulled the saturation back a little bit (moved closer to the left side of the square).

after that, color in his jacket with a bit darker red than hair, choose a gold color for the accents on his jacket, and color in the black parts with a grey-ish color (we will change that later).

here's the base colors!

if it looks a bit bright, don't worry! we can change that with shading. or you might just have to. accept the light.

STEP THREE: SHADING AND LIGHTING

wooo we made it!!!!!!! ok now i lied, we have a bit more of base colors to go. on a layer above the skin, color in your teeth and tongue. for pieces that have a more red feel (like this one), i like to make the teeth and the shading a more vibrant blue color. (for blue pieces, i make it a purple!).

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL SHADING AND ALL COLORS SHOULD BE DONE ON NEW, CLIPPED LAYER.

i'll then go in and do some light shading with my wet edges brush. i'll use a darker color for hard shadows and then a lighter, more vibrant color to accentuate it.

next up we have blush! a lot of people do this in very different ways but i like to do it directly under the eyes, in a vibrant red shade. make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. color pick alma's hair and drag it to the most saturated shade (red corner). then using the watercolor pencil brush, lower the opacity of the brush and drag a line under the eyes on both sides.

make sure to erase the portion of blush that goes above the eyeline. i also added some lips for alma as you can see, and then added a red line under the eyes! this was back to the regular dip pen (hard) brush on 100% opacity. it may take a few tries to get your blush to the way you want it, so don't worry too much.

now we can start our actual shading!

i break this part up into three steps: skin shading, blue shading, and light shading (highlights?)

for all of them, think about where the light is falling and how it will look on alma.

quick interlude about brushes: i use the watercolor pencil brush for softer, bouncy looks (like blush and noses) and i use the wet edges brush for more hard lines in shading.

again, make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. (i like to have it below the blush, so it doesn't cover it). for skin shading, i take the vibrant red and lower the opacity of the wet edges brush by a significant amount (specifics don't really matter, as long as you're happy with it). i'll trace his neck, from the shadow of his face, shadows of his hair falling on his face, ears, and nose. (for the nose i used the watercolor pencil brush for a softer look).

this is what i have once i'm done!

next we have skin shading part two, where we basically make a new layer on top of our first shading, lower the opacity further, and trace outside whatever we just did to blend it in more.

i used the watercolor pencil brush since it's more softer shading meant for blending! i also added it around the eyebrows for depth.

next up we have our blue shading! this is a technique that i learned from @/bkdkdh's colorings, but adding blue as a shadow really adds to the whole coloring. using the watercolor pencil brush, select a light-ish blue shade (a bit more saturated than background color) and use it to shadow a few more areas than your skin shading. i always make sure to hit the underside of the nose, cuz i think it adds depth!

finally, to wrap up our skin shading we have our lights. i use an orange-ish yellow color, which i set pretty light to not blend into the skin. using the watercolor pencil brush, i'll basically highlight any areas opposite to where the blue was, and highlight different parts. i always highlight one side of the nose as well.

i erased the line around the nose since we now have shading there, and added a darker shade to the teeth since i felt it wasn't shaded enough.

now onto the hair!!! (guys we're almost done bear with me, skin and hair are the two main things and then you can half-ass the clothes)

color pick alma's hair color, then drag the red a bit further down to get a darker yet still saturated color. here's mine:

then, using the wet edges brush, draw lines of shadow wherever clumps of his hair fall or overlap with each other. you can have the opacity set to whatever level you want, i just went with around 90. just try to follow the natural lines and patterns of the original line drawing, and everything should work out fine.

here's how mine looks! then, just like we did for skin shading, place a layer on top and lower the opacity to around 50%. place some more shading to blend it in. you can also shade more parts with this shade for some softer shading. i actually forgot to take a screenshot of this step but you'll see it in the next one!

for our (almost) last part of hair shading, take a layer and place it below both of your shading layers. this is going to be our highlight layer! you can see it below, labeled 49%.

remember how we set alma's hair a bit darker from the corner color? now select that corner color and draw highlights in the center of each hair clump.

lightly visible but it's there!

now here i skipped around a bit bc i was having fun and forgot i was doing a tutorial, but repeat the shading (not highlighting) steps with darker colors for alma's jacket. you should have your base layer, a dark shading, and a softer shading for blending.

we're almost there guys!!!

for the pretty much final step of shading, select a light blue color and do some blue shading with the watercolor pencil brush opposite to wherever your darker shading falls (just like we did on the face). make sure to do it to both your hair and your jacket! here's mine:

now for the black portions, we're going to color the whole thing in a dark blue color. just alpha lock your layer and make a big stroke of dark blue, almost black. for our black shading, we're actually going to go lighter.

select a lighter (but still dark) color and place highlights on the base layer, then take an even more vibrant, lighter blue and place it on the very outside for highlights. a better example of this would be nagi's legs in his blue lock uniform here. then, choose a shade to apply shading to the gold accents on alma's jacket and we're done!

CROWD CHEERS!!!!!

STEP FOUR: FINISHING TOUCHES

we made it guys!!!! for finishing touches, i'll usually do background effects or text or that kind of stuff.

step one is coloring your lines. you can add a new layer and clip it to your lineart, or simply alpha lock your lineart and color directly on top. for hair i like to add vibrant blue/purple lines, along with a few red ones. for skin lines i try to do dark brownish purples, but leaving some black is good too bc it adds flavor!

i colored in the text boxes and added shadows using the wet edge feature, then added some text. for the glitch effect, i duplicated the lineart, dragged the layer below all of my colors (including speech bubbles) and then used the glitch effect with height full from ibis. if you don't have ibis, you can look into features on your software, or you can also just drag your lineart layer a bit to either side and color it in. i also applied just the tiniest bit of noise on top of everything

and there we go!!!!! we made it to the end :)

if you've read all the way til here, thank you so much! if you decide to color this panel of alma (or any other panels!) don't be afraid to post them and tag me for a color this in your style type of thing! (you can also put it in my tracked tag, #user.roy) i'd love to see everyone's works :)

here's the full timelapse: (it stalls for a bit at some times but hey we can't have everything)

#roy colors #tutorials #manga coloring tutorial #useraki #usergojoana #usermica #usernikiforova #tagging some friends <3 #alma #gokurakugai

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