#this is the first pencil drawing i’ve shaded half fully in like a year

[small-spark-of-light]

so have you guys heard of the new incredibox mod The Masks? cause Oh Boy i sure have/pos

[nctsworld]

sketches

✩‌ renjun ‌x‌ ‌reader‌ ‌|‌ tutor!renjun | college au | fluff | ‌1k

SUMMARY‌ ‌⇾‌ in which your art tutor gathers up the courage to ask you out. WARNINGS‌ ‌⇾‌ an almost-kiss, hyuck is a kissblocker, swearing RATING‌ ‌⇾‌ teen+ FOR ⇾‌ anonymous

AUTHOR’S NOTE ⇾‌ yeah im taking 20 years to finish my bday celebration, no one look at me pls n ty

Sitting at the top of a grassy hill that overlooks much of campus, you embrace the light spring breeze and warm sun as you sketch the scenery in front of you. 

Beside you, your art tutor—donning his thin-framed glasses, a loose white t-shirt, and light blue ankle jeans—is also sketching, albeit clutching his book tightly towards his chest, as he always does.

Today’s the last day of his tutoring since the semester is ending soon. On the upside, Renjun’s been a great help over the last few months and you’ve improved immensely. On the flipside, your success signified that you didn’t need him anymore.

But if you could be honest, you didn’t want sessions to end for more selfish reasons. To be in his comfortable presence, to be able to laugh with him, to be graced with his beauty...

You don’t know Renjun too well, but you yearn to.

Unfortunately, you don’t have any other reason to see Renjun outside of tutoring. He is nearing his graduation, while you’re in your second year. If you didn’t decide to minor in Art the last minute, you wouldn’t have met him in the first place.

Well, the best thing you could do is simply savour the time you have with him now.

“What are you sketching today?” you ask casually, like you often do.

And he answers nonchalantly, as he often does:

“The usual, you know”—he shrugs—“whatever I find beautiful.”

You’re too focused on your sketchbook to notice him quickly glancing over at you, smiling to himself. His eyes fall back onto his artwork. “How are you doing?”

You pause and squint at your work so far. “Something’s off... I think it’s my shading?”

Your tutor carefully shuts his sketchbook and places it face down onto the grass before he moves closer towards you. For a few moments, Renjun scans your work that’s leaning against your thighs with a cute tilt of his head.

“May I?” he asks, holding out his hand.

Instinctively, you gesture your pencil for him to draw onto your work. Instead, to your surprise, his hand wraps around the back of yours. Without a word, he shades in a handful of areas darker and defines some of the lines more. 

As he does so, you hold your breath. Although you can’t look at him, your eyes still waver; you’re completely unable to focus on your art at hand.

When he’s finished, you hear a small gulp. Peering over your shoulder, you note how Renjun’s blatantly avoiding eye contact.

“Do you think it looks better now?” he squeaks in a whisper. 

It takes a bit, but his luminous eyes ultimately meet with yours—the same pair that you’ve constantly get lost in when he speaks, and it’s no different this time around. 

The wind blows slightly stronger against your back, giving you the push to inch nearer. While your eyes flutter to a close, you swear you see his form and kissable lips approach you too.

“Renjun!” A sudden voice calls out nearby.

Simultaneously, you both pull back and face the source of the shout, who is currently waving frantically. The stranger steps closer and stands on a lower angle of the hill.

“Oh, shit.” The young man brings a fist to his mouth, then whispers, “Am I interrupting?”

Your gorgeous tutor shuffles away from you, but still sits in your proximity. He runs his fingers through his hair.

“Not at all, Hyuck,” he replies behind a forced smile, pushing his glasses up. “What’s up?”

Renjun’s presumed friend shrugs, sinking his fists into the pockets of his trackpants. “Nothing, just wanted to say hi.” He faces your direction and gives you a small wave. “Hi, I’m Donghyuck.”

You flash him the same and introduce yourself. “Nice to meet you, Donghyuck.”

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Donghyuck admits. He points a thumb at your tutor. “He talks a lot about you. He says you’re so amazing and so beau-”

“Okay!” Renjun suddenly cuts him off, rushing to stand up and hurries over to his friend, already pushing him away. “Time to get going, you’re officially interrupting.”

You giggle as Donghyuck groans in disagreement, but not forgetting to yell a good-bye at you.

The sun dips deeper into the horizon, but not quite fully, when the tutoring is officially over. After you two pack your things up and you give him your final thank you’s for being your tutor, there’s a long beat before Renjun speaks up.

“Since this is our last session...” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did you wanna hang out with me sometime?”

Renjun cautiously looks up, fearful to see how you’re looking at him. He’s ecstatic to witness you beaming back at him, as bright as the yellow and orange hues glowing around you.

“Like a date?” you ask curiously.

“It doesn’t have to be a date, we could just hang out.”

With a smirk, you challenge playfully, “So, you’re saying you don’t want to date me?”

“No, no!” he half-shouts in clarification. He coughs, lowering his voice. “I mean, I’m down to go on a date, if you’re down to, but it’s also fine if we just hang out as—”

His eyebrows perk up as you abruptly kiss his cheek in a soft peck, resting your fingers on his shoulder.

Retreating back in front of the now jaw dangling man, you proclaim, “I’d love to go out with you, Renjun.”

He blinks himself back to reality, stammering, “Yeah?”

“Text me,” you say, nodding and beginning to walk away, “and we’ll figure it out, okay?”

In disbelief, Renjun is glued to the top of the hill with a huge grin on his face. He watches you from behind for a few seconds until he grips onto one of the straps of his backpack and wills himself to leave in the opposite direction.

“Renjun!” you holler from almost the bottom of the hill. He turns back around to catch you smiling still.

“Maybe when we go out, you can share some of the sketches you’re always drawing of me?”

It doesn’t take long for his whole face to heat up. Embarrassed, he rubs one side of his face and nods shyly with his mouth pouting to one side.

[battery-forgot]

Now, I come mid-week to give you all of my DSMP/MCYT headcanons because I have many

Don’t mind if these are repeated, misspelt, or has no logic, it is block game things and I am not checking over them-- and some will be organized, and some will be random, some might not have a Enter space because these are all ctrl c + ctrl v’ed from a Discord server I am in :]

Skeppy headcanons: Skeppy is 4 billion years old as scientists have thought that is how long ores and diamonds existed for

Skeppy's species is pretty rare

Every diamond that is broken or damaged causes Skeppy to feel a physical pain in his body

His species has lamp tail as they don't have night vision, some of them also have tiny wings that aren't usable, though they can kinda glide short distances with them

Because of his small height, he has taught himself magic to be able to change size, it can hurt him if he goes taller than 5'3, but he is able to get to Foolish's height if he tried

Sometimes random crystals grow on Skeppy's face, though they look different from normal crystals and can be used for things like explosives, though he doesn't know about it

Techno has seen Kristen but doesn't remember it well, though Kristen gave him his crown as a gift

Techno has a collection of skull masks that he has worn, he wears the skulls because of nostalgia now but he used to wear them because he thought they were cool and made him look threatening

Technoblade, Skeppy, Sam, Ranboo, Michael(the son- not Michaelmcchill), Phil, Bad, and some others really like shiny and golden objects

DreamSMP theme/"timeline" is kind of like a steampunk like thing

Drista is DreamXD's sister and DristaXD is Dream's "sister", though they aren't really siblings as they are robots

Drista and DreamXD are clones of DristaXD and Dream, though they actually look nothing alike

Callahan is a mute mini-god that everyone knows exists but doesn't really understand they are a mini-god. They kind of just chill and do what people ask them to do

Phil: Phil is more into traveling than anything else

Though he doesn't mind being a father figure, he doesn't think he is a good one especially after he killed Wilbur

He is able to turn into the size of a crow, though since his wings are now unusable, he doesn't do it as often as it is basically useless

Phil sometimes takes bird baths, though I guess they are always called that-

He has bird legs/talons,but they aren’t fully noticeable

joke headcanon I thought of is that Phil's handwriting is chicken-scratch because he is half-crow

Phil has really good memory, as a crow would

-DreamXD is actually pretty weak in powers, but he acts like he is the strongest person in the server

-Tommy's eye is just completely gone from when Dream killed him, but he covers it with an eyepatch

-Tubbo talks about things to Ranboo thinking he'll forget them, but some stories Ranboo remembers but doesn't speak about it because he doesn't want to make Tubbo worry too much

-Philza wasn't willing to kill Wilbur so Wilbur forced Phil by grabbing his arm and impaling himself

-Dream and Techno sometimes share stories about having ADHD

-Phil didn't really know about Fundy, he knew he existed but had no idea to how he acted, looked, or his actual name

-Wilbur had a letter written to Fundy about how he was sorry for what he was gonna do during November 16th, but the withers blew it up before Fundy knew about it

-Fundy doesn't let anyone hold his hand because it makes him remember the past where he would hold Wilbur's hand a lot

-Change of headcanons: Schlatt and Puffy are cousins, Tubbo was just a random kid that would follow Schlatt for hours a day, waiting for him to acknowledge him

-Dream jumps into the lava in the prison as it reminds him of Sapnap

-Bad was uncomfortable when Sapnap married Big Q and Karl because he went on a date with Quackity before but he still supported them (Yes I know Big Q basically had a divorce with Sap and Karl--)

-Skeppy knows a lot about other's pasts because of how old he is, even traumatizing facts

-Skeppy has a fear of fire (Pyrophobia) and he is kind of scared of Sapnap

-Dream used the revivebook on the cat Tommy killed, but Sam killed it thinking Dream would use the cat against Sam to escape quicker in the future

-Dream doesn't *fully* know why he is in prison, ever since Tommy and Tubbo killed him, a wire/chip broke in his body which made him forget a lot of things. Dream does get told what he had done a lot, but it makes him almost have a panic attack because he thought he was a pretty good person

-Ghostbur is Callahan, they were commanded by DreamXD to become Ghostbur so that everyone could feel like he was still there (Callahan can change who they are completely, but they don't actually know how they acted when as Ghostbur, though that doesn't mean he didn't know what happened, when Dream killed/revived Ghostbur, Callahan got to see what it felt like to die for the first time)

-Fundy has the habit of picking up things and using them at some sort of fidget (examples: knives, leaves, grass, wood, pencils, berry stems, etc.

-Ranboo will be writing/saying something about someone and use pronouns instead of their name or just with the person's name (example: "Puffy she/her was--" or "he/him writing down things") [Basically canon-]

-Tubbo used to headbutt people but stopped after around 2 years because he kept hurting people

-Phil used to squawk randomly when he was a kid, but he mainly just squawks when hiccuping now

-Even though Bad used to get really nervous picking people up because he was afraid he was gonna drop and kill them, he now just picks up everyone randomly... except Foolish and Ranboo

-Foolish is able to shrink to around 7ft, and unless he is building a big build, he will shrink so he can get around easier

-Because Ranboo is only half enderman, he isn't the full height of an enderman (He is only 8'5)

-If someone asks Charlie about his pronouns, out of confusion, he just responds with "Bones!" which sometimes leads Las Nevadas members (or just anyone really) calling him by He/it/Bones

-When Bad was being controlled by the egg, it made him get even more flashbacks about how his species was supposed to act which would end up with him panicking because that isn't who he wants to be (bonus: The more a member infected by the egg would panic, the more the egg would be able to take over the person because they can't focus)

-Kristin has taught Phil how to do makeup in their free-time of hanging out

-Kristin is insanely tall, if she shrinks then she turns more transparent, so she ends up looking more like a ghost when at average height

-Skeppy can't cry, though he still can feel sad

-Bad and Eret talk to eachother quite a lot

-When Tubbo was around 11-14, he would make redstone contraptions, though he doesn't remember how to make most of them now

Ranboo doesn't like photoshoots because he feels like everyone is staring at him, though this does mean he just doesn't have a passport photo, his alternative was to draw what he looked like on the passport but they didn't allow it, as well as Ranboo doesn't really remember what he looks like anyway because they don't like looking in mirrors--

I think this is half-canon but another headcanon is where every SMP is just an island far away from others. In this case, Hermitcraft, 30 day SMP, and other SMPs are all linked up, as for people who are in multiple SMPs, they travel around by boat for awhile, now, the thing I've just not figured out is how tf their look magically changes-like- outfit is decently obvious-- but do they magically transform like an anime girl? Idk- 

Skeppy's voice randomly glitches out, is there an actual reason for this? No.

Quackity’s outfit is similar to Sub Urban’s (In Freak)

Skeppy acts as if he is royalty, he doesn't act rude or demanding unless joking- but he does act as if he is the superior person-

-Skeppy and Slime are the only "people" that don't have steampunk styled clothing because of how old they are

-Skeppy's hair grows insanely quickly and no one knows why, he honestly hates it

-Most of Skeppy's outfits have been made by Bad or Puffy

-Skeppy knows DreamXD as if he is a brother, but he despises him because of something that has happened around 3,000 years ago

-Skeppy has a lot of different shades in their hair on the "inside"(like- the side where his neck is is what I mean, I don't remember if it has a name or not-)

-Like I've said before, Skeppy's eyes are crystallized, but they are somewhat transparent, not enough to where you'd be able to see the inside of his head, but they are still transparent

-In the past, Skeppy didn't like their name which is why they called himself "Skeppy"

-He has an attachment to caves

-When Skeppy was a kid, they had the dream of him filling cave walls with houses of their own

-Skeppy goes by it/they/he

-Skeppy joke flirts with Bad all the time to confuse everyone, Bad doesn't like it because then everyone thinks they are dating which makes him feel a little uncomfortable

-Out of boredom, in the past, Skeppy would climb on the roofs of caves, hang upside down, and try and sleep like a bat

-They have no blood in his body, it is literally just a diamond covered with a thin layer of skin and hair

-Skeppy gets stressed out easily when it comes to learning because it just reminds him of everything he had to get used to as the billion of years he lived went by

-Skeppy used to not be allowed out into the open world, the first time it experienced going outside was when it was 2 billion years old

-Skeppy has accidentally caught things on fire during the day because of the reflecting of the sun, but even then, they are nocturnal so they don't really have to worry about it

-Wilbur adapted to hanging out with Sally in the water, he has some gills, but he can only breathe underwater for a bit longer with them

-Skeppy always has the equivalent of Diamond (armor) except when he was infected by the egg, he was equivalent to the strength of a Ruby

-Infected Skeppy has a redstone glow when touched, so when hugged(or hive fived- or- yeah you get the point), he would give a subtle glow around him until let go

-The Eggpire still can be controlled, but they are able to control it unless angered/upset

-Skeppy was 6ft when infected, now he is 3′9 un-infected

-At this point, Dream likes the prison because he sometimes feels safe there, like no one can hurt him

-DristaXD is more of a ghost robot than an actual robot

-DristaXD's hobby is murdering people and has basically been in some sort of jail before, she has broken chains around their ankles and hands, it seems to have been made of a really strong material as wel

-Sapnap used to have fire wings, but when he had to get extinguished, they disappeared, they are still there, they just aren't visible until dunked in lava and Sapnap can't use them anymore

-Infected Bad still took care of Sapnap, but Sapnap never cared

-Sapnap takes the name "lava cake" too seriously... though he thinks the literal lava cakes he makes taste good

-Puffy's hair has been dyed blue by Ghostbur before because he wanted people to remember Friend if they ever disappeared

-Going with my Ghostbur as Callahan hc, when Ghostbur was killed, Callahan kind of glitched between realities and so Ghostburs body glitched from Callahan's body and Ghostbur's then just disappeared. Callahan is still alive but they randomly glitch into different realities, he has glitched into places Karl has gone, including The Inbetween.

-When Ghostbur was glitching back into Callahan after killed, it shocked and concerned Dream

There you go :]

[kpophours]

The Shape of You

➵ The Boyz: Sunwoo x fem. reader / one shot, soulmate AU, college AU / fluff

➵ warnings: slight cursing

➵ word count: 2.8k

You curse under your breath, dragging the pencil over the paper in front of you, adding two more lines to your drawing. Your fingers begin to cramp, but you try to push through the slight pain, desperate to finish this today. Suddenly, your door bursts open, making you jump and squeal, pencil falling from your hand. You quickly scan your drawing and sigh in relief when you see you didn’t mess it up. You swivel in your chair to glare at your roommate and best friend, the person responsible for giving you a miniature heart attack, but her bright smile makes you soften immediately. “I made dinner!”, she says, wiping her hands on the pink apron she’s wearing, the bold red lettering reading ‘don’t judge, I’m not a professional cook’ - you gave it to her last Christmas, and it makes you smile every time you see it, the quote an inside joke between you two, “I already called you a few times but I guess you’ve been too absorbed in your work.” You return her smile and nod. “Yeah, sorry. I really want to finish this tonight.”, you explain, and she crosses the room to peer over your shoulder, her eyes taking in the soft lines and dark shadows of your drawing, “What- no, who is that? Is that… Is that him?”, Hannah asks, and tilts her head to one side. You shrug, cheeks heating up. “Yeah, that’s the face I’ve been seeing in my dreams. It has been less blurry these last few nights, and I can finally remember more details.”, you murmur, fingers gently tracing the outlines of the face you’ve been trying to draw.

A sharp jawline, dark hair falling into incredibly big, deep eyes. You’ve been seeing small glimpses of this face in your dreams for years now - not every night, but more often than not. During most of those nights nights, his face has been turned away from you, sometimes you had been able to see glimpses of his profile, or just his smile - but most mornings, the details had quickly faded from your memory again. The boy of your dreams - and you don’t mean this in a sappy, corny way, but quite literally - has been haunting you in blurred lines and vague shapes for half your life now. But this morning, it’s finally been different, this morning you were able to recall his beautiful big eyes, deep with warmth and mischief. The rest of the face is still blurry, but you have the feeling you’ll soon be able to recall more and more details.

“I’m still glad my soulmate tell was so much easier than yours.”, your best friend says, her hand coming to rest on your shoulder. You smile up at her, tracing the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. You know the same one is gracing the wrist of her soulmate and boyfriend Chanyeol. They were lucky enough to find each other during their first week of college, after they quite literally ran into each other - Hannah spilling her coffee all over Chanyeol’s favorite shirt. You still remember how your best friend had come home that night, eyes shining, cheeks bright, her smile never leaving her face. Till this day, you still don’t fully comprehend how utterly perfect her and Chanyeol are for each other - even though you shouldn’t be surprised, soulmates usually make perfect couples. Of course not everyone always finds their soulmate - some also have “normal” relationships. Some meet their soulmates only very late in life, some very early on. It’s different for everyone - just like the soulmate tells are different for each person. But Hannah’s right, matching tattoos are way easier to figure out than seeing each other in dreams, especially when the dreams fade way too quickly in the morning, or the person you’re supposed to see is just a vague, blurry shape. 

“I hope I’ll be able to remember more of his face from now on. Maybe this means he’s… he’s closer to me now?”, you say, trying not to sound too hopeful. Hannah squeezes your shoulder. “I’m sure it does. Come on, let’s eat now - I made your favorite tonight.”, she answers gently, and you immediately jump up. “Why didn’t you say so?”, you tease her, and she laughs, following you out of your room and into the kitchen. 

As soon as you open your eyes, you reach towards your nightstand to grab the notebook and pencil you placed there last evening. This morning, you’re finally able to remember the exact curve of his smile, so you scribble frantically, trying to fit the bright smile into the drawing you began yesterday evening. The face is still incomplete, half in shadow and too blurry to make out every detail. You don’t know if you’ve managed to capture the exact shape of his chin yet, and his eyebrows - are they maybe a bit fuller? You groan, and fall back into your pillows, blowing some of your hair out of your face. “Why are you always disappearing again?”, you muse silently, and close your eyes, desperately trying to remember the exact shape of his face. What shade of tan is his skin, exactly? And his hair - you’re not sure if it’s black or brown. Maybe it’s even a bit reddish? 

The more you try to remember, the more his face seems to disappear again, the details slipping away from your grasp.

You only remember his deep eyes, and his bright smile.

But one thing you know for sure - he’s ridiculously handsome. 

The rest, it seems, has to wait for another morning. 

Over the next few weeks, you begin to recall more and more details of your soulmate’s face. The exact brown of his eyes, for example. His hair is a faded red, probably dyed. His nose looks extremely boopable, you think. His smile makes your heart race, and one morning, you wake up with his laugh still ringing in your ear. 

Your drawing gets more detailed with every passing day, until one evening, you have finally managed to draw a complete face. 

You were right - he’s handsome, incredibly so. In your drawing, he’s smiling, but by now you’re also able to recall how his face looks when he’s not smiling. You grin, noting that both of you seem to have a serious case of the so-called “resting bitch face”. “Truly meant to be, huh.”, you murmur, adding a few more shadows around his jawline, until you’re pleased with the final result. You take a sip of the tea Hannah has brought you over an hour ago, it’s cold by now, but you still drink it. Just then, there’s a knock on your door, and you make a “Mh?” under your breath, letting the person outside know it’s okay to come in. Chanyeol sticks his head through the doorframe, dark hair falling messily into his brown puppy eyes. He gives you a happy smile which you immediately return. “Hey there! Hannah and I are about to make pancakes, you want some, too?”, he asks, and you chuckle. “Hannah and you, huh? I think you mean only Hannah is going to make pancakes. You’re almost as much of a mess in the kitchen as I am, Yeol.”, you retort, and he ducks his head. “Uh, maybe. I might help with the batter though - just no cracking eggs for me, you know how that turned out last time.”, he admits, and you make a disgusted face when you recall the taste of eggshell in your otherwise yummy pancakes, “Anyway, you want some or not?”, he inquires again, and you nod. “I’ll never say no to Hannah’s pancakes. I’ll be there in a second.”, you answer, and he gives you the thumbs up before closing the door again. You sigh and gaze at your drawing again. “Who and where are you, dream boy?”, you murmur, before stuffing the drawing back into your sketchbook, finally joining Hannah and Chanyeol in the kitchen.

The next few days pass without anything exciting happening, and before you know it, school is starting again. You usually dislike the first day of class, everything is unfamiliar again, and you always get lost on your way to find the right buildings and rooms, but weirdly enough, today is different - everything goes smoothly, and you even have time to get yourself a tea on your way to your first class. You find a good seat not too far in the back, but also not too close to the teacher, and begin to unpack your notebook and pencils. You rarely take notes on your laptop, preferring to do so in a real notebook as you find the scratching of your pen on paper weirdly calming. You also love to doodle when you don’t take notes, and that’s much more fun to do on paper as well.

Over the next few minutes, more and more students begin to file into the classroom, and for some reason, you suddenly feel kind of giddy, nervously bouncing your leg while gnawing on your lower lip. Soon, the teacher gives his introduction, and begins to talk about this semester’s syllabus. About halfway through the class, there’s a small commotion when the door opens again, and a very late student slips inside the classroom. When you turn around to see who’s making all the fuss, you only see the back of his head - his hair is a faded reddish color, definitely dyed. For a second, the shape of the person seems oddly familiar… But then, you just shake your head, a small smile playing on your lips when you think about all the crazy hair colors you’ve had over the past few years, until Hannah basically forced you to give your scalp a rest. “You’ll go bald if you don’t!” Seeing the faded red color now, you kinda miss your own colorful looks. Mhm, maybe you could at least get some bangs soon.

The rest of the class passes rather quickly, and a glance at the watch says you have almost an entire hour until your next lecture begins. You text Hannah, asking how her first class went and if she’s free right now. She answers quickly, saying she’s already on the way to her next lecture but that you guys can grab lunch together. Occupied with answering her, you don’t notice that the person in front of you has come to a sudden halt. You squeal when you run into a broad back, dropping your phone to the floor, the sound of the screen landing on the hard concrete almost deafening in your ears. “Oh fuck.”, you mutter under your breath, praying to whatever God or Goddess is listening that your screen isn’t cracked - you definitely don’t have the money to get it fixed. Thankfully, the case seems to have protected your phone from the worst. You exhale, relieved, before straightening and getting ready to tell off the person responsible for this accident. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don’t text and walk at the same time.”, a male voice says, sarcasm lacing his words, and you look up to glare at him. 

The second you lay eyes on him though, your heart just stops for a few seconds, before beginning to race again, hammering against your rib cage.

You silently gape at the boy in front of you, taking in the red dyed hair hanging messily into deep dark eyes. His lips are pulled into a cocky grin, his head tilted to one side, showing off his sharp jawline, arms crossed over his chest, a backpack slung over one shoulder. 

Oh how often have you drawn that face by now. 

You know the exact curve of his lips, plump and rosy and almost a bit too kissable for your liking, and by now, you know way too well how your fingers always itch to brush his too long hair out of eyes that seem to hold all the stars and galaxies in them. 

“You.”, you breathe out, and it seems that he finally recognizes you too, as his eyes get even bigger and the cocky grin slips from his face, replaced by an awe-filled smile. “Oh my God - it’s you! You’ve… you’ve been in all my dreams.”, he says in a rush, just when you open your mouth to say the same. A giddy smile splits open your face, and you nod excitedly. “Just as you’ve been in mine.”, you answer, breathlessly, and like two magnets being pulled towards each other, you both take a step closer. “I’m Sunwoo.”, he introduces himself, sounding a bit breathless himself, before he holds out his hand for you to take. You accept his handshake, feeling electricity shoot through your whole body when your skin makes contact with his for the first time. “I’m Y/N, it’s nice to finally see you - really see you, that is.” When he smiles at you in earnest this time, you swear your heart stops again, before beginning to race twice as fast as before. “Well, I think I already have a favorite class this semester.”, Sunwoo murmurs, unconsciously tugging you closer to him, your hand still securely held in his. “I think so, too.”, you answer, and return his smile while looking at him, drowning in his deep, sparkling eyes. He cups one side of your face with his other hand, brushing some of your hair back behind your ear. “I’ve waited so long for you.”, he whispers, and you feel your throat close up at his words. “Me too.”, you answer, and slide both arms around his waist. He sighs, returning your hug and placing his chin on top of your head. You listen to his quick heartbeat, mirroring your own racing one, noticing how normal and right it already feels to touch him.

You just fit - like two puzzle pieces, finally put together again. 

The fateful day you met your soulmate for the first time would forever be engraved into your mind.

Since then, Sunwoo’s hair had gone through some changes - he had redyed it red for the first few months, until it had faded to a soft brown again, and then he decided to just go back to black. You had asked him once to dye it a bright pink, but he had just given you a funny look, shaking his head before continuing to watch your favorite movie - The Cat in the Hat, your choice for this week’s movie night. A few days later, you yourself had dyed your hair a bright pink, almost giving Hannah a heart attack when you opened the door to her room. 

Over the next few years, there were many amazing first experiences you shared with Sunwoo - your first dinner together (Hannah had been so nice to cook for you guys because apparently, you didn’t only share the resting bitch face, but also the inability to cook anything edible), your first kiss (yes, Sunwoo’s lips felt just as amazing as they looked), the first night spent with each other (you had talked about literally everything and anything until the first rays of sunshine had crept into your bedroom), your first holiday as a couple (a road trip gone horribly wrong, with you guys having to spend the night in the car because one of you (you were pretty sure it was Sunwoo’s fault) had typed in the wrong address into the navigation system), your first big fight (now you don’t even remember what it was about, but you had both sulked for two days until making up, the longest you had ever gone without speaking to each other), your first encounter with each other’s families (teasing Sunwoo about his younger sister being taller than him had quickly become one of your favorite hobbies) and finally, your first apartment together (it was a teeny tiny flat, but you filled it with many beautiful memories).

You knew that many more first experiences were still waiting for you - like adopting some pets together (you were already looking at cute kittens), and maybe a wedding one day (you had to admit, after attending Hannah and Chanyeol’s wedding and crying buckets when they said their vows, you weren’t as opposed to the concept of marriage anymore), and probably also having a family of your own together - one day, in the still far away future. 

You couldn’t wait to share the rest of your life with your other half, your soulmate, the person you called your home - and you knew that Sunwoo felt the exact same way.

for my light, my love, my Summer @sunmoonieverse​ 💞

[masterlist] | [requests] 

[valenjuls]

that that is, is, that that is not, is not

words: 2k

chapters: 1/5

She was going to kill her and if not kill her then give her the ultimate silent treatment, something she knows would drive her crazy. Juliana glances at the clock right above the far wall, her annoyance mounting as the clock continues to tick without any sign of her boss coming in. Despite the fact that she called this morning to make sure she was getting ready and she called an hour and a half later to make she was actually on her way. Both times Valentina had said she was on her way.

On my way, my ass.

Juliana sighs as she steels herself in front of Valentina’s office, already preparing a speech in her mind, the third time she’s about to enter without their desired person. She glances at the clock again her annoyance growing larger by the second.  As she’s about to open the door, excuses at the ready, she hears the elevator ding and Valentina steps out in her perfectly pressed pantsuit, not a hair out of place, her expensive handbag that was probably the equal cost of two months rent for Juliana slung over her shoulder,  clutched in her hands were two cups of iced coffee from that place just around the corner that was usually out of the way

Juliana glares at her, not reaching out to take the peace offering that Valentina was holding out. She grabs the purse though to stash it under her desk. “Where have you been?! I’ve been stalling your brother and sister in there.”

Valentina continues to nudge the cup of coffee towards her, her blue eyes were bigger than usual, knowing the effect it usually has on people. “I got you your favorite.”

“My favorite is when my boss is on time so I don’t have to hold a fucking concert in her office!” Juliana says, her earlier annoyance already evaporating as she takes a sip of the vanilla latte.

Valentina perks up at that. “I missed your singing?”

"So not the point." She pushes Valentina towards the boardroom. “Now go and play nice. We need them to approve the latest project.”

Valentina grabs Juliana by the arm when she turns to go back to her desk, catching her off guard, so much so that her heels squeak against the floor too loudly. “Wait, you’re not coming in there with me?”

Juliana shakes her head. “Somebody-” she emphasizes, raising an eyebrow at Valentina, knowing exactly who she was talking about, “-kept me up with their rambling last night that I couldn’t exactly finish my portfolio.”

Valentina has this thoughtful look on her face at the mention of their night. “But it’s not my fault!”

“I know you can’t control your sleep talking,” Juliana interrupts before Valentina can get off track as she pulls the door open before pushing Valentina into the room. “Have fun!”

-

-

-

Juliana was finishing up the sketches in her portfolio, making sure the shading was correct as well as what pattern she intended she was going to use with each piece, trying to provide as much quality work as she can at such a limited time. She hears the door to Valentina’s office open and the other two Carvajals leave, but her eyes never lift from her work. She needs all the time she can get with this.

She feels her presence first before she sees her. There was something in the air that was pressing against the room, one that wasn’t there before, she couldn’t figure out what it was so she ignores it (a tactic that she’s learned to use whenever the young CEO was around). Without lifting her eyes from her work she asks, “How did the meeting go? Did you take notes?”

She was met with silence from her. Juliana stops scribbling and looks up to see Valentina propped up at the corner of Juliana’s desk, her finger pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes closed, neck tense and her shoulder basically bracketing the sides of her face at how high it was.

Juliana puts down her work, uneased at the sight of her easy-going boss looking so stressed from just one meeting with her siblings. “It’s okay if you didn’t take notes,” she jokes, hoping to lighten her mood.

She finds their relationship weird. They were so formal with each other, often refraining from talking about their feelings. They were ultra competitive and the few lunches or dinners that Juliana had been too was usually spent bragging about their separate companies, one-upping each other. They even made it into a game, which was bizarre to Juliana.  But usually, it’s when their older sister was present. When it was just Valentina and her brother, they were far more human (maybe it’s because Eva hates Juliana for unknown reasons.)

Instead of the usual sass that Juliana has been accustomed to after working with Valentina for almost 2 years (being friends for more than 3 now) all she hears is a deep sigh and sees her fingers seeming to dig even deeper into her face.

Her worry spikes. Juliana stands in front of Valentina. She gently takes her hands from her face, and holds them in her own.

Valentina groans as she slumps forward, her face immediately burrowing itself on her chest, finally taking her hand from her face. She sighs once as she straightens. Juliana immediately recognizes that sigh as her cannot-deal- anymore sigh She nods at the planner on Juliana’s desk. Her anxiety jumps at seeing the different colored inks littering the page. She turns to Juliana, her voice almost a plea. “Wanna play hooky?”

"Only if we do it at my apartment," Juliana answers.

Valentina raises an eyebrow, grinning slyly. "You're demanding today,  Juliana Valdes."

"C'mon let's take your clothes off so you can relax," Juliana says, tugging Valentina from the desk to help her pack up.

-

-

-

"You know when you told me you were going take off my clothes, this wasn't what I was expecting," Valentina says as she holds her arms out for Juliana to take her measurement. Her clothes were indeed off, hanging over Juliana's couch save for her underwear.

"I told you I have to finish my portfolio," Juliana says around the pencil that was between her teeth. She puts her measuring tape around her neck as she writes the measurements down. She shoots Valentina a bright smile, the corner of her eyes crinkling. "Thanks, boss."

Valentina covers her chest, squirming at Juliana's words. "I feel dirty," she jokes. She side steps to the couch to grab her clothes. She throws her shirt on before walking down the hallway to Juliana's closet, shouting over her shoulder. "I'm grabbing some sweats."

"Whatever!"  Juliana yells back as she sits on her desk to try to figure out how much fabric she's going to need.

Juliana hears Valentina heave an end-of-the-world-inducing sigh as she settles on Juliana's blue couch that she got from the dumpster almost a year ago. Juliana freezes at the sound, torn between finishing her assignment and actually comforting her boss. She waits, pencil in her grip to see if Valentina was going to make any more sounds that make you wonder if your heart was supposed to respond that way.

Valentina heaves another sigh, this time bigger and much more prolonged.

Juliana takes a deep breath and puts her pencil down. She pushes against her desk, rolling and turning her chair, deftly to face Valentina. She wanted to groan, not out of exasperation at how dramatic Valentina was being but at how cute she looks, curled up on the couch, her face free of makeup and wearing slouchy clothes that just about swallows her.

"Out with it," Juliana says scooching Valentina even more on the couch, almost crowding her.

Valentina turns and leans against Juliana, her head dropping to Juliana's shoulder, another sigh leaving her, but this one was almost out of relief.

Juliana feels a slight, weird tug at the pit of her stomach at that. She always felt her reactions super endearing. "What happened at the meeting?" she asks as she strokes Valentina's hair, smoothing it away from her face.

She knows their relationship is…weird, for a lack of a better word. It's not your typical working relationship.

They were friends, first and foremost. They met under unlikely circumstances thanks to Valentina’s sleazy boyfriend who thought he could have a side chick in Juliana. Needless to say, Juliana didn’t take a liking to that and immediately went to Valentina to tell her that her boyfriend was a douchebag. They’ve been friends ever since. Though Juliana was working part-time as her administrative assistant, once she graduates, she’s going to assume her proper vice president role of their magazine, that they’ve put blood, sweat, and tears in to make sure it actually succeeds in a world where print was steadfastly getting buried.

Valentina lets out a slight growl (more of a cute baby lion growl than a threatening growl really). “My abuelito  is an asshole.”

“Your family is full of assholes,” Juliana replies, the insult coming out so easily that it made Valentina laugh. “That’s like a rich thing right?”

“Am I an asshole?”

“You’re the biggest asshole, brat,” Juliana teases, her fingers curling around her hip, tickling at the spot she knows would receive the biggest giggle.

“Stop that!” Valentina squeals in between the giggles that Juliana managed to draw out of her, squirming away from Juliana’s touch. “I’m trying to be sad and angry!” When Juliana doesn’t stop her merciless tickling, she grabs her hand in frustration. “Let me be angry!”

“That’s not allowed in my crappy apartment,” Juliana says but stops her attack, resting her hand on Valentina’s stomach, lightly drumming her finger, letting Valentina focus on that instead of her anger, knowing her next question will probably set her off. “Now what makes your grandfather an asshole other than being rich?”

“Marriage,” Valentina says, her tone darkening.

“Alright, cynic, what about marriage?”

“He has a stupid clause in order for me to have full reign of my company. I have to marry before I can fully become CEO of the company,” Valentina says, the anger in her voice was growing larger.

Juliana knows that she should’ve tried to calm her down. She knows that but just hearing something so outdated and so archaic had her angry too. It undermined everything they established and worked hard for.

“That’s fucked up,” Juliana whispers, trying to keep her voice calm since Valentina has already moved to the deep end of her anger, which included gripping Juliana’s arm harder than she should. Juliana shakes it to remind Valentina there’s a human being behind that was currently attached to the arm. Valentina’s grip lessens, but her hand never moves from Juliana’s arm.

“I know!” Valentina huffs. “Papi’s lawyers are looking over it to see if there’s any way I can get out of this dumb clause without having to just be an interim CEO.”

“And?”

Valentina shakes her head no. “That’s why Guille and Eva came. They wanted to look over it too.” Her hand clenches into fists against Juliana’s arm. “Guille didn’t have to do this and I can’t accuse him of being sexist because he didn’t do this with Eva!” She raises her fist, angrily shouting at the ceiling. “Fuck you abuelito!”

“Woah, a little harsh there, Val?” Juliana says.

“Please,” Valentina says, dismissing her concerns. “This is how we talked to each other when he was alive.”

“He never talked to me that way.”

“Yeah because he liked you,” Valentina says. “He said you reminded him of his little sister.”

Juliana feels oddly flattered. “Oh.”

“Yeah, even dead he’s still ruining my life,” Valentina mutters. “Why?” Valentina groans, throwing back her arm over her eyes. “Did he really think I would end up alone that he needed to meddle like this?”

“Have you been seeing anyone?” Juliana asks. 

Valentina gives her a look, raising an eyebrow. 

Juliana shrugs. “Maybe you’ve been hiding him from me.”

“Unless you count our late nights in the office, then the only one I’ve been seeing is you,” Valentina reminds her. “I have no time to date when we’re preparing to launch the teen magazine.” She sighs deeply again, tilting her head to reach Juliana’s neck before burying her face against there, breathing in deeply to calm her down. Valentina had told her repeatedly that Juliana’s scent for some reason just helped her. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers against her neck.

Juliana’s hand tightens around her stomach. “You sleeping over?”  She feels a small nod. “Then c’mon, let’s think about this tomorrow.” She pushes against Valentina gently to let her up. 

Valentina waits as Juliana gathers their stuff. She lets herself be tugged to Juliana’s bedroom, immediately going to the right side if the bed and slipping under the covers, watching as Juliana puts their dirty clothes in her laundry.

“Turn off your brain,” she says as she turns off the lamp before climbing into bed. She pats Valentina on the small of her back, trying to reassure her. “We’ll find your prince charming tomorrow.”

-

-

-

“How was the date?” Juliana asks as Valentina groans, launching herself on Juliana’s bed. Juliana complains at having the little nest that she’s built on her bed disturbed at Valentina’s movement.

Valentina grabs the pillow hugging it to her face and screams in it. Once done with her screamfest, she gives it to Juliana and lays down on the bed, blinking up at her, her blue eyes practically begging.  “If you really are my bestest friend in the whole wild world, you’ll suffocate me with this.”

“I should suffocate you for using the word bestest,” Juliana jokes, passing the pillow back to her. She rearranges the pillow around her to make it comfortable again after Valentina grabbed one of the support pillows. “Date that bad?”

“I can’t marry Sergio,” Valentina says. She cringes in disgust. “He’s like my annoying little brother that shows up when he’s unwanted.”

“Then why did you go out with him?”

“Do I need to remind you of that stupid clause that I’m pretty sure is illegal?”

Juliana shakes her head. “Yeah, but what if you just pay someone off?��

Valentina’s eyes widen as if she remembered something. “Right, you’ve been out for a week.”

“It’s not my fault! I’m sick!” Juliana defends, coughing for good measure.

Valentina waves off her concern. “It’s not that. You just missed a lot. So they couldn’t find a way to get me out right? But they also found that I have to be with someone for at least three years and ten months. Or at least have known them for three year and ten months.”

Juliana’s brows furrows at her words. “That’s oddly specific.”

“Right?”

“Your grandpa really was weird,” Juliana comments. “Sergio was the only one that fit that criteria?”

Valentina's eyes look down as she plays with the pillow as a sure sign that she’s thinking. She doesn’t have a lot of guy friends, really. She doesn’t have a lot of girl friends either. “Unless you count…” her voice trails off, haltingly, when she realizes it.

Juliana waits for Valentina to come to whatever conclusion she suddenly came to, eyes still watering and nose running. She coughs.

Valentina looks at her pointedly.

“What?”

Valentina keeps looking at her, a slow smile forming on her face. Her eyes were bright and shining as she stares at Juliana’s sniveling form as if she held all the answers in the world.

Juliana’s eyes widen as it suddenly dawns on her why Valentina was looking at her like she was the most refreshing drink in the world that she’d love to take a sip of. “My brain is a little dumb right now but are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“We literally met three years and ten months ago,” Valentina says as if everything was falling into pieces. She can practically see her bouncing. “You fit the criteria!”

“But wouldn’t your abuelito have something against same-sex marriage?” Juliana asks. “Like c’mon, he wanted to marry you off that screams traditionalist than anything.”

“I don’t remember there being a specific part on gender,” Valentina admits as she takes her phone out as she starts texting their company lawyer. “Let me ask them and see what they say.”

“Val…”

Valentina looks up at Juliana’s tone, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. Her tone makes Valentina still. She turns to Juliana, making her blue eyes bigger and even managing to make it fill with tears. She kneels on Juliana’s side, her palms pressed against together. I know this is asking a lot. I know that and I usually wouldn’t ask something this big, but please?”

Juliana sighs, finger and thumb going to the bridge of her nose, eyes closing as she thinks.

“Jules, please,” Valentina whispers, grabbing the other hand that was not on her face and tugging on it. She places their entwined hands under her chin, imploring. “You’re the only one I could trust and we can’t let the board appoint another CEO when we’ve worked so hard for this.”

Juliana looks at the pleading in her eyes. She closes her eyes again before opening them again, sighing. She nods at her, raising an eyebrow. “This is the proposal I get?” She teases.

Valentina squeals throwing her arms around Juliana. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.”

“You sooooo owe me,” Juliana whispers, a smile on her face, Valentina’s relief and happiness were contagious. 

[mysticsparklewings]

The Dream Crosser

Surprise! NaPoWriMo didn't kill me (and I'm not abandoning dA because of the incoming Eclipse update either, more on that situation here), I just needed a week off to recuperate...and obsessively play Animal Crossing: New Horizons... Admittedly, I actually drew this well over a month ago (and wrote up the majority of the description!), not just before NaPoWriMo but before I actually had New Horizons in my grasp. The plan was to post it the day I got the game. Which was supposed to be much closer to the game's launch (March 20th). That ended up not happening and the day I got the game was the first day of NaPoWriMo, but 1. I messed up with the non-uniform prompts and spent all of the day trying to catch up so I couldn't even play the game yet, and 2. As a side effect, I ended up having two posts that day and a lot of work to do to catch up the second, and I hardly had time to think about posting this. And even if I had posted it, it would've been drowned in the incoming NaPoWriMo posts. And so, here we are. Really, really, I do have to mention that I truly feel for anyone else still waiting on the game for whatever reason. You have my deepest sympathy and I'm so sorry I can't just give you the game right now and make it better.  I know the wait was hard enough for me, being this is the one game I highly anticipated in over a year and I essentially had the rug yanked out from under me. But I'll save that story for after I talk about the art itself since I'm sure that's what most people are here for and not my pre-order frustrations. So in case you don't know or couldn't tell, this is the lovely Luna from AC: New Leaf's Dream Suite. From what we've seen of New Horizons since it's release, the Dream Suite's functions and purpose have been mostly absolved into the Airport and Dodo Codes, and so I'm very doubtful Luna will actually be in the game in any capacity, which makes me sad. A typical player (including me) wouldn't even necessarily interact with Luna that much in New Leaf unless you really enjoy visiting other towns using Dream Codes, so I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason I just really like her. That's why I picked her to draw to celebrate. I very nearly drew her a long time ago when I was on an Animal Crossing kick in 2018, but at the time I didn't like the idea of pressuring myself into drawing all and/or multiple AC characters just because I wanted to be "fair" to them all (much the same reason I don't draw Pokemon very often), so I ended up drawing One Little Spark, a crossover of the Disney character Figment drawn in the New Leaf style, instead. So in a way, she's had this coming for quite a while. At the time I started working on her, (way back in early March, because I was hoping beyond hope my pre-order would arrive to me actually on launch day, but ha ha ha look who's got egg on her face for that ) I was running a bit dry on artistic motivation, and so while I tried to draw her in my usual manner: Making a sketch, transferring the sketch onto different paper with finalized lines, then picking whichever coloring method I was most into at the time), I was struggling with the sketch. I've had days where I have to work on a sketch for a really long time before I can get something I'm happy with, but this day I was just so not into the whole sketching process. I wanted to create, but I wanted it to be quick and easy and simple. I didn't want to have to poke at it for hours and hours and then still maybe not be happy when I was done. So when I got discouraged enough, I broke away from trying to draw Luna and just drew mandalas instead. (As had become my art-block crutch for a little while.) Somewhere in me, as I worked on other things, I kept going back and forth on what to do about Luna, though. I did still want to draw her, but my usual formula just wasn't working for me. Not for her. I even tried briefly to draw her linelessly, digitally, as what was supposed to be a quick and simple experiment, but that went downhill even faster than sketching did. Although, for some reason, the lineless idea wouldn't leave me alone after that. Finally, I decided to try something completely different. I was going to try and free-handedly draw her, without lines, traditionally. With, primarily, alcohol markers. Honestly, the thought minorly horrifies me now just as much as it did before I started. And yet, here we are and I actually like how it turned out. Allow me to explain how this came together: So, since I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out once I decided to try it, I opted to use my not-so-great mixed media paper so I wouldn't feel guilty about wasting better paper if I ended up hating it. Naturally, this did lead to some notable limitations, but not enough to discourage me from trying. I dove right in with the dark brown for her head and body, focusing on getting the general shapes down. I'd noticed some glaring mistakes in my mostly unproductive sketching when it came to Luna's body proportions, so I tried to keep those things in mind and adjust accordingly as I went. It was scary because there is no erasing this way short of using white paint and because this paper feathers pretty noticeably with markers. Then once I got to a certain point, I had to switch and bring in some pink and off-white markers to draw in parts of her dress so I knew where to put her other arm and her legs. And here is where I technically cheated; I did use my "clear" Stardust Gelly Roll pen to do most of the outlines for her dress. I needed some kind of guideline, but pencil tends to get yucky when you put markers on top and at the time I couldn't really think of a better option. (The joke was kind of on me because somehow I still got a nasty gray line that looked like pencil under her bust that I had to gently edit out later in Photoshop, but I digress.) As I went with the markers, I was also doing some light shading. Not too much, because this paper is really fussy with layers and blending, but enough that I felt like it didn't look completely flat and I could tell where one shape ended and another started. Though, for her nose (trunk? I believe Luna is supposed to be a Tapir) and her raised arm, I had to get a little creative and I used a white brush pen meant for glass/ceramics to put in the lines so you could actually see them. And later I would use the same pen in 3-4 layers to add the white back in for her eyes. With the base for her body, dress, and the bun part of her hair done though, then I had the task of figuring out what to do for her shoes and the details of her face. (Without having to mix and use specific paint for those tiny details.) In the end, I opted to mostly use my classic red Gelly Roll pen for her shoes, and a little bit of a dark red alcohol marker for shading. And then I got to experiment with mixing the classic red and one of the Moonlight Gelly Rolls for her lips so that the color would be visible and not just a dark lip-shaped "what is this." This was because the classic Gelly Rolls don't show up super well on dark surfaces and the Moonlight ones do, but I didn't have the right color straight out of a Moonlight pen. It did take 2-3 careful layers, but I think I managed well enough in the end. I used just one black pen, a Prismacolor brush-tip fine liner, for her eyes, though in-person the white base underneath makes her pupils look about a shade or two lighter from certain angles, which was a very unintentional nice touch. My answer to everything else ended up being gouache, although I did try to come up with pen colors for her eye shadow and the blue dots on her cheeks before admitting defeat that I just didn't have the colors I needed. Originally, I had actually been thinking of trying a lineless art piece with gouache, as I think it would work particularly well for that look, but I wasn't ready to fully commit to the idea, mostly because I seem to be even worse at mixing a non-excessive amount of a specific color with gouache than I am with acrylics, and that sounds like a fantastic way to waste a bunch of palette space because I mixed too much but it's gouache so it can be re-wet and re-use it and I don't want to just throw it away...  (Although I suppose this could be half-way solved by getting a bigger palette specifically for mixing gouache, but I also don't want to have to buy yet another palette when I have some perfectly good ones...If I could just use up all the paint in them already...) Anyway. Point: This is kind of a step between a full lineless gouache piece and not doing one at all. Baby steps, yes? I knew from fairly early on that I was probably going to have to use gouache for the front part of her hair/bangs, since I did not thoroughly plan ahead enough and didn't leave a gap there to do it with markers. Fortunately, I didn't have to do much mixing since my gouache already has a nice yellow ochre color included, and I could use a bit of the other two browns and one I had some leftover mixed already from Roses in Your Eyes for shading. (White for the flowers, too, thank goodness.) And I actually ended up going over most of her bun with gouache too since, by comparison, the marker didn't look like it had much shading and it was bothering me. I did have to mix my own blue and pinky-purple for her makeup, and I ended up with a lot of leftover pinky-purple. But it's kind of okay because by itself it's such a pretty color I'm sure I'll find an excuse to use that one. After that, I just had to do some minor tweaks where the gouache had gotten a bit away from me and then I went ham on the shading for the dress based on my reference photo. Then I realized I wanted some kind of background because this seemed awfully boring without one. And, naturally, I hadn't really planned ahead for that, me being me and being in habit of doing the background last... At first, I wanted to do something hot pink, since her official Amiibo card has a hot pink background, but then I thought that might be a little too loud and I wasn't really sure the best way to apply one without potentially messing her up. And also, this isn't watercolor or paper thicker than 140 lb, which immediately threw watercolor out the window unless I wanted a very uneven paper when I was finished. I'd already pushed my luck with the gouache and been very careful about not using much water with it; I decided it was best not to push my luck any farther. Also, I couldn't use my pink PanPastel, despite that being maybe my best option, because it is still perpetually screwed onto the little Pan Pastel stack with no hope of getting unstuck anytime soon. (One of these days I swear, I will order either another set like the one I have or an individual Pink one to solve this problem, but until then, I am going to bring it up every single time as a caution to others to please be very careful when screwing and unscrewing your own Pan Pastels if you store them screwed together.) And I didn't feel like dragging out some of my drawing pastels and/or makeup that's too expired to use on my face and very slowly building up color and hoping it'll do what the Pan Pastels do. With no better ideas coming to me, I decided I'd leave the drawing for the night and come back to it the next day. After yet more brainstorming the next day, I finally settled on doing a glittery rounded rectangle and filling it with washi tape stripes. This plan did change a little as I figured out which tapes I wanted to use (a purple-y, champagne gold, and light pink ones, the latter two of which look more different in-person than they do on the scan) and as I actually started applying the lines. Partially because this tape is a bit thin and partially because I'm not used to cutting tape around very specific shapes, it took a very long time to both place strips of the tape and then get them cut to fit right up to Luna without looking strange. Once I got to a certain point going in one direction, I realized my next couple of cuts were just going to be too hard for me to stand. I had a choice: Ditch the tape, or figure something else out. Taking a risk, I decided to try and salvage it by doing an almost-plaid/checkerboard with the tape, specifically leaving out certain areas where I knew it would be too tricky to cut the tape. This also turned out to be a good way to use up some of the pieces of tape I'd already cut off that were too small to be used the other way. It's still not the greatest background solution I've ever come up with, but it does the job of making it look less empty, and that's really all I wanted anyway. And you know, compared to official images her proportions look wonky, but by herself (meaning, without comparing the two) I think Luna looks pretty good, actually. (Though, I admit I did have to tweak her right ear in Photoshop because it came out entirely too long and there wasn't really a good way for me to fix it by hand.) To think, this piece started out as such a mess. Or rather, I was such a mess when I started. And yet, here we are, and it looks kinda okay. Okay enough that I finished it and am posting it, at least.   I have no idea if I'll be returning to this style/method for art-making in the future, but even if I don't it was a nice experiment to try, and that's what art is really all about isn't it? Experimenting, trying new things? Speaking of experimenting though, about those pre-order frustrations I mentioned now that I've covered everything about the art itself...(in small text for those that don't care to easily skip over) Back in February I tried twice to pre-order New Horizons from Target, since they were running an ad where if you pre-ordered the game you'd also get an AC themed journal with it, and that combined with my family member's employee discount made it the cheapest/best value way for us to buy the game. As I said, I tried to order it twice. Both times, it was sold out. My family member had even tried to go to the store and have them order it before then, to no avail. After the second time, which was the day after Target sent out the sale paper with the new ad in it, while I was still frustratedly wondering how on earth do you sell out of a pre-order?? I kept refreshing the page every so often just to see if by some fluke it would miraculously not be sold out. I got very lucky around 3 in the afternoon and we managed to get the order in before it sold out again. Now, we're a relatively cheap family, so we didn't pay for the "express shipping" or whatever. Although, this was a $60 game and we were ordering it three whole weeks (on March 2nd) before release. If you ask me, the least they could do is have it shipped out either on launch day (March 20th) or the day after. Especially if I can pre-order a book on Amazon with three days' notice and they can still get it to me on release day. But, okay, I could live with waiting an extra day or up to maybe three if I had to. (And, to be fair, this was all before a certain virus exploded into chaos here in the US.) Much to my dismay, a week before NH release day, I checked the order status with Target only to be told I wouldn't get it until the 26th. A week later. That was pretty disappointing at the time, but it didn't really bother me until the day before and the day of launch when some people were getting their pre-orders early from places like Amazon and Best Buy (and some of them didn't even pay for the express shipping option from their selected source). If those two companies could plan around virus constraints to do that, why in the heck couldn't Target? But, okay, fine. Maybe the virus had something to do with it and they were really doing the best they could. Whatever. A week. Fine. I'll wait a week. A few days later though, we got an email saying: Surprise! Don't expect your dumb video game until April 3rd because we couldn't get our act together! (Okay, that's not what it really said, but that's what it felt like.) And I know, I promise I so know there are much more serious issues going on in the world right now and a video game about talking animals isn't exactly a priority shipment. I know. But it was still massively upsetting after I'd already waited so long. And, honestly, I feel like they had plenty of time and notice to take care of the game before everything else exploded and messed it all up. Again, especially if other companies already had time to even ship orders early and/or get the games to people on launch day. Or the day after. TWO WEEKS after launch, and you don't tell me about the secondary delay until the week I started expecting the game to already be in the mail on it's way to me? The only tiny silver lining is that as I was checking the order to make sure it didn't miraculously get pushed back to sometime in 2021 (because I really had no faith in Target's time estimates at this point) is that it did get bumped back up to April 1st. Although, I did think that it would be the absolute least funny April Fools' Day Joke ever if the day came and it was late because screw me.  But it did arrive to me on April 1st as promised; I just had a million other things to do before I could play it. ) And I will say, I know I could've just canceled the pre-order and bought the game digitally, but it was enough of a hassle to order it in the first place, and if I did that I'd also lose my pre-order bonus. And all that aside, I specifically wanted a physical copy to begin with. I always prefer that when it's possible. So people on the internet that want to eat me alive for not canceling when the shipping got screwed up, there are my reasons. Take 'em or leave 'em. (Seriously, I've seen some people be really rude about this just because they didn't like hearing people upset that they didn't have the game yet...when they already had it themselves or didn't care about AC in the first place...) Moral of the story: Don't pre-order from Target. Or, at least, don't expect the item to actually get to you right around release day. Account for at least two additional weeks of not having the thing. ...Seriously though, how do you sell out of a pre-order?? At least, when it's a highly anticipated game and you're a big company and not some small indie company with limited resources! Sheesh! Anyway. I have the game now, I've been playing it as much as possible and enjoying it. I still have a ways to go before my island is "complete" per se, but it's coming along nicely and I feel more comfortable now taking some more time away from it to get back into the swing of making art and things like that. So hopefully I'll be getting back into a regular posting schedule and you'll have that to look forward to. 

____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[mlpdestinyverse]

“Gallery of Infamy”

While figuring out a way to mend their relationship with their mother Rainbow Dash, the mare gives Monochrome a surprise visit that leads them through memory lane.

Feat: Monochrome

Story and Description Under The Cut

Tick...tick… The sound of a ticking wall clock was the only thing that bounced off the cloud-walls of Monochrome’s room. There they sat at their wooden desk in one corner, pencil in wing...staring. They blankly stared at the crisp sheet of paper laid out before them, with a measly two sentences written at the top. But no matter how long they sat there thinking, sifting through their brain for the right coherent thoughts and feelings, the words they sought out just refused to form. Soon enough the pegasus was shoving the paper away from them, towards a messy pile of other discarded attempts.  Firmly placing their pencil down, Monochrome sat back in their chair with a light creak and closed their eyes. A frustrated sigh escaped their muzzle. “This isn’t working…” they mumbled to themself, opening their green eyes half way to tiredly stare at the white ceiling. Monochrome knew themself. They knew they were horrendously incapable of putting their feelings into words. And now, they were learning that it wasn’t just the spoken word that they struggled with. So much for having a famous writer for a mom. ‘How am I going to do this…?’ Mo’s eyes opened fully when they felt something cold, smooth, and familiar nudge at their leg. Looking down, they were greeted by curious beady eyes and a lovable wrinkly green face. Tank slow-blinked at Monochrome and a crease in his forehead gave away his confusion and worry. As he tilted his head to express his question, a soft and adorable turtle-grunt left his throat. Monochrome’s stresses began to seep away at the sight. With a gentle smile, Mo shook their head. “I’m fine, Tank. I’m just trying to figure out how to...talk to mom. Rainbow Dash, I mean.” The turtle’s eyes widened in recognition, and ever so slowly a wide, delighted smile began to pull at his mouth. Very slowly. Yet Monochrome loved watching it nonetheless. “I know...a long time coming, I guess. “ Reaching out, Monochrome sifted their failed letter attempts into a pile, making a mental note to take them to a recycler later. “I need to...sort things out. And take that actual first step in moving past my problems with her. But I don’t know what I’m doing…” Monochrome frowned down at the pile, taking in the various erase marks and struck-out words. It really was so much easier, avoiding these feelings altogether and the ones who fueled them. The insecurity. The bitterness. Monochrome guarded themself from these feelings with indifference and detachment. That’s who they’d become. They knew it all too well. If only they knew how to convey that. They needed to let her know, right? That out of everyone in their life - between the harsh peers and long lost friends - she was the one who had contributed to their...problems the most. 'She certainly didn't help my case...' Before Monochrome could let themself indulge in these thoughts they had been so keen on burying, the sound of their doorbell reached their ears. The pegasus raised an eyebrow before pushing their chair out and climbing off. “I’ll be back, Tank.” After an affectionate pat on the turtle’s head, Monochrome set off for the front door. As they moved down their hallway to the foyer, they searched their brain for any ideas on who could be at their door. The mail had already been delivered earlier in the day. And they didn’t have to recheck deadlines to know that none of their commissions were due." ‘Skychaser’s been busy. Ven, maybe? I know he and mom came back last week-’ So as Monochrome opened their door, one could imagine their tension, and confusion, over seeing a surprised Rainbow Dash at their doorstep. “Chromey~!” Their mother exclaimed, a grin stretching across her face. “EYYY you’re actually home for once! Venny can never seem to find you here, you know?” “Hello….” Monochrome greeted slowly, still processing the mare’s presence. With a soft “oooh!” at seeing the foyer behind them, Rainbow Dash invited herself in and flew past their kid. Even as they closed their door, Monochrome eyed their mother, perplexed. Wary, even. ‘She always sends Ven to get me...since when did she visit me personally?’ “Did you need something…?” They asked hesitantly, interrupting their mother as she admired the room. The question caught her attention and she playfully rolled her eyes, drifting down to land on the floor and wave a hoof dismissively at them. “PSSSH, whaaaat?! I can’t visit my own kiddo from time to time?” Something about the slightly higher pitch to her voice gave the pegasus the impression that she was hiding something. But Monochrome didn’t have much time to voice any other questions as their mother gave the room another glance around. “Geez, this place is looking AWESOME, Chromey! haven’t been in here since you moved in last year!” She sighed wistfully. “Takes me back to when I had my own cloudominium...good times! How are you liking it here? I’m sure having your own place is pretty cool, huh~?” “It is,” Monochrome agreed, their gaze flicking off to one side. They shifted in discomfort, feeling oddly vulnerable. “It’s been nice.” This was weird...right? Their mother visiting was already throwing them off. But really, a random opportunity to ‘make up’ with her had literally just waltzed in unannounced.  Yet something this unplanned was not making the idea of it any easier. ‘I’m not ready for this...am I supposed to spend time with her? I don't even know what to talk about.’ It was then that Rainbow’s eyes caught sight of a certain wall in their hallway, and her magenta eyes lit up. “Now wait a damn second, you sneaky little- are those ribbons?!” She briskly trotted over and Monochrome followed close behind. The hallway wall presented an assortment of Monochrome’s art pieces, all lined up neatly in black picture frames. Some pieces were simply projects Monochrome had wanted on display, while others had ribbons of different shapes and sizes pinned at the corners. Rainbow Dash let out a long whistle at the sight. “Like mother like kiddo, if you ask me!” “Sure...” Monochrome took in her face, how her eyes gleamed with some form of excitement at the sight before her. No surprise, though. She used to collect ribbons and trophies herself. Their ribbons, regardless of how they won them, just showed her that her kid had managed to follow her hoofsteps in some way. The artwork that won them in the first place probably didn’t matter much to her. That’s what their mind reasoned, at least. “Pft, of course Tank is the very first picture here! You always did like drawing the little guy~” Rainbow snickered, taking in a faded sketch of the turtle. That was true. But Monochrome was familiar with this piece in particular. It was done in their last year of elementary, when they were ten years old and their art skills were still in their earlier stages. With their current experience, Monochrome could now see that the shading values in the sketch weren’t very prominent and some lines were messy. But the effort was clear. They had been given an opportunity to choose an animal to draw for an art project, and they had jumped on the chance to draw their best friend. Though they also remembered how their younger self had left out Tanks limbs, just so he’d be easier to draw (though what beginner artist hadn’t done something similar at least once?) This was probably the oldest one they had chosen to frame up, and Monochrome felt no shame looking at such old art. Catching flaws they hadn't noticed when they first had drawn the piece only proved how much they had grown as an artist since then. But as they stared at the sketch, aware of their mother’s presence beside them, they were reminded of the second half of the memory tied to it. Their teacher had thought that it’d be fun to hold a mini contest - to let the class vote on their favorite drawing on presentation day and even invite parents to attend the class for the viewing. Their mother Daring had caught a bad cold and couldn’t attend at the time, so naturally, Rainbow Dash had been the only one left. Despite having just returned from one of her missions, Rainbow had promised to go. Monochrome had looked forward to showing off a special drawing of their mother’s pet, not only to the class, but to her as well. ...though when she didn’t show, Monochrome only found out upon returning home that their mother - while she was out that morning - had gotten caught up in a run-in with the Wonderbolt’s captain, Spitfire. Whatever the two had managed to catch up on that day, Rainbow had...lost track of time. ‘She was never good at handling distractions…especially when tired. Guess that’s where Ven gets his clumsiness from.’ The thought was meant to be half-hearted. A distraction. It had been years since that time. And yet, remembering it now was making them even more aware of her presence, and the feelings she brought. ‘Well this isn’t helping.’ “WHOA-HOA, what’s this?” Rainbow Dash was now focused on the next framed image, one Monochrome knew they had done with graphite pencils, if the crisper shading and details didn’t give it away. Monochrome had been fourteen, and they remembered their early high school art project theme; heroes. There in the image, Daring Do stood alone at the top of a cliff, her dark hair billowing while she outstretched her wings. An image of strength, and one they were personally fond of for obvious reasons. Looking at the image again, Monochrome wouldn’t have minded having ‘Valor Wind’ standing alongside Equestria’s most underappreciated hero. But at the time, Venture Gale hadn’t even joined Rainbow Dash on her missions yet; not until two years later, in fact. “How come I’ve never seen this one before?” Rainbow Dash crossed her arms, jokingly shooting Monochrome a judging look despite the smirk on her muzzle. “Oh I see how it is! You know, if you wanted Spectrum Storm to pose for a drawing, all you had to do was ask!” “...I did.” Rainbow’s grin fell immediately, a look of surprise and puzzlement replacing it. Monochrome winced. They hadn’t meant for that to come out as harsh as it did. “Huh? Wait, when?” Monochrome paused, letting themself actually choose their words for once. Yet another memory association uncovered; how the Heroes Project was originally going to be a surprise tribute for both mothers’ adventure identities. “When I was planning this piece. You just...had trouble focusing.” Monochrome quietly thought back on their mother’s inability to simply stand still. Which, as annoying as it was, was understandable in hindsight. Not everyone could stand or pose for a set period of time. But it was Rainbow’s attitude at the time that they remembered; the way she whined about wanting Daring to take her place, and the moment Venture Gale came home with a new game, Rainbow had perked back up from her hunched over state. 'Inconspicuously' moving towards the door, she had reminded Monochrome that Daring would be a "waaaay" better suited model than her. Afterwards she rushed out of the room without even waiting for an answer. After that, they just couldn’t get the right look or feeling down for “Spectrum”, and in the end Monochrome had given up and had chosen to stick with a Daring Do tribute. Frustration and that newfound blooming seed of jealousy probably didn’t help with the change of heart. Recreations with Venture just always seemed to be more fun for her. Her preference. “Oh…” Rainbow became quiet, looking down and rubbing her foreleg. Not knowing what else to say, Monochrome chose to leave Rainbow in her awkward silence. They focused instead on their artwork, hoping they could maybe find something different to talk or at least think about. Taking in this piece, Monochrome was reminded of how they really did used to enjoy reading their mother Daring’s work. From her Daring Do series to her Spectrum Storm sequel, the books had always been full of empowerment and adventure with a captivating writing style Monochrome could always recognize. But ever since “Valor Wind” made his debut, and Mo’s not-so-pleasant feelings arose...well, the last three books their mother had published - first prints she had joyfully gifted to them - were still sitting on their shelf, untouched. Monochrome couldn’t bring themself to, and it wasn’t even out of spite at this point. They genuinely had made various efforts to read the volumes, for the sake of supporting their mother’s hobby, but...doing so stirred up those unpleasant emotions, feeding a fire that only pushed them deeper into their own pool of insecurities and bitterness. And it frustrated them - it really did - that these things had to make them feel this way. This was their mother’s passionate work about their own family. Yet for the sake of their own emotional and mental wellbeing - even if it meant being out of the loop when it came to their brother's experiences out there- Monochrome had no choice but to lie about keeping up with Daring’s work. They avoided retellings of the adventures altogether. Now the pegasus could barely look at the covers of their mother's unread books without feeling a knot of guilt. ‘Alright, this was a bad idea. I get it. Everything has a negative connection to her, apparently.’ Monochrome searched their brain, ready to change the subject or at least find something else for their mother to focus on. Just as they were opening their mouth, they noticed Rainbow’s eyebrows shoot up, something further into the hall gaining her full attention. “Wait isn’t that…?” She trotted over a few frames down to a different art piece. Monochrome couldn't help but silently follow, curious. They never imagined their mother recognizing any of these pieces, with how much she had missed over the years. So after tracing the mare’s gaze to the exact image that was captivating her, Monochrome came to an abrupt halt at the sight. ‘Oh.’ It was a striking piece, if they could say so themself. Their first attempt at mixed media. Using charcoal and chalk pastels, their twelve-year-old self had deviated from drawing from life and drew from their imagination instead. So staring back at the two of them was a Timberwolf, posed elegantly with dark, strong tones to highlight its ferocity. But unlike a normal Timberwolf, it was spring-inspired. The beast’s branches was adorned with various glowing flowers, giving it a hauntingly beautiful look. Monochrome remembered how excited they were of the concept, pouring their heart into the piece a little each day. At the time, it had been one of their best and proudest works. And it still was. The blue ribbon hanging from the pictures corner said enough. And yet, right now, remembering that day brought back a hollow feeling in their chest. For once, Rainbow Dash wasn’t grinning, or speaking with unbridled confidence. As she spoke, her voice was strangely soft and pensive. “I remember this one...middle school, right? This was the drawing you entered into your first art show. When you gained your cutie mark.” Rainbow became quiet again, staring at the artwork. It would take a moment longer before she would turn to Monochrome, a regretful look on her face. “I...wish I could’ve been there, kiddo. Really. What I would’ve given to see you earn your mark that day.” Monochrome averted their gaze, an ache they had worked years to will away beginning to rise back from the depths Things had taken an abrupt, dangerous turn in Southern Equestria. And the morning of the show, Rainbow had received the news. “You were busy.” Monochrome murmured. They tried, and failed, to think of more to say. What else was there to say? Even if they had their doubts on just how much their mother Daring exaggerated in her books, they were aware of their mothers’ serious line of work. That’s why they had looked up to their parents, especially Rainbow Dash, in the first place. Maybe back then it was harder to grasp, but as an adult, they had an understanding. But that hadn’t prevented the damage. For the longest time, Monochrome had thought it was feeling forgotten that had damaged them and their relationship with their mother. But as they stood there, they realized it wasn’t just that. It was feeling forgettable. It was being in the background, where none of the things they enjoyed seemed to matter. It was feeling like a fleeting experience, easy to replace with something more interesting than they were; an adventurous life. Ponies who were far more similar to her. And even if it wasn't entirely their mother's fault that they had this complex - growing up a quiet, introverted child had made socialization harder after all - she had without a doubt contributed greatly to it. Art had always been a part of them. It wasn’t just a fun hobby turned into a job. It was also self-expression, used to convey the things that they was passionate about and the things that were important to them. So if there was no one to receive and respond with equal fervor, if the one pony they wanted to convey these things to felt disinterested and absent - then...what kind of existence was that, keeping these things to themself? ‘A lonely one.’ Sure, Rainbow made short-lived attempts at asking about their work and would give her compliments. But after everything, how was Monochrome supposed to believe she had any ounce of genuine interest in what they loved? In them. Words bubbled up to Monochrome’s mouth before they could even stop them. “I always wanted to share this part of my life with you.” The words came out soft. And no matter how much they felt like more had to be said, they just couldn’t find the words. Unable to meet Rainbow’s gaze, Monochrome kept their eyes locked on their art. They could feel her eyes on them, and soon, Monochrome regretted even speaking. Then they felt something softly brush over their back, followed by the warmth of a body pressing into them. It tore Mo’s attention away, and there, they took in the sight of their mother, staring guiltily at them. “I really missed a lot, huh...I’m really sorry kiddo” She sighed, withdrawing her wing. “I know you’re a workaholic like me, and you love your alone time. I always try to give you your space and stuff, but...it’s been forever since we’ve actually done anything together. We barely get to see each other anymore.” A red hue came over Rainbow’s face, and she ducked her head while rubbing her neck. “Look, I’m not any good with words-” ‘... so that’s where I get it from-’ “-but I just hope we can...hang more? Like, maybe you can drop by more! When you can? I know Ven’s been missing you too.” “Is...that why you came by today?” Rainbow blinked. “Huh?” Monochrome shifted in place. “You said earlier that you just wanted to visit, but...you’re kind of a bad liar, mom. No offense.” “Oh.” Rainbow nervously laughed, awkwardly rubbing her hooves together. “Aaactually, um...your mom kind of told me that you and Skychaser aren’t a thing anymore. So I wanted to check up on you? You know, without making it weird! But I was hoping I could convince you to join us when you’re not working. Cause I mean...it could help. Maybe?” It was surprising, to say the least. Rainbow was very obviously embarrassed talking about any of this. Monochrome had never seen their mom this awkward before. But there was some sort of opening here. Monochrome just had to find it. “I’m fine. My friendship with Sky is going to be okay.” A pause. “...I’ll be busy for at least another week or two. I’m a little behind. But...if you guys are still around after I catch up on my commissions, I’ll see if I can come over.” Rainbow Dash perked up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. With a joyous laugh she zoomed up into the air, doing an aerial spin. “WHOO! Sounds awesome to me!” Still loud as ever....but Monochrome was willing to start adapting. Their ear then twitched, catching a faint sound behind them. Something like slow scratching. The pegasus knew who they’d see before they even turned around. Rainbow, too, seemed to notice the extra presence and gasped dramatically. “TANK!!” At the sight of his old caretaker, Monochrome watched as Tank’s mouth widened into a radiant gummy grin, his eyes practically shining with glee. The very sight struck Mo, knowing just how much Tank loved their mom. Both Rainbow and Monochrome simultaneously moved to meet the slow turtle. While Monochrome picked Tank up and cradled him, Rainbow lowered her hooves back down to the floor. “It’s so great to see you, buddy!” the mare exclaimed, trotting closer to him. Tank was already stretching his neck forward in Monochrome’s arms, opening his mouth to let out a cheerful little turtle-grunt in return. With a grin as wide as her little friend’s, Rainbow lowered her head and met Tank’s snout with her own in an affectionate nose boop. It was one of many that they had shared in the past, even before Monochrome was born. Monochrome watched the scene with a small sense of wonder, letting the two have their moment. Rainbow was happily asking the tortoise a variety of questions, and Tank’s turtle-grunts and squeaks responded to her with a matching energy. The sight of Tank’s happiness with their mother had Monochrome’s gaze softening, a gentle smile forming on their muzzle. It was true that Monochrome and Rainbow were barely anything alike. In personality, in interests. But Monochrome now realized that there was one single thing that they did share. Their mutual love for Tank. There was a chance it was the only thing that connected them and made them alike in any way. But maybe...maybe that was a good enough place to start than anything. Not just for their own benefit, but Tank’s as well. “Hey mom. I may be busy...but how about letting Tank stay with you guys? You know, until he needs to hibernate next week.” Both Tank and Rainbow Dash looked up at the pale pegasus, both equally caught off guard. “Wait, really?” Mo nodded. “Yeah. You and I aren’t the only ones who haven’t seen each other much. Tank deserves some one-on-one time with you, don’t you think? It’s been a while.” Rainbow and Tank exchanged glances. It didn’t take long for a grin to break back out on their mother’s face. Tank’s smile was taking a tad bit longer to form. “You know what? That’s a great idea! It could be like old times, buddy! You and me and some racing and Spectrum Storm books! What d’you say?” Tank nodded as quickly and eagerly as he could. Monochrome couldn’t hold back their chuckle. Of course he’d be on board. “Awesome!” Rainbow looked back over at her kid, already brimming with excitement. “Where’s Tank’s stuff? I can totally pack everything in a heartbeat!” “Everything’s in my room.” Monochrome motioned their head further into the hallway. “Last door on the left. You can find a travel bag in my closet-” “GOT IT!” With a burst of wind and a rainbow trail, their mother was dashing down the hall and into the bedroom. The sound of rummaging could be heard even from down the hall, and Monochrome prayed she wouldn’t somehow make a mess of their room. Feeling a nudge at their chest, Monochrome returned their attention to the turtle in their arms. There was a glimmer to his green eyes, and Mo easily recognized it as a mix of pride and gratitude. “You’re welcome, buddy.” Monochrome murmured, smiling down at him. “I know I’ve been the one taking you to your hibernation spot for years...but just this once, I think it’s her turn to read you your bedtime story.” Guilt pinched at their stomach. “I guess I could be there too...but I don’t think I’m ready to be alone with her like that. Without you.” Monochrome frowned, their eyebrows drawing back. “Unless you need me there, that is. Then-” Tank slowly slid one of his arms out of his shell and gently laid his foot on Monochrome’s arm. He shone that crinkly smile up at them, and Mo knew he understood. The relief eased their worried mind. Mo deeply exhaled the rest of the worries out. “Thanks Tank...now then. Are you going to behave?” Tank paused, as if taking a moment to think about it, before smiling serenely and shaking his head. Monochrome’s own eyes crinkled in amusement and fondness. “Good.” With that, Monochrome placed a loving peck on top of his head, and it only took a few seconds longer before their mother was zipping back up to them, the travel bag tossed over her shoulder. “Alright, got Mr. Squeaks, you bed, your ‘copter and goggles...that should be everything!” Flying down to Monochrome’s level, Rainbow Dash gave her kid a curious look. “Hey, you sure you don’t want to come too, Chromey? You could stay in your old room for a while and do your work over at our place! We won’t bother you! I mean, it’ll be kinda lonely here by yourself, won’t it?”   Monochorme resisted a wince. They hadn’t really thought about the extra level of silence that’d exist without Tank being there. But it was like they had told Tank; they weren’t ready to move that fast. And they had other valid reasons. “I think I’d be able to concentrate better here. Besides, you know how my room gets cold and drafty now during the winter. It’s better to just keep my door closed.” “Well, if you say so!” With Tank in arm, Monochrome flapped their wings and joined Rainbow in moving towards the door. As their mother moved to open it, Monochrome took the chance to gently nuzzle Tank’s head. The realization that this was an early hibernation-send off was beginning to settle in, and that familiar ball of emotion was beginning to form within their chest. “I’ll see you in spring, Tank.” They whispered softly, only loud enough for him to hear. With a throaty noise in response, Tank affectionately rubbed his cheek against Monochrome’s. If it weren’t for Rainbow’s presence, Mo would have allowed their emotions to seep out. Thankfully, practice over the years had brought them enough control. ‘Yet somehow, this goodbye feels worse than every other one’ When their mother spun around and held out her forelegs with a smile, Monochrome carefully handed Tank over, moving their head every which way to make sure he was being held securely. With a sigh, Monochrome turned their attention back to their mother. “Don’t forget your copy of his favorite Daring Do book when he hibernates. You know he can’t-” “-fall asleep without it.” Rainbow finished in unison with Monochrome. The mare let out a snicker and Mo, surprisingly, felt the corner of their mouth pull up. “Right.” “Trust me, Chromey, I won’t!” Rainbow Dash smirked. “I’ll see you later then, pal! Don’t work yourself too hard!” “I’ll try not to.” With one last beam, Rainbow turned and began flying out the door. Monochrome followed her up to their doorway and hovered there as they saw the two off. It was then that the pegasus noticed a certain turtle head poke up over their mother’s shoulder, smiling at them. Mo practically felt their heart clench as Tank gave a little wave with his foot over Rainbow’s arm. Monochrome made sure to wave back, until neither of them were visible anymore. Monochrome retreated back into their house, letting out a heavy sigh as the stresses of that whole exchange finally caught up with them. They knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Hell, Monochrome had barely even scratched the surface of things. There was certainly still a long way to go before they could find the right words - and well...the courage - to convey all the things they had kept away. But hey...this was a start.

[adorebughead]

Multitudes - Part 2

/ Part One /

*Read on AO3*

Thank you so much for the response to this fic so far. I really hope that you’ll enjoy it as much as I’m enjoying writing it! I wanted it to be ever so slightly less heavier than my previous fic (which isn’t hard to do seeing as FBOW was crazy) but still with tonnes of angst - cause I absolutely live for that shit. I hope you like it, anyway! If you take the time to leave a comment, thank you so much. It means a lot to me and continues to drive me to write!

————————————————

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the  themes

thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death and the stars.

“Ok,” Veronica announced, emerging from the bathroom looking as though she were about to attend the Vanity Fair Oscar after party which, believe it or not, she had actually done twice before. “I’m ready.”

“V,” Betty replied with a smile, “you look beautiful… but now I do feel a little underdressed.”

Smoothing down her skin tight black dress, Veronica popped her red lipstick into her sparkling clutch bag and shrugged. “I have to make an effort. Archie’s going to be there.”

“Archie?” Betty teased, finishing up her faint layer of mascara and blinking at her own reflection. “So, you actually know his name now?”

Veronica laid a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “Ha ha. I always knew his name, thank you very much. You know, after Kevin stalked his Facebook profile in depth for me last night.”

“Oh, really?” Betty raised an eyebrow, chuckling as she ran her fingers through her hair and secured a tight, high pony tail with an elastic that had been beginning to hurt her wrist.

“Archie Andrews, former captain of the football team, part time musician, single, interested in women, dog lover; always a necessity, may I add-“

“Wait,” Betty interjected, throwing the mascara into her makeup bag and zipping it back up. “Archie Andrews?”

“Yeah. What? Do you know him?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “We went to high school together; he was kind of known for being a player. I haven’t seen him in a while but-“

“Ah,” Veronica mumbled, “the downside of going to school in New York. Well, whatever. Haven’t you seen those movies where the innocent, down to earth girl gets the town playboy to fall in love with her and completely change his ways forever?”

Betty smirked. “Sure, but life isn’t a movie, V. I mean, if it’s want you want then go for it. Just be careful, ok?”

“Ok, fine,” she replied, with a teasing huff.

“And since when were you innocent?”

“Anyway,” Veronica sighed loudly, narrowing her eyes as Betty giggled, “enough about me. Have you spoken to Trev since this morning?”

She flinched at the sudden mention of his name, leaning back in her chair and placing her hands in her lap. “No. I’ll probably phone him tonight, after the party.”

“What are you going to say?”

Betty bit her lip, picking at a small piece of skin around her nail. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Veronica declared after a momentary pause, walking over to Betty’s bedside table and opening up the top draw before carefully rummaging around.

Betty’s brows furrowed as she twisted around away from the mirror. “What are you doing?” “Aha!” She cried, retrieving the diamond ring with a victorious smile.

Raising an eyebrow, Betty tilted her head and folded her arms. “Are you proposing to me now?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Wear it.”

“What?”

“Tonight,” she continued. “Wear it. See how it feels.”

Betty shook her head with a snigger. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Pretend for the night that you are engaged to Trev and see how you feel about it. Nobody’s going to know us at this thing, anyway. Kevin said it’s mainly going to be a bunch of out-of-towners who Archie went to college with.”

Betty hesitated, an uncertainty masking her face as she studied the ring sat in the palm of her best friend’s hand. It really was beautiful. Trev had always known what she’d wanted, if ever the day were to come. It was traditional and classy and not to mention totally breath taking. The ring was perfect. The ring wasn’t the issue.

“V, I don’t know-“

“Come on,” she insisted, perching on the end of the bed to face her and picking it up between her thumb and forefinger with a shrug. “You might surprise yourself.”

-

Upon approaching Archie’s house, which, Betty noted, was the size of about fifty of her tiny apartments put together, she and Veronica exchanged a sideways glance of utter astonishment. It wasn’t just the fact that the house was practically a mansion, but it was also located right at the edge of the town’s beach, completely out of the way and surrounded by the most beautiful view of the sea.

“So, he’s rich,” Veronica observed, pursing her lips together and nodding. “Can’t say I’m disappointed.”

Betty rolled her eyes, looping her arm through her dumbstruck friend’s. “Let’s go inside and get this over with.”

Just as she had anticipated, the place was practically swarming with people left, right and centre, either already drunk or very much on their way to it. The music, which was more just a tonne of repetitive bass than anything else, was earsplittingly loud. The interior was clearly very aesthetically pleasing when not overflowing with drunken youths and crumpled up red cups, a notion Betty expressed aloud to Veronica as they made their way through the crowd.

“Youths? Who are you, your gran?” Veronica chuckled between various mixtures of excuse me and can you get out of the damn way? The male gaze very blatantly following her as she did so.

That was the thing about being best friends with Veronica Lodge. You were usually always in her shadow, a fact that Betty had typically welcomed, the thought of being the centre of attention not something she particularly favoured. However, tonight, she could’ve sworn that some of that gaze had also diverted onto herself.

“Betty! Veronica!” A voice bellowed, the both of them twisting their heads to meet with the glistening blue eyes of one of their colleagues and closest friends, Kevin Keller.

“You look amazing,” he exclaimed, observing Veronica up and down, his eyes widening as he did so. “I would consider selling my soul for those heels.”

She chuckled in response before Kevin’s regard switched onto Betty, altering into an abrupt double take.

Of course, after a fair bit of disputing back and forth, Betty had finally allowed Veronica to give her that of a slight makeover seeing as her initial jeans and plain t-shirt were apparently completely unacceptable. Instead, she had ended up opting for a black pencil skirt paired with a white v neck blouse, a neatly tied choker and a pair of nude heels that had been gathering dust in her wardrobe ever since Veronica had given her them for her birthday two years ago. Not only that, but a deep burgundy lipstick lay perfectly on her lips, one her mother had always scolded her for even considering wearing, and her hair was half up, half down; a few soft waves perching just beneath her shoulders. Truth be told, she felt pretty damn good.

“Who would’ve thought our little Betty Cooper could look so fierce,” he cried with an impressed albeit slightly stunned nod.

Betty’s eyes fell to the ground as her cheeks turned a light shade of pink, hugging her chest with a small smile. “Thanks, Kev.”

“So, where’s your latest squeeze?” Veronica enquired with a wink, her eyes darting around the room.

“Joaquin is at home, in bed, pretty sick and pretty weak,” he replied with a sigh. “I think I’ve worn him out.”

Betty laughed as Kevin zipped his lips with his fingers. “Annnnd… that’s where this conversation ends.”

“So, let me guess, you’re looking for Archie,” Kevin sneered, tilting his head to catch Veronica’s attention which was clearly momentarily elsewhere.

She whipped her head back around and blushed. “Maybe.”

“And by maybe she means a damn straight yes,” Betty giggled.

“I can introduce you,” Kevin started, “our dads are pretty close so we chat now and again. Unfortunately, I had to turn him down when he told me he wanted me,” he teased. “We all have to make sacrifices.”

The three of them laughed, Veronica’s eyes lighting up at the sudden prospect. “Will you really introduce us?”

“Of course,” he replied, holding out his hand and gesturing them to follow. “But let’s get you a drink first.”

“Liquid confidence,” she smirked. “Good call.”

Grasping Veronica’s hand to shuffle after them both as they made their way to the kitchen, Betty scanned the room for a single familiar face, failing in her endeavour. However, it only took a few seconds before she saw it. A pair of dark eyes fixated firmly on her, but when she furrowed her brows and quickly looked again, they were gone.

“Double vodka and coke, B?” Veronica chirped, as Betty wrinkled her nose in response.

“Maybe just a single.”

“Make mine a triple,” Kevin winked, holding out his cup as Veronica poured the drinks. The three of them released a subsequent cheers as they clinked their plastic cups together.

Two, or maybe three, drinks later, paired with five minutes straight of crying laughing at Kevin’s college reminiscences, Betty was certain she was tipsy. The three of them had swiftly moved from the corner of the kitchen to the centre of the large, open hallway and started to dance, twirling each other around and chuckling loudly as if they had no problems in the world. Betty hadn’t done anything quite like it in a while. In fact, she wondered if she’d ever really had fun like this at all in her whole entire life.

“There he is,” Kevin yelled excitedly, seizing Veronica by the shoulders and swivelling her around to see Archie standing in all of his glory at the top of the staircase like some sort of Hollister model, chatting away to a couple of his friends with a drink in his hand.

Veronica’s eyes widened as she bit her lip. “Oh, Archie Andrews, you don’t know what’s about to hit you.” “Nice to see that liquid confidence is working a treat,” Betty giggled.

“Are you coming?” She asked, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Actually,” Betty started, “I think I’m going to get some air. It’s way too hot in here.”

Veronica raised a brow. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Ok,” she countered, “I’ll find you in a bit.”

Finally making it outside after awkwardly pushing through what felt like hundreds upon hundreds of people, Betty welcomed the cool breeze she had been craving as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Yep, she thought, I’m definitely tipsy.

Almost instantly, she reopened her eyes and her gaze fell directly onto somebody sat out in the distance, on the ground just above the sand. He was perched over a book, his dark hair falling ever so slightly in front of his face, the rest tucked up inside of the crown-shaped beanie that she wondered if he ever bothered to take off.

Of course he’s here, she rolled her eyes to herself, walking over to where he was sat before she could even stop herself.

“Whitman?” She cried, folding her arms sarcastically. His head lifted slowly, turning to see the source of the voice before stopping slightly as his eyes studied every inch of her sudden change in appearance. After a fleeting moment, he turned back around.

“Jones,” he replied nonchalantly, tucking his pen into the crook of his notebook and closing it shut.

“Never heard of them,” she scoffed, taking a couple of steps forward to admire the view before her as she plonked herself down a few feet away from him.

She studied him from the corner of her eye, waiting for some sort of sarcastic comment, but instead noting how he’d quite briskly returned to silently scribbling away in his notebook.

“What are you always writing in there?” She asked, a tone of mockery and confidence in her slightly slurred voice that actually rather amused him.

He didn’t take his eyes away from his half-filled page as he replied. “The names of all of the coffee shop baristas I’ve pissed off this week.”

She looked away then, a smirk of annoyance appearing on her face as she rolled her eyes. “Well, no wonder it’s taking so long.”

Glancing at him once more, she shook her head and pulled herself back up onto her feet, the sudden movement causing his gaze to switch to her as she smoothed down her skirt and pushed her hair out of her face.

“Going so soon?” He jeered. “What a shame.”

Her eyes narrowed as she placed her hands firmly on her hips. “You really like annoying me, don’t you?”

He shrugged, passing the pen between his fingers. “I think you enjoy it more than I do.”

“Ha!” She cried, a little louder than intended. “Don’t flatter yourself, pal. Just because you’ve got a James Dean thing going on-“

His head shot up as he raised a brow in amusement. “James Dean?”

She froze, wondering how the words she had just thought inside of her head had somehow left her lips without any form of warning. “Well, yeah, no, I didn’t mean it like James Dean was hot. I mean, he was. But-“

“Interesting.”

“No, no,” she raised a finger and shook her head. “No.”

After a moment, his stare dropped to her left hand that was still resting on her hip and his grin faltered, if only fleetingly.

“Well,” he mumbled, “I sure as hell send my condolences to that guy.”

It took her a moment to comprehend what he was referring to before the realisation that she was in fact wearing her engagement ring, and had been doing so all night, suddenly overwhelmed her. She blinked, unsure for a moment, unexpectedly feeling its heaviness.

“I’ll have you know that my fiancé is going to be a successful businessman,” she boasted. The word fiancé dropping out of her mouth with a slightly bitter taste before she could even stop it. She wasn’t sure she liked the way it sounded.

He shook his head with a derisive leer, heaving himself up and tucking his notebook into his back pocket. “How very predictable.”

She frowned. Taking a single step closer, folding her arms as he turned away from her. “Excuse me?”

“What is it that you do, may I ask?”

“I’m going to be a teacher,” she said confidently as he rolled his eyes and faced her once more.

“Figures. The businessman and the teacher. What an utterly drab life you are going to lead. Just like everyone else stuck in this place.”

Her brows furrowed as her jaw dropped in astonishment, her eyes widening as his smug yet vacant face burned a hole into her brain. God, he was so irritating.

“I am not stuck anywhere. And my life is far from drab.”

He released an uninterested laugh. “Say it again and maybe you’ll start to convince yourself.”

Her lip quivered as she turned on her heel. “Stay away from me,” she ordered, “and stay the hell away from my spot.”

She stomped away, disallowing him another inevitable snarky remark, her sense of direction wavering slightly as the vodka mixed with frustration and adrenaline began to well and truly go to her head. How dare he speak to her like that.

She wasn’t stuck. She was perfectly happy in Oakwood Bay and she had never had any intentions of leaving. She had been born there, grown up there, just like her parents and grandparents before her, and that’s exactly the life she wanted, and had wanted since she was a little girl, for her children, too. Her life was far from drab, and the fact that this ridiculously rude and highly conceited stranger had even suggested otherwise caused her blood to boil.

“I see you met Jughead,” Kevin announced, leaning against the doorway as Betty trudged over, dangling her heels beside her.

She barely looked up as she tried to shake off her anger, pulling herself out of the depths of her, now rather clouded, brain. “Who?”

“Jughead Jones,” he replied, gesturing over to where she had just come from, the place where black-coffee-guy was now walking out of sight. “He lives here. Just moved in with Archie. You didn’t hear it from me, but he had some trouble back where he came from, so Archie’s dad took him in. I think they went to college together, but I don’t really know much about it.”

She lifted her head in confusion. “Trouble?”

“I don’t know the full story,” he shrugged. “Something with his family. All I know is that he’s had it pretty rough. Rough enough that he had to leave home, anyway.”

Betty gulped, her frustration still hovering slightly as she watched him disappear into the crowd. “Well, all I know is that he’s a nasty piece of work.”

Kevin nodded in agreement, a look of wonder subsequently washing over his face. “I’m surprised he’s even talking to you.”

She slipped her feet back into her heels and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why?”

He shrugged, raising a brow as he studied where her gaze continued to rest. “Because,” he uttered, “he doesn’t talk to anyone.”

-

Once returning back inside, Betty decided that it was probably best for her to call it a night. She had drank slightly more than she was used to, and the exhaustion that followed was beginning to encompass her entire body.

Shaking her head with a smirk at the sight of Veronica’s face latched firmly onto Archie’s at the bottom of the staircase, she decided to sneak past and drop her a text in fears of ruining the moment she’d been dreaming of and obsessing over for weeks. What kind of friend would she be if she’d have broken them out of their slightly unconventional fairy-tale moment?

Betty (23:42): Need my bed. Stay and have fun. Try to come up for air every once in a while ;) Speak to you tomorrow. B x

The walk home wasn’t typically a very long one. In fact, she only lived ten minutes away, but for some reason it felt much longer than usual. She had grown conscious of the clip clop of her heels on the concrete quite early on, echoing throughout the rather deserted streets with every step that she took. Any Oakwood Bay resident who wasn’t at Archie’s party would most definitely have been in bed a good three hours earlier. The sense of isolation had quite rapidly grown a little bit unnerving.

Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, she saw it. The same dark eyes from earlier, but this time they were approaching rather rapidly, and there was an unsettling coldness inside of them. The face they belonged to wasn’t one she felt she could trust. Something in her gut told her to turn back around, and to do so quickly.

“Where are you off to?” He said, something about the expression on his face causing her skin to crawl. She had never seen him before, he was much taller than her, he was wearing a red, v neck t-shirt, his dark hair was shaved and his lips were curved into a smirk.

She decided to ignore him, instead quickening her pace. Her apartment was so close that she could see it. The alarm bells in her head were blaring as her fingers ran over her keys inside of her purse. Everything started to move rather quickly.

“Hey, Blondie,” he bellowed, a little louder and a little closer this time, causing her to flinch, “maybe we can take the party elsewhere.”

She retained her gaze firmly in front of her, clutching onto her cardigan tightly, really wishing that she hadn’t worn heels. “No, thank you.”

“Oh, come on.” She could feel his breath on the back of her neck now, her heart slamming against her rib cage as her thoughts started to race. She knew she shouldn’t have left by herself. “Don’t walk away from me.”

Almost as soon as the words had left his lips, and just as she was gearing herself up to strike him and run as fast as she possibly could, a large thud stopped her in her tracks as she released a small shriek. There was an abrupt silence. She couldn’t feel his breath anymore.

“She said no,” a voice hissed.

Turning around slowly, Betty stole a glance at the guy with the dark eyes who was now on the floor just a few feet away from her, grasping his jaw which was starting to bleed. Beside him was the one person that she hadn’t expected to see again, his face filled with rage as his clenched fist hung in mid-air.

“Get out of here, Chuck,” he spat. “I mean it.”

She blinked, the cold air raising goose bumps on her arms as she stood fixated in her spot. Her feet were throbbing. Chuck laughed with not even a glimmer of remorse, his eyes flitting between the both of them before heaving himself upright, his smirk now turning into a snarl.

“Watch your back, Jones,” he growled, before turning on his heel and briskly making his way back to wherever he had come from in the first place. She watched after him and felt a shiver possess her body.

After a few moments of complete, deafening silence, he cleared his throat. “Are you ok?” He said quietly, the tone in his voice unlike the one she had heard before. He went to reach out his hand, but retracted it almost instantly.

Her breath caught in her chest. “…Y- yeah.”

His eyes burned into hers for a brief moment, so much so she could hardly breathe, his expression twisted into something she had not seen before. His once vacant eyes were now overflowing with something new. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t smirking. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. He wasn’t wearing his beanie.

They drank each other in for a few seconds longer. It was as if he wanted to say something but decided against it, before releasing a single, subtle nod, and stepping backwards. Pushing a couple of dark curls out of his face and tucking his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, he turned, and he left. She stayed, frozen, for a good minute as she watched him fade further and further out of sight. He didn’t say another word, and he didn’t look back again.

Once she had returned to the safety of her apartment, she briskly locked the door and shrugged off her cardigan. Turning on the light switch beside her bedroom door, she bit her lip and walked over to the window, peering outside into the darkness of an empty street, lit by nothing but the moon and all of its stars. A clear midnight. She exhaled deeply.

Pulling her curtains shut and leaving just a small crack for the light of the moon, as she always did, she kicked off her shoes and perched herself at the end of the bed. After taking a few moments to stare into nothingness, she retrieved her phone from her bag and allowed the screen to light up.

One missed call from Trev.

She sighed then, placing it face down onto her bedside table and throwing her head into her hands.

As she laid her head that night, she thought not of the boy in his London hotel room desperately staring at a blank screen. She thought not of her future or of her mother’s forceful hand smearing her red lipstick across her face when she was sixteen years old. She thought not of the beautiful diamond ring which was again buried under a pile of books at the bottom of her drawer.

No, she didn’t think of any of these things.

Instead, her thoughts travelled to the words of Whitman. To the beauty of the moonlit sea, sparkling even when she wasn’t looking. To a pair of piercing green eyes. To the way his quickening breath had hung in the air. To the burning smothering the pit of her stomach.

And, with that, she fell into a deep slumber.

[bisexualbellamyblake]

For @sherlockvowsontheriverstyx​, who wanted bellarke cuddling. Hope you like it :)

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“No, like I really hate you. So, so much.”

Bellamy smiles, leans down to drop a kiss to her forehead. “I know,” he says easily, fondly. Indulgently, which grates on Clarke’s nerves even more. “I hate you, too.”

She shakes her head, folding her arms across her chest so that they lay on top of her belly. With only a few weeks to go, it’s large and round and a constant source of discomfort. And with the current heat wave that’s fallen over their settlement, that discomfort doesn’t even fade when she’s lying in bed or folded into Bellamy’s arms. Instead it’s accompanied by the antsy feeling of being hot and bothered and too damn hot. And while she can’t blame Bellamy for the weather, she can certainly blame him for the other part.

“This is all your fault,” she accuses, narrowing her eyes at him. “You and your stupid arms.”

His lips quirk into an amused smile, and she hates how much she loves it because she’s angry goddammit. “My arms?”

“Yes,” she huffs, sending him a glare. “Your arms are big and muscly and I can’t be held accountable for jumping you because of them. And now look at me,” she says, gesturing to herself, sprawled out on their bed in nothing but her underwear, stomach ballooned and brows drawn, with a light sheen of sweat on her skin. “Your. Fault.”

Bellamy laughs, the sound coming out light and delighted. He’s not taking her seriously, she knows, but she probably can’t blame him for that. She sounds ridiculous even to her own ears, petulant and childish, and she knows she looks it just as much.

“Okay,” he says with a grin. “It’s my fault.” He leans down, slow enough that she can pull away if she wants, and presses his lips to hers when she remains in place. “I love you,” he mumbles against her mouth, smiling when she can’t help but kiss him again.

“I love you, too,” she grumbles. “But I also hate you.”

“That’s fair,” he allows, before dropping a kiss to her belly, pressing his cheek to her skin. “And I love you. Be good to your mum and don’t be too active in there, okay?” The baby shifts and Clarke rolls her eyes. “No, not like that,” he chides lightly, grinning at Clarke when she huffs a laugh. “Okay, okay, I’m going. I’ll come back for lunch, okay? There’s ice here, and please call Raven or Monty if you want to go out today. I don’t want to find out you’ve collapsed half way to the hall.”

“I will,” Clarke says with a roll of her eyes, shooing Bellamy away. “Go enjoy your 100 degree work day. The baby and I will be fine.”

“Okay.” He hesitates for a moment before leaning in to kiss Clarke one more time, slow and deep and long. It’s getting harder for him to leave her in the mornings, she knows. With the baby almost here, they’re running out of time for just the two of them, and while they’re both very excited to meet the little one, they know she’s going to take over their lives for a good long while. It makes it all the more frustrating for Clarke, knowing she’s not being the best company right now. But Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind her grumblings or rantings or the fact that she’s half-seriously blaming him for her current predicament. Apparently he knows how to handle her in any situation, even if it is 38 weeks pregnant in the middle of a heat wave. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“Not hate?”

“Only a little.” She can feel his smile on her lips and pushes him in the direction of their door, knowing if he lingers any longer they’re going to want to get carried away before ultimately deciding against it. Better not to go down the path altogether. “Have a good day.”

“You too, babe,” Bellamy says, sending her a smile before finally heading out the door.

Clarke finds herself smiling as well, a hand moving to caress her belly. “Okay baby, what do you want to do today?”

She decides to clean up the cabin first, needing to feel useful after the week she’s been out of action since being ordered off work due to the heat. By the time the place is tidy and Clarke’s sorted through the array of gifts they received at their baby shower a few weeks ago, it’s already uncomfortably hot. Not unbearable, but enough so that Clarke fills up a pitcher of water and wraps some ice in a small towel, and goes back to bed with her sketchpad and pencils.

It’s a hobby she gets to indulge in rarely, with how busy things still are. Despite having lived at their new settlement for over a year, there’s always more to do, more decisions to make and more challenges to face, and while she and Bellamy have both stepped back from any formal political roles, they’re both people others turn to for help. It’s nice, now that the decisions they make aren’t so demanding, but it still takes up a lot of her time.

She finds herself sketching Bellamy’s face, as she normally does. Even if she wasn’t in love with him he’d be an amazing subject to draw, sharp angles and deep eyes and a pattern of freckles on his face she’ll never perfect.

She’s abandoned the task by midday in favour of rubbing ice along her skin. Even with blinds covering all the windows, shading her from the burning sun, the heat is intrusive. Plus, the baby’s decided that now is the perfect time to play gymnastics in her belly, which means that everything is coming together in a perfect combination to make Clarke hot and uncomfortable.

That’s how Bellamy finds her only half an hour later. Clarke’s eyes are closed, but she hears him step into their room, pause as he no doubt watches her with fond eyes.

“How are my two girls?” He asks, soft.

Clarke leans up on her elbows to look at him. He’s flushed and sweaty and dishevelled, and she has to rein in the way it makes her blood pulse hot with want beneath her skin. Watching him strip down to his briefs doesn’t help either, but the way his shoulders sag does. She can see how exhausted he is from a morning’s work under the hot sun.

“We’re okay,” she says, holding up her glass of water for him to take. He downs it greedily before sending her a grateful smile.

“That’s good. I have a surprise for you.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow. “You do? What is it?”

Bellamy laughs, dropping a kiss to her lips. “You do know what surprise means, right?”

Clarke hits him lightly, only prompting him to laugh some more. “Shut up.”

“Just let me wash up and get some food first, and then I’ll show you.”

“Okay,” she agrees slowly, watching him suspiciously as he shoots her another grin and heads back to the main room.

He returns a few minutes later, face clean and fresh, with a plate of food for them to share. It’s simple, just some bread and meat and fruit, but it looks like heaven right about now. And then, tucked under his other arm, is what Clarke’s guessing is his surprise.

She can’t make out what it is, not until Bellamy hands over the food and presents it to her fully. And then Clarke’s jaw is dropping and she’s scrambling to sit upright.

“Is that a fan?” She asks, voice both disbelieving and hopeful.

Bellamy chuckles, eyes crinkling fondly around the edges. “It’s a fan,” he confirms, laughing when she gasps loudly. “I asked Raven to make one for you when the heat wave started. She’s pretty busy at the moment, so had to work on it in her spare time, but yeah, it’s a portable, battery-run fan.”

“Oh, Bell,” Clarke says, shaking her head in awe. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Bellamy responds, smiling down at her softly. “But this past month has been hard on you, and I wanted to do something nice.” He frowns, considering, then amends his words. “Or enlist Raven to do something nice.”

“Thank you,” she says, pulling him down for another long kiss, letting him know just how much the gesture means to her.

He sets it up on top of a chair at the end of their bed when they part, explaining the different settings to her as he switches it on. The first wave of cool air hitting her makes Clarke sigh, sagging back against the pile of pillows behind her.

Fans were one of the many things put on the non-essential list when they had to trek cross country to find a new place to live. They’ve managed reasonably well without them, designing their buildings and cabins strategically and using trees to provide them with shade, but it’s still hard. Their previous summer wasn’t nearly as hot, and Clarke wasn’t eight and a half months pregnant, so even on the warmer days, she could easily walk down to the river to cool off. Now, it’s quite a bit more effort.

So she’s incredibly grateful for this surprise, for Bellamy’s thoughtfulness and for Raven’s genius. Her belly still isn’t the most comfortable thing, but having some relief from the heat makes her feel so much better already.

Bellamy joins her in bed, letting out the same sigh of content Clarke just did, and without it being so hot she lets herself snuggle into his side. They nibble on their food and talk about their mornings and enjoy the cool breeze the fan provides, and soon Clarke’s pushing closer to Bellamy, manoeuvring them both until she’s sitting in the cradle of his legs, back against his chest.

And she’s missed this, just the simple feeling of their skin touching, the way it calms her and excites her and makes her feel at peace. She’s missed so much that she hasn’t been able to pull Bellamy in for a long, warm hug, and that he hasn’t been holding her securely at night, and that neither of them have been letting their kisses get carried away into anything more. This stupid weather has made her miss him, despite having seen him each and every day of it.

“This is nice,” Clarke sighs, letting her head roll to the side to rest on Bellamy’s shoulder. He’s got one arm wrapped around her, on top of her belly, while the other runs along it, just saying hello to their baby. “I’ve missed being able to touch you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She leans up, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “And I’ve missed having you cuddle me.”

Bellamy pulls her in tighter at that, dropping his face to nuzzle into her neck. She can feel the pressure of his lips, the familiar weight of them on her skin, and she closes her eyes, lets her hands find each of his to lay on top of them, wanting to be close at every point.

They stay like that for a long while, Clarke settling into Bellamy’s body comfortably, sleepy and happy and in love. He begins a story, maybe for the baby and maybe for her, and she feels her eyes get heavy and her mind slow, drifting off.

And then, just before she’s out completely, something twinges tight at the base of her stomach and she sits up, alarmed, before registering what it was. A contraction.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

[doodlewash]

Hi, I am Pamela from Davao City, Philippines, and I’m a self-taught watercolorist. Growing up, I have always had this strong affinity to artsy endeavors where I could use my hands and imagination. I came from a typical Filipino family where my parents’ income was just enough so spending on art was more of an indulgence than a necessity. As my dad was a CPA, I followed on and took a finance-related degree. Life was hectic and time for art was sparse. The spark was there but I just didn’t have the energy and resources to take it any further.

15 years after, in 2017, I was where I planned to be in my career. I felt the slow simmer of wanting to do more than just work. I’ve always felt a sense of calm when I paint, and so I decided to pick up a pencil and start drawing again. It was pen and ink sketches initially which progressed into watercolor and ink. And finally, after a year of self study, I managed to establish an online gallery. In just over 12 months, I sold around 15 artworks and that tiny spark was finally set ablaze.

​

The beginning wasn’t easy. I was torn between my grueling day job and my extreme desire to just spend all day painting. Like any newbie, I was definitely overwhelmed but the universe of free information lying around is more than enough for anyone to get better (Wetcanvas, youtube). I read books on composition and perspective (Ian Roberts), color theory (Stephen Quiller) and watercolor techniques (Michael Reardon, David Webb). I watched videos of watercolor masters like Alvaro Castagnet, Joseph Zbukvic, Chien Chung Wei, among others. Resource sites such as enterclass.ru and slon.it, tremendoulsy helped me to progress further in watercolor.

Colors

I don’t use cobalts and cadmiums anymore for safety and environmental reasons. I have always loved Daniel Smith and W&N but they’re a bit on the expensive side. Recently, I have discovered below brands which I believe are comparable and more affordable.

Holbein (Lots of semi opaque pigments which are beautiful for muted scenes like chien chung wei)

Mission Gold (Extremely bright colors, lots of semi staining pigments)

Shinhan – PWC (professional) I have not fully used this but the reviews are all positive

My Current Palette

​St Petersburg/ White Nights – I have been using their fantasy set for a while and I have right now these colors in my palette: Lemon Yellow, Naples, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Golden Yellow Deep, Ruby/Claret, Quinacridone Rose/Lilac, Sap Green, Emerald Green, Blue/Bright Blue, Cerulean, Ultramarine, Indigo.

* wild card colors – Lilac and Jaune Brilliant (Holbein, opaque), white gouache (for highlights), Paynes Gray (Winsor & Newton watercolors, for quickly achieving darker tones)

Paper

Arches cold press 300gsm

Saunders Waterford cold press 300 gsm

Brushes

Joseph Zbuckvic – Escoda Aquario set (Big shape washes)

Isabey squirrel mop (Big shape washes)

Italian art store Kazan squirrel mop – Loose medium size shapes

Escoda Perla – 4, 6, 8 (for more details objects, controlled shapes)

Rat Whisker Outline/Detail Brush (bought at blueheronarts store in the US) – this is an amazing rigger brush for poles and electrical lines

Palettes

Brass palette – by David Cooper (UK)

Holbein metal palette

Plein Air Set & Studio

I have a portable plein-air kit (tripod and tray) handmade from Indonesia by artist Denny Samawa. For my home studio, I have a self assembled set-up composed of:

Vanguard Alta Pro 264AB 100 Aluminum Tripod

Guerrilla Painter, half sheet, watercolorboard

My technical profession taught me that a solid framework is key to excel in any endeavor. I personally don’t believe in “talent.” I believe in grit and resourcefulness to get to anywhere significant. In watercolor, the primary things to understand are: a) color theory b) composition and c) understanding of basic shapes.

My process is both structured and intuitive. First, I choose a specific scene then, I try to grasp the atmosphere and what colors would work best. For example, I use Naples to exhibit early morning light whilst Quinacridone Gold is for sunset scenes. Also, I use at least 2 variants of each primary color, preferably one warm and one cool. Of course, these are relative to the hue you want to dominate in your work. Taking blue as an example, if I can only have two in my palette I’ll have Ultramarine (“warm blue” bias towards purple) and Cerulean/Cobalt for achieving clean skies and beautiful bluish-green waters.

Second, is composition. As I’m a bit of a tech geek, I explored ways to visualize what I want to achieve. Recently, I discovered a neat app called “Sketchbook” where you could recolor and sketch over photos of scenes you want to paint. I use my note 10 to digitally sketch and edit images. Through this, I got better in “simplifying” which for me, is the foundation of a great painting. And the third element which I learned from Zbukvic is answering the question of what makes “IT”, IT? In a scene, details are irrelevant, focusing only on the basic shapes results to a loose and more cohesive painting.

​

Lastly, I believe that the only way to get better is to recognize that the race is long, hence humility is key. Venturing into an artistic endeavor requires soul and a genuine desire to showcase your innermost emotions (the reason behind my gallery “thousand shades of feeling”). When I look at each of my works, I feel I’m seeing a part of myself I’ve never seen before. I know there is a long way to go, but I will venture on, as I’m certain that art will lead me to a better me. Thanks for reading my story and feel free to reach out to me anytime.

Pamela Lagrosa​ Instagram Website

GUEST ARTIST: "A Thousand Shades Of Feeling" by Pamela Lagrosa - #doodlewash #WorldWatercolorGroup #watercolor #watercolour Hi, I am Pamela from Davao City, Philippines, and I’m a self-taught watercolorist. Growing up, I have always had this strong affinity to artsy endeavors where I could use my hands and imagination.

[anarkhebringer]

I’ve got a story from my life. It’s about a cat I had many years ago named Bitey. I had him for almost six years and he died almost seven years ago at the time of writing this. He was and still is my best friend I’ve ever had.

Let’s start from the beginning.

I had a friend who’s oldest female cat at the time Gracie had a litter of kittens. I went over to her house almost every day back then so I was able to watch them grow up. There was a female kitten in the litter that was a pale and creamy orange color named Sunshine. I wanted her. When the kittens were weened, my friend’s parents started giving the kittens away. Her parents forgot that I wanted Sunshine and they gave her to someone else, and I ended up with one of the two fully black kittens in the litter named Tinker. I took Tinker home and the first thing we did when we got to my bedroom was play for a few hours. By the time we were done, he was laying around panting. After a while of him just laying on top of me on my chest while I layed on the ground, I started talking to him. He seemed very interested in what I was saying from the start and kept his attention on me while I spoke, so I knew from that moment he would be a VERY intelligent cat and a quick learner of my language. I asked him suddenly, “Do you like your name Tinker?“ and he just averted his eyes with an odd look while he put his ears back a little bit. I then asked him, “Do you want to change it?” and he looked at me again. I said a few names to him and he gave no reaction to them, until I said Bitey. He meowed at that one, so that name stuck. I didn’t have good air conditioning in my room at that time, so a little bit after that I asked my mom if I could bring him into the living room since it was getting a bit hot in my room and I had my door closed. We made him a makshift litter box with a pie tin and brought him in. While he was just wandering around and sniffing to learn the place, I told my mom about his new name. It stuck with everyone after that.

We had a good time with each other. We liked to just sit around and chill with each other. I drew a lot back then too so he liked to watch me draw. There were times when he rubbed his paw on my drawings if I decided to shade them in with pencil and rub it on a blank part of the paper or a blank one nearby if there was one. I had quite a few pictures I saved that had his paw markings and smears from his art. He even listened to music and watched anime with me. When he was still young he really liked watching Inuyasha with me. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru seemed to be his favorite characters (just like me).

A bit of time passed and my older sister also got a cat (full black like Bitey) named Ecliptica (spelled something along those lines I think, I was never sure how to spell his name). At first they hated each other. Over time they started getting extremely close and became the best of friends.

We moved to a different house after about a year and they warmed up to it quickly. My sister and I took turns keeping them both in our rooms at night so they could sleep together. About a year passed and everything was good with them, and suddenly one night a small Scottish Fold came running into our house when my mom opened the door to go out. My older brother claimed her. She didn’t have a name because my older brother thinks it’s unneccessary to name pets. She came into my room once in a while and she ended up befriending Bitey and Ecliptica fairly quickly.

Some time later, Ecliptica was hit by a car while outside. My sister’s friend that wa a neighbour of ours drove her and Ecliptica to the nearest vet and they had to put him down. Bitey was devastated. He became extremely depressed. For  a few months he wouldn’t do much besides lay around, not even sleeping most of the time and just staring at nothing in particular, eating very little, and cuddling with me and trying not to cry. There were times where he couldn’t hold it in and he would cry, shaking really bad in my arms and making low, breathy, and shaky noises. I cried with him whenever he did. He eventually got better and showed big strides with improvement of his mood. He ate regularly and played with me again. We even started watching anime together again too. His favorite anime of all time was Elfen Lied. He showed concern for Lucy and even cowered with his ears back when the darker puppy scenes happened. He was depressed for days after watching the puppy get killed, but still insisted on watching the show with me. He’d get a look on his face like he wanted to yell “run you idiots!” when a police officer or any special forces would act tough and run at Lucy. He looked so annoyed at the Bando scene where he first captures Lucy. He had the most unimpressed look and his eyes were half lidded. I couldn’t help but crack up the first time I saw him look like that. We watched the entire series many times together. His favorite song was the MOKA version of Lilium. I’ve tried to sing that song to him but I’ve never been able to hit high notes, so when I awfully sang high notes he’d look up at me, close his eyes and do a short purr. To this day I still have it on my 3DS but refuse to delete it despite not listening to it for a long time.

Some more time passed and I let him outside for the first time. He ended up staying outside most of the time after that. He was VERY protective over the yard and HATED when other cats even looked at it. He was also really jealous when I would pet or interact with other cats outside. He was the kind that always picked fights when another cat existed near our house or around me. he lost a majority of the time but that didn’t bring him down in the slightest. If anything it made him fight more as if he wanted to show that he could be strong and get even stronger.

After a while my brother’s cat had a litter of kittens of her own. She had a really hard time and one of her kittens came out bottom first got stuck at the neck. She panicked and got up, running around and slinging the poor kitten everywhere and knocking it against various things in my brother’s room. My mom eventually grabbed her and held her down while she reached in and got the kitten out. It wasn’t breathing and my mom had to do CPR on it. After that she kept rubbing it and eventually it yelled really loud and began to cry out. It was the runt of the litter and we knew from how it was born and how it acted that it had some sort of mental disability. My mom made sure that the cat took care of every one of the kittens. There were six. Four were gray and had folded ears like her, one was a tabby (the runt) and one was black. We knew Bitey wasn’t the father because he was never really into any sexual things and didn’t even try to mount the cats around him when he started hitting puberty like other male cats do, and because there were two other black male cats around our house. When the kittens were weened, my older sister kept the runt and named him Mehrunes Dagon My nextdoor neighbour took the rest of the kittens and their mother to a farm since her friend needed more cats there, and then it was just Dagon and Bitey with us. Dagon was a mischievous kitten and liked to annoy Bitey. Bitey was already a few years old at this time so he just sat there and didn’t even acknowledge Dagon when he did this until he really started getting on Bitey’s nerves or started biting and clawing at him in sensitive places. One day, Bitey was laying on the left arm of our couch, and Dagon was messing with him. The little guy wouldn’t stop messing with Bitey’s butt and private areas. We thought Bitey would do something already, but he stayed where he was. Dagon quickly moved to Bitey’s face, and he causally and calmly used one paw to shove Dagon off of the arm of the couch, and he landed right on top of his head. I’ll admit, it was absolutely hilarious at the time, but thinking about it now I know it contributed to the disabilities Dagon already had.

Let’s skip time again a year or so later. One day I went outside to go see Bitey, and he hopped off of the fence he was randomly trying to balance on to come see me. I gasped in utter shock and terror as I noticed a hole on the right side of him around his stomach. He didn’t show any signs of injury from it so we never really figured out where he got it. We just assumed he either got impaled on the fence since it was a chain link or someone around popped him with a BB gun and didn’t do very bad damage since there was nothing in the hole. Over time the hole slowly got bigger since he never stopped licking it long enough for it to heal and the fur around it started falling out. He was still as healthy and active as ever for a year or so after that. Suddenly, he became randomly hostile when I pet him sometimes. He was NEVER hostile to anyone and was always VERY well behaved before that so it definitely threw me off. After a while he came back to me and started rubbing on me as an apology. I couldn’t pet him anywhere except for his head an the top of his neck without him moving away or growling so we knew he was in pain. A day or two after that he came inside and layed down on my bed and wouldn’t move. He was extremely sick. After a few hours of just laying there he started breathing really shallow and hard like he was struggling. I couldn’t stop crying and refused to leave his side for a long time. I kept telling him “It’s okay Bitey, you don’t have to hang on, you can go. It’s okay.” But he just wouldn’t go. I eventually had to go outside and cry because I couldn’t watch him struggling anymore. I was out there for a few hours. When I came back in, he wasn’t freaking out anymore but he hadn’t died yet. My mom told me that he had let out long exhales and close his eyes like he had died and after a few moments would suddenly open his eyes really wide and suck in a huge breath quite a few times. He refused to let go. He was fighting it because he wanted to stay strong and be with me. I had a sudden wave of calmness and strength and went back in there and sat with him for a little while until I went with my mom to my grandma’s for a few hours. My older brother sat with him while we were gone. Bitey finally let go and died right before we came home. He gave my older brother an experience he had trouble explaining to us. When Bitey died, my older brother suddenly saw a beautiful area in nature with these words repeating to him: “No more pain. No more hurt. I’m free now. I’m happy now. Everyone stay strong.” My brother wrapped him up in a towel and buried him in our backyard with a picture of me next to him, and covered his body with a thick wooden board so no other animals could dig him up. He even made Bitey a special marker for his grave that he cut from a big branch in our yard and carved himself. After I got home I went to the backyard to see the grave. I couldn’t hold myself up for very long and fell to my knees, letting out a loud and chilling scream I didn’t even know I was capable of. I couldn’t stop screaming and crying, and before long I had been laying on the ground in a fetal postion just shaking and screaming. It was the beginning of sunset when I went to see him, and it was long into the night before I managed to drag myself along the ground and into the door with help from my mom to get inside. Every day I went out into the backyard and visited him, and over time he started being playful and sending freezing air to me on hot days in the summer when I would talk about how hot it was or helpful in the winter by warming me up when it was freezing.

We may have moved out of that house but he still is with us, and sometimes I’ll see my mom lean over to the side with her hand down scratching at the air because he rubbed on her leg. He’s rubbed on mine and my friends’ legs at school too and it used to scare the crap out of them until I told them about him, now they just say hi to him or we say “Not now Bitey” because he usually does it when we’re trying to listen to the teacher. He even shows up from black objects when it’s dark in my room, commonly one of my balck wigs I leave out so I can see him, and he still lays on me sometimes too. I have to be careful to not move too much or he suddenly disappears. I was unable to bring the marker with me to my appartment I’m living in now due to it being completely covered by branches from tornado season weather, but I still have a cat statue I painted to look like him soon after he got the hole in his side. I even included it and a second smaller hole he got close to the first one.

To this day everyone talks about him and smiles. Even Dagon has memories of him sometimes, I know it’s hard for him to remember since he’s over six years old now and he left with my older sister when she moved across the street with her boyfriend when he was one or two.

That’s the condensed version of my story of my cat Bitey. I felt so many things typing this. I smiled, I laughed, and even cried. But in the end my love for my best friend tops it all.

I love you Bitey. Rest in peace.