#this took me a week in playing with gradients

[laststandx3]

[toxicanonymity]

This protector. Left in Lincoln, pt. 1

3k | dark dads' best friend!Joel x virgin f!Reader

story master list / joel miller master list

Premise: Bill and Frank raised you after you were orphaned by the outbreak. They left Lincoln to get treatment for Frank and asked a neighbor, Joel, to look in on you (early 20s) while they were gone.

He rubbed your arms harmlessly, then his hands grazed your breasts lightly enough to pass for accidental as he hugged you. His breath deepened and his jeans twitched. He slipped his arms under yours and you tried to settle in, still nervous. You sat for what felt like a long time. Eventually, you relaxed into him.

Warnings/Notes: NSFW 18+ (not graphic yet), creepy!joel, dark!Joel, pervy!Joel, big legal age gap, very inexperienced/naive reader, angsty premise, dry humping, touching over clothes, pressure, blue balls, alcohol, pining. Slow-burn horror. Post-outbreak but playing fast and loose with a couple of ages.

When Frank got sick, he and Bill went in search of treatment and left you safe at home in Lincoln. They knew you could manage on your own, but they still asked a trusted neighbor, Joel Miller, to look in on you. You knew Joel from when he came over for meals, but he didn't talk much, so you didn't feel like you knew him very well. You felt like he knew you, though. He knew a secret.

- - -

The secret was that one time, you went on Joel's property and helped yourself to his fruit. It wasn't your first time there, but it was your first time picking any fruit. You snuck in from the back and stayed deep in the orchard. You didn't think he'd see you.

Joel would've been more than happy to pick some fruit for you, or even with you, but you were shy. He was intimidating. Plus, you wanted to take your time to enjoy the orchard. He had the most beautiful peach and apple trees. You were still getting over Jesse and being there reminded you of him. Jesse kissed you there, way in the back, after dark when no one would know. This was your first time there in broad daylight.

You admired the peach in your hand, lightly brushing your thumb over its curves, captivated by the gradient of yellow to pink, then plum.

"You picked a nice, ripe one." Your face went cold as you looked at the peach in your hand. You turned around to see Joel Miller half smiling at you, then he slowly stepped forward and put his hands on his hips with his knee out. "Should be juicy," he added. He didn't seem mad at all, but it made your heart race. It was your first time stealing and you got caught.

"Mr. Miller, I–"

"Call me Joel," he said. "Come on in, let's make some apple juice."

"I really shouldn't. . ."

“C'mon, I just cored a bunch of apples."

He was reassuring, but you were too embarrassed and said you should get home. He told you to come back any time, but you never did.

-

The next time Joel came for dinner, you answered the door and he handed you a jar of apple juice. He normally just brought hard cider. Knowing you didn't drink, he brought a jar of juice that night to commemorate your trespassing.

"Wow, thanks," you said.

"’welcome, peaches," Joel whispered in your ear, and his thumb brushed your opposite cheek as it burned.

You prayed he'd never say it in front of anyone else, but that brief teasing was the most personality you ever saw from him. He almost always wore a scowl - he and Bill had that in common.

That was also the night you realized Frank was truly unwell. He tried not to show it, but he kept steadying himself, and it wasn’t because he was drunk. He only drank one cider and Bill teased him for not having any wine. Later, you overheard your dads weighing the options. They mused that Joel could check in on you if they left. You were embarrassed at the thought - you could still feel Joel's touch on your cheek.

When Frank's health got worse in the following weeks, they decided to go.

- - -

Your first night alone in the house after your dads left, it took you hours to get to sleep, then you barely slept. There was an eerie silence, eventually broken by a creaking sound. You brushed that off as the house settling, but soon you heard rustling, then a thump. You couldn’t recall what the night normally sounded like. Each one of those noises made your heart jump. Unable to sleep, your mind drifted to Frank. You worried and cried.

The second night was even worse. You got to sleep but awoke to a repetitive scratching noise that sounded like it was right outside. You knew it was probably an animal, but you were too afraid to look. The wind howled, and you could have sworn you heard voices.

-

Once Joel came by, you were relieved to see him. Too relieved to be embarrassed. He was somber when you answered the door, though.

"Sorry 'bout your dad…"

It brought everything back to the surface. You nodded, unable to speak with such a knot in your throat. Your head throbbed and your eyes welled up. He jammed his hands in his pockets and hung his head. You could no longer hold back the tears.

Joel's Adam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow. "Shit, I'm sorry, I shouldnt’a mentioned it." He hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and awkwardly opened his arms for you. The hug was rigid and obligatory until you collapsed into his arms like you really needed him. Then it changed. His body relaxed. His thick arms wrapped softly but strongly around you and he rubbed your back. His broad chest swelled against yours with a deep breath as he inhaled you. His flannel smelled like pine, cotton, and sweat.

You stood there resting in his arms for a good minute or so before sniffling, "sorry," and pulling back to dab your swollen eyes and look at him. His eyes were different. Less aloof. His scowl had softened. You wondered how long it had been since someone hugged him. You asked, "do you wanna come in?"

Joel sat you down on the oversized sofa and got you a glass of water. Then, he comforted you as you tried to get a hold of yourself. It was refreshing having someone there. You hugged him from the side, and his armpit was warm and a little damp against your shoulder. Then you started thinking about Frank again and folded forward with your face in your hands.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, rubbing your back. Then he put his feet on the ottoman and gently pulled you back against the couch with his arm around you. You cuddled up to him again like a big, surly teddy bear. He rubbed your arm, then began to brush the inside of your elbow with his thumb. It was a comforting gesture. Entrancing, too. A little sensual. It certainly relaxed you. Somehow, you fell asleep with your head on his thighs.

-

You woke up when his lap shifted under you. He was stroking your head, and you could feel he was hard. You pretended not to notice, but when you sat up, he didn't shy away from adjusting himself like it was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it was.

You wouldn’t know. You were mostly homeschooled and there was barely anyone your age, or even generation, in the community. By this point, it felt like there was no one left in Lincoln. Jesse was just gone one day, no kiss goodbye, not even a word. He always talked about going West, but you thought it was just a dream. Even Ellie and Riley went their own way when Ellie turned 18. You knew how hard that was for Joel, especially when he already lost Tess.

You averted your eyes from his jeans, then asked Joel, "What do you do? To deal with everything?"

Joel swallowed and clenched his jaw. His his eyes were dark. He hesitated, looked you over, then said, "Tell ya the truth? I'm the worst guy to ask. . . Shit, I knock myself out. I drink. I take pills."

You were flattered by his honesty and felt respected as an equal. Emboldened, you asked him, "Can you gimme some? I can't stop thinking about it. . .I cry every night."

“What, give you whiskey and pills?” Joel laughed, then saw how serious you were. It was surprising because you were so straight laced. You were of age but still never drank more than a sip of wine, and that was only if Bill or Frank insisted you taste a pairing. Never really snuck out. Never done more than kiss a guy - although you'd like to think you would've.

"I don't think your dads would like that, darlin'. I'm s'posed to keep ya safe–not sayin' you need keepin' safe–but I'm sure as hell not s'posed to give ya drugs 'n whiskey."

"I'd never tell," you promised, desperate for anything to get your mind off it and let you sleep. "if either of them ever makes it back." You started to cry again.

"Sorry, peaches." He kissed you on the head and you got butterflies. He stayed with you awhile longer until you stopped crying, then said good night.

You didn't expect to miss Joel, but you did, as soon as he stepped out the door. When you sat back down on the couch, it was even worse. You never realized how huge and deep that sofa was until you sat on it alone that night after Joel left.

You thought about Joel more and more. It was hard not to – he was the only person left. At least Jesse hardly crossed your mind anymore. Finally, after all that time wondering why he didn't say goodbye, you decided he just wasn't man enough. You wondered if you were ever truly attracted to Jesse anyway, or if he was just the only guy around.

- -

The next time Joel came over, you surprised yourself with your girlish reaction. Your cheeks burned as soon as you saw him, before you even answered the door. And when you noticed the whiskey bottle in his hand, your whole chest went hollow, making room for your affection. He was really treating you like the adult you were. You greeted him with a hug and his nose brushed your ear as he inhaled you. He smelled like whiskey, aftershave, and pine.

You got two glasses from the kitchen. He poured you a drink and slouched with his legs wide open and his long arm on the back of the couch. His other hand rested on his inner thigh. You asked if he was going to have a whiskey.

"Nah, had enough. Any more and I won’t be good company."

You wondered what that meant, but didn't pursue it. You sat shyly at the other end of the sofa and winced as you took a sip of your drink alone. You coughed and he came over and patted your back. Then he talked you through your next sip.

"Straight to the back of the throat. Can’t let it linger. Do the rest all at once.”

You took it as a shot.

“There ya go, darlin’. Good girl."

He resumed his splayed out posture at the other end of the couch and you sat where you were, still wincing and recovering from the drink. He gave you a subtle, knowing smirk and nodded toward his end of the couch.

You only moved half way down the sofa. "Get over here, darlin'," he said and patted the space right in front of his crotch. He brought his closest leg up onto the couch then coaxed you back between his arms and legs. You settled back into him, a little stiff at first. Nervous.

"Relax," he whispered. "You're safe. . . You're with me."

He rubbed the sides of your arms harmlessly, then his arms wrapped in front of you. His hands grazed your breasts lightly enough to pass for accidental as he hugged you. His breath deepened and his jeans twitched against yours, giving you butterflies between the legs. He slipped his arms under yours and you settled in like that, still nervous. You sat for what felt like a long time, and eventually, you relaxed into him. You felt the buzz of the whiskey.

Your head fell back against his shoulder. He stroked your head. He kissed you on the crown of your head every minute or so, comfortingly. Then, one time, his lips lightly touched the bare skin of your temple. Then your cheek. Then his hand nudged your face up toward his. You shifted your body to look at him and your hip moved against the bulge in his pants. He inhaled deeply at the friction, and your cheeks burned.

You studied his furrowed brow, wondering what he was thinking. Your heart raced and your skin felt hot from the buzz. Emotions ran high. You kind of wanted to do something, or you wanted him to do something. You just didn't know what, or how. He was still intimidating. You didn't know anything at all and were afraid to make a fool of yourself.

With heavy eyelids and rosy cheeks, Joel looked from your eyes to your mouth and back, then leaned in. When his nose brushed yours, you offered your lips and he closed the distance. He sucked in a chest full of air through his nose with his lips pressed into yours. You stayed mostly still as his tongue parted your lips and he seemed to suck the air out of your mouth. His tongue brushed yours and arousal flooded you. Then your lips embraced his and you let him taste your mouth.

His manhood swelled against you, much harder now, sending a rush to your core. Your heart pounded when you realized how wet you were getting. You scooted your butt forward, self-conscious of your contact with his privates. When you broke contact, Joel broke the kiss.

-

He stroked your head gently again and kissed your temple.

"You’ve never felt one before, have ya?" He asked soft and low as he slowly palmed the hard bulge in his jeans behind you.

Your face burned and you just barely shook your head no.

"It's ok, baby. It's s'posed to feel good."

"What is?" you asked shyly even though you figured you knew. You wanted to shrink into the sofa, but you'd be shrinking into him.

He gently pulled you back against him. With his hand on your stomach, he pulled you all the way in. His arousal was already stiffer, larger.

He lowered his voice and said, "Feelin' this against you, knowin' it's there." His hips lifted gently, and his hard package swelled against you. "It's s'posed to feel good. Nothin' to be ashamed of"

Butterflies swarmed inside you, multiplying, filling up your ribcage, your pelvis. He coaxed you into relaxing back on him again. He cradled you from behind and caressed your thigh for a minute, then his masculine hand slid between your knees, gently nudging them apart. His hand slid up one inner thigh and your legs opened for him all on their own.

"Feel it here?" he asked before he flattened his fingers and slowly, lightly felt the crotch of your pants. You didn't answer. You didn't have to. With several fingers, he ghosted a line from the seam of your pants up to your clit, driving you mad.

He pressed his hardness into you again with a soft grunt. His voice was low as he reassured you with his hand still between your legs. "See, what you're feelin' right here, it's natural. It’s right."

His other hand stroked your stomach, gradually approached your chest, then caressed your breast lightly with his hand mostly flat. His chest rose and fell under you. You inhaled deeply, your breast swelled into his hand, and he cupped it, grinding his hardness into you harder than before. Your nipples hardened and you got goosebumps all over.

You knew there was a pool in your panties, and you didn't want him to feel it if it seeped through your pants. If it hadn’t already.

As though reading your mind, Joel said in a near whisper, "and when it's wet here, that's a good thing." His thick fingers ghosted the crotch of your pants. "Means your body wants more."

"More what?"

"Well. . . We can figure that out together, darlin'." You weren't that naive, you just wanted to know what more meant to him.

He pressed his crotch into you again, hard as a rock, his fingers still lightly stroking you between the legs. “When you’re wet. . .makes me feel good, too. . . .” His breath was hot on your neck, then he began to leave open mouth kisses there.

Joel shifted behind you so you could see each other again. He took your hand in his. "Wanna feel it?" He put your hand on the hard bulge in his pants and thrust against it, biting his lip and lowering his already half-closed eyes. He was so hard, it made your whole body tingle. You could feel the outline of the head. It overwhelmed you with a level of arousal you never knew was possible.

-

"I think I should go to sleep," you said. It came out as a whisper

"Want me to tuck you in?" He asked with a twinkle in his eye, wrapping you in a hug. It was tempting. You suspected he meant more than that. Maybe he'd even stay over. You hated to see him go. It would be a jolting contrast to be all alone in this big house on all this land, not knowing when he might come back. But you couldn't bring yourself to say yes. It was something in your gut.

"Not tonight," you said.

Joel looked in your eyes and studied your face thoughtfully, then brushed your cheek. "Ok baby," he said. "Not tonight." He kissed your cheek. Feelin' a lil better though?"

"Yeah," you said. At least your mind was off things. You stood up and fidgeted with your hands behind your back.

He put his hands on his knees and stood up with a groan. You tried not to stare at the major protrusion in his jeans. He hugged you tight, and when you felt him from the front, it took your breath away.

"Why don’t you come by this week? We can go for a walk, pick some fruit. Trees are lookin’ real pretty.”

“Okay,” you said.

"Night, peaches." He kissed you on the cheek.

He left the whiskey there, but you wouldn't touch it without him.

-

You felt like you were aging a year a minute that night. Adults did these things. Even teenagers did these things. You were embarrassed to be several years into adulthood with no experience, no idea what you were doing. You were so far behind. You thought about Bill and Frank's attempt at "the Talk" – how precious you were and that you could love anyone, but needed to protect yourself. Especially from men. Joel seemed like the protector. Not someone you'd need protection from.

It was all happening so fast after years of nothing. You worried that if you didn't slow down, you'd miss it.

-

PART 2

Thank you so much for reading and engaging! It's really motivating to me and means the world 🖤

While you're waiting for the next part, consider catching up on my series that just wrapped (different story, Joel, & AU): Silence can never be bought, only rented.

-

-

Lincoln tag list: @fan-fiction-floozy @ivyblxnde @lhymer1995 @sugarspiceanthrax @isimpforfictionalmen @zynbsblog @swedishscumfuck @sadgirlstoohightocare @steveharringtonswh0re @skythighs @aoziety @leeeesahhh @jupitersmoon-cal @peekymoon @dtfawn @pedrosbabygirl @shotgun-shelby @romanarose @reader-without-a-story @shewantstoknow @jaxxiepup @yvonneeeee @elvinaa @internetobssesed1234-blog @jbcalway

All joel: @ethanhoewke @silkiers @eiviea @evyiione @xdaddysprincessxx @queerly-anxiousus @chernayawidow @ambassadortotrilliusprime  @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @jasminespringtime @romanarose @fandomsfallnomore

[navyinks]

“Death of Hyacinthus”

Out of jealousy, the west wind Zephyrus causes Apollo's discus to strike Hyacinthus and kill him. Apollo creates hyacinths from the prince's blood so that his soul lives on through the flowers.

For composition & characters, I took inspiration from Tiepolo’s “Death of Hyacinthus” and Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.”

Follow-up piece from the Apollo/Hyacinthus I painted last year. Notes, process & closeups can be found below the cut

This is an experimental piece, where I wanted to make use of value, contrasting gradients, and shape to direct the composition.

Unfortunately, the drapery didn’t work out and I ended up having to get creative with enlarging Zephyrus’ wings and playing with the atmosphere & clouds behind him to get the same gestural movement within the painting. In hindsight, it was probably a good thing I didn’t paint the drapery, as it would have started getting repetitive with Apollo’s cape.

Also up to this point, everything was painted with an airbrush on one layer, because I wanted a good brushwork challenge. I think it should usually be the other way around, but my rendering is really poor on paper and even worse digitally lol;;

The soft airbrush step took about a week, and then I sat down for a day and put in the hard edges & finished rendering pretty quickly. I reckon it’s a pretty neat way to work lol

I have to thank Britt Snyder, who is awesome and gave me heaps of guidance for the composition in the initial stages, and in the final detailing. He introduced some really nice suggestions to the painting, which really makes the whole piece pop.

Zephyrus - neutral expression in the first few iterations, but this looks more interesting i reckon lol. I personally really liked the soft airbrush effect and the hard edge on the wing & felt pretty validated when Britt pointed it out too xD

Apollo and Hyacinthus - this is where I wanted the focal point to be. Transitioning from dark background -> light sun -> dark hair -> light skin -> dark features was a deliberate attempt to increase contrast in the area & draw the eye to it first. I think it was pretty successful?

Hyacinths growing out of the blood. I didn’t really want these to stand out too much.

ANYWAY thanks for reading, this is my first finished painting of 2023 and i’m pretty happy with it, DEFINITELY not perfect but with everything that’s happened this year? life is tough and bleak and i will take this small win xD

[bleach-your-panties]

raise your legs, baby girl - izuru kira x chubby!fem!reader

🎀just a little bit of my husband with his lax-ass dom energy. inspired lightly by these old hc's of mine.

🎀warnings: bondage (shibari), thigh-fucking, edging, dirty talk, praise, soft!dom!izuru, reader is a thick gal💦, aftercare, fluff

🎀i wrote this for me, but y'all can read it. with that being said -

⋰❄️WELCOME TO THE THIRD DIVISION三⋱❥

🎀word count: 2.5k

▶️do what it do - jamie foxx

you know what, imma make it do what it do, baby

----

One thing that you'd learned about your husband Izuru was that he liked to tease you - sometimes to the point of tears.

When you met him, you found out very quickly how responsible he was and how seriously he took his job as Lieutenant. It couldn't be helped after he'd been abandoned by his former captain, Gin Ichimaru, with the weight of the entire Third Division placed solely upon his shoulders.

You had to say that you were very impressed with his impromptu leadership over the Third Division, which is what prompted you to join after graduating from the Shin'o Academy.

With your skills, it wasn't long before you ended up serving under him as the Third Seat of the Third Division. A few casual encounters here and there and the two of you quickly became enamored with one another. Soon you'd ended up underneath him in multiple other ways.

You've been married for six months now and the two of you were still very much in the honeymoon phase. Sometimes Izuru has bad mental health days, but you were always close by his side to help him work through the turmoil swirling inside his mind.

Before he got with you, he looked upon himself undesirably as a romantic partner (if his parents were still alive he had wondered if they'd be disappointed in him for not having settled down yet.)

The captain position was currently still vacant as of now, but due to your close relationship with the Lieutenant of the First Division, you'd been hearing about how a multitude of recommendations had been put in for Izuru to become the new Captain of the Third Division.

So, to celebrate the inevitable good news, you pulled a pale blue, sheer lingerie set out of your dresser - one that you’d purposefully hidden from Izuru to use for this special occasion.

After peeling off your shinigami robes and taking a nice, steamy, hot shower, you did your usual night routine and put your hair up in a cute style that you thought Izuru might like. 

You’d gotten your nails done with Mashiro earlier on in the week - white French-tipped duck nails with one black statement finger and little foil butterflies in gradient shades of blue decorating the tips.

A pair of simple, white, peep-toe heels with bows on the back finished off your look and you sauntered into the living area to wait for Izuru to get home from work.

Ice cubes clinked against one another in the bucket you’d set the sake out to chill in and low, soft music played from the strange contraption Shuuhei had gifted you both for a wedding present - a ‘CD player’ he called it.

Soon, the wooden door to your little home was slid open and your handsome husband stepped inside. 

After setting an armful of folders and notebooks down, his eyes caught sight of you standing there, the orangish glow of the wall lamps illuminating your shapely figure.

“Welcome home, ‘Zu.”

Those cornflower eyes almost popped out of his head.

“Hello, love…what's all this for?” Said eyes trailed over the darkened atmosphere, sake on the counter, and those lights that made you appear as a seductively sinful angel standing before him.

“To celebrate your promotion.” 

Those heels clumped across the wooden floor in tandem with Izuru’s heartbeat inside his chest.

As his eyes raked over your form, Izuru thanked God for Rangiku always dragging you along on her shopping sprees, even if it meant his wallet had to suffer the consequences.

Even though you were looking like a full-course meal in front of him, the mention of said promotion made his shoulders slump visibly.

“Ah, yeah. They still want me to take the captain’s exam even though I already have over half the necessary recommendations.”

You stood facing him now, the height from your heels putting your face right underneath his chin. Cupping it with your hand, you rubbed your fingers over his cheek in a loving manner.

“Don’t worry about that, ‘Zu. You’re going to ace that exam. You did graduate from the Academy with top marks, after all.” 

He could only smile while you stroked his cheek and rubbed your thumb over his jawline and back up through the blonde hairs around his ears.

His mouth moved to close over yours in a soft kiss that soon turned passionate and needy.

Your tongues danced in a fiery tango as he wrapped those strong arms around you and pulled you to the kitchen.

----

now, baby, i just wanna take your freakin' clothes off

kiss your body while i take your freakin' clothes off

leave them heels on, while i take your clothes off

leave them lights on, let me see you go off

ooo-oo, baby, that's my body callin' your name

ooo-oo, and baby, that's your body doin' the same

----

That's how you would end up with your bare ass cheeks pushed up onto the kitchen counter while Izuru stood between your spread legs with the palm of his left hand gently resting against your throat. The cold metal of his platinum wedding band pressed against your jugular as he curled his fingers around your neck.

He pulled loose the pale periwinkle ribbon that tied his blond hair, gripped your wrists in one hand, held them above your head, and tied them together with the silk material. With his teeth, he bit the end off and spit it out onto the kitchen floor.

“Perfect.”

His cool hands groped the flesh of your thighs, pinching and squeezing it between his deft fingers.

“Lift your legs up and wrap them around me.”

He pressed you further against the counter and rutted his growing hard-on against your inner thigh.

“‘Zu..baby…”

“Yes?” One eyebrow went up as he waited for you to finish your thought then his eyes trailed down to the steadily growing wet spot at the front of your thong.

"Now, what do you wanna do? You wanna get fucked or do you wanna get licked up? Either way, I need you to keep these thighs up for me, baby.”

He slapped one and you yelped at the sudden impact. Leaning over you and staring you down, those blue eyes were hypnotizing you to the point that the words stuck inside your voice box. 

“Hmm, what's that, darling? Come on and use your words for me..” 

“I..I..”

“Too slow. You know what, I have a better idea for you, bluebell.”

In the next millisecond, he was gripping your restrained wrists and flipping you around. A loud breath and soft curses passed through his parted lips when the motion resulted in your juicy ass cheeks pressed against his crotch.

“Fuck…”

Reaching into one of his hakama pockets, he pulled out another ribbon - a spare that he kept for his hair - and retied your wrists so they rested against your lower back.

“Now, keep your head down. Don't you dare fucking lift it.” 

Izuru pulled his hard dick from his pants and you could feel it slap against the crease of your thighs and oh how badly you wanted to thrust back on it.

“Don’t even think about it. Be good and stay still while I fuck your thighs, angel.”

----

so act right, gone show me

back it up, now put it on me

act right, gone show me

back it up, now put it on me

now what you wanna do?

you wanna get high? you wanna get fired up?

what you wanna do?

you wanna get sexed? you wanna get tied up?

get your rodeo ride up; baby girl, lift them thighs up

i think you better wise up,' cause i'm about to rise up

----

“A-ahh..”

Izuru’s soft moans were so erotic coupled with the wet, smacking sounds of him fucking the opening made by your thick thighs. The arousal ran between them lubricating his dick enough for him to slip it in and out of your thigh creases as if it were your pussy.

You learned early on in your sex life that Izuru has an inconceivable amount of patience.

When he felt himself getting closer to a release, he pulled you off of the counter and into your shared bedroom.

As you kneeled on the tatami mat, your nose kept bumping against his inner thighs and blonde pubes as you tried to get your husband's cock in your mouth but his grip on your neck held you just out of reach of his pretty, pink-flushed tip.

He was edging both you and himself. After the day he'd had today, he'd be damned if he came anywhere except for the inside of your pussy.

Curling his long fingers around your jaw, he brought your head up for you to stare into his crystal-blue eyes.

“Are you ready to be good and tell me what you want me to do to you?”

You nodded your head in his large palm.

“Want you to make me feel good, Izu’. Please fuck me, baby.”

—-

now baby holla at me, tell me what you're missin'

i can put in work in every position

from the kitchen table to the bedroom floor

ooo-oo, baby, that's my body callin' your name

ooo-oo, and baby, that's your body doin' the same

so act right, gone show me

back it up, put it on me

act right, gone show me

back it up, put it on me

—-

“There, gorgeous. So pretty. The perfect little present.”

He exhaled a breath, eyes wandering the perfect pattern of the ribbon he’d so skillfully tied you with. Another one of his creatively hidden talents - shibari.

“Hold those legs open right there for me, baby.”

He dipped his head down and you let out a shrill cry when he began licking your warm, creamy folds. Back and forth his tongue dipped and lips sucked your pussy while he caressed your inner thighs. The knuckle of his left ring finger slid dangerously close to your clit, making you twitch.

Tears accumulated in your eyes both from your muscles burning and  from Izuru messily eating you out. He always made it hurt so good.

"Zu', I…can't hold them anymore, I's-starting to hurt!"

"Hmm?” He leaned away from your pussy with his chin glistening in your slick. 

“Guess I should have tied them behind your head then." 

—-

now what you wanna do?

you wanna get high? you wanna get fired up?

what you wanna do?

you wanna get sexed? you wanna get tied up?

get your rodeo ride up; baby girl, lift them thighs up

i think you better wise up,' cause i'm about to rise up

—-

With a kiss to your left knee, he sat back on his knees, caging your spread-out thighs between his pale, muscled ones. Your legs were brought up to rest on his shoulders as he demanded you to hold them right there.

Soft swishing was heard as he discarded himself of his shihakusho.

Finally, he sunk that fat cockhead inside your waiting hole. Your thighs trembled as he instantly went deep. Already, you were out of breath and he hadn't even moved yet. The result of him edging you both beforehand.

Izuru just kept stealing your breath as he fucked you with slow, deep strokes; each one with more force behind it than the last. He bent his head and let his lips graze against your knees, gently kissing each one as he stirred your insides up.

“I-Izuru!” 

His name fell from your lips in broken whines, You couldn’t do anything but keep repeating it over and over again as he rocked into you, making the bed shake and headboard slam against the wall.

—-

your body, show me how you use it

we gone pop some champagne 

and listen to some music

and once we get our clothes off

wrap your legs around my shoulders

and it’s gone be just like i told ya

baby i’m gone work you over

and over, and over, and over again

so what you wanna do?

—- 

“Oooo,’Zuru!”

“Fuck yes, Y/N…oh my God…”

Izuru had shifted your positions now so that you were riding him cowgirl-style while he held your bound wrists behind your back. He made you bounce on his dick wildly, amusing him very much since he had all of the control right now.

“Tell me…tell me -s-shit! - tell me you want me to cum inside your pussy. Say it for me.”

“I want you to cum inside my pussy, baby! Please, ‘Zuru, I need you to fill me up so badly! I need you!”

He had already started cumming before you even got all the words out - the way your pussy gripped and clenched around him had him whining your name in that lovely, smooth baritone of his and spurting his thick, hot seed right up against your womb.

“Shit shit shit shit-FUuuuCK!

With a hand on the back of your neck and one last thrust that had you seeing multiple galaxies, he emptied his balls completely. Your exhausted body began to slump forward and Izuru caught you in his arms. He laid you against his chest and began to untie your bindings.

“You did so well, angel. So good and perfect for me, as always. My perfect Y/N.”

—-

now what you wanna do?

you wanna get high? you wanna get fired up?

what you wanna do?

you wanna get sexed? you wanna get tied up?

get your rodeo ride up; baby girl, lift them thighs up

i think you better wise up,' cause i'm about to rise up

—-

Izuru always made sure to give you the best aftercare whenever the two of you were experimenting with different kinks in the bedroom.

He made sure to clean you off really well, change you into a pair of comfortable pajamas, and make you some lavender tea to help you sleep. 

Your head rested on his chest now as the two of you snuggled beneath the covers.

“‘Zuzu…I really am so proud of you for everything that you’ve accomplished. You’re going to make a great Captain.”

The soft rise and fall of his chest was quickly lulling you to sleep, but you did hear his next statement.

“Thank you, sweetheart. I really appreciate that, but I don’t think I could be that great of a Captain if I don’t have a great Lieutenant by my side.”

“Why would you say something like-oh. OH.”

He just chuckled at your realization and kissed your neck.

“I love you so much, Y/N Kira.”

“I love you too, Captain Kira.”

—-

i’m gonna make it do what it do tonight

do what it do tonight

do what it do tonight

I’m gonna make it do what it do tonight

do what it do tonight

do what it do tonight

----

💗💗🍡°my fics: ©bleach-your-panties 2024. do NOT steal, copy, repost, alter, or upload my works onto other sites. comments appreciated. reblogs always welcome.

[meiideryz]

oh i'm looking for affection.

pairing: qian kun x reader

length: 1.07k words

synopsis: kun is just hopelessly in love with you.

tags: alternative universe, one-sided pining au, road trip, friend!kun, implied rejection, one-sided attraction, fluff

warnings: none.

the sound of the car engine is now blowing up kun's ears, completely remembering that he was at the backseat while ten was at the front, driving his car.

of course, he recalled losing in a bet with ten that resulted in lending his car to ten for the rest of the week. he wasn't afraid because of the thought of ten crashing his car, ten knew the consequences after all.

for ten's last day of borrowing kun's one and only car, he suggested that kun should come to the road trip together with their other friends. kun asked if you were coming the night before the day of the plan as you responded happily during your call with him.

on the day of the road trip, everybody packed their essentials and valuable stuff in their bags as kun placed each of the heavy objects inside the truck, keeping it neat and tidy. you and yangyang were obviously inside the car, playing with your phones to buy time while kun talked to ten outside, setting up the map and destination of the place you were all going.

kun sneaked a good amount of glances towards your direction through the tinted windows of the car, silently watching you scrolling through your phone feeling bored. then his eyes fixed back at ten, who kind of knew what was going on.

“oh? am i smelling love in the air?” a hint of tease displayed in his voice while he tried nudging the older’s elbow. kun was used to this, and he wasn't gonna show reaction and give in.

“i have no idea what you're talking about.”

“oh, come on.” he dramatically sighed, tired of kun trying to act like nothing's going on. ten could read him like an open book and there was no way he could escape him when he knew something.

eventually, both of them get inside the car. since yangyang was in the passenger's seat, he had no choice but to walk around and get in the backseat with you. it got a bit awkward when he was finally seated next to you, so he tried to lift up the mood, waving at you.

“hey.”

“you’re here!” you beamed, taking one of your earphones off.

kun was taken aback when you reached the other piece of the earphones to him, he was about to reject the offer but the bud was already in his ear as the sound of classical music burst into his ear.

kun knew that you knew about his love for classical music, remembering back in the day where he played a lot of pieces on the piano for his performance at some event during his time in university. but he loved playing tchaikovsky's swan lake to you when you were alone together, and that made you love classical music more.

“it's gonna be a long ride,” ten broke the silence before the engine of the car started. “so you might need to sleep for a while, me and kun will be looking out for possible stops for us to eat, ‘kay?”

“aye aye!”

the sky was soon painted into a gradient of blue-orange while the gleaming sun set into the horizon. kun couldn’t seem to sleep after taking a short nap, and he had been helping ten at their directions to get to a nearby stop where they could fill their stomachs.

just as he was about to lean forward to take the phone in his hands to check the GPS, he was halted by a thud and a heavy weight on his shoulder. turning his head to the side, he found your sleeping figure leaning on him. 

in the rearview, he could see the smirk of ten, following the sound of the never-ending teasing. kun tried his best to ignore him and his dumb words, but the words seemed to weigh over his mind. it's been a long time since he had feelings for you and he could still recall the night he took you to the rooftop of his apartment to look up at the stars. 

he recalled that night when he expressed his fondness over you. although you didn’t give him the answer he expected, he never stopped being friends with you. usually friendships last when one gets rejected by the other. to kun, it was dumb and stupid if he would be immature about the rejection, so he didn’t try to distance himself away from you. 

kun was still that caring friend whenever you got to be with him.

he looked at you with that same fondness in his eyes as you leaned more, thinking that he was a pillow. “after all these years, you’re still in love with the same person.” ten broke the silence again. his words were more of a whisper to prevent disrupting you and yangyang’s sleep.

“i can’t help it, how could i not like such a lovely and wonderful person?” kun admitted, his hands ghostly extending over yours, then immediately retracted.

when they realized that it was already dark and they could see a nearby stop to get down to, ten finally pulled over to slowly park the car along with the other parked cars. “wake up everyone, we’re here to stop by and eat dinner.” ten loudly began, his fingers reaching over to yangyang as he shook him by the shoulder. 

kun on the other hand, does his best in waking you up with his soft grip around your hands, gently shaking it. “hey, sleepyhead.” 

his voice filled your ears while you tried fluttering your eyes open. when you realized that you were inches away from his face from all the leaning, you shifted in your seat to fix your position. “oh god, i’m so sorry. was i squishing you?” only a laugh left kun’s lips before shaking his head. “no, but i think you mistook me for a pillow when you were sleeping.” 

he could already see hues of red and pink emerging from your cheeks, burning up at the words. your flushed face made him smile even more, “did i drool?” 

“don’t worry, you didn’t.” rest assured, a sigh left your lips in relief.  

“we stopped by to eat, you coming?” kun added, moving to the side to open the door of the car. he looked back, waiting for you before you set a smile on your face, moving towards him. “yeah, i'm coming.”

©MEIIDERYZ 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[m3l0v3trees]

Sorry if it's short! But busy weeks and weekends are holding me back so I hope you enjoy!<3

🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺

The morning sun, shines down through your one bedroom window. Sunshine beaming at your S/c face as you get up into a sitting position and rub your tired eyes to look at the window getting shine upon the morning sun.

You stretched your body and finally heard those satisfying pop of your bones. You took your towel and walked to your bathroom to shower. After drying up and brushing your teeth, you head to your wardrobe and take out a casual dress. It was a beautiful F/c gradient colour, it had no sleeves, and had a bow behind it. And for your shoes it's the same colour but they doll shoes. To be honest, this was your favourite dress.

You remember that you're supposed to meet your new friend bobby bearhug at the flower field. Excited to meet her again, you quickly got down the stairs and greeted your grandmother and started to eat your breakfast without getting choked on your food.

You quickly washed the dishes and began to get your basket ready. You put some snacks and drinks, books, and a picnic blanket. You began to walk to your door but before you left.

"Grandmother! I'm off to meet up with a friend!" You shouted.

"Alright! Be careful on your way there!" Your grandmother shouted back.

Without hesitation, you quickly ran through the woods to head to the flower field. Excited to meet up with your first ever friend you quickly run till you arrive at the flower field. You saw a red gradient colour and ran towards it knowing who it was.

"Bobby!" You shouted excitedly.

"Huh?" Bobby turned her gaze to you with excitement in her eyes.

You jump towards her and hugged her tightly. This caught the red bear surprise but she giggled and hugged you back.

"Excited much?" Bobby giggled.

"Maybe." You giggled.

You both laughed together enjoying eachothers company and presence. For a whole day, you both would read books, eat snacks, make flower crowns, sky watching, and playing tags with one another. By the time at sunset, you both nod farewell and went home.

This continued for months! Hanging out and having fun with one and another. Days filled with happiness. And days of telling your grandmother all the fun and happiness you had...

But, one rainy night...

Your grandmother fell ill...

Bad illness, you called every doctor in your village. But no luck, every doctors answers are still the same. You weren't ready to be alone without your grandmother. She was like your real mother. You stayed by your grandmother's side day and night. You already explain this to bobby and she understands. Grief is quite paining your heart of happiness.

"Grandmother... Please... Don't leave me!" You cried out. Tears flowing like waterfalls as you desperately plead your grandmother.

"Oh, shush... My little Y/N... Do not cry.. it pains my heart to leave you too.. but fate always leads to an end..." Your grandmother reassure you trying to calm you down. It pains her heart to leave you and seeing your tears flowing down your beautiful F/c eyes.

"Please... Don't leave me..." You cried.

"Oh, I want leave you, my Y/N... I'll always be by your side to protect you and watch over you... I'm so lucky to have you as my granddaughter... Your my little bundle of joy that I could ever ask for..." She reached out for your cheek and caressed it with her weak wirnkled hand.

"I have to join your grandfather now... And I'll tell you everything about you to your grandfather... Just remember I'll always love you on the bottom of my heart..." She smiled warmly as a small tear flow down from her beautiful brown eyes.

"I love you too... Please rest in peace... Grandmother..." You smiled.

With that... Your grandmother slowly passed away. You continue to cry on her bed feeling empty and broken. Your heart pained even more because of the grief you have carried and saved.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

After the burying your grandmother. You went to the flower field as tears continued to flow. You saw Bobby sitting under the tree. You didn't even bother wiping your tears away as you continue to walk forward to where bobby was.

Bobby turned to where you were walking. Upon seeing your crying sad face. She walked over to you. You couldn't hold it in anymore as you jump to her and hug her. She didn't seem bothered by it. She smiled and patted your back.

"Let it out..." She calmly said.

You did as she told you to. You broke down and cried more and more trying to let go of the pain in your heart.

"I miss her s-so much!" You cried as bobby's jacket began to get wet by your tears.

"I know It hurts... So let it out..." She reassured you. She slowly sat down with you on her arms crying.

"I'll be here... To stay with you."

🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈🌺🌈

Tags: @jelapos

[cycle-verse]

Two weeks later, Error adjusted his outfit before scooping up Pic, whom Stain had helped dress in a little suit. “Hi poof, are you excited?”

Pic looked up at him with a little nod.

Error grinned and kissed his son's head. “It’s not a lot today, but I get to marry your dad,”

Pic stayed quiet, resting his head against Error's chest.

Error rubbed his back.

“I'm gonna hand you to PJ now but you’ll see me soon,” Error gently handed his son to PJ.

In another room, Stain was currently adjusting his dad's bandages before pulling his coat on. “Ready?”

Ink nodded, "I am..."

Stain looped his arm through Inks and grinned

Ink smiled a bit. He was hyped up on painkillers but honestly didn't care.

Stain began to walk with his dad around the same time Gradient and Error were. There wasn’t much of a ceremony. Error had just wanted to do it as soon as they could because things weren’t safe and he wanted to go into the future with his husband.

Ink didn't mind either way, just excited to marry Error.

Error was as well and as soon as he saw Ink, he grinned wider

Ink smiled at him, rather excited, and it was a miracle he didn't decide to run over.

Error fidgeted with his hands and it was obvious he WOULD run over to ink if he could

Ink let Stain guide him over, knowing that he would probably get too excited if he didn't.

Gradient was leading Error too and the boys grinned at each other once they met up, handing Error and ink to each other.

Ink happily switched to hold Error's hands, very excited.

Error smiled at him. He listened faintly to whoever was marrying them, but he focused more on Ink.

Ink did, too, more focused on Error than anything else.

Soon, the I do’s came, and Error said it with speed.

Ink happily said it back, not even waiting for a cue.

Error pulled him into a kiss before pulling away and laughing as the children all echoed, ‘Ewww’

Ink chuckled a bit, tucking his head under Error's.

Error wrapped his arms around Ink.

”I love you,” Error whispered

"I love you too, Ruru," Ink was still smiling.

Error turned to face the kids. Cross was in the small crowd too, grinning at the couple.

”I’m going to let you two have your time, kids, inside!” Cross called.

Ink nodded, letting them go while he moved to squeeze Error in a hug.

Error took Ink's hand and led him just beyond the dome so they could have an uninterrupted view of the stars, just for a moment. He didn’t even see the portal that opened behind him.

Ink was content following Error and looking up with him. He was rather proud of the sky he'd made.

“Well, well, well. Look at the happy couple,” Malevolence hissed and Error turned, pulling Ink behind him

Ink was a little surprised, not expecting to see Malevolence, but also a little pissed.

“Oh calm yourselves. I’m not here to take another wing or your kid,” Malevolence huffed

"But you're still here for something-" Ink moved to stand next to Error. There was no way he'd just stay behind him.

Error still had an arm braced in front of Ink.

“Just your husband, since Nightmare has decided my play toys are now off limits,” Malevolence reached out and attempted to knock Ink out before reaching to wrap Error in his tentacles.

Ink wasn't exactly going to go down without a fight, however, and he didn't have a weapon, so he did the next best thing and summoned a gaster blaster.

Malevolence scowled and reached to attack Ink, leaving Error mostly unharmed although at some point he’d knocked Error out instead of Ink

Ink quickly fired his blaster at Malevolence before summoning another to set off too.

Malevolence dodged and dodged, getting a bit tired out but he wasn’t about to give in

Ink wasn't either, but he only had so much magic on hand, even for someone as strong as him

Malevolence took his time to keep attacking Ink, a tentacle wrapping around the unconscious Error in case he needed to just snatch him and run

And he might've, but that would leave a pissed Ink that would try to follow. Ink was, however, not really guarding his right side, or even paying attention to it.

Malevolence noticed that and attacked on his right side

Ink tried to guard it, but easily failed, and was knocked out pretty easily.

Malevolence grinned and scooped up Error before opening a portal back home, ignoring Ink's body behind him and the scream from Stain, who’d peaked out the door to check on his dads just to see this

~~~

By the time Ink would have woken up, was on the couch. Stain was panicking and yelling somewhere else while PJ sat beside Ink, curled around Pic.

Ink quickly sat up and looked around, trying to figure out if it was just a nightmare that Error had been taken.

“Cross is sending us to live with Uncle Geno…”

PJ whispered, “Stains pissed… papas gone and we aren’t even being allowed to do anything,”

Ink quickly buried his face in his hands, then pulled them away after a minute, "I need to save Ruru-"

“I knew you’d say that… Cross says he’s not letting you go until you’re healed more.” PJ sounded robotic, broken.

"PJ, I can't just leave him-" Ink stood up.

“I know but what help are you to Papa if you’re still really hurt… I don’t want to lose both my parents in one day!”

"I'm barely injured-" Ink seemed distressed, for obvious reasons.

“You lost your wing two weeks ago and you’re still not healed from that,”

"But still- I don't need my wing-"

“But you need just a bit more… I want to save Papa too but not at risk of you… I don’t want to be alone again,”

"PJ, please-"

“Dad. You have nine kids who need you right now… please… at least stay to see us off,” PJ whimpered

Ink took a breath and a moment to rub at his face then nodded, "Alright..."

PJ was crying softly. This was a lot on them, they were the third oldest, and with Stain pissed, and Gradient packing, they’d been left in charge of their six younger siblings.

Ink moved to pull PJ close, "I'm sorry..."

PJ buried their head against his shoulder, “I don’t wanna lose you too! We’re already being made to leave and I don’t wanna lose you!”

"I know, baby, I know..."

PJ just continued to cry as Cross came down the stairs and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Cross whispered

Ink looked up at him, quietly rocking back and forth with PJ.

“I wish I could have gotten there on time… I’m… I'm coming up with a plan right now but when Error got taken, the dome fell… Geno’s is safer for the kids right now.”

Ink nodded, "I understand..."

“I swear, I will get Error back here,”

Ink nodded, still holding PJ, "I trust you..."

Cross nodded and sighed.

“PJ…” Cross whispered and PJ just shook their head

"If you need to go, baby... it's ok..."

“I don’t wanna leave you,” PJ whispered. “We aren’t leaving until tomorrow, but you need to pack,”

"Go pack, baby... I'll still be here..."

PJ softly nodded and got up, slowly trudging upstairs. Cross sighed and wiped away a few tears that had been constantly falling for a while now.

Ink let them go before quietly looking at the ground.

“I’m so sorry Ink, I should have been there… should have stopped him,” logically Cross couldn’t have been. He’d done amazing, taking control and getting the kids somewhere safe so they could go after Error without risking the kid's safety.

"You took care of the kids for us... that's all you needed to do..."

“But he’s my friend, you’re my friend, I should have saved him,”

"Cross..."

Cross put a hand over his mouth to keep from crying. “I told the council,”

"You did...? What did they say...?"

“I gave them cold damn proof of what Malevolence did but they need fucking witnesses before they’ll do shit… that shit includes a search party for Error,”

"A search party won't save him..."

“Their exact words over the phone were ‘a warned search party sent into suspicious territory’ which essentially would be them telling Malevolence they’re going and then searching his house… it’s all they’ll offer,”

"Which won't save Error... they're only trying to avoid it because Malevolence would kill them..."

“And by the rules, they have to do something so they’ll do the bare minimum,” Cross agreed

"Exactly..."

Cross sighed. “And the only protection the kids have is staying there so I’m taking matters into my own hands… once the kids are safe at Geno’s, I don’t care what you do as long as you stay safe,”

"I'll try, but... I want to get Error back."

“And I understand… just wait till tomorrow… except maybe not near the house since apparently, someone refused to leave claiming he’s old enough!”

“Cause I am!” Stain yelled down the stairs.

"You're 16, Stain, go with Geno."

“No,” Stain shook his head.

“He’s been like this since the Council made a dumb comment about Gradient taking Errors place on the council temporarily,” Cross whispered

"How about neither of them will do that because they're only 16."

Cross sighed, “For now we’ve denied that but you’re his dad and the only one who technically can tell the council no… but I’m just worried about everything because we know how they get.”

"What, do they need a handwritten note?"

“No clue… they’ve literally just fucking teleported people there for meetings before,”

Ink sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, "Miraculous that they can't just teleport Error out then."

“They give us the same bullshit every time,” he grumbled. “I just think they don’t care enough about Error,”

"They really don't, and that upsets me."

He nodded softly and sighed. “If you go after error. I won’t stop you… just try to come back for these kids. I can’t protect them from the council. Geno can try but if they make the boys take your place, all I can do is sit beside them during meetings…”

"I can try, but no promises, though I can go yell at the council to not make or let Stain and Gradient join."

“You can try but we both know they don’t listen,” he sighed and looked up to see Moku at the staircase. “Hi buddy,”

"I know they don't."

“We can’t find Scar… and usually Papa plays hide and seek to find her,” Moku whispered and Cross cursed

Ink moved to get up, "I can try to find her."

“Are you sure?” Cross asked

Ink nodded, heading upstairs.

Like always, Scarlet was hiding somewhere in her room.

Ink went up to her room, "Scarlet?"

There usually would be a little giggle in response but today there was just a tiny sniffle from under the bed.

Ink moved to get down on the floor to look for her, "Baby...?"

“Daddy,” Scarlet whispered, hiccuping. “tell Uncle Cross no. I don’t wanna go,”

"I'm sorry, baby, but you have to."

Scarlet whined a bit. “But there’s no stars at Uncle Geno’s.”

"I know, but it's only for a bit, baby."

“But…” Scarlet crawled back out from under the bed

"I know, I know, but it's for your safety..."

“But this is home… that’s not home, it’s uncle Geno’s home.’

"I know, but it's safer at Uncle Geno's."

“But…” Scarlet just hugged him.

Ink wrapped his arms around her, gently rubbing her back.

“We’ll come back right?”

"Of course..."

Scarlet nodded softly. “Gray packed my bag…”

"That's ok..."

Scarlet sighed and looked around as if checking that Gradient got everything

Ink let her, not minding that she did.

Scarlet moved when she spotted one thing he’d forgotten and held it up to show him. It was a puppet of Error that Error had made, “Here… cause you miss papa too,”

Ink very carefully took it, "Oh... thank you, baby..."

Scarlet nodded and gulped “I miss him too but I'm sure Moku can let me hug his plushie papa. You don’t have one,”

"I know, but it's your puppet. You keep it, baby."

“Are you sure?”

"I'm sure, baby. Don't worry."

[cassimothwin]

How to add Gradient Backgrounds on Itch.io Pages

I recently figured out how to jazz up my Itch game pages with CSS, and I figured I’d share. This is a pretty simple process, but it did take some tweaking for me to figure out exactly how to get it the way I wanted. I hope this helps make the process easier for others!

1. Email Itch Support

To unlock CSS editing on your account, Itch has to do something on the backend. Go ahead and email them and request CSS permissions be unlocked on your account. You can find more information about how to request access on the bottom of this page.

This isn’t a big deal. Just email them and say you want to add some gradient backgrounds to your game pages. They just want to make sure you aren’t going to make your pages completely chaotic. It can take several weeks for permission to come through. I think it took them about three weeks to unlock CSS on my account.

2. Upload any background images you want

Navigate to the game page you want to edit. On the game page, select “Edit theme” in the header.

In the left bar that pops up, scroll down to background. Here’s where you’ll upload your background image. If you want your gradient to show through, the image needs to be a transparent png.

3. Get the image URL (I’m using Google Chrome)

Once we edit the background with CSS, it will override what you’ve uploaded to the editor. So let’s find your image URL, so you can add it on top of the gradient. Scroll to the bottom of the editor and click save so that your background image shows up.

You’ll see a menu with a lot of code. What we’re looking for here is the URL of the image you just uploaded. To find it, go to the styles tab and scroll to the #wrapper section.

Within the wrapper section, you’ll see the URL of the image you just uploaded. Go ahead and copy and paste that somewhere for later.

4. Build your gradient

I have little to no experience with CSS, but this site makes it easy to create a gradient that matches your aesthetic: https://cssgradient.io/

Once you like the gradient preview, grab the code this tool produces by clicking “Copy to Clipboard.”

5. Build your code

This section of the Itch page is inside the wrapper, so that’s where we’ll tell Itch to put it with #wrapper. We’ll also create a fallback in case someone is using an outdated browser or equipment and the gradient won’t work.

Whatever color you choose, put your color code where I have: #fedcfd.

#wrapper { background: (#fedcfd);

Next, let’s add our image URL so that it’s always there, even if something goes wrong. You found this in step 3.

#wrapper { background: (#fedcfd); background-image: url(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEwNDg4OTQxLnBuZw==/original/VIWm9w.png);

Great. We’ve created our fallback. Now for the fun part! Let’s put a gradient behind our image. We’ll first add /* fallback */ as a note to our future selves that the previous code is there for if things go wrong.

Next, we’ll add our background image URL again, followed by some of the code we copied from the gradient site generator. You’ll only need “linear-gradient” and everything after that. It should look like this:

linear-gradient(9deg, rgba(227,199,226,1) 0%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 33%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 45%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 53%, rgba(0,212,255,1) 100%);

So here is what the complete code looks like:

#wrapper { background: (#fedcfd); background-image: url(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEwNDg4OTQxLnBuZw==/original/VIWm9w.png); /* fallback */ background-image: url(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEwNDg4OTQxLnBuZw==/original/VIWm9w.png), linear-gradient(9deg, rgba(227,199,226,1) 0%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 33%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 45%, rgba(254,220,253,1) 53%, rgba(0,212,255,1) 100%); background-repeat: no-repeat;background-position: 50% 0; }

And here’s a blank template:

#wrapper { background: (#hex code); background-image: url(URL); /* fallback */ background-image: url(URL), linear-gradient( XXX ); background-repeat: no-repeat;background-position: 50% 0; }

You may want to play with the background repeating and positioning. I just google around, plugging in CSS code until items look the way I want. It’s very professional.

If you found this post useful, please consider checking out my games or sign up for my mailing list and check out The Sticker Game, my single player audio drama journaling game, that releases Nov. 30, 2022!

[clowndotgay]

if you dont mind me asking, how do you do the card renders?

so i'm not 100% sure how to answer this because its kinda vague - i'm not sure if you're asking about the card (image editing) part or the rendering process! if you want to know about the process of getting the characters and areas into blender, i've written a few posts about that already - they're under the "toontown models" tag on my blog, so they shouldn't be too difficult to find. RAMBLING ABOUT IMAGE EDITING BELOW THE CUT EXCLAMATION MARK EMOJI! THIS ISN'T A TUTORIAL IT'S JUST ME TALKING!!!! (only slightly related, but i'm putting it above the cut so more people might see it - i wrote some mock pokemon cards for managers a bit ago but i don't want to make them full images, would anyone be interested in me just posting those as text?)

the actual image editing part i do in photoshop! it's kind of a bad program but my usual art program dies when i try to do what i do for cards because it kinda struggles with text. i've started doing the text in-render for the cards recently, though, because it's kind of a blast?

it's probably obvious to anyone who's looked at them hard before, but my mock cards use the Series 1 Cog cards as a base (the official Disney ones)

they've just got a sort of weirdly unhinged vibe to them, they're so far off of the cogs representation in-game and kinda gives a look at (imo) how the cogs were originally imagined, as I feel that some of the card art is closer to original concept art (or probably is concept art) than it is close to in-game character appearances. man, Cold Callers card doesn't even look like the same guy! he's lanky here!

and i mean, kinda obvious, but i can't get the same level of craziness these cards are on with renders, but i can try. so i do! it's fun!

i don't know if anyone has really noticed it, but for the last handful of cards i've been opting for colouring the border of the card dependent on the department of the cog. green for cashbot, pink for sellbot, etc. here's a test i did of it a couple weeks back when i was playing around with the idea in my head (the renders were randomly chosen):

(the boardbot colour is kinda subtle - but that's just how it is in-game, exe bd skelecogs are super close to exe lb skelecogs, but maybe that's just my eyes)

the actual "process" of putting the card together once i've done the render is kinda just plopping the render into the .psd and telling photoshop what department the cog is (for the border colour) & then i'm done. the file is super simple, it's just a series 1 card but i edited everything out other than the border, bunch of layers connected to the border that give it the department colours, layer of a kinda-crappy filter i slap on to try and give it the same "feel" the card scans have, layer for the text (optional now that i do it in-render), layer with the render.

there's some extra fun stuff i try and do with effects in the renders, but i'm kinda new to messing around with blender stuff like that, so i try and hold it to a minimum. as an example, the CFO render is kinda hue-shifted so i could get the colours closer to what i was basing the lighting of the render off of! to use a better example of silly effects i used for a card, i'm gonna talk about this high roller card:

dude this thing took forever because i wanted to do Everything in-render (would've taken way less time if i wasn't stubborn). it's a bunch of layers and gradients and shine. i'm kind of tipping my hand here, but there's straight up just a blindingly bright cube in their hands that's making the shine, and then i kinda just. told blender to add a lens flare. and it did. i had to simulate rain for that one misty render and that was a time. y'know. i actually have to finish up a commission where there's blinding light emitting from something and it's really really good and probably one of the best renders i have done and it is 99% thanks to the commissioner because the ask is So Good.

anyways that's kind of all i wanted to say. i hope this answered your question? maybe? was your question just "what do you make them in?" if so, it's blender and photoshop. sorry for making you read a text wall instead. at the risk of sounding too silly, i really like speaking about the things that i do, but i feel weird talking about them unprompted? so i took this as being prompted and talked.

[dripping-chaospart2]

Uhhh idk what to put here but this is rhe Miles/Reader thing but it's done

Miles Morales x Male! Reader

[♡]

The stars and moon lit up the peaceful night sky that loomed over the city of Brooklyn, casting a somber feeling over the people who were still out-and-about. Miles appreciated the beautiful gradient of the sky - the serene blur of colors slightly calmed his heightened senses as he swung through the city on his patrol.

Tons of jumbled thoughts were playing in his brain as he gracefully landed on a building's rooftop. Miles took a moment to take a deep breath and closed his eyes. The weight of the  responsibilities and losses that came with being spider-man rested heavily on his shoulders.

He shook the negative thoughts from his head and looked down, his sight landing on the park, which was illuminated by the moon. Only one person was even at the park tonight. Miles could hear the distant sounds of laughter and traffic, and sometimes the wails of sirens. All of the noise mixed together as he surveyed the city of vibrant chaos below him. Vibrant Chaos. That was one way to describe Brooklyn.

Miles shifted his focus back onto his patrol, his gaze trailing away from the dimly lit park, observing everything from the top of the building as a feeling he'd been repressing tugged softly at his heart.

M/n kept his eyes glued to the grass in the park. The only clue of emotion in his face was the way his eyes reflected the feelings of grief and weariness. His shoulders were slumped as he walked aimlessly through the park, his body cloaked in the gaze of the softly buzzing streetlights. M/n heaved a heavy sigh and fixed the red scarf that was around his neck. Every step he took in the grass left an imprint of the soles of his scuffed sneakers and the heavy feeling of his recent loss.

M/n tuned out the distant hum of the city as he finally stopped walking. He sat down on a bench with an exasperated sigh, leaning back to look up at the night sky. His thoughts stopped for a moment, then as if he had a voicemail box in his head, the sound of Alex's voice echoed in his ears.

"One day, I'll be up there with momma. We'll both be stars, looking over everyone!"

M/n inhaled sharply as he remembered the conversation he'd had with his little brother. Gods, how he'd wished that conversation had never happened. He closed his eyes tightly as the bittersweet memory replayed in his mind.

"Doesn't the night sky look beautiful tonight, Alex?" M/n asked his little brother, pointing up at the shining stars as they took their nightly walk in the park.

"So pretty!" He said in response, one of his hands clutching onto his red scarf. "Just like momma."

M/n looked down at his little brother and offered him a sad smile.

"Yeah, just like momma. You remember what she told us, Alex?"

Alex stopped walking and turned to face his older brother, his eyes shining with understanding and comfort.

"Course I do, M/n!" He said confidently, then recited their mother's exact words: "If you boys ever miss me, remember I'll be up there with the stars, looking down at you."

"Yeah." M/n held back a tear and picked Alex up, moving to a small hill in the park so they'd have a better view of the stars. "She's up there, looking after us."

"I miss her," Alex said softly. "One day, I'll be up there with momma. We'll both be stars, looking over everyone!"

"Oh, Alex." M/n's smile fell, and he held him closer. "That day is very, very far from now. I miss her too. I want you to remember that I'll always be here for you. Just like how momma was."

Gods, the irony of what he'd told his little brother that night. That was the last thing Alex ever heard him say. The last conversation he'd had with him. This was two weeks ago. That night, right after that conversation, Alex had jumped out of M/n's arms and ran straight into the street to chase a kitten he'd seen.

M/n had been too slow to catch him before the car sped through.

M/n was suddenly pulled from the aching memory when a soft whoosh and a quiet thump reached his ears. He whipped his head around to look in the direction that the sounds came from, and he was met with a Spider-Man mask.

"...are you alright?" The person wearing the mask spoke gently, his voice soft and laced with genuine concern.

That voice sounded so familiar.

Surprised, M/n sat up straight and wiped the tears that had been bubbling up in the corners of his eyes, forcing a confused smile. They locked eyes, and for a moment, it seemed like the world went silent. It was odd. After a minute or two, Miles coughed awkwardly and made his way around the bench to sit on the other side of it.

M/n exhaled and looked away, his thumbs subconsciously messing with the fabric of his scarf.

"..I'm gonna take that as a 'no,' then." Miles said, trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit.

M/n nodded wordlessly, biting the inside of his cheek.

Continuing on in his attempt to console M/n, Miles asked quietly, "You've been going through something?"

"Two weeks," M/n mumbled, "yeah. I've been going through something."

Miles didn't say anything for a few seconds to make sure there wasn't anything else M/n wanted to say.

M/n inhaled and held it for five seconds before exhaling slowly. He looked back at Miles and continued talking.

"I'm sure our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man isn't interested in listening to my problems," He joked with a slight seriousness in his voice, "but... I, uhm.. I lost someone. Someone really, really close to me."

Miles heart ached at how M/n spoke, instinctively placing a hand over one of his before speaking again.

"If I wasn't interested, I wouldn't have asked." Miles replied firmly but gently. "...I've been there before. It.. it's tough, but- but you're not alone."

M/n's e/c eyes widened, and he glanced at Miles' hand, which was holding his comfortingly. He looked back up and tilted his head, very taken aback. Miles looked down at his hand and realized what he did, pulling his hand away with an embarrassed chuckle.

"Ah, sorry about that -"

This pulled a soft laugh from M/n. He cracked a small smile and covered his mouth, shaking his head. The awkwardness that Miles expressed from trying to comfort him reminded M/n so much of Alex.

"Alex used to do that same thing." He said, looking down with that same sad smile on his face.

Alright, we're getting somewhere. Miles thought, cracking a hidden smile of his own at the thought of him being able to make M/n feel a little better.

"Alex?" Miles asked, his voice still soft.

"Yeah." M/n nodded, "Alex. He was my little brother. He was such a little goofball.."

Hearing M/n use words in past tense, Miles began piecing things together. He inhaled quietly before asking his question.

"Is he the one you lost?"

Miles' question lingered in the cool night air. Silence once again drifted into the atmosphere, and M/n shifted a bit. Miles winced a little, fearing that by asking that he'd made M/n uncomfortable.

"Mhm.." M/n confirmed, his head tilting back up so he could take a weary glance at the sky. "Two weeks ago. Right here at the park... Gods, the feeling... it's horribly overwhelming.."

The shakiness in his voice tugged at Miles' heart. Once again, he instinctively reached to gently grab his hand.

"I know how that feels." Miles said, looking up at the sky with him. "Losing someone so close to you. It's horrible, and it makes you feel like you're trapped in a void.... But you're not. Sometimes it helps if you talk to someone about how you're feeling... And, hey, someone is right here. someone who is willing to listen to you."

He noticed M/n's shoulders relaxed slightly. Miles could sense that he was calming down, even if it was just a bit.

"Thanks.." M/n said in a soft whisper. "I didn't think Spider-Man was a therapist. You're kind of like Alex."

Miles shook his head and scoffed playfully.

"Think of me more like a friend instead of a therapist." Miles said, a kind seriousness in his voice. "I've been stuck in the same place you are... do you want to tell me anything else about your little brother?"

"Oh gods, where would I even start?" He joked softly, "Alex loved music. He always played me Disney songs on his acoustic guitar.. Jeez, he meant the world to me.. we had a really strong bond... yanno?"

Miles' thoughts drifted to his uncle before he nodded in understanding, "I lost my uncle, Ben. He meant the world to me, too. He and I had a kind of bond, like you and Alex did.."

A bittersweet type of silence fell between the two boys as the words of their losses lingered in the air.

"It's hard, isn't it?" M/n asked, mostly to himself. "To go about every day without him. It's like... something is missing.. I.. I'm not sure how to move on..."

Miles gave M/n's hand a gentle squeeze.

"It is hard. There's absolutely no way to deny that. But... we still have them in our memories, right?" Miles said softly, running his gloved thumb over M/n's knuckles.

M/n's eyes began watering, tears welling up. They didn't dare to fall down his face. His eyes were glazed over with sorrow, but Miles could tell that there was a hint of comfort there. In an attempt to get rid of his unshed tears, he laughed. M/n gave Miles' hand a gentle squeeze in return, a goofy but still sad smile making its way to his face.

"Gods..." He said, looking up at Miles, still laughing a little. "I wish I knew who you were, Spider-Man.. I need friends like you."

Miles laughed with him, shaking his head. "Well, I've got a friend who's like me. I could give you his number if you want?"

"Sounds nice." M/n nodded, looking back up at the sky. "...Im glad you swung down here."

Miles hummed and pulled his hand away from M/n's, smiling awkwardly behind his mask. "I, uh, don't have a piece of paper to write his number down..."

"Oh! You can just put it on my phone." M/n said with a soft smile, taking his phone out and handing it to him. "..My name's M/n. Make sure to tell your friend that, yeah?"

Miles nodded and began typing his phone number into M/n's contacts, "I'll tell him, don't worry."

Miles handed him the phone back and stood up, getting ready to shoot a web up to a building to swing his way back home. M/n stood abruptly, placing his hand on Miles' shoulder, stopping him.

"Hey!-" He mumbled, "... thank you. Again. I feel a lot better.."

Miles shook his head and saluted him, "It's no biggie. See you later, N/n."

M/n watched as he swung up to a building, smiling to himself.

"Later, Spider-Man." He said to himself, looking up at the night sky once more. "G'night, Alex. G'night, momma."

M/n listened to the sounds of Brooklyn as he made his way back home, letting his dad know he'd be home soon and that he was okay. 

[k00283712]

Project 03 - growth

So over the last week I wanted to do something involving animation. I was inspired by the stop motion workshop to do a stop motion with the teddy bears & then i thought to explore different types of animation too.

Here was my finalised storyboard/plan of everything that I wanted to include in it however I did remove some parts after starting the process.

The first part of the animation I planned to do a rotoscope with @k00283533 as the model. To make the background work easier I thought to keep it green and then green screen the background later, however if I were to do this again I would not do that bc it was tedious af and provided a much lower quality result

I first converted the video of nikola into a gif, imported it to procreate and started my rotoscope process. This was the first time I ever did something like.. animation-y so it was pretty exciting. The experience made me realise just how rough animators have it because it took so incredibly long to finish one scene of her walking that I decided to scrap the second part I had planned.

An obstacle I had was exporting it as a gif, though I exported my animation with max resolution it was still at a much lower quality than when I played it in the app. I tried different ways to keep the quality at least somewhat satisfactory but I couldn't find anything online to fix the problem. I concluded that it was just gif files doing their thing, so to combat this I ended up just screen recording the animation as I played it in the app (and... it worked) (surprisingly)

This is the lower quality gif export version of the rotoscope part

At this point I realised I made a huge mistake by putting green as the background, I used the app VN Editor & it's chromakey function to remove the green but with the low quality gif it just did not work as I wanted it to. I had no way to remove the background HOWEVER thankfully when I screen recorded it the chroma key worked at least somewhat better than before, and I managed to adjust the spill to take out as much green as possible

I then did my background & took my print from before into the animation & 'digitised' it to make it more cohesive with the entire thing but I didn't really know how to adjust the lighting/filters to make all the separate parts fit. I explored filters, graphs and gradient maps but since it was my first time doing it I definitely struggled, I feel like if I did more animation projects in the future I would get more experience but overall I did have fun trying this out!

For the next part of this animation I will be doing a stop motion to showcase the teddy bear living through the stages of growth in a young child, which I'm looking forward too since its my first time doing this type of stop motion (as the only experience I had was with sand in the stop motion workshop!)

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

A Dazzling Screen

For some reason I've realized all the FFF prompts I've written for end up being whatever I've rabbit-holed that week. That trend continues today. @flashfictionfridayofficial

Most of the Theoretical Ritualists Joseph was studying with hated that they had to take a class on not just practical rituals, but fully constructed ones. Personally, Joseph was glad for it. Not only did it mean he had some time where he wasn't allowed to beat his head against the wall of not understanding the fundamental rules of reality, but it also helped him see how the ways different materials took to glyphs and lines explained the theoretical glyphs people used.

When he mentioned that to his advisor, Joseph was glad that she agreed.

"I'm glad you got there on your own," she said, "most students take a fair amount of prodding to understand why you need to understand Concrete Rituals in order to truly learn Theoretical Ritualism. Now, what are you really here for?"

"I have an idea for a project," he said, "and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't too far out there."

She gestured for him to continue, so he did.

"My idea starts from two Concrete facts. First: mis-lain channels for Lightning can have small arcing. Second: when you have a rapid set of lightning bolts you end up with a tone."

"I think I can see where you're going, but continue."

"I plan to use these two facts together to make an instrument. Each note on a keyboard would be associated with a specific alternating Mana rate through the system. In theory, you should be able to tune it to produce actual music."

"How would you ensure that you don't end up frying your circuits, as is common in the Lightning arcs?" Joseph hadn't seen his advisor this excited about a project for ages, so he felt like he was on the right track. Thankully he had an answer.

"I thought about that for a while. If I have an alternating Lightning generator and a general Mana sink, the Lightning should preferentially follow a path to it. Then it's just a matter of tuning each an alternating generator to each frequency I need for a keyboard, and there are no circuits to burn." Joseph knew he was rambling a bit, but it was such an exciting project for him.

"How far have you gotten on the construction?" His advisor looked interested, but the question reminded Joseph of the rules that he was absolutely breaking.

"University policy states that I'm not to build any intentionally ungrounded Lightning circuits without explicit approval from the Dean or my advisor," he recited.

"For the purposes of this conversation, say that I gave you that permission at the start of the term. How far have you gotten?"

"Let me show you." Jeb opened his storage, noting again that he would need to get the engravings refreshed soon. They'd function for a while longer, but the efficiency would keep getting worse until he did.

"It's not totally in tune, but-" he was cut off by his advisor pressing a key.

Lightning arced across the tablet he'd bound to hover slightly above and behind the keyboard. A harsh but recognizable tone came out.

"What about chords?" she asked as she played a simple melody.

"I'd considered that. There were ways to modulate the circuits so that I wouldn't have to hard-build each note, but those all ended up monophonic. I wanted to be able to play-" the sounds grew louder as his advisor found the intensity knob and started playing a piece.

.

"This should be fine for your final project," she said, acting as though she hadn't spent the past ten minutes playing different songs on the keyboard. "What else will you add, though, since you have time?"

That was fair, he did have another few weeks until it was due.

"I was thinking that I'd add different colors for the different notes, but I'm not sure how. There's the part of me that wants to do similar colors for notes that share harmonics, or maybe just a gradient with pitch but-" thankfully she interrupted him before he went too far off topic.

"I knew that having you take that music theory class would come back to haunt me," she said with a wink. "I think a pitch gradient would serve you better than anything else, given that most of your class won't know too much tuning theory."

.

It was finally the day to demonstrate their final projects. His classmates actually studying Concrete Rituals mostly came with solid state constructions that were marginally more efficient than some predecessor. His other Theoretical classmates had mostly made aleatoric pieces, where different random events caused lights or flames to erupt.

"Joseph, if you would show yours?" he realized belatedly that he'd never talked to the instructor about the project.

Joseph unveiled the keyboard. It wasn't too impressive, looking as it did like a scripted keyboard and music stand. All the extra effort he'd put in to carve black runes on black slate felt worth it when he played the first note and red lightning shot across the tablet.

He went through the entire piece he'd practiced, showcasing the full range of the instrument. Lightning of all colors flashed across the screen as he did, and his classmates were transfixed.

Once he gave his demonstration, Joseph went through the schematic for the instrument.

"What's the point?" the instructor prompted. None of the other Theoretical students had been asked that.

"It makes music and light at the same time." Truthfully Joseph didn't know how to answer that question. Quite frankly, there wasn't a point to the project other than the project itself.

"That it does, and by the same effect no less. Good effort." That was a relief.

[lucienh]

Week 12 + Final Assignment + Reflection - 26 May

Welcome to may final Design Fundamentals workbook post. This post will cover; This weeks work in class, my final assignment and a reflection of this course.

Starting off with what we did this week. We started off by discussing the difference between using CMYK and RGB, and how CMYK is for printing or just always use it. and how when you export a file as a JPEG that it will automaticly switch to RGB.

Then we went over PDFs, how they work and the different types. A PDF is an object file and can contain images and data. The full structure of your work gets exported with the pdf, like the working model of the project. Rather than being flattened like other exporting formats. There is a PDF (print) that uses CMYK, you can impede fonts and type data in it + it is scaleable. Then there is an Interactive PDF, this is more used for web and desktops only. And it can contain buttons that open links and interactive options, but these won't work on iPads etc. Below are my notes.

Next we did a task that involved our children's books, and since mine wasn't fully finished I did it with other files. We took our files (book cover and spreads) and put them into these templates.

Then clicking on the layers for each page which are smart object layers we were able to put our spreads /files into them.

Since my book was not ready I used these photos of work I have already done in photoshop for this class. And I used the same photo for the cover template. I found this quite interesting how it warps your files it fit in, and includes the shadows of the page.

and here are the rest of my notes from class. after this we started to wright our reflections, but before I share that I am going to share my children book.

For my book I ended up going with the Christmas songs theme.

Firstly we have my cover. I used a gradient for the background with winter colours and made these snow flakes in Illustrator. If I re did this I would like to make the cover have a bit more on it, but I still like to it. It has a classy vibe with the border and snowflakes + thew simplicity. But the text gives it a more for kids look. (I don't know why but in my head this book belongs to some fancy children)

Then we have my end papers. I carried the motif of the snow flakes into the book. I made the pattern in Illustrator then imported it into in design.

Here we have my first spread that includes the contents page and first song. Once again I made the snow flakes in illustrator to continue the winter motif. I also used parent pages for the margins (which I got a bit confused on) and the page numbers, which I am now realising there should not be onion the contents page. I also had a bit of trouble making two parent pages one for the white numbers and one for the black numbers, it kept showing both of them at once and not showing the correct number, so I left it as all black numbers, which in this spread does not look the best. But is something for me to work on and play with.

here is my next spread, The presents, background and reindeer are all clip art, that I had to put into photoshop to use the auto selection tool to get rid of there backgrounds. As even with transparent background the images still placed with them in ID. obviously if making a real book to publish I would use my own illustrations for ewe everything and or free commercial use images, but for this, I did not.

This is the next spread. I made the snowman in Illustrator, and the background is once again clip art. So you could see the text better I gave it a drop shadow, but looking back it could be clearer to read if bigger and more of a shadow behind the text. Once again the winter theme continues.

This is my final spread, the red and white tie back into the first song page of Jingle Bells. Once again I used for the text on the right a drop shadow so it is easier to read. and again the images are from the internet, but I probably could have made my own. I do really like the way the two pages contrast each other yet sit so nicely together with there colour pallets being the same.

And here finally is my back cover. it is the same design as the front, including my illustrated snow flakes. Once again looking back on it, it definitely could have more going on in it to make it more interesting and appealing to readers.

And that is my children's book, deferentially things to work on, but overall I am happy with it. And now on to the reflection.

Questions I used:

How did others help me? What was useful? 7

What are the project / exercise’s strengths and weaknesses? 5

What did you enjoy most about this project/process and why? 2

Who/what influenced your process and how? 6

What problems did you encounter? 4

How did you solve these problems? 3

What did you know about this process before you started? 1

Before taking this course there was some software that I had never used and others that I had. For Adobe Illustrator I think I had used it once at highschool and found it very confusing. We were taught to use it with online videos and this method did not work well for me. The pen tool was so confusing and I just did not understand the purpose of it and how to use it. But through the course I have learnt a lot about AI. I now know what you use it for, what vectors are, why shortcuts are so good and how to confidently use the pen tool. I have really enjoyed making characters with the pen tool, like the penguin  in week 3 and my cow and dinosaur in week 7-8. Then there is photoshop. I have had experience using photoshop in the past for my yr 13 photography board and playing with it. Back then I think I thought I knew quite a lot but now looking back I had only just touched the surface of what photoshop has to offer. I was using tools for things they were not made for and making editing photos so much more difficult for myself than they needed to be. But now I feel like I know sooo much more. I feel I understand how to use all of the adjustment tools so much better, and what they do. And how to use masks and bring photos together to make something new. Lastly is In Design. Now this I had never used before this class. I had no understanding of what it was. And now my eyes have been opened to the world of typography, book making and how you can bring all your work from PS and AI together in ID. I still have a lot to learn with ID but this class has made me excited to learn more.

For our Design Fundamental projects and exercise I think what I enjoyed most was being able to take creative liberty in our tasks, and explore being creative in forms I have never tried before. Like transforming photos in photoshop into new things, making characters in illustrator and bringing it all together in In design. I also have really enjoyed making this tumblr blog as a workbook. I have never done anything like this before but it has been a really good process. It has helped me remember what we did in class better and also been somewhat of a creative outlet I guess. 

Problems I faced during this course typically were me not remembering how to exactly do something we had done in class. Then getting flustered about it, but then I would come to my senses and look back through my notes or moodle to figure it out, or ask a friend or Toby. Another problem I encountered was  being sick towards the end of the course, which came at a bad time as it made it difficult to get my kids book done. But I found that keeping in contact with my teachers helped and trying to follow along on moodle, and once again asking a friend to go over something with me. Other than that I did not have many other problems to solve, other than one time I accidentally deleted my whole tumblr post and had to redo it.  

I found that my strengths when doing projects included coming up with ideas quickly and being creative. I found that easy when we were making the kids books, characters and photoshop compositing.  But what I struggled with was definitely my time management. I have been trying to stay on top of it and it is always something that I am working on. Like making lists and schedules for myself, but I do sometimes tend to get distracted easily and or procrastinate. I also put too much on my plate sometimes and over estimate the amount of time I have to get it done. This is something I want to work a lot more on this year so it can become one of my strengths. 

Things and people that influenced me when doing projects in this course tended to be people around me and my current interest. For example, this sounds a bit silly but, for my kids book I was influenced by my current favourite song “I don’t know what Christmas is but Christmas time is here” from the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special. And this is why did a Christmas themed book as I love the book and I think that it’s funny. Then for characters and things we were using photoshop for illustrator I was inspired by artist on Instagram that I follow  and things I’ve seen my friends been working on. For my friends it’s how they have created something in AI etc and artists it tends to be what they are creating like characters eg animals. 

Things that helped me the most during this course were, obviously the classes I found Toby’s instructions very clear and helpful. But also what helped were my friends in this course and Moodle. If I ever had an issue I knew that on Moodle I could find the instructions, which I really appreciated. And my friends were always there to answer my questions if I needed some advice on my work or clarity on the instructions.

Overall reflecting back I have learn't so much in the class and have really enjoyed it. There is still room for me to learn more and this class has made me excited todo that. So thank you so much. over and out.

[alexamm4]

Week 8

Illustrator skills

My first step was to draw the shape my hand and add in the main handles and points on the bottle which would help give it, its shape.

Initially used the pen tool to draw the outline of one side of the bottle, then used the reflect tool to duplicate that side, so it was exactly symmetrical. I then used the join tool to join both side so the shape was exact and either side.

My process for creating the shape of the wine glass was much the same, I drew one side of thee glass then reflected that side to create a symmetrical right side which i joined. It took me awhile to play around with the handles on the top bit of the glass cause I found it was looking too pointy and round enough.

Illustration two:

After drawing the illustration on paper, I started drawing in Illustrator with the pen tool. The key shortcut I was using was the shift key when I was drawing as it kept all the lines symmetrical.

I started by doing the base shape of the building and once complete i then started to add the detailing like the windows doors, framing etc.

I used both the rectangle and eclipse shape tool to create most of the window framings. Once i created one on the building i then used shift option to duplicate it.

Once I had the baselines for everything, I started filling in the buildings with block colours, and from there, I added depth by adding additional colours and shades to create shadows, etc.

I used the gradient tool to added a light effect onto the door handles.

[dzpenumbra]

4/16/23

It's late again so I'm gonna try to be quick with this tonight.

I had trouble sleeping last night, didn't get to sleep until around 6:30. Ugh. I... I'm boring myself with even going through the details here. I busted ass on the project yesterday so I gave myself some slack today. I played Per Aspera for a few hours after yoga. I tunnel-visioned and lost complete track of time, it got late really quick, I looked at the clock and it was 7, so I rushed to the shower.

I took a quick shower, got ready to go out for a walk. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I wanted to get ahead of it and just get some fresh air, yesterday's walk was nice. So, what I'm getting to is... I got all my stuff on and I was putting on my socks... and my right ankle felt really swollen.

Ugh, I'm having trouble typing this and forming my thoughts. Basically... I started getting pains in the inner side of my shin, where my shin and my calf meet. And I... I started freaking out, to be honest. Pretty bad. I started to get foot pain too, it felt like my whole foot was swelling up, there were like red splotches on my foot that looked like burst capillaries and shit. And... I tried to talk myself down and just go "it's probably just muscle shit, from the walk yesterday". But I freaked out bad. I was just 100% convinced it was a blood clot again. Like... convinced.

I haven't talked about it in a while so I might as well refresh. The summer after my college graduation, I went to a concert with some friends. Well... all of those friendships ended on bad terms, including my brother... but anyway. I went to a metal show, I drove. I was always the organizer and the driver. I was kicked in the shin while in the mosh pit. I didn't think much of it. I goofed off with my friends, it hurt a lot but I soldiered through it. I remember driving home, it was my right leg - the same leg as today - I remember the pain from hitting the pedals, I remember trying to switch feet occasionally as a goose-egg formed on my fucking shin. And everyone else in the car was passed out. It was like a 2 hour drive too!

I got back and I spent the night at my ex's apartment. I had some booty shorts I got at the concert as a joke that night, I used to do that shit a lot, get goofy clothes to wear to look ridiculous. My ex stole them and, most likely, threw them out, and never told me. I would put fucking money on it.

I have no idea the context of any of that shit, but after that day... she wanted a break or broke up with me or something. Literally no clue, out of the blue. Maybe she was jealous she didn't get to come to a metal concert that she would've hated? Maybe she was upset that I was wearing goofy clothes? Maybe she thought I brought womens' clothes back to her apartment... to like... show her that I was "cheating" or something? I have no clue what she thought was happening there. She most definitely didn't ask and I would put money on that being the reason we broke up.

Welp... that kick to the shin? It turned into a blood clot. Within 24 hours, there was so much blood pooling in my foot that the entire inner side from big toe to heel turned a sickening gradient of black-purple-green-yellow. It was one of the most painful things I've been through in my life. It's a close toss-up between the shin blood-clot and the thrombosed hemorrhoid. Those were definitely top two most pain I've ever been in in my life.

I endured that pain... alone... for a fucking week... because my girlfriend was mad at me and wouldn't tell me why and wanted a break. Maybe she even flat-out broke up with me, I don't even remember. I fucking wonder why, I was in some of the worst pain of my life... After a week, there was an outdoor hippie festival thing going on near her hometown, like 5 minutes from my apartment, and I knew she was going, and I just... really asked for another chance. I drove over there and spent the entire day with her, hobbling around and limping, using her as a crutch. In ridiculous amounts of pain, but like... showing up, you know? (it made sense to me at the time, now I'm like... bro, she knows how much pain you're in and she won't visit you when she's 5 minutes away? What a psycho...)

After a few hours, someone really insisted I go see the medics at the medical tent... and I reluctantly went. They immediately freaked the fuck out and insisted my ex take me to the ER. Like, she fucking really didn't want to. I was willing to drive myself... And they were legit getting upset and flat-out insisted she bring me urgently and that I not be alone. So we went.

I waited in the ER waiting room for maybe... 15 minutes? If that? They rushed me into the ER ahead of someone who was hit in the face with a baseball bat and gushing blood, like... I was insisting they take that person first and they refused.

I remember this so vividly, god damn. So they brought me in, triaged, inspected, I'm pretty sure they... ultrasounded it? I feel like they did. Then had me sit in the room while they got a doctor. I remember a doctor came in and they also at one point brought a bunch of other people in to look at it, idk if they were students or something, I just remember that happening and it feeling like... inappropriate or something, just weird and awkward... but yeah... Basically the doctor, with limited information offered me two options. Either they do exploratory surgery right away to try to free the clot, which carried a risk of having it slip, go straight to my heart and kill me immediately. The alternative was to amputate my right leg at the knee. They gave me a few minutes to make my decision. And I remember my ex not being much help at all.

I ended up really pressing for a second opinion, to try to get a specialist on the line, which they actually did comply with. And... finally... they managed to get the time frame into their heads. See... this is an ER. They assumed that this was compartment syndrome, and the options they presented are 100% how you deal with compartment syndrome, because with that? You have like 12 hours until the limb is gone or you're dead. But I had been nursing this thing for a week. The second I shared the timeframe with the doctors they started to chuckle and sent me home with a leg brace - no fucking clue why they gave me a $200 compression cast thing, for a SWOLLEN SHIN, I literally couldn't wear it without nearly passing out from pain - and a prescription for Percoset.

My ex brought me to spend the night at her Mom's place, where we could get both of our cars parked after the ER. It was awkward as fuck. Her Mom kept making weird comments about like "you two better not hook up now, okay?" And I was like... dosed up on Percoset and could barely walk... I just didn't want to be alone, man... Then she brought me back to my parents' house the next day, and we were completely broken up for good very shortly after. Like at most 3 days after.

Super awkward picking up your car from your ex's mom's house after she broke up with you for the 3rd time, by the way. Don't recommend it.

So yeah, needless to say... that kinda left a mental scar.

And today, that nerve got struck. Vividly. And I... even entertained the idea of calling a doctor, or even my mom. Because it was a really weird feeling, both emotionally and physically. Emotionally, it was like... doom and death. It was "oh, I'm gonna fucking die in the next couple minutes, huh..." Physically, it felt like something moving inside my leg, like a pressure or a vacuum or something, and I felt like it was moving up the inside of my leg. And I was afraid it was a clot in my leg, because I've been really sedentary and my diet is shit. It was just... the narrative my head had. And the feeling felt... familiar. And that's where my head went. And it was literally like... right as I was trying to put my shoes on and head out the door.

That was a hell of a moment. Having to figure out what to do there. And having no one to talk to. No one to ask for advice. No one to double check or give a second opinion. I was really on the fence for a minute there, and it was getting dark too... so I really needed to make up my mind. And I just started to shake my foot and leg and rotate my ankle a bit and just... get the blood flowing, get the muscles warmed up. And I kinda just got to this point where I said... "welp, if it's a clot and it slipped? It's probably better for me to be in a public place than my apartment, isn't it." Like a "what the fuck am I going to do about it" kinda moment. "Better for someone to find me collapsed on a trail or dead in a stairwell than to smell my body rotting in 2 weeks." Dark shit. And I just... got myself to... man I really wish I remembered the entire narrative I told myself. But yeah, I got myself to chill and relax and I didn't let it talk me out of going. I went for the walk. I went to check out the hydroelectric dam I live right next to. I went on a short river walk. I saw 3 rabbits that were very used to human contact and I got to get really close to. I saw a gorgeous sunset. It was really nice. It was a short walk, but it was nice, definitely worth it!

I finished up the animation work I started last night, did the other 60 path tracing balls. It was tedious but I got there. Now... I'm just figuring out rendering and shit. The whole video when rendered is 6 fucking gigs. But the overlapping paths are doing some wonky shit, so I need to figure that out. I'll figure it out tomorrow or something.

So yeah, that was my day. Thankfully, that intense panic trauma flashback episode didn't send me spiraling. I remember feeling very proud of how I handled it, and how I managed to get myself out the door when every single odd was against me. But, to be honest, there's been a wave of depression through the end of the night. Mostly around the project, thinking it's kinda stupid, it's not really as cool or profound as I think it is. The usual suspects.

Again, I come to the usual conclusion... I need supportive perspective. Guess it's back to dead-end dating apps and googling "art collectives near me". Fingers crossed.

[darlingpwease]

Did u manage to get Jean?? I have her but I haven't played her yet

I've never been a big builder, but a friend of mine is and she's kinda inspired me to start :))

I plan on using Heizou with Bennett, Ayato and maybe Keqing (I might as well lol)

If I don't get scara, I'm hoping I can get al-haithem or dottore maybe :)) BUT– if/when scara baby gets a rerun I will gladly wish to my hearts content again <333

I wanted to make it short

I'm super glad it came out either way. be it short or long, I knew it'd be amazing (and low and behold, I was right!!)

I loved the way you used the colored text as well, I thought it was a lovely touch <33 /gen it came out really well!!!

I loved the gradient with Yuutas name as well, I thought those colors were super pretty :))

you're over-praising

Oh please, I don't think it was enough!! /t Such a lovely lovely Dove with such wonderful amazing talents!! /gen /pos

thank you so much for leaving me such pretty ideas,,,,,

Ahhh u don't gotta thank me :))) I plan on sending some more too after finals this week!! (Speaking of which, I truly hope u do well bubba, I'm cheerin u on!! :DD)

-panna cotta

yes <3 she's very cute and I loved using her e because it's funny enough.

i also like her new design, even if it was caused by censorship — maybe it's some kind of problem with my preferences, but I love well-dressed feminine person, especially when almost their entire body is covered;;; a good character should make you want to either hug them or undress them /hj /pos

ahhhh, when we talked, I wasn't inspired by the idea of building, — but now I've decided to finally take up them and try </3 even if it's these annoying mushrooms

I mean, it would be irrational not to use c2 keqing /t /pos

uhu, good luck with the building, lovely panna cotta!!! <3333

awww, you are ready for a new battle with banners, dear? <3

I'm glad scara came home, because I don't plan to touch them for the next few months; although I agree that they look tempting <3

I think my parental instincts have become stronger than my lusting ones. my tastes are irretrievably spoiled; tall, muscular people no longer interest me if they are not pale as a moth, do not have bags from fatigue under their eyes and do not look as if they are about to die or lose consciousness. I took the worst from Yuuta </3

you're still the same charming talker, dear~

no wonder you write so well, considering how good you are with words <3 but, honestly, it's amazing how such the lovely coquette can hide behind a quiet and introverted person, my my.

some people are really born with this gift of being cute, mm?

good luck to you, dear panna cotta!!! don't push yourself too hard and take care of yourself properly; don't forget about rest and sleep.

everything will end for me only at the beginning of february, so I will not switch to light mode soon, but I hope that they will be easy and good for you, lovely <3