#I gotta draw more Mechanisms fan art

[eli-am-confused]

I have been absolutely obsessed with the Mechanisms lately so here is Drumbot Brian being my absolute favorite gender

[elmushterri]

I have a question or two 1. Do tye knights like have their own world or is it like just part of the real Earth like underground or a castle palace thing or is it like another planet or world? 2. I know someone asked this kinda but what limit do the powers have like if my OC were to have lunar powers connected to the moon and stars or no is that Jules' thing 3. What is the limit to the weapons they can like have can they have any kind of weapon or does it have to be midevil weapons (thanks ia)

1. The Knights have their own world. Sort of like how Spiderverse has the Spider society place (I forget what it’s called) but that’s one building, whereas Knights have a slightly abstract world (so it’s not 100% a city just like Earth’s, but does have hangout areas and armouries and such! And notably, the palace where the Queen resides.) You get there using your Handbook.

(It’s all still in development buuut I think the idea is that, in the same way that you can “text” other people by writing in the handbook (probably by drawing their symbol), you can probably draw a specific symbol into your book and open up a portal to the Knight Realm)

2. It’s sort of like I said, abilities can be like RWBY semblances. Like how Ruby has super speed (I know it’s technically not that but you get it 🤣), Blake can make shadow clones of herself, Emerald can make illusions (but only directed into one person’s mind), Neo can shapeshift, Nora can turn electricity into physical power when electrocuted. Not insane stuff like manipulating the whole moon and such. Your ability does get boosted in True Knight Form (basically going extreme super saiyan/titan form/calamity form for Owl House and Amphibia fans!). Queens have the most power because they’re “biologically Queens” not just “in their hearts” or something, it’s a physical thing. (Like how Queen bees aren’t just random bees, they’re fed Royal Jelly when they’re larvae and therefore are physically Queen Bees.)

2. As for Jules’ ability, I’m not fully sure what it is yet, but there can be duplicate/similar abilities so don’t worry about the moon thing! You can go for it as long as it’s not like, vague such as “Moon manipulation”, it’s gotta be something specific like RWBY abilities with healthy limitations.

3. Weapons can be anything save for like.. tanks or something 😭. Guns also go but ideally they wouldn’t be grey coloured and mechanical like IRL but fancy and colourful. Instead of physical bullets or arrows in the case of bows, a Knight uses their energy as the shots, this can run out because it makes them more tired if they try to go further than a “real gun/real arrow quiver could carry”. Like a health bar that regenerates with rest, using too many magic bullets will deplete your health bar bit by bit. That’s not a terrific analogy but!

I promise to make actual art posts relating to this later!

[halichor]

hiii i'm a huge fan of your art! its such a highlight to see your creative works on my dash 💖im new to digital art and was wondering if youd be willing to share some wisdom? how you get the amazing noise-texture for the skin you draw, brush preferences, character design choices and so on i just really love your art and hope to be able to learn from you 🥺

hello!! honestly, the only thing I can say is practice and start from the basics! and that's coming from someone who didn't learn the fundamentals until I was in college 🫣 also, don't be afraid to use references! take photos, look them up on google, use 3d models, etc.

for designs, I tend to gravitate towards fashion more than anything so my character/outfit designs are more on the "pretty" side, though I really want to fix that and experiment with other subjects soon 🥹 my references are almost always runway photos or random ornate/fancy objects, but sometimes I just create mood boards with a certain vibe I want and the designs just pop into head. you can find inspo anywhere! you just gotta look for it. as for my tools, I'm not sure what app you use but I draw in clip studio paint! I have a habit of downloading + hoarding a bunch of brushes from the asset store, but I end up sticking with the same 4-5 brushes 🫥

here's all the brushes I use with some details. you can find them all in the asset store and I'll link them at the bottom (except the deleted ones), though I've modified them to fit my needs. I also use a whole bunch of gradient maps for color adjustments. yes, there are a lot and I know it's weird since the colors look drastically different when you turn them off, but it works and the outputs are pretty sooo 🤷

sketch - ciro / mechanical

lines - freya brush (modified)

painting - like milk (modified)

noise (for texture) - perlin noise / rainbow noise

color correction - mz pink correction / aqua lemon filter

I'm not the best at giving tips or advice, but I hope this helped somehow qwq

[snackugaki]

...this could have been an email text post

hi hello, i’m snacku ur local first gen/90s turtlemania survivor/”87 fan”/”90s fan” and I hurt my own feelings contemplating Donatello Ninjaturtle

bAcK iN mY dAy... Donnie didn’t like.... have this many fans out here, at least not as much as my then preteen brain remembers-- it was mostly Leo’re Raph I saw. like i AM accounting for hanging out here, on tumblr, for my tmnt content, and the iterations that are especially popular with turtles just straight up made more blorbable than others here but like ......hmm there’s too many disparate thoughts I’mma bullet point instead

like hhhh there’s so much I’m gonna/gotta gloss over ‘cuz I’m still pretending this is my original art blog and not the tmnt fanart blog I’m slowly mutating into

anyway, endlessly hilarious to me Donnie went from this kinda dweeby mechanical engineer gear head character to this dweeby (affectionate) computer science menace

that he (and his brothers) used to be max 5′, and now he’s just Taller than his brothers

for me, originally all of them would’ve been able to at least survive alone but now, as goods and services become more accessible via internet now it’s like for fanon Donnie’s become utterly indispensable to the survival of his family and that makes me kinda sad in a way I’m not even gonna try to unravel why

i do not have a whiteboard big enough or the dry eraser markers that work on the first try to draw a Pepe Silvia-level theory board on the jumps in technology, how it’s affected public perception, the whole Nerds R Cool phenomenon and how it’s affected/will affect Donatello’s characterization/audience reception in future iterations

with electronic waste being what it’s become, fast fashion waste too... I am so curious how Donnie’s (and the rest of them) gonna look like in designs/redesigns

(still have a hard time bay!Donnie didn’t, like, cobble together a 3D printer or even fix an industrial textile machine but like I get it, their look was very Scávenge S/S 2016)

tl;dr tech advancements have been silly strong and since 2016 Donnie’s just out here with personal tech like 20 years ahead instead of recycled junk to keep contemporarily functional lolololololololol

[theidiotwhowritesthings]

hey! I just wanted to say I love your fic A Fresh Start SO MUCH !! the writing is just *chefs kiss* and the slow burn is just long enough to be agonizing but in literally the best way possible, it’s written SO WELL AND I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH DUDE !!!!!

I love your fic so much, and for the past couple of days I’ve been kicking around the idea to ask you: is it ok if I draw your character Nima from A Fresh Start? I just love her so much and she’s one of my favorite side characters, and I was hoping I could ask if it was ok if I could draw her? She’s just such a fun character and I really like the idea of drawing her pink(?) skin and other details, and if I could draw her, do you mind providing any details about her? Like maybe some references, any outfit she wears, or just any sort of spare details you have about her?

anywyas, tysm, I love your fic a LOT and have a good day !! <3

ps. if you have an anon list going, I wouldn’t mind going by ⭐️ (star) Anon :)

THE SOUND THAT LEFT MY MOUTH WHEN I READ YOUR MESSAGE WAS INHUMAN. ABSOLUTELY YES YOU CAN DRAW NIMA HOLY SHIT IM SCREEEEAMING.

Okay. Deep breath. Holy moly. Alright. Guess what, my friend? You just opened Pandora's box. You asked for spare details but I'm about to ramble for DAYS. Nima's got a full history and backstory (b/c I'm obsessive about this kind of stuff) that I haven't been able to explore in the story to the degree I want SO NOW YOU GOTTA SUFFER THROUGH PARAGRAPHS OF INFORMATION.

Just swear to me that you'll send me the finished result because I neeeeeeed it. You think I'm insane and feral now? Just you wait. Okay. Now, info dump waiting below.

So mentally the closest face claim I have for Nima would be the actress Seo Ye Ji (as in if Nima got to ever see the silver screen that's exactly who I would want hired to play her lol).

Nima is pretty average in height, and she's built firm. Not a body builder by any means, but you can see the strength in her arms and shoulders from the multiple years of working in a garage doing heavy lifting and being hands on. Her skin tone is a more pastel shade of pink, like a soft bubble gum pink, but her lekku both have a sprinkling of freckles all over them in a darker shade of pink. Her eyes are a dark brown, and she has freckles across the bridge of her nose and on her cheekbones that match the ones on her lekku.

Nima has no tattoos or piercings, she's terrified of needles. Markings of note though, she has a collection of scars along her arms (burns and cuts) from her work. Nima has a bad habit of getting excited when working on a project she's excited about and in her excitement she'll forget to wear gloves or cover her arms in the proper gear.

When she's working, Nima wears a pair of navy mechanic coveralls to protect her skin when doing more dangerous work, but as said previously, Nima has a bad habit of shrugging out of the upper half to tie the arms around her waist leaving her in either a plain tank top or sports bra. She does it to cool off, but often forgets to zip the upper body part back up before getting back to work. While on the job, there are three things she always has on her: a pair of work goggles either resting on her forehead or hanging around her neck, an old pair of work gloves she's kept forever despite their disrepair, and a matching set of dark brown work boots. All three were gifts from her father when she got her first job as a mechanic.

When Nima's not working, her style is all over the place. She prefers pants and shorts to dresses and skirts and tends to lean toward large, loose fitting t-shirts that she'll tuck into high waist shorts or pants. But, she's also a big fan of oversized hoodies, cardigans, and flannels for when the weather gets cooler.

I attached some random pictures I found on pinterest of things I could picture Nima wearing.

AGAIN DON'T FORGET TO SEND ME THE ART PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU🥺⭐️

[yanderelovlies]

✨Galaxy Anon ✨ here!

Glad to be back!

Don’t you give me those eyes!

Oh definitely I understand that. I actually get anxious if someone meant something in a blunt tone or in a judging tone sometimes in text since I get scared if I anger them pfft. Makes sense no worries, you don’t want to public to know. No problem.

Glad to hear, update me on it then! Trust me when you really get into it will hold your heart in the feels.

Oh what kinda merch? Ooh yes I don’t really enjoy a lot of the games since I don’t think I’m a game person except visual novel games like sunny day Jack but I do love hearing the lore and watching some gameplays ( though while markplier is cool I like Watching Jacksepticle gameplays more since I feel I vibe with it more and he has this energy that makes me listen. I am really picky about YouTubers no joke they can have a great arguments but if they way they present it maybe is by AI voice or don’t have a great tone to the video I usually can only hear a minute and do something else. I have a low attention span.) Makes sense since a lot of the games mechanics don’t interest me and not to mention sometimes the story doesn’t make sense at times on how it ties all together. I only am in the fnaf lore of the Afton, security breach lore ( that fans make better than the actual game mind you) and fanfics especially time travel ones with found family. It’s my weakness dear lord especially with security breach Gregory in the mix. I mean I also have seen some art of it and my god I’m just like “ more….MORE!” If you ever want to see some of that fun and wholesome stuff or time travel shit just tell me and I link you to some blogs and I promise they don’t disappoint. I mean I can now see why you don’t want to get that there now.

Oh no no I get it. That sounds like a cruel and horrible fate not to mention then you become a mindless husk of your former self and can even hurt your non affected loved ones and will never know it and the only way to stop you is someone or even yourself ( before you fully turned for the latter) is to die by being killed. Like hell no anyone who wants it to happen please go to another dimension where that is happening I like living.

Hooray ( and I never thought of it that way!) and can’t wait to hear your thoughts. There some more as well especially one song that has yandere vibes so if you ever want to hear it tell me.

Ooh I have to check out that music then to understand the fics!

Pfft like yes I’m fine I just like sad music since it inspires I’m not depressed! Oh definitely I’m like hearing one and I have a whole soap opera happening in my head and thinking “ Man even I want to know how this ends! Ooh ideas for my oc’s!” Ooh that sounds interesting.

Yes I believe that is the case. It’s still frustrating though since you have to throw away your dignity just to appease someone and it’s shameful when your actually in the right. Yeah unfortunately they would lose money and they rather fire the worker for actually doing there job than kick out the customer because god forbid the customer is wrong, I hate the saying the customer is always right. Like no there not. And when the manager doesn’t even tell them even? It makes me look bad, like I’m the villain. Like I’m doing my job manager tell them I’m right instead of acting like a coward and just doing whatever the person wants.

Maybe one day I will get a new job though I know I will always have problems in every job so gotta stay positive and hope for the best. I mean at least most people in my job are nice.

I know, I was thinking “ What the hell man?! So you have no problem with gays but you draw the line with trans people? What?!” I least he isn’t in your life anymore I’m glad you had the courage to cut him off and it just disappointed me how the person he was talking to also agreed. Like please review yourself.

Also I saw the new work and yes it’s happening! Like Joseph my man really you do that even though I did nothing to you? Dude why didn’t you just tell reader “ Hey these people want me to fake date you as a prank but are offering a lot of money I need. Can you go along and we can split it?” Like as reader I still would feel hurt but at least he didn’t lie to me and also he sharing money? I can get behind that. Loopholes bitch. But to the Anon who said who wanted to slap Joseph yes Anon you know what’s up! I really want more angst now lol.

Always excited to see you Galaxy!!! 💕

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

If it makes me nervous, too, cause I don't like upsetting people. Also, thank you for understanding 😊💕

I will!

I have figures of each, a hawks funko normal sized and one on my Keychain, two dabi shirts and one Hawks, dabi chopsticks, backpack with charms, a dabi plush, and a hand made hawks doll my sisters friend for me. That's only part collection, tho 👀. I collect whatever I can from my favorite fandoms or what I'm hyperfixating on, which is lowkey a problem since my home is small now....you know what that reminds me of? Me with the dark souls series. I have NEVER played one of them because i can't seem to get then hang of them, but I love the aesthetic. So, i binged any lore video I could find on YouTube, and I still do time from time. (I can play bloodborne and elden ring fine, tho. I'm not the best, but I have fun) If you wanna hear good angst, listen to that. As for the YouTube part get that I'm very picky about mine too. Though I do think it funny that how I see Jack and Mark is flipped from your view. Also, fun fact the Soulsbornering fadom is the only one I don't read fanfics on. As for those fanfic I might hit you up later when I'm up to date on the lore!

Preach! I don't want that shit!

I'm always down for new songs, so send me as many as you would like!

Let me know what you think! 💕

OMG, ME TOO! I DO THAT SHIT WHEN IM ZONING OUT AND PLAYING GAMES. It's my favorite pass time, ngl.

I hate that shit, I'm lucky my job only pretended to play the role if they knew you were in the right. They told the customer they would handle us, then pull us aside and go "look I know that was shit, but we had to do something, so sit down and wait."

That's very admirable of you, Galaxy, and I understand what you mean.

I think that's fucking disgusting that they agree at that stupid shit, and honestly I am too growing up I didn't know any better and thought the stupid bullshit he was normal. Now that im older, I'm disgusted by him. There were far more bigger reasons why i cut him off, but the more i talk with my mom and look back, im glad i did. I've thought about changing my last name to my mother's maiden name, but I decided against it.

Lol, I won't lie. I can't tell if people like the fic or not. I don't even know where this came from. Honestly, I felt stumped on a request, so I was gonna take a break, but instead opened a file and just went at it. If you want more angst, I can deliver 👀

[canmom]

hello, thank you for calling me dumb. do you say that to all the girls?

since this was a post made off the cuff on the basis of frustration with a valuable fan archival project being shut down by what struck me as a needless copyright takedown, i was not as precise as i could have been. 'unprecedented' is not really the right word - you're right that plenty is precedented.

that said, to be brief, I don't think you can separate 'modern technology' from the conditions of its production. you can't develop film as an art form until you have a society that manufactures large quantities of, well, film - the actual celluloid to pass through the camera. and all the other pieces of cameras, projectors, etc. etc. exactly where you draw the line of 'involved in the artwork' is of course kind of vague - does the butcher who serves food to the mason who goes to work on the cathedral 'count' as having 'worked on the cathedral'? - but even if you brought back a knowledge of how to build a camera to king arthur's court, I don't think you'd be able to organise a film industry there.

still, i probably made this too specific to modern capitalism; the issue I was trying to get at - not very well, evidently - is that in any era is that artists gotta eat, and so if you want to have full-time artists (or monks or whatever else) in your society, there needs to be some mechanism to divert a portion of the surplus product to them - money is one, but you also have direct coercion, patronage relationships, tradition...

and these mechanisms in turn condition the way production takes place. in ancient times, these big monuments were the province of empires and churches; the paintings largely depicted what was pleasing to nobility. (though performance arts like theatre and music had a broader audience, come to think of it.) in the present, you have to have something you can sell, and the bigger the team, the more salaries you have to cover by selling that thing.

whatever your mechanism is, the function of that is ultimately to bring a group of people together on a project in a more committed way than they otherwise would. for example, since it's my job and i'm depending on it, i can't decide 'nah, i don't think i wanna work on this game anymore' without putting myself in a real bind. so making artwork 'a job' is a mechanism for bringing about the creation of large, complex works involving many different people. in short, it's power.

copyright, however, is something relatively new, proper to the era of 'mechanical reproduction'. since you couldn't pirate a cathedral, or even very easily copy a painting, there was no real need to enforce its scarcity by coercive means. indeed, the opposite tended to be true: a great deal of effort was put towards laboriously copying things out by hand. but in the 16th and 17th centuries, with the arrival of the printing press, that all changed. now it's so easy to copy stuff, you invent this new idea of a 'license to make copies' without which you'd get in trouble with the state - so now artwork has a way to become capital, which was not true before. that approach to production really intensified in the 20th c, and we truly entered the age of mass media.

to my mind, if you are compelled to introduce scarcity where none existed, something has gone very wrong somewhere along the way. this remains a perpetual lamentation, unlikely to be addressed.

as for whether hunger is more important - of course it is, the contradictory effects on art are certainly some of the lesser consequences (sins, if you prefer) of capitalist modernity, but what's your point? if you don't want to talk about frivolous matters like art, then don't.

capitalism (and its conjoined twin, the modern nation state) as a social system created largely unprecedented organising power to bring a group of people together to work on creating artworks together - there is a reason media like film, comics and computer games were born in modernity. but it's forever, intrinsically, driven to strangle whatever it grows, because only scarcity is profitable.

i hate this paradox and i still have no good answer for how to escape it, short of a reorganisation of society on a scale i no longer really believe that i can hope to see in my lifetime.

[icewindandboringhorror]

 a mood

[yourlocalnicknackkinnie]

Character Bingo: Nick Nack (HP:MS)

@dolly-royal @omggypsyesmeraldathings-blog (I know you asked for Riley too but I'm making it a separate post since its the same character :3 )

Alrighty lets begin (It's gonna be very long because I've got a lot of things to say about him)

They are so cool looking

I gotta admit, he looks very cool. Even tho some prople say he looks like James Charles (Which I STRONGLY disagree) I love his design. I personally like his clothes, the man has drip. Heck, I literally painted a white blazer for a cosplay but now I just wear it when I'm not in cosplay anymore. I also like his facial structure since it gave me a challenge to draw him before but now I've gone used too it. (I can go on and on)

Everyone but me is wrong about them

Ok, so this is just a little joke (I do believe in other people's headcanons about him) but I would make this joke of "As a Nick Nack Kinnie, he would defiantly do that" if there's something that I think he would do.

Wasted Potential

Ik hes in the prequel but he could have more potential in the first game too (Since his model was already made). I think that Nick could've been in the tea party with Mortimer and Riley at the end instead of Kathy. (IDK but stillll)

If they were real I would be afraid of them

Ok, maybe a little startled but still- I mean, he's a puppet that wants a human as his host. But I headcanon that when you say that he's your favorite, he'll stop, cry and just be nicer to you. (Since he doesn't want to harm a fan)

They are deeper then they seem

for some reason I feel like there's something more about Nick that we don't know. The fact that he might have the urge not hunt for Owen and his urge to do it is strange but maybe there's more context in the game when its realesed.

They got done DIRTY by fans

So one time I tried to look how far the fandom has got. So every fandom has R34 art so I decided to type it in on google and OH I REGRET MY DECISION. I found a Nick Nack one- (IDK if that counts tho but still)

Didn't get enough screen time

This applies for the first game. like- we only see him in the shadows and that's it.

I want to carry them in a handbag like a tiny dog

Well kinda, I don't own any handbags but I wanna put him in a back pack instead with him poking out of it. If i had a Nick Nack puppet i would put him in there, let him poke out of it and go out with him like that for aesthetic purposes (And probably comfort reasons as well).

Nothing I like about them is technically canon

Another joke one. I do like things that are canon but I like to come up with headcanons to make me like him more than usual.

Why do they look like that

I don't mean his Midnight show ver. I meant his model that was supposed to be in the first game. What happened to his eyes? Where his is little beard thingy? (I headcanon that the eyes are supposed to be a mechanism that was added in later. like Puppet contact lenses I guess. it was later added because it wasn't in the blue prints so it was just a last minute idea Owen came up with)

Im mentally ill about them

Help, my mind is all about him now- send help (JK)

Wow... they are LITERALLY me!

Yep, that's me (As my username says it) I relate to him a lot. from my interests to maybe personality. heck I made a list of it and there's a lot of things I kin him that its scary. Ex. liking arts, having mood swings, being a tea person, likes to sing (the difference is that I think my voice sounds horrible) and more things-

They've never done anything wrong in their life <33

Ok, Ok maybe he has done some thing wrong in his life but at least he has the urge to not kill us-

So that's all for now. I could make a headcanon post about him on here (Pls reblog or comment down if you want something like this cause I have a lot of headcanons for Nick and plus I love making this kinds of posts)

[amazingmsme]

Top 22 of 2022

End of the year tag game created by the lovely @otomiya-tickles This was so much fun, you always make the best tag games! Thanks for tagging me!

Part 1: Fandom Faves 

01. Favorite new fandoms of the year:

Our Flag Means Death, The Boys, Moon Knight, Workaholics, The Stanley Parable, (I know I’m super late to the game but this game rocks) Godless, other seasons of critical role, inside job & uh… does Goncharov count?

02. Favorite new ships since this year:

Blackbonnet, not new but still my faves, Namdermo, & Shadowgast & probably some more that I’m forgetting

03. Favorite anime/TV show of the year:

Despite not seeing the new season, my fave anime this year is Demon Slayer. As for my favorite show of the year, I think the latest season of WWDITS wins

04. Favorite movie of the year:

Prey, Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro), but if I had seen NOPE it would undoubtedly be that, Where the Crawdads Sing, others I’m sure. But this year I have barely seen any new movies & I haven’t seen any new marvel film starting with Spider-Man NWH (I know I know, you’re gonna beat me with rocks & all that jazz)

05. Favorite character of the year:

Caleb Widogast has had me in a headlock ever since I first saw him & he hasn’t let me go since

06. Favorite soundtrack of the year:

I genuinely don’t have an answer xiavaowh I don’t tend to remember what movie soundtracks I like unless it really stands out, & I’ve barely seen any new movies this year. But my favorite soundtracks in general are Wild America, The Kings or Summer and O Brother Where Art Thou

07. Favorite book/manga/comic of the year:

I don’t keep up with what is published that year, but my favorite book I found this year is Night Film by Marisha Pessl

08. Favorite game of the year:

Favorite game actually released this year? God of War Ragnarok. Favorite one I’ve played this year? Either Doki Doki Literature Club or The Stanley Parable

09. Highlight of this year to remember:

Fuckin’ Goncharov babyyyyy!

Part 2: Community Review

10. Favorite Tumblr moments of 2022:

Goncharov obvi, the queen’s death crab rave, Nov. 5th anniversary, & all the memes that came out this year. I have no grip on time so I have no idea which ones came out this year & I’m so dead inside I can’t force myself to remember

11. Favorite fan art of the year:

I don’t keep things organized enough to be able to actually find my favorite fan art specifically, but @fluffomatic is one of my fave artists on here, along with @ssnicker-doodless & @shyticklemonster r, @fluffy-alien alien but of course tons of other blogs as well!

12. Favorite fic of the year:

Bold of you to assume I can pick favorites & actually remember them 12 months later skagdk fr tho, some of my favorites are You Got My Devotion & Temptation, Frustration, So Bad It Makes Him Cry- @nhasablogg A Gentleman's Torture- @august-anon & uh, basically every single critical role fic. But specifically Waiting For My Mind To Go To Sleep & Embarrassing and Undignified- @chockfullofsecrets lightning damage- @spritewrites & something good to celebrate- @sapphicquill

13. Favorite ask game of the year:

Even tho I never really get asks when I reblogged that kind of stuff, I really enjoyed the list of questions on the fic writer ask game

14. My top achievements as a writer/artist/creator/blogger:

I finally managed to participate in tickletober & finish it despite 2 major deaths in the family at that time, can someone say coping mechanism?

15. My own best fic/post of the year:

I gotta go through & actually look but Draw Me Something as Pretty as You did the numbers this year, like ever other steddie fic lol. MY personal favorite tho was Dare to be Bold & actually got over 100 notes.

16. My most underappreciated fic/post of the year:

Too many of my tickletober fics tbh but that’s what I get for writing for microscopic fandoms like new girl, tuck everlasting & wolf 359 which all clock in around 10 notes each. You’d think with only 4 notes my Night Film fic What A Prize would win this category. But my Imposters fic Junk in the Trunk & Workaholic fic Pizza Payback tie with a whopping 1 note!!!

17. A post of mine that got more popularity than expected:

My recent “porn bots want me carnally” shitpost. I guess because it’s so relevant? (Seriously don’t get me started on that, I had close to 10 try to follow me yesterday alone)

18. Something I changed on my blog since this year:

I made a kofi! So if you feel like supporting me or you really want a fic, feel free to commission me!

Part 3: Next Year

19. Something I didn’t post this year but would like to do next year:

Mark my words I WILL make a Goncharov tickle fic, just you wait & see. I also want to write more for new or smaller fandoms I enjoy & get back to writing my chaptered fics. I also have some long one shots I want to make

20. Goals for next year:

Keep writing as much as I can, get back into physical art like oil painting, post more of my chaptered fics that I accidentally. I also want to read more fics because I really fell behind this year due to mental health & school

21. 2023 releases I look forward to the most:

The new season of The Legend of Vox Machina & uuuuhhh yeah I’m brain dead, I have no fuckin’ clue what’s coming out next year

Part 4: Spreading Love

22. Shoutouts to people who made my 2022 a better year: 

I can’t promise to remember everyone, but I can sure try. Thanks to everyone for making this year not suck as much as it could’ve, y’all don’t know how much it makes me smile

@happyandticklish @ticklishraspberries @ticklish-touch @raybidtickles @shunniebuns @sugarfics @hypahticklish @fluffomatic @fluffy-lee-boa @fluffy-alien @a-fluffer-nutter @a-simple-lee @lemonsandstrawberries @tickletastic @anasticklefics @tickle-bugs @tickle-fight-club @rosileeduckie @thebest-medicine @peachytickles @poesparakeet-fics @eldritchtickles @tickly-floof @spritewrites @august-anon @ticklygiggles @sapphicquill @nhasablogg @chockfullofsecrets @sunlitanon @shyticklemonster @ssnicker-doodless

& a ton of others! Love you all & I’m so glad I have y’all in my corner!

[0poole]

I LOVE No Straight Roads

Honestly it’s hard to keep me away from a game with great visuals and even greater character design. I knew from the INSTANT I saw these characters that I was going to love it. I just finished it because it’s (unfortunately) pretty short, and even though I cheesed the final boss through it’s very lenient death mechanics (Instant respawn at the cost of a good rank) I actually appreciated that it wasn’t a pure cake walk. I’ve yet to rematch all of the bosses, but since I had genuine trouble with the later ones I’ll hold off on that.

But who cares about gameplay, am I right? I sure as hell don’t. I would’ve bought the game no matter what the hell it was. I wanted the characters (and the music, although I realized that second) and that was it. 

First of all, I love any world that is super fantastical but cheesy in its concept, ala a city powered by music, and battles between artists using music. Ideas like this only spawn from a mind that wants to create a fun atmosphere, if nothing else, and it was sure as hell fun. I genuinely love when someone goes so far into a crazy idea and doesn’t waste your time explaining it with real world logic. Wanna know how a city can be powered by music? Shut up and look at the cute virtual mermaid. Lord knows I did. Every once in a while, it does you good to just let the player/reader/viewer just revel in the idea without having to go out of your way to make things seem realistic. It’s not about “turning your brain off” or whatever, it’s picking your battles.

Also, I can seriously love a world with great background characters to it. Any game with the right situation to insert the random nobodies you find onto the streets into the art in the credits really played into the greatness of the world’s less important characters, and that’s always a good thing. It’s technically world building. But, since I always love to pick favorites, I’d have to say my favorite background character is easily Mia, the NSR infodesk assistant. It’s funny, because you can literally search “nsr characters” into Google and she’s the third image result. I love how jumpy she is when you first interact with her, since NSR probably spread the word about B2J suggesting they’re rock thugs who’d beat up anyone, so for all she knows she could die right then and there with a guitar lodged in her skull. She’s probably just some intern trying to pay for college. She don’t want trouble.

Also, I just realized that 90% of the characters in this game have the same body structure that I always love, that being having arms/legs that sort of fan out in width into relatively large hands/feet. It’s a kind of limb structure I fall into so much because it just really hits me right for some reason. I really can’t explain why.

Anyways, I gotta talk about the big boys individually:

Mayday and Zuke are an amazing duo. I’m always a sucker for a cute and crazy girl, but honestly Zuke hit so many of the right notes too. I will say it’s weird to pair the martian Zuke with the humanly-skinned Mayday, but honestly it doesn’t even matter because he looks so cool on his own. I love his weird blocky blue dreadlocks, and his weirdly shaped shirt which bares his chest in the weirdest way... And, oh my god, Mayday’s weird Spongebob background flower eyes? It’s little tidbits like that that really make me jealous. How could I have ever thought of that? It looks so perfect, and I don’t know why. And her little booty jig she does in her idle animation? Adorable. I played as her as much as was reasonable not only because I’m a filthy button masher with little strategy but also because she’s so damn cute. I can also appreciate how she has a tough-as-nails persona while still keeping a semi-girly attitude, like with her falling for 1010 and Sayu. Characters are so much better when they’re a perfect blend of characteristics, instead of being all one-note, like how Zuke is the quiet one but gets heated against DK West, and all. 

Honestly the voice acting for every character is great, but I love when Mayday’s VA’s accent shows through. It’s a perfect twang to accent (consider this the only acknowledgement of a pun in this post) her snarkiness. 

DJ Subatomic Supernova was going to be an easy favorite since he’s all space-themed. Also, I don’t know why I always end up liking the egotistic characters. Not in the sense that I like their egotistic-ness, but in the sense that I like everything else about them and they just so happen to also be egotistic. The same applied with Empoleon (maybe like my 2nd favorite Pokemon) and Rarity from MLP, probably among others. Either way, I’ll never not love space themes. Not to mention he’s got a funky disco theme, and I’m slowly starting to realize that I am in extreme love with techno-funk styles of music. The instant I heard his music he cemented his place into my playlists. 

As for design, I still have no idea what the fuck he is. Clearly AI is at human levels in this world, but if he’s a robot why does he still have hairy legs? But, if he’s a human, is that weird orb his head? Is it just some sort of puppet which he controls from inside his giant jacket? I know I dissed explaining things realistically but I actually want to know with this guy. Even the wiki doesn’t say. Either way, he’s clearly the logical extreme of “being at the center of your own universe.” Even his jacket depicts a solar system, with his hood being the sun. Didn’t see that until I tried to draw him. I really wish this guy wasn’t so tied to his DJ stand so I could reasonably draw him without it. I don’t want to draw his hairy ass legs. It is a great touch for his design though (although I prefer his beta look with pants and long boots, another design trait I tend to gravitate to) since DJs could reasonably not wear pants, since they’re always behind a table.

Sayu is my favorite. It’s so plainly obvious. It’s weird to say that sometimes, because some characters like Sayu are so clearly engineered to be as adorable as possible, to the point where they’re basically a parody of whatever they’re supposed to be emulating, but then they do that so well that they are still likable for what they’re trying to parody. Also, even though I’ve never looked into any vocaloid superstars myself, the fact that they exist and are loved in real life is absolutely perfect to be used as a character design in a world like this. It’s so weird conceptually, but we all know it’s normal and realistic. But yeah, she’s a giga-cutie whom I’ve already drawn and I’ve listened to her theme on loop on many different occasions. Favorite character, favorite track, favorite weapon of choice (What did I say about Empoleon?), which, and I wouldn’t have noticed this myself, looks like the USB symbol you see above USB ports on computers. How crazy perfect is that?

Even apart from my unbridled love for cute monster robot(?) girls, her boss fight is probably the 2nd greatest of them all, at least conceptually. She’s just a hologram, so you can’t touch her, but you CAN disconnect the artists which control her in order to defeat her. It’s the kind of concept for a boss fight that could only work for this type of character. I’m a sucker for the cute girl that provides her voice, but I love how the animator (video editor? the yellow one) actually attacks you with a mouse and lowers the brightness of the setting once he appears. Also, the mocap guy being the deeply-voiced type but still providing the adorable movements of her body. It’s such a great combo of characters, and their little extra art in the credits makes me like them even more. I just wish we could interact with them individually.

DK West was probably one of the most interesting characters visually, especially since I knew of every other NSR member long before the game came out, but I only just heard of him closer to the release. I wasn’t sure where he was placed, but I definitely assumed his gig was the weird shadow demon we saw in the trailers. When I finally saw him in game, I was shocked to hear him speak an entirely different language most of the time, which was really cool. Also, finding out he was tied to Zuke and wasn’t strictly an NSR artist really made him more interesting. You know, if his fucking shadow clone magic didn’t make him crazy cool enough. Even though I suck at his game and am not especially fond of his raps, the visual of him rapping with this giant monster behind him and dozens of weird shadow wingmen by his side hyping him up was probably one of the coolest in the entire game. The dark way they were hyping him up too gave such a bizarre atmosphere, especially since it parallels his seemingly chill and smiley demeanor. 

I definitely hope they’ll introduce new bosses as DLC in the future, and make them sort of in the same vein as DK West, where they aren’t the biggest artists ever, but they want to pick a fight with B2J. I’d kill for any extra content this game can provide.

Yinu is obviously special since she was the subject of the demo they put out for the game. Even though I knew all her bells and whistles, she and her mom still beat me a few times in the full game. Considering she’s semi-tied to story-ish spoilers I kinda want to go more into her in a separate section. It is worth considering playing the game first since it’s not hard (with the easy going deaths) and it’s short length.

1010 seriously grew on me as I learned more about them and interacted with them. I got their shtick when I first looked at them, but after seeing that animation of them touring the city on Youtube I was kinda falling for them. Then, I learned that they’re apparently repurposed navy war robots? I mean, maybe not them specifically, but it seems to heavily point in that direction, with the warship cars and “attention!”s and all. It took me a bit to get into their music too, but once I actually fought them and put their actions to the music I fell in love with it. I swear, Neon J’s weird dancing can has some of the smoothest moves in all of gaming. I don’t know whether they mocapped out those movements or got one of the greatest animators ever, but it looks so impossibly clean his part of the song gets me like 30x more hype than it would normally. 

Also, their little art piece of them looking at fan mail in the credits is probably one of the most adorable things ever. Even if they’re just Neon J’s puppets, that piece of art really makes it seem like they love every one of their fans. I’m not gonna lie, I might swoon a bit too if they picked me out and gave me some special attention.

Oh yeah, and the fact that Mayday was super sad in her showstopper against them was adorable and hilarious at the same time. The little tweaks they made to the showstopper for each fight were great.

Eve just has to be Lady Gaga, right? Like, an even crazier Lady Gaga. DJSS is Daft Punk (or any artist with a helmet persona, you know what I’m talking about), Sayu is Hatsune Miku, DK West is Kanye West, Yinu is a generic child protege, 1010 is a KPop boyband (just pick one) and Eve is Lady Gaga. That’s just how things are. But, again, this is the kind of boss fight that only this type of character could provide. It’s not just surreal imagery, it’s ARTISTIC surreal imagery. The fight is so mesmerizing in every way, especially by how it starts off so slow and calm and progresses to insanity, as well as the increased emotional investment in the fight making you feel so much more into it than just “That’s the boy band. Let’s fight.” Not only does it get you more invested, but it makes her artistic persona go deeper than just “she looks weird.” She is genuinely conflicted about her relationship with Zuke, and naturally that leads her to literally split him and Mayday apart. That mechanic specifically was the coolest, although I do wish they made it more obvious when you needed to switch over to a different side. I was getting pulverized by her fight too, since there were so many things to pay attention to. Her fight was definitely the best one. 

Tatiana and Spoilers:

Let’s be real with ourselves, the twist was so obvious. I do also think, though, that obvious twists aren’t bad if they’re just good reveals. At some point, a person just has experienced so many stories that “only pretty good” twists are easy to spot. It doesn’t mean that the twists are bad, it just means you yourself experienced.

I feel like her transition from rock to EDM was pretty understandable, even as a non-musician. She was so caught up in what she assumed was popular that it basically consumed her. It’s easy as an artist to want to forgo what you truly want to make in favor of what makes you popular, and clearly since her transition to EDM made her the CEO of the biggest company in the city (world?) that probably made her think she truly needed to change her outlook. Then, when she saw B2J try to bring it back, she sort of coined them as being as misguided as she was and knocked them down a peg. Plus, they were kinda being jerks about it.

It’s kinda like the Trolls sequel, where everyone pegs rock music fanatics as being too stuck up in their own heads to appreciate other types of music, which honestly seems more like the case than the alternative. When I first heard of the story of the game, I was seriously hoping they did put an asterisk on B2J’s ambitions because they were a bit sketchy from the start. 

That’s kinda where I want to talk about Yinu, because she was the true turning point in what they were doing. She’s literally 9 and yet she’s getting dragged into all this BS. When she said “I hate you all” at the end of her fight, and played a somber tune on her broken piano after the fight destroyed it, you kinda got a kick in the face to realize you’re kinda being an asshole to some of them. Sure, they fight back, but they wouldn’t fight in the first place if they didn’t have to. They are just people who play music under a joint name that B2J just so happened to get in hot water with. 

Then, of course, there’s Kliff, who also reeked of surprise villain, and who’s basically the embodiment of the bad side of B2J, where he just wanted to destroy for his own sake and not for the actual greater good. Once B2J realized their mistake, they backed off, but Kliff was so hard pressed to do what he planned on in the first place he wouldn’t stop. I kinda wish he got a bigger fight to his own since he’s clearly a big enough tech genius to divert a whole satellite into one specific building. Maybe the Elliecopter chase bit was his thing, but I do kind of wish he was there to fight against them too.

Even though Tatiana did kind of reform a bit quick, It’s still not too crazy to assume she could see that B2J was just misguided and the fact that they worked to revert their wrongdoings for her sake would make a pretty strong impressions. They clearly can hold their own, so it’s not like she wouldn’t want them to join NSR too. 

Oh yeah, and her boss fight was clock/time themed. If there’s a theme under space that I love, it’s clocks/time. 

And If I am to be respected by the internet, I must provide a negative opinion to balance out my positive one. I will say that the character model physics (like Mayday’s braids, DK West’s vest thing, Neon J’s fluffy neck thing, etc) got kinda funky at times. Especially DK West’s vest, which was completely messed up for every scene he was in... Also, even though the voices are mostly great, some lines felt a bit off. Just a bit. That good enough? Good.

But yeah anyway that’s another favorite game to add to the pile. Eventually I’m gonna have to compile a true list of my all-time favorite games/movies because I do kind of want to have a solid idea of what my all-time favorites are.

[squarecarousel]

Interview with Elizabeth Beals

Here we are at the end, our final interview! Fittingly, we're capping it off with Elizabeth Beals, the other long standing member who has stuck around since Square Carousel's very beginning. While Elizabeth's signature style has remained instantly recognizable from Challenge 1 through Challenge 143 and counting, her skills have undoubtedly blossomed over the past decade. Today, we're catching up with our resident long haul Square Carousel member, admin, and comics professional, Elizabeth Beals!

Emma Frost

Q: Even though your art style is beautifully consistent, your work still stays fresh with each new challenge. What are the biggest aesthetic changes you notice in your work when you compare your most recent pieces to your graduation portfolio?

A: I haven’t looked at my graduation portfolio in a hot minute, it’s pretty wild seeing how far I have come. I’ve gotten better at compositions/ I’ve leaned into cooler, more saturated palettes/ have a better use of textures/ and I also don’t force myself to create a full bleed illustration if it’s not completely necessary to get the story across.

Elizabeth’s workspace

Q: Has your art making process changed at all during your post college years?

 A: Oh yeah, definitely!

In college I would thumbnail/ flesh out the comp at scale with normal mechanical pencil/ ink with a 005 micron/ erase the under drawing/ scan in the piece/ clean up in Photoshop/ then color until completion. 

Whereas I now thumbnail/ scan in the one I like/ format and print it out at a larger scale (in light blue)/ go back over the print with a blue pencil to refine details/ ‘ink’ it with a extra fine mechanical pencil/ scan it back in/ clean up in photoshop/ and then color until completion. 

And if we want to do an even deeper dive we can look at the ‘Color until Completion’ portion.

In college I would create a top layer, which was always the scan/line art set to multiply, and then I would place the coloring layers beneath it. I was just getting into textures and color holds so they were pretty crude but it was nice that I was still fussing with them.

I currently use the same process as a base but I’ve also started painting on top of the line art (like, A LOT), using overlays, adjustments, effects, and more.

Glitter Hearts

Q: What's been your favorite professional project to work on?

A: Mmmmm, I think this one’s a tie for me, the first one would be my cover run on Star Trek: TNG - Terra Incognita. It was my first cover run and the writers/ editors I got to work with were a complete and total dream. They whipped up some pretty fun concepts and I really got to stretch my art muscles for it. Plus the Ice cream I designed for issue one got worked into the story, so having a cannon ice cream design is pretty dang neat. The second would be my first OGN, Virtually Yours, with writer Jeremy Holt! It’s been a project that we’ve had waiting in the wings since 2015 and got to revamp for ComiXology Originals in 2020. It was the largest project I’ve ever worked on and it was such a tough/ joyous/ and complete learning experience for me. I was glad to have an amazing team of people to work with and you should deff check it out if you haven’t already ;D
  [Link to Virtually Yours on Comixology]

Virtually Yours cover

Q: Any non-art hobbies?

A: Baking / Cooking/ Trying out new recipes! *Chef’s Kiss* Just chilling outside in general/ soaking up some sun ( as a former So. Cal girl I miss the high/ dry heat.) Binge watching trash T.V.

Q: Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate?

A: I love all three dearly but coffee wins, hands down.

Q: What's a career goal you have for the next decade?

A: Pretty broad but I would love to get to a place where I become less dependent on private/ personal commissions and focus more on Comic Covers and Pin-up work. 

She Hulk

Q: Do you have a favorite superhero? A: Short answer, no.
 However, I can provide a short list of some of my faves: Jubilee, Storm, Rogue, Spider-Man, Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl), Spider-Gwen, Mystique, and I’m gunna end it there before I just keep rambling.

Q: What's one thing you wish more people knew about you or your work?

A: One fun thing about me/ my work is that my love of drawing hair came from wanting to create Cammy White (Street Fighter) fan art. With braids as long as her’s you gotta take your time and learn to draw them right! XD

Q: While working, do you prefer to watch tv, movies, listen to music, or sit in silence? Any recommendations for background media?

A: Definitely a TV series or movie, preferably something I’ve already seen (less potential to distract me). I always end up falling back on older shows like Murder She Wrote or Midsomer Murders, basically anything with a long syndication. When I was working on Virtually Yours though I would have HBO’s Gentleman Jack on. It’s a newer series with only one season but it served as a good timer/ work schedule for me.

Star Trek TNG: Terra Incognita (issue 6)

Q: If you could choose one character from the Star Trek universe to befriend, who would it be and why? A: To avoid getting too crazy, I think I’m gunna limit myself to TNG (plus I have the most knowledge of that series) and go with Guinan. She’s wise beyond her years (if you could believe that), funny, empathetic, resourceful, and makes a mean drink! And not to break the 4th wall or anything, but it’s freakin’ Whoopi Goldberg!!! ;D

Elizabeth herself

Q: Excellent choice! Anything else you would like the readers to know?

A: Just that y’all are fantastic and we appreciate all the love and support you’ve shown us over that last 10 years! Thanks for letting us go out on a high note!

P.S. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And get vaccinated <3

You heard her folks! Thanks so much to Elizabeth for sharing her answers, and to you, dear readers, for getting to know us all at the Square Carousel Collective these past years.  Check out Elizabeth’s website, and follow her on Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram for fresh art as soon as it drops!

[marvelatthehottotties]

Steven Grant Rogers - Chapter 1

Warnings: Mentions of sex, alcohol use, bit of angst, bit of fluff.

Masterpost Prologue

Co-authored by @keliza

Masterpost

He was long and lanky. He’d been slow to grow right up until our senior year of high school. Junior year he’d left for the summer and in just three short months it seemed like he’d sprouted right up into the 6’2” bean pole. 

You’d always liked Steve. Most girls gravitated towards Bucky, the well off, naturally charming mechanic that Steve was connected at the hip with. Not you. 

It was always Steve, with his gentle blue eyes and his kind smile. Just once you wanted to know what it felt like to hold his hand or how he’d kiss. 

You always imagined he kissed like John Thorton at the end of North and South. How many times had you fantasized that he brushed his hand over your skin and breath a little breath to blow away your insecurities like he had with his sketchbook. 

You’d glanced once to see what he drew. Mostly doodles, but once, you’d seen a face. One that broke your heart. Ms. Carter. Your senior lit teacher. He drew her in such a lovely way there was no doubt to his affections for her. And how could you ever compete with someone as fierce and intelligent as Ms. Peggy Carter.

You tended to shy away from him for the most part. Usually too worried about being a nuisance to really try to hold a conversation with him. You were honestly surprised to go see him go to school. He came from a poor family, you knew his mother was sick. It made your heart ache to watch him go through what you did. 

Then it happened. 

Sarah Rogers passed away and he was devastated. So was Bucky if you were being completely honest. He and Steve were like brothers, and towards the end of high school he lived with them, right around the time his dad cut him off. You put everything aside. You went to Bucky and asked if there was anything you could do to help. You did a fundraiser to help raise money for her funeral, they didn’t have health insurance, let alone life insurance. Steve tried to deny the help at first but he slowly opened up. 

Somehow you ended up even more in love with Steve than before. It wasn’t hard. Bucky teased you in private about your crush on the little dork who never backed down from a fight. Now here you were, about ready to finish up your senior year with your two best friends. Ready to graduate, to flee the nest. 

The music was so loud in the backyard it was hard to hear right next to the speaker. But thankfully you didn’t have to stay by the speaker. You saw the blond hair that you’d spot from anywhere. The hair your eyes always searched for. It was habitual now. 

You break into a grin at seeing him. He smiles back. His gentle, amused smile that says he’s feeling a bit mischievous tonight. It’s so distracting you aren’t prepared to be lifted off your feet. Letting out a squeal of terror, you kick your feet. “BUCKY! PUT ME DOWN!”

“Down you say?” 

“Don’t you dare!” You meet Steve’s eyes just as you leave Bucky’s arms. Time slows as you see the grin break out of Steve’s face. You inhale as fast as this slowed time allows you to. The water is warm when you hit it. No guarantee it would be when you climb out. Of course, there was nothing like seeing that twinkle in his eye. 

Time stayed slow under that water. Bubbles surged around you, when it cleared you gazed about the pool. Red solo cups had sunk to the bottom of the pool. There was a pretty pink bra near the bottom as well. A few glow stick bracelets shined from the bottom as well and legs kicked about. A couple guys were wrestling near the other side. 

Why was water always so comforting? You wonder idly, listening to the dull noise of music filter through the water. It was so soft and quiet.

You just wanted to stay down here, to float. It sounds morbid. 

When the blond appeared above the ripples of the water, you forgot about the water and pushed off the bottom of the pool, surging up to break the surface of the pool. “You’re an accomplice, you know?” You hum to him. He chuckles at you, hands stuffed in the pockets of the pants he couldn’t fill out yet. 

“That only counts if I knew about it beforehand,” he replies. You shoot Bucky a hard look, but not too hard. You could never mask your true feelings to them. Instead you just soften into a grin and giggle. 

“You’re dead, Barnes.” He smiles as Steve holds out a hand to help you out of the water.

“Sure, sure.”

“Been here long?” Steve asks you.

“About ten minutes. Thankfully I left my phone in my car.” 

“I tried to call you,” he replies, with a shrug. “Explains why you didn’t answer.” 

Wringing out your hair, “To repent, you gotta get me a drink, Buck.”

“Haven’t gotten one yet?” Bucky asks.

“Nah, was waiting for my body guards so I could feel extra special.” 

“Oh, in that case, I’ll get the princess a drink.” He gives a dramatic bow and then turns to head inside to where the jungle juice lay. Leaving you with Steve. 

“To the balcony?” You ask.

“Sounds good.”

There was an ease about being with Steve, one that wasn’t there before. He made things easier. Made things better. There was no doubt that you loved Steve, even if he wasn’t for you. How you longed to be his muse like Ms. Carter was. He was like dawn on a winter morning, long awaited. He was warm sunshine melting the snow. He was a necessity. You’d prayed so many nights that you could be good enough for him, but you weren’t sure. God could be so cruel.

Soon, you both had made your ways onto the balcony. Exactly where you always went when Tony Stark threw parties at his parents house. He’d moved across the country after high school to go to school at MIT. A smart kid, he’d gone from quiet, like he couldn’t bother with anyone, to a cocky asshole. His parties were statement pieces. Tradition in our little town. There wasn’t much to do besides parties around here. Steve wasn’t a big fan, you knew. 

He’d much rather be at home, drawing memories of his mother. A heart breaking experience for you. This at least got him out. Once he even participated in one of those games. Bucky had talked him into playing the game with cards. Where you have to pass the card by lips alone. It had been Bucky’s plan to get Steve to kiss you. 

It had not worked. 

He’d hoped you’d both finally be able to admit feelings. But it hadn’t worked. Steve ended up locking lips with another girl. Not just once. The girl had spent the night kissing Steve exactly how you’d imagined to kiss, delicate, savory. His hands, brushing hair from her cheeks like she was a flower. At some point you couldn’t take it anymore. You shuffled away, looking for some relief from the awful pain of seeing someone else on him. 

You found it, alright. 

Clawing at some strangers back, hiding your tears and regretting the next never ending weeks. Hating that those hands weren’t Steve’s. The guy, who’s name you didn’t care enough to get didn’t have soft blonde hair, his hands were too soft. He didn’t smell like him. The whole thing took way too long to recover from. It took almost six months for you to even meet Steve’s eyes like you used too.

Now, you both pretended nothing happened. It had been erased like a nightmare fading after waking. 

But dreams still came. You never expected to be Steve’s number one. His number two, maybe his number. When you fell in love with him, a little spot of necrosis began on your heart. It expanded every time you gave yourself hope to be more. You’d settle to dream of him.

There was a recurring one that hurt more than anything else ever had, only because they were so real, you’d forget they weren’t. Waking up to his skin under your fingertips, he’d smile, gentle, free. His fingers black from charcoals, he’d drawn you sleeping, loving the morning light coming through the window. 

You’d once told Bucky you hoped one day you could break away, and love someone else. “One day, I’ll love someone more than him,” you promised. Alas, it wasn’t anytime soon.

“You cold?” Steve asks. As you shiver on the balcony. 

“Hm? Oh, no,” you dismiss. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Here, I’ll get you a blanket, I’m sure the Starks won’t mind.”

“Ah, thanks,” you reply and glance out at the party below. A familiar prickle rose in your gut. Something unsettling. You lean against the edge and ponder. It didn’t seem more than a moment before a voice tore you back, but not completely. There was something, almost like being underwater.

“Sorry, I took so long.” You frown at Steve, throwing a blanket over your trembling shoulder. You weren’t cold though.

“You were only gone a few seconds.” Steve chuckles.

“I suppose. I was gone for almost five minutes.” You shake your head at him, or yourself, you’re not certain. “Maybe you zoned out again,” he suggests.

You didn’t want to worry him, but it happened frequently. “Yeah, probably.”

“Where do you go when that happens?”

“I… There’s this feeling sometimes.” Steve frowns deeper. “It’s almost like the air gets stale… like… I feel like a ghost, Steve. Like I’m not living anymore and I’m just… stuck, just reliving the same moments over and over,” you breathe. “It’s not good or bad or numb… just like I get stuck in these little moments, you know?” Steve doesn’t reply, but he also doesn’t look at you like you’re crazy either.

“Well, you’re not a ghost, (Y/N). You’re alive. More alive than anyone I’ve ever met.” You meet his gaze. You take a moment and nod, reassured for another moment that all was well. 

“Steve?” You ask.

“Yeah?”

“Is it too much to ask you not to leave me, I don’t care if this is dream. But when you get famous for your art, don’t forget about me, okay?”

“A dream?” He repeats. “Why would you ever want to dream about me,” he jokes.

“I’m serious, Steve.” You say, turning and fluttering a hand toward his chest. You hesitate, afraid if you touch him he would crumble into a thousand, thousand butterflies and float away to be gone forever. But when you lay a hand, he doesn’t crumble away like your dreams, instead you stroke the fabric of his collar under your fingertips.

“I would never leave you,” he leans down when you avoid his eyes. Making you meet his eyes, a tiny smile stretching on his handsome face. “‘Till the end of the line, right?”

“Right,” you breathe, like a relief. And suddenly your eyes are holding each other’s and it’s endless. Like one of those moments only you feel very much alive. He’s very close. If you pushed up onto your toes, your lips would meet. Would he want you too?

You could smell him. He smelled like clean sheets and his paints. Like the craft store.

“I got drin- Oh…” Both of you snap your heads. Bucky looked disappointed.

Both you and Steve shifted away from each other quickly, a coolness rising. Dosing us and sending us toward Bucky. The dark haired beauty presses his lips together like he was uncomfortable and heaves a sigh as the both of us took the drinks. 

“This is gonna be a long night,” he sighs into his drink as I shuffle over to the patio furniture with them.

@tomisbaeholland​

[lurafita]

Rich!Tony/Artist!Peter, part 2

Go here for Part 1

Okay. Gotta be honest, this part isn’t that much more interesting than the first part was. But I did some actual research for this one and most of the artworks described in the text were inspired (or unashamedly stolen) from this site: https://theartofeducation.edu/2017/10/26/11-fascinating-artists-inspired-science/

So, let’s get this done!

The Art of Science and the Science of Art

While self-satisfaction might not be very virtuous, Pepper couldn't help the proud smirk that spread over her face, as she watched Tony all but fawn over the different artworks.

“Are you seeing this, Pep? This is a glass model of a magnified virus cell. They installed tiny light sources in specific places and angles to show how and where the cell interacts with the human body. And then there is a whole other set of lights and mirrors that indicates which parts are targeted and gradually destroyed by an antiviral drug. Actually, the way the mirrors are positioned here... yep. If you go around the pedestal and look at it from the different angles, it's like a little movie. First you see the lights indicating the parasitic effect of the virus on the body, then the way the drugs counteract the effects, and once you reach full circle; Ah, see here? Now the lights and the mirrors and the shadows create the effect that the virus evaporated. Damn, that's clever.”

Tony walked around the pedestal once more, trying to make out the positions and calculate the angles of all the lights and mirrors used.

Pepper's previous gleeful smirk softened, as she watched her boss move on to the next exhibit, a gorgeous piece created with metals and specially coated glass. The reflected images and light created 'Sun Drawings', that moved and changed in response to sunlight and the passage of time.

Having been Tony Stark's personal assistant for almost 8 years now, Pepper had learned much about the inner machinations of the man. And at his very center, Tony Stark was an engineer. A mechanic. He could talk theoretical physics with the best of them, but he preferred practical results. Tony's work had a purpose, a direct impact.

Which was one of the reasons why he wasn't normally swayed by art.

“Okay, this here? Classic movie effects. Chemical reactions used to visualize the images of a nuclear explosion, but it all happens under a microscope.”

While the billionaire could certainly appreciate beautiful art, something that was nothing more than 'nice to look at' held no value to him. It was the same reason why he had tons of one night stands, and hardly any actual relationships in his life. He was at first attracted to a person's physical beauty, which usually led to sex. But when the sexual need had been sated, mere physical attraction wasn't enough to keep him interested in the person he had bedded the night before.

“Now this, this is art. Applied physics at its finest. Do you see how the magnets interact with and against each others polarity? This is a perfect demonstration of the symbolism behind the theory of gravitational forces.”

It was why Pepper had jumped on the chance to get her hands on the tickets to Peter Parker's first ever art exhibition. He had been steadily making a name for himself over the last two years, and the redhead had seen some of his early works while she was on vacation in Europe. The young man had been set up in a corner of a street market in Marseilles, and with the help of various visual and practical effects, had explained the complex mechanics behind aerodynamic principles, to his wide eyed and utterly fascinated audience.

“A model of Nikola Tesla's early design for a solar collector made by modern computer code. See this section here? That's programming code for data extraction. In this context, it translates to Tesla's attempt to convert the energy of solar rays into electrical power. It serves as a parallel between combining old and new resources. See? This is the kind of art one can actually talk about. Not a painting of a stupid fruit bowl.”

Whereas Tony used his genius and understanding of different areas of science to create and improve, Parker used his to teach and inspire. Parker's art was something that Tony could not only relate to, but also admire, because it had purpose beyond it's beauty.

The hour that Tony had initially given himself to suffer through the showcase had long since passed, as the billionaire found himself unable to curb any of his enthusiasm, as he grew ever more fascinated with every new piece of art. Other people milling about the rooms 'oohed' and 'aahed' as they inspected the different works of the artist, sipping on their glasses of complementary champagne. But Tony doubted they could truly grasp the idea; the genius behind it all.

He was going to buy it all. The whole exhibit. Everything. He wanted those pieces in his company, in his home, in his workshop. He wanted to have the computer coded Tesla piece in his office, as a symbol of Stark Industries work on renewable energy. He wanted to gift the glass model of the virus cell to Bruce, to celebrate the biochemist's latest break through in the field.

He wanted both the magnetic force field work and the microscopic chemical reactions in his workshop, as a source of constant inspiration. His fingers itched with the want to create, the need to pour his skills into his work.

He wanted... He wanted to meet the artist.

When they had made their way almost full circle around the exhibit, they stopped at what appeared to be the last of the show cases. This one was different from the rest. For one, it was made out of Play Dough, though that was a fact Tony only realized by reading the description. How the hell this Parker guy had managed to form a completely genuine looking circuit board out of such an inferior material as children's clay, he could only guess.

He wanted to talk to the artist.

Another thing that struck Tony was that this circuit board looked somehow familiar.

He leaned in closer.

“This one section here looks like a rather awkward welding job. The connections between the wires seem a bit clumped. I would put it down to the use of Play Dough, but the other details on the board are so clean... You know, this looks almost like-”

“-the circuit board you built when you were five years old.”

Both surprised by the new voice, Pepper and Tony quickly turned around. Just a step behind them stood a young man, dressed in a casual but nice enough suit, with deep brown eyes, fluffy looking chestnut hair and a shy smile. Pepper recognized the man she had seen in France right away, and held out her hand to him.

“Mr. Parker. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Virginia Potts. But please, feel free to call me Pepper. Everyone does.”

The artist took her hand with a pleasant smile.

“In this case, I insist on Peter. And the pleasure is mine, Pepper.”

Tony could hardly wait for the handshake to end, to insert himself into the introduction.

“So you are the surprisingly gorgeous face behind all these beauties. I'm-”

“Tony Stark. I know. I'm a big fan of your work, Mr. Stark.” Parker smiled brightly (and blushing heavily) at him and eagerly reached for his hand. Then he shyly nodded to the pedestal display. “Your earliest work included.”

He wanted...

“Just Tony will do. One question, though. Why Play Dough? I may not have been very skilled with the welding equipment back then, but I do remember using the actual parts needed.”

Peter turned to his work, a helpless sort of smile on his lips, as he explained.

“When I was in my last year of highschool, and it was time to make a decision regarding college, I felt helplessly defeated. Was I supposed to attend one that focused on all the things that fascinated me about science, or one that focused on all the things I loved about art? I didn't know if I would ever be able to meet the expectations others had placed upon me, and the ones I had placed upon myself. I became wary and anxious about every choice I made. Constantly questioning myself if it was worth it to try to combine the things I loved, or if I wouldn't be able to hold on to both at the same time. Science versus art. Wanting to pursue such opposite things seemed ridiculous. But then my teacher gave us the task of writing a paper about a person that had greatly influenced our society and progress. I chose to write about you. And during my research, I found an old newspaper article, front page, about the young Stark prodigy, who was already showing the whole world how smart he was. The ordinary 5 year old makes crayon drawings and forms simple shapes out of Plasticine. A few can already read some of their children's books, but many are still more focused on the pictures in them. But the 5 year old you broke out of the limitations perceived for kids, and defied expectations. And I thought to myself ‘Hey, if Tony Stark can build a circuit board at such a young age, then maybe I can find a way that doesn’t mean I have to give up on one of the things I love.’ So, I guess I used the clay to symbolize what was expected, and your final design to show how you rose above.”

That shy little smile again. He wanted...

“In fact, you have done nothing but risen, Mr.- Tony. You have been a great inspiration for me, over the years. Quite possibly even a bit of a muse, if you will.”

Tony was a bit stumped, honestly. He had never been lost for words before. Thankfully he caught himself quickly. 

He wanted...

“So, philanthropist, billionaire, genius, muse.” (Had he just replaced his usual playboy title with ‘muse’?) “I like that.” (He did.) 

Peter.

“As your muse, I get dibs, right?”

A confused little head tilt. 

Cute.

“Dibs?”

On you.

“On the art pieces.” Tony elaborated with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “They are up for sale, right?

“Oh, yes. It’s uhm... we will hold an auction in a bit, after I have officially introduced myself to everyone here and said a few words.” Peter looked distinctly uncomfortable with that bit.

Tony was just opening his mouth to say something else, when suddenly Pepper inserted herself back into the conversation. (He had admittedly forgotten that she was there.)

“Peter, I think the woman over there is trying to get your attention.”

They turned to see a middle aged woman in an elegant dress, subtly gesturing to him. Peter grinned a bit ruefully as he turned back to his two companions.

“That’s my aunt, and also kind of my manager. I guess it’s time for my big entrance.”

He offered his hand once more first to Pepper, then to Tony.

“Pepper, Tony, again, it was a pleasure meeting you. Since it’s an auction, I can’t exactly grant you dibs, as much as I would like to.” He grinned at Tony. “But about 75% of all our revenues tonight will be donated to The Future Hope Foundation, which is a research center focused on developing cures for different diseases, speacially in children. I will be talking a bit more about that one in my speech, provided my severely repressed stage fright doesn’t hit me in a few minutes. So just know that whatever you decide bidding on, it will be worth it.”

Tony wanted to keep holding on to that hand. A hand that was just as calloused as his own, but still somehow softer and more delicate.

“I’m sure it will be.”

You will be worth it.

Just as Peter turned to leave, he cast one last look at the Play Dough model.

“Take a look at the note beside the general description before things start going, would you?”

Then he and his aunt vanished out of the room, to prepare for Peter’s introduction.

Curious now, Tony and Pepper turned back around to the pedestal and found what Peter had been talking about.

‘Of all my works, this one is my favourite, not only because of what it represents to me, personally, but also because of the person who inspired it. Unlike many of the other pieces, that are named after that which they represent, for this one, no other title than

Indomitable

could have ever come to mind. This is the only piece in the show case that will not be part of the auction. As this one already belongs to Anthony Edward Stark.’

“Pep.”

“Yes, Tony.”

“If I win every single auction bid, which I will, I would be entitled to a date with the artist, right?”

“You are probably still going to have to ask him the old fashioned way.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for coming tonight. Without further ado, it’s my sincere pleasure to introduce you to the man whose art work has brought you all here.”

Tony smiled. “I can do that.”

“I proudly present to you, Peter Parker!”

_________________________________________________________

The End.

Thanks to everyone for reading and liking the story! I hope you all enjoyed it, even though the story ends before Tony and Peter’s relationship really begins.

Thanks to the original prompt giver as well, due to the research I did for this story, I was able to see quite a few amazing art works.

Tagging: @unicornpower5301 -->why isn’t this stupid tag working?

[jinjojess]

One of the main things I get asked about or have mentioned to me is why I don’t as zealously translate things on my blog anymore.

There’s a lot of reasons, some of which I’ve addressed in the past, but they’re kind of persistent issues that don’t only affect me. They affect just about every other fan translator that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and they’re why you don’t tend to see the same people stick around for a long period of time.

This is going to come across as a vent-type thing, and it isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, but just at certain trends in fandom and social media spaces in general, so I’m not calling anyone out or anything.

Like I mentioned before, you tend to notice that a lot of people who translate things for a particular fandom will drift away after a certain amount of time. This isn’t an accident, nor does it necessarily need to be an eventuality. Some people will always move on because they lose interest in the source material, but I’m not talking about that today.

Reason #1: Work and Real Life

The biggest, most persistent issue for me is my job. I work long hours, I have a two-hour commute on a train each day, and my work is very stressful and demanding. Would I rather be translating? Hell yes! Can I support myself doing translations for free? Hell no!

When I was doing really hardcore translation stuff, it was basically me not sleeping. That was a thing I could do because my hours were shorter then and I got long breaks throughout the year. I was home and in my house by 18:30 every night which meant I had way, way more free time than I’ve had in the last couple years.

I’m not in school anymore, nor do I work part time, nor am I figuring things out at my parents’ or anything. I’m also getting older and more tired. That means I can’t afford to be translating a bunch of text for free and sacrificing all my free time and time to sleep. It’s a little unfair to expect me to compete with pro translators, people who work part time, or are in university, or NEETs who happen to be doing translation stuff.

Reason #2: Lack of Motivation/Lack of “Customer Loyalty”

I was going to call this “lack of reward” but there is an inherent reward to doing this kind of work and lots of people have been very vocal and kind about their gratitude, so it’s not necessarily that you never are rewarded.

However, I do need to address the elephant in the room.

Fandom is a fickle and impatient creature. It doesn’t care about quality, it cares about speed. The second biggest reason I don’t try to keep up the pace I was going at a few years ago is because there’s really not any strong motivation to do so aside from my own pride and a handful of people.

Let me try to explain what I mean: when you’re cranking out translations quickly, before anyone else has touched anything, then people will respond well. They’ll reblog your posts, donate small amounts of money, draw you fanart, send you nice messages. The second you stop cranking things out as quickly though, all of that dries up. Yes, a core group of people will stick with you, but the majority of the fandom just kind of moves on and latches onto whoever’s faster.

And it’s frustrating. It’s annoying that I can spend hours and hours and hours putting something together, only for it to get like 50 notes. My DRT summaries have been read by countless people, but the posts themselves have less than 10 notes in most cases. 

People don’t really appreciate that translation is ultimately a creative act--it’s not just a mechanical process of Language In > Language Out, it require you to be creative in your word choices. Also they don’t appreciate the hidden work, like all the money spent procuring the original source material (which I always tried to do since I prefer to be self-reliant like a dumbass), or the formatting, or the TIME. 

Meanwhile, people will reblog visual art that looks similar with no qualms, but if it’s a long translation, they won’t even bother to read other interpretations, much less spread them.

People remember the names of visual artists, and will promote them and yell about how they need to be paid and whatnot, but they don’t tend to remember the names of people who translated things. Fandom just doesn’t do that. Unless you stay relevant and in the public eye as it were, fandom at large doesn’t remember the people who did seminal translations of works.

They don’t have to, of course, but I gotta admit that it doesn’t really make me want to pour hours of my own limited free time into working on something that no one will care about or remember I did after the fact.

Reason #3: Cutthroat Tactics

As you can imagine, when speed is the only thing that matters, the situation turns toxic real quick. While you’ll meet a lot of other great translators, and everyone I’ve personally worked with has been fantastic, but I think the incident that best shows off what I mean is what happened with Yaz and someone taking his raws to release their own version before shslscans did. That happens all the damn time.

While a certain group of people will cooperate and try not to step on others’ toes or be respectful (the reason why I never finished kamase-megane’s DRK1 translation), there will always be other people who just jump in and do stuff and don’t even recognize you--they can’t, because if they do, they run the risk of people going to read your stuff instead of theirs, and as we established, the fandom will only read one translation and nothing else.

There’s also the issue of the audience themselves, who will do things like nitpick everything you post if they don’t like it (which happened to a friend of mine, who ended up having people attack them because their interpretation of the vaguely worded source text didn’t line up with what they wanted to hear). 

There are also people who very clearly want to use you for their own advantage. You can always tell who these people are, because they will be up in your face and promoting you left and right until you need to take a breather, at which point they will drop you like a sack of potatoes and heavily promote someone who is doing the thing they want, but faster. They will also not circle back around and promote your version once you finish it.

The fandom will take your scans and your translations and use them without credit, gaining way more notoriety and attention than you ever could on your own (this happened to me last year on Twitter, where someone took a photo and translation I uploaded to my blog in 2014 and used it to garner LOADS of attention--while the Tumblr post that talked about the tweet credited me, the original thief never did, despite me politely asking).

Fandom will also turn their nose up at anything that isn’t a word-for-word translation. My summaries for the side novels are extremely detailed and I end up translating large passages anyway, and STILL people bitch that they won’t engage with summaries because they’re inferior. r/choosingbeggars much?

Part of the reason that no one remembers the translator or sticks with them if their pace drops is because there’s an unspoken expectation that the fandom is owed the translations. It doesn’t matter who they come from, but clearly someone has to do it, because it’s just a thing that fans are entitled to. That’s mind-boggling to me, who grew up with fan translations as the only way for me to experience a LOT of foreign language media. No one owes you translations of things as soon as they’re released!

Finally, it’s difficult to get your work even seen, because the market gets so saturated; all of the aggressive self-promotion often ignores what other people are doing, either because of sincere ignorance that your stuff exists, or because they’re intentionally ignoring you to make themselves seem like the only option.

Conclusion:

This is not a DanRon fandom problem; this is a fandom problem, full stop.

I can’t tell you what to do, or how to engage with fan translators and their work. This is more just a vent about things that irritate me about the whole scene and to explain why I don’t update as quickly or as often these days. 

I do still want to get my version out there, and I will still do it--I was doing side novel liveblogs and summaries before anyone paid attention to my blog and I will continue on after--but I do ask that maybe you be patient, or you try reading different translations of the same thing to appreciate the various approaches. Remember who translates what and makes sure that you always credit and source. Reblog translation posts, don’t just like them. 

Basically, treat us the way you treat visual artists.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all the folks who have stuck with me through the years. Everyone who sends me nice asks and who has sent me art or liked or reblogged my posts, I appreciate all of that. You should be the norm, but you aren’t, and so I really love you guys. I’ll have some stuff for you very soon!

[dbhilluminate]

DBHI: Redemption- "The Open Door", pt. 3

ARE YOU A FAN OF DETROIT? DO YOU LIKE GAY SHIPS AND COMPLICATED, LOVEABLE BOYS?? Then please keep up with our fic, you’ll love it, I promise!

(Chapter art by dark_dumb)

**Co-authored by grayorca15

Characters: Trevor Langley, Dylan Fleur, Dennis Lenore (mentions of Rhea Fleur, Dahlia Fleur, Spencer) Word Count: 6,875

A rocky introduction leads to the beginnings of an unexpected mutual understanding, and an unlikely friendship more welcomed by one than the other.

• Archive link • Chapter Index • • Related Works • Characters •

Previous Chapter

----------

July 4th, 2041 - 9:18 PM The remainder of the trek back to the house was surprisingly short. Compared to the winding, off-road path their chase had taken through the trees, this road they traveled was a straight shot with only a few gentle curves right, left, and another slight left. It ended almost right back where they’d started- the trees opened up to a hill that sloped down toward the house, where the balcony stairs led up to the studio. Now that he had a moment and wasn’t just blindly running away from the house, he noticed that a grotto has been carved into the slope of the hill below the veranda, and made into a nook furnished with several lounge chairs and a few stone fireplaces for illumination and warmth. Small, open archway entrances on either side ruined the potential for complete privacy, but with the hill blocking the view at a distance, it seemed like the kind of space he’d like to pass the time in. Dylan trotted up the staircase while skipping two steps with each stride, draped his soiled cardigan and shirt over the banister, entered the house barefoot and shirtless, then grabbed another sleeveless cardigan off the back of a chair and threw it on without stopping. Trev crept in behind him with his hands in his pockets while minding the globs of paint on the floor that were still a little wet (even after nearly an hour’s drying time), then stopped to examine the room. It was exactly as he’d glimpsed the first time through, more of a studio to work in than a chamber to rest, even if the couch in the far-right corner from where he was standing (which was covered in blankets) said otherwise. The beamed, vaulted ceilings framed out to beige and walnut walls, otherwise covered in abstract impressionist paintings, displayed whatever work-in-progress charcoal sketches he’d been working on in his spare time. There were at least three tables, each home to a different art medium, the perimeter dotted with cloth-covered easels. A number of empty paint cans held dozens of broken-in paintbrushes among other drawing tools. A large, plastic tarp had been strung up behind the largest canvas to the left, protecting the wall behind. The fourth wall, the closest to his right, was taken up by a brick oven, a tabletop anvil, a metalworking workbench, and a pottery wheel, of all things. Stacks of books littered the floor, handfuls of canvases leaned against the walls, piles of assorted paint cans were arranged in small caches beneath the tables, on shelving, or stored in cabinetry like the one in the middle of the room blocking a trapdoor leading to the room beneath it. In the back-right corner (on the other end of the couch) was a deep, well-loved stainless-steel sink spotted with countless layers of dried pigments that had never quite washed off. The last thing he noticed was a ten-gallon aquarium filled with greenery and scratchy substrate, resting on a table in the back-left corner of the room next to the door; what it could have housed was a mystery, because the animal wasn't present. Altogether this was clearly the space of someone who spent a lot of their time trying to find their muse, and it was by no means a cheap vocation. The many paint cans alone ran into the hundreds of dollars, budget-wise, but the clue that most interested Trev sat opened on one of the tables: a ripped plastic bag, still half full of unfilled water balloons, next to an old paint encrusted funnel- also known as an ammo dump, in tonight’s case. Lovely. Langley feigned rubbing at his chin to hide a reflexive twitch. Surrounded by this breadth of creative thought brought to inanimate life made him realize how foreign it all was. He felt more like the outsider here than at any time prior this evening. “If this is the part where I state the obvious... I’ll skip it, if you prefer.” But Dylan said nothing of the sort. “What I’d prefer…? Or what you’d prefer?” His tone piqued from around the corner of the wall dividing the side of the room to Trevor’s right, and he glanced up from digging around in a laundry basket to flash him a friendly grin. “Cause I’d prefer you say what’s on your mind.” Fleur tossed him a white V-neck top and a pair of black joggers as he passed on his way across the room, presumably to give him the space to change, at which Trev had only hesitated long enough to be reasonably sure he wasn’t being watched. When he was satisfied that he was not, Langley slipped the slacks and jacket off, meticulously folded them both, and briefly inspected the top beneath before he took it off and decided to bag it as well. If he was going to change into something clean and dry, he might as well have gone the whole nine yards. All the while, he thought on his reply. Dylan probably expected him to disclose something in return, but what was more benign than talking about the weather? “What’s on my mind is how much I prefer not to say what’s on my mind,” he replied idly as he pulled the shirt on over his head and fruitlessly tried to finger-comb his gummed-up hair back into something neat so it wasn’t sticking out at such odd angles. “I was only going to say your space suits you. Obvious as it gets, right?” “Obvious? Or observational?” Dylan countered as he fussed with the canvas tarp over a six-foot square canvas against the opposite side of the room, unfolded the corners and pulled them out from under the wooden frame. When he put it that way, Trev supposed, one adjective did sound more negative than the other. “Regardless,” he paused just long enough to grab two fistfuls of the canvas tarp, then yanked; the fabric fluttered through the air and settled onto the ground beside him in a huge heap. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he asked with a smile as Trev stopped beside him to examine the piece.

Removing the cover revealed a painting obscured by a few random splotches of paint deposited by the impact of water balloons, a sensation which he had been intimately introduced to that night. Even with chunks of the painting covered by mostly opaque layers of gesso, he could see what it was supposed to be: a man doubled over, hugging himself, fingers rending deep, clawed cuts into the skin of his ribs, the punctures leaking inky black shadows rather than life-giving crimson. The face had been turned away from the viewer, intentionally left obscured against a foggy, muddled backdrop of red, black, and gray. It was certainly a far cry from the hyper-realistic portrait hanging just outside the room- the erratic, emotionally charged brushstrokes, vivid colors, and sharp contrast of this piece were much more in line with what he’d expected after hearing about Dylan Fleur from his family members. The style was every bit as edgy and eccentric as he.

“Do you make art or war with it?” he murmured as he approached, still distracted by the thought that the painting may have been a self-portrait. He could hear Dylan scoff as another stray balloon hit one corner of the canvas and splashed a clashing layer of green over the top of an existing spot. Trev flinched ever so slightly as it splattered just a few feet away; the movement reminded him to blink, not stare in such overt confusion. “What’s this supposed to be?” “Another failure, like me,” Dylan half-joked as he wandered away to find dry pants. With no reason to follow, Trev stayed where he was and gave the piece another slow look over. It counted as evidence of something- the act of depicting what he could only interpret as some sort of inner turmoil, rather than keeping it bottled up in one’s head, was a tried-and-true coping mechanism, but not something he himself could relate to. Trevor’s closest comparison was having a department sketch artist work with a witness to a crime to recall facial features and distinguishing characteristics of a person of interest, which was similar in its intent only to identify the concept of someone. “Only failure I’m seeing here are the new stains you added.” Tempting as it was to reach out and try wiping the unsightly green off the defaced piece, Trev contented himself with working out another stubborn flake of yellow clinging to his hair. “I mean, it wasn’t finished yet, was it?” “It was, but I didn’t like it anymore, I’m gonna start over with something different,” he explained, then added as an afterthought with a frown after checking a grouping of paint cans on the floor under the coffee table. “Gotta go buy more acrylic gesso before I can, though.” “And this is why you had balloons filled with paint? You were going to trash it?” “You almost sound offended,” Dylan teased, noting the way his brows lifted in reserved judgment at the idea. Trevor cast a corrective, brown-eyed glance at him, but stopped short when Dylan met it with a disarming smile. “I’m not, I just-... don’t understand why you’d put so much effort into creating something, only to destroy it.” “It’s common practice for artists to recycle canvases when they get sick of looking at old pieces and don’t want to stretch a new one,” Fleur explained in his most educational tone as he crossed his arms and turned to step toward him. “It might have been therapeutic to paint this at the time, but I’m ready to move on from what inspired it.” “And what was that?” Dylan swallowed the answer to that question; apparently, he hadn’t earned the right to know yet, but he was perfectly fine with that. It was just one less reason to get attached. Instead, the boy ventured another risk, his voice weaker with a hint of melancholy. “Can’t you feel it…?” Trevor clenched his teeth and shot him a sharp look, not in the mood for a guessing game. “You’re the one who painted it- so you tell me.” “I could, but that would defeat the purpose of painting it.” For a moment he gazed at the painting and seemed to lose himself in the feelings it evoked, feelings that were readable on his face clear as day, even if he didn’t want to see it. “Art is a wordless form of communication that makes it a hell of a lot easier to explain thoughts you might otherwise had a hard time articulating,” he explained with a sideways glance in his direction; already, Trev could feel the prickling sensation in the back of his mind, and he didn’t like it. “Why tell what you can show?” Trev scowled, more obviously this time. He could feel it, all too vividly, and he didn’t want to. That was the problem. It wasn’t the painting itself or who its artist was, it was the similarities of the imagery and the read-into meanings that hit too close to home for comfort. It was anguish if he’d ever felt it (and he had, after he’d lost everything he’d ever known to the rise of Purgatory, the day that Boston fell), and a deep desire to cut oneself open to bleed it out just to feel the release the bloodletting would deliver. It was dark, unnerving, and passively comforting to know they shared this common pain. And that was exactly why he refused to answer him. “Thing about art is, it’s not always meant to be permanent,” Dylan continued, undeterred at his audience’s voluntary silence. “Sometimes it’s transient, transformative- like pain.” “So, you’re saying that art is pain?” It was a suitable comparison, considering the subject matter of this particular piece, and just enough of a diversion away from the uncomfortable subject to merit a response. “Sometimes… yes,” Fleur answered thoughtfully, his green-eyed gaze too transfixed to pay him any mind as Trev eyed the ink on his skin one more time and took a closer look at the flowers on his left arm. In the case of tattoos, it was more than sometimes. “Why bother with it, then?” he asked, genuinely confounded by the contradiction. “Compulsion,” he stated plain and simple as he closed his eyes, shook his head, and lowered his chin. “The pain I suffer when I don’t create is often worse than briefly facing it to scream it onto the page.” “If you say so.” Much as he detested the urge to, Trev could relate. It was very tempting to go sour at the thought of someone at Cyberlife thinking to get creative enough to the point they would try to dupe one of their products (i.e., himself) into thinking it was the real flesh-and-blood deal. Had he the pleasure of making that person’s acquaintance, it would not have been a peaceable meeting of minds. To equate it to Dylan’s example, he was the canvas upon which something new had been redrawn. Then that second layer had been unceremoniously torn off, like garish wallpaper stripped away to reveal the bare panels underneath. No one ever asked the paper if it wanted to be removed, was the only difference. Far as it was concerned, who knew if it had simply been content as it was? Not a fan of the phantom ache that seemed to settle in between his ears, Trev shut his eyes to scratch at the leftover paint flakes above one ear. The oldest spot was turning stiff, and therefore itchy. “You sound a lot like your- sisters,” he commented, cracking an eye open once the scratching was done. “No coincidence, I’m sure.” Dylan attempted a faltering smile that spoke loudly of insecurity and he turned toward one of the tables covered in brush cans, and swiped up a chunk of brush soap. “If that were true, I’d be better off,” he mused morbidly as he returned to his side and reached for the worst of the clumps in his hair. “But I’ll take that as a compliment, ‘cause they’re the best people I know, even if they can be a little...” Trev smacked away his hand when he reached up to try and help get the paint out of his hair. He thought he had made it clear that with their game over, he wasn’t of a mind to be touched, but Fleur just chuckled in response and tossed him the soap and a comb before taking a step back. “...overbearing.” “You know a touch of that yourself,” the android countered with a grumble. “All the earnestness of you three combined…” He let the words hang unfinished and tried running the bristles into his hair, wincing as they stuck against the clumps before eventually pulling through with enough force applied. “It’s contagious in this family,” Dylan joked with a short laugh as he busied himself with filling a bucket with hot, soapy water and finding a couple of sponges. “Can’t really help treating everyone else the same ‘til I know their boundaries.” Boundaries. Trevor nearly snorted. If he’d really given a shit about those, he wouldn’t be wearing his loaned clothes and scraping paint out of his hair. If this was how Dylan treated family, then he actually felt sorry for Dahlia and Rhea. “My classmates rarely say hello to me outside of courses, yet here’s a whole evening full of coddling people to make up for it. Ugh.” He didn’t mean to sound ungrateful; it was just his reality. Even the instructors tended to give him a wide berth- with no official report delivered accounting for who he was, he supposed he couldn’t fault them for being leery of what they didn’t know, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt some days. “What are you, then...?” he diverted, after a brief pause. “A student, or a hobbyist?” “Third-year fine arts at Cranbrook Academy of Arts,” Dylan replied as he knelt to wipe as much of the paint off the floor as he could with some dry rags, then followed up with a wet sponge. “I do my schoolwork from home and video call to talk to my professors or participate in classes when I need to.” Another clue to file away in the growing dossier, one that sufficed to explain why he was such a homebody. The sight of him cleaning his own floors gave Trevor pause. If he’d grown up in a house this size, with a plethora of servants to do the work for him, wouldn’t it be logical for him to leave the mess for one of them to clean up? Yet here he was, humbling himself to scrub paint off the hardwood, already damaged by years of splashed oil and turpentine. “And when you’re not doing all that…? Pranks are it?” “Pranks are reserved for special occasions, and special people…” Dylan insisted as he crawled from one partial shoeprint to the next, dragging the bucket with him. “But I do a lot of this thing called sleeping, too… y’know?” He flashed him a small grin and popped his brows. “What about you? What do you do in your spare time that’s better than...” One hand gestured around the room at ‘all this’ was enough for him to understand the question. To immediately draw a distinction as one hobby being somehow better than the other, Trev didn’t care for that presumption. Not one bit. “I study.” He left his retort at two words and resumed brushing his hair, though the movements turned sharp and jerky, the more frustrated he became. As far as he was concerned, coursework was not inherently more rewarding than art, it was just what he knew; and by the numbers, he was already better at it than eighty percent of his classmates. Though, fitting in the occasional ride-along patrol with Dennis didn’t hurt either. It served to get him outside, at least. “And that which I’m expected to learn is as boring as it is privileged information, not for the general public to know. Not much else to it.” “So, you’re a student, too,” Dylan noted without looking up. The virility in Trev’s inner thoughts was lost on him, and for the best since he’d apparently misread his implication to begin with. “Believe it or not, I do like quiet nights in, it’s just that...” Dylan’s eyelids fluttered momentarily as he paused between cleaning spots on the floor. “...it does get really lonely.” That bordered on too close to his own thoughts. How was it their experiences could be so different, yet so universal? “And this is how you force people into spending time with you?” Langley growled quietly but a whine of distress slipped through as the comb finally snagged in the tangled knot he’d been brushing it all toward. Snagged and stuck. Fleur stopped what he was doing, walked over to the sink, and filled a brush can with hot water. “You know, you could have walked away the first time you tried,” he reminded as he strode back over, leaving it at that instead of further rubbing it in that he’d made the conscious decision to stay. In a wordless movement, he took the soap out of Trev’s hand, dunked it into the can, and lathered it into a frothy mess, then tried at touching his hair again. As expected, Trevor flinched away like a wounded animal; but instead of giving up, Fleur just took in a breath to steady himself, and waited for his feral instincts to subside. “You’re making it a lot harder for yourself than it needs to be. This will help, if you let it. Please.” In spite of the mess of mixed up feelings working overtime to push him as far away as they possibly could, Dylan still wasn’t intimidated by his snarling. How could he be so calm in the face of anger? Where everyone else would have given up, he’d persisted, against his better judgment. Whether it was just sheer stupidity or naivety, he couldn’t say, but the boy’s patience was admirable. Or, maybe, learned. Trev’s brown eyes shifted focus over his shoulder at the painting one more time and withered just enough to drain the tension out of his expression. He wondered just what his trauma could have been to have left such a deep, festering wound, and how he could have remained so patient in spite of it. Hesitantly, he lowered his hands, but not his guard; for the moment, he was tired of feeling so tightly wound. Fleur fingered the solidified chunk of hair and softly worked the soap into it from root to tip until he could feel the paint start to break down. The sensation of discomfort in Trev’s scalp subsided almost immediately, to his relief, but when Fleur reached for the comb, he snatched it out of the way and recoiled back to brush it out himself. No gloating smile or snarky grin came in response. Instead he just gave him the smallest hint of a smile as he watched him comb the knot out with considerably less effort. “Better?” A mumbled, disgruntled ‘Yeah, thanks’ was all he could offer in return amidst the combing. The paint came out easily now with the help of the soap, whether or not he wanted to admit that accepting his help had done him some good. The large, almost rubbery paint clumps rolled out with the lather in thin strands which dissolved into thinner pieces the longer it sat in the suds. As Dylan turned back to his cleanup, Trev made the short trip to the sink in the back corner of the room with the sofa and stooped to attempt to rinse the mess out of his hair. He took his glasses off to fold up and hook over the collar of his shirt. Even if it was only a partially-simulated shower, it still served to do what running water over the head at the end of a long, tiring day did best: it made him think, made him wonder… Trev reached for the faucet and turned it off, wrung the water out of his hair as best he could, then reached for a hand towel and rubbed as much of the remaining dampness as he could out of it. If Fleur was really such a misanthrope that he rarely bothered to come out of his studio, then what had made him want to try and get to know him? Or rather, what made him ‘special enough’ to want to pull such an infuriating prank? Somewhere between the boring and the interesting, he was on the more favorable end of that scale, and that necessitated investigation. “Why me?” he asked softly, his focus directed at the drain, towel still draped around his neck and hands gripped tight on the edge of the sink. Dylan paused mid-scrub and briefly met his eyes as Trevor looked his way. The look in them said everything and more, but Dylan answered anyway, in the simplest way he could. “...because you get it.” “Despite efforts to the contrary,” Trev noted pessimistically as he resumed brushing. This earned a quiet chuckle from his company, and Dylan paused to remain sitting on his knees for a few moments while cleaning up the last shoe print. “...you’re hardly the most difficult person I’ve encountered,” Fleur admitted, to his surprise. Privately, he wondered if Dennis knew this, and if he did, to what degree- the whole ugly truth, or just a partial account. Alternatively, to have anyone describe him as somehow not difficult gave Trev another reason to pause. He stopped brushing a moment to peel gathered paint crumbs from between the bristles and hesitated, the question hitched in his throat. “And if I was, would we be having this conversation?” “Knowin’ me…? Yeah, probably,” Dylan snorted as he dunked the sponge in the now-lukewarm water and wrung it out. “But it also depends on what you mean by difficult, because it takes a lot to piss me off- narcissism, chauvinism, egotism, prejudice, bein’ an asshole just because you can.” The last two terms actually drew a curl in his lip as he scrubbed harder to scratch the dried paint off the hardwood with the rough side of the sponge. “Fame chasing, glory-seeking, hurting someone because it’ll benefit you or because it just makes you happy to cut someone else down- that’s the kind of shit I can’t deal with in large doses, an’ I’ve met a lot of people like that in my life to know em’ when I see ‘em. So, you tell me, Langley.” He paused long enough to spare him a questioning look. “Are you any of those things? Or are you just hurtin’ and still a little too raw for comfort?” As he slid his glasses back on, Trevor swallowed, equal parts affronted and not that Dylan could see right through whatever he had passing for a mask. He blinked a few times to cover the involuntary twitch in his eyes, if not hide the nervous tremor in his throat that generated from nowhere to derail the sardonic retort he’d put together. And here he once thought getting away from Rhea and Dahlia would mean avoiding discussing this. A response to the former query and not the latter would be an answer in itself, no matter how he worded it, and that would have to suffice. “If I am those qualities in any measure, it’s not intentional. I… I’m still figuring it out.” Trevor focused on a stretched lock of hair and picked a few remaining paint clumps out, to avoid focusing on how hot his cheeks had become. “It’s- complicated.” “Well, take a breath, then, ‘cause as far as I can see, you’re not.” Dylan pushed himself up off the floor and stooped to pick up the bucket, then turned and looked over with a reassuring smile. “I can handle damaged, Trev. I’d be a hypocrite if I couldn’t.” The flush faded and Trev set his eyebrows in a flat line to mirror his mouth. It was nice to offer, but… “Not sure mine’s the kind of damage you’d care to hear about,” he deflected half-heartedly. “Then try me some time, you might be pleasantly surprised.” Part of him wished he hadn’t said it, but another, slightly larger part of him felt relieved at his offer. Persistence was starting to get through to him, or maybe he was just tired of arguing semantics. He watched as Fleur crossed the room, a rag and bucket in hand, and bent down to wipe up the small bits of yellow that had spilled out into the hallway. This whole encounter had started off so completely opposite, he was having a hard time believing he was still talking to the same person that had him so thoroughly pissed off an hour earlier. Instead of being at odds with a new enemy, he now found himself in the company of someone who was just as misunderstood as he- someone genuine, someone kind, someone with the potential to be a real friend if he was ever brave enough to venture out of his shell again. Which he had already begun to do, whether he wanted it or not. The charm had been one of the first things he had joked about, but self-deprecating or not, there had been truth in what he’d said: Dylan was magnetic and charismatic, much more so than he was repulsive. And out of the hundreds- hell, thousands of people he’d probably met and decided he wanted nothing to do with, he saw something in him that made him determined enough to dig his heels in and persist despite Trev’s resistance. In the end, he had taught him a valuable lesson about loosening up- and how accepting help wasn’t an admission of defeat, but a valuable tool in overcoming problems (as demonstrated by the comb now gliding through his hair with ease). He didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to be, he didn’t have to bury his trauma under so many layers of irritation and short-tempered reactions and never again trust another enough to open up. But he wasn’t quite there yet, brave enough to face the full scope of all that wasn’t on the agenda. Dylan had somehow managed to throw back the curtains on his gloom and doom and let the light in, but he wasn’t ready to open the window. “Not today,” he finally replied after several minutes of silence, not wanting to sound too much like he’d be willing to consider acting on his offer, if their budding friendship even made it that far; even still, the implication of his word choice was apparently obvious enough. Dylan smiled, more happy than mischievous initially, but because it was in his nature to not let things get too comfortable (which Trev quietly thanked him for), it tainted the otherwise lighthearted mood with coy suspicion. “You mean you might come back one of these days…? After everything I put you through…?” Instantly, Trevor backpedaled with a defensive finger point at his teasing. “Hey- don’t push your luck,” he warned, eyes squinty and head tilted. “It’s almost like I knew you were a good egg…” “Alright, that’s it- visitation rights have been revoked.” “What!?” Dylan’s fake-outrage was overpowered by laughter and a charming smile Trev found himself growing fonder of every time he saw it (and deep down, it terrified him). “But I just complimented you…!” “Keep it up, and I might just relocate to the next zip code, and change my name.” It might have been the best thing for him, if this kept up. “Oh, come on now, don’t be so dramatic…” Another ten minutes of idle banter elapsed before the world outside saw fit to make itself known again. Appearing with as little warning as he had the first time, Dennis Lenore didn’t knock. To find them right back where they began wasn’t a big leap of logic, having last seen them at the onset of the chase, although he probably did wonder why Trev didn’t simply return to the dining room. The sight of him perched atop one of the stools -in a fresh set of borrowed leisure clothes, listening to Dylan chatter on and on with a faint smile, a few stubborn flakes of paint still entrenched in his hairline- got an instant smirk out of him, though no questions were asked, about the fate of the suit or otherwise. “Well, I see you two are gettin’ along great.” His choice of adjective was enough to get a mildly-irritated glower out of both of them. This was, in part, all the older officer’s doing. ‘You’ll thank me later,’ he’d said, somewhat premonition-like. There was absolutely no way he hadn’t known what he was doing. Trev breached that new silence first with a mannerly stretch. “Yes, sir. Mr. Fleur is… different from what I expected.” “So, it’s Mr. now, huh?” Dylan teased with a sideways glance and a smirk. “Don’t get used to it,” he quickly amended once he realized how awkward it sounded, given how Dennis’ expression curdled a bit. “In any case, he was generous enough to not leave me a mess afterward.” “Hey, aftercare is important,” Dylan chimed in with a smirk and a ribbing nudge as he got up and passed Trev on his way to dump out the water bucket. The double meaning went over Trev’s head initially, but it came back around like a boomerang when it got an uncomfortable snort and a chuckle out of Lenore, and he flushed softly with an annoyed scowl. “Just glad to see you’re both in one piece.” “We had a rough start, but… we came to an understanding, of not understanding,” Fleur explained with a sideways wink in Trev’s direction that was met by a sigh and an eye-roll that somehow bordered on amicable. “It could have been much worse.” “Or better.” A sputtering choke on his next words at the evolution of Den’s expression from amused to devious did well enough to convey that the context had not been lost on him that time, but the blushing helped. “So does that mean you’re stayin’ the night, or do we need to get gone?” Trev sat up a bit straighter and practically jumped out of the chair as he made a note of the time. “I have classes tomorrow,” he reminded in nervous tenor, almost as if he’d completely forgotten. It was, technically, a few short hours away; even if he didn’t need to sleep, he could use a recharge after the events of the night. Thankfully, the courses were held during reasonable daytime hours, so there was still time. Looking less than compelled to back him up, Dennis shrugged and eyed him with no small measure of skepticism. “Don’t blow a gasket. You’ll only need a few hours’ recharge. Could stay and have a new uniform at the front door tomorrow morning.” “No, sir. I already-“ Trev’s stuttering insistence got the better of him momentarily, and he paused to take a calming breath. “Your suit is already going to need washing; I couldn’t impose any more expenses.” “Ah, give it a rest, Den… if he wants to go home, it’s fine by me. Wouldn’t want him to OD on my company the first night.” There was a twinge of disappointment in Dylan’s voice as he shut off the faucet and placed the bucket aside to dry. He crossed his arms and pulled the sleeveless cardigan shut over his bare chest as he crossed the room and set his gaze on the floor. The motion came across like curtains on a stage show being drawn closed. Reminded of the quiet, empty dorm room waiting for him back in the city, Trev was a bit taken aback at how he didn’t sprint right out the door. Given the chance, Dennis offering to arrange it so they might stay was and wasn’t tempting, for a multitude of reasons. On one hand, the realization that for the last half an hour, he’d felt more even-tempered and calmer than he had in months, insisted he stay; but on the other, paranoia that this wouldn’t (or maybe couldn’t) last compelled him to go and pretend none of this ever happened. Fleur’s upbeat mood suddenly deflating with the realization they’d have to pick this exchange up another day, was strangely not as satisfying to see as he’d thought it would be; if anything, it was a disappointment he understood, as much as he didn’t want to. But he hadn’t made any promises to come back, only to consider they stay in touch. That wasn’t necessarily a binding contract, or even a verbal agreement. Still, being the eagle-eyed detective that he was, Dennis read between the lines just fine. “I can always pull him off a patrol to send over as needed, Dylan. The socialization will do you both a world of good.” Trev hid another twitch by grabbing up the plastic bag containing his spotted garments, looked down at himself, then sidelong at Dylan. “I will need to return these at some point,” he debated audibly. The notion perked him up ever so slightly, and his eyes caught Trev’s flicker of brown with a sideways glance. “You can keep them if you want. You said you don’t have many clothes to begin with, right?” he offered as he meandered toward the painting and leaned one shoulder against canvas frame. “They’re not really my… preference,” he declined, but as expected, Dylan was un-dissuaded. One hand lifted and rapped a knuckle against the wooden stretch beam behind him with a grin. “Then maybe next time, we can throw this shit where it was supposed to go- maybe show you an old black an’ white?” Dennis squinted at the canvas, gleaning only a surface impression before mutely shaking his head. Nick probably wouldn’t have found this work along the same lines of ‘nice’, were he there to see it. Trev barely managed to not cringe; he still couldn’t understand his reasoning for why he’d want to wash away all that hard work with a new coat of paint. “I don’t know when that might be. I have- assignments to tend to.” Lenore called the excuse out for what it was and shot him a scowl accompanied by a light slap on the shoulder. “Stop lying, kid. It’s unbecoming of any policeman,” he scolded over his shoulder as he turned out the door. Dylan tossed Dennis an annoyed look that screamed ‘knock it off’ as he walked away, ineffective as it was when aimed at the back of his head, then turned back to respond to Trevor with an open-ended offer. His fingers nervously twitched and squeezed at his arm just trying to get it out. “Well… if you get lonely or want someplace else to chill, you know where to find me. I’m always here, don’t have much else goin’ on.” One hand extended to gesture around the room with a flourish and a chuckle to illustrate this. Decorated or not, it probably wasn’t as lively-looking as he made it seem. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” To Trev, it sounded ideal. A chamber within which one was pretty much guaranteed isolation was the best possible setting to ‘introvene’, as the made-up term would imply. Dylan made a face, clearly not of the same opinion. “It can be, when you start goin’ stir-crazy from bein’ cooped up inside for so long.” And...? He wasn’t already half crazy by default? Trev scoffed, pushed his glasses back into place. “That’s what walks are for.” His second favorite pastime- it might not be as exciting as some alternatives, but after what he had been through, monotonous was right up his alley. “Yeah, and we’ve got a lot of land to do that on, and you wouldn’t even have to worry about running into other people…” Fleur raised his brows, probably expecting him to come around to the idea. “How’s that sound?” “Almost perfect,” Trev replied with a slight smirk that dropped as soon as it appeared. “But you’d still be there.” Dylan rolled his eyes, smiled big and shook his head.  “C’mon… I thought we were past that.” “I also told you not to push your luck, but here we are.” “Who’s bein’ pushy…?” The coy grin lingering on his lips almost reached the apples of his cheeks. “I’m just gently planting seeds.” Artists had a penchant for using such poetic phrases, it was true. “So- what? You’re a gardener now, too…?” LANGLEY! YOU COMIN’ OR STAYIN’? “COMING!” Trev shouted back, almost jumping as he nervously made for the door. His own impulsive reaction to yell versus use the com left him cringing. “I mean- I’d say it was nice meeting you, but it was easily one of the worst introductions I’ve ever suffered.” Not the worst- it was up there, as far as he could remember. But it had also somehow segued into the smoothest recovery he’d ever witnessed. Not that he’d ever tell him that. Dylan chuckled again, perpetually amused. “Hey- Mom always said it was better to leave an impression than to be immediately forgotten…” “Yes, well, you’ve certainly done that.” Looking down at himself, Trev managed not to lose it to another flustered tirade. One way or another, these clothes would have to come back. “I’ll… drop these off when I can.” The look that crossed Fleur’s face was that of surprised contentment, even a little bashfulness. Somehow, he’d evidently gotten the response he’d been waiting for out of him, and it seemed even he didn’t expect to succeed. Before he could delay their departure any longer, he turned on his heel and made for the stairs, Dylan’s voice calling out to catch him just as he passed through the threshold of the studio. “Don’t feel like you need to bother with calling ahead, the door’s always open.” Letting Trev make the decision as to when that would be, compared to Dennis’ indirect attempt to force him into making a commitment on the spot, went a long way in fostering his slowly developing appreciation for Dylan Fleur, however irksome he was. Perhaps that was why he’d been finding it so hard to leave. After all, there had only ever been one other person he’d gelled with so quickly after meeting. Langley’s hand balled into a fist at his side as the tremor returned, his pace quickened to a trot down the bottom steps, and he nearly sprinted out the door to catch up with Dennis before he missed his ride home. He didn’t want to think about this right now, he didn’t need to be reminded of that gaping wound in his heart. That had been the real problem with this situation- the fact that he simultaneously saw too much and too little of a dead man in him. Maybe it needn’t have been so difficult, but he hadn’t wanted it to be this easy either.