#I have had this idea out in my sketchbook since 2019

[solarroseart]

Going to desperately attempt to not die of embarrassment before posting this.

The development journey for all my Sonic OCs. More below the cut.

Yeah as a. uh. under 10yo baby. I was not the most creative. Aaron was literally just blue tails until I wised up as a teen. I liked Tails, he was my favorite (still one of my favs) and so I wanted to Have Him. Please forgive my baby crimes.

Anyone who read the tags on the other post and was confused by Athena and Alyssa merging into one character- this is why. They both had. rainbows. I had a lot of characters with rainbows.

In fact, I also had a MLP character who ALSO had rainbows all over her. This character got reposted to one of those edgy "cringe MLP characters" blogs where the people who ran the blog criticized my using the default rainbow gradient. Tween me then went on to bury all of my rainbow characters, including Alyssa.

I also seemed to have misremembered where Ariel (not pictured) was placed in all of this, I think Ariel was actually a precursor to Alyssa, not Athena and Alyssa merging into one character. All the drawings of Ariel that I have stop after 2010 and I don't have any drawings of Alyssa prior to 2011. When that whole thing with the blog happened, I buried both Alyssa and Athena until reviving Athena in 2015 with just red roses this time and Alyssa later in 2019. In her full rainbow glory.

I decided to revive Alyssa because someone I was friends with waaaay back in the day on Deviantart, who loved her design and drew me a bunch of gift art, asked about what happened to her. I was so honored and frankly surprised that someone remembered her and loved her design that much. We fell out of touch again after that, but I am still really grateful to them for that.

Screw the guy who told me rainbows are cringe, you are cringe and I hope you stub your toe.

Anyways I revamped almost all of my characters in 2015, Including Aaron and Athena, though Aaron had turned into something that resembled his current color scheme in 2013. But I always liked the blue, so I wanted to keep some of it. Hence the definitely not an ATLA ripoff tattoo.

Aaron also used to be a fennec fox! Since 2013 he was, hence the ears. But IDW made that confusing and he's always been super tall, which didn't make sense for an absolutely tiny creature. So it wasn't until this year that he became a dingo!

Athena's had her unbloomed outfit for the longest, 2021 is at least the earliest instance I could find of her bloomed outfit but I'm pretty sure I had the idea swimming around in my head for a while prior. I'd have to check my physical sketchbooks to be sure (thankfully I started dating most of my sketches in 2015)

Then earlier this year I. Finally. Decided to give them all proper references. I love my guys, they have been with me a very long time and they are all special to me. I am really hoping to do more with them all soon.

Thanks for getting this far if you did, I hope it was entertaining and if not at least mildly intriguing!

[dandyghest]

Taanishi! Hiya! I figured it might be a bit of fun to see some of the process of creating my weird little goober - the sabroonor! (tumblr post, toyhouse page)

I don't know if my process is very interesting, especially with this guy as I somehow managed to lock in on a design that I liked pretty quickly, but I'll try to share what I can!

I started out by making a pinterest board (two, actually, as I initially thought I would do the will-o-the-wisp category ^^;;) and collecting inspiration of some different critters and vibes that matched the theme. There are so many fun desert animals.... I'll have to do some more creature design at some point :c]

The main starting inspiration for this monster was Plains bison! This summer I got to visit Wanuskewin Heritage Park and saw bison in person for the first time (they've recently (2019) been reintroduced back into that area in large part thanks to the efforts of the local indigenous peoples)! Lii bufloo (bison) have an important history with Métis people and other Turtle Island Indigenous peoples, and these animals have been on my mind since the summer.

I've always been interested and awed at the way animals are part of and integral to their ecosystems (including humans!) and the way animals shape their environment, so learning about bison wallows was super exciting and really stuck out to me amongst all the other information I learned. I hope I was able to share some of my excitement using this design!

Here's my initial sketches that I made at the beginning of the month! (along with my first thoughts to a friend about the goober)

After that, I took to my sketchbook to work on the design a little more - I have an easier time sketching traditionally! After figuring out the general idea of the shapes I wanted to use, I switched back to digital and worked on some sketches to really nail down the proportions I wanted to use.

I experimented with some colours, and didn't feel like they worked well - I'd been trying to keep in mind that mammals can't naturally produce certain pigments (or so I've read recently LOL, not entirely sure if it's really true or not!) so I was trying to stick to warmer colours. Eventually I broke out of that rule and tried using some other colours from the Desert Oasis theme image, and turned the tail into a cactus (along with adding flower petals to mimic a cactus flower)!

On the 18th, I worked on the skeletal structure of the guy - taking inspiration from raccoons, bison, and armadillos! I had played around with some skeletal sketches earlier, but none of them really addressed (or worked with) HOW this guy curls up into such a tight ball. Took a little bit of finagling (and reference of this image and this image) but I got there eventually!

(I also figured out the name on this day - I just brainstormed some of my favourite features and what I consider its most distinctive features and put together a name using Michif words that I felt fit together well based on those features.)

After that, it was time for needlefelting! I hadn't felted anything in a couple years (except for a little heart for a doll/plushie I made back in May LOL) so it was a bit touch-and-go for the first day or two, but I was able to pick it back up again without too much issue.

I used the skeleton art to create the right proportions for the wire armature! I've already made a post showing some of the needlefelting process, but feel free to ask questions if you're interested in any of it!

Once the little man was finished (Thursday night), I quickly set up a little makeshift photography shoot outside on Friday afternoon before the sun went down, and put together the images on this lovely website. I'll spare you the tale of the woeful struggles I had trying to get the files to be a manageable size without looking awful LOL, but eventually I got the two gifs made! (This was also my first attempt at making a stop-motion animation, it was super fun to try out! I definitely want to do some more with it at some point ^-^)

I uploaded everything to toyhouse and compiled all the notes I'd made about his design, finishing the submission and handing it in about an hour before they closed ^^;;

Also a little bonus: Sabroonor is pronounced "sah-broon-noor" with a slightly rolled r in "broon". Kiiyaamayow ishaayow is pronounced "kee-YAH-mah-yow ish-SHY-yow" (Southern Michif is written using a phonetics system since it was not a written language until preservation efforts were put into place).

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

SARA PLEASE WHAT THE FUCK IS THE CHOKING ON A SPYGLASS FIC YOU HAVE MENTIONED IT ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS AND I AM SCARED BUT CURIOUS

The year was 2019 and it was my prime time in the asoue fandom. I wrote like 4 different multichapter fics at once for the fandom. Let's just say, I have not learned and I still write too many fics at once.

I have written a lot of asoue fics, some of which I think is a lot better, but this one gets memed the most because of... reasons.

First off all: This is a pregnancy fic.

I may talk about next gens a lot now in the dcla fandom, but they are far from the first ones I've had. I have ever since I began interacting in fandoms had next gen ocs. I really had a fully fledged idea of adventures for these next gens to have in an upcoming fic that I then never did and I also don't even remember what I named the kids anymore... anyway, this fic was basically the characters preparing for them to be born (they are triplets).

But... second of all: This is a Viodora fic. Violet is the one who is pregnant, and Isadora and her fall in love.

"But if Violet is pregnant, who's children is she pregnant with?"

Great question! It's Quigley's!

Back when I was more into asoue ships, I multishipped Violet with both Quigley and Isadora. And here's when I made a choice.

Violet is pregnant with Quigley's children... but shortly after they find out she's pregnant, he tragically dies.

16 year old me could have decided to make him die of a disease, or maybe die in a fire (which is on-brand for asoue where everyone fucking burns to death). But NOPE. I decided to take it to the next level. I decided to make him die by choking on a spyglass.

It all happened in a cartoonish way. Someone tripped, causing someone else to drop something, causing this and that, and eventually someone's spyglass flew into Quigley's mouth and he choked.

I understood how utterly silly this all seemed, and I didn't even plan on posting it at first, but then I decided to post it after talking to some others in the fandom. Like "haha look what I wrote don't even know if I'm gonna update it", but then as I posted it, I got excited and decided to continue.

The rest of the fic is just Violet and Isadora getting closer, preparing for the babies, it's pretty fluffy and sweet. I have too many drawings in my sketchbook from 2019 drawing Isadora and Violet being mommies with the triplets, I actually loved writing on it and pitching it. But Quigley's cause of death is basically all anyone remembers from the fic.

[halcyandaze]

question that came to me out of the blue but were there previous versions/scrapped ideas for bonomo and nova [or oc in general]?

oH BOY so I've had bonomo for over 7 years now so uhhh I do indeed got plenty of old material of those two and how they kinda evolved and changed over all that time

so lucky for you guys, for once I'm gonna *pukes in mouth a lil* ugh, share my old art from when I was 15, oof uhhh you're welcome in advance (yes I realize some of my old followers here could have been following since I was 15 but still) also since I've had these characters for so long and tie into my own life at times I may accidentally go off on some tangents but whatever

strap in folks, this is gonna be a long post

bonomo

2015: aight so I first made this lil dude in september 2015 in a sketchbook after school. didn't think much of him at the time, just a cool character design that kinda stuck around. an ex friend of mine gave him the name bonomo (I suck at naming things) but yes humble beginnings here, literally just a little guy

early 2016: ok so at this point I got attached to the design and wanted to flesh him out more. at first he was just a lil creature with a monitor head, but I wanted to run with that retro computer kind of theme and fully embraced it by making him into a robot

mid/late 2016: alright so here is when the design really started to take shape and tighten up as you can see, from this point not much changes with bonomo as far as the design goes except for just minor art style changes from here. this is where I start building more personality, being rather positive, naive, goofy

2017: here is where I really start knowing the character well and finally get all the kinks out of the design. ended up making him very expressive, taller, softer, rounder, everything past this point is peak bonomo

2018/2019/2020/2021/2022: not much to report at this point his design is pretty much solid from here

nova

early 2016: so here I first wanted to make a simple persona/self insert kinda thing and made this rough unnamed loose design of a lil alien creature, as you can see I cannot decide on a color palette to save my life

mid/late 2016: got a name for them and started calling them nova, and I finally picked a goddamn color palette and basic outfit design about damn time. at this point they went from being just a nameless self insert persona concept to be their own character instead

2017: same with bonomo, this is where I feel like I got a good solid design for them, and all of their major design has stayed the same from here on out. I also brought back/revived some elements from their very first designs in 2016 as a design for their younger self for backstory purposes, but this is still a bit rough and I put it on the back burner to shape up their current design and story before tackling their backstory

2018: not much change here except I feel my art has gotten much better at this point lol

2019/2020: at this point I have bonomo and nova's personality, design, dynamic, and story rough ideas down pretty solid so I work more on nova's past and backstory more and have nailed down the design for their younger past self

2021/2022: both versions of nova have remained pretty much unchanged from here

early 2016: both bonomo and (at the time unnamed) nova were more of just designs than the characters we know em as today. I started drawing them together around march 2016 just because I thought "oh haha a robot and alien, sci-fi cross over time" without thinking much of it

mid/late 2016: here I find myself drawing the two together more and it's at this point I realize to myself 'oh shit I can do something with this' and started to really flesh out who they are and where they came from and wanted to turn them into full characters instead of just little doodles. here I started experimenting with lore and story ideas, many of which have changed a lot or have been scrapped completely by now. at first I imagined both of them being from space, but ended up scrapping that and having bonomo be native to earth. I also didn't have a full motive for nova to come to earth yet either, but I knew they'd both be on earth at this point just causing trouble. I also was debating making their story much more depressing and even toxic at points for the two of them, even debating having bonomo leaving nova for good at some point, but that just made me sad over time so that quickly was changed

2017: here is both when their main design elements and personality start to take proper shape. I base their personalities off of exaggerated aspects of my own, bonomo being my goofy silly naive geeky half and nova being my feral stubborn paranoid half. I have also started forming the very rough idea of nova's backstory to how they arrived on earth, why they're on earth, how bonomo and nova meet, and their basic every day lives

2018: ok so now that I have their designs, personalities, and daily lives and motivations down, I start working on their actual story and have gotten it pretty solid now (but these are all spoilers so hmm ask for more info later if y'all really want uhhhhhhh)

2019/2020: at this point my art has gone from much more simple and flat color generally to much more rendered and symbolic and distorted and psychedelic, cuz this was after I dropped out of college and was battling some nasty drug addictions at the time which quite literally changed how I see the world to a much more confusing and broken and distorted place, and my art changed to reflect that. it was at this point that I started working more on nova's backstory seriously since it ties into where their story finishes

2021/2022: my art at this point was a lot of self reflection cuz I had a lot of emotions and a lot of personal growth and a lot of change in my life at this point and phew these two were really going through it in my artwork while I figured my shit out. but here we are now!

so yeah uh that's bonomo the prototype robot and nova the ex-space criminal they live in the middle of nowhere new mexico and get up to silly shenanigans and tomfoolery :]

[alaraxia]

Hi! I'm getting back into drawing after graduating college and I was thinking about my 2013 Wacom tablet from when I was a teenager. She's served me well but I was looking at other options and I saw you gushing about screen tablets. I was wondering what screen tablet you have? Sorry if you already answered this. Thank you for your time and amazing art!

that's actually a good idea I should list my stuff somewhere lol, so from late 2018-early 2020 I used a huion kamvas pro 13 and photoshop which I liked a lot but it had me chained to my desk.

At the end of 2019 I bought an ipad pro and started to learn procreate with the intention of being able to draw in cafes and other places since I used to do that with my sketchbook, but then The Plague happened so only got to do that for a few months.

However I was still sick of paying for photoshop/dealing with finding reliable updated rips so I swapped fully to using procreate on my ipad since I was still able to move around the house better with it. I then got a sketchboard pro to put the ipad into to increase the surface area and its worked out great.

Only gripes with the ipad/procreate is I need to charge it pretty often (but it forces me to take breaks since ongoing injuries, so silver lining), a more limited toolset than photoshop, and limited layers based on the RAM of the ipad on larger canvases. I would still recommend it just for ease of use and portability tho if you have the cash to drop

[rosieuv]

I have just realised that it's new year's eve.

Well, staying up past midnight is easy for me as my sleep scedule's a bit of a wreck. I don't have anything that I'm really thrilled about for 2024 (apart from deltarune chapter 3 and 4 possibly coming out that year) and I'm ending on a really lame year art wise as I still don't have my computer and I don't want to have to reinstall drivers and stuff. At least I have the excuse to make the 2024 drawings folder on my backup USB.

I like having things in chronological order.

Anyway, here's the first and last drawings from each year because why not.

2019:

This one only dates back to the 20th July as this was before I took art seriously as a hobby. I drew this in MS paint for a roblox game I was making.

This dates back to the 25th December and I drew this in ibis paint x on my dad's old phone that me and my brothers shared. To play music in the background, I would have youtube as a window at the top and listen to the same 5 songs on loop. This took a considerable amount of time for some reason.

2020:

This dates back to the 18th January and I drew this on my phone as I just got it at this point (the same phone that I still have currently). I had no idea what I was doing and it shows.

This dates back to the 29th December and it seems like I've discovered undertale. This was when I started using my crappy laptop again and I drew this with the touchscreen it had (it was one of those hybrid laptop-tablet things) with my finger and autodesk sketchbook.

2021:

The first one is technically the first of 2021 as it dates back to the 16th of January, but I've posted that one a lot whenever I redraw it every year so here's the drawing I drew the day after. It was for an animation meme but I saved it into the folder anyway for some reason.

I was trying to model in blender for the first time towards the end of 2021 so the last picture is a boring sketch of anatomy from the 31st December to be used as refrence. The last actual artwork was a day before and at this point I had a little drawing tablet and was posting art on Newgrounds. I also started using medibang paint pro as autodesk sketchbook stopped working.

2022:

The first drawing I have in my 2022 folder was technically from 10:30 PM on the 31st as I got impatient, but I put it here anyway. It's a gif but I made it into a png so I can put it on a tumblr post. Technically the first one was this drawing I made about 12 hours later on the 1st January. On newgrounds it's regarded as being in 2021 as it's in EST and my time zone is a couple hours ahead.

The last drawing I have dates back to the 27th December where I was experimenting with art styles as I had just gotten a new idea for a game (what is now known as Roboska LV).

2023:

Both of these date back to the 1st January however the seccond one was exported 40 minuites later according to the meta data. The first one is another redraw while the seccond one is a character profile and I just realised there's no shading on the hoodie.

This dates back to the 9th December and I haven't been able to draw anything digitally since my computer's botched surgery on the 16th. I have drawn some stuff in my notebook though, so here's the "final" drawings of 2023 (basically anything in my notebook since the 9th). The dates are in the bottom corners. I didn't bother with fixing the lighting.

I drew that picture of Kokichi Oma in the dark with only the light of my phone torch as I drew it while a film was playing in my school sports hall with dominos pizza. The last 2 I drew on the last day of school while completly ignoring everyone partying in the form room.

I got a book on how to draw in a manga art style so this is me trying to figure out how to adapt the tips into my artstyle to make it not suck.

This is technically the last drawing of 2023. I drew it on the 26th. It also featured in the post about my personal best pencil drawings of 2023 too: https://pearlhikara.tumblr.com/post/737810429204643840/best-drawings-of-2023-notebook-12-and-13

Looking back, I don't think my change in art style from 2023 is as stark as the other years. I don't like how my art keeps changing and I want to just keep it at a consistent "very very good" and leave it at that as the little changes annoy me as I like consistency.

In terms of actual new year stuff, I'll probably just rewatch "who framed roger rabbit?" and go downstairs when it's near midnight to watch the fireworks on TV.

[kaijathorson]

Hello, New/Old Art Blog!

Well hello there, friends... It's been such a LONG TIME since I have logged on to Tumblr! So much has changed on here (and yet it's still the same, am I right?) I'll admit, I have really procrastinated on the whole blogging thing... I had to laugh a little at my last posts on here that said the same exact thing back in 2019/2020... Hey, life got lifey, what can I say!

So, what have I been up to since then? I'm still making art, just posting it on different platforms. Hanging out a lot on my Instagram page - making lots of quick posts and videos of my ink art and WIP sketchbooks. My portfolio site is still kicking, and I show my finished works there... mostly cute digital illustrations. Lately though, I've been missing writing and making longer posts... Maybe it's the nostalgia I have for Blogger, Tumblr's 2010 era, MySpace...or maybe it's my new focus on mental health. Whatever it is, I decided we're trying this out again! Let's see how it goes.

I have LOTS of art and sketches to share from the past few years- good/bad/ugly... it's really going to be fun to see how my style has grown/changed. I have 4 huge rubbermaid totes full of loose leaf paper and sketchbooks, and none of it is scanned in or archived, lol. I have no idea where to start, but I might break it all up by similar themes, and compare! Or maybe I'll make an art book/zine, which I have always wanted to do.

So yeah, let's start with posting something fun to look at! Here are some stickers I made last summer/fall 2022- I still love them and want to print/sell someday. Inventory is a bit expensive to start, but I'm slowly getting supplies together. Shopify, maybe I'm coming your way too in 2024...

[halfsunart]

Sketchbook draw pt 10

Sketchbook 2

Jul- Sept 2019

I remember feeling so proud of this sketchbook but now I look back through it and see how empty and pretty boring it is. My ideas were so basic which was good for the time as I was still figuring out how to translate things into my style, developing my artistic voice and studying my practice. Especially since my recent sketchbooks have been more focused on experimentation and just translating what was in my head into the page. But back then I had little confidence in translating the more interesting concepts and I lacked the experience required.

Looking back at this is quite disappointing, but that’s an important part of growth

[creechurfoundincheckerboardvoid]

I only started following you because of my salad fingers phase and you had a crossover comic featuring him, but now the lore of dhmis is enticing and I have no clue where to start. Can you- can you pwease explain it to me?

-dysrix anon

ok got it!!! no problem!!!!!

(before i start rambling excessively i just gotta say that's different to hear lol, i think the majority are around for the puppets and just tolerate mr sally's presence)

OK SO. dhmis is a webseries that started in 2011 as a short film made by a couple of college kids who wanted to say something about not imposing rules on how creativity should be expressed, because art school is kinda just Like That. that video was put on youtube and went really super viral and all the Reaction Video People were a "so scawy 😥" whiny baby about it. the creators wanted to make a series but left the idea alone because it was a lot of work and also expensive (puppetry). then in 2014 they were commisioned to make 2, they did, and then tony the talking clock (emphasis on those last three words) became a tumblr sexyman and a bunch of everyone started shipping him with sketchbook (who they called paige) and humanizing them and it was just this whole thing. anyway thanks to them the creators made a kickstarter to fund the rest of the series and it actually worked out, too. so i'd like to thank the clockfuckers we would not be here without you. i hope you fucked your clock. anyway then over the next two years the last four episodes came out and they were epic and gamer and increasingly Kinda Horrifying (three still messes me up a bit but none of the others ever scared me, it's just more weird than anything. in a very good way) and the last one, six, came out june 19th 2016 (which was father's day, and it hasn't been father's day june 19th since yesterday, and it won't be again until 2033), and it was awesome. then september 13th 2018 wakey wakey (thirteen second long trailer) happened and everyone lost their shit and then sundance film festival in january 2019 where they pitched that pilot they made around (and seeing as the pilot as we know it is almost certainly a lost media now, those very low-quality cam leaks on youtube are possibly all that remains). then in july 2020 they started making the show and well you know Plague Was A Thing That Happened so it was pretty quiet for a while and then august 30th 2021 they announced they finished filming and then february 25th there was a clip continuing the pirate joke and saying they were finishing lines and then late may wakey wakey disappeared aND THEN YESTERDAY FLY HAPPENED AND

and the reason i'm finishing that particular tangent very quickly is that i am now realising you were likely asking about the lore of the story itself. and not its process of existence

well

SO NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT'S ABOUT.

there sure are a lot of ideas out there!! and i have definitely got my own ideas which i don't really talk about ever because they're honestly a bit too rude to the media theory (which i hate - a lot - but also which a lot a lot a lot of other people really like. so it'd be mean)

ANYWAY THE BASIC SUMMARY OF THE WEBSERIES is there are three puppets and they're yellow guy and red guy and duck and they all live in a house together and every episode some object in their house comes alive and sings to them a lesson about an abstract, basic concept like yknow creativity and time. so it's sort of meant to resemble something like sesame street at first. but these sentient objects (who are usually called "teachers") are kinda Really Fucked Up and the lessons go wrong really fast and usually end in uhhhh murder. also their life is a lie and it's like puppet matrix and roy, yellow guy's dad, really does seem to be the guy pulling the strings behind it all. man it's like thirty minutes total on youtube i don't want to spoil it TOO much in case you ever decide to check it out lol. oh wait. oh wait you asked where to start

well you start there!!!!!!

ALSO there's a bunch of lost videos and that one puppet interview and a collection of little things around miss becky's instagram or mr joe's twitter that all just weaves together with the main thing to make A Web of Story and it's awesome. i'd be glad to tell you all about that too if you ask!!!! i'm very normal about all this that's why i have lists and notes and a handful of rambly word document essays about this everywhere

ok i'm done thanks for coming to autism hour with creech

[lonelyreputation]

C’est Toi (coffee shop au) • CHAPTER ELEVEN, wc: 7.6k

previous chapter | let’s chat | C’est Toi Index

Monday  - February 11, 2019 - 18:36 

Holding hands is nice…Really nice.  But nothing will ever compare how nice a first kiss feels.

__

While the sun was hidden behind an array of gray clouds, and the wind was a bit more breezy than usual, I still found some sense of peace sitting out in the courtyard of Somerset.  Students milled about with coffees in their hands either rushing to their next lecture or chatting with friends.

I sat on one of the benches with my journal, appreciating the day, when I heard a familiar––usually friendly––voice cut harshly through the whistling wind.

“You still haven’t told me.”

I closed my journal and looked up at her with a smile, “Afternoon, Ella.”

She rolled her eyes, shoved my legs off the bench, so that I was now sitting normally instead of lounging, as she took the spot next to me and glared, “You got back at ten on Saturday and have yet to tell me about your date.”

Slipping my journal into my bag, I couldn’t hide the smile that slowly made its way onto my face as I replayed everything that happened on Saturday, “It was nice.”

She elbowed by side, “I think I have a right to know everything that happened.”

I let out a laugh, “You have a right?”

Ella nodded her head as if it was obvious, and I only raised my eyebrows, waiting for her explanation, “If it wasn’t for me dragging you into Brightside the first day, you never would’ve stumbled upon it.  And if it wasn’t for me coming up with Operation Sketchbook, you wouldn’t have his number.  And if you didn’t have his number you wouldn’t have gone out on a date.”

Blankly, I stared at her with my mouth open before I let out a laugh, “You can’t take any credit for the first day we went in. It was raining.”

She rolled her eyes before standing up and looking down at me, “I need to know something! I know you’ve been texting him since your date,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “Did you kiss him?”

Embarrassed with what I knew her reaction would be, I looked down at the pavement.  I curled my hands in fists around the ends of my sweatshirt to fight off the cold wind, even though I felt as if I was running a fever with how embarrassed I felt.

“Mick!”

Ignoring her, I stood up and grabbed my bag, turning away from her so as to not feel any more embarrassed.  I was a few feet away before I heard her call out my name again, but this time, it was soft and apologetic.

She offered me a small smile and walked towards me, “Where are you going?”

“Off to finish a paper back in my room.”

Ella let out a small laugh, thinking I was joking, but once she saw my serious face, she scrunched her eyebrows together, “Why not Brightside?”

I shrugged, “I just saw Shawn on Saturday.  I don’t want to seem annoying––”

“You literally went into Brightside every single day before your date,” Ella smirked, “I’m sure he wants to see you just as much as you want to see him.”

I looked down at my shoes and kicked a small pebble.  I had an inkling that he might want to see me, but I was still nervous.  Saturday was such a good day and I didn’t know if it was too soon to see him.

Was there a rule having to wait a certain number of days before seeing the person you went out with? Even though we’d been texting since he walked me back to my dorm on Saturday, would it be too desperate to stop in and see him?

With a deep breath, I tried pushing all the nerves I felt in my chest down, and looked up at Ella, “Want to go to Brightside with me?”

Ella vigorously nodded her head with a smile as she took a step forward, looping her arm around mine.  She started walking toward the direction of Brightside, “Don’t think I noticed how you still haven’t told me about your date.”

I ducked my head and felt my cheeks heat up as Ella squeezed her hand around my bicep.

I failed miserably at concealing my smile, “He took me to Columbia Road Flower Market.”

Ella’s hand around my bicep fell limp as her eyes widened, “He took you to see flowers?!”

I nodded with a hum, as I made sure she kept her walking pace up, “Then we went to Brick Lane and went to a coffee shop in Shoreditch.”

With a sight and a small squeal, I slightly turned my head to look at Ella, who smiled, “Bit of a busy day in East London,” her smile slowly transformed into a smirk, “But you didn’t come back until ten.”

I hummed in acknowledgement of her observation and just kept walking down the street.

“I’m still waiting,” Ella said in a singsong voice.

Figuring I wouldn’t get away from her pestering, I answered her before she badgered me with questions while we were in front of Shawn, “His friends had a little party so we went there.”

“Meeting the friends already?”

Her voice was smug and I rolled my eyes, “Nothing like that.”

“Okay, but did you kiss?”

I pretended I didn’t hear her question again as a gust of wind blew both of our hair back.

Instead of answering her, I let my mind be consumed with thoughts and memories of how the night went after Shawn sang I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles.  There was the obvious applause, people trying to go up and talk to him, but he politely declined their advances, as he weaved his way toward the back wall where Niall and I stood.

Niall shoved Shawn’s shoulder––letting out a low and drawn out smooth––before he left to refill his drink in the kitchen.  We stood on the back wall for a little bit longer, talking about nothing in particular, with his arms seemingly glued to his sides and my arms crossed in front of my chest.

It seemed as if he gained the courage out of nowhere, because I was in the middle of saying something when he reached out one of his hands.  His movements were fast, but it felt as if I experienced the whole ordeal in slow motion.  He reached his hand forward, picked up one of my hands––successfully uncrossing my arms from my chest––and then threaded our fingers together.

I was left a bit stunned, my sentence long forgotten in the back of my head.  But it was alright because Shawn picked up the conversation as if nothing had changed.

And for the rest of our time at his friends house he held my hand.  

He held my hand as he waved a goodbye to his friends, he held my hand as he walked me to the tube station––and held it even tighter when I tried to pull away when I told him I was fine taking the night tube alone.  For the whole tube ride he held my hand, and it was then I was struck with the idea of him maybe wanting to kiss me.  My hand wasn’t clammy all night, but the moment we walked out of Waterloo Station, I knew it was beginning to feel warm.

And when we were at the lamp post he was leaning on when I walked out to greet him…It was silent.  It was silent and I saw him leaning in.  

I wanted to kiss him just as much as he probably felt, but my mind couldn’t ignore the salt and vinegar crisps I had earlier in the night.  Sure, he stole some too, but it was the only thing on my mind as I saw him slowly lean in.

And in a moment of panic, my eyes widened and I held my hand up…Offering him a high-five instead.

He stopped, scrunched his eyebrows together as he let out a small laugh that covered up his disappointed sigh.

He high-fived me back.

“We held hands,” I said dreamily, purposefully avoiding her question again.

“Cute,” Ella said with a tight smile as the door to Brightside came into view, “But did you kiss him?”

I used the closeness of the coffee shop to my advantage, because while Ella was curious and persistent, I knew she wouldn’t embarrass me with that question in the coffee shop.

So, I ducked my head in embarrassment and unlooped my arm from hers, “No.”

“Mick––”

I shushed her and pulled open the door, quickly walking through to stop her interrogation.

“There she is,” I looked up to see Niall beaming behind the counter, “Was wondering when you’d show up.”

Ella smirked at me as we walked up to the counter, “Told ya.”

I rolled my eyes at her and stopped right in front of the register, “Hi, Niall.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled wickedly, “Still tired from the party?”

“I––”

“He was there?!” Ella’s jaw hung wide open as I stared at her with wide eyes.  She then faced Niall, who barked out a laugh, and pointed a finger at him, “You were there?!”

Niall nodded proudly, “Seeing those two together warmed my heart,” he uncrossed his arms and placed both hands over his heart, “He even serenaded her––”

Ella’s eyes doubled in size as she whipped around to face me again, “He sang to you?!”

I quickly glared at Niall, who looked like he was enjoying knowing more than my best friend, before I let out a sigh, “Ella––”

She dramatically threw her hands above her head, “I can’t believe you left that part out––”

“McLane.”

All talking stopped as all of our heads slowly turned to the left where Shawn was standing, holding stacks of paper cups.  His eyes darted back and forth between all of us in confusion, but then he let his eyes linger on me for a second, and I felt my shoulders droop and couldn’t help but smile.

His hair was a bit disheveled, black shirt wrinkled, and one of his shoelaces was only loosely tied together.  Even though he was partially hidden behind paper cups, I still melted at the sight of him.

“Shawn,” I let out a breath to try and control the nerves that bounced around in my stomach, “Hey.”

Niall smirked, “I’ll let Romeo make your coffee.”

And right after Niall excused himself, so did Ella, “I’ll get us a table.”

Both of our friends scurried away and it left us alone for the first time since Saturday.  

What was I supposed to say?  What was I supposed to do?  He was at work after all, so we couldn’t do much, but was there something I was supposed to do? He still held stacks of cups in his arms, so I wasn’t able to hold his hand.

I wish Ella hadn’t ran off so fast.

I rocked back and forth and let out a small breath, “So…The morning shift.”

Shawn sighed and closed his eyes momentarily before opening them back up.  He was still in front of the counter, and didn’t look like he wanted to move behind the barrier anytime soon, “Not ideal.  But I’ll get off when Lola comes in at two.”

As if on instinct whenever I heard her name, I held my breath and felt my jaw tighten just a bit.  I hadn’t completely forgotten about her since her rude remarks about me at the party, but I tried my best to push her away.

“Have some studying to do?” Shawn eyed my bag.  I was about to answer, but both of our attentions were pulled away when we heard the distinct chime of the bell.  I saw Shawn tense up in frustration, eyes narrowing at the customers who walked through the door, as he let out a huff.

But Niall gave Shawn a look––I got this––he said as he walked up to the register and took care of the orders.  Shawn let out a sigh of relief and turned to face me, and his frustrated eyes were now full of light.

“I have another reading,” I answered his question with a roll of my eyes, “But that shouldn’t take too long.”

Shawn nodded his head, “Longer than––” he looked at the clock that was behind the counter, whispering numbers to himself, “Four hours?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I would say no longer than two––maybe three hours.”

Shawn’s shoulders fell a little, and while he smiled, the corners of his eyes didn’t crinkle like they normally did, “Oh, well I was––I get off in like four hours if you wanted to do something.”

Oh.

My eyes lit up in understanding and I nodded my head, the butterflies I felt in my stomach whenever I was around Shawn felt as if they were making a home, “I can wait.”

Shawn looked relieved as he smiled, with the corners of his eyes crinkling, “Cool––That’s nice.” He shifted around the stacks of cups, so he was securely cradling them in one arm, as he held his other hand up.

I felt the heat rush to my cheeks as I raised my hand up to meet his in a high-five.  But unlike the first time we high-fived outside of my residence hall, he curled his fingers between mine, as our intertwined hands fell between us.

Shawn held a proud smile on his face as he slowly swung our hands in between us, “I’ll bring a latte over to you.”

I shook my head, a smile present on my face, “I can come to the counter.”

He squeezed my hand and I felt the butterflies swarm around every part of my body, “You’re wasting precious time.  I expect that reading to be done before our date.”

Date.

I tried my best to keep eye contact with him, but in the best way possible, I felt nervous about our second date, so I looked down at the hardwood floor, “It’ll be done.”

Once again, he squeezed my hand, and I picked my head to look up at him.  He had a soft smile on his face as he looked at me, and I knew I reciprocated the dreamlike stare.  I didn’t want to stop holding his hand––I wanted to hold his hand for the rest of eternity––but he did have a job and I had studying to do.

In response to his hand squeeze, I returned the squeeze before regretfully dropping our hands.  His eyes immediately snapped down to where our hands previously dangled between us, before he lifted his head and pouted.

“Sadly, we both have responsibilities.”

Shawn sighed and slowly nodded his head, his eyes glancing back down at my hand every few seconds, before he locked eyes with me, “I’ll be right over with your drink.”

It looked like he was restraining himself from stepping toward me, but I made sure to squash any ideas in his head by taking a step back, “I’ll be over with Ella.”

He nodded his head, smiling one last time, before he walked behind the counter.  

It didn’t take too long to find Ella at a table that had plenty of room for two.  I set my bag on the chair, pulling out my notebook and textbook, setting them on the table, before I placed my bag on the ground.

And right as I slid into the seat across from Ella, my back facing the front counter, she looked up from scrolling on her phone, “Did you two really high five?”

I shrugged and flipped open the textbook to a reading I knew I would dread.

Ella took hold of the ends of the book I was reading, and pulled it towards her, which effectively gave all of my attention to her.  I glared as she started talking, “That would’ve been such a cute time for him to sneak a quick kiss in before he went back to work and––Mick…”

She said my name slowly as I avoided her gaze.  I could feel it inside of me that Ella knew.  Ella was the master at piecing together small details and I knew that she knew.

“Did you high five him on Saturday?”

I yanked my book back from her and tried to do my best to concentrate on the words.  But I knew that was a lost cause, especially when Ella continued to talk, “Are you serious––”

“Hey…” I lifted my head up from the textbook as I saw Shawn walk up to the table with a yellow cup.  He placed it down in front of me and I smiled up at him, “Let me know if you guys need anything.”  He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “Just call out for me or shoot me a text.”

And with one last shoulder squeeze, I noticed that he had the same look in his eyes that he had on Saturday night.  And it was the same look in his eyes he had just a few moments ago after we stopped holding hands.

Ella smiled wickedly at me, “He so wanted to kiss you before he left.”

“Shut up,” I dismissed her comment and lifted my head up to peak inside the cup.  I’m not sure what kind of latte art he was trying to create, but I knew he had something in mind, and it still made me smile.

Ella rolled her eyes at my comment and opened her textbook, “At least Niall remembered my name when I asked for a coffee,” I looked up at her and let out a small laugh, “He’s a bit loud, but at least he has a brain.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “You’re complaining about someone being loud?”

In response to my quip, Ella balled up a napkin and threw it at my forehead.  I scrunched up my nose and she flipped me off.  With a shake of my head at her childish behavior, I went to studying.

While Brightside was my absolute favorite space to study, it was increasingly becoming harder and harder to concentrate.  It was always hard to concentrate here, but ever since Shawn asked me out and we went on our date…It felt absolutely impossible.

I was more tuned into hearing his laugh than I was to whatever Ella said.  I found myself sneaking glances at him more than I was looking at the words on the page I was meant to read.  And my mind was preoccupied with how soft his hand was curled around mine.  I was already enamored with every little movement of his before he asked me out, and all of my feelings intensified around him now.

Not that I was complaining.

“Mick,” Ella’s soft voice caused me to blink back into reality.  She smirked, no doubt knowing that she caught me daydreaming about the barista behind the counter, “Wanna head back?”

I shook my head with a smile, “Shawn and I actually have plans for when he gets off.”

Ella’s smirk widened as she started packing up her bag.  I cringed at the loud sound of her chair scratching against the hardwood floor.  As if I could feel his stare at me, I slowly turned my head to peer over my shoulder and saw Shawn’s eyes glued on our table.  His eyebrows were furrowed, almost as if he was worried I would leave––even though we had plans in a few hours.

His worried eyes found mine and offered him a small smile and a wave.  I saw the blush on his cheeks before he waved back and turned around to clean the espresso machine.

“You got him wrapped around your finger,” Ella laughed as she slung her tote bag over her shoulder, “I’ll see ya later.”  

And before she left the table, she blew me a kiss and winked.

If I wasn’t nervous about hanging out with Shawn after he got done with work, I was sure as hell nervous now.  I liked Shawn a lot––more than I’ve liked anyone in a long time––so of course I wanted to kiss him.  But he just made me so…I don’t think I have the words to say what he makes me feel like.

I do know that he makes me feel all light and fluttery, as if I’m floating through a dream.  And I know that while I still rambled uncontrollably around him, his presence was calming.  His smile used to be my favorite thing about him that calmed me down, but since I now knew what it was like to hold his hand…

The way he gently rubbed his thumb along the top of my hand made me feel more calm than anything else in the world.

There was still an hour left until Shawn got off from work, but I was all done with the work I brought.  While I could’ve gotten ahead on other school work, I knew it would be useless.  So I took out my sketchbook––still grateful it was at Brightside and not somewhere in the city––and started to draw.

I tapped my pencil a few times, not really feeling inspired by anything, as I turned my head to look around the coffee shop.  I already had countless doodles of patrons at their table, stacks of cups, and a few versions of the espresso machine.  

With a sigh, I was about to close my sketchbook and call my brother out of boredom, until I heard his laugh.

I don’t know what he was laughing at, but it made my ears perk up and caused a small smile to spread across my face.  Along with a smile, and all the other times I heard his laugh, a small swarm of butterflies erupted in my stomach.  I felt as if I was in the middle of a warm spring day, instead of in the middle of a dreary day in the beginning of February.

The butterflies in my stomach reminded me of a particular butterfly Shawn had tattooed on his arm.  From the countless times I stared at his arms, I had every detail of his tattoo etched into my mind.  And before I knew it, my hand started drawing the outline for the butterfly.  

I was in the middle of drawing one of the flowers when I heard the chime of the bell.

The moment I looked up, I regretted it and wished I stayed concentrated on the butterfly I was drawing.  Lola pranced in, a bright smile on her face as her eyes only looked at Shawn.  She obviously didn’t see I was sitting at a table because her smile hadn’t faltered one bit.

I turned in my seat––pencil still gripped between my fingers with the tip on the page––so I could blatantly watch her.

“Hi, Shawn,” She said happily, completely ignoring Niall who scrunched his nose up.

It was when Shawn smiled back at her––with the same gleam of fondness in his eyes that she had when staring at him––when I felt the butterflies in my stomach slowly disappear.  Even though Niall said that they had no history between them…I didn’t believe him.  

I felt my jaw clench as tight as I gripped my pencil.

“Lola,” Shawn let out a sigh of relief as he went over to the register, punching in some numbers, “I’m so happy to see you.”

The tip of my pencil broke.

It was as if Niall could feel the jealousy radiating off me that he gave me a reassuring smile and secretly shook his head.  He was telling me not to worry.  But how could I not worry when Shawn was looking at Lola the way I wanted him to look at me.

“You know I’m always happy to see you,” Lola smiled wide at Shawn as she walked behind the counter, trying to stand as close to him as possible.

But once she stepped behind the counter, Shawn quickly rounded to the opposite side, leaving Lola standing with her mouth hanging wide open in shock.  Niall let out a laugh and Lola glared at him.

As if Lola wasn’t even on his mind anymore, I saw Shawn walk toward me with a smile on his face.  And even though I was the one waiting for him to be done, I still felt surprised that he walked up to the table I was sitting at.  

He stopped in front of me and shoved his hands into his front pockets, “Let me just grab my stuff and we can go.”

Still feeling a bit dazed, I just nodded my head as I watched him turn on his heel and walk down the stairs.  Before I started packing up my stuff, I quickly glanced behind the counter.  And just like I expected, Lola was sending me a death glare, eyes more narrow than I’d ever seen them before.  But looking a bit deeper, I saw a hint of despair as she looked away from me and watched Shawn walk away from her.

I quickly shifted my eyes to look at Niall who looked like he was trying to hold in his laughter.

I slipped all of my books in my tote bag just as Shawn came up the stairs––taking two at a time.  He didn’t spare a glance at his co-workers behind the counter as he headed straight to my table.  Instead of just a black shirt, he had on a pink sweatshirt under a black jacket, prepared for the London air.

“Ready?” He asked.

Nodding, I stood up and slipped on my own jacket.  And right when I had my jacket on properly, Shawn instantly grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the table.  I let out a small laugh, making sure to grab my bag, as he practically dragged me toward the door.

“See you guys tomorrow!” Shawn said in a cheerful voice, waving at Niall and Lola.

Lola���s arms were crossed over her chest.  And every ounce of sadness in her eyes disappeared as her eyes were locked on Shawn’s hand connected with mine.  Once she lifted her eyes to look at me, I knew I would much rather be stranded out in a snowstorm than have her icy glare on me for a second longer.

And with a smile that I couldn’t contain, Shawn pushed the door open, and we were out on the sidewalk.  

Shawn looked down at me, “What’re you hungry for?”

I shrugged, because while I should probably have something solid in my stomach other than coffee, I wasn’t all that hungry, “Whatever you want is fine.”

Shawn hummed and furrowed his eyebrows in concentration.  We stayed in front of Brightside for a few seconds until a slight gust of wind hit our faces and I shuffled into Shawn’s side.

“C’mon,” he squeezed my hand and started walking up the street, “I know a place.”

The walk wasn’t long, we only had to brave the cold wind for about three minutes before I saw a black building with large yellow writing; EDITOR’S TAP.

Shawn let our hands drop as he held the door open for me, and while I was sad to lose physical contact with him, the warmth of the restaurant was a little more inviting.

Once I was fully in, Shawn stepped next to me, and the tips of fingers touched the inside of my palm.  Slowly, he slid his palm against mine, spreading out my hand as he slid his fingers between mine.

I lied; Shawn’s hand was most definitely warmer than the inside of this restaurant.

He smiled at me before tugging on my hand and walking further in, “Sometimes it’s best to reserve a table here, but it’s never busy on a Monday afternoon.”

And he was right, it wasn’t busy at all.  While there were some people scattered around the place, enjoying a drink, it was practically empty.  Shawn led us to a high rise table for two and plucked the menus out of the holder.

He handed one to me, and I scanned it for a few seconds, before looking up at him, “What do you usually get?”

Shawn looked up from his menu, “Usually just a pizza and a drink.”

I placed the menu back in its holder as it rested on the white tile wall, “Then a pizza and a drink it is.”

He let out a small laugh, “But you’re lactose intolerant.”

I rolled my eyes and brought my bag up to my lap, digging around for the little white square package that was a lifesaver on more than one occasion.  When my eyes found a stray one at the bottom of my bag, I smiled, and lifted it up to show Shawn, “With this I can eat any dairy.”

Shawn smiled as he put his menu aside, “Aren’t you lucky.”  He pushed his chair back and stepped down, “Is it okay if we split a pizza? I don’t think I can eat a whole one right now.”

I nodded my head, “Works for me.”

He nodded, about to walk off, but stopped in front of me, “What do you want to drink?”

I shrugged, “Whatever you get.”

Again, he nodded and he continued to stand in front of me.  His eyes were focused on mine, but his eyebrows were furrowed deep in concentration, as if he was having an internal debate in his head.  I tilted my head, wondering if he was having an internal debate with himself on what drink to order, but my eyes widened when I saw the familiar look in his eyes.

It was the same look he had on Saturday night when he dropped me off at my residence hall.

The same look he gave me a few hours ago when we held hands in Brightside.

And it was exactly how he was looking at me now.

I felt my throat tighten up, hands start to sweat, and I knew my eyes grew just a teeny bit larger in size.  He was just staring at me.  And I knew exactly what he was thinking about doing.

So naturally, I held my hand up to high five him.

That seemed to bring Shawn out of whatever he was thinking about.  A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.  He brought a hand up to return the high five, “Be right back.”

When he finally left, I let out the breath I’d been holding in.

While it felt nice to know that Shawn wanted to kiss me…I don’t think any person would want to have their first kiss––with someone that they really really liked––when the person was about to order beers for them.

It didn’t seem…romantic.

In no time, Shawn walked back to the table––a pint glass in each hand––as he set one down in front of me.  

The glass was a bit cold when I pulled it toward me, as I looked at the golden amber color that was below the white foam that reached the brim of the glass.  The color of the beer was similar to the golden flecks in his brown eyes.  And with thinking about his eyes, I looked up and saw that he was already looking at me.

“It’s a Camden Hells lager,” Shawn answered the question that I was about to ask, “It’s on the lighter side so I thought you’d like it.”

I smiled in appreciation and lifted it up to take a sip, “How much was everything?”

Shawn rolled his eyes as he placed his pint glass on the table, “Do you really think I’m going to let you pay?”

“It’s only fair if we split half,” I leaned my forearms on the table, leaning in toward the middle of the table, “Please?”

Shawn laughed as he copied my movements, forearms on the table and leaning in close to the middle, “I have a job. I’m more than happy to pay for you.”

With a roll of my eyes, I leaned back on the chair, “If only my visa let me work.”

It was meant to be a joke, something lighthearted about the restrictions that were placed on me with my student visa.  And even though Shawn gave me a weak smile––trying to find the humor in the joke––I could sense that it didn’t make him too happy that I reminded him of my expiration date in the United Kingdom.

We both took a sip of our beers and ignored my poor attempt of a joke.

After a prolonged sip, I placed the glass on the table, and rested my elbows on the table.  With my chin resting on the inside of one of my palms, I looked at him like he was the most interesting person on the planet, “I still can’t believe you told me that you only sang in the shower.”

At the change of subject, Shawn bowed his head as his cheeks turned red, “I wasn’t lying.”

“You sang in front of all those people,” I raised my eyebrows at him, “And it seemed like you sang in front of a crowd before.”

Shawn shook his head, taking another sip of his beer to avoid the question.  But I patiently waited until he set the glass on the table with a sigh.

“Just a few times at parties,” Shawn shrugged, “Nothing special.”

I scoffed, “Nothing–––”  My words were cut off when someone quickly came up to our table and placed a pepperoni pizza in between us.

We both said thank you as two individual plates were set in front of us and Shawn started cutting into the pizza.

“Shawn, you’re really good,” I reassured him as I held up my plate for him to put a slice of pizza on, “You could really be––”

As if he knew what I was going to say, he shook his head and took a bite of his pizza, “I’m more into producing.  Maybe some songwriting, but I don’t want to perform or release my own stuff.”

Even though I thought he had all the potential to be a performer, if his mind was set on producing, I knew there wasn’t anything I could say to change his mind.  I lifted my own slice of pizza, and just when I was about to take a bite, Shawn interrupted me.

“Lactose pill,” he chided me, “You made a whole ordeal of digging around your bag for one.”

Embarrassed that I almost forgot about the pill that would save my intestines, I picked it up from the table, and tore the wrapper.  Shawn looked at me with a proud smile on his face as I popped the chalky pill into my mouth and washed it down with beer.

“Happy?”

Shawn nodded his head, speaking with his mouth full, “You’ll thank me later.”

I rolled my eyes as I took a bite of pizza.

We spent more time talking about the kind of music Shawn liked to produce, I complained about some of my lectures, and we both laughed when Shawn missed his mouth as he took a sip of beer––that spilled down the front of his sweatshirt.

The pizza was finished before the beer; and while I always had a hand around the pint glass, my free hand slowly inched toward the center of the table.  I thought my movements were subtle, but I did see his eyes flicker down whenever my fingers creeped forward.  

If he was as in tune with my movements as I was with his, then he definitely knew what my intentions were.

I saw him nonchalantly itch the bridge of his nose and drop his hand on the table.  And, just like I had done moments before, he carried on our conversation without missing a beat.  And while he kept steady eye contact with me, I saw the corner of his mouth slowly upturn every time his hand moved closer to mine.

And even as the tips of his fingers brushed mine, he still continued talking as if nothing important was happening.

He seemed to be acting so cool, calm, and collected when I felt the exact opposite.

The moment he slid his fingers between mine, I felt hot.  And when our hands were connected, I briefly looked down at them, and my stomach flipped with nerves.  But when I looked up and into Shawn’s eyes, who had the softest smile on his face––with the corners of his eyes crinkled––he gave me a squeeze and I felt myself come undone.

Even after our beers were finished, we continued to talk with our hands intertwined across the table.

I didn’t want to leave, and I know Shawn didn’t either, but the restaurant was starting to fill up and we knew we had extended our stay.  With a sigh, I regretfully pulled my hand away from Shawn’s––who looked just as sad as me––and slid off the chair.

Once I had my jacket properly on and my tote bag over my shoulder, Shawn took two steps to where I was, and reconnected our hands.

We walked out of the restaurant and the air didn’t seem as cold as before.

“What’s on your schedule for the rest of the day?” Shawn bumped my shoulder.

I leaned into his side to bump his shoulder back, but the warmth that radiated from his side kept me pressed up against him, “I’ve been putting off laundry.”

Shawn let out a laugh, “You and me both.”

“I also have to study, but I don’t want to,” I smiled when I felt his thumb rub up and down my index finger, “What about you?”

“Well, I don’t have to study,” Shawn smirked as we stopped at a corner of a street, waiting for the go ahead to cross, “But I do need to do laundry. I’m out of clean black shirts.”

I scrunched my nose up in disgust, “Are you wearing a dirty shirt?”

Shawn shrugged, “I’ve only worn it twice.”  Even though his shirt was under his sweatshirt and jacket, I still leaned away from him.  “Oh, come on,” Shawn tugged on my hand to pull me back into his side as we crossed the street, “It’ll get washed today.”

I rolled my eyes as we came up to the familiar Temple Underground Station and I felt my heart sink that we’d have to part ways.  I was ready to dig around in my bag for my Oyster card, but Shawn seemed to have other plans.

I felt a tug of my hand, and I was only able to make out a devilish smirk on his face before he started to run.  And when he ran, my hand connected to his was pulled along.  We ran past the Underground station and across the road behind the station.

Once we made it to the other side, and stood by a small wall that kept people from falling into the Thames River, we tried to catch our breath.

“There was a red double decker bus coming at us full speed,” I brought my free hand up to my chest to even out my breathing, but Shawn’s laughter made it hard.

He squeezed my hand, “We made it.”

“Barely.”

As both of our laughing simmered down, we continued to stand in front of each other, hands still connected.  I had no idea what his intentions were with running across the street when we were literally at our destination, but I didn’t have to think much longer when I saw it.

It was the way his shoulders looked slightly more relaxed.  The subtle tilt of his head with an easy closed lip smile on his face. It was how his eyes looked as if they were captivated by the most interesting thing in the world.

It was the same look he had on Saturday night when he dropped me off at my residence hall.

The same look he gave me hours ago when we held hands in Brightside.

The same look he gave me right before he was off to order us food.

And it was exactly how he was looking at me now.

I gulped, “Do you work tomorrow?”

Shawn let out a relaxed breath and I didn’t miss how he slowly took a step closer to me, “Yeah. Afternoon.”  He spoke shortly.

I nodded, and looked to my right to see a boat going down the Thames.  When I turned my head to look back at him, it was the same moment he took another step forward.

“I’ll stop by––”

“You have class.”

I nodded my head, becoming all too aware of how close we were actually standing together, “I can always be a little late.”

And even though he rolled his eyes at my statement, his eyes still shined bright, “We both know you hate being late.”

“I can stop in after class,” I rushed out.  And while I wanted to avoid his intense stare, there was still a calmness held in his eyes that I couldn't tear myself away from, “Or maybe Wednesday? Do you work this Wednesday?  I’m done in the afternoon––”

“McLane.”

It was like he knew I was going to hold my other hand up to high five him, because with his free hand, he tangled our fingers together.  

“I can even just come to hang out,” I started rambling, something I hadn’t done in quite a while in front of him, “I can get some work done––Because now that I––I think I have a lot of work to catch up on?  I’ve been putting off lots of work–––

I effectively cut myself short of my own rambling when he let go of one of my hands, and brought one of his hands up to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear.  And instead of letting his hand either fall down to his side, or go back to holding mine, his hand softly touched my cheek.

I sucked in a breath.

While his thumb stayed on my cheek, his other fingers curled around behind my neck.  I lifted my head up slightly to look into his eyes.  The same look was still there as he started to rub soft circles against my cheek.

“I––”

“McLane,” he whispered my name with a bit more significance.  And even though I could sense the seriousness behind his tone, he still sounded happy…like all the times he called out my name when I walked into Brightside day after day.

I felt the butterflies slowly build up in my lower stomach as he leaned his forehead against mine; both of our eyes still open and staring into each other's eyes.  I knew Shawn’s eyes looked soft.  But my eyes? I was sure they were wide and wild with anticipation.  Because while there was nothing else I wanted to do more than kiss him…My thoughts always seemed to get the better of me.

Was this really happening? I knew that Shawn liked me…And I knew he wanted to kiss me…But thinking that it was possibly––most likely–– going to happen now?  Was he about to kiss me after we barely escaped being hit by an iconic red double decker bus?

There was no way I could interrupt this with a high five.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” He breathed out as he brushed his nose against mine.

My eyes went wide at his confession, “I––Yeah. Okay.”

And before my mind could scold itself on why that was my response instead of––Yeah, Shawn, I really want to kiss you too––he closed his eyes and pressed his lips against mine.  

His lips were soft and gentle as he hesitantly brushed his lips over mine again. I could feel the nervousness behind the barely there kiss.  But after noticing that I wasn’t recoiling away from him, he bent his head and gave me a real kiss.

The moment he pressed his lips against mine, he dropped our connected hands and wrapped an arm around my waist.  I was highly aware of the way his fingers curled around behind my neck, very aware of how close I was pressed up against him, and very much aware of how slow his kisses were––even though I could tell he was trying to restrain himself.

With my eyes closed, I heard the distant sounds of traffic, smelled espresso beans off of Shawn’s clothes, finally tasted his lips against mine, and even the softness of his sweatshirt I felt under my hands couldn’t conceal the rapid pace of his heartbeat.

While the kiss never picked up speed, he still slowed down his movements to the point where his lips met mine in an agonizingly slow pace.  It took everything in me not to kiss him back with every ounce of passion I felt for him.

Like every time I was around him, I couldn’t help but smile.  I tried to push my smiling to the back of my mind, but there was something so…so alluring about his presence that made me want to smile.  And with my eyes still closed, as I felt Shawn try to continue to kiss me with my smile, I felt a shiver race down my spine.

Every poor latte art design, every time I suffered getting stuck in the rain, everytime Niall teased one––or both––of us…It was all worth it because it led to this moment.  A moment where I felt nothing but pure bliss as the wind picked up.

A/N: Finally…After one too many high-fives…A first kiss! And it won’t be the last of kisses between them 😊 And we saw a bit of jealousy in Mick…Wouldn’t it be a shame if that jealousy kept coming back?? Hmmm ✨✨✨

Anyway, it’s been a crazy past few weeks, but I’ve done lots & lots of C’est Toi planning and finally finished chapter 13 in my docs 🥳 So weekly updates will continue ! Thank you all so so much for your kind words, they really mean the world to me and give me so much motivation to continue writing!!

I love you all more than I can put into words! I’ll forever cherish each and every single one fo you!! Make it a good week, I’ll be sending good vibes your way 🥰✨💗💥

C’est Toi Taglist: @mendesficsxbombay​, @5-seconds-of-mendes​, @pupsandducks​, @musicalkeys​, @im-salt-but-not-salty​, @shawnmendez​, @crossedties​ @lenamds @samaratheweirdo​    @shawnsreputation​ @ineedmorestyles @kerwritesthings​

(send me a message if you want to be removed / added!!)

[nemo-of-house-hamartia]

Pass the happy! When you get this, reply with 5 things that make you happy and send this to the last 10 people in your notifications! 🦋

Sorry for answering so late to this, but thank you so much for sending it to me, Zinky! <3 so, 5 things that makes me happy!

1) THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. To see those ribbons of light dancing against the dark Northern Skies, bursting out in colours and lightining up the nocturnal air.....nothing -NOTHING- rivals it. They just fill me with such an awe, I feel like I am experiencing something otherwordly.

2) THE FULL MOON and THE NIGHT. I cannot even start to say how many times I have been awake during the nights of Full Moon and sat on my windowsill to look at her, listening to my favourite tracks, while enjoying the moonbeams and the quietness of the night.

3) THE OCEAN. Ok, here is the thing. I don't particularly appreciate summer, BUT. BUT. The great vastity of the Oceans is something that just fills me with such great peace that, wherever I happen to go to the seaside and hear the waves crashing against the sand, I feel I am finally back home (my mom used to say that I had learnt how to swim before I did walking, and maybe she was onto something? I don't know, I just know that I am a stranded mermaid that has lost her tail!).

4)Drawing. I spent most of my life with a pencil and a sketchbook always at hand, because I was always so immersed into whatever world I was at the moment that I just couldn't run the risk to lose any idea that might just spark into my mind because prompted by something that I saw (I mean, I was in Florida once and I had the idea for a dress LOOKING AT A FREAKING PALM TREE. And thank gods I had the sketchbook with me). So, drawing, being able to translate what I see into my mind into a tangible shape (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) fills me with extreme joy.

5)Collecting Pins!! I know, it's weird, but I always adored those small pins that they sell in the Disney Parks and whatnot, and ever since 2019 I have been starting collecting them, be them Disney-related or not! Each time I find one that I feel can represent me or it's about my fave character, I just squeal in absolute delight!!! (I had an AC one, but I lost it, dang it.) So now, each time I go around somewhere, instead of buying postcards, I buy pins!!

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK, ZINKY!! <3 I HAD FUN ANSWERING THIS!

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors. 

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

[kikml2]

As many of you know, I'm very open about my very much debilitating depression. I have a hard time doing even little things, like getting up to go to the bathroom, or speaking to my family whom I live with, or taking a shower, etc.

In the same vein, I haven't drawn anything since sometime in 2019. Even when I had an idea, I just couldnt get out of bed to take the 5 steps to my sketchbook. It was a hurdle I spent a long time just not being able to jump. But tonight I actually managed it! So, please excuse the sketchiness, but here is my first drawing of 2020. I hope you like her : )

[our-time-is-now]

July 9, 2019 (1): Trigger

(previous play)

You can find more information about the authors, translators, content warning and additional information about the plays in the pinned post on our blog. 

Attention! This play includes transgender topics. For more details see our interjection.

Tuesday, 4:03 pm:

Matteo: *in the afternoon he and David had grabbed two chairs from the cabin and set them up on the grass between the tent and the jetty* *they have made themselves a big jug of iced tea and are now relaxing there in peace* *Carlos and Kiki had asked them if they wanted to go into the lake with them but they declined* *he’s almost dozing and had barely noticed Alex walking past them to the lake*

David: *is sitting on his chair in the sun cross-legged with his sketchbook in front of him, where he has started to sketch Matteo as he is sitting on his chair so immobile and almost dozing* *didn’t really notice Alex also jump into the lake earlier, and only randomly hears voices, laughter, screeching and arguing in the background* *doesn’t let that interrupt him* *has just sketched the outlines of Matteo and was just about to start with the details, but instead reaches for his glass of iced tea and takes a sip first* *is really looking around for the first time since he had started sketching and notices Carlos and Kiki coming toward them from the jetty dripping with water – Carlos seems angry and Kiki seems to murmur something to him to calm him down* *tilts his head a little when they are getting closer and grins slightly* Trouble in paradise? Swallowed too much water?

Carlos: *is still mad* He would have jumped on you! Without hesitation! *hears Kiki placatingly: “But he didn’t… nothing happened!"* *then hears David’s comment and stops in front of them, furious* *sees Matteo slowly open his eyes and sit up a little groggily* *but turns to David* Swallowed too much water, my ass! Alex that moron just jumped into the water like a retard, without looking, and almost landed on Kiki* *doesn’t notice David getting angry because he’s still so mad* Such a spaz, really, can’t he see that there are other people here, apart from him? *doesn’t see Matteo lift his eyebrows and worriedly look at David instead of him*

David: *looks back and forth between Kiki and Carlos and doesn’t really get what it’s even about* *then hears Carlos’ explanation, but also doesn’t, because he only really registers the words “moron”, “retard” and “spaz”* *immediately feels his heart beat faster because Carlos is talking without thinking first once again* *has somehow registered that Alex had done something, but something that Kiki doesn’t seem to think is worth mentioning, and uncharacteristically for him simply ignores Carlos’ argument because those three words repeat themselves in his head again and again* *doesn’t really notice how tightly he’s gripping his pencil and his glass and tries to somehow stay calm* *but can’t really prevent himself from saying pretty angrily* You said that you didn’t want to say that anymore!

Carlos: *sees David’s reaction and at first feels vindicated because he thinks that he’s just as appalled by Alex as he is* *can now briefly see Matteo’s worried look but doesn’t really think much of it* *then frowns at David’s words and doesn’t know what he’s talking about* Huh? *then also hears Kiki: “Didn’t want to say what anymore?"* *shrugs* That Alex is a moron? But he is! *sees Matteo shake his head and adds* Yes, he is! Alex has to open his eyes for once! I really don’t get why the two of you aren’t bothered by it! What he did was totally stupid!

David: *feels how he starts to seethe when Carlos seemingly doesn’t understand at all what he did* *shakes his head at Carlos’ words and somehow tries to reconstruct what Alex did that made Carlos so angry, but then thinks that it actually doesn’t matter what he did, because nothing justifies the words “spaz” and “retarded”* *then hears Carlos now use “stupid” and realizes that he doesn’t think at all about what he says and that “stupid” is just as much a part of his daily vocabulary than “retarded” and “spaz”* *clears his throat, so that his voice won’t shake, and then says* Stupid, okay, fine! But you said that you wouldn’t use “retarded” anymore! And I think “spaz” is just the same… *slowly puts his glass down on the ground because he realizes how tense he is right now* *tries to somehow calm down but just can’t see it as chill as Carlos* *realizes that it makes him really angry and with a beating heart says* Just think about what you’re saying!

Carlos: *frowns when David talks and only then realizes what he’s talking about* Oohhhh… yeah, okay, sorry… I wasn’t thinking! I meant stupid… *feels Kiki put her hand on his arm and hears her say: “I already told you that, as well, Carlos. David is right, you don’t say something like that."* *rolls his eyes* Yeah, man, fine… I didn’t mean it like that, okay? *slightly shrugs his shoulders* I get it, you think that it sucks, but I also think that it’s annoying that you always make such a big deal out of it…

David: *wonders what’s so difficult about just thinking before speaking* *nods at Kiki’s words and finds it even more difficult to understand that Carlos can’t just get a grip if she had already told him that, as well* *rolls his eyes when Carlos says that he didn’t mean it like that and feels his heart continue to beat fast out of anger* But that’s just the thing! If you don’t mean it like that, then why do you even say it?! The people you say that to don’t know that you didn’t mean it like that! They take it personal! You hurt them with it! *laughs drily at his next words and thinks that he should calm down to not start a fight* *puts his pencil in his sketchbook and closes it* *while doing so realizes how tense and shaky he is and doesn’t manage to somehow calm down* *says a little angrily* A big deal!? Apparently that’s what it takes – to keep pointing it out to you… somehow you don’t understand it any other way.

Carlos: *slowly gets mad at David, as well, and also a little at Kiki and Matteo, because Kiki is against him and Matteo isn’t saying anything* Dude, David, get a grip! *shakes his head* You’ve really said it often enough now! Maybe I’m simply just not as politically correct as you are! *realizes how alone he feels and how it starts to seethe in him* *gets louder while he talks* I’m mad at Alex, I wanted to complain about it, to my /friends/! Do you see them anywhere? Because all I see is a guy who’s constantly criticizing me and who can’t forget for even two minutes that I used a wrong word! *is so mad that he doesn’t even hear Matteo actually say something for the first time: “Hey, Carlos, that’s enough…”*

David: *shakes his head when Carlos says that he should get a grip and sits up a little* *unconsciously hands Matteo his sketchbook because he’s afraid of bending it or throwing it to the ground out of anger and annoyance* *laughs drily at his next words* That doesn’t have anything to do with being politically correct! *clenches his fists when he notices Carlos getting louder and angrier and feels his heart beat fast* *suddenly has slight flashbacks of the guys at his old school – how they loudly ridiculed and taunted him* *shakes his head again to get rid of the images and feels a slight lump forming in his throat, which somehow only makes him more angry because he had actually told himself to not let such things get to him anymore* *rationally speaking knows that it’s not about him, but somehow can’t really separate that right now* *yells at Carlos* I’m sorry that I can’t just forget about it /for two minutes/! But did you maybe think about why that is?! Noo, probably not! Do you have any idea what that feels like to be called something like that!? I guess not, because otherwise you would finally manage to think before you talk! *takes a deep breath and tries to somehow calm down, but doesn’t really manage to* Well, unfortunately /I/ only know too well how that feels! I know guys like you! And to this day /I/ don’t know if they were serious about it when they called me “spaz” or “retarded” or if they /only/ didn’t think about what they were saying… But I know that it feels like shit! I know that you feel inferior because of it, like dirt, even though all you do is try to be yourself… *didn’t really realize that he had gotten up and taken a step towards Carlos; only feels his eyes getting wet and doesn’t know if it’s from anger or because of the hurt and the memories* *has to swallow and then huffs quietly* But you know what?! I’m not going to get on your case about it again! Then just say whatever you want! But I don’t want to hear that anymore! Then just deal with the fact that I’ll leave if you talk shit like that, to not be reminded of those guys every time you say that. I can’t do that again! And I don’t want to, either! I… *only shakes his head and stops* *feels distraught and confused, hurt and angry and still feels that stupid lump in his throat* *closes his eyes for a moment and hisses* Just leave me alone with it! *crosses his arms in front of his chest and storms past Carlos toward the cabin* *but can see Hanna, Sam and Amira sitting in front of it and impulsively goes toward the fireplace* *doesn’t want anyone to see him like that and to ask questions* *doesn’t want to have to talk to anyone*

Carlos: *is completely speechless when he hears David’s outburst* *feels worse with each sentence he says* *briefly looks at Matteo, who looks like he simultaneously wants to hit him and hug David* *says very quietly* But I… *stops because he realizes immediately that he doesn’t have anything good to say* *then already sees David walk away and stands there as if struck by lightning* *quietly hears Kiki say “shit” next to him* *looks over at Matteo completely out of his depths and quietly asks: “Don’t you want to go after him?"* *sees Matteo think about it for a minute and then shake his head: “No, Carlos, you’re the one who has to fix this."* *swallows hard* And the people at his old school really called him spaz? Because he’s trans? *sees Matteo only nod and apparently nod add anything else to it* *takes a deep breath and exhales slowly* Okay… *then starts moving and goes toward the cabin* *but can see the girls sitting there and then goes toward the fireplace* *can see David sitting there and approaches him slowly* *stops a few steps in front of him* Hey… may I… *shakes his head because that’s a stupid start* I’m sorry, man, really… sometimes I’m really stupid and don’t get anything. *then simply sits down on the ground opposite him* *thinks that David will just leave if he doesn’t want to see him right now*

David: *is sitting at the fireplace and is angry at himself for losing it like that and for letting such things get to him like that and that Carlos and Kiki now know what happened at his old school* *didn’t really want anyone to know, because he doesn’t want to be pitied, and because he doesn’t want for people to be considerate just because of it, either* *but is also angry at Carlos, because he just doesn’t get it and because he acts as if it were normal and because he probably will never get it what it really means if he uses words like that* *is still really tense when he sees Carlos come toward him* *at first has the urge to simply get up and flee and has to think about Matteo for a second and the fact that he promised him to not run away again and that he just did it, anyways* *just hopes that Matteo can understand that he had to get out of that situation, but right now only stays because of Matteo and thinks that it’s probably better to resolve this with Carlos instead of running away again* *but realizes that he’s actually still really mad and therefore takes a deep breath when Carlos reaches him and sits down on the ground opposite him* *shakes his head at his words and huffs quietly* I don’t want your pity! *thinks that in the future he’ll really do what he said, that he will just get out of the situation and won’t tell Carlos anymore that he doesn’t want him to use words like that again*

Carlos: *hears his words and nods immediately* I get that… *swallows slightly* But I meant that I’m sorry for reminding you of those idiots… I really didn’t want to do that… *can see that David is still really mad and can understand that* *thinks that he probably hasn’t taken this serious for too long* *still hopes that it’s not too late yet* *takes a deep breath* Listen, I know that nothing I say now will make up for the fact that I was a total idiot… but… I want you to know that I never saw or see you like that… really… and that I’m the reason all those memories came back really sucks… and I’m really sorry about that. *presses his lips together and is quiet for a moment* *then adds* I won’t say it again, I promise. *would really like to say or do something so that David feels better* *but really doesn’t have a good idea* *but then thinks of something* Do you want me to go get Matteo?

David: *listens to Calos and huffs quietly when he mentions remembering those idiots* *really tries to relax and calm down a little when Carlos starts his speech and slowly unclenches his fists* *realizes that calming down isn’t that easy* *huffs quietly* It’s not about the fact that you never saw me like that! It’s about the fact that you see others like that… or call them that! And I truly don’t want /anyone/ to be called something like that because I know exactly what a shitty feeling that is! *shakes his head slightly when he promises to not say it again and murmurs* You’ve said that before… *can’t really believe him because apparently it’s such a big part of him, that he can’t break the habit just like that* *then looks at him a little confused when he suggests getting Matteo and even has to laugh quietly because Carlos looks so lost* What does any of that have to do with Matteo?! *shakes his head and takes a deep breath* *notices that he really does calm down a little, but more in a resigned manner* Listen, we’ll just do what I said earlier: I won’t get on your case about it, anymore, and just take myself out of the situation if it happens again…

Carlos: *slightly grimaces at his words* *really realizes only now that he really screwed up, that now his promises are useless because he went back on his promises too often* *has to think about Kiki once telling him that from a certain point onward words no longer help but that you have to show the person that you mean it* *was just about to say that when he asks why he mentioned Matteo* *slightly shrugs his shoulders* Nothing, but… I just thought about what I could do to make you feel better… I thought that getting Matteo would be the safest option. *slightly shrugs one shoulder in apology* *then hears his last words and realizes only now how much it sucks that David really sees him like that now* *slightly shakes his head, but mostly at himself* Then I’ll make sure that you don’t have to do that… *swallows slightly* Really, David… give me that chance, ok? Sometimes it’s just that you only really realize how stupid your own behavior is when it gets personal… don’t write me off completely, ok?

David: *smiles slightly because Carlos was really trying to think about things when he asked about getting Matteo, but still shakes his head* But Matteo can’t really change anything about the situation between you and me… *skeptically looks at Carlos when he says that he will make sure that he doesn’t have to take himself out of the situation* *doesn’t really believe that he can make it* *then hears his next words asking him not to write him off completely and then looks at him silently and scrutinizingly for a long time* *really doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but knows that his heart is in the right place and that he would probably never hurt him intentionally* *eventually sighs quietly and shrugs* *murmurs a little sheepishly* Okay… *lowers his gaze for a moment but then looks back up again* *then admits* I wouldn’t have written you off completely, anyways – only when it comes to those expressions. Your idea with the swim binders was pretty cool and apart from that… your speech when we were playing Zelda… or your interest in all of that other stuff… *grins slightly* You’re actually not thaaat shitty…

Carlos: *slightly shrugs his shoulders when David says that Matteo can’t change anything about the situation* *knows that he always feels at least a little better when Kiki’s there, no matter the situation* *then sees David looking at him and manages to hold his gaze* *is relieved when he eventually hears his okay and that he at least gets the chance to do the right thing in the future* *grins slightly when David starts to list the things where he did at least something right* Thanks. I try. *then gets up and dusts off his pants* I’ll go see if I can find something to eat… *then grins slightly and tilts his head* Are you sure that you don’t want me to get Matteo? There’s no one else here right now…

David: *laughs quietly when Carlos says that he’ll go find something to eat* *somehow he’s never really hungry when he’s so agitated* *shakes his head again when Carlos asks about Matteo and also gets up* No, don’t worry about it… I’ll just go back to the tent and hopefully he’s still there… *feels a little better but he still urgently needs a hug from Matteo right now* *is standing in front of Carlos a little indecisively for a moment and then runs a hand through his hair a little sheepishly* *briefly considers apologizing for his outburst but then decides against it* *only murmurs* See you later… *then goes to find Matteo*

Carlos: *nods* Okay… *then looks at David and is a little afraid that he’ll say something else* *then nods quickly and replies* See you later… *then goes back toward the cabin*

Matteo: *had a somewhat exhausting conversation with Kiki and was really glad when Hanna showed up and saved him by asking Kiki if she wanted to go for a walk with her* *has then considered looking for Carlos and especially David in case he needed his support* *but then dropped the idea* *stayed back at the tent but turned his chair in the direction David had disappeared in* *had put his sketchbook back on his chair after Kiki left* *then really sees David coming toward him and gets up immediately* *takes a few steps toward him, sees his face and spreads his arms immediately* *could already imagine that the conversation wouldn’t be easy but can now really see for himself that David looks really exhausted*

David: *goes back toward the tent and is relieved and glad that Matteo is still sitting where he had left him* *smiles slightly when Matteo immediately gets up when he sees him, although he realizes that he could actually cry right now – on the one side because of all the agitation and stress with Carlos but on the other side also because he’s so happy that Matteo is there and that he immediately notices how he feels and that he immediately spreads his arms for him* *quickens his steps and immediately hugs Matteo once he reaches him* *buries his face in the crook of Matteo’s neck and takes a deep breath* *thinks that it feels like coming home after a long time even though he had surely been gone for only a few minutes* *sighs quietly and presses himself close to Matteo* *murmurs quietly, because he knows that Matteo will ask him anyway* Everything okay… kinda…

Matteo: *immediately wraps arms around him and just holds him* *then kisses his head and considers if he should ask* *but then figures that David will tell him how he feels if he wants to* *then smiles slightly when he does* Okay… good… do you want to tell me about it or rather not? *kisses him again and then adds* I can also try to beat him up for you… *hopes that he can cheer him up a little with that*

David: *pulls away from him slightly so that he can look at him and shrugs* *thinks about how he can somehow summarize his conversation with Carlos* *briefly closes his eyes when he feels Matteo’s kiss, but then opens them again at his words and laughs quietly* *shakes his head* I don’t know… better not… in the end you might get hit, as well… *tenderly pushes a strand of hair off his face* *he also doesn’t want Matteo to fight with Carlos because of him* *sighs quietly* He said that he was sorry… and that he didn’t want to hurt me… and that he wouldn’t say it anymore… *shrugs* No idea if he’ll manage it this time. He promised that before, after all…

Matteo: *laughs slightly* That could be expected… *slightly tilts his head when he pushes a strand of hair off his face* *nods slightly when David tells him what Carlos said* *thinks that it sounds like him that he only gets something when it gets more personal* At least… right? So wait and see… *tenderly puts his hand partly on his neck and partly on his face* And now? Do you want to go into the lake for a while or walk around for a while or… *shrugs* Whatever… I’m in, ok?

David: *nods when Matteo says that they have to wait and see* Yes, but honestly, I don’t really want to get my hopes up too much. I think that it’s just so much a part of him and he doesn’t even realize it when he says stuff like that… *sighs quietly* But I told him that I won’t tell him off again and that I’ll just take myself out of the situation if it happens again. I don’t know if I can manage to not get angry about it, so maybe it’s better this way… otherwise we might really get into a fight at one point and I don’t really want that… *slightly leans against Matteo’s hand when he puts it half on his cheek, half on his neck and smiles slightly at his question* *thinks about it for a moment and looks over to the lake* Hmm… I think I want to go into the lake again… I have to practice, after all… *grins sightly and then looks back at Matteo* *tenderly leans his forehead against Matteo’s and lightly runs his hand over his back* *doesn’t really want to pull away from him just yet and therefore searches for his lips to kiss him*

Matteo: *nods slightly and shrugs one shoulder* *actually thinks that Carlos would stop doing something once he realizes that it gets serious, but doesn’t really want to defend him too much right now* Let’s wait and see… if he really doesn’t stop, then we’ll think of something… because I don’t want you to leave every time Carlos is being an idiot. *then nods with a smile when David says that he wants to go into the lake* Good idea… *slightly presses his lips together when he feels David’s forehead against his and closes his eyes* *kisses him back and tires to prolong the kiss a little until David pulls away, after all* Hmmmm, you don’t happen to require help changing? *grins at him cheekily*

(next play)

[marshmallowdonutsprinkles]

Guide to buying Pokémon Center JP merch

Hey guys,

So after getting an ask from an anon this morning, I decided to rush a guide to buying the trainer merch that released yesterday (or technically the 24th if you have a means to buy from the Japan-exclusive Pokémon Center’s online store), just in case there are others who don’t know what to do or where to go. Some of y’all have favs in this merchandise line called Pokémon Trainers 2 (Pokémon Trainers originally came out ~July 2019). Pokémon Trainers 2 contains merchandise of Leon, Raihan, Piers, Gloria (SWSH female protag, sorry Victor), Bea, Nessa, Erika, Serena, May, and some dudes from the subway? No idea who those are as the only gens I’ve played were 4 and 6-8. 

Merchandise includes (but is not limited to) pins, keychains, shirts, sketchbooks, plushies, phone cases (iPhone only, rip us android users), switch cases (rip switch lite users), towels, etc. So if you want to try and get something from the Japanese Pokémon center and have no way to do it, hopefully this can help you :) so you don’t overspend like I did 

TL;DR: It’s Amazon Japan and proxy services. Amazon Japan is more reliable (and cheaper) because you don’t have to pay for service fees and for someone to buy your item, and then turn around to pay international shipping like a proxy service. Amazon Japan is one payment and ships pretty fast. The only downside I would say is that by the time items appear on Amazon Japan, they’re being sold out in other places, like Pokémon center running out of preorders within hours of the merch release date (the site literally crashed for about 2 hours on the 24th. I’m blaming it on the fact they dropped Leon and Raihan merch the same day).

If your item can be bought on Amazon Japan and you don’t mind waiting, use Amazon Japan. If your item cannot be bought on Amazon Japan (explanation below) and/or you don’t want to wait Amazon Japan to have it up just to have it sold out within a day, use a proxy you’ve researched and know is reliable and ships to your country.

I first bought merchandise from the Japanese Pokémon center last year, when they released Leon’s cape as a blanket (it’s super soft btw). The Japanese Pokémon Center does not ship internationally, which is annoying to every person with a non-Japanese address. Luckily, there are pretty much two ways around it that can prevent you from booking a flight to Japan to get one (1) item. 

1. Amazon Japan

Amazon.co.jp is just that-Japanese Amazon. Japanese Pokémon Centers have their own section on Amazon Japan called the Pokémon Store (ポケモンストア ). My Japanese is basic at best, but with google translate and a little background knowledge, I can maneuver as much as I need to. I would put a link to it right here, but because tumblr eats post that have links in text, it would make this post meaningless. Therefore, I’ll just show you the search method

A. Type in amazon.co.jp Pokémon center into google search, This should pop up:

B. If this comes up, click on the second link titled “Amazon.co.jp: Pokémon Store: Toys & Games” as that’s where you want to go. Once there, you’ll be greeted by a bunch of Japanese text, which will either be a blessing or a nightmare

C. When you are on this page, click on the link titled “ポケモンセンターオリジナル” (translation: Pokémon center original). This basically takes you to the page that has items exclusive to Japanese Pokémon centers. As someone not fluent in Japanese, this is really the only link I need the worry about on Amazon Japan.

You’ll then be greeted by the merchandise available for sale:

As I am typing this, some items are already sold out. Plushies for Leon, Raihan, Piers, are gone (of course you are). In fact, some items are even straight up missing from Amazon Japan. Let’s say the item you want is sold out on Amazon Japan or, like the anon I answered earlier, the item you want isn’t here. Then what? TBH, your only choice is eBay or the Pokémon center online (which is all in Japanese. Godspeed)

If your item isn’t here, the search gets a bit tricky, but it doesn’t mean hope is lost (yet).

I don’t know how often Pokémon does this, but for some items on their online site, they have a message at the bottom. Let’s look at Leon’s plushie for example:

If you check the black box, it pretty much says “due to popular demand, we are accepting more preorders!”. JP Pokémon Center Online had preorders open the September 24 at 10AM JST, so you could’ve preordered your items before Amazon Japan put them up on the 26th JST. This time, they are accepting more preorders for specific items until: 1) they run out of stock (again) or 2) October 11, 2020 11:59 JST hits. Whichever comes first. Unfortunately though, because this is stock #2 for Japan’s Pokémon Center, your items won’t be shipping until February 2021. If you were lucky to get your item in stock 1 or Amazon Japan, that ships October 3 2020.

2021年2月 is February 2021. If you’re forgetful like me, it’ll be hilarious when you wake up ~5 months later after preordering and you get a random package you forgot you paid for😂.

So you’ve found another chance to get your item, but Pokémon Center doesn’t ship outside of Japan. You live in Not Japan. Now what?

2. Proxy service

Proxy services are..services (:P) that can either preorder the item for you, or physically go to the Pokémon center stores located across Japan to buy the item for you. They then ship it to your house. Japanese proxy services are able to do this because they are simply located in Japan, allowing them to have a Japanese address to place preorders or head to the stores themselves. Unsurprisingly, they are more expensive than just using Amazon because you have to pay someone to do this for you. TBH, expect to pay at least 2X the price of the item you want when using a proxy. (For example, Leon’s plush is 2200 yen which is equivalent to 20.83 USD as of 2020. I paid around 52 USD for mine, including international shipping. Now imagine buying for 2 people. Yeah.)

Let’s use anon’s desired item for an example of using proxy. The anon who sent me an ask today wanted the buttons/pins, which are these(I think lmao)

Like all things business, there is a catch.

Lucky for anon, Pokémon center is (currently) taking more preorders for this item (black box) up until October 11 JST, or until they run out of stock again. Unfortunately, these items will now ship in February of next year (dark blue box). However, there is one thing you really need to look at for:

The fine print.

It’s bad enough if you can’t read Japanese, but Japanese fine print? Even worse. Thankfully, all you need is google translate for that.

Some items being sold in this merchandise have a fine print. They have a limit as to how many you can buy, or, in some cases, you can’t get a specific design. I’ve noticed this with the T-shirts, keychains, and buttons (although it’s listed as Can badges rather than buttons). 

F-in-the-chat-for-fine-print message #1: 1 item per person:

F-in-the-chat-for-fine-print message #2: You cannot pick the design (in other words, if you buy this item, you get a random design/character):

It sucks for us, but from a business perspective, they most likely acknowledge the fact that everyone and their mom is going to buy a Leon/Raihan/Piers/Nessa/Bea T-shirt/keychain/badge vs. an Erika/Serena/May T-shirt/keychain/badge and as a result they’ll have a lot of left over items that have little to no demand. They sense a heavy bias, so they put down this limit that you can’t pick the design and it’s only random. In the case of the buttons/can badge, you either have the option of buying all 19 badges (which is why it’s priced at 6270 yen which is ~60USD) or you buy a single, random button/badge for 330 yen (3USD). Although I just checked, and those items are sold out with currently no chance of restocking. So anon, if you’re reading this far, it’s either you buy the entire package of 19 badges (and resell the rest) or you have to try your luck on eBay.

In the event your item isn’t sold out but is not on Amazon Japan, you want your proxy service. I only started using a couple for this merchandise only, as I was buying merch for 2 people and Pokémon center has a strict limit of 1 per person. Plus, items I wanted weren’t even on Amazon Japan. I have some proxy service ideas below:

A. White Rabbit Express. This is my first time using them. They managed to get my items, but because they were late in preordering, one item is coming this year, and another coming next year. This means I now have to pay international shipping twice since the items are too far apart in ship dates to put in one package to be shipped internationally. Hooray. Salt aside, their service fees are a bit expensive (12% of the price of your order) but they do their job, I suppose. They work M-F 10AM-7PM JST, so the time difference made it harder for me to communicate with them (we’re 13 hours apart). They do respond relatively quick though, and always update you on the current situation. They have cheap shipping options...which are not being used in some countries due to COVID-19. Because I live in the US, a lot of shipping businesses are not shipping to the United States. Therefore I’m stuck with spending 20-30USD on international shipping alone instead of the usual 6-10USD. Reviews say they are trustworthy, and I currently believe they are, albeit a bit slow when it comes to preordering a limited item. On the bright side, they allow refunds as long as they didn’t pay for the item yet. Make sure to read their FAQ. 

B. Zenmarket. Reviews say they are good. I haven’t use them so I don’t have personal experience. They have a flat service fee of 300 yen which is super cheap. They take forever to tell you how much an item costs so you can pay for it, though. A scary moment if the item you're looking for is limited and highly sought after. Again, COVID-19 knocked out some shipping services so always double check what services are shipping to your country despite the pandemic.

C. Sunyshore Store. A service specifically catered the Pokémon items. Their prices are expensive, and they said it was due to the high demand, which I just think is a bit..eh😒 I avoided them once I saw I would have to spend about 70 USD for a plush that’s not even that big. If I’m spending 70 dollars for a Leon plush, it might as well be the real Leon, tf.

D. Meccha Japan. They have a 5% off coupon (PKJ5) if you spend a certain amount (I think it’s 50 USD?) but I’m not sure. Prices are okay as it includes international shipping. They are currently out of stock for some Pokemon Trainers merch such as Leon and Raihan plushies, but they plan to restock in October 3-10. My only peeve is that their restocking period is like 3AM EST lol.

E. Hello Japan. hellojapan.shop is their website. I bought my Leon plush off of here literally the day before Amazon Japan had it, so I spent more money that I should’ve. Prices listed don’t include shipping, but that might depend on where you are in the world. They have a cancellation fee of 30% which is quite high, so I decided to take my L and not cancel my purchase to buy it on Amazon Japan. There is nowhere listed on their site what their office hours are. Their only form of contact seems to be just email.

F. Others. While checking around the internet I ran into other proxy services such as FromJapan, tenso.com, buyee.jp and remambo that help in buying things off the pokemon center. I didn’t look into them so I don’t have anything to say about them, other than buyee,jp has a million and one fees, and remambo at least allows you to cancel orders (before they buy them obviously)

G. Ebay. Ebay sucks due to the fact that resellers are shooting up the prices for these items. I literally saw a Leon plush being sold for 180 USD a couple days ago. I’d have to be out of my mind to buy any toy for that much money. If you shift through the overpriced resellers though, there are a couple decent ones. When you make an ebay account, you can message the seller and ask questions about the product before making your decision.

That’s pretty much it! There may be better, more informative guides on google if you search a bit but if this guide helps at least 1 person, I’d be totally content with that. Good luck with merchandise hunting! If you have questions you can reply to this post, message me on anon, or just shoot me a dm.

[eiks1997]

Another old time character. Meet Ianthe Fénnù! A teifling Warlock! 💗 I designed her around the same time I drew Logan (year 2019). As you can see she's had a bit of a tough life but, as many of you authors out there know, you hurt the ones you love when it comes to character design and backstory! (Why are we so cruel? 😅) I wont reveal too much but basically she wants good old fashioned revenge, and her mysterious Fiend Deity is MORE then whiling to help with that. Even if she has no idea who he is. 😈😈 Maybe it's a little predictable to draw a tiefling with a Fiend Deity but for Ianthe it works. If anyone is interested, her name translates to Ianthe- meaning 'wild flower', or 'violet flower'. In mythology, Ianthe was a sea nymph and daughter of Oceanus. Fénnù means 'rage' and 'anger' in simplified Chinese.

Either way I do love drawing a tiefling. They are just so much fun, mischievous and different! It has been a while since I've drawn her, (like Mhauk and Logan), so I can already think of additions to her designs or maybe change it up a bit. When I have time I might redesign her. I could change up her clothes and weapon design. I like to think I've gotten a little better over the two years since I've last drawn her. 🎨

If anyone likes my art and wants to see more character designs, Ianthe included, stick around! 😋 Program used: Autodesk Sketchbook Date: 2019

Find me on Instagram:  #EIKS1997 DO NOT REPOST