#I tried to use recognizable artists so it’s easier to credit

[rainytrashcan]

I have contributions

[skyartworkzzz]

@auravs YO IDK WTF IS UP WITH TUMBLR BUT IT SOMEHOW DELETED UR ASK SO IM PINGING U TO ANSWER,,,

Heres my replies Ive tried more than 3456789 times sending, hope it didnt spam or smtng and the site was actually trolling me 😭:

OKAY SHIT FIRST OFF THANK U SO MUCH!! Rlly appreciate ur support,,! 😭💜

NOW, My Personal guide for begginer artists:

1. Try to copy arts u find online or even from medias u enjoy! (comics, cartoons and etc)

On each drawing u copy u will notice u have learned smtng new! So from there, try to draw an image by urself without any reference, and once u have an idea of how the artstyle u want works Personally, Id copy many anime images with similar art styles to then try and make pieces of my own!

NOW ITS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: it is not wrong to redraw images for PERSONAL and LEARNING purposes. What Would be wrong of u is to post it around claiming that You were the original creator of the image and not crediting the original one/the artist responsible for it

So as long as u aint stealing anyone's work, ure fine!

2. Use guidelines and shapes when drawing!

They are very important when beggining to understand anatomy! Ofc u dont have to draw All the lines detailed-ish, but at least to an extent in which u can see what is going on

So les say for example u want to draw a human body: u will have to understand that the top of the head is a circle, that the neck has a cone-ish shape, that the chest follows the form of a ribcage and so on It may vary from artist to artist, but if ure struggling to draw smtng specific, try seeing a shape on it to then make ur job easier! The body has to become a literal puzzle to ur eyes

However, I will advise u to plz not let these limit u. Indeed, as a begginer u have to learn how normal anatomy works, but its totally fine to change that depending on what artstyle u choose!

3. CONSISTENCY IS A SCAM!!!!

DO NOT WORRY IF UR ART DOESNT LOOK AS RECOGNIZABLE ON EVERY PIECE, I myself have only learned this recently and seen many other artists getting unmotivated cuz of this, but consistency truly does not exist. Whatever u do with ur art is nothing but ur RANGE. Its all the knowledge u have on it which makes u produce many pieces in different styles, and that is awesome!!

As an artist, u will always be learning smtng new, and what u learn cannot be un….learned (if that word exists IUSDNJKADLS) so its bound to show in ur work

4. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACT-

NEVER STOP DRAWING!!!! Like Ive said beforehand, u are ALWAYS learning smtng new!! Everything u draw is progress!

So no matter how bad u may think the things u do look, just remember that theyre likely looking MUCH better than the thing u drew yesterday

Art takes time to reach a level in which u feel comfortable and proud with how u do it, so its important to be patient and keep on practicing if u rlly want to get better at it!

Since u are a begginer, and if u have the time/motivation, Id suggest doing a doodle here and there to start picking up the habit to draw often. It is much easier to learn and less tedious once ure used to it and, ofc, enjoying it!

HOPE THESE ARE HELPFUL,,,, once again, they are based on my own experience thus far and some things I wish I knew back there………

AS FOR THE AU: ILL ANSWER THAT IN MY NEXT POST CUZ TUMBLR IS BEING A BITCH, amma ping u for my response if u dont mind so heads up,,,

[kirathehyrulian]

🌴Oasis Art MasterPost🌴

(Please do not repost or alter. At the very least, please give me credit.) 

Illustrator: kirathehyrulian Author: nerdypastrychef Title: Oasis Word Count: 4712 Rating: Explicit Pairings: Jared/Jensen Addtional Tags: are at the begginning of the fic, make sure you are aware of them before you read

Summary: Roman soldier Jensen is sent to Egypt to oversee the marriage negotiations between Caesar and Pharaoh Jared's younger sister. Pharaoh shows him something more interesting to pay attention to.

Fic Link: | Ao3 |

For more art from me please check out my “myart” tag here on Tumblr. 👇(Bonuses/Spoilers for the story under the cut:)👇

Artist notes:

This is my half of the collab in the SPN Reverse Bang. I feel like I can say, My author and me have made it! Yay! It is done!

So, just in case you don’t know what a reversebang is, it’s where an artist draws an illustration and an interested writer picks it to write a story inspired by the work. More goes into the process, but that’s pretty much the gist of it.

I was at a loss on what to draw (I didn’t know there was prompts that you could use if you want). But every time I looked at Jared’s fox eyes I kind of wanted to know what he/Sam would look like with Egyptian make-up. And Jensen always looked like a Roman officer of varying rank to me. So, I explored that idea.

Before I got picked, I said I wasn’t opened to making additional art. But, that was only because I didn’t think I’d be able to. T.T I just didn’t want to get any potential authors’ hopes up.

It’s been a busy fall for me. Every week there has been projects due every week lately. Take my busy schedule and mix it with the fact that I have a bad procrastination and avoidance issues and you get a bad combination for projects at this time of the year.

But, I wanted to do more. I felt like it wasn’t fair or enough just to give my author one illustration. So I tried to make more. I completed the title card. I think the quality is okay. I wished I spent more time on the water. But, the additional pieces below are just WIPs that won’t be revisited. I was too ambitious. But, I put work into them so I’d rather them not collecting dust in my folders. You’re basically seeing the dvd extra’s deleted/wip scenes here.

(You’re only seeing naked shoulders in these WIPs, so it’s sfw.)

Scene 2.1 WIP: This WIP is supposed to be a season 2ish Jared. -_-  I don’t know if I accomplished that. The face and hair are passable....kind of. But I’m not happy with the shoulders, pecs, and positioning. I stared at Jared’s torso pics for hours trying to figure out how it would look if the source lighting was hitting him in the front. All the reference photos I found were not at the right angle entirely or the source lighting is shining on the body at the wrong angle. I looked at other dudes chests and I had the same issue. Nothing probably makes you hate looking at your favorite characters or celebs more than having to stare at reference photos for hours and still not figuring out what went wrong.

I should have devoted more time towards research, but I was burning out fast during the past few weeks. School’s been a little more intensive since it’s near the end of the semester and I’ve been feeling a little erratic because of it all.

Anyways, I wanted this piece to look and feel like the audinece member was the one hovering over Jared.

Scene 2.2 WIP:

This one was rushed for sure. I actually had pretty good references available for this scene, but the quality of the drawing was limited by the time that was left available. Everything is blurry or jagged. Jensen’s face and body have flaws and distortions that I wish I could fix. (hehe he kind of looks like a smiling grimlin) In the background behind Dean’s head is supposed to be a ceiling fan. It’s supposed show that your looking up at the ceiling, but I didn’t do a perspective check. And, I think I put the crown molding in the wrong place. Maybe we can say it’s just a room divider or something. Idk... t.t

Sigh. Oh well. At the very least the characters are recognizable?

Anyways, there is a reason why I wanted the characters in this perspective. This story is basically a pwp. So instead of just being voyeur like the viewer was in the roleplay world illustrations, I wanted to make it easier for the viewers to put themselves in the characters perspective. But, alas these pieces need a lot of work. Still, I’m not too upset with them. The potential was there and it’s nice to think about the what-ifs.

Enjoy, if you can!♥♥♥

Musical Inspiration (Things that I listened to this time to get in the mood to draw, but not meant as an accompaniment to the fic):

I listened to a lot of Will smith Arabian Night while drawing the official pieces. I was just listening to a lot of background markiplier while I was drawing the WIPs.

[mobius-prime]

159. Sonic Super Special #15

Welcome to the final Sonic Super Special ever! Here's my opinion on it. Past Super Specials have ranged from okay to amazing, depending on the writer and the subject matter, and their long length has usually, if you ask me, worked in their favor, as it meant more time and space to tell a compelling story. This is not true of this one. Unfortunately, the last super special of the comic is utterly awful, with two stories that do absolutely nothing to grip my attention, one of which ends in a status quo with a net gain of absolutely nothing, and the other of which is cringeworthy and isn't even very clear on when, where or how it takes place. Let's just get this over with, shall we?

Naugus Games

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Many Hands Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

This first story is far, far longer than it has any right to be - it really feels like they were trying to find ways to pad it out it to take up the full 48 pages of the special. Furthermore, you might notice some oddities about the credits above. First of all, Aimee's name is misspelled with three E's for both stories for some reason, indicating some lazy copy-and-pasting as well as a lack of care from the editors. Even more frustratingly, no one is actually credited directly for the pencils (or inks), with the art instead just being credited to "many hands." Remember how I said the comic was getting annoyingly bad about properly crediting people? Now, in case you're confused, there's not just some artist out there literally named Many Hands; instead, that's the comic's way of sidestepping actually bothering to credit any individuals for their work. It just means "eh, a lot of people worked on this I guess, but we don't care enough to actually tell you who." Unfortunately, unlike a few issues ago where the art style was immediately recognizable as Steven Butler's, the art style for this story is foreign to me, suggesting they got some people who weren't their usual artists to work on this one, so I can't even take an educated guess here. All I know is that both the art style in general and the quality of the inks are very poor, and as we'll see, the art gets unforgivably lazy at times. Perhaps best of all, this story was later retconned into a much more interesting and concise version of itself at a later date, with better storytelling and artwork to boot. The only reason, then, that I'm covering it at all, is honestly as a demonstration of just how lazy the comic could get at times, as well as due to the fact that this is the first appearance of "Many Hands," who later pencilled one other issue for the comic that was of equally poor quality.

So this story takes place at an unspecified time in the recent past. It seems to be sometime after Eggman's return, judging by some of the lines of dialogue within the story, but the actual timeframe is pretty vague. Sonic has returned to the Southern Tundra to pay his respects to Eddy, recalling how Eddy sacrificed himself when he, Tails, and Nate all fought Naugus here some time ago. He's brought a single rose to lay on the site of the wreckage, but the ground isn't quite stable…

And here we have the first instance of a truly terrible art decision. Sonic falls into a pitch black cave system, but instead of representing this with maybe one page max of blackness or darker lighting, we're treated to nearly four pages straight of nothing but this:

He blindly stumbles around for a while, informing us of this fact through dialogue bubbles because everyone knows that telling is better than showing in fiction, right? He finally hits a wall and sees a glow through a crack in it, so he tunnels his way into the next room only to find it full of glowing rings - apparently, either he, Tails and Naugus somehow didn't use up all the rings when they fought, or these one have just auto-generated themselves somehow down here. Sonic recalls memories of the previous battle when Nate sealed Naugus away with a wish from a ring, and then decides to try to use one to get out of the cave system.

Wonderful! Apparently, a "wish" as defined by the magic of the rings just means that you think of someone's name while touching a ring, and so with a flash, Naugus is back from his imprisonment in the zone that Nate sealed him into! But how is this possible?

That explanation makes… basically no sense, dude. Naugus was definitely sealed away in another zone, he didn't just get turned into a pile of telepathic rings. But whatever. He and Sonic start battling it out, and somehow make it outside, where Naugus conjures up a snowstorm that consistently stays centered on Sonic no matter where he runs. Time for the second awful art choice of the issue - now instead of four pages of pure blackness, we get six whole pages of this:

I think the best thing about this is that the blizzard backgrounds are clearly not even hand drawn like the rest of the comic is - there's only two types of snowflakes up there, and they're consistently just copied and pasted in that same repetitive swirl pattern on every single page. I get that drawing for a big story in a super special like this can be long and tedious work, but this is why you don't try to find a way to artificially elongate a story like this which could easily be told in the span of a normal issue length. It just ends up making the audience feel like their time is being wasted. Anyway, the blizzard finally ends when Sonic pulls out a ring from his jacket and wishes for Naugus to be sealed away in his previous zone once more, and thus, Naugus is out of our hair again, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Man, if it's this easy to defeat people in this universe, why hasn't anyone tried this on Eggman yet?

Sonic then leaves back for home, thinking one last time of Eddy, who is shown looking down on him from the heavens above. And thank god that story is over.

Sonic Spin City

Writer/Pencils: Michael Gallagher Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

Michael Gallagher, over the course of the comics, has gone from one of the series' main writers to basically a guest writer who's brought on every once in a while for special occasions. In this case, he even makes his return as a penciller! Unfortunately, his goofy writing style has begun to clash with the much more serious plots of these later issues, and this story is no exception. It's entirely unclear about whether we're supposed to take this story as actual canon, as a story from an alternate zone, or as just a silly joke story that doesn’t mean anything - and while I tend to try to avoid looking at non-canon materials in this review series (I've already skipped a few stories and issues for exactly this reason), the ambiguity of this one forces me to cover it. In addition, I don't even know why Josh and "Aimeee" were credited as colorists for this story, considering the entire thing is black and white with no color to be found.

Much like the first story of StH#52, this story has the flair of an old detective serial. Sonic is wandering the streets on a rainy night when two swatbots ambush him. Of course, two swatbots are no match.

What does a swatbot need matches for? Eh, whatever. Sonic races over to Rusty's, a hangout for abandoned badniks, and orders himself a "chili dog float," which in addition to sounding absolutely disgusting doesn't even seem like something a bar for robots would serve in the first place. As he takes his seat, the lights go out, and… this abomination emerges onto the stage.

Yes. The badniks are going wild for a swatbot with tits dancing seductively on a stage for them. What is she gonna do, plug them into a wall outlet? They even start screaming out for "the stretch," and appear to get even hornier as she massively elongates her legs for them. I mean, just, what? I swear, Michael, if we get one more weird borderline-sex thing like this from you in this comic, my eyes are gonna pop out of my head like Natsuki. A bot grabs the dancer's ankle, and she's thrown off balance and crashes down, with the head popping off to reveal that underneath, it's Bunnie in disguise.

You know, after her claim all those issues back that she's a "sax cymbal," I'm not even gonna contest the idea that she'd do a sexy dance during infiltration for a mission. Hell, I get the impression she'd do one anyway just for fun back in Knothole if she got the chance. You might also notice her arm is the arm from her old design, and that coupled with Sonic's own design seems to indicate that if this took place at all in actual canon, it was before Eggman's return, though I'm immensely skeptical that this is supposed to be canon at all. Sonic and Bunnie take out the rest of Rusty's customer base, and then evacuate before the last swatbot activates its self-destruct chip, blowing the place sky high. Congratulations, nothing important was accomplished in this issue and nobody cares!

It's kinda sad that the final Sonic Super Special turned out to be so low-quality, honestly. However, this marks a bit of a turning point in the comic. For the first time in its entire run, from now on, there are no more special issues, no sister series, no miniseries, nothing. From the next issue, all the way to almost the 200th, with one exception in the form of a Free Comic Book Day issue, there are absolutely no interruptions from issue to issue. While this may not seem too notable at first, since we've just been reading everything in mostly-chronological order anyway, keep in mind that as far as the comic is concerned we're still in the year 2000, with a mere seven years having passed from the beginning of the comic all the way to now over the course of 159 issues. Over the course of the next 106 issues, we're going to blaze through nine years of comic history, meaning that the story is going to flow a lot faster, with more plot points being covered in a shorter amount of time. While this does make the order of issues a lot easier to follow, since there's no questions about which issue fits in where or anything, I am sad to see all the special issues go, as I quite enjoyed how they served to break up the flow of the comic as a whole with special stories and side content. Though we're still in the middle of our current plot era, we're entering into a new era of the comic as a whole, where we've got a straight shot through the next hundred issues. So I say - let's do it to it!

[justheretobreakthings]

Welcome to the Family - Chapter 6

(Previous Chapter) (Next Chapter)

Word Count: 3,049 (Total Word Count: 15,010) Read on AO3

Story Summary: Lance had been excited about his family taking in a foster kid, eager to get to meet his brand new little brother or sister, who would surely adore and idolize their super cool Big Brother Lance. What he got instead was a sullen, quiet, temperamental teenage housemate with a criminal record and a disastrous haircut.

The days leading up to the beginning of the school year were both too long and not long enough. Too long because there wasn’t a whole lot for Keith to occupy his time with. That was, admittedly, at least a little his own fault, as he spent the vast majority of his time in his room rather than downstairs where things were actually happening.

But it was easier on him this way. The TV in the front room was usually taken, and he didn’t want to interfere with anyone else’s use. Even when it wasn’t, the room was right there adjacent to the stairs and the basement entrance and the front door, all which were constantly trafficked. No way would he be able to relax amidst all that. And there was a family computer in the basement, but it faced outward into the room at large, and Keith hated the feeling of people looking over his shoulder while he was online, no matter how innocuous his browsing may be. Besides, Rachel had brought her trumpet home from summer band on Friday to practice it over the weekend, and the basement was her prefered practice space, so that was.

Tania, after noticing just how much time Keith spent hibernating in his room, had ordered a small used television for it online - despite Keith’s insistence that it wasn’t necessary, and hadn’t she already blown enough money on him over the past few days anyway - but they still had to wait for the delivery.

So the meantime was whiled away by re-reading his books and cautiously trying out the art supplies Tania had bought him for school. He didn’t think much of his artistic abilities, but it was one of the only creative outlets suggested by past therapists and social workers that actually clicked with him. He wouldn’t normally have asked his foster family for supplies, but Altea High required every student to take at least one year of a fine arts elective, so registering for art class had actually been a reason to need them.

The days were not long enough, though, in that, in spite of the way time had dragged, Keith still hadn’t managed to properly make himself feel ready to return to school by the time Monday morning rolled around. He woke early in the morning to a knocking at his door and Manuel’s voice telling him it was time to get up, and went downstairs to an unusually elaborate first-day-of-school breakfast, which Lance and Rachel both ate rather robotically, still adjusting to the waking world after a summer of sleeping in.

He threw on his clothes for the day - some dark gray jeans and a short-sleeved flannel that had formerly been Marco’s and which, to Keith’s surprise, had actually fit him pretty much perfectly, and were in better shape than most of Keith’s own clothes anyhow - and managed to get to the bathroom to finish his morning routine before Lance got to it. He had already managed to learn just how elaborate Lance’s ablutions were, and true to form, he kept Keith and Rachel waiting impatiently downstairs for twenty minutes in order to get his hair and face ‘perfect’. Even though when he finally was satisfied and came to join them, Keith could swear Lance looked exactly the same as he always did.

Rachel led the way out the door, slipping into the driver’s seat of an old scratched-up LeSabre parked at the curb. “You can take shotgun if you want,” she said to Lance as he opened the door of the seat behind her.

“God, no thanks,” Lance said. “I’ve seen you drive. I’m sitting where I’m most likely to survive when you inevitably crash us headlong into the auditorium.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever. Keith will sit up front with me, right, Keith?”

“Uh, sure,” Keith said, opening the door and carefully sliding into the seat.

“Do what you want,” Lance said. “But don’t be surprised if you’re the first to go.”

“Shut up, Lance,” Rachel said as she turned the key in the ignition. She shifted the car into drive and started down the road.

“Tell Keith how many tries it took you to pass your driving test.”

“I passed it eventually, it doesn’t matter.”

“Five tries. And on the third try she ran over a - ”

Rachel cut him off by speeding up and then braking hard at the stop sign on the corner, sending Keith lurching forward and Lance’s face knocking into her headrest. “Oops,” she said flatly. “Sorry, Lance, guess I’m just a bad driver.”

“Vete a la mierda,” Lance muttered, rubbing his forehead with a scowl.

“I’m telling Mamá you’re teaching Keith bad words,” said Rachel.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

Keith managed to tune them out not long into the drive. He pulled his feet onto the seat and his knees up to his chest, letting all his focus drift to the buildings and trees and street signs they passed as he stared out the car window, trying to familiarize himself with the new surroundings, look out for landmarks that would make the route easier to remember if he needed to walk to or from school any time soon. Occasionally certain foster families of the past would forget to take him to school or pick him up. Or maybe do so intentionally. He could never be certain.

Lance and Rachel managed to keep up their light bickering all the way up until they pulled into the student parking lot, where Rachel had to try twice to park between the lines of her selected parking space, to Lance’s amusement. Despite Lance’s elaborate morning routine, it seemed they had still managed to arrive at school earlier than most, since the majority of the parking spaces were still empty. That was good. Keith still needed to stop by the front office to pick up his finalized schedule, and the last thing he needed was for that to make him late on the first day of school.

He parted ways from the McClains at the entrance, where they set off to their lockers and Keith to the front office. It was fairly crowded when he entered, students and a few parents trying to get some last-minute arrangements made before classes began. Keith hovered near the doorway, not wanting to barge past anyone or draw undue attention to himself by going to the receptionist.

In the midst of debating how he was going to go about asking for his schedule, his thoughts were interrupted by his name being called. The door to the guidance counselor’s office, adjacent to the front office, had been flung open, and Mr. Smythe stood in the entryway, waving him over.

Keith let out a breath and hurried over. Mr. Smythe was a recognizable presence, if a rather overwhelming one. He was a difficult person to forget, between the shock of bright orange hair on his head to the elaborate matching mustache, from his shoulderpadded blazer to his distinct accent. He’d certainly left an impression when Keith and Tania had met with him a few days prior.

“Keith, my boy, good to see you again!” Mr. Smythe said, beckoning him toward the office. “Come in, come in, I was just about to get your schedule printed up for you.” Keith followed him into the little office silently. He wasn’t sure how long this would take, so he opted to keep standing rather than take a seat in one of the chairs along the wall by the door.

“Now,” Mr. Smythe said, plopping himself into his own chair and turning to his computer screen. “I fit you into the art elective you wanted and made room for you in one of the Spanish 1 classes that fit the rest of your schedule. We also managed to get a gym uniform in for you in your size in time for you to be able to participate in your Phys. Ed. class today, so you can let Señora McClain know she needn’t worry about that.”

“Okay,” Keith said.

The printer on Mr. Smythe’s desk whirred as the counselor swiveled his chair to face Keith directly. “Regarding your core classes,” he continued. “For most of them we’ve decided to go ahead and place you in the standard sophomore level courses. I understand that there may be a few concepts from freshman courses that may need to be reviewed for you, but I’ve given your teachers fair warning ahead of time, so they’re aware that you may need a little bit of one-on-one assistance. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. I’ve also gone ahead and gotten you signed up for peer tutoring during your study hall block, so that could be a means to help you catch up.”

“Oh.” Keith’s shoulders slumped and he lowered his gaze. The whole situation was embarrassing, him being as far behind in school as he was. He knew he wasn’t stupid - despite what certain foster family members or classmates had told him in the past - but between constantly switching schools, his discipline record, assignments and books gone missing, the absolute joke of ‘education’ that the juvenile center had stuck him with all through last school year, and a decade of intense stress as the icing on the cake, well… he was probably lucky that his grades weren’t even worse.

“The only class that we couldn’t put you in sophomore level for was your Mathematics requirement,” Mr. Smythe was continuing, and Keith shook himself back into the present. “Seeing as the syllabus is much more linear than your other core classes. We’ve placed you in Algebra 1. However, if you put some elbow grease into your studies, Ms. Ryner has said that she would be happy to work with you to map out an independent study curriculum to get you back on track. If you go that route, you can have Pre-Calculus finished by graduation, same as the majority of your classmates. Of course, only Algebra 2 is a required credit for graduation, but colleges will be looking for - ”

“The regular track is fine, Mr. Smythe,” Keith said, immediately wincing afterward when he realized he had just interrupted.

Mr. Smythe, fortunately, didn’t seem to take offense at the interruption, and instead simply gave him a brief nod before pulling the schedule out of the printer tray and handing it to him. “Well, the option is available all this semester in case you change your mind. We’ll be happy to make accommodations.”

“Thanks,” Keith grunted. He accepted the paper and scanned the schedule.

“And Keith?”

“Mm?”

“That doesn’t just apply to classes.” Keith looked back up from the schedule to find Mr. Smythe’s gaze fixed firmly on him, intense and sincere. “If you are having any difficulties adjusting here, any concerns, or if you just need someone to talk to. My job isn’t just schedule planning and test prep, you know.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. “Why… are you telling me that?”

Mr. Smythe shrugged. “Thought I’d make the offer. It’s never easy for a new student to transition, and I know you have a bit of a, ah, colorful history in school settings - ”

“Who told you that?” Keith snapped.

“Your transcripts,” Mr. Smythe replied simply.

“... Oh.”

“Of course, it’s entirely up to you if you want to meet with me or not,” Mr. Smythe continued. “Señora McClain did inquire about it, but doesn’t want to force anything. Just be aware, my door is always open.” He leaned back in his chair and swiveled his gaze to his computer. “Feel free to run along, now, Keith. Wouldn’t want to make you late for your first class.”

“Um, right,” Keith said, hesitating only a moment before backing out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

His next stop was his locker, and thankfully he remembered where that was from the school tour he’d been given last week, and it was close, only two halls down from the administrative wing. The hallway was crowded when he got there, and he clung to the straps of his backpack tightly as he wove his way through the mass of students and to his locker.

He hung his backpack onto the hook and grabbed some supplies for his morning classes. Biology was the first listed on the sheet that Mr. Smythe had given him, located in room 224, which was… he wasn’t sure where. It was a lot to remember after only a single tour.

Biting his lip, he looked around the crowd of students. Lockers were grouped by year, so this hallway should be full of sophomores, which hopefully meant that a familiar face was nearby. After a few moments of scanning, he spotted an orange headband poking up from the crowd, taller than most of the other students around, and he set off in that direction. He recognized that headband, he was pretty sure, and the odds of another student in the same school having that same particular taste in hair accessories seemed slim.

Sure enough, the boy with the headband was the same as the one who had been visiting the house the other day, and Lance was with him, chatting idly while leaning up against a nearby locker, the girl who’d been with them there as well, standing with her arms wrapped around a bright green trapper keeper.

The boy - Keith couldn’t quite recall his name; Hank, maybe? - noticed his approach, and greeted him with a smile and a wave, that got the others’ attention and had them turning to him as well. “Hey Keith!” he said brightly.

“Hey...” Keith said in return.

“Hunk,” the boy supplied. Oh, well, he had been close.

“Right.” He cleared his throat and held up his schedule to the others. “Do, um, do you guys know - could one of you show me - um, room 224?”

“Here, lemme see that,” Lance said, snatching the schedule out of Keith’s hand to examine. “Huh, same bio class as me, so you can just follow me there. Same lunch blocks too, looks like. And English, and computer science… and gym…” He raised a brow at Keith. “You stalking me, man? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered, but - ”

“I’m not stalking you,” Keith said, glaring as he grabbed his schedule back from him. “I didn’t pick the schedule.”

“Relax, I’m joking. Just making sure you’re aware how blessed you are to have me in so many of your classes.”

“I see we’re playing fast and loose with the definition of the word ‘blessed’ this morning,” the girl remarked, and for the life of him Keith couldn’t remember what her name was.

“Pidge here is just jealous of you,” Lance said to Keith. Pidge, then. Keith repeated it in his head a few times to commit it to memory.

“I am jealous of no one,” Pidge said. “I’ve got most of my classes with Hunk, so if anyone should be jealous, it’s you.”

“Aww, Pidge,” Hunk said with a smile. “That’s sweet of you to - wait, what do you want?”

“Your cookie at lunch.”

“No.”

“Then I take back my compliment.”

“All right, well,” Lance straightened up from the row of lockers and stretched. “Come on Keith, I’ll show you where Biology. Let’s give these two some privacy to get their flirt on.”

He made a gesture to follow as he stepped away, as Hunk let out an indignant squawk and Pidge stuck her tongue out at him. Keith hurried to fall into place next to him. “Wait, those two are dating?” he asked.

Lance smirked. “Heh, nah, they just get annoyed when I say they are. So, of course, I say it all the time. Why, you looking to get together with one of them? Because I gotta tell you, I don’t think you’re either of their type - for a number of reasons.”

Keith grimaced and shook his head. “No, I don’t date.”

“Huh,” said Lance. “Guess I’ll have to tell Pidge she was right.”

“What?”

“Here we are,” Lance said, dropping the subject abruptly and gesturing grandly into the doorway of a classroom. “Welcome to the Joy of Biology.”

He moved toward the back to plop into an empty desk, and Keith followed along behind him, staring straight ahead and watching the other students in the corners of his vision. Cautiously he edged toward the desk beside Lance’s. “So, do we just sit anywhere, or - ?”

He paused when he realized that Lance was already striking up a conversation with the occupant of his other desk neighbor, a girl with wire-frame glasses and a thick black ponytail. Deciding not to disturb them, Keith slid silently into the open desk, setting his notebook and folder on the desk’s surface and opting to simply remain quiet until class began.

The teacher, Mrs. Montgomery, arrived right before the bell rang and the students who were still standing as they chatted amongst themselves, presumably catching up after the summer break, hastened into the empty desks that remained. She thankfully didn’t try any sort of first day of school look-what-a-cool-teacher-I-am opening stunt, and instead opened the class fairly dully, dropping a stack of syllabi onto one of the desks in the front row for the students to pass around and returning to the front podium to read out the roll call.

It wasn’t exactly a big social occasion or anything worse being nervous over, but he still rehearsed saying ‘here’ in his head a dozen times over so that he was prepared when she called his name. “Kogane, Keith.”

“Here,” he replied.

He may have messed it up somehow anyway, though, because a kid sitting two desks away jumped in his seat and whipped his head around at the sound of Keith’s voice to look him up and down. He had floppy brown bangs and a sharply angled face, and the moment his gaze met Keith’s, his eyes widened and he quickly turned away again.

Keith narrowed his eyes at the back of the kid’s head. Something about his face struck him as vaguely familiar, just a twinge of recognition in his gut. He wracked his mind, but he couldn’t place it, and he reluctantly let the matter drop from his thoughts when the teacher finished with roll call and started passing out the textbooks.

[timeisacephalopod]

Fic Preview

This is a snippet of a sugar daddy AU (with no fucking daddy kink ok its a financial thing) with Skinny!Steve/Tony. Because skinny Steve deserves more love. Also, he’s an artist not that its relevant in this snippet.

Steve isn’t really sure what he’s doing but he can’t really hold a normal job and his art commissions only make him so much. With Bucky out on tour, because apparently there’s a market for his weird ass brand of comedy, he has to make rent somehowso he ended up in a rabbit hole of sketchy sites. There’s about a thousand things that could have happened, including his own imminent death, but instead he managed to score himself a sugar daddy not that he’s told Bucky about it. He’d probably over react and assume Steve got himself in over his head with something but he hasn’t, not really. At first he had no clue who he’d been talking to and that worked fine for him. Nameless, Faceless Person is a lot easier to get to know than Tony Stark given that’s who he ended up in contact with.

All things considered Steve can see why the guy went with secrecy at first being a celebrity and all that. Granted had he known who he was talking to beforehe got to know Tony he probably would have backed out. He’s not fond of the man’s history, which he out and out told him. It had been Tony’s reaction, though, that prompted Steve not to dumb him anyway.

Great, someone who actually holds me accountable for me actions!

It hadn’t been some kind of sarcastic remark either, Steve’s familiar with Tony’s text patterns and displays of emotion so he stuck around almost more out of curiosity than anything. After a surprisingly long phone conversation he decided to stick around because he actually kind of likes Tony even if he hadn’t wanted to. Previous weapons developer and all around asshole, that’s what Steve knows about him from the outside but when he’d actually talked to Tony he found that Tony seemed genuinely uncomfortable with his reputation. It’s easy to gain one and hard to lose it is how he described it. Not, he’d been quick to add, that he hadn’t earned some of it.

So Steve figured what the hell, might as well keep this going and see what happens mostly because he actually doeshave bills to pay and he’s not in a position to make money doing much else given how easily he tires. Working full time is basically impossible and even most part time jobs exhaust him so this it is. He can keep a lonely billionaire company, its lower energy given that he doesn’t need to be on his feet running around all day and even now he doesn’t need to expend the kind of energy he would at most minimum wage jobs.

He walks up to Tony; easily recognizable even if Steve could do without his smoking habit that he had no idea Tony had, and wrinkles his nose. “Disgusting habit,” he tells Tony, shaking his head.

Tony, to his credit, tries to blow the smoke away from him but like always whenever Steve ends up in this situation it ends up blowing back in his face. Steve gives him a lookand Tony winces. “I swear I didn’t mean to do that. Wind wasn’t there two seconds ago,” he says, looking sheepish.

“Never is. Didn’t know you smoked,” he says and Tony shrugs.

“Usually I don’t but I’m stressed and that’s better than Champaign, it taste like shit.”

Steve snorts, “as opposed to the perfectly delicious taste of a cigarette?” he asks, head tilted to the side.

Tony laughs, shaking his head. “Guess you have a point. For this, speaking of points, I already know I like you- we seem to get along over text and the phone but obviously compatibility in person has its importance too. Basically, this is to test that,” Tony says, blunt as always.

Steve is pretty sure he uses it as a kind of tool to distance himself from people but he doesn’t say anything about it because that’s not his job. His job is to make Tony forget he’s actually looking for a relationship rather than a transaction for a little while. And he has to admit that he’s kind of happy he didn’t get stuck with some ninety year old man who wants a replacement for his grandson who never visits anymore unless he wants money. Tony’s past might be a checkered one but at least he’s hot and holds a conversation well.

“Yeah? How am I doing so far?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Tony smiles, “surprisingly well. I don’t usually get the benefit of being treated like a person right out of the gate,” he says like that’s not one of the most horrifying things Steve’s ever heard.

[ethanalter]

‘The OA’ Choreographer Emmy Q&A

Patrick Gibson as Steve Winchell and Brandon Perea as French in Netflix’s The OA.

(Photo Credit: Netflix)

Netflix’s cult sensation The OA was filled with wild, “What did they just do?” plot twists. But perhaps none were wilder than the sequence that awaited viewers in the Season 1 finale, when the central characters — an unlikely team of five oddballs and misfits — prevented a school shooting with the power of… modern dance? During the course of the eight-episode season, created by they dynamo indie filmmaking team of Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the group slowly, but surely masters the art of “The Movements,” a series of dance moves taught to them in pieces by their mysterious guru, Prairie Johnson (Marling). It’s not until the finale, though, that they put the whole routine together and prevent a deadly tragedy in the process.

Despite the improbability of this turn of events, the dance sequence feels entirely plausible within the world of The OA. The person tasked with bring realism to an otherwise fantastic situation was Ryan Heffington, a celebrated choreographer who has collaborated with such artists as Sia (those are his moves in the “Elastic Heart” music video featuring Shia LaBeouf) and Arcade Fire. “My goals was to make sure it was believable,” Heffington tells Yahoo TV. “I can’t please everyone, and I know that, but if [viewers] believe that it could be real, that’s our success.” We spoke with Heffington about building “The Movements” from the ground up and exposing audiences accustomed to glitzy, competitive dancing shows like Dancing with the Stars to some new dance moves.

What were your initial conversations with The OA‘s creators about what they wanted for “The Movements”? We’d worked together on their 2013 film The East, so I’ve known them for some years now. They had an idea of the quality of the movements they wanted, and it was a true collaboration [between us] about what exactly those movements would become. They didn’t come to me with a defined product, like “We want this.” It was more like, “What is this, and how can we create this?”

Phyllis Smith as Betty Broderick-Allen in Netflix’s The OA. (Screengrab: Netflix)

The series is so intricately constructed from a storytelling point of view. How did they actually describe the script to you? [Chuckles] They did share a bit of the script with me. We sat down, and they briefed me on mostly what my work would be and how it would fit in. They were still developing the final details of certain episodes, so it wasn’t a completely finished product. It was more about them wanting to develop what the movement could become together. We all decided that it needed to resonate as reality; it couldn’t be too abstract or it wouldn’t make sense. It couldn’t be super-recognizable, either. It needed to be precision-based and emotionally driven.

Did they tell you the context in which “The Five Movement” would be performed as well: a school shooting scenario? Absolutely, so it took months to determine would what would be realistic or what could work. What would take someone off guard? What would make someone empathetic about what they were seeing, even if it might be a little abstract and strange? What would be a distraction? We thought about all those questions, because if someone just did a modern dance routine, they would have shot in two seconds — for good reason! [Laughs]

Netflix’s The OA. (Screengrab: Netflix)

Is there a name for the kind of dance they’re doing? I don’t think so. Post-modern I guess? I don’t want just fill in the blank–there’s not really a name for it yet. I think it’s jut human and gestural. We went towards the angle of there being something about art that’s primal. We thought about what feels universal, and we determined that breaths felt universal if used a lot, as well as singing and meditation. We talked a lot about our personal stories. I’m not usually inspired by dance; it’s more about humanity and how other people respond to each other, what makes them feel the most.

Netflix’s The OA. (Screengrab: Netflix)

What sort of rehearsal process did the cast go through? We tried to get as much rehearsal in as possible prior to shooting. This movement is super-challenging even for professional dancers — the detail and speed of it, plus matching the breath to the movement is not common in dance. Luckily, we had the time to really work on it. They were drilled over and over; I had many assistants on this, because everyone was living in different places. If it looked like they were marking it or having difficulty, it wouldn’t have come across. It was very important that they nail it.

Like anything, people digest information through repetition. And it’s not only teaching movement, but allowing them to see how it was formulated, what this movement means this to me. When I teach movement it’s very visual; I’ll speak about a certain shape or an animal. For a lot of people, that’s much easier to digest.

When was the sequence shot during production — towards the end or earlier? And how did you work with the camera crew to stage it? Towards the end for sure. It was like a normal long shoot day. The only real restriction was that we needed to use natural light. It seemed to go pretty smooth. We had the conversation upfront with the camera crew. I needed to know if it would be more impactful if the performers were closer to the gunmen or if it would make more sense if they were standing in a line. We talked about everything in terms of graphics and formation and who would be doing it.

Netflix’s The OA. (Screengrab: Netflix)

Would they perform the dance straight through each take or did they perform specific movements for specific camera angles? No, it would only make sense if it was done to completion. To get the feeling of where you’d need to be, you could only do it from doing it from the beginning. By that time, the cast was pretty in shape. The cast was so dedicated, and I feel like they gave their all on every take. It was a long day, but they rose to the occasion and really nailed it. I’m super proud, because most of them didn’t have dance background, but I feel most of them took it on and were serious about it. Their dedication is so evident.

Speaking to the Emmys, the nominees in the Choreography category have tended to be reality shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. Are you hoping that The OA, if nothing else, shows how dance can be used in a narrative way? Sure, why not? I think people are hungry for a different angle on dance. They’ve seen it presented so commercially for so many years, which is great for choreographers and for dancers. It pays our bills! But I think there’s a new alternative that people are excited about.

Do you personally watch shows like So You Think You Can Dance? I don’t watch them, and I don’t get inspiration from them. That was my world growing up; I was a competition kid. I learned a lot through that process, and it’s great that it exposes so much of the mainstream to dance. I think that’s been really great for our community.

Netflix’s The OA. (Screengrab: Netflix)

Have Marling and Batmanglij reached out to you about the second season of The OA? Yes.

Can you tease anything about your approach to the dancing that may appear in the new season? Of course not. You don’t want to be spoiled, do you? [Laughs]

The OA is currently streaming on Netflix.

Read more from Yahoo TV:

Emmys: ‘Stranger Things’ Music Supervisor on the Need for ‘Heroes’

Emmys: ‘Stranger Things’ Star David Harbour Revisits Hopper’s Tough-Guy Moment

Emmys: ‘Feud’ Star Susan Sarandon on ‘The First Time I Really Felt Like Bette’

Emmys: ‘Westworld’ Star Jeffrey Wright Revisits That Reveal

Emmys: ‘Legion’ Star Aubrey Plaza on ‘Trying to Act Like Beyoncé’ in Dance Scene

Emmys: Alexander Skarsgård Revisits His ‘Big Little Lies’ Therapy Session

Emmys: ‘OITNB’ Star Laverne Cox Revisits Sophia’s Brave Pushback Against Solitary Confinement

Emmys: ‘Gilmore Girls’ Star Lauren Graham Revisits Her ‘Scariest’ Scene

Emmys: ‘This Is Us’ Star Milo Ventimiglia Gets Misty Revisiting ‘The Pool’